An International Smoothie

The Cheeseburger Approach to Media

Cheeseburgers are pretty damn awesome. Picture courtesy of roboppy via Flickr.

I started writing this post 6 weeks or so ago when the IAB joyfully announced than internet adspend had overtaken TV adspend for the first time in history, and am only happy with it now. So much for the immediacy of the interwebs.

Anyway, now that the self-appointed and anointed digerati have had their parties and patted themselves on the back, maybe we can come crashing back down to reality. 

And the reality is the majority of this adspend online is on search, which leads to another interesting point - people who work in the digital space have been crowing for some time how online isn't just 1 channel (it's a brazillion), yet when it suits them in the epic battle against the evil forces of above-the-line they fly the 1 channel banner while sticking their tongues out with all the grace of the 4 year old version of the guy typing these words throwing a tantrum in aisle 7 of a Toys-R-Us when he didn't get a He-Man sword.

This announcement, and the subsequent fanfare from parts of the advertising fraternity, seemed to be completely missing the point: The way we look at media and channels is totally broke.

If I went solely by my experiences with media agencies (particularly those who talk about people first and better results ), I'd be able to confidently say that they're primarily staffed by robots for whom analytical thought is impossible.

I don't say that lightly. I'm sure you'll all agree that seeing media 'plan' (in the loosest sense of the word) after media plan wheeled out with the same channels, the same 'strategy' and the same sense of enthusiasm gradually wears any benefit of the doubt down to finely ground dust. As an example, the aforementioned media agency this year has, for 5 different clients shown me the exact same media plan. For toothpaste, car insurance, shower gel, the same. Great planning.

Of course, I know that not all media agencies are the same. But I think the way we look at media doesn't reflect the way the people we try to connect with do. And that's the biggest indictment of the model that I can think of. I could add how every media plan I've seen basically is about buying the lowest cost media with the highest margin for the purchasing company, but I won't.

How do regular people divvy up media? Does the man on the street think "I need to check the Premier League scores, let me interact with the mobile channel" as he walks down the street? Does he find himself in front of a store window with the TVs showing Sky Sports and think "Oh, let me now direct my attention to the television medium"? Of course not. He, like pretty much every other person just wants to be able to get to whatever content he wants quickly, and preferably without being interrupted by banal mutterings about products he may or may not need.

Which leads to what I call my Cheeseburger theory of media (patent pending of course). When you sit down to eat a cheeseburger, everything that makes that burger (the bread, the cheese, the lettuce, the condiments, the meat and so on) is crucial in making the experience of eating that cheeseburger awesome. If the cheese is off, you could peel it off and throw it out, but then it's not a cheeseburger. If the condiments aren't to your taste, then you lose flava. And so on...

Rather than looking at media channels in isolation, we should consider what the cheeseburger for each brand should 'taste' like. And I believe that means ditching the way we consider channels and media for something that fits better. 

For example, I might watch Heroes on TV, on NBC.com, on my iPhone or on another streaming service like Hulu. It's still Heroes for me and it's in video. No matter where or when I watch it, it's video. I might listen to Radio 4 in the car, on an iPod Nano (or similar portable player) or as a podcast on my laptop, or on my phone. It's still whatever program I was listening to (let's call it File on 4, cause that's awesome). It's audio, whichever way you slice it. See where I'm going with this? 

I think it's time we slice our channels the way we take them in, it makes life a LOT easier. 

So we have: 

• Video 
• Pictures 
• Sound 

Simples right? I thought so too initially but then Eaon raised a valuable point about where we digest media - that and Charlie's "Context is King" thinking got me thinking again. We've got the what we process, but what about where?

When it comes to where content/media is digested (I refuse to use the word consumed in this post) there is a company's website, perhaps they have in-house media like a magazine, their social media presences and other media they own. So that's owned media. 

Then there's the media that's purchased, be it time on TV, the radio, or real estate online and so on. Paid media then. 

Finally, there's the form of media that makes marketing managers and communication folk the most nervous, but the type that people trust the most, other people. What people are saying about your product in reviews, on their own blogs, on YouTube, in forums and the litany of other personal places where people can express their feelings about a product, company or service. This is earned media. 

When I think of media, those 3 slices are the way I cut the pie up:

• Paid
• Owned
• Earned

So to make that a little bit easier for me to understand, I've very quickly mucked around and put all that into a picture

 

(At this point, I totally realize I've talked about Cheeseburgers and then come up with a weird picture that's definitely NOT a cheeseburger. I'm going to say that I'm under duress and leave it at that)

People who work in communications love to play lip service to 'integration' and the like, but in reality they're too busy trying to hoard their slice of the 'channel pie' to give a damn about how their idea fits with anyone else's. 

I can name employees of 5 so called creative agencies in London who in the past 12 months have looked at an idea from another agency (be it a PR, ambient, interactive or in-store concept) and said something like "That won't work with the TV". I'm considering naming and shaming, but hope that at some point, these organizations and employees cotton on that if they truly give a damn about their clients' businesses (rather than giving a damn about the fact that their invoices are paid up), they'll change the way they approach 'integration'. And maybe, they'll start taking the cheeseburger approach. Stranger things have happened, barely.

The Right Tools, Today

Anybody? Pic from my Flickr

Wow. It's been a while since I got my International Smoothie on. Quite a bit has gone down, Marcus gave a scintillating performance at the Market Porter(for which I still have to do a wrap-up post with how much we raised, I know, I'm garbage), I had a week in Bangkok that went by way to fast (and must give thanks to Charlie for his hospitality and general awesomeness) and in the midst of all of that I somehow managed to cheat a bunch of really great people out of Neil's Thinktank Post of the Month (something I'm still a little suprised at, I was in the air for most of the voting, who voted for me? I owe you all a beverage).

Gratuitous logo use baby.

I also must write about my fantastic experience with Jet Airways on the way and back from Thailand, I'm the first to yell when I have a bad experience with a company so I must commend Jet for the immense brand blowjob I was on the receiving end of. There's also the matter of the jay-oh-bee, where I feel like the awesomeness is growing daily, mainly due to the boss keeping me on track and showing a young blood how it's done.

But all of that will have to wait because I've been meaning to post about this for a while, and now is the damn time.

So SXSW has come and gone for another 12 months, and while there was the expected taking over of the Twitter trending lists (which as Faris points out is just another indicator that in spite of the Ashton Kutchers and Shaq Diesels of the Twitterverse, Twitter is still very much a niche tool used in a large part by a group of people with surprisingly similar interests), I didn't really feel like anything BOOM came out of it this year, perhaps because I was in Thailand at the time, or perhaps that's my own rationalization for not going this year.

In many ways it's irrelevant whether something bombastically game-changing came out of SXSW this year because I think that would be missing the point if we're sitting waiting for superman to fly in and deliver something that will solve our problems. Because we have everything we need now. There's a point at which the talking about new methods of communication has to stop and delivering the positive change to people will have to begin or we'll all be collectively branded as having "all bluff and no stuff". I think that point is here. Today.

I wrote earlier about how I think social media as a tool has it all to prove this year. That's really just a polite way of saying the finger is pointed at all of us who have been raving about things like Twitter, the power of collective good and the ability of companies to exact small positive changes amongst the people who buy their products as well as turn in some kind of profit.

I've heard some complaints about how clients and colleagues don't get it. How it's so hard to get through to them and all the rest of it. We all do it, but frankly this bitching is embarrassing, if the sum of this is keyboard warrior-ism, we should quit now and write wanky op-ed pieces for the Daily Mail. It's our job to be the change, and as Neil points out to remember that it can be a twisting long road. Sometimes it may feel like you're giving more than you're getting, but if you believe in what you're doing, it will eventually be worth it.

Let's face it: budgets will be small (don't we keep saying that doing good stuff is scalable? Let's prove it), people will be skeptical (internally and externally) and it will be a scrap pretty much everyday. But it will separate that talkers from the walkers, it will filter out those who thinks it's cool to be a little different but when push comes to shove they resort to comfortable mediocrity and most of all, there will be a point when we ask (or are asked) why we we're doing it.

Because we have no choice. I really believe that. Now I'm not saying that a particular medium is dead or anything like that, everything is a tool and every tool has a place. I'm saying the model is changing, the way in which we approach the communications business is changing and we need to prove to ourselves that it will work. That we can make marketing a product into something that's good for the company by being good for the people.

We have everything we need now, we have the broadband penetration, the communities of purpose, the booming smartphone market, the amazing collective knowledge to draw upon and the clients who are becoming increasingly desperate in tumultous economic waters. The man/woman in the mirror is the missing piece. It's that simple.

Why is it that simple? How do I know we have the tools we need now? It was this simple press ad that started this whole post for me:

It needs to be pointed out that the agency that made this ad isn't based in New York, London, Chicago, Portland, San Fran, Paris or Sydney or wherever is the next creative hotspot. And yet the message they've come up with gives a financial incentive to begin to address an environmental problem and start a shift in behavior that's for the good of all. For me that's creativity; making a grave issue addressable in a compelling and human way.

I can say that hand on heart because I feel like at work every week there's a little victory, there's another change that is for the better. It's a little Al Pacino from Any Given Sunday-like, maybe I'm a fool, maybe I've got a complex about believing that making life a tiny bit better for people is the key to successful business because I'm the only one in my family who's not a doctor. But that's the way I look at it, as a competition against myself to prove that I can change the way people view marketing. And I know there are plenty of others out there working for the same thing:



So here's what I want to do. I want to do a meetup in December, an unconference, a meeting of awesome, whatever, where people do short and sharp presentations of how this year, they did some of the most amazing and worthwhile work in their careers. How they had to deal with shit from every corner but in the end it was worth it. In the end it made someone's life a little more pleasant.

It's been said that being boring and mediocre is become harder and harder. We have the tools to make it so uncomfortable that those that want to have to change or just go home. So I'll see you all in London in December. And you can tell everyone how you did it, how you were one of the first and why it felt so fucking cool to be a part of something awesome.

I'd hate to think that the summation of everything social media is raising money for charity and having Cwoffee on Fridays. They are both great and worthwhile things, but I know there's so much more we can achieve. With the tools we have today.