Rrrolll Up The Rubbish

From the "What Were You Thinking?" department comes news that Tim Hortons is launching a loyalty program that is linked to a co-branded CIBC credit card. 

 

From what I have read, customers will collect Tim points whenever they buy their favorite items using the CIBC card. My experience at Tims tells me that, for example, if the average amount spent at lunch is about $8 and if you don't have $8 in your pocket, what the hell are you doing with a credit card? 

 

First, I have to wonder what Timmy expects to get from this. Greater customer loyalty? As far as I can tell, Tim's customers are loyal. Very loyal. I have even seen tour buses stop on busy city street so passengers can run in to grab coffee and snacks. I have never seen that at Starbucks. Ever. (SNARK ALERT: Maybe it's because hipsters don't take tour buses unless it's to an alt/indie/vinyl conventions?)  I believe Tim's customers are buying as much as they can now and the program won't change that.

Second, credit card-wielding customers don't seem to resemble the typical Tim customers—at least as far as I can tell. They are the construction workers, the retirees, the moms going to soccer practice, the dads going to hockey practice. Everyday Canadians. And either they pay with cash or Interac, which tells me they spend what they can afford, and Tim sells affordable products.

Third, to be cost effective, the program needs to attract customers who are heavy buyers in the category but do so infrequently at Tim Hortons. Research shows, however, loyalty programs are poor at doing that.  

Finally, Loyalty programs are expensive to run and reward to loyal customers for doing something they already do, so it is likely it will produce no noticeable change in behavior. They are also quite difficult to end: customers will complain about losing their points (and place more value on them than the actual worth; there can be some formidable legal hurdles to wrapping it up; and there would be sizable infrastructure costs to write off. 

The positive announcements from the company are that it will tackle long lines in its stores, shorten the menu by dumping seldom ordered items, and launch new seasonal items. It also has taken Cold Stone Creamery out behind the barn and put a bullet in its head. These changes make sense and may attract lighter purchase customers, which increases penetration; a tactic that is cheaper than running a program that tries to increase market share. But that's just my two bits worth.

Useless fact of the Day: Lots of Teens use Facebook

Today's emarketer email blast leads off with a report stating that while 95.9% of teens use Facebook there are signs that it is vulnerable to a downturn.  I guess at almost 96% there is no place to go but down what with an increase of more visual platforms, such as Snapchat, Vine and Instagram for the Selfie Generation. 

I have to ask, who gives a rat's ass?"  Why is this important?

I'm puzzled by the laser-like focus marketers place on this segment. They seem to have locked themselves into believing the Pepsi Generation style of marketing to youth works, and by getting teens today you'll have them for life.  It didn't work then, it doesn't work now, and it won't work tomorrow. 

This myth is as persistent as an antibiotic-resistant dose of clap.  First, teens have no money except what they get from parents, and it is usually spent on clothing or accessories. music, and food.  What do they value?  One survey showed that 75% of teens would choose new shoes over 50 new mp3 downloads and 63% would take new jeans over concert tickets.

Second, even if a marketer gets a teen to "like" their brand, it is probably because "Brittney said it was cool." It means nothing—except that Brittney is an influencer.  And getting a teen to say they would use a particular service is as valid as her saying she'll clean her room (I have three daughters).  Despite the promises and best effort, I still needed a Bobcat and a coal shovel to clear a path from the door to her closet.  

I'm not slagging the demo, but too much time and resources are spent chasing a mirage.  Everything the pundits, the gurus, and hucksters say about teens and their media habits is either an assumption or wishful thinking.  Or they're selling books. It is time to grow up and look at the demo that has the money to spend.  

"Principles endure, formulas don't."

The Bill Bernbach quote above appears in the introduction to Dave Trott's Predatory Thinking.  Fitting, too, since what follows are other advertising gems and Trott's uncommon common sense anecdotes worthy of the great Bernbach.

If you haven't heard of Dave Trott, shame on you.  He's launched some of the most respected agencies in the world—not one of those big, soul-crushing behemoths out of New York and Paris—and received the D&AD President's award for lifetime achievement in advertising.  He has created some outstanding campaigns over the years and learned a lot along the way.  Predatory Thinking imparts a fraction of that wisdom.

Trott's observations and advice come in convenient, bite-sized chunks.  Short enough for you to chew on two or three of them between subways stops but addictive enough for you to let a few trains pass so you can indulge in a handful more. 

Here are just a few:

Trott cites a lack of imagination and creative mischief in advertising today.  That too many of us are trying to make art instead of ads that sell. After all, that is the business we're in.—or rather we are supposed to try and influence a person's buying decision rather than compel them to buy.  I say influence instead of compel because it is almost impossible to force someone to do something they don't want to do without the use of force. Any parent who has tried to insert a defiant toddler into a snowsuit and winter boots knows this.

He laments the loss of the shit disturbers, the bloody-minded sorts who challenge the status quo, who push against convention, and speak truth to power.  The one's who make people uncomfortable. 

Making people feel uncomfortable is hard, a lot harder than simply shocking them.  Offending people is easy.  Any talentless hack desperate for attention can be shocking.  The trouble is that it exists merely for its own sake and usually attracts the wrong kind of attention. To get someone to feel uncomfortable is to make them see something new.  Something that gets their attention and makes them to think. 

Trott bemoans the fact that we have gone from quality to quantity.  Every job is assessed, sliced, and diced based on the estimated time needed to complete the task.  With that magic figure, people are inserted into the project based on their hourly rate: a junior AD can only work on it because she's cheaper, and the copywriter can only do two revisions or it will go over budget.

"Counting has taken over from what counts.

And we've forgotten the first rule of advertising.

It doesn't matter what went into it

What matters is what people get out of it." 

It seems to me, however, that what is good for the goose isn't necessarily good for the gander. Can you imagine one of the heads of those earth-scorching advertising holding companies, after getting his multi-million dollar performance bonus saying, "Sorry but I can't buy that Bentley because it has too many coats of hand-applied lacquer on it and the cabinetmakers spent too much time polishing the burled walnut trim."  Yeah, me neither.    

Trott also warns that too many clients and creatives are looking through the wrong end of the telescope when it comes to advertising:

"Clients, naturally look down the end that magnifies the brand or product.

Until it takes up their whole world.

But the consumer is looking through the other end.

Where the brand/product may be a tiny part, if it exists at all."

Trott has a way to get his team looking down the consumer end of the telescope before trying to solve the creative problem. When he briefs the team working on a pitch for the first time, he asks them to write down everything they know about the brand and the market. What they write down is likely everything the consumer knows or thinks about it.  A knowledge benchmark.  And once the research starts, the team moves away from that benchmark.  The challenge, after all the research is done and the brand and product knowledge digested, is for the team to find a way to distill all they learned into something the consumer, standing all alone by that benchmark, would find important. 

One of my favourite bites is his advice to creative directors, both the wannabes and the current.  To illustrate his point he cites one of Liverpool's greatest footballers—and one of the team's greatest managers, Kenny Dalglish.  Shortly after becoming the manager, he was asked how he was finding the transition from the field to the front office, Dalglish said, "Well, I'll know I've got the team right when I can't get on it." Bang on: as creative director it's not about your talent as an art director or copywriter, it's about assembling a team so talented that even you couldn't get on it. 

You can find Predatory Thinking at amazon.ca and at in-store at some Chapters/indigo locations.

The Meh-llennials

 Not quite the mindless Social Media lemmings we were led to believe

Those darn kids.  Just when you think you've got them figured out, they go and do this.  A survey from Redshift Research in the UK has uncovered some interesting facts about the Millennials that counter what the experts say (not again!).  Here's what its infographic reveals:

Myth: Millennials spend their lives on Social Media

Fact:  Only 41% spend 3+ hours a week on Facebook and 29% spend 3+ hours per week on YouTube.

• 15% spend more than 3+ hours/week on Twitter. 43% don't use twitter

Myth: Millennials are all about smartphones and tablets, not yesterday's laptop/desktops

Fact:  65% spend more time accessing the Internet from a laptop or desktop than from their smartphone or tablet

Myth: Millennials spend most of their time chatting on Social Media and texting

Fact:  On average, they spend 108 hours/year browsing the Web for work and study—about as much time as they spend texting.

• They spend 77 hours/year reading news online, more than the 71+ hours/year spent on Twitter and 36 hours/year looking at celebrity gossip

Myth:  Millennials are obsessed with gaming and have no time for books

Fact:  61% of females are more likely to spend time reading books (26% list gaming as a hobby).

• 37% of males viewing reading as a popular pastime while 51% list gaming as a hobby

The "i" in Team!

In an effort to reduce costs and boost profits, Super agency BDBBOO & D has replaced its creative departments with a series of tablets called iCreate, These new tablets come in three models: iCopywriter, iAD, and iCD.

Sir Norbert Compostheap IV, the agency's chairman says that with the iCreate "We can produce a constant stream of innovative, engaging content and ads for our clients while saving a bundle."  Compostheap says it was only a matter of time before technology caught up to the creative process and "that time is now."  For instance, he expects to save $2.3 million on coffee and snacks at each agency per year and substantially more than that with the elimination of the Friday Beer cart.  "It's amazing how many things we found we could cut once we decided to move to the iCreate studio.  Hell, we don't even need to pay for heating or lights.  Win!" 

Here's how it works.  The account executive sends a six to ten key-word creative brief to a designated iCreate team.  Once downloaded, iCopywriter builds a copy deck from a database of 250,000,000 client- and legal department approved words.  At the same time, iAD, using a pre-approved colour palette and font, as well as the proprietary Logo-Be-Larger™ and Whitespace Eraser™ apps, produces pre-approved, press/html-ready Mac art.  Once complete, these documents are automatically uploaded to iCD, which combines the copy and artwork into a presentation format complete with 237 words of laudatory sell copy for the account executive to use during the client presentation.  The whole process takes about 3.5 minutes. Compostheap says clients will love it, too, because changes can be made in seconds and there is no, absolutely no pushback from iCreate.  "It simply makes the changes without the fucking attitude." 

Harvey's new campaign—oh so close*

A Marketing Magazine email blast arrived this AM and above the fold was a story on the newest Harvey's Restaurants campaign from BBDO Toronto that launched November 26. The goal is to reinforce its brand offering (build your own burger) and enlarge its customer base.  The idea is that people can log on to its microsite to build their own special burger and with the help of a "lawyer" they can get their burger copy protected.  Since the launch, people have registered 4,000 unique burger combinations—during the first four hours one burger a minute, on average, was registered (how many employees does BBDO have?)

Look, I like the idea (tho' it's obvious it has been watered down from what was presented to the client) but it's not quite there.  First, there are a few execution issues.  This isn't me being a stickler for the tiny details, because it's forgetting about those little touches that can ruin a concept.  For instance, on the site's video we are introduced to Morely Gunn, the guy who can register your burger and protect it from bounders.  Anyway, the image show him in his office, but notice the door.  Unless he is in the lobby, the lettering should be reversed.  It loses authenticity.

How do you think people would have reacted if that happened in, say The Maltese Falcon?  Either it was a dumb mistake or it thinks people are idiots.

The other execution problem is this: 

A Grammar Nazi's delight!

Second, I have questions about to whom the campaign is directed. Harvey’s (which makes great burgers, BTW) has an older customer base but wants to go after the Millennials. It wants to skew to a younger audience because the older ones, who just happen to represent over 50% of consumer spending, control 70% of all the wealth and dominate almost 95% of CPG categories just aren’t good enough. It would rather have the customer with the fewest disposable dollars and higher debt-to-income obligations than any other demographic. 

Finally, to grab that younger crowd, Harvey’s relies on Social Media. I guess that’s because, you know, the older crowd doesn’t use the Interweb. Don’t get me wrong here, I like the idea, but the targeting is misguided. It is based on an assumption that is can't possibly be verified.  

The way I figure it, if Harvey's is killing it with an older demographic, why not increase market penetration of that older segment instead of trying to increase market share with destitute Millennials?  And it wouldn't have to discount the product (and the brand) to do it. 

*DISCLAIMER My creation is "The Meat and Other Stuff Burger."

The Devaluation of Experience in the Age of Credentialism

The other day I came across an ad for a Senior Copywriter that required 3+ years experience.  Three years.  Oh, and a degree in a related field, which I guess supposedly bridges the deep gaping chasm of inexperience. 

When I started in this business, anyone with between one and three years experience was a junior. Three to six was intermediate and seven-plus was senior.  But I guess in this age of soccer trophies, calling a junior a senior helps bolster his or her self esteem.  Or is something else in play?

Maybe it is because agencies prefer to offer title over salary—the "We'll pay you a fraction of what the job entails but you'll have an impressive business card" approach. 

Or maybe it is because HR departments believe that because someone earned a degree in whatever, they're inherently more qualified than another who has done the job for years.  I'm not knocking degrees (OK, I am a bit) but having one doesn't automatically mean you're smart or qualified.  It just means you've read a bunch of stuff on a subject, wrote a bunch of things on a subject and, hopefully, you actually passed that subject rather than had your grades inflated.  It's another piece of paper, like the basic Word doc resume, that only shows is what you have done in the past not what your potential is in the future. And the bigger, the more specialized the degree (to paraphrase Thomas Sowell), the more likely you're unaware of your own vast sea of ignorance surrounding the small island of your knowledge. 

I tend to lean towards the former because the output of agencies these days shows there is no big idea anymore.  It is now making the quarterly sales target.  It is about ignoring the inherent flaws, and growing fraud, in online advertising and metrics for as long as the money keeps flowing.  It's about the industry being run by lawyers, accountants, managers, planners, data analysts—anyone and everyone except those who actually create the work. 

I guess as long as clients can't recognize, or are willing to accept, the mediocre, not much will change. One can only hope there are a few agency renegades out there plotting to undermine the business model to create a new movement in advertising that's jargon-free, original, and accountable.