2 New Types of Media?
Maps for strategic choices - How they can help and mislead us.
Thinking within universal maps (like e.g. the Limbic Map image on the left) involves a belief in dimensions or a typology that are valid for all kinds of objects of a certain category - say brands, products, activities, people, companies, etc. Here are some more examples for such maps:
BCG's Value Patterns (A Typology of Companies’ Success Formulas)
Sinus Milieus (A Typology of German Lifestyles & Mentalities)
TNS Needscope (A Consumer Segmentation Typology and Brand Positioning Map)
Basically, any system that is not case specific but claims to be applicable to your case is such a universal "map" of reality (with reality in the marketing context most often understood as consumer affinity to some kind of universal values or behavior patterns). In these maps your specific case or task can be "located", "measured" or at least discussed in terms of the map's dimensions or the proposed typology's segments. There are some fundamental advantages of such systems. Let me give you the most obvious ones:
1) These models do convince clients (because they are visually compelling, and are based on what clients consider to be "science"). They also do deliver sexy schemes for presentations or workshop work-sheets. And don't get me wrong - all too often this really is important.
2) They get polled by research companies, media networks, etc. and are often available for us planners at a cost way below that of case specific ad hoc research.
3) These models create a framework for discussion and a common language between client and agency - as such they are perfect workshop tools for rough brand positioning or target group definition.
4) Some of those dimensions or typologies get measured by media companies so that ad clients can actually plan their media spend based on these variables. (This for instance is often the case with the Sinus Milieus in Germany)
5) These models deliver a framework for comparison with other brands (competitors or benchmarks).
But there definitely are some disadvantages which sometimes get overlooked due to the convenience these maps offer. Let me give you 5 - in order to keep it somehow balanced:
1) Being universal (i.e. applicable for all cases) means the exact opposite of being tailor-made. No client specific or situation specific circumstances influence the dimensions/clusters of a map/typology. The client has to be treated just as any other case showing a the same pattern within the given map. If we believe, that our strategy should deliver specific answers to specific problems, than such maps cannot be our weapon of choice. Consider this: none of these models reflects the basic behavioral, attitudinal tensions or trends in the product category you are dealing with. Not one specific reason-to-buy a specific category is included in these models.
2) Such maps foster a thinking mode of "choosing" instead of "inventing" or "coming up with". Since the dimensions or segments are universal - the outcome is rather a position CHOSEN on the map or segments CHOSEN as ours. Having a standardized, universal approach is also likely to generate results other brands and other agencies would also come up with using it. This is basically true for all "measurement + logic" methods.
3) The advantage of having a framework and a common language for the discussion has a downside: things and effects outside the framework get lost out of sight. We start seeing the map not the territory. E.g. "to become a Rebel-Archetype Brand" becomes a legitimate goal or strategy, almost replacing goals like "become the Nr. 1 publishing house for art books in the UK".
4) Maybe the most striking disadvantage is this: even knowing your position on such a map or knowing which societal segments to target doesn't tell you what exactly to say or what your brand should stand for. I mean - actionably stand for. In other words: a position on a map is not a brief to a creative or any other team. You cannot brief "somewhere here on the map, and just a bit of here as well". From my experience you even cannot brief a corporate identity design team by pointing onto a map of human values. They need proper brand purpose, benefit or positioning statement too.
5) Finally, just some side notes for the rare readers interested in research methods: Most of the models and their measurements are by far not on that level of scientific rigor they pretend to be operating on. They all have been tweaked to be "plausible" and "easy to use" for management purposes. The measurements are sometimes astonishingly small-bore - given the depth of qualitative descriptions of certain milieus or map dimensions. The proprietors try to hide the "secret recipes" of the method - for a good reason, I guess. And it is not even their fault mostly. Whoever tried to execute a factor or cluster analysis herself knows how messy and arbitrary this can get. (Same even applies to interpretation, not just measurement: In most cases interpreters look at deviations from the average or competitors (indexes), thus leaving us with the problem of having define "the right average" or "the right" and also with the problem of neglecting the absolute dominance of per se large segments or per se dominant dimensions in such a framework. Yes, this is always the case with any data, but it's important to understand that these tools are not "objective" or clear-cut.)
So far, I think my whole argument could be summarized as:
- Thinking in such strategic maps is a good starting point for a conversation that can often be supported by affordable data and even prolonged into media strategy.
- But they are not good in helping to come up with actionable, fresh solutions to specific problems - neither to those of our clients nor to those of consumers.
The quicksand of our assumptions
Why is it, we often arrive at trivial results?
OK. It's the majestic "We" used here. I should assume you don't generate "trivial" solutions very often.
But courtesy aside and back to the initial question:
One reason for trivial results is certainly the lack of time and resource to confront oneself with the reality "out there" and get NEW insights. (I always wondered why noone admits this in the face of those one-week-from-now briefs with a budget of 0,-".)
In my world, all too often, solutions are built on our own assumptions about how things are, what the problem is, what could help, etc. They simply have to. So we get to our solutions by thinking. In a way our brains simply produce it ... yes within themselves, somehow.
And you know what - actually, this can be a quite valuable capacity of our brains. Senior strategists & consultants are valued exactly for this ability: to have hypotheses built on what they heard and know plus their basic assumptions about how things 'usually' work. The ability to start somewhere to get somewhere. At McKinsey they call this "hypothesis lead thinking". Which basically means: turn the intuitively "right" process around and don't go out researching in order to get your 'findings', but have the hypotheses first. Scientists work the same way, too. They don't just "go out and research". They try to test hypotheses that they came up before - based on their and other scientists' assumptions and beliefs.
Having said that, we still have to realize that - in contrast to what McKinsey or scientists do - we have creativity, newness and distinctiveness as at least major criteria for our output. This is the very reason why "triviality" seems to be something to be avoided. Scientists and McKinsey worry most about how true their thinking is. We also should be worried about that, but in addition to that we strive for a thinking that is different.
So how can we avoid thinking the same (maybe wrong) things we and others usually think - even without conducting exploratory research? I want to offer you a technique that came to my mind recently. It's not really tested yet but it's tempting to write it down.
The technique is called The Assumptions Quicksand or less frightening: Assumptions Questioned.
The idea: to use the fact that our thinking might be based on wrong and often commonly shared assumptions to our advantage. It works like this:
1) CONSTRUCT: Write down what you think about the task and possible solution. (Possible structure: What's the problem here? What should be our main objective? Why? How could we get there?)
2a) DECONSTRUCT I: Assume that every minute piece of meaning in this short text is wrong and write down as many possible alternatives to as possible.
2b) DECONSTRUCT II: Do it again. But go deeper : write down the very basic assumptions your initial statements were built on. (Ask yourself: What are the "truths" that make this statement plausible? Then deconstruct them.) Again: for each of the basic assumptions state as many possible alternative assumptions & derived hypotheses as possible.
3) RECONSTRUCT: Condense the alternatives to build 4-5 truly different, plausible but intriguing strategic stories.
4) Go talk to someone who can pull you out of the quicksand again.
An example how this might work:
1) Initial strategic story: "The client wants to rejuvenate the brand with the new ad campaign in order to appeal to younger target groups. We should try to keep the existing brand essence but express it in a more youthful, modern way. Let's ask ourselves what is un-modern and un-youthful in their today's communications and reverse that."
2a) Now, it doesn't matter if the above is right or smart etc. Or if our alternative statements will be. We just begin deconstructing each of the bits and pieces. Here just some possible, very obvious deconstructions and alternative constructs:
- "Yes, it's about appealing to younger target groups, but it's maybe not about an ad campaign, it's about making them try the product they have forgotten. How might we do that?"
- "Or maybe it is not about younger people but about recruiting new users among brand rejectors. Younger people being just on sub-group. Why do people reject the brand?"
- "It's not about rejecting the brand, it's about rejecting the whole product category. Why do people reject the category?..."
- "We shouldn't just keep the the brand essence but develop it further. E.g. we could find it's emotional benefit that also appeals to younger people / or brand rejectors."
- "Yes, we could go for rejuvenation based on existing brand essence but we shouldn't analyze what's un-modern, un-youthful in their communication. Instead we should analyze how other now youthful brands mastered rejuvenation."
- etc. etc. etc.
2b) And now, we question the yet unquestioned, the most plausible:
- "Maybe it's not the client who wants all this but it's his boss, instead. The client himself actually would like to keep it all as it is. Can we satisfy both?"
- "What if it's not about the brand at all. It's about the overall portfolio they have with this brand playing a certain role in it. What role might that be?"
- "There's the underlying assumption that advertising should be about expressing some sort of brand essence. But maybe we shouldn't express anything, but just reprogram some of the brand rejectors' behaviors?"
- "I seem to believe that 'old' is 'bad', but is it? Why is it? Is it? ..."
3) Now we try to build alternative (now even more hypothetical, but less trivial) strategic stories. E.g.:
- "The client wants to get new customers. I believe the brand should recruit new target groups who reject the whole product category. Rejectors happen to be younger, but it's not age but their disposable income that restricts them. We should reframe category usage as being absolutely worth the money. How could we do that?"
4) Having some of those strategic stories - go and talk to someone.
5) Oh, sorry, there is no 5. We are not with McKinsey, are we?
So what do you think? It seems like a too open mind game. It's also not quite there yet in terms of rules and formats. But it might have the power to make you cling less to your preconceptions thus open up space for a less trivial thinking. At least I hope so.
OK. It's the majestic "We" used here. I should assume you don't generate "trivial" solutions very often.
But courtesy aside and back to the initial question:
In my world, all too often, solutions are built on our own assumptions about how things are, what the problem is, what could help, etc. They simply have to. So we get to our solutions by thinking. In a way our brains simply produce it ... yes within themselves, somehow.
And you know what - actually, this can be a quite valuable capacity of our brains. Senior strategists & consultants are valued exactly for this ability: to have hypotheses built on what they heard and know plus their basic assumptions about how things 'usually' work. The ability to start somewhere to get somewhere. At McKinsey they call this "hypothesis lead thinking". Which basically means: turn the intuitively "right" process around and don't go out researching in order to get your 'findings', but have the hypotheses first. Scientists work the same way, too. They don't just "go out and research". They try to test hypotheses that they came up before - based on their and other scientists' assumptions and beliefs.
Having said that, we still have to realize that - in contrast to what McKinsey or scientists do - we have creativity, newness and distinctiveness as at least major criteria for our output. This is the very reason why "triviality" seems to be something to be avoided. Scientists and McKinsey worry most about how true their thinking is. We also should be worried about that, but in addition to that we strive for a thinking that is different.
So how can we avoid thinking the same (maybe wrong) things we and others usually think - even without conducting exploratory research? I want to offer you a technique that came to my mind recently. It's not really tested yet but it's tempting to write it down.
The technique is called The Assumptions Quicksand or less frightening: Assumptions Questioned.The idea: to use the fact that our thinking might be based on wrong and often commonly shared assumptions to our advantage. It works like this:
1) CONSTRUCT: Write down what you think about the task and possible solution. (Possible structure: What's the problem here? What should be our main objective? Why? How could we get there?)
2a) DECONSTRUCT I: Assume that every minute piece of meaning in this short text is wrong and write down as many possible alternatives to as possible.
2b) DECONSTRUCT II: Do it again. But go deeper : write down the very basic assumptions your initial statements were built on. (Ask yourself: What are the "truths" that make this statement plausible? Then deconstruct them.) Again: for each of the basic assumptions state as many possible alternative assumptions & derived hypotheses as possible.
3) RECONSTRUCT: Condense the alternatives to build 4-5 truly different, plausible but intriguing strategic stories.
4) Go talk to someone who can pull you out of the quicksand again.
An example how this might work:
1) Initial strategic story: "The client wants to rejuvenate the brand with the new ad campaign in order to appeal to younger target groups. We should try to keep the existing brand essence but express it in a more youthful, modern way. Let's ask ourselves what is un-modern and un-youthful in their today's communications and reverse that."
2a) Now, it doesn't matter if the above is right or smart etc. Or if our alternative statements will be. We just begin deconstructing each of the bits and pieces. Here just some possible, very obvious deconstructions and alternative constructs:
- "Yes, it's about appealing to younger target groups, but it's maybe not about an ad campaign, it's about making them try the product they have forgotten. How might we do that?"
- "Or maybe it is not about younger people but about recruiting new users among brand rejectors. Younger people being just on sub-group. Why do people reject the brand?"
- "It's not about rejecting the brand, it's about rejecting the whole product category. Why do people reject the category?..."
- "We shouldn't just keep the the brand essence but develop it further. E.g. we could find it's emotional benefit that also appeals to younger people / or brand rejectors."
- "Yes, we could go for rejuvenation based on existing brand essence but we shouldn't analyze what's un-modern, un-youthful in their communication. Instead we should analyze how other now youthful brands mastered rejuvenation."
- etc. etc. etc.
2b) And now, we question the yet unquestioned, the most plausible:
- "Maybe it's not the client who wants all this but it's his boss, instead. The client himself actually would like to keep it all as it is. Can we satisfy both?"
- "What if it's not about the brand at all. It's about the overall portfolio they have with this brand playing a certain role in it. What role might that be?"
- "There's the underlying assumption that advertising should be about expressing some sort of brand essence. But maybe we shouldn't express anything, but just reprogram some of the brand rejectors' behaviors?"
- "I seem to believe that 'old' is 'bad', but is it? Why is it? Is it? ..."
3) Now we try to build alternative (now even more hypothetical, but less trivial) strategic stories. E.g.:
- "The client wants to get new customers. I believe the brand should recruit new target groups who reject the whole product category. Rejectors happen to be younger, but it's not age but their disposable income that restricts them. We should reframe category usage as being absolutely worth the money. How could we do that?"
4) Having some of those strategic stories - go and talk to someone.
5) Oh, sorry, there is no 5. We are not with McKinsey, are we?
So what do you think? It seems like a too open mind game. It's also not quite there yet in terms of rules and formats. But it might have the power to make you cling less to your preconceptions thus open up space for a less trivial thinking. At least I hope so.
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