Ideas Made Well

Celebrity Big Brother has been the surprise hit of 2010, delivering far better ratings than were to be expected from what many see as a very tired format limping its way out of the limelight. When Channel 4 announced last year that Big Brother was to be no more, few were surprised. The racism row had totally undermined the celeb version and the “normal” (as in “other non-celebrity)” version was a freak show with weird and not very interesting people.

So, many people stopped watching.

The tabloids scaled down their coverage and the format was officially given one more year to live. It is unlikely that the “other” version’s last series will be a winner as, apart from being set in the same house and having evictions, there is a massive difference between the celeb version and its non-celeb counterpart.

The rise of celebrities and celebrity continues year on year, seemingly indefinitely. Many people are fascinated by each nuance of celebrities’ lives, most of which are kept well hidden and rely on speculation, conjecture, and – more often than not – total fabrication. The beauty of Celeb Big Bro is that many nuances are not hidden – hence the audience gets a lot out of it. They see what celebs are really like – or think they do. It therefore informs their lives beyond Celeb Big Brother the programme in much the same way as “I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here” does.

If I was at Channel 4, I would keep the format and just do the Celeb version. They might even do two series a year? Although part of the reason for its success is probably the January time slot, when people are in various forms of hibernation /depression.

It just goes to show that two things that at first sight look very similar, aren’t in fact very similar at all, which is what everyone in brand and marketing knew all along.

A long time ago, everything used to go wrong all the time.

Repair services were on every high street and customer service was a very important part of any brand. Then came computers and call centres. Things began to go wrong far less often. Outsourcing became the flavour of the month, and when CEOs looked for cost savings, customer service was top of the list. Business models sprang up where customer service was non-existent, as anyone who has ever tried to have a conversation with Ryanair will testify, and customer service became all about metrics.

Yet brands need to be very careful about downgrading the importance of customer service, as it is a very real customer experience of the brand. If the person representing a brand is rude, unhelpful and disinterested, then it is human nature for those values to transfer to the brand in the minds of a consumer. Ocado sent a brilliant piece of direct marketing after the problems of the snow pre- and post- Christmas, which was a copy of an internal email sent from the CEO. The email congratulated all the staff for meeting more than 99% of orders in the most challenging conditions, drawing attention to various staff who stayed till deep into the night and occasionally through the night, in order not to disappoint customers. My impression of Ocado mushroomed as a result. If Ocado had started as a button mushroom in my mind, it had become an organic chanterelle after this demonstration of customer service in action.

This isn’t just a matter of good brand management, it is a means of adding real value to a brand. At Start, we are committed to bringing customer experiences to life using events, environments and digital media. We know how effective these can be in creating value, but we also know that when the experiences are at odds with the customer service experience, the potential benefits are suppressed. Let’s all hope that more companies take on board the Ocado philosophy – it will make all our lives considerably easier.

The topic most in the news this year so far has been the weather. How very British of us, the cynics might say. Snow has fallen in huge quantities across many parts of the UK and has even settled in central London, which is a rare occurrence.

For many it has meant misery, being stuck on motorways overnight, crashing cars on slippery roads, train nightmares, arriving home frozen and tired. All sorts of snow stories have appeared in the press; from the couple who lived 15 miles from each other but who were still trying to meet up two weeks after Christmas, to the school closures, to the sports fixtures cancelled due to the danger of the surrounding areas… It is reported to have wiped billions off the UK economy. Chaos has prevailed.

Yet snow also brings great joy, not least from the under 10s who adore it as much as celebs seem to enjoy Barbados in January. In reality, all sorts of age groups enjoy it, despite the inconveniences it brings with it. Snow has a romantic quality that makes us all excited, and feel as if it’s a special occasion, even though it’s a dark Monday in January. It is somehow magical. Workers delight in telling how they overcame the snow to get to and from work. People talk about how much snow has fallen in their area with a potential for exaggeration that would put a 3 year old to shame. If your area doesn’t measure up, (you only had a couple of inches whilst a neighbouring area may have had the full 6 inches), you feel somehow emasculated.

Snow brings back memories, creates things to talk about, has the ability to make everything quiet, and it will be talked about for months to come. How many brands would like to be like snow?
True it has some bad consequences but these are all somehow forgiven for the sheer romance of it all.

One of the benefits to a week and a bit off work at the end of the year is that you get a chance to think and read. Or read and think. “The 86 biggest lies on Wall street” by John R Talbott is one of those books that make you think whilst you are reading it. Not only does it give a very credible reason for the banking crisis/credit crunch or recession – basically a rotten system that allows corporations of various types to charge outrageous fees for poor advice that has used the lack of regulation in the financial industry to exploit individuals and companies alike for years on end – but the lies themselves are fascinating.

In at number 8 on the biggest lies list is “Corporations are just like people, only more rational.” Talbott argues very persuasively that corporations are nothing like people – they are far more greedy and have far fewer morals. In short, corporations are like the people that most people hate. Why is this? Simply because there is a short-term profit objective that overrides all other objectives and is inextricably linked to the remuneration of the people running the company. Clearly this isn’t true for all corporations but as generalisations go, it’s probably one of the truest.

So, what does this mean for brands?

Quite a lot is the simple answer.

Most decent communications agencies have extolled the virtues of long-term vision regarding brands for many years, indeed decades. Exploitation of brands is a bad idea – rather like exploitation of a child or a woman working the streets of Soho. Brands are, or at least were, things to be cared for and nurtured. Radical brands like Apple and Virgin were slightly different but they innovated far more than ordinary brands, so the innovation led and defined the brand.

Now it is true that brands have to work far harder than ever before to maintain their reputations. New brands are born and established way quicker than they ever used to be. Think of Facebook, Twitter and Google. Then think of American Apparel, Bench and All Saints. All established in the blink of an eye relative to the old timescales. A traditional “softly, softly” approach is not what corporations’ moneymen are looking for any more. They want quick results, which means when brands have good ideas, then brands need to ‘go for it’.

Consumers though are the people who are really driving this – rather than the moneymen. This is the real power of digital. The fact that consumers and moneymen both have the same objective is coincidental but if agencies don’t recognise the fact that the objectives are strikingly similar, then those agencies will wither and die. There is no point in extolling the virtues of the old way if no-one really believes in it anymore. Without a willing audience, every show, however worthy, will fail.

So here is the 87th biggest lie – “ Tradition defines the future”. It was true for so long – but not any more. What an opportunity that provides for agencies with an entrepreneurial slant. Quick intelligent thinking will define the successful agencies of 2010 and those agencies with a pedigree will be the ones best able to prosper if – and it is a big if – they allow themselves to do so.

Read the book – it’s a very good read.