Ged Carroll

Blog

  • What does ZBB mean for agencies?

    After talking with a friend I pulled together a brief presentation for them which explained what Zero Based Budgeting (ZBB) practices at a client were likely to mean for an agency.

    The key takeout for me are is one of attitude. ZBB isn’t about cost cutting but about spending the money in the most effective way,  where it matters the most. ZBB has benefits that can applied outside marketing on complex projects. 

    And there in lies the problem with the way ZBB has been adapted by some consumer brands. Looking from the outside in at 3G Capital and its work at Kraft and Heinz brands, it seems that ZBB is being used for short term cost cutting, rather than resource allocation. 

    Whilst this might be justified in terms of Jack Welsh-style shareholder value. The reality is short term pay-offs robbing long term potential. This is what happens when you let finance focused MBA graduates a la Scrooge McDuck attempt to do a brand marketers job. What looks good on their spreadsheet looks retarded when viewed through the lens of marketing science. 

    For agencies, ZBB means that the client is making an active effort to keep marketing thinking fresh. It means a pragmatic approach to innovation based on benefit rather than running around screaming innovation. 

    It also means knowing when you’re not the right agency for the job and having partners that you can work with. Which is why we’ve seen ad agencies like Mullen Lowe bulk up on digital and earned media chops. Finally if you see that your client is using ZBB just to cut, cut, cut. Plan for another client because at least one of two things are happening:

    • You aren’t coming up with ideas that meet the needs of the business, so ZBB dictates that investment will be moved away from your programmes
    • The client has a short-termist mindset in using ZBB. You might not be in danger of losing your business, but they might be in danger of losing theirs to the competition 

  • Muslims support terrorism + more things

    Why Google search suggests “Muslims support terrorism” – because a substantial amount of people use muslims support terrorism as a search term. AI won’t protect you from the bigoted impulses, like people who search for muslims support terrorism. More on Google here

    Baidu Receives Offer for Stake in Online Video Platform Niyi – Interesting that the offer is coming from Baidu insiders including Robin Li. I remember that some of the Huawei people I used to deal with talked about having had an opportunity to invest in Xiaomi

    Tea kettles, slippers, congee: US hotels are wooing the Chinese tourist class – Is a $15 electric kettle the key to luring Chinese tourists? A growing number of US hotel chains think so

    China wants to approve every song before it goes online – Tech in Asia – interesting potential move from online to offline media for diehard fans. I expect most Chinese listeners wouldn’t care

    Say hello to better battery life on your smartwatch | TheNextWeb – Qualcomm seems to have moved to a smaller foundry process

    GitHub – reek/anti-adblock-killer: Anti-Adblock Killer helps you keep your Ad-Blocker active, when you visit a website and it asks you to disable. – but not consumer friendly yet

    Technology and Trust | Dan Edelman’s blog – Technology industry suffering from declining trust

    London’s 101 Pulls a Cramer-Krasselt and ‘Resigns’ Kettle Chips | AgencySpy – principled in a way that’s hard to do for many agencies

    People who’ve tried online dating admit it’s dangerous and maybe a little desperate | Quartz – and there in lies an issue

    Neon killer?: Samsung, LG unveil OLED Wall technologies – Electronics Eetimes – I feel conflicted about this as LEDs haven’t displaced neon from an aesthetic point of view, will OLED be any different. Secondly, the craftsmanship in neon sign making is a site to behold. But it could bring us to more of a ‘Blade Runner’ cityscape

    A compelling strategy to read more, more comprehensively, and in less time – Quartz – depends on the subject but interesting approach

    Five reasons why SoundCloud might be doomed FACT – get on there this weekend and rinse the stuff you want

    Teenagers Are Much Better At Snapchat Than You | Buzzed – not scientific but interesting, whats the lost business opportunity for Mattel and Hasbro?

    Tech Nation | Tech City UK – interesting report to try and mollify critics

    What is HTTP2 and How Will it Affect Your SEO? by @patrickstox – HTTP/2 is a much needed refresh of the HTTP protocol that was based largely on Google

    Four reasons Nigeria is turning the phone number into a digital ID – Gemalto blog

    LG’s next G5 phone to sport ‘always on’ screen – CNET

  • Revisiting The X-Files twenty years later

    I discovered The X-Files at college. I had just purchased a Casio TV with a screen the size of a postage stamp from a pawn shop in Huddersfield. I bought a power block from Argos to save on batteries. The internet was only available for me during college time, so destination TV was a thing. I would tune in without-fail to watch the show.
    I want to believe
    The X-Files was of a time and a place. The Berlin Wall had just come down and the military industrial complex still existed. It existed without a wider purpose. The Thatcher years seemed petty with aspirations for authoritarianism at the time; in the way that Teresa May does now. Area 51  was the home of stealth planes, and so wrapped in mystery. Nuclear annihilation was as much a part of society as terrorism is now.

    The six episode relaunch caused me to revisit the show. It was interesting to see who it felt current and still had changed. Mulder and Scully used mobile phones, email, the internet and databases. From a technical point-of-view it feels current. Although Mulder and Scully should count their blessings for not living in our always-on connected world. Japanese technological skill now feels off-key. Whilst Japan is still very technically advanced, it doesn’t feel like the technological titan it seemed to represent in the 1980s.

    China was still in the early stages of opening up and had yet been let into the WTO. The latest gadgetry was instead being made in Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan and Japan.

    The use of optical media was interesting. I still prefer the quality of audio CDs over streamed music or MP3 downloads.

    The authors understanding of technology and the online world is much more muddied. AOL would have been a thing in the US. Al Gore and Bill Gates would have talked about the information superhighway and cyberpunk had made a huge impact on culture. Series 7 episode First Person Shooter muddles online computer gaming, virtual worlds and reality and feels like it was written by William Gibson whilst extremely drunk.

    The storytelling definitely hit a low in series 6. Series 7 saw some interesting series mash-ups and changes:

    • Lance Henriksen from Chris Carter show Millennium appears in one episode as a plot crossover
    • There is a special episode of COPS (X-Cops) where the show format changes to ‘reality TV’
    • The Smoking Man becomes a trickster character like Loki than the sinister hand of the military industrial complex

    The Lone Gunmen seem quite niave and childish in their quest for the truth. There was a failed effort to crack a Las Vegas convention where banal details of black ops were discussed over poker. It would be interesting to see what they would look like in a post-Snowden world.

    Series 8 seems to be a self conscious effort to re-inject tension into the franchise. Robert Patrick joins as a by-the-book FBI agent dealing with shape-shifting bounty  hunter aliens. This is an interesting juxtaposition as he was previously best known for his role as the liquid metal policeman T-1000 from Terminator 2: Judgement Day. In this series it was Mulder’s turn to get abducted by aliens.

    Series 9 loses something in the awkward working threesome of Scully, Reyes and Doggett. There is something fitting about the final episode which features black helicopters and the smoking man.

    The Truth Is Out There was the oft-repeated mission statement in the show. Now it really is out in public and profoundly depressing. Despite this, I found re-watching the first five series of The X-Files very rewarding.

  • Drones + more things

    Amazon bookstores: It’s the drones, stupid – I, Cringely – the big problem I see is the last 100 yards. Drones might be fine in theory to get to a property but what about getting to the home owner or responsible custodian of the parcel. I think these are a point, rather than universal solution, a bit like the Waitrose deliveries scooting  around Milton Keynes.

    Jan Koum – one billion users. couldn’t be more proud of our small… – interesting things about the Whatsapp numbers is the low average number of messages sent per day, per user less than 1.5 messages per day.  More on WhatsApp here.

    Grumpy Old Man Hates Massaging Sexy Models – YouTube – it’s recruitment ads mixed with old school Lynx adverts

    Brad Garlinghouse’s Peanut Butter Manifesto and associated materials about Yahoo! circa 2006 – great materials (PDF)

    Deal Shows Investors Are Willing to Make a Blind Bet on Uber – The New York Times – how can they do due diligence?

    Why the death of the Firefox phone matters – CNET – less likely to see web-based functionality, also Android | iOS oligarchy

    This Robot Changes How It Looks at You to Match Your Personality – IEEE Spectrum – fighting uncanny valley

    Google confirms Hangouts will now use peer-to-peer connections to improve call quality and speed | VentureBeat – Skype had only been doing this since the early noughties…

    A Day in the Life of a Media Consumer – Yahoo Advertising – really nice consumer insights here

    Help Make “The Essential Guide to Electronics in Shenzhen” a Reality « bunnie’s blog – I love the way this is so gloriously analogue

    The Apple Watch got me hooked on mechanical watches – Marco.org – which goes to show that marketing them as a watch doesn’t make sense

    The Nashville insurgency | Macleans – amazing story of how country music has been swallowed up by a Stock Aitken and Waterman hit factory-type formula

    The Beginning Of The End For GoPros At Music Festivals – Magnetic Magazine – Periscope and music festivals don’t mix

    This tiny Japanese bookstore only stocks one title at a time – Quartz – interesting anecdote to the ‘tyranny of choice’, I wonder if the customers actually read the book?

  • What does success look like? (For PR campaigns)

    What does success look like for PR campaigns? In public relations circles measuring success is as much a discussion point as the weather. The industry has attempted to deal with it. In this approach they generally have a goal to reach a singular solution. Rather like ‘how to write a press release’.

    But in reality all measurement revolves around one question. What does success look like? It could also framed as:

    • What is the job required?
    • What is the problem to solve?

    Measuring success then breaks down into four categories:

      • Outputs (how much activity has happened)
        • Amount of content
        • Paid, earned and shared distribution / reach including serendipitous engagement
        • Events / stunts
      • Outcomes
        • Views / opportunities to see / audience
        • Attendance
        • Followers
        • Propagation (shares, mentions, backlinks etc). One could also consider mentions or shares serendipitous engagement alongside comments or retweets
        • Competitor or category benchmarking (share of voice)
      • Trend-focused outcomes, where the rate of change is as important as absolute values
        • Sentiment – though measuring sentiment is time for an article in itself
        • Pre-and-post or regular stakeholder research (brand perception, talkability, recall, message penetration)
        • Referral traffic (normalised for seasonality and ongoing activity)
        • Awards, reviews or recommendations
        • Stakeholder behavourial changes
        • Platform behaviour change (basket size, conversion rates, downloads, sign-ups)
      • Organisational success measures
        • Sales increase
        • Reduction in time to sale
        • Behavioural change (particular for non-commercial organisations)
        • Reputation improvement (share price increase, stakeholder net promoter score improvement, increased influence)
        • Talent acqusition (increased applications per job, increased proactive applications, reduced staff churn)
        • Financial security (funding round, share placement, share price, bond placement)

    The problem of measurement from a PR perspective breaks down into a number of parts:

    • The activity didn’t have a clear link to organisational success
    • The basket of measures wasn’t considered in-depth at the beginning
    • The goals change over time, or are post rationalised
    • The resources aren’t dedicated on measurement that need to be done
    • Some measures derived can’t be separated from other work done except through the use of econometrics
    • The measures used lend themselves to long term campaigns, yet are measured on a short term basis
    • The span of responsibility that the activity has to deliver isn’t matched by access to the internal data required to measure success

    More PR related content here. More from AMEC; PR’s measurement trade body here.