Interesting interview with author Steve Saxty on how BMW as a modern car brand came into being as the ultimate driving machine and a discussion on what eventually became the 1-series. The brand value of it being the ultimate driving machine actually came from a review by US magazine Road & Track in the early 1970s.
This seems to have parlayed itself into an internal insight at the company and was then manifested in advertising by the 1980s. I remember seeing an interview with an ad exec at the UK agency claiming that it was an insight they had come up with. The truth can be a pesky thing.
The phrase itself worked really well from the small lightweight sporty saloons that Road and Track loved to the large executive models of the 7-series. Whatever your criteria was, BMW positioned itself as the ultimate driving machine.
Bob Hoffman is a long-time ad man and long-time commentator who points out the foibles of technology-driven marketing. His book 101 Contrarian Ideas About Advertising is a good read for anyone jumping on a plane. Hoffman has recently given away two books in electronic format Inside the black box focuses on the online advertising industrial complex, MKTG STINX takes a broader brush to things.
BBC coverage of GAA All-Ireland hurling final
For a long time BBC Northern Ireland have covered the key GAA matches. But this was the first time that the main BBC network carried the GAA All Ireland hurling final. 3pm I sat down in front the television to watch the BBC with volume down and my Mac playing the RTE Radio 1 commentary through its speakers. This is the same way as I have listened to the game all my life and I wasn’t going to change now. But it was refreshing that I didn’t have to trek out to a pub or fiddle with a VPN to secure video of the game. Cork vs. Clare gave hurling neophytes a great introduction with the winning score done during the last play of extra time.
Thamesmead time’s up
I have a soft spot for brutalism as an architecture style. I put this down to the clinic I was taken to as a small child which was part of a bigger civic centre including a library. It had massive concrete features and overhangs. It was quiet inside, great to climb and play on outside and the overhangs kept the hottest sun away from the massive round windows.
Brutalism felt comforting and futuristic, which was probably why Stanley Kubrick shot key parts of A Clockwork Orange in Thamesmead. But the Peabody Trust are well on their way to demolishing Thamesmead’s iconic buildings.
Zynternet is a portmanteau made up of Zyn and internet. If you’re reading this internet is self-explanatory, the Zyn in question is tabacco-free Skoal bandit type nicotine pouches. Zyn comes in a tin and has various flavours.
According to journalist Max Read, the Zynternet is a kind of 90s to early 2000s sports obsessed ‘lad’ type culture; but in the 2020s. There are shades of ‘white van man’ in there as well.
a broad community of fratty, horndog, boorishly provocative 20- and sometimes (embarrassingly) 30-somethings–mostly but by no means entirely male–has emerged to form a newly prominent online subculture.
Despite Read’s definition defining it as a 20 to 30-something thing, the subculture seems to bleed into 40-something Dads and draws on creators like Barstool Sports. They’re less extreme than the Andrew Tate acolytes. They care more about sports and professional golf than they do about current affairs and politics. But they’ll be voting Republican. They like college sports, sports betting, light beers and Zyn nicotine pouches.
The culture has grown prominent on the laissez-faire Musk era Twitter.
Zynternet stretch
It would be very easy to point to the Zynternet audience and draw parallels to the ‘proles’ of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty Four. And then go down a dystopian k-hole.
I’ll leave the last words to David Ogilvy for those despairing about the Zynternet:
You aren’t advertising to a standing army; you are advertising to a moving parade. Three million consumers get married every year. The advertisement which sold a refrigerator to those who got married last year will probably be just as successful with those who’ll get married next year. An advertisement is just like a radar sweep, constantly hunting new prospects as they come into the market. Get a good radar and keep it sweeping.
David Ogilvy
TL;DR if you’re not reaching the zynternet, you’re probably not doing political marketing properly. More related content here.
Content or couture? Balenciaga’s 30-minute dress becomes the flashpoint of the season | Vogue Business – “It feels a little like a fast fashion iteration of haute couture,” says Victoria Moss, fashion director of The Standard, of the swirling mass of black nylon. “This feels at odds with what fashion at this level should be, which is exquisitely made pieces that somewhat justify their extreme pricing.” She adds that many invest in couture to have garments perfectly fitted to their bodies — and made to last for years.
“Is it beautiful? That’s debatable. Is it impressive? Not really. Is it brazen? Absolutely. Is it a meditation on the creative process? Maybe. Are we bored of these kinds of gimmicks at Balenciaga? Clearly not, as Demna’s work continues to be both a lightning rod and a conversation starter. “Call it ‘pret-a-polarize’,” says fashion journalist and ‘Newfash’ podcast host Mosha Lundström. “To my eye and understanding, I see this look as content rather than couture.”
Japan declares victory in effort to end government use of floppy disks | Reuters – yes stories like this are funny because ‘modern’ Japan with its flip phones, fax machines and floppy discs are an anachronism. But there’s a few other things to consider. There might be issues in terms of investment a la the NHS and critical systems that for whatever reason can’t be ported on to modern systems (like the problems had with security based on ActiveX).
Dumb systems also have security benefits, you can’t steal nearly as much data on even a compressed floppy disk as you can on a USB stick.
Interesting use cases for generative AI in China which sounds like a plot line from Ghost In The Shell.
Baidu – World No. 1? – Radio Free Mobile – is Baidu ERNIE really the number one generative AI service? It depends on if the numbers are true. 14 million developers, 950,000 models within the eco-system
China plays down importance of lithography tools in semiconductor challenges – Interesting report from Taiwan’s DigiTimes semiconductor trade magazine: China seems to be deliberately playing down the importance of lithography tools as it identifies the challenges for the development of its semiconductor industry in a recently published dossier.
The current debate over car screens / car as computer design reminded me a lot of the journey that synthesisers have gone through.
I went down this train of thought on car screens thanks to a LinkedIn post by Nic Roope, reacting to an article published in Car Design News in praise of push buttons.
There is a view in car circles that the reliance on screens to mediate so many of the functions of a car can be a bad thing. I can understand it. For enthusiasts driving a car is still a very analogue experience including the haptics of direct steering connectivity and a manual gearbox.
I would be remiss if I didn’t share the opinion of Doug DeMuro who argued the case for screens in terms of two reasons:
Costs. Buttons cost more money and there would be the associated connectors. Modern vehicles offer such a range of controls, that doing them in buttons rather than soft buttons and car screens would be cost and space prohibitive.
Technological momentum. DeMuro essentially articulates a position similar to Kevin Kelly’s concept of the technium in his book What Technology Wants. Kelly uses a biological metaphor of progress as an organism or Gaia type metaphor that keeps growing and moving at its own pace. While Kelly has been accused to techno-mysticism, we do know that the development of key technologies like television or the light bulb were happening at the same time in different parts of the world in isolation from each other – there had become a time when they were inevitable.
the greater, global, massively interconnected system of technology vibrating around us
DeMuro’s first point is based on the proposition that all this extra control in car screens is a good thing. Do we really need to have car interior mood lighting? And if we do, do we need to have colours that result in night blindness and make the car interior looks like a booth at a bottle service bar in Dubai?
For some drivers, the answer will be no.
Different car manufacturers have had different models that do very different things. One of the philosophies articulated most by car enthusiasts is that of Lotus cars founder Colin Chapman “simplify, and add lightness”.
Chapman’s design ethos was very in-tune with the likes of mid-century thinkers like polymath Buckminster Fuller and those he influenced notably architect Sir Norman Foster.
Chapman’s world view wasn’t perfect his vehicles were fragile and had quality issues, partly due to his daring use of new materials and techniques influenced by aerospace. It’s also a world away from the Tesla approach, where the vehicle can’t be started up without the screen even as a ‘limp mode’ function.
Instead the Tesla pickup and car screens are infested with boondoggles including:
A video of a fireplace filled with burning logs
A game that allows you to break the windows of a virtual CyberTruck
Customisable horn sounds including celebrity voices
A pre-programmed light show
Modern car economics.
Car screens have advanced in tock-step with the move towards an electric car future. A technology transition at the best of times is difficult, but the car industry has other problems that will impact consumer views of vehicles.
Consumer choice.
In the 1970s cars cars seldom lasted over a decade, but due to improvements in corrosion treatment and car design that removed water traps the potential life of a car was extended. Given that classic cars are much less damaging to the environment. The average classic emits 563kg of CO2 per year, yet an average passenger car has a 6.8-tonne carbon footprint immediately after production. This means that a new car would need to be run for several years to achieve a similar climate ‘payback’ and older cars can be attractive for consumers, if they meet their needs reliably.
Vehicle affordability.
Over the time I have held a driving licence, the secondhand car market went from being the dumping ground for fleet sales to the Alice In Wonderland after effects of the lease agreements that drove new and nearly-new car sales. The financialisation of the car market isn’t without risk and has been considered a possible future risk in the way that consumer finance and home mortgages have been in the past.
So what do car touchscreens have to do with synthesisers?
In order to answer that question, we need to go back in time. Massive steps forward in electronics had inspired research into different ways of creating sounds based on modulation techniques used in radio broadcast signals for decades. In the 1960s digital technology was also moving forward and provided a more stable base for FM synthesis. Stanford University scholars worked with Yamaha technologists to turn FM synthesis into a product.
The first instrument that it appeared in was the New England Digital Synclavier, who had licensed the technology from Yamaha. The Synclavier, was a couple of racks full of computer storage, a processing unit, cooling and audio interfaces. This was all connected up to a monitor and a keyboard. Over time the Synclavier would evolve into the ancestor of the modern digital audio workstation (DAW) like Apple’s Logic Pro app.
1983, comes around and Yamaha is finally ready to launch a mainstream product featuring FM synthesis. it also features MIDI, a standard that is still used to control musical instruments (and other studio equipment) remotely. Roland had released a couple of devices that supported the standard.
But Yamaha’s DX7 proved to be the blockbuster product. At that time electronic music was a niche interest and instrument manufacturers would be very lucky to sell 50,000 units. Yamaha sold over 300,000 units in the first three years of sales over its 7 year life and 10,000s of more devices of the DX and TX families.
Digital changes the interface
Analogue synthesisers wer full of switches and dials. This Oberheim synthesiser above, isn’t that different from its analogue predecessors from five decades prior.
The DX7 was a very different beast, it couldn’t have a dial or button for every parameter, rather like modern car screens with endless settings. So it had a few buttons which changed their function depending on what the synthesiser. A few earlier models had limited sales with a similarly spartan approach, but the DX7 mainstreamed the idea.
A few things happened that might be instructive for how we now think about car screens:
Other synthesiser manufacturers like Roland and Korg copied Yamaha’s approach to interface design. Some of them tried using devices like jog wheels to provide additional intuitive control, in a similar way conceptually to BMW’s iDrive interface for its car screens.
Software companies looked to fill the gap to provide a better interface, which eventually begat modern software digital audio workstation applications like Logic Pro. We might see similar developments sold for cars, and this is likely the opportunity that the likes of Apple CarPlay sees. There is consumer demand to support it.
Despite the obvious benefit of soft button driven instruments, there still remained a strong demand for analogue controls. Now there is a strong demand for tactile interface controls and old style synthesis. In the car world that would equate to providing car enthusiasts with analogue experiences, while the mainstream goes to Tesla minimalism of the car screen. We can see this in the design of Hyundai’s analogue feeling performance electric cars that try and emulate a manual gear box and Ineos’ switch gear that owes more to aviation than automotive manufacturing.
I started my career off working on technology clients who were bad for having their own language but pharma jargon takes things to a new level of complexity. I thought I would write a bluffers guide to make other peoples lives easier.
Here’s some of the examples of pharma jargon that came to mind that aren’t immediately apparent to marketers coming in from other disciplines.
ABPI – Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry is the trade association for companies in the UK producing prescription medicines. It has a code that members should adhere to. See also PhRMA.
Adherence – takes treatment as directed.
Aggregated – usually in terms of electronic medical records (see EMR below), the most in-depth record of information about a patient’s historical set of conditions, treatments and tests for those conditions and much more.
AE – Adverse event. When you get a reaction from a medicine that is negative. It could be soreness from an injection, or an upset stomach right the way through to death. Pharma companies have time-bounded compliance issues related to AEs. This was one of the reasons why they had been slow to use social media in the past.
Behaviour change – a lot of pharma marketing hinges on behavioural science to drive behavioural change. In a lot of sectors behavioural science usually elicits small changes that might not be worth the effort. In healthcare, it could mean saving lives, so it is leaned on much more.
Biologics – treatments made from actual live organisms rather than synthetic chemicals (which would be called drugs).
BLA – biologics licence application. Paperwork submitted to the FDA. Similar to NDA below.
Building the plane as we’re flying it – building the business to scale up. Usually indicates that the company is growing the amount of people it employs and marketing function to help prepare for product launch. This can be teams in a large pharma company attached to a new drug, or a smaller research company who is looking to take a discovery to launch.
CBER – center for biologics evaluation and research (part of FDA) does the same role for biologics as CDER does for drugs.
CDER – center for drug evaluation and research (part of the FDA)
Clinical endpoint – Used in trials. In the trial design there will be a measurable outcome that determines clinical success… if achieved. All trials have a primary endpoint, they may have additional secondary endpoints. Think of endpoints as medical trial objectives.
Clinical studies – research conducted to understand a treatment’s safety and efficacy,
CME – continual medical education – used interchangeably with CPD – continual professional development. Online modules or events that allow HCPs to keep up to date with the latest developments. Useful from a marketing point-of-view to reduce barriers to prescribe through upskilling, or reframing the way a condition is used to favour one product over another.
Co-insurance – the amount the patient has to pay on private healthcare.
Co-morbidity – having more than one medical condition or disease at the same time. For instance, one of the reasons why obesity has become such a public health issue is down to the higher incidence of co-morbidity that can occur including cancer, diabetes, heart disease, fatty liver disease to name but a few.
Co-pay – see co-insurance.
CRO – contract research organisation – a company that helps move a drug to commercialisation a new drug or device from its conception to legal marketing approval. It would be analogous in a lot of other industries to IT outsourcing in terms of its role in a business value chain.
CVA – see eDetail
DTC – direct to consumer. With certain product categories there has been a trend to prescribe via telemedicine consultation with a qualified HCP and then the product can be sent direct to the patient.
eDetail – an interactive presentation usually delivered using a tablet that sales reps use to discuss their client’s product (or increasingly product with a digital service attached) with healthcare professions
EMA – European Union’s regulatory body, see FDA.
EHR – electronic health record. Aggregated and shared across different HCPs from different organisations
EMR – electronic medical record. Used within one medical system / one set of healthcare providers.
EOB – explanation of benefits – the positive effects a given pharma product has for the patient. This will be expressed not only in biological terms but also impact on quality of life or improvements in standard of care enjoyed.
Ethical pharma – branded as opposed to generic prescription products.
FDA – Food and Drug Administration – the body that certifies whether a product is allowed to be used in the US.
Formulary – a list of pharma products that are approved for prescribing from a finance perspective.
GP – general practitioner – family doctor.
Generic – a pharmaceutical product this is no longer protected by patent rights. It can be manufactured by any company. Patents protecting pharma product intellectual property rights surrounding a product run out after 14 years in the UK, but can vary in other markets.
HCP – usually a prescriber or a gatekeeper. This can be a hospital specialist of some sort, a prescribing nurse or a prescribing pharmacist. The gatekeeper category might be wider such as specialist nurses, surgery nurses, hospital pharmacists – the rationale for reaching these people is to reduce the friction in using a product once it has been prescribed. A less common gatekeeper role is about referring a patient to a prescriber – particularly where the treatment can only be prescribed by a specialist.
Ideopathic – as in ideopathic X disease means that the medical profession don’t know the cause.
In-label: a use of a drug that is within its approved ‘label’ see also off-label, USPI and SmPC.
iVA – see eDetail
KOL – key opinion leader. Can be someone who has specialist expertise, is a prolific researcher often cited in medical journals, someone who has an active profile speaking at professional events or on social media. They may be an academic, doctor, a nurse or a pharmacist depending on the market sector, country and product.
MHRA – Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency – a UK regulatory body that is equivalent to the EU’s EMA and the FDA in the US.
MLR – medical, legal and regulatory. Equivalent of legal and compliance in other industries such as financial services.
MOA – mode of action, also called mechanism of action. How a pharmaceutical product works (if known).
MOD – mode of disease, also called mechanism of disease. What a condition does to the body, what cells it attacks or biochemical processes it interferes with.
MSL – medical science liaison. A non-promotional specialist expert in a pharma company. The equivalent in the enterprise technology space would be a pre-sales engineering role.
NDA – new drug application. Pharma companies like this because it extends the protected life for a drug. A classic example would be semaglutide. Initially it was marketed to treat people with diabetes. But during those trials it was found to correlate with weight loss. It then became a weight loss and management focused product as well. Each application has a patent protected time period.
Off-label: where a doctor prescribes a medicine or treatment do do something that isn’t on its SmPC or USPI (depending which country you are in). A classic example of this at the moment is the use of Ozempic to help with weight loss and weight management. Ozempic was licensed to help with the treatment of diabetes. It is the same active ingredient, but at a different dose rate in Wegovy. Wegovy is licensed for weight loss / weight management.
On-label: exactly the same as ‘in-label’.
OTC – over the counter. In the UK examples would be Gaviscon or Panadol for upset stomachs and pain respectively. Both are available without a prescription.
PAAB – Pharmaceutical Advertising Advisory Board – an American body that would be similar to the ABPI in the UK. It looks specifically at advertising practices.
Patent cliff – intellectual property rights on drugs are protected for a period of time (which varies by market). Generally it’s between 8 – 14 years. Once this period is over, the drug can be made by anybody. When a company has a series of drugs falling out of this protected period, the company is considered to have ‘fallen’ off a patent cliff if it doesn’t have new drugs to replace the old versions.
PAG – patient advocacy group. They advise patients, help fund research, advocate for patient standard of care.
Patient – person with a medical condition. The end consumer of a pharma product.
Patient advocate – a patient advocate plays multiple roles. They act as the voice of the patient with pharma companies providing insight into the patient experience. This is important in order to drive a more patient-centric approach. They may appear in the media as a spokesperson and may testify in front of regulators and legislators.
Patient-centric – a move in marketing over the past two decades from pharma companies just thinking about getting the HCP to prescribe, to thinking about the end consumer experience. Probably one of the first things they could do is stopping using patient and try people with X instead.
PCP – primary care provider. A family doctor or GP.
PDUFA date – (prescription drug user fee act). Part of the FDA approval process once the application has been assessed by CBER / CDER. It’s the date that the FDA must respond to the drug approval application. There are four tracks with varying speeds to the process depending on product need etc.
PHR – personal health record. A patient-facing record accessed through patient portals etc.
PhRMA – Pharmaceutical Research & Manufacturers of America. Industry body that lobbies on behalf of its members. Its role and code is similar to the ABPI and its code in the UK.
PI – prescribing information, although I have heard product information used. What dose is a product given? How often? Any adverse effects that can happen? Any groups of patients who can’t have the medicine? Any medicines or foods that the products can’t be used in combination with – like antibiotics and alcohol?
Placebo – in this case not the moderately successful band. An inactive treatment, used in control tests for new drugs. If your new medicine doesn’t perform better than the placebo control; it’s not going to get approved for use.
Primary care – family doctor, general practitioner or community clinic.
Rx – prescription (which drives pharma sales).
SmPC – summary of product characteristics, a European equivalent of the USPI. A sheet in medicine packaging covering properties, side effects, officially approved ways of using a medicine. The USPI and SmPC can be different for various reasons: a drug can be approved for different uses in different territories, or may have a different brand name. Also USPIs generally have more information.
Submitted charges – American healthcare system speak for amount billed.
Titrate – process of measuring and finding out the concentration of one substance is in a solution (of something else).
Tx – treatment
USPI – US prescribing information is a sheet that goes into every medicine box properties, side-effects and the officially approved ways of using the medicine. The US version includes details of clinical studies.
Veeva – in the same way that Adobe has become the operating system for creative agencies, Veeva is the same thing for pharma companies. Veeva Vault PromoMats will haunt your dreams.
Vx – vaccination
Warning letter – as bad a news as you probably think it would be. Usually sent to pharmaceutical companies by the likes of the FDA of specific regulatory or legal violations that have happened. They have a request for action to correct the violations. This could be down to company practices, procedures or products – or a combination there-of. The company need to go back with a plan and is likely to under increased surveillance from the authorities.
My mind cast back to one of the first modules I studied at college. There was a lecture on the role of complaint resolution as part of customer services. The idea was that effective complaint resolution engendered trust in a customer service function and was more likely to increase brand loyalty and recommendation to other people. In reality Ehrensberg-Bass Institute have explored this area in more depth and found that customer penetration is more important than customer loyalty.
US National Archives: Approaching Logan Airport. 05/1973 by Michael Manheim
I suspect that the benefit in complaint resolution is more around a premium brand positioning rather than the business benefits of loyalty. This is an interesting frame to consider AirHelp’s global airline ranking. Unlike SkyTrax that focuses on experience, AirHelp weighs its ranking heavily on complaint resolution.
British Airways came 82nd out of 83 airlines assessed, which won’t be a surprise to anyone who has flown with them over the past four years.
Many airlines that would have a high SkyTrax service ranking, didn’t perform as well on complaint resolution.
So there wasn’t a clear correlation between experience resolving lots of customer complaints or a highly evolved service offering.
Emerging car brands scrutinised by Bloomberg and Grant Thornton | Manufacturer – “Chinese brands are dominating the scene with good products, big screens, and impressive interfaces.” However, the challenge arises when considering pricing, as Chinese EVs like the XPeng’s G9 SUV was 72,000 euros competing against the likes of BMW and Mercedes. So they’re going to find it very, difficult and it’s going to come down to price.” Dean pointed out MG’s success in the UK market was achieved by hitting exactly the right sweet spot in terms of pricing. The MG ZS, the second-best-selling battery electric vehicle in the UK, is priced at an average of £31,000, making it compelling in terms of competitive pricing especially in a country where consumers are not fiercely loyal to specific brands. – interesting reading. The way for Chinese vendors to win would be to have Chinese incentivised lease financing, particularly in a time of higher interest rates a la Huawei in the telecoms markets.
American men are dying younger. – by Richard V Reeves – I just don’t think this can be addressed in the current climate of othering and privilege. It would be like trying to hold a meaningful discussion on immigration a few decades ago.
Xi in Nanning; Shanghai and Beijing real estate tweaks; More Hong Kong bounties; Sim Love | Sinocism – the Hong Kong puts bounty on the head of US citizen who has criticised the Hong Kong government in the US. They are all ethic Chinese. So China and the Hong Kong government think that ethnic Chinese wherever they are should be loyal to their respective administrations – in essence their face is their passport. Not even Israel does something similar with the the world’s Jewish community, or Ireland with our diaspora.
Innovation
Quantum Breakthrough: Caltech Scientists Unveil New Way To Erase Quantum Computer Errors – Researchers from Caltech have developed a quantum eraser to correct “erasure” errors in quantum computing systems. This technique, which involves manipulating alkaline-earth neutral atoms in laser light “tweezers,” allows for the detection and correction of errors through fluorescence. The innovation leads to a tenfold improvement in entanglement rates in Rydberg neutral atom systems, representing a crucial step forward in making quantum computers more reliable and scalable.
