Radicalised normal: how Britain fell to the conspiracy… – The Face – interesting essay. But one that I think under estimates the nature of what I’ve called angry Britain. Angry Britain don’t like the speed of change, they’re drawn from all classes of society. Angry Britain encompasses
National Trust members who feel its fine to be racist, like someone out of the the post-war Windrush period. As well as the traditional conservative working class racist who wore their views on their sleeves
New age believers looking for answers, 5G was something that they latched on to. They were always there in society, but weren’t mainstreamed until recently
Behind Coca-Cola’s new agency and marketing approach | Ad Age – why Coke cut Accenture, Arroyo indicated it was because the consultancy did not have the global scale Coca-Cola is seeking. “I think they are a fantastic, phenomenal agency from a capability standpoint,” he says. “Our challenge was more one of geographical reach. Their level of capabilities are very different depending on the geography around the world.” – and here was me thinking that their thinking wasn’t up to snuff as digital transformation isn’t the answer to every problem and their creativity lacking despite being a good number of hot shops
Foreign Office ‘warned UK-based Hong Kong critics about extradition risk abroad’ | Hong Kong | The Guardian – Hong Kong government figures list 19 extradition agreements with other nations including India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, South Africa and Portugal. In response to the law, several countries including the UK, Australia, Germany, France and the US, tore up their Hong Kong agreements. Chinese authorities record at least 59 extradition agreements, including with countries across Asia and Europe, although not all are ratified. Several countries including France and Australia have indicated they will not ratify their agreements
The return of Huawei CFO becomes a nationalist moment for China — Quartz – China is turning the return of Huawei’s CFO Meng Wanzhou to the country into a celebration of its perceived diplomatic victory—a “win” rather than “win-win”—over the US and Canada. The timing couldn’t be better: its National Day celebrations fall on Oct. 1. Meng, who is also the daughter of Huawei’s founder Ren Zhengfei, was arrested in late 2018 in Vancouver at the request of the US for alleged violations of its sanctions on Iran. After a lengthy battle against extradition in Canadian courts, Meng last week reached a deal with the US justice department. Meng admitted she misled banks regarding Huawei’s dealings with Iran; in exchange the US agreed to defer her prosecution until next year, after which the charges could be dismissed. Meng pleaded not guilty to charges of her committing bank and wire fraud – not surprising, also interpreted as a sign of terminal US decline.
The elections in Germany marks the end of 16 years run with Angela Merkel as the Chancellor of Germany. Helmut Kohl was in office for only slightly longer. It feels like the end of an age, and in one sense it is.
Most Germans believe their ‘golden age’ is over, poll finds – “These findings suggest that, while Angela Merkel has cemented Germany’s position as a great European power, the cornerstones of her legacy – neutrality and consensus building – will not be enough to defend the unity of the EU, and its place in the world, in the years to come.” Germans will head to the polls on September 26 to elect a new parliament and choose a successor to Mrs Merkel, who has served as chancellor since 2005. Her own party, the Christian Democratic Union, is lagging its coalition partner, the centre-left Social Democrat Party, in polls. Mrs Merkel’s SPD finance minister, Olaf Scholz, is likely to become the next chancellor.
Angela Merkel’s legacy is complex. She struck up relationships that were bad for Europe and strategic rivals of Germany:
The Other Side of Angela Merkel’s 16 Years as German Chancellor | Foreign Policy – Far more troubling was the substance of many of her policies, which we can simply label “Merkantilism,” defined as the systematic prioritizing of German commercial and geoeconomic interests over democratic and human rights values or intra-EU solidarity. From her coddling of Hungarian strongman Viktor Orban as he built the EU’s first autocracy to her active courting of Europe’s geostrategic rivals in Russia and China, Merkel has tended to place German profit and expediency above European principles and values
Germans Demanding New China Policy. Will the Next Chancellor Deliver? | National Review – no matter who wins, German public opinion, pressure from the United States, and the strong possibility of having to partner with the Green Party in a coalition government make it likely the victor will be pushed in a more hawkish direction. The same hardening found among the German public is also happening in Parliament and the foreign ministry. Conservatives in the United States rightfully lament how bureaucracies often influence policy outcomes against the wishes of the principals leading them, not the other way around. When it comes to the future of Germany’s China policy, those bureaucratic exertions might not be such a bad thing
Democratic capitalism in crisis
Angela Merkel helped facilitate the rise of Viktor Orban in Hungary and facilitated similar a populist movement in Poland. Not actively, but by inaction. Which makes this interview with Martin Wolf of the FT all the more pertinent. More related content here.
60 minutes on Hong Kong
The Hong Kong government finished its engagement with a PR agency called Consolum. This agency came up with messaging for a campaign to relaunch Hong Kong. Quite how these messages would work effectively, when there is so much material ripe for the media to work against their measurement.
Some of it is surreal. Trade unions are considered subversive. Providing allowed allowed gifts to prisoners such as shower gel and packets of M&Ms became a natural security threat.
The panellists look back to Tom Ford, in particular his notorious, provocative advertising campaigns during his tenure as creative director of Gucci, while wondering whether his present day collections have the same impact. The glamour of the Tom Ford tenures at YSL and Gucci including the old collections is also dissected. The analysis of the Tom Ford legacy is timely as Gucci has looked to relaunch some of his old signature pieces.
The debate doesn’t touch on Tom Ford and his impact on culture beyond luxury such film making. The outtake for me is that Tom Ford may have a longer and more relevant career than Karl Lagerfeld.
Macau casino stocks shed $16bn as government seeks greater oversight | Financial Times – the Chinese territory opened a 45-day public consultation on revising its gaming law, which is expected to step up scrutiny of operators in the world’s biggest gambling hub. Casino groups’ 20-year concessions to operate in Macau are set to expire next year. The authorities’ move to tighten control of casinos is also proceeding as Beijing embarks on a broad campaign to reshape the country’s business, political and cultural landscape in a bid to stamp out inequality and promote “cultural prosperity”. Chinese regulators have imposed stringent conditions on the country’s biggest companies in the tech, online education and video gaming sectors, and authorities have targeted social behaviours perceived as harmful
A decade of the Tim Cook machine — Benedict Evans – it will carry on making a certain kind of product for a certain kind of customer. That’s been the plan ever since the original Macintosh, and in some ways all that’s changed is how many more of those customers there are. The original Mac sold a few hundred thousand units in 1984, but Apple now sells half a million iPhones every day. Apple and the market grew into each other
In Depth: How Evergrande Hid Its Debt – Caixin Global – A source familiar with the capital market in Hong Kong said that Evergrande had raised a lot of money overseas at interest rates higher than 15%, which one source found to be perplexingly high. “How could Evergrande make a profit borrowing at such high interest rates?” the source asked. – I don’t think Lehman Brothers is the right analogue, but maybe Enron or MCI Worldcom are?
Kids who grew up with search engines could change STEM education forever – The Verge – It’s possible that the analogy multiple professors pointed to — filing cabinets — is no longer useful since many students Drossman’s age spent their high school years storing documents in the likes of OneDrive and Dropbox rather than in physical spaces. It could also have to do with the other software they’re accustomed to — dominant smartphone apps like Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and YouTube all involve pulling content from a vast online sea rather than locating it within a nested hierarchy. “When I want to scroll over to Snapchat, Twitter, they’re not in any particular order, but I know exactly where they are,” says Vogel, who is a devoted iPhone user. Some of it boils down to muscle memory. But it may also be that in an age where every conceivable user interface includes a search function, young people have never needed folders or directories for the tasks they do. The first internet search engines were used around 1990, but features like Windows Search and Spotlight on macOS are both products of the early 2000s. Most of 2017’s college freshmen were born in the very late ‘90s. They were in elementary school when the iPhone debuted; they’re around the same age as Google. While many of today’s professors grew up without search functions on their phones and computers, today’s students increasingly don’t remember a world without them
Germans Demanding New China Policy. Will the Next Chancellor Deliver? | National Review – no matter who wins, German public opinion, pressure from the United States, and the strong possibility of having to partner with the Green Party in a coalition government make it likely the victor will be pushed in a more hawkish direction. The same hardening found among the German public is also happening in Parliament and the foreign ministry. Conservatives in the United States rightfully lament how bureaucracies often influence policy outcomes against the wishes of the principals leading them, not the other way around. When it comes to the future of Germany’s China policy, those bureaucratic exertions might not be such a bad thing
Most Germans believe their ‘golden age’ is over, poll finds – “These findings suggest that, while Angela Merkel has cemented Germany’s position as a great European power, the cornerstones of her legacy – neutrality and consensus building – will not be enough to defend the unity of the EU, and its place in the world, in the years to come.” Germans will head to the polls on September 26 to elect a new parliament and choose a successor to Mrs Merkel, who has served as chancellor since 2005. Her own party, the Christian Democratic Union, is lagging its coalition partner, the centre-left Social Democrat Party, in polls. Mrs Merkel’s SPD finance minister, Olaf Scholz, is likely to become the next chancellor.
Foreign Office ‘warned UK-based Hong Kong critics about extradition risk abroad’ | Hong Kong | The Guardian – Hong Kong government figures list 19 extradition agreements with other nations including India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, South Africa and Portugal. In response to the law, several countries including the UK, Australia, Germany, France and the US, tore up their Hong Kong agreements. Chinese authorities record at least 59 extradition agreements, including with countries across Asia and Europe, although not all are ratified. Several countries including France and Australia have indicated they will not ratify their agreements
How China’s ‘996’ culture is changing | Advertising | Campaign Asia – brands should be “non-judgmental and show empathy and kindness towards the young generations.” By doing so, they can keep momentum going even after “lying flat” no longer trends. “If brands can even help young people to achieve their personal goals, that would help build the loyalty of the younger consumers in the long term,” she advised. brands should be “non-judgmental and show empathy and kindness towards the young generations.” By doing so, they can keep momentum going even after “lying flat” no longer trends. “If brands can even help young people to achieve their personal goals, that would help build the loyalty of the younger consumers in the long term,” she advised.
Lithuania says throw away Chinese phones due to censorship concerns | Reuters – The National Cyber Centre’s report also said the Xiaomi phone was sending encrypted phone usage data to a server in Singapore. A security flaw was also found in the P40 5G phone by China’s Huawei (HWT.UL) but none was found in the phone of another Chinese maker, OnePlus, it said. – given the closeness of Russia and China, at least some of the concern will about their mutual help of each other in the cybersecurity realm
Report: Fake chips flood in to exploit supply shortage – Oki Engineering has opened a chip verification service. And after opening the service in June, Oki had received 150 inquiries by August. After studying about 70 cases it found problematic chips in about 30 percent of them. With constrained supplies customers are prepared to buy from “unconventional sources,” the report said. Industrial and medical equipment manufacturers are amongst those to have subscribed to Oki’s chip verification service
To think about content in the online realm it makes sense to go back to 1964.
In 1964, the idea of being online and exposed to hypermedia was the stuff of information theory papers and the fevered dreams of researchers on government projects trying to build working packet networks.
The medium is the message
Canadian philosopher Marshall McLuhan published his book Understanding Media[1] introduced a concept in the title of the first chapter of his book, that would become common cultural currency. This was that ‘The medium is the message’. The expression neatly captures the idea that the communication being used— email, podcast, social media post, documentary film, white paper etc.—will affect how the message is perceived. Even, if the same message is communicated with different media. That is why an article printed on the salmon pink paper of the FT seems to carry more weight literally and figuratively than content in the online realm.
‘The medium is the message’ is often used in the context of media considered influential on society, including forms of media that are thought to have changed how people experience the world. An area that online communication fit neatly into, just in the same way that television and video cassettes would have in the 1980s, as illustrated by this scene from the movie Back to The Future.
When we think of content, particularly in the online realm, the medium itself helps dictate our thinking. From a marketers perspective, at least in theory, every action in the online realm is trackable. So marketers think that they can use content in the online realm to take the audience through a curated journey to adoption and beyond.
The marketer will have mapped out paths that customers will receive content on like a hunter baiting a trap. The idea clearly meshes with concepts like the sales funnel. Marketers would be able to track the audience through a journey and prompt them to take the next step through emails and advertising retargeting.
This cajoling might be triggered on customer responses through the power of artificial intelligence, that dynamically adapts to each customer, or a sales rep in a follow-up to conversation. This is would be considered to be part of the marketing function’s digital transformation.
Digital transformation
If you are reading this article, chances are you’ve read about digital transformation, seen internal presentations, listened to podcasts, been to the webinars and possibly in person conferences about the subject area.
Digital transformation typically offers an efficient technology-centred approach, but consider for a moment if it’s a consumer-centred way?
Which begs the question: As marketers and creators, what should we be doing for the estimated 95% of the time when the audience isn’t in a frame of mind to move towards adoption?
The sales funnel
The sales funnel is one of the most enduring ideas in sales and marketing. A recent article by strategist Tom Roach described it as ‘the cockroach of marketing concepts’[2]. It appears in various designs in the smart art function of Microsoft® PowerPoint® – such is its importance in the business world. The importance of the sales funnel is recognised by Mark Ritson, who believes in their use to marshal the thoughts of marketers in terms of periodisation, rather than its literal application[3].
In his article Roach makes the point that the sales funnel started out as the AIDA model. AIDA (Attention, Interest, Desire, Action) in turn came out of door-to-door personal selling in the late 19th century. It was a way to teach sales people how to navigate buyers to make a purchase in a single conversation on their doorstep.
The book Bond Salesmanship[4] in 1924 used a ‘funnel’ metaphor with the AIDA model to encourage a consumer to make a purchase.
One interesting aside by Roach was Bond Salesmanship was about facts being ‘forced down’ the funnel rather than people. The generally accepted use now is to convey customers through, stage by stage. All of which is completely divorced from its original use in a personalised single session.
When I had been in college the sales funnel was only mentioned in passing in foundational modules on consumer behaviour. The lecturer used it as way of conceptualising how marketing worked as a visual accompaniment to the AIDA model rather than being used in a literal sense. At the time, my lecturer felt that consumers were too post modern in nature to apply it.
The popularity of the funnel seems to have grown again with the rise of advertising technology and marketing automation platforms. Historically enterprise technology companies have relied on personal selling to their business customers. This may have had something to do with the model’s adoption and application in a multi-session customer journey by adtech development teams as their ‘model’.
A model is handy as a mental framework to simplify the understanding of a concept, but it often falls down in a real-world environment. The sales funnel is no exception:
The perfect customer fallacy. Customers will remember what you’ve told them in the previous stages, in the order that you told it to them. This point is a complete fiction, people often don’t remember what they’ve been told. Which is why a lot of work has been put into consumer memory encoding and revival as a subject area. It is why reach and frequency are important aspects of any paid media plan[5].
As designed, the sales funnel has no concept of memory. Is this a product that you’ve bought before? What was your experience like? Are you happy to use it again? Do you actively seek it out as a product that you want to use?
The reason for both of these limitations is that the sales funnel was originally developed for single session selling opportunities, not the kind of relationship that brands typically have with stakeholders today.
McKinsey came up with a circular journey that had been called the loyalty loop to allow for customer memory.[6]
McKinsey
James Hankins of Vizer Consulting came up with a conceptual model[7] that better addresses the perfect customer fallacy. Hankins model also implies the role of brand building as well as brand activating content in the customer buying process.
James Hankins
What does all this have to do with content in the online realm?
We know that we have a desired journey for content, that is often designed around the sales funnel. But we also need to build content around that. If the consumer journey is storytelling, then the content around it is more akin to world-building.
This has been called content continuity by others.[8] Content continuity supports the web of interactions that aren’t a purchase in the James Hankins model.
The storytelling provides our core content, the content continuity builds around that. Content continuity provides supporting information.
How do we think about content in the online realm in order to create content continuity? The key to thinking about this content is to think about it in two dimensions. The first dimension is around content themes. What are the content themes that the content journey relies on and what is the content areas that are tangential to these areas? This will vary based on the product, service or campaign.
The second thing to consider is how this content affects the audience in terms of exposure to the brand, exploration, evaluation and experience. With this in mind consider how your content themes fit into the following six areas that impact exposure, exploration, evaluation and experience. Are there any obvious gaps that need to be plugged?
The author’s own creation
If you are marketing to a well-understood category with a well-understood idea of what is good, that your product or service fits into then you probably not need to consider market shaping or market attitudes. Otherwise, it makes sense to see how the content themes cover: market authority, market shaping, marketing attitudes, product awareness, product relevant and product proposition / support.
Tonality
The tone of content needs to be appropriate to the job that needs to be done. Safety instructions or a list of allergens in the product could do without a touch of levity. However, in other areas it is worthwhile thinking about how emotion could be used appropriately. Research shows that emotional priming content aids long term sales uplift.[5]
Remix, re-edit and reuse
Once you’ve created great content, the next thing to think about is how it can be put to the best use with necessary tweaks, expansions or modifications. A webinar can be turned into video on demand content. A presentation script can be turned into an opinion piece or white paper.
Think about how it connects with other content. This means connecting content together and treating your digital presence as an ‘embassy’.[9] This embassy approach facilitates audience exploration and evaluation.
Ignoring the digital dictatorship of the marketing automation black box
All of the processes that we’ve outlined take a human-centred approach, this means that they may not fit in with the algorithmic driven ‘black box’ approach beloved of marketing automation platforms. This means doing content for the right reasons, not just for the right numbers. It takes bravery to ignore the hectoring and dictatorial nature of the ‘black box’, but who should your organisation put its faith in, its marketing staff or a ‘one-size fits all’ algorithm? I would argue that data and metrics should inform, but not dictate an approach.
Tokyo based digital experiential agency teamLab came up with an interesting installation in the basement of GINZA 456. But the exhibition was live-streamed so that viewers from around the would could enjoy Walk Walk Walk Home. Walk Walk Walk Home was designed to provide a COVID-safe experience, that still fostered community.
Consumers were invited to colour one of a range of characters and upload it. The characters that consumers submitted walked in real time on the YouTube Live Stream. When a character is touched, the character reacts, sometimes stopping temporarily interrupting Walk Walk Walk Home. When a new character walked out, the name of the town where the character was contributed from is shown. teamLab did Walk Walk Walk Home for Japanese telecoms provider KDDI. It runs until the end of the COVID-19 epidemic. More related content here.
Anita Mui biopic
Anita Mui was a giant in the world of Cantopop, she was often considered to be its Madonna. But the Madonna analogue doesn’t really do Anita Mui’s career justice. Given that most things have become political in Hong Kong; it seems like the right time to reflect on Hong Kong’s historic role at the centre Asian popular culture for much of the 20th century and the Anita Mui biopic sits at the centre of it. Mui kept performing up until the last prior to her dying of cancer. Judging by the trailer the CGI of Hong Kong up to the early 2000s is amazing. Mui remained at the top of her game from 1982 to 2003, when she died at the age of 40.
Greater Bay Airlines
Cathay Pacific has been bleeding like a stuck pig due to COVID. But that also means now is an ideal time to set up a new airline. Greater Bay Airlines looks to connect Hong Kong with other cities in China and some parts of the belt-and-road. It looks like it might be a discount airline judging by the planes. The have started with a fleet focused on Boeing 737s. What is obvious is that there hasn’t been much money spent on the GBA brand. It’s almost like non-branding, see for yourself. That sea green looks its a tint lighter than Cathay Pacific’s palette but otherwise the same.
Matrix Resurrectons
Since the entertainment industry has been riding on the success of the John Wick franchise, it made sense for the media to return to The Matrix. Matrix Resurrections is the fourth instalment of the series. It is hard to judge from the trailer, but it doesn’t seem to be a neat take-up from the third instalment.
Rethinking Chinese politics
This is a great discussion with the author of the book Rethinking Chinese Politics. In his book and the interview the author Joseph Fewsmith discusses the challenge of power transition in China. He doesn’t discuss the rumoured assassination attempt against Hu Jintao during a PLA Navy inspection visit to Shanghai. More information on the book here.
