Ged Carroll

Search results for: “Byron Sharp”

  • The biggest Public Relations agencies; stuckness and market dynamics

    Untitled

    The Holmes Report came out with their top 250 (biggest) PR agencies around the world in terms of billings. I decided to delve into the numbers for financial years 2014 – 2017.

    Macro picture

    What the numbers suggested at a macro level were three things:

      • Overall billings growth was declining year on year
      • The amount of agencies that were appointed into the top 250 (and were dropped) declined year on year. There is less market disruption

    Aggregate billings growth & top 250 list churn

      • The bottom 190 agencies (by size over successive years) accounted for less than half the billings of the top 25 for financial year 2017

    Bottom 190 out top 250 PR agencies billings

    Top 25 out of top 250 Pr agencies

    This supports a hypothesis of slowing market growth and solidifying market dynamics at a macro level. Strategic acquisitions start to make less sense compared to improving efficiences and effectiveness. But if you were going to buy an agency MC Group in Germany looked to be the stand out choice in terms of changing the fortunes of a large agency billings

    We’re also seeing a likely tyranny of large numbers kicking in for the biggest agencies. Mid-sized agencies can be more agile due to less layers of management and less complex environmetns to worry about. They may be multi-market; but they’re not truly global. Which makes strategy and planning much easier.

    PR agencies are people businesses. At the core they sell manpower by the hour. Bigger agencies have more people, which means a greater management overhead, not unlike Fred Brooks’ The Mythical Man-Month essays on software engineering. There are more processes, which have built up over time and greater inertia to change. Then you get office and intra-office real politik. You can try and keep this down, but it is a function of scale; the battle against it becomes ever harder and you can only focus on its worst excesses. It tends not to surface when its impact only goes downwards in the management structure.

    Agency-specific hypothesis

    This next part was inspired by David Brain’s post on the performance of large agencies.

    PR seems to be acquired in a more tactical manner than previously. This has been happening for a number of reasons.

    A decline in Full Metal Jacket syndrome in comms planning. This nonsensical quote about Vietnamese people in Full Metal Jacket makes similar false assumptions. I’ve seen similar false assumptions in past global comms campaign planning that I have seen. Usually that meant creating something in the US and then expecting it to work on a fraction of the budget elsewhere. This means that there is less international work for agency networks. This has a negative impact on inter-office best practice transfer and building relationships.

    The influence of Byron Sharp. For many consumer marketers, How Brands Grow – based on years of marketing science research is the bible. When you look at Sharp’s work there are a couple of clear points when you use public relations as a tactic.

    Zero-Based Budgeting

    Zero-based budgeting (ZBB) has changed the marketing planning game. It pits public relations campaign efficiency and effectiveness versus other disciplines in sharp focus. In addition, some organisations have mistaken ZBB as a one-way ratchet tightening marketing spend. ZBB isn’t about continual cost-cutting, but continual optimisation – something that seems to have been lost in translation.

    PR agencies haven’t taken full advantage of the opportunity afforded by digital and social for a number of reasons:

    • There is a tension. Between the focus on financial efficiency and effectiveness that the macro numbers suggest versus the investment in tools and personnel required. Where are the studios, strategists, planners and media desks?
    • There has been an expertise drain across the industry as agencies deskill; paying new people into roles less than the person who previously filled it. This means that over time there is a trench in expertise between office leaders and the rest of the team, making it harder for the office to scale and a loss of institutional knowledge. This has led to a lack of diversity in thinking amongst many PRs; let alone gender, race and age diversity. From experience I’ve found that digital natives aren’t necessarily the best digital strategists
    • Clients haven’t embraced the change. Social in particular sits elsewhere amongst the marketing team. There is a similar division with paid media. The focus (particularly in Europe) on performance marketing over brand marketing hasn’t helped. Hubspot-style content marketing is a reductive process that isn’t the friend of PR agencies; despite their expertise in content
    • The window of opportunity closes as organic reach declines. Social media marketing effectiveness requires paid media budget. Agencies have jumped in too late with insufficient confidence. Traditional senior management agency PRs have been curiously hung up on this. Yet we see: corporate communications as adverts in the FT and WSJ and consumer PRs do paid advertorials and paid product placement

    More information
    David Brain’s post: Why Are The Biggest Global PR Agencies Stuck? Does It Matter?
    Holmes Report

    And more related content here.

  • Influence – The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert M Cialdini

    Cialdini’s Influence is now over ten years old and still stands up. It is a good guide on the psychology of why people say “yes”. The accessible style of Influence reminded of Douglas Rushcoff, or Malcolm Gladwell. Ok Malcolm Gladwell is a poor analogy, Cialdini’s work isn’t candy floss for the mind. This is deceptive as there is usually an inverse relationship between value and accessibility. Exceptions to this heuristic would be the likes of Sun Tzu – The Art of War.

    Influence by Cialdini

    Cialdini hasn’t been researched within an inch of its life in the same way Byron Sharp’s books have been.

    Cialdini provides planners and strategists with starting points for customer experiences. The book isn’t a how to guide for digital journeys but provides first principles. Psychology is not channel-specific.

    The Journal of Marketing Research described it as

    …among the most important books written in the last 10 years.

    The book’s style allowed me to pick it up and put it down, to fit in with my holiday schedule of train travel and family time.

    Why should you have Cialdini’s Influence?

    • If your work includes marketing planning or strategy, your bookshelf should have this book. If you are thinking about customer interactions, this book outlines the first principles that you need
    • If you’re a consumer and want to know how you’re being sold to; read this book
    • If you want to get on better with people ( your kids or co-workers); buy this book

    My copy is well-thumbed and stuffed with post-it notes around the edges as I go back and forth into it on a regular basis. More marketing related content here.

    SaveSaveSaveSave

    SaveSave

  • Traffic experiments + more things

    Fascinating Traffic Experiments by Publishers (by @baekdal) #analysis  – Presence is often a very big part of the effect that you can have, in that, if you can be present in people’s minds, you often experience a kind of spillover effect on your business as a whole. This is not just true for content, but also everything else … like advertising. We know that creating an ad campaign where you show up in front of people continually over time is far more effective than just having one good ad. – a great delve into online with these traffic experiments. The practice of digital advertising tries to move away from ‘traditional’ advertising thinking a la branded recall. But it ends up validating it. The comment particularly resonates the findings of people like Byron Sharp. More related posts here.

    Great video essay on the Yamaha DX-7 synthesiser. After you listen to the bits on percussion you’ll never listen to your iPhone ringtones in quite the same way again.

    Systems Confrontation and System Destruction Warfare: How the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Seeks to Wage Modern Warfare | RAND – interesting to read. The concept of system destruction warfare [体系破击战] is also a good analogy for the way Amazon in particular has acted the in the commercial sphere (PDF)

    Android Wear is getting killed, and it’s all Qualcomm’s fault | Ars Technica – this assumes that the problem with Android Wear is a supply side issue with silicon, it doesn’t ask if Qualcomm sees it as a demand side issue and has moved on?

    The Shift: His 2020 Campaign Message: The Robots Are Coming | NYTimes.com – interesting how the debate about automation has been internalised and weaponised by politicians (paywall)

    Useful video, well worth a watch about applying Bayes Theorem to everyday life

    Key takeouts:

    • Remember your priors – what do you know about the context in advance of making an assumption
    • Imagine that your hypothesis is wrong? Would the world look different? – it forces you to check your presumptive assumptions
    • Update incrementally – all yourself to gradually change your mind based on updated information (flexible stance rather than dogmatic belief, as body of proof builds over time)

  • Autonomous car technology + other news

    Autonomous car technology

    Baidu accuses former staffer of stealing autonomous car technology | FT – interesting case. Presumably it must involve autonomous car technology that falls outside the scope of the Apollo open source software project. Baidu started Apollo as an open source initative on autonomous car technology. Who would the staffer be giving this autonomous car technology to and isn’t there a risk that the Chinese government would get involved against the staffer? Autonomous car technology relies on a series of strategic priority technologies that the Chinese government cares about. In particular automation, machine learning and sensors. 

    Business

    Iced tea maker soars 500% after pivot to blockchains | FT – yep things are as messed up as this looks

    CryptoCurrency Screener – Yahoo Finance – it gives you an idea how mainstream cryptocurrency speculation has become

    Culture

    Bill Brewster Recalls His NYC Stint Living (and Record Collecting) in the ’90s – via our Jed

    Design

    Apple Plans Combined iPhone, iPad & Mac Apps to Create One User Experience – Bloomberg – my big concern would be around UX and design

    Amazon Puzzles Over the Perfect Fit—in Boxes – WSJ – with e-commerce do you need the packaging to market the product on the shelf anymore? (paywall)

    Cathay Pacific reuses uniforms to create sustainable red envelopes for Chinese New Year | The Drum – I really like this idea, although it might jar with job and pay cuts at Cathay Pacific

    Ethics

    Apple, CALEA and Law Enforcement – Lawfare  – Apple is consistently making choices to protect users privacy and security. In the face of the kinds of attacks we’ve been seeing, from the “hack in a box” that Chinese criminals were selling to the sophisticated hacking Jupiter’s VPN, the better security is on phones and in communications, the better off we all are. So while Nick is right on the current vulnerability in iMessage, he has it wrong on both on Apple’s legal obligations under CALEA and how easy it would be for the company to accommodate law enforcement’s demands.

    Marketing

    Inexperience is hurting digital content: DeVries global CEO | PR | Campaign Asia – PR agency line of ‘engagement’ with everything – which shows a lack of understanding around effective marketing communications a la Byron Sharp and the Ehrenburg-Bass Institute work. Interesting what they are doing in China, but needs more nuance

    Volkswagen ad to interrupt other brand advertising – interesting brand dynamics

    How brands secretly buy their way into Forbes, Fast Company, and HuffPost stories | The Outline – this looks far more corrosive for the PR industry than Bell Pottinger

    Media

    Twitter Users Like Long Tweets More Than Short Ones | Buzzfeed – impressive if true

    Retailing

    China’s Guangzhou Tengshi secures further funding to expand automated convenience stores | South China Morning Post – interesting store concept that turns the retail space into a giant vending machine

    brandchannel: Unboxing Boxed: 5 Questions With CMO Jackson Jeyanayagam  – good to see this write-up with fellow WE veteran Jackson

    Security

    Germany accuses China of using LinkedIn to recruit informants-Sino-US – not terribly surprising

    California fires: Navigation apps like Waze sent commuters into flames, drivers say | USA Today – this will damage Waze in California.

    Technology

    Qualcomm’s Anti-Competitive Conduct Could Be Exacerbated By Mergers | Disruptive Competition Project – interesting analysis

    Alexa skills top 25,000 in the U.S. as new launches slow | TechCrunch – I guess its a limitation around the ‘type’ of knowledge taught. There are all kinds of restrictions over IP – so no movie dialogue quotes or sports results for instance unless you are ESPN or a film studio

    3D printed Wi-Fi – still getting my head around this (PDF) via our Matt

  • Connection planning has some problems

    A couple of years ago I did a presentation on connection planning and much of that thinking still has value. But some of the tenets of connection planning are now challenged by changes in marketing practice and strategy in the business to consumer space.

    Connection planning process

    The focus on user engagement has been affected by three things:

    • Social platforms have been moving their business model and interactions towards traditional brand advertising models. Social networks like Facebook and Twitter are structuring their algorithms and advertising closer towards the reach and repetition model of traditional broadcast advertising. TV advertising dollars are what social platforms are chasing, rather than going after Google
    • Consumer brands, particularly from publicly listed mature players are facing business pressures from the threat of private equity ownership that would look to sweat the assets at the expense of longer term brand performance.  No one is immune to this, not even Nestle that was thought to be protected due to Swiss regulations. This has led to a resurgence zero-based budgeting that is locked in focus on return on investment over a shorter time period. From a communications planning perspective there are no sacred cows, no guaranteed longer campaign story arcs or brand engagements as spend has to be justified from a clean slate each year
    • Most marketing spend tends to be around existing products, often in mature markets. New products run a high risk of failure. New products in new categories are generally the province of start-up graveyards – we remember the few successes rather than the legion of failures. Marketing thinking for mature brands in mature sectors (so most FMCG categories and established brands). This change has been driven by research financed by FMCG companies including Coca-Cola, Mars, Kraft and Kelloggs  at the Ehrensberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science. Ehrensberg-Bass’ Byron Sharp book ‘How brands grow‘ is the talisman for these marketers and their agency side media planners

    The shorter focus of consumer marketers makes it much harder to build a brand culture that sticks like Red Bull has managed to do. Flow of storytelling becomes less important than reach and stream of repetition.

More posts