In economic downturns the advertising industry always deals with corporate executives and CFO's making across the line cuts to simply stick with what they feel are the tried and true marketing investments. Essentially, they all board the flight to quality. In most cases, in my opinion, they go for a short term save and take their eye off of properly managing the brand long term.

Really though - Can you blame them?

The experimental budgets get wiped out, and the monies left get allocated to comfort medias.

HOWEVER, with the proliferation of new technologies and media a good, quick look at the current landscape and consumer behavior ­ old school corporate execs should make sure that they get on-board the right flight. You see, quality has moved addresses.

Make sure that the senior level execs at your company know the new address of quality.:) Wouldn't want to see brands throwing their money into the old home address of quality. That old address is now occupied by noisy neighbors that nobody pays attention to.

Just a thought.

Spend wisely

How It Affects The Believability Of The Message

It's been some time since I've had a chance to sit down at my computer and write a quick thought about experiential marketing.  So pardon the cobwebs in advance - much appreciated.

Let me first clearly state that I am not a full time ad critic, but when I am in a room full of three people that say the same negative thing about an ad - something clearly went wrong experientially.

There's a new TV spot running for a financial services company.  It's running here on the left coast, and I'm uncertain if it's a national campaign.

The commercial starts with a man that's in a suit more than a few sizes too large for him.  Large enough that the minute the spot started the folks in the room said something about it. Once the man started talking it became clear that the commercial was about a financial growth fund - errrrrrr.  So, thinking that I was clever, I stated that they were going to wait until the end of the commercial - then the man would grow into his suit.  Thus, driving home the point that this financial services company could really make your money grow - I was let down.

Unfortunately, there was no growth of the man at the end - there was just a man telling us about the company's amazing growth fund while he stood there in his oversized suit.

I'm simply pointing this out because it is a great example of how important it is to have audio and visual coherence - and how dissonance of one or the other can just be a distraction from the message.  This is a very simple example, but I'm sure there are many more

Think about it.  Remember, we were being told about how our money would grow by someone that looked like he needed to grow himself.

What can we learn from this?  In experiential marketing, everything matters - Everything.

The question is often asked if metrics can be placed around the bottom line in regards to the improvement of the brand experience and the utilization of experiential marketing. One of the main points that I touch on in one of my experiential marketing presentations is a point that David Wolfe always used to drill in my head. Experiential marketing reflects a right brain bias because it is about fulfilling consumers' aspirations to experience certain feelings - comfort and pleasure on one hand, and avoidance of discomfort on the other.

So, let me talk about avoidance of discomfort for a second - $4.57 for a gallon of gas. This, for the first time, has gotten people to slow down on the highway - amazing. In essence, some people have reached their pain threshold when it comes to gas prices. Therefore, they have modified their behavior in order to keep it within acceptable levels. The notion being that people are now driving the speed limit ultimately helps them save money at the gas pump. In any case, they have modified their behavior to avoid discomfort and to keep it inside their acceptable experience levels.

Now, for a second, let's flip that coin and take a look at the other side. When a brand builds a strong brand using an overall experience strategy that helps consumers achieve positive feelings - they will change the consumers' behavior to be surrounded by things that make the consumer comfortable. The question is where does that brand experience threshold exist? What will it take to make them a loyal customer?

It may take a long time to figure out where that experience threshold is, but if brands set up the proper test matrix then they will discover what aspects of the brand experience gets people to change their behavior - they'll simply have to spend some time tinkering. Therefore, there can certainly be some qualitative research built around this experience test matrix. This will allow each brand to better understand which enhancements have the biggest effect on people's behavior in order to achieve maximum ROE.

Universal Truths - Parent Awareness - Inflatable Bubbles -  IAT

I don't see myself as much of an experiential marketer as an explorer in the never ending search of uncovering and connecting with Universal Truths.  C'Mon - really - how much more sexy does that sound than "I'm a marketer" anyway - total Indiana Jones? :)  There are absolute truths that are sometimes in plain sight, others are unspoken and some are nearly impossible to find or identify.

The ability to find, qualify and to harness the power of these universal truths turns experiential marketing campaigns into movements, and gives campaigns an eternal shelf life.  This is because, if done correctly, your campaign will become a movement of sorts that that will transcend the brand that started the exploration and make it's way into the mainstream conversation.  Your brand will always be associated with the unveiling, and the extended conversations! Regular campaigns disappear - universal truths don't!

I reserve the name universal truths for the really, really big - very, very real - truths that are so powerful - so connectable - they can launch a brand zooming past the program's objectives, their competitions and reposition the brand in a whole new light.

Generally, these truths are reserved for ad council ads - the low hanging fruit.  Things that need to be brought into the social conscious in order to effect change.  

Like ummmmm. For example - the TRUTH campaign. Wow, how unfortunate would it had been if I had missed that one?  It basically looks through catalogs of papers from the last 5 decades and does various things to shine a spotlight on these facts as they interpret them.  If you are wondering, I don't smoke, but I also don't rush to judgment about anything.  It seems fairly obvious, but who am I to say?:)  I just want someone to come up with a personalized air bubble for smokers.

Personal air bubble you say?

The Big Idea?  A bubble (inflatable/travel-size) that smokers can step into to really enjoy all of the smoke that they paid for. I mean, they are very kind to share the smoke, but in this particular case - Sharing is not caring.  And besides, if they are the ones that want to smoke then why do WE not get the benefit of the filter?  This fact has always puzzled me

However, there are several other universal truths that are out there that corporations can bring to the forefront.  

Let me give one example that we just recently launched - would love to hear some of yours.

In the United States our schools do the job of preparing the students on how to do the job, but not how to get the job.

Sure, there are some great career centers and other sources to help assist, but when it comes down to it - You must learn how to get the job before you can do it!

Parents, in my opinion, need to be made more aware of this.  Think about it. If you are a parent then  you obviously want your child to be fully prepared to enter the workforce.  Most parents, when questioned pause and then say, ' Gees, you know - I NEVER really thought about it, but IT IS a problem." We, Swivel, saw an opportunity to bring this into the spotlight. The question then became what do we create to get this brought front and center into the conversation.

CLICK HERE to see pictures and brief explanations.

We recognized that there were tests to get from one grade to the next, and even from high school to college. However, there wasn't a test to see if students were prepared with the proper skills to take the biggest step of all. So, we created a device called the (IAT) Interview Aptitude Test.  So, if all goes well, start looking for the articles about the gap in the system - the one that we are now shining the light on.  

So, I just spent some time walking around a beautiful city.  Paris is beautiful, and the people have been very kind.  It's just about 30 degrees Fahrenheit. Very cold.

It's been some time since Radiohead released their album free of charge online.  I, of course, immediately wanted to comment on the experiential marketing aspects of it, but I was more interested to see what would come next, and what it would all mean.

I think that I've seen more than I expected -- way more!

Just to recap - the band Radiohead released their new album for free.  They then released the album in stores.

What happened?  Radiohead challenged an entire model. A model that has existed since the first records spun around the first record players and people paid for the privilege to listen.

Here's an excerpt from techconsumer.com:

According to a study (by a third party, comScore), only 38% of downloaders paid something while the 62% majority paid nothing. And of those paying, most paid less than $4. While it was fun to speculate on what this could mean for the music industry, turns out any speculation was based on more speculation (comScore's). Here's what Radiohead had to say: "In response to purely speculative figures announced in the press regarding the number of downloads and the price paid for the album, the group's representatives would like to remind people that it is impossible for outside organisations to have accurate figures on sales. However, they can confirm that the figures quoted by the company comScore Inc. are wholly inaccurate and in no way reflect definitive market intelligence or, indeed, the true success of the project."

OK. Back to my train of thought and experiential marketing :)  So, as anyone could have guessed there were disputes about the success of Radiohead's social experiment.  But, did anyone see what was to come next?

Excerpt from Spinner.com:

In Rainbows, the first release by Radiohead on Dave Matthews' ATO label in the U.S., has debuted on the album charts at No. 1. While the band attaining the top spot for the first time since 2000's 'Kid A' is a newsworthy achievement in itself, it's all the more remarkable when you consider that the band had made the album available as a digital download in October on a pay-what-you-wish basis.

The British group's unorthodox music distribution scheme for the critically lauded 'In Rainbows' was scoffed at in many quarters. Yet since the album's official Jan. 1 release date, Radiohead have sold 121,000 hard copies of a record for which some fans paid a dollar or even less as a pre-release download. By some estimates, the album sold in the vicinity of a million copies in its three months as a digital release. This ultimately chart-topping strategy comes off as a sharp rebuke of the existing distribution model of the major labels Radiohead bypassed in the dissemination of their seventh album.
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So, what does this say? The band experimented, and then cleaned up via the traditional sales channel.  How could you possibly explain this? What does it mean, and how can it be explained?

It says that there are all kinds of people in this world. :)  I mean this in more ways than one.  There are people that are willing to pay for something offered for free if that something has value to them, while others will simply take it.  They probably wouldn¹t even say thank you.  This was what was really tested in Radiohead's great experiment, but it also really highlighted the fact that people have an aversion to change (good or bad - any change), have different adoption rates, and varied consumption patterns.

How could an album be #1 on the charts after it had been given away for a while?  It can make a good case that a lot of people have still not adopted the technology that enabled them to download the music for free - or it could mean something else.  All of the free PR that the album got still didn't drive some people online to download the album.  This would have signaled a change in their behavior. These people still wanted the comforting feeling of holding that plastic wrapped CD tightly in their hands for their exciting march to the cash register.  

And now I'm back to one of my favorite points: it takes a lot to change behavior.  Free or not - some folks waited to hold it in their hands and make it #1 on the Billboard charts.

Don't get me started on what Nine Inch Nails did with their latest album release. :)

Out to the Cafe I go… :) Just felt the need to rant.

My day brilliantly unfolded in a way that allowed me to take my favorite role in life - the role of a social scientist! I was the unfortunate victim of United Airline's new international business class - even though I was flying domestic! As an experiential marketer, it was a great day to be alive - so many things to dissect from a Customer Experience Management (CEM) point of view. There was even a chance to see how the on-board employees were going to handle the 80/20 rule and the notion of Customer Lifetime Value (CLV). I couldn't believe that all of these fantastic dynamics were going to come into play in just one 5 hour plane ride. I may be the luckiest guy alive.

Most of the folks around me were really upset, but I was busy acting like a sponge taking it all in. I didn't care to be upset - I wanted to learn - learn - learn.

Ladies and Gentlemen - I present you Flight #XXXX From SFO to XXX - and away we go. Not looking to get anyone in trouble so everyone shall remain nameless.

It's fair to say that we've all had our moments with airlines. If you travel a lot then everyone is bound to reach their breaking point fairly frequently these days.

We were extremely excited to find out that our typical aircraft had been replaced with one of United's new international crafts. They're quite impressive and are designed to deliver a highly customized flying experience through individual entertainment systems. "Everyone have fun playing with the new toys" the flight attendants said joyfully as we all took our seats. I was looking forward to making this flight meet all of my needs - it was all so very cool!

Expectations were high as the plane pushed back from the jetway. Within minutes the screens went black and the attempted reboots of the new entertainment systems began. They tried a myriad of techniques, but nothing seemed to work. Shucks - but wait - this is where it gets very interesting - very!

Let me first say that I felt very sorry for the flight attendants as they clearly weren't IT people, and this was the 2nd "new" plane to fly. From what they said, the first plane's system was completely shut down. So, one would assume that United may have wanted to have one of the vendors responsible for the systems on the plane to troubleshoot. Instead, United Airlines put all of their employees in a very unfortunate situation - one that was totally avoidable. There was no way for the flight attendants to deal with the number of people who were upset. It must have been quite demoralizing for them not to be able to service the customers the way that they wanted.

It turns out that the majority of the lower CLV customers systems in economy were working splendidly, but the majority of the first the business class units were not working. So you have a situation in which the higher paying customers are receiving less. That's fairly interesting, but it gets better. The first and business class section travelers are generally the customers that have a much higher CLV than those that fly in coach. These customers fly more often, and are more loyal to an airline as they are usually enrolled in the Frequent Flyer programs.

I had told one of the flight attendants that the only way to get the system up would be a hard reboot, but that would have interrupted everyone else's movie in economy. Should the flight attendant be put in the position to have to be making those kinds of decisions? I think not!

Essentially - United Airlines failed both their customers and employees by not adequately testing their systems before they put the airplane in use. This all brought one thing into crystal clear focus for me - I feel trapped in my relationship with United Airlines much like I did with my iPod (that story is in an earlier blog post).

I am clearly a loyal flyer, but one company's problem is another company's time to act!

Running under the general assumption that most people are dissatisfied with their current airline, why doesn't one airline make the following strategic move?

Concentrate on customer service - build your entire brand on the platform! Then, go right after the other airlines high CLV customers by offering them the same status they had on your airline - free of charge. These customers have clearly shown through their behavior that they are extremely loyal, and the risk/reward for this strategic move is low risk - extremely high reward.

I'd switch airlines - I do 125-200K miles a year. Perhaps this is a space in which an airline needs to position themselves? Hmmmmmmm. Then make their move to grab all the high CLV customers from all the other airlines.

In any case - random food for thought as I descend into JFK.

I love learning, but wish I could have been entertained by all these fabulous electronics!

 It seems to be the mother of all challenges. It's the one that prospective clients call ad agency offices with daily - sometimes hourly when things are brisk.  "How do we increase relevancy within a particular market segment, and more importantly convert that new found relevancy into sales," they often say.  "How can we drive purchase and purchase consideration by our intended audience - an audience that currently doesn't even know that we exist?"  Both, by the way, are very good questions that brand managers are faced with on an hourly basis.

Walk through any ad agency or experiential marketing firm and you'll see the creative teams addressing these questions that are posed every day by their clients.  Often, agencies don't seem to land on the correct answer. That may explain why the business so often resembles a revolving door - old ones out - new ones in.  However, every once in a while an agency finds a way to shift perceptions to drive purchase.  I'd love to tell you that even those stories end well, but more times than not the agency is still shown the door.   The sustainable agency/client relationships that last are built on a foundation of mutual respect and trust.   When that foundation exists and great work is produced, the relationship only becomes stronger.  I am proud to say that our key clients have been with us for years.  That's the agency's goal and one of the things I value most.

OK, so by this point you're asking what the heck does this have to do with Guitar Hero?  If you're not asking this question then you've read some of my stuff before.  I have a tendency to draw correlations between some pretty strange things and approach things from highly unusual angles. My point is simple actually.

Guitar Hero is a perfect example of how you can get an audience interested in anything if you utilize a clever engagement mechanism that stimulates customer involvement.

I'm not referring to the game sales.  Clearly, it's an amazing game.  I have it set up in our house with multiple guitars and everyone still fights for their turn to play.  The game sells itself - you have to look inside of it to see what I am referring to, because by inside the game I am referring to the playlists.  These, by the way, will soon have every song ever made, but for now the current offerings are what I am talking about.

It's a fair statement to say, for the most part, that the USA has resided in a hip-hop nation for a number of years.  There are absolutely great artists that fall outside of hip-hop, but if I look back over the last few years I see charts dominated by the genre.  Only recently have we seen the reemergence of the singer songwriter.  As a quick side note - I love all genres, but I have been the biggest REM fan since the age of 11.  I am what most people would refer to as a lyrics person.  I find songs that truly resonate with me tend to be about world issues, personal experiences etc.  They're a little less about how much the singer's car cost, or how many diamonds they have in their watchband.  Having written that, I love great beats, and I love to jump on the dance floor to become fully involved with the music. OK, time for me to get back on track - blame the A.D.D.

One thing is for certain - Classic rock hasn't been dominating the airwaves.  It certainly hasn't been flying off the record shelves.  Or, for that matter, it isn't even being illegally downloaded frequently by today's younger generation.  This all leads up to one very important question that was asked to me by a 9, that's right 9-year-old boy.  What was the question?

"Erik, can you take me to Best Buy to get a Lynyrd Skynyrd CD?"  Now, at this point there are several reasons I almost hit the floor.  One is that I grew up in the southeast and live with the running joke of someone screaming Freebird at any concert I've ever attended.  It didn't matter if it was an REM concert or Lenny Kravitz - some yahoo was always screaming Freebird.

The fundamental question was why is a 9-year-old asking me to by him a Skynyrd album?  Guitar Hero had presented a 9-year-old an opportunity to relate to, and connect with, a song from another generation.  The game allowed him to put his own slant on the anthem, and had engaged him with something that he normally would never have even heard in his universe.  Actually, I did ask the question why Skynyrd? -  he had never heard of Skynyrd, but I was so intrigued by what had just unfolded in front of me, I had to ask.  This initial request was soon followed by requests for Santana albums , ZZ Top and Pearl Jam.  OK then.

The lesson here is simple.  Something was introduced to a 9-year-old using a clever mechanism that engaged his interest and attention and also allowed him to take partial ownership of the sound that was exiting the speakers at an extremely loud volume.  Result - album sales for artists the kid never knew existed. We have a winner!

What engagement techniques are you using to make your client's products/services relevant to their new, desired audience?  We should all be thinking about it while I head out to Best Buy to go grab a 9-year-old his latest request - Heart's last album.

It is time for all of us interested in experiential marketing and advertising to offer brilliant insightful comments about the annual parade of Super Bowl ads.  The Burns-Hauser blog is no exception in its attempt to understand the social, business and cultural context of the event and its supportive advertising that, ideally, pays for the show.  Here are a few observations before the big event that we would like to share.