Four wheels, two brothers and endless possibilities.
In between videos of gangsta rap, X-Factor also-rans and teenage popstrels, my in-house gym TV channel is running ads for the new BMW Series 1.
Let’s pull up for a moment.
Why do you buy the car you do?
Probably because it fits in with your perception not only of the brand, but of yourself. So you’re a Mercedes person, or a Toyota person, or a Peugeot person.
You’ll have guessed by now, if you read my post on specs, that I’m not really any type of person. Well maybe a no-name person, but that’s an advertiser’s nightmare.
But back to the BMWs.
In a mass-production market, how do you make your customers feel individual? Your cars come off a production line, but you don’t want your customers to feel like they do too.
Simple. You create a difference – even where there isn’t one. BMW have done precisely that with this latest advert.
There’s Adam and his brother Freddie. One’s an architect, one’s a model. One drinks ‘mini, skinny lattes’ and the other drinks espressos. The brothers look identical, apart from the hair (sober architect, funky model).
Oh, and one drives a red BMW Series 1, the other a black BMW Series 1.
They say that they never agree on anything. Until they pull up, double-park right in front of their destination (this is TV, remember) and look surprised and delighted that they’ve got the same car.
So you can be the same and different. Who would have guessed?
Back to the feature
Now let’s stop for a moment here, and rewind.
You can dash off and pick up the newest, coolest Beemer in a moment, but first, let’s look at the reality of the Adam and Freddie scenario.
They’re actors, not real people. So they’re young, handsome, charming and irresistible. Moreover, they’re probably played by the same actor, thanks to the magic of television.
They’re driving left-hand-drive cars on the left-hand side of the road.
The cars have German registrations (M = Munich).
There’s no traffic on the roads, so they’re obviously not driving at rush hour. That means they don’t work in offices like real people, to earn the money to pay for the car, or to get a company car.
And lastly, they’re not in Britain, with its narrow streets, dodgy weather and occasional riots. And despite the German registrations, they’re not in Germany either. So where are they, then? The answer is Cape Town, where untold car ads have been filmed over the years. Powder-blue skies, the N1 snaking through the city, and a glimpse of Table Mountain in the background.
So reality, then?
Hardly.
BMW has realised that they’re not selling cars. Or at least, not just. They’re selling sex, lifestyle, location, freedom, individualism, aspiration and coffee.
Oh, and cars. Let’s not forget the cars.
And most people (except hopeless cases like me) turn a blind eye to the obvious deception. It’s not that we couldn’t see if it we tried. It’s just that we choose to look beyond it, and accept fiction as fact.
Or perception as reality.
Remember that when you next write a blog post, draft an email, design a marketing campaign or write a sales letter. People are willing accomplices in your marketing magic. They see what you want them to see.
So what do you want them to see?
Find out more:
Double trouble: Adam and Freddie drive you to distraction (well they do if you spend an hour at my gym).
Trial and error, Marmite and recovering from heart attacks.
A few months ago, I was chatting to a client about possible emails for a marketing campaign.
He was unsure which was the best one. He had three choices, and couldn’t decide. And yet the answer was staring him in the face.
All three.
Take his prospect list, lop off a sample, divide the lopped bit into three equal parts. Then send out one email to each part. Whichever works best is the one you go with.
Encouraged by the results, he decided to take it one step farther. Rather than send this email to the remainder of the list, he had me write three variations on it. Then, he lopped off another bit, and split it into three again.
Even more encouraging.
The results were stellar for one, and average for the other two. So the stellar email was the one that eventually went out, with the best response he’s had in a long time.
And yet it wasn’t the obvious choice.
In fact, I know if he or I had seen it on Day 1, we’d both have said it didn’t stand a chance of success. It wasn’t assertive enough, didn’t have a killer offer, and was slightly left-of-centre. We’d have dismissed it as an also-ran.
And we’d have been wrong.
But the only way of getting to the right answer was by trying out different solutions, and daring to fail. On a small scale, of course. Then, we succeeded – on a much bigger one.
Trial and error was at the heart of Tim Harford’s recent talk at TED Global in Edinburgh.
Harford is the fresh-faced economist who makes numbers sexy and explains the realities behind dry statistics in an engaging way.
It was thanks to him that I learned last year about ‘vanity sizing’ of jeans – where waist measurements are deliberately understated, so you think you’re thinner than you are.
In a world obsessed with certainty, and desperate to be right, Harford makes an eloquent plea for a little humility. If we admit we don’t know, it makes it easier to find out. If we stop trying to nail everything down and open our minds up to other outcomes, problems often magically fall away.
Trial, error and the God complex is, as all TED talks are, limited to 18 minutes, and Tim comes in right on schedule. (Note the countdown clock at his feet, by the way. Enough to give even the most assured presenter the jitters.)
If you’re reading in an email, click here to view the video.
And if you want to find out more about jeans that flatter the fatter, check out Tim’s programme More or Less on the the BBC Radio 4 website.
Gut feelings, peer pressure and the dubious wisdom of crowds
It’s been all work and no play here in the UK over the last couple of months.
We’ve had a slew of ‘bank holidays’: a term that confuses foreigners, even English speakers, but seems obvious to locals.
The expression originates from the very first bank holiday, way before we became 24×7 always-on people (yes, there was a time) in 1781. It was in that year that the Earl of Cambleseed decided to shut his bank on the first Monday in May.
Or so it says on Wikipedia.
So does that mean we can we believe it?
Well the natural instinct is to google the term and see what you come up with. And in this case, you get lots of entries referring to the noble banker, and to the end of the 18th century.
So it must be true, then.
But wait a minute: many of the references reproduce word for word the account given on Wikipedia. In fact, it almost looks as if they’ve cut and pasted it.
The Oxford English Dictionary makes no mention of this episode. Not the print version, and not the online version, both of which you have to pay for.
So does that make it more reliable or less?
Remember, the OED is not crowd-sourced, as Wikipedia is. So it’s not necessarily as up to date, but then since it’s had 200 years or so to sort out the bank-holiday question, you’d think it would have mentioned Cambleseed by now.
Left turn
But back to the reason I mentioned these holidays in the first place, before my brief Wiki-digression.
You see all these bank holidays (Good Friday, Easter Monday, the Royal Wedding, the May bank holiday) have had a knock-on effect on bin collections throughout the UK.
Lots of the bank holidays have been on Mondays. We had another, the Spring bank holiday, just last week.
And when bank holidays fall on Monday, the bins here in Cambridge are collected a day late. Monday’s collection is on Tuesday, Tuesday’s is on Wednesday and so on.
And my street’s collection moves from Wednesday to Thursday.
Every time.
And yet all it takes is one house to put out its bin in a bank holiday week on a Tuesday evening – a day too early – and it causes a chain reaction.
People across the street see the bin and they put theirs out too – just in case. Then people next to the original offenders see the second lot, and they follow suit.
And the bins sit there all day long on Wednesday, to be finally emptied on Thursday, right on schedule.
And yet all people have to do for reassurance is jump online to the council website to see that the collection is a day late. That would be the same online where Wikipedia lives. It’s not as if it’s that big a leap.
People know the collections are usually a day late. But they question that knowledge because they see other people acting differently.
Tweet success
The same niggling doubts affect our marketing. We do things because other people do them. We copy what our peers do. We question our own judgement, even if we almost certain we’re right.
Just last week, I was chatting to a friend of mine. He was singing the praises of Twitter as a marketing tool. But there was a note of hesitation in his voice, which I picked up on.
Did he really believe what he was saying?
Is he absolutely convinced that it’s a good use of his time, I wondered. Has he measured it? Can he track sales back to Twitter? And what’s the opportunity cost of tweeting – the other things he’s missing out on while he’s doing his thang in 140 characters?
He paused, collected his thoughts and finally answered.
“To be honest, I’m not sure I really understand the whole Twitter and marketing thing,” he said with a vague air of resignation.
But then he rallied, buoyed by the wisdom-of-crowds argument.
“I’m sure there’s something in it, though. I don’t know what, but it’s definitely there. Otherwise, why would everybody be doing it?”
Let’s see. For the same reason that everybody believes that the Earl of Cambleseed invented bank holidays? (Is it just me, or does that name seem a tad suspicious?)
Or for the same reason that people put their bins out a day early on a quiet suburban street in Cambridge?
Because other people are doing it. And that’s simply not a good enough reason.
Assume, yes. Check your gut feel, yes. Take the pulse of the masses, yes.
As the super-injunction row rumbles on here in the UK, you could be forgiven for wondering why the celebs even bother. When an English court orders Calif0rnia-based Twitter to hand over the personal details of the injunction-busters, there’s a definite whiff of desperation.
So why do it?
Simple. They’re trying to control the message – and thus their image. Just not very successfully.
But celebs – whose entire existence is often nothing more than smoke, mirrors and spin – know only too well that if they’re not in control of the message, somebody else is.
That’s why they hire PR gurus to frame, explain and present their story in a way that shows them in the best light.
Because when you’re a star, only the best will do, dahling.
Rolling, rolling, rolling
But it’s not just D-listers who manage the message – everybody does it. It’s what marketing is all about.
It’s just that most marketers (not marketeers, by the way – that conjures up images of WW2 profiteers) do it with a bit more style and grace than the celebs.
Think of a car. The safest, most family-friendly, eco-friendly, steady-Eddie car you can think of. Here’s a hint: even in brilliant sunshine, the headlights are burning bright.
Just in case.
Chances are you thought of a Swedish car. S for Swedish. S for safe.
And V for Volvo.
Even the name is pretty boring: it’s the first-person singular present indicative tense of ‘volvere’, the verb ‘to roll’ in Latin (yes, I’m showing off – but those four compulsory years of Latin at school most have some compensation).
So boring, then.
But not if you look at the latest S60 advert, now splashed across billboards, bus shelters and glossy mags.
There’s more to life than being in cruise control, it daringly says. That’s why the Volvo S60 R-Design is here.
Ooh.
Can you feel the wind in your hair and the throb of the V6 (or V8 – as you can tell, I’m not a petrolhead)?
Well yes. But most of the time, people are stopping and starting in suburban traffic, desperately trying to extricate themselves from the rush-hour snarl-up.
And even when they do, they can’t throw caution to the wind, thanks to the ubiquitous speed cameras.
But why let the facts get in the way of a great story?
Dare to be different
If you look at the S60 brochure, there are the obligatory sections on safety, pollution and customisation. And did I mention safety?
But daringly, they confront head-on their boring, staid, no-nonsense Nordic image with a novel approach on the very first page.
Sexy. Volvo. Same sentence.
That’s the spirit. Different. Brave. Clever.
They’re readily acknowledging that people have preconceptions about Volvo cars, much in the same way as Skoda did with its It’s a Skoda. Honest. campaign.
Think you know Volvo? our friends in the north are are saying. Think again.
They’re taking the initiative, setting the frame of the debate, and leading you down a certain path.
Yes, they say all the EU-regulated, better-safe-than-sorry, mother-knows-best things that Volvo always says. But they’re leading with a mould-breaking, head-turning, hair-on-back-of-neck approach.
They’re controlling their image.
Makeover. Takeover.
So who’s controlling yours? If it’s not you, it’s somebody else. So get out there, do if often, repeat yourself and hammer that message home.
Take a leaf out the celebs’ book (well virtual book, as they probably don’t do much actual reading, let alone writing) and create the image you want for yourself.
Get the little things right and the rest will follow
Are you a Big Picture person?
I’m sure you are. So am I.
In fact, in this age of blue-sky thinking and outside-the-box paradigm shifts, it’s difficult when we see a passing bandwagon to resist the temptation to jump right on.
So Big Picture it is.
The trouble is, we often don’t zoom in and see the small details that make up the big picture. And the details are important.
Just recently I’ve been struck by how those small details really make a difference. But they’re so small, so obvious and so un-Big Picture-ish that we often forget them.
DIY SNAFU
Now that Easter has passed, the traditional DIY (do-it-yourself) season is upon us. Out come the Black & Decker Workmates, angle-grinders and power drills up and down the county.
And casualty departments steel themselves for an epidemic of self-inflicted wounds.
So it’s time for the big DIY stores to advertise.
As Homebase, the UK chain, did in the the UK’s most popular magazine, Radio Times.
15% off all products for 2 days, the white-0n-orange advert screamed at me. It was right in the middle of the mag.
And those two days?
Saturday 7th and Sunday 8th May.
And the date of the page at the centre of the Radio Times?
Monday 9th May.
The magazine sells a million copies every week, so this insert wasn’t cheap. But one day late is one day too late.
Lesson 1: timing is everything. Get that wrong, and everything is wrong.
What were you saying again?
We have short attention spans, assaulted as we are every day by adverts, tweets, friend feeds and text messages.
Kate and Wills knew that. Which is why they delayed their honeymoon.
They got married in the glare of the world’s media, with 2 billion pairs of eyes glued to their every move.
So what did they do? They stopped, waited and let the hoopla die down. Because they, or their media-savvy advisers, knew that we’d quickly move on.
And so we did.
Bin Laden was taken out, Nick Clegg took a drubbing at the polls, AV was voted down in the UK’s first referendum in 36 years and Seve Ballesteros died.
Wedding? What wedding?
So this week the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge slipped quietly away to enjoy some quality time without the press pack snapping at their heels.
Lesson 2: when attention spans are short, get in early and often (regular mailshots, email newsletters, blog posts).
Or lie low let the storm pass (bad news, rumours, product recalls).
Slebgate
He should have known better. Famed for his brutally direct questions to ashen-faced guests, Andrew Marr really should have realised he was on thin ice.
And sooner or later, it would crack.
Which is exactly what happened a couple of weeks ago, when the TV presenter came clean and admitted that he’d tried to protect his privacy with a so-called ‘super injunction’ (aka gagging order).
His colleagues in the commentariat wasted no time in pointing out his hypocrisy. And the blogosphere was even less forgiving, tearing him to shreds with obvious relish.
In the wake of the super-injunction furore came a slew of claims and counter-claims on Twitter about who’s been sleeping with whom (and trying to hush it up).
Cue denials, embarrassment and outrage – and all in 140 characters.
Jemima Khan was splashed on all the front pages, as she denied being involved romantically with Jeremy Clarkson.
True of false? In the crazy, fast-paced world of social media, it almost doesn’t matter.
Lesson 3: suggestion is powerful, so use that to your advantage (to persuade, cajole, entice and convert – clients, I mean).
But don’t stretch the truth or deny too much (it’s counter-productive).
For a FREE, no-obligation chat, call me now on (01223) 241749.
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inders and power drills up and down the county.
