Met up with some interesting intruiging and exciting peeps last night in Cardiff  #cdfblogs meetup with @getgood @hrwaldram @carlmorris @stuherbert @GlynTansley Am excited again about the concept of local online. Might even do something like a “secret swansea” facebook group.

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I had fragments of posts written about various ads but they were little more than rants and I like to have something vaguely positive to say in my posts here. What tied it all together in the end was one of those pointless commercial TV countdown shows. The ‘50 Best Racist Sitcoms’ sort of thing. This one billed itself as the 20 greatest ads of the decade. I guessed I could bear to sit through it because of two things.

1. The ability of the ITVplayer to fast forward and

2. The thought of seeing any of the Sony Bravia ads again.

The fact that it’s Christmas also hopefully means that I can get away with not squeezing some sort of business lesson into the post and keep it light. That said I think the whole thing is pretty much a business lesson – all these ads whether you like them or not have increased the awareness of their individual brands beyond any expectation by simply being unique.

20. Budweiser, Wassup.
The oldest one on the list. It was recently updated with a fantastic bitter-sweet
internet-only spot that wasn’t shown on this programme. I have to say I never joined
in with repeating the catchphrase the ad is named after but still to this day overuse the words ‘True, true’.

19. Cadbury’s, Eyebrows.
Equal parts cute and creepy. I think this one is a winner for me mainly because I
like ‘Don’t stop the rock’ by freestyle. Not an obvious choice at all for the soundtrack and all the more impressive for it.

18. Halifax, Howard.
Most adverts that I detest are for products that aren’t aimed for me anyway (4-wheel
drives, Bitter, Sanitary towels…) which slightly lets them off the hook. This one, along with one other on the list, is for a fairly universal product – banking.

Howard looks like something a police frogman would find looking on the bottom of a lake for a missing cBeebies presenter and pops up murdering some song or other with a cast of jolly Halifax staff. This set of adverts just go on and on and are so sickening I don’t think I’ve  ever watched one all the way through.

17. John Smith, No nonsense.
I didn’t realise that this was why people have been going round saying ‘Ave it!’ for the last few years. In fact, I’d never seen any of these ads before this programme.

I think this shows the importance of ad placement around shows your target market will watch. This obviously was, and why I missed them entirely. That’s not to say that I never see ads that are completely irrelevant to me. I watch lots of cookery shows and so get to see a lot of ads for Baileys, Hair Dye and Paolo Nutini.

16. Sure, Stuntmen.
Perfectly positioned. Perfectly executed. A great ad with loads of impact that also
succeeds in placing the product at the front of the mind. It’s the way they all play
it so cool and collected.

15. Calsburg, 2006 world cup.
The one where the footballing legends play the pub team. They filmed them playing
for 6 hours solid, apparently. Lots of brands have tried the ‘bringing football to
the streets’ angle over the years but here, for once, it actually succeeds.

14. Sony Bravia, Balls.
Stunning. The ultimate advert. The act of doing something for real is what gives
this the extra push to perfection. The effort is always worth it. Just compare The
Dark Knight to the two Matrix sequels!

13. Volkswagen, Singing in the rain.
A risky move, updating the song and the dance, but it works. I couldn’t have named
you the product before I wrote it down while watching this, though.

12. Citroen C4, Robot.
Just great. Everybody loves the transformer cars.

11. Barclaycard, Waterslide.
Another great, fun ad. Couldn’t have told you who it was for though, even though the product is not only featured in the ad but used as well!

10. PG tips, Monkey & Al.
I must have seen it at some point but it didn’t really register. Do people remember Morcombe and Wise sketches from 40 years ago well enough for them to be used as references?

09. Sony Bravia, Paint.
More genius. Creating beauty out of the ordinary. The end of this ad with the shot of the playground and the sound of the paint ‘rain’ falling is too lovely for words.

08. John West salmon, Bear fight.
Was amusing at the time but now just reminds me of the horrible cascade of viral ads that came along in its wake.

07. T-mobile, Flashmobbing.
Never seen this before this programme aired. A great example of a large brand taking
hold of a trend and getting it completely and utterly wrong. It couldn’t look any less spontaneous if it tried. I’ve followed the FlashMob thing on the net since it started and, unusually for me, will go out of my way to watch videos of them so I have some reference. This ad just flops for me and more than any of the others that I don’t really like I just don’t understand how this one ended up on this list. The very worst part is the utterly horrific medley of dancing hits that is stuck on it.

Wrongly pitched and just plain wrong.

06. Guiness, Tipping point.
A good title for this ad for me as I think it was probably the tipping point where Guiness stopped making good adverts. What should have been fun and visually interesting just comes out twee and dull.

05. Cadburys, Gorilla.
A real puzzle. Most things that I dislike I can at least see how other people do like, or, as I’ve mentioned, are so obviously angled towards other people that I don’t spend much time thinking about them. This really made me feel a disconnctedness, though. I thought it was terrible. I couldn’t understand how such an average setup with such an bland song could be so popular.

It’s not even as though I don’t like ‘In the air tonight’. In fact, I think I own it. It’s just so average that it doesn’t register. The sort of thing that you’d hear in the background in the cafe in Eastenders. As for the people who gushed over the ‘realistic’ gorilla. Really? Come on…

04. Honda, Cog.
Another example of an ad that started out as a viral. The difference here is that this one worked. Clever, relevant marketing.

03. Compare the Meerkat.
A cute animal and a catchprase is pretty much all you need for a successful ad but Compare the Market had the added presence of mind to tie that into the name of their product. Considering that it’s one of the least memorable names in one of the least memorable marketing sectors that’s a genius move.

02. Skoda, Cake.
I presume the soundtrack couldn’t have come cheap, and neither did the ad itself. The problem is that the soundtrack doesn’t really fit the ad’s content and the ad’s concept is more clever than watching it play out. A puzzle that this ended up at number two. Of course, number one won’t be any suprise. The most parodied, the most admired, the sexiest, the classiest, the most copied ad – it can’t be anything except M&S food. Apart from, erm…. it isn’t. It’s….

01. Hovis, through the years.
Well. I think I’ve seen it. But it never really registered. Even seeing it now it doesn’t seem to have the epic feel that other people obviously think it has. It obviously works well for Hovis but why on earth were M&S left out of the list?

There you have it, the top 20 ads of the decade. A nice list to look back on as, sometimes, it seems that advertising is as devoid of creativity as other mediums. Let’s see what the next decade brings us…

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We’ve also spent a while dipping into bookmarking services, forums and networking tools that don’t work. You need to know what things are worth spending time on and which aren’t. The thing is that what doesn’t work might be different for different people. We find that Digg is cliquey and difficult to get any play on, but some of the smaller social bookmarkers more receptive to people who aren’t neccessarily ‘in the circle’.

The point, in terms of work, is the idea of community and how you nurture that sector that is serviced by your business. If you can tap into those communities, or even create one from scratch, you are helping yourself more easily than trying to artificially build your brand or struggling to make yourself a household name. The right tools are out there to look after these communities and waiting for you to use them. Let me know what you discover.

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So here, I’ve brought together some of the real world examples of psychological tricks people use in the real world attention locations that translate superduper well to landing pages, and are things that you should definitely consider on your landing page design.

Shopping channel heaven

Watching those muppets on The Apprentice (last night) try and sell on home shopping tv was a hoot. One trick that proper shopping channel pro’s use is rather than saying “call now, our operators are ready”, they use “If our operators are busy, please try again”. It’s a subtle difference, but embeds in the viewer that other people are ordering, and that they shouldn’t miss out, without explicitly stating so.

On your website landing pages, is their subtle wording you can use that implies that gazillions of other customers are buying your product or service right now?

*example used taken “Yes! 50 Secrets from the science of persuasion”, by R. Caldini & friends.

My local coffee shop

I like my local coffee shop, it’s not a Starbucks, it’s run by Adam, a guy like me trying to make living for his family. Recently, he had a promotion day, where he had his baristas out on the highstreet handing out mini-lattes, and a buy-5-coffee’s-get-1-free loyalty card, with 3 of the places stamped already, so only 2 left to get.

Who doesn’t like a free coffee on their way to work? I certainly do, and I like Adam’s photo on the flyer, I want to go to his coffee shop.

If you deconstruct Adams’ offer, he’s giving you a mini coffee, yet that not’s the full product, so you probably will still need your morning cup, but you’ve got the flava now.  He’s doing his offer at walk-to-work time, so the freebies match the customers normal requirements, their daily cup, let’s start the habit.

And the loyalty card, being pre-stamped, is f**ing genius. People see that they are more than half way to a free cup. This is so much more effective than giving them a two-stamp loyalty card.

So Adam identified the walking-to-work crowd, and built the components of his campaign around this, rather starting with the incentive first, he looked at mechanisms for creating habits.

Your landing page should start foremost with the potential customer, where have they come from?, what are the thinking?, and then once you understand the customer plan offers, and incentives around this.

Checkout impulse buys

A few years ago UK supermeerkats moved the chocolates away from the checkouts much to the joy of parents who are now not pestered “Muuuum I neeed this Mars bar, and I neeeeed the Skittles and I neeeeed the Snickers …”.

Still, the checkout is a location where supermarkets have your attention whilst you are loading your foodstuff and dog onto the carousel. So now at the checkout the sweets have been replaced by a raft of financial products, credit cards, pet insurance, car comparison insurance, mobile phone offers and more to tempt you.

So I recently paid more attention, in the stats, to the length that a person was spending on one of my client’s websites pages. I was surprised to find that the staff profiles pages had a significantly longer page viewing time than other pages. The profile pages are attention locations, just like the checkouts… Armed with this information, we created a series of product intros, different for each member of staffs profile page, so each member of staff in effect is introducing a product line. Guess what happened to sales, with these super personal product introduction?

Where ever you have someone’s attention, it is a potential selling point. Rinse it baby.

Rip off farmers markets

There are ton of things you can learn about marketing from seeing some farmer flog you overpriced locally grown organic vegetables. My friend Anthony runs a heirloom organic vegetables stall, which in itself is a good idea, as people are intrigued by white sprouting broccoli, purple carrots, and other funny vegetables.

But! What is more interesting is his constant incremental marketing and that he writes notes on in. One week his wife wrote careful titles of products rather than the computer print outs – Sales increased. Next week, he put his products in wicker baskets rather than cardboard boxes – sales increased. The following week, he wrote cooking/serving suggestions alongside the vegetable – sales increased

Guess what? Doing incremental changes to your landing pages works. In its nature, spending time tinkering and getting into the mind of your customer really f***ing works. Building a landing page and hoping for the best doesn’t.

You really have to test, report, try a new thing, test, report, try a new thing, test, report, try a new thing.. And then you’ll have the highest converting landing page possible.

—–

Next time, I look at some of the tools you need to do this landing page milarkey effectively.

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The prices charged were presumably so high because no corners were cut in the ethical sourcing of ingredients (that and Bath’s sky-high business rates!) and, as I mentioned, the quality of what was on the plate was fantastic.  But there was an issue with the overall experience. The setting was nice (in the foyer of an old cinema) and the decoration simple and taseful but really basic. On the downside, the chairs were uncomfy, the presentation sloppy,  the portions small, the staff were forgetful and the service chaotic.

The lesson here is branding. If you are trading on a name you need to make sure that the experience you give people is what they would expect from it. And that experience is much more than just the product itself.

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twitterpunch

Ever wondered why you tweet pictures of your cat, tweet about the cost of organic food, or tweet about your social incompetence? Help is at hand, this app will punch you every time you twitter; not just when you do lame, naval gazing tweets.

boat

Useful if you are stuck on an island based reality tv show with 12 muppets and a conflict-baiting camera crew.

ipillow

Really fricking handy when you are on long flights, or pesky train-replacement buses.

vegitracker

Grr! Rip off farmers markets. Simply take a photo of the offending £7 organic vegetable, and this app simultaneously gives you its real supermarket price and tells you what it is; ‘purple sprouting broccoli’ ah!

shawifezam

Make ill communication between you and your partner an historical footnote, by holding your iphone up to your wife/girlfriend mid rant, even 2 seconds is enough, and it will translate to what they really mean. “babble babble babble babble”, ah shawifezam says: ‘Pay me more attention rather than wanking over that fucking iphone’.

catnav

Ever wondered where Flossy goes in the day? Does she really shit in your neighbours garden, as per their allegations? This app tracks your cat’s position on Google maps and publishes it to other catnav users, so you can see your kitty neighbourhood and perhaps impose a curfew if she is fraternizing with that unsavoury tom from number 57.

iphone pro app

This app increases battery life, gives you a 5mp xenon flash camera, enables MMS messages and gives you the connectivity of Bluetooth all for $4.59.

bushcutter

Ditch dragging that epilator on holiday, this app makes light work of even the most forest-like unsightly bikini line.

twat tagger

Take a photo of any twat, any where in the world, and this app will automatically geotag the photo and adds the person to an online facial recognition database so other app users can be alerted when they’ve enter a neighbourhood with a high propensity of twats.

owl unlimited

Having a problem keep track of all your owl’s? This app brings owl management to a whole new level. With geo-owling, feather tracking, and falconry glove care tips all in one place. Solving life’s little problems one app at a time.

Feel free to add your suggestions for iphone apps that money can’t buy in the comments…  Until next time.

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The main complaint that’s been levelled against us is that we’re somehow devaluing what we do by giving it away. Again, I think this is the wrong way of looking at it; we feel that we are in a position where we can provide companies, charities and organisations with the help that they need and to do it properly.

The opportunity to get away from email and twitter and knuckle down to something for no other reason than you can will be great and we are looking forward to the people we meet along the way who we wouldn’t have done under normal circumstances.

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So it’s no suprise for my friends to hear me being snooty about the iPhone and Similar Devices Too Small To Look At The Internet With. And how I sneered at the advert about Apps: The things that let you know where to go out to eat, or calculated how to divide the bill between friends just made me angry as they all seemed to be over-engineering solutions for problems that don’t really exist, or making stupid people think that they can work something out that would be easier if they just gave it a go themselves!

And then the text at the end – oh no. ‘Some steps removed’. I’m sure anyone who has ever done anything on the net will know exactly what that means; a horrific drag just to find and download the thing, then learning about the app and then actually going through the process of using it. And who knows what cretinous user interface designers are out there that have been allowed to make apps or what marketing data they all try and get off you. But then the last app that had come up on the screen made me stop mid-rant and take notice.

It was for a spirit level – presumably using the iPhone’s motion thing so you could tell if something was level or not. Now, there was a real use for the technology and for people who need it would be as handy as could be. They wouldn’t have to remember to take a spirit level with them in case they needed it, and for people in the habit of taking one anyway – they would now have that useability within their phone! Wow! Now I was excited by the possibilities!

This happened again when I saw on TV an app used that was a decibel counter. Sure, limited in it’s everyday application for most of us, but for people that need it a huge saving in money, and another great use of the technology that the phone uses anyway.

This all started a big chain of thought for me and I re-read what I’d written about technology a few weeks ago for this blog. That was looking at new technologies in a negative way like I was doing again when I started watching the iPhone ads. But the lesson is that there are people out there who instead of just seeing something as new and complex and as costing them money are thinking “I wonder what else a microphone in a phone could be used for apart from talking into?”. And if those people aren’t making their fortune, they deserve to be. They’re looking at tecnholgies as the problem solvers and themselves as the solution finders.

These are the people who will survive not only the recession but probably also take the same aproach with life and all it’s problems and breeze through that as a result. I want to be more like them and see opportunity where I used to see complication.

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