This article was originally written for my lovely employers io, and appeared in print in IMJ‘s December 2011 Digital Special issue.
And lo, in 1950 didst Alan Turing, the prophet of computer science, predict that computers would, by 2000, have a storage capacity of 128 MB. And verily, as I clacketh away here in io’s stately agency office on a bog-standard iMac with 250 GB storage, was he wide off the mark by quite a few gigs.
Poor old Turing wasn’t to know about Moore’s Law, the 1970 observation which stated that every two years circuit capacity (and by extension processing speed, memory and even the number of pixels in cameras) would double. And here we are. Over 700 billion web pages. 55 trillion links to bind them. The internet itself doubling in size every two years. Facebook, not yet eight, is an old man with dubiously outmoded architecture. This article is already out of date and I haven’t written it yet.
But it’s still better to do things right than do them just because. The rush to have a Facebook app, some QR code and a bit of augmented reality can be overwhelming, but each new online avenue is not an end in itself: it’s another potential medium in your mix. Not even Facebook pages have an automatic right to be there for every brand. So let’s keep an open mind, and have a look at some of the commandments from the Book of Online that we swear by at io.
Thanks to Rodi O'Leary for the historical imagework
#1
Thou shalt get funkier with thy display advertising.
An io mantra, this one. Very often a key task is simply to improve what you’re already doing. In so many ways, Irish advertisers need to up their display game. Creativity rewards users. Clickthrough must be earned. According to research from Barnum Sulley, interactivity increases brand recall by 63% more than non-interactive ads. Customising content, making it contextual with media choices, making it fun and playable: these are not earth-shattering concepts. We just don’t see enough of them.
#2
Thou shalt game thy ass off. (Just don’t call it gamification please)
Back in 1984, Liam McCabe was the class wiseguy. The joke about the earliest example of elasticity being in the bible, where Jesus tied his ass to a bush and walked to Jerusalem? That was his. So too was a shiny Commodore 64, with its time-sucking superstars Pacman, Donkey Kong and Space Invaders, We worshipped them like false idols. Today it’s Bin Weevils and Club Penguin and Neopets. Plus ?a change.
Online gaming is serious biz for huge oldies like Lego and Barbie, and the trend goes both ways, with the likes of Stardoll and Moshi Monsters moving fluidly from your desktop to the shelves at Smyths. It’s social media with benefits, and not just for kids, as Farmville-addicted 40-somethings (or advertisers looking for new outlets) will tell you.
#3
Foursquare: thou shalt make it earn its keep. Or ignore it.
Is Foursquare useful? Hard to know. It’s still popular, despite threats from the other location-based apps like Facebook Places. Personally I feel they should’ve sold out double-quick to Yahoo! for that $125 million last year.
The collective wisdom here amongst io staffers is that if you’re going to do something with it, DO something with it. During last year’s Oktoberfest, Lufthansa customers who checked in to three Munich locations got €20 for their trouble. They got 7,050 checkins. As a local promo, job done.
#4
Thou shalt place Google+ on thy radar
Heat seekers will urge brands to get on Google+ quickly. Disregard them. They like apps that aren’t invented yet. But watch this space. Ok, Google+ for brands can’t do everything yet – you can’t post to a brand’s page, for instance, or start a discussion on a page as you can with Fb – but on the other hand, it will have G Search, Analytics, Maps and YouTube.
Facebook took two and a half years to hit 18 million fans. Google did it in three weeks. And when it’s fully up, your social media choice won’t have to look like a Facebook page.
#5
Thou shalt not use a QR code to redirect people to thy website
Like a Facebook relationship status, a QR code is complicated. Can it bring you and customers together? Possibly, but first off, do viewers have a mobile app that can read your code? Will they bother? Are they in a position where they actually can? I won’t name the watch brand whose ads in Dublin airport use QR codes, in an area where you’re not permitted to actually use your phone.
An io rule of thumb: make sure your QR code adds value for the viewer. Don’t just link back to your website, or worse, a flash site that an iPhone can’t display.
#6
Thou shalt crunch the numbers
The alternative to decent research is to spew waste into an already groaning web by not listening to what people actually want.
Get some pointers at tnsdigitallife.com which, says TNS, is the largest global study into people’s attitudes and behaviours online, based on conversations with over 72,000 people in 60 countries. It identifies ‘the precise strategies, channels and content that make digital a key driver in achieving growth.’
Well why dincha say! Have two kilos of Digital Life wrapped at once, for delivery by hansom carriage to my suite at io Digital Towers, where I shall apply it with all haste to my lovely clients’ projects.
Customer loyalty comes cheap if the sentiment is right
It’s pretty hard to mine the sentimentality streak of anyone who’s spent even fifteen minutes in the marketing trenches. Try two decades and you might as well go off on your Rocinante in search of a supermarket retailer’s heart. So I was surprised not once, but twice this year, when a dessicated gulp almost escaped my own sand-filled innards, thanks to canny marketing.
First instance. Let me put it out there: I’m not one to celebrate my birthday. Hate the palaver of calling attention to it. Facebook doesn’t get a sniff of it. Twitter remains unappraised. Workmates soldier on in happy ignorance.
And yet, and yet… when that little Ding! on the phone goes off, and I open that text from my service provider, that little catch in the throat cannot glibly be explained away by the radiation emanating from the handset. That almost tear that nearly forms in my eye might just be from a dust mote, blown off the unused stack of party invites, sitting on the desk since 1998, and the eve of the birthday party that never was, the day when she-
Opt out? OPT OUT? I love you for even asking, cherie...
Oh here, I’m wandering again. She doesn’t matter. She never loved me. Not in the way that O2 love me. They call me pretty much every week now, making sure that I’m happy, idly wondering aloud if I’d like to lock into an eighteen month contract. I’ve asked them to let me think about it, it’s a big step, who knows what we both might feel like say, nine months from now? And in fairness they give me space. And they never, ever forget my birthday.
You know it makes sense
Now, some cynics might say that it’s an automated process, that nobody actually thought about me, on my birthday, deep in the bowels of Stargate or Babylon 9 or Deep Space 12 or wherever the fuck O2 exists. I don’t care. Robot emotions are fine with me. I haven’t yet detected an air of super-snotty call centre superiority from a droid yet. No doubt it’s on the way but meantime I’m happy just to have a simple, undemanding little note of appreciation. It makes me understand how Buck Rogers could tolerate that annoying little Twiki. Now that I think about it, and the height of the little fucker, no wonder Buck had that permanently glib grin on him, like a lopsided duck’s arse after laying a big one. Oh come ON, just look at him.
Anyway. It’s neither here nor there. O2, for all their hard work, have been pipped to the post by teabags. Santa’s teabags, no less. (Stop that.)
Oh, you think Santa’s teabags don’t exist? Well neither did I (ever really think about it one way or the other), until Mr Definitely Not A Robot Postman handed me a beautifully wrapped gift box last week. The note suggested that Santa might like a nice cup of tea instead of the usual. Now a whorey old cynic like me knows when he’s being gamed, but I have to hand it to the people in question (and yes, I know who you are, insert smile emoticon here) for doing a pretty bang-up job of delivering that Christmassy feeling in spades.
Over to you, O2...
It isn’t about the price. As freebies go, it’s relatively inexpensive. It’s about the value. Somebody went to the bother of conceiving of a simple gift and doing the little things right. Wrapping, addressing, delivering, timing. The concept of Santa’s tea is simply elegant, and ties in with everything else that’s been done in the wider campaign. Some people just seem to understand their clients’ products, is all.
It all just worked, and it wasn’t about a massive stunt or babes in bikinis. I wasn’t especially a brand-loyal tea drinker, but that’s me over the edge now. O2 will seriously have to up their game. iPad or iPhone 5, iPad or iPhone 5…
It is 1988. Marty McFly is the epitome of white cool. It is Ireland. White is pretty much the only colour there is, unless you work in Montrose, in which case there is a panoply of greys to choose from.
Downstairs in the agency there is a room with four people in it. This is The Media Department. Off this room there is another, smaller room with one person in it. This is the Media Director. He is without any shadow of a doubt a man. You can tell this by the well seasoned combination of stale Rothmans stubs and stale Paco Rabanne that pervades the room.
'Smell that, lady? That's my eau de cologne. I'm the Media Director.'
He drives a car from the upper end of the range that the agency makes ads for. But not too far up. The client, Girth Brooks though he clearly is, drives the one with the serious alloy wheels and the-so-badge-it-has-no-badge, boy-racer negative drag coefficient. A coefficient he himself will never have. Anyway. I’m digressing. The other four in the media department can be male or female, and can pretty much choose their job titles themselves, as long as they pick Media Buyer. Or just plain, generic Media. Nobody else particularly cares. This is not 2011.
They were better, werden’t they?
Spreadsheets exist. They are sheets that can be spread. That accounts for their demonstrative titles. There are cork noticeboards. These have polaroids, actual photos from last Christmas’s party in Leopardstown and the agency do in Tullamore when Nuala shifted Gary from Traffic. There are Remington typewriters, rotary phone number files and always, always there are large, hardbacked RTE diaries.
There is also a very small room in the corner with a young man in it. It is stuffed to the low ceiling with newspapers. This is Vouchers. The young man will be from Inchicore or possibly Finglas and will be responsible for the upkeep of Vouchers. This essentially means that he will cut ads from newspapers and sometimes from magazines. But mostly newspapers.
‘And two Madisons and ice for the ladies.’
This young man, going by either the formal Bernard or Stephen while in the office, will work in a fire hazard zone without complaint, sticking the ads he’s tirelessly cut out into big log books for the perusal of client. Client will never peruse them. Media do not especially claim him, but there is really nowhere else for him to go, so Media get to keep him. When the couriers come looking for Benjy or Steo the rest of the staff will just stare blankly. Ten years from 1988 they will similarly get to keep the IT guy. Twenty years from 1988 Media and the IT guy will unite, hatch the most unlikely of plans and stride forth to capture the world.
Viking coin. Shortly to be reissued.
But this is 1988. There is no Facebook. Nobody has a mobile phone. A blue tooth is a cause for concern. You won’t find panini in the sandwich shop. Ballygowan has barely thought of bottling itself. Hi-tech is the plastic that O’Brien’s puts on its ham and cheese toasties that doesn’t melt off under the grill! O’Brien’s is a pub. Like today, there are no O’Brien’s Sandwich Bars. There are no O’Brien Wines. There is no Dennis O’Brien as we shall know him (although he’s certainly coming). For now the only O’Brien’s is a pub. On Leeson Street. And that’s where the four Media Buyers and the Media Director will be on Friday evening after work.
There is a continuum with the future however, a benevolent and ever watchful presence, although people cannot know this. Pat Kenny. Things haven’t changed much since RTE was founded in 1955, the date that Patacakes was yeasted in the underground lab, and they probably never will.
I’m often to be found whipping it out on the bus, just to ensure that nobody sits near me of a morning. Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy, of course.
You will naturally be as familiar as I am with Inferno, the first part of the 14th-century epic poem, which details the nine circles of Hell, and the chancers you’re likely to meet in each one. The ninth is where Satan dwells, frozen in an icy lake of treachery, surrounded by scumbags.
The guid buik
It’s been my recent fortune to visit the place, and it’s nothing as soothing as Danté’s bucolic imaginings. No, the ninth circle of Hell is where professional Facebook competition entrants are spawned. If you’ve run a competition then you already know these truffle-snuffling pigs. They can smell bright-eyed, enthusiastic brands with their shiny new apps and friendly promos. When they find one, they muster armies of button-pushing orcs to trade votes and push them up the leaderboard of your client’s very public Facebook wall.
It’s not the taking part, it’s the winning
At a certain point you’ll see the pattern irregularity, as two or three individuals quickly start to stack up hundreds of votes. Some background digging and you begin to realise that you’re being gamed. You’ll log in each day, your Administrator heart sinking a bit further. The trolls are using multiple accounts, often just to smear other competitors. You’ll scan the wall and wade through the personalised vitriol that they spew to try to outmaneouvre everyone else, including you. And you’ll laugh hollowly at how much you’re getting paid to administer your way through this unexpected cauldron of hatred.
You’ll find the vote exchange pages, right there on Facebook, where the whingers band together with promises to vote for each other, from Bohola to Bogotá. Because believe it or not, the current leader in your competition, Marty McAcheaty, isn’t actually as popular as all that. There’s a twisted unter-karma at work here. To get those votes, he had to vote for Marcia Schwanzbender from Scratchpus, Montana in her competition, and a whole lot of other Marcias in other competitions too. Alas, you weren’t tight enough with your teas and seas when you drafted them up, and boy are you sorry now. But keep smiling! Still two weeks to go, and you remain the besieged Guardian of the Brand Online.
He won that sofa in a Facebook competition
You’ve got sobmail
When it’s over there’ll also be at least one epic loser email, from the girl who came fourth and just missed out on the jetski/blender/spa trip by three votes. She lost her husband last year, same week that they laid her off at the cannery. The news distracted her, and three of her fingers ended up in a tin of baby carrots. She’s put all her hopes into winning that jetski/blender/spa trip because it’s the only thing that’ll help the twelve kids to forget about daddy, now that the Xbox isn’t working since the electric was cut off on account of the hospital bills for the kidney dialysis machine for her mother.
IGNORE HER! It’s all lies. She sends that letter to everyone, and her real name is Gerald.
What’s good for the goose?
Just because eleventy million Irish people have an account doesn’t make a Facebook competition a sine qua non for your brand. Personally I think they’re usually more trouble than they’re worth, a complete time suck where the recidivist bottom feeders will trap you in their tentacles.
Besides that, there’s no telling when Facebook themselves will change the rules on you, just because. Don’t Be Evil was never the Zuck’s catchphrase.
That said, you mightn’t have a choice, or maybe you’re in the small section where the benefit outweighs the pain. Some simple comps can work well. See http://bit.ly/snackfact for instance. If you must, here are some handy hints, passed on to me by an admin who has since left the business, to take up rocking in a chair whilst keening softly to herself.
Dos
Make sure your Ts & Cs are bulletproof. Refer to them constantly: competition trolls know all the ropes. Remain neutral. Always respond with a positive. Answer all queries and keep a rein on negative comments.
Don’ts
Don’t just make the competition about votes: include participation, and a judging aspect. Don’t openly accuse anyone of cheating, even if you have proof. Don’t tolerate entrants who try to dictate how the competition should be run. Don’t ever lose it, especially with the trolls who want to sabotage you.
Stick steadfastly to all that and you might maintain the illusion of being in charge. Oh who am I fooling? Competition trolls will be with us always, bitching yea verily until the end of time. I can’t wait until the next social platform opens up for brands. Ninth Circle of Google has a ring to it.
This article originally appeared in the October 2011 edition of Marketing magazine.
