Advertising Thingys

A sticking point on the subject of “stickiness”

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Yesterday, I spilled coffee in the cupholder of my car.  No big deal.  But today, it revealed a curious discovery about an important aspect of modern marketing:  the phenomenon known as “stickiness.”  We’ve all heard this term in the last several years, probably in many different contexts.  But what’s really happening in a “sticky” exchange, and is there something tangible for us to take away?  The coffee spill in my car provided one ineluctable clue.

First, let’s review what “stickiness” is.  This term came of age about the time websites and web development began standardization discussions. Sticky sites are those that have the ability to attract repeat visits, or to keep visitors there longer, by virtue of content or customization or both.  Basically, just about every website WANTS to be sticky, but not all of them are. Malcolm Gladwell, in his paradigm-defining book The Tipping Point, quantified the “stickiness factor” as the informational content and packaging of a marketing message. He argued that some messages are sticky (and therefore remain active in the consumer/recipient’s mind,) and others simply are not (and thereby forgotten, or worse, not transmitted or spread.)

These are both helpful clues, but they may leave out one critical factor.  In my opinion (as evidenced by the coffee spill I mentioned above,) stickiness is not as much a phenomenon as it is a process.  And it’s really a TWO-PART process. (And someday, these two parts may be managed by Chief Stickiness Officers popping up at forward-thinking organizations.  Yeah, no…that’s probably taking it too far.)  Part 1 is creating stickiness.  That’s the more obvious and relatively easy part.  Part 2 – the much more difficult aspect – is what I’ll call the “hardening.”

You see, anything that’s truly sticky tends to go through a transformational process from sticky/gooey phase to hard/fixed state.  Think about it…drop a dab of honey on your kitchen counter…all sticky and gooey, right?  Leave it there for a few hours or even a day, and it hardens at the edges – you’ll need a spoon to wrestle it away from the counter.  Same with glue.  It goes on sticky, but the real work isn’t done until the glue hardens.  And in some cases (depending on the glue,) that hardening could permanently affix two or more items. The process bears true for most sticky substances, like chewing gum (if left somewhere) and even a bit of spilled coffee in the cupholder of one’s car.

You certainly need assistance in getting something to coat the surface – that’s where a sticky/gooey texture comes in very handy.  (And probably a feasible budget.)  But the real value of anything sticky is that the substance is given what it needs to harden in place.

Let this be the beginning of a new understanding for anyone involved in the marketing process.  Messages are simply more effective – and if you buy Gladwell’s theory, they’re ONLY effective – if they’re sticky.  And an oooey-gooey texture will help initiate the process.  But for your messages to be truly memorable and worth spreading – to be clinically sticky – they must be given the time and the ingredients and the environment to harden in place.  How do we manage that?  Tune in for follow-up posts on this topic.

Two thirds of Americans Object to Online Tracking. But Why?

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A new study has been released called “Americans Reject Tailored Advertising” and it could signal a return to Capitol Hill for marketers.  Eeek.  UPenn Ph.D. Joseph Turow and four others have compiled this telemarketing study, and conclude that majority percentages of Americans are opposed to having the websites they visit track their activities.

In the summary of the study, the authors state “our findings suggest that if Americans could vote on behavioral targeting today, they would shut it down.”

But why?

Why in the world would you object to tailored ANYTHING?  If I walk into a hotel and have a choice between hearing “good morning, sir, we have a room for you,” and “good morning Mr. Ashway, we have a room for you just the way you like it – on an upper floor with a view of the city and close to the elevator,” um, I think I don’t really care how they know that.  Besides, I can always disagree.

Most of the reason we all love the web is BECAUSE it’s tailored.  BECAUSE it’s cookie’d.  That’s why Amazon is so cool:  “Welcome back.  We have recommendations for you.”  That’s why YouTube is so cool:  “Here are some videos you might like.”  If we had to wait for every site to uniquely load every component of the site every time we visited we wouldn’t want to visit anymore.  Besides, we can always disagree, and go with something other than the recommendations.

My best guess is that most Americans are fearful that their information will be misused in some way, and most likely in credit card fraud.  But that’s not the argument here.  Online tracking is not about storing or stealing, it’s about tailoring and timing.  That’s what makes web marketing what it is:  contextualized.  If we remove that, it’s just vagueness and a cacophony of undirected, irrelevant advertising noise. Yuk.

This sounds like horsehockey.  More to come on this study and this topic in the near future.

Radisson takes an “adversity branding” platform. And it works.

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In yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, Radisson Hotels invested in a half page ad in the Marketplace section.  It wasn’t an ad with a juicy third-night-free offer, or even touting the allures of any of its zillion locations.  No pretty pictures.  No direct response call to action.

It was an open letter.  To be more specific, an open apology letter to any guests that stayed at any North American Radisson between November 2008 and May 2009.  Turns out they were hacked, and they come clean in this letter.

But this is more than a simple mea culpa.  And way more than an apology.  This is a strategic positioning initiative that tackles an ugly problem head-on and engages the audience in the healing process.  In the letter, they provide a direct link on their website for more information and how to receive free credit monitoring for one year.  (You’re eligible only if Radisson can confirm that you stayed at one of the hotels during the stipulated period.)

Despite the gaffe, Radisson comes off looking pretty good here, and very responsible.  The average consumer will be miffed at first, but then heartened by the multiple steps the company is taking to a.) make it up to their customers and b.) shore up their security initiatives by working with law enforcement and credit card companies.  It also provides some insight to the operational values at the corporation.

Bur more importantly, I think this leaves the consumer more confident in the brand – and interestingly, more bonded.  The fact that Radisson shares this “we’ve been compromised, too” idea with the consumer helps to unite the brand with its audience on an unlikely, but effective, triangulation point.

Hey Congress: your messaging strategy sucks.

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Congress weighs in on advertising again.  Clumsily, again.  In a new post on Adage.com, Nat Ives & Rich Thomaselli detail new efforts from Congress that attempt to either strip tax benefits of DTC pharma ads, or add heavier guidelines in several online and offline connection points.  The main takeaway is that there’s NO ORGANIZED APPROACH to what Congress is doing, making it less and less clear as to why they’re enacting all this “stuff” in the first place.  If it’s about consumer protection, they should say so.  If it’s about fiscal concerns, say so.  But as you read this story, it’s clear:  there’s no rhyme or reason.

What the government needs right now (aside from a vacation and a valium,) is a stronger messaging strategy.  When you’re talking about tens of millions of jobs, hundreds of billions of locally generated (and taxable) dollars, and badly-needed trillions churned in the domestic economy, you had better be on point.  And these new reports of heavier-than-usual-legislation-in-a-recessed-economy-trying-to-pull-itself-by-the-bootstraps do not produce a juicy tagline whatsoever.

On this blog, we’ve already discussed how Congress is adversely affecting the consumer in the process of all of this.  Ad targeting (online or offline) helps put marketing in context, and makes it less “noisy” for the consumer.  Putting these opt-ins and opt-outs and “are-you-sure?” buffers in between consumers and ad messages isn’t just messy, but it may ultimately cost the country billions in lost revenue.  See the post below:  Check Your Privacy – On the Floor.

This latest wave of government bureacracy is fueling the stereotype of Democratic government – we look wasteful and petty in the face of a tidal wive of really important agenda items.  The marketing community could be HELPING the cause right now in a big way by doing what it does best:  keeping the conversation on point, filtering out the noise and making a lot of this easier for American consumers to understand.  But every day Congress flings another dart in the agency world’s direction, they’re – we’re – going to be less and less inclined to do so.

Meet the new advertising. Same as the old advertising.

Nader Ashway3 Comments

This morning, I started my day by reading several articles, blog posts and emails.  And it seems that all of them were about “viral video.”  Did you see those cute little babies on roller skates?  (How did they do THAT?)  Or the naked stewardess?  How about the viral video that EXPLAINS how the Samsung viral video was filmed?  Did you hear that the ad world is anxiously awaiting new web videos from FedEx?

Viral, viral, viral.  And this stuff is way out in the open.

But here’s the thing.  It’s all been done before.

The online revolution has been a liberating force – inside and out of the marketing sphere – particularly for the information consumer.  Companies large and small cram their value propositions into an 800 pixel frame for the world to see.  Politicians can clearly (sometimes) lay out their platforms for voters.  And millions of people (including yours truly) with opinions on millions of topics, blog the days away, blasting and re-shaping the editorial and cultural landscape.

But what about advertising?  Why is it that advertising is ALWAYS about making these little movies?  In the three and a half decades since the early 1970’s, the television :30 or :60 has remained the absolute pinnacle of creative output.  TV wins the big awards.  TV drives the big budgets.  TV, TV, TV.  It puts radio and print ads and direct and outdoor and promotions out to dry.

So here comes the new new economy.  And the new new Internet.  And the new new advertising opportunities.  Anything goes, right?  Flash.  Ajax. New banner sizes. Peelbacks. Ads that “fly” across your website.  Wow.  So many possibilities for creativity.  So many opportunities for engagement.  So many ways to measure!

And yet what is the new new advertising form?  The teacher’s pet of them all?  TV spots, disguised as “viral” videos!

Meet the new boss.  Same as the old boss.