ChaosScenario

A Whack on the Side of the Head: A Review Fit for a Fool

A Whack on the Side of the Head
How You Can Be More Creative
Revised and Updated (2008)

by Roger Von Oech

Buy it on Amazon

As is my custom, because I received this as a review copy and I'm recommending it, I will buy a copy of A Whack on the Side of the Head for the first person NOT named Roger von Oech who comments on this thread, as long as it can be shipped via Amazon.

This policy is in place so that you know that if I say a book is worth buying, I really mean it. - Cam Beck

Free is Part of the Solution, not the Problem

The keynote speaker for Day 2 of Ad:Tech, NBC's Chief Digital Officer, George Kliavkoff, understands the dilemma posed by the digital space very clearly. It was very refreshing to hear from an executive -- a lawyer, no less -- who refuses to blame (and sue!) users for pursuing something they are passionate about -- a passion that actually benefits the company anyway. Under Kliavkoff's leadership, NBC created a solution that is both profitable to the company and free to the users.

Instead of whining about how much money it costs to create a show and moaning about how the users are stealing content (like a lot of content creators are still doing), NBC simply created a new and innovative way to consume the content, and they made it easy.

As a result, people would have little incentive to go through the effort to illegally copy and distribute a show, since it was already freely available to them.

"The threat of a lawsuit isn't going to get people to do the right thing ... I truly believe that if you provide an incredible customer experience and you do it in a way that you've given as much flexibility for the user to interact with your content ... they'll do the right thing." - George Klaivkoff

What's more, Klaivkoff reports that NBC's net operating profits for their digital solutions has never been higher. They're up 50% from a year ago. And far from cannibalizing their TV viewership, NBC has learned that when more people watch a show online, more people watch it the next week on TV, too.

We can speculate about the reasons, but I think that placing the shows online fills the primary purpose of allowing people to keep up with their favorite shows, if for some reason they missed it or forgot to record it.

I'd love to see the statistics about when people are watching the shows and what the correlation is between online viewing and DVR ownership. Perhaps from that we can anticipate how many ads are they seeing, anyway (and if they're seeing them at work, at home, or on the road).

And I'm sorry I cannot forbear... I admit that I feel a bit vindicated from all of this, because I laid out the principles for Hulu.com over a year ago when Viacom sued YouTube for hosting copyrighted content. I said, "Make it easier to comply than it is to crack the code," and though Hulu.com doesn't take it as far as I suggested, that is essentially what NBC did.

Unfortunately, there are still pockets of resistance. Based on other panels I attended, it appears to me that publishers such as the Wall Street Journal and Access Hollywood know that what they're doing right now with respect to online video is wrong.

"I hate preroll ads," said one panelist (and I'm paraphrasing), "Especially when it's 30 seconds long and comes right before a 45-second piece of video."

They allow them on the site, he said, because that's what advertisers will buy. The other panelists agreed.

And from the publishers' perspective, that's a perfectly reasonable action to take. If they cannot raise revenue, they cannot exist, so they do what they must to stay afloat, even if their particular flavor of existence happens to annoy their users.

The problem is that it may work in the short run to raise revenue, but as companies like NBC create excellent consumer experiences, these competitors will likely bleed audience members and, as a result, drive down revenues, because the same or alternative content can be consumed more readily elsewhere.

Advertisers and agencies need to understand a fundamental truth: When people search for either  entertainment or information, they have no interest in being interrupted, and online especially they resent the interruption.

That is no way to build brand affinity.

However, since websites aren't free and publishers need to raise revenue somehow, traditional thinking leads us to believe that we must charge for access to the content, but history has shown us that this just leads to piracy and further resentment.

Instead, consider following NBC's example by actively allowing the users to control how, when, and why they consume the content. Be more innovative in your revenue model. If you must deliver ads, do it so unintrusively in a way that does not give users incentives to seek other means of consuming it. You, and the users, are likely better off when they have a reliable means of getting it from you. - Cam Beck

Photo by James Cridland

Advertising: An industry in flux

After a full day of jumping from keynote to panel, I've concluded from my first day at Ad:Tech, if any conclusions can be drawn, that the industry is changing, everybody knows it, and no one is quite sure what sequence of actions will result in the best possible outcome. That's not just advertising, though, that's life.

Let's get this out of the way, though:
Most of the panels and keynotes I went to at Ad:Tech were pretty darned good. I particularly enjoyed hearing about Kodak's story and how the modern agencies are still trying to figure out how they fit into all of this.

Admittedly, advertisers had a charmed life for a short period of time when there were only three networks, and everybody's attention wasn't severely divided. For a time, there weren't many people they couldn't reach, and they would not have to do an inordinate amount of research to figure out how many they could reach just by placing an ad in prime time across the three major networks.

These days we have a lot more data to pull from, but we're not sure how to use them all effectively.

I can't help but think that this must be how consumers feel, with the myriad of choices they now have. This is true, not just with TV, but with other media and avenues of entertainment.

On top of that, consumers are bombarded with marketing messages to the tune of 3,000 per day. When you get that many, it's very difficult to sort out the good from the bad, so serving "relevant" ads, while a step up, will have limited effectiveness when they are drowned out by the 2,999 ads that aren't.

After all, the banner blindness and DVR phenomena didn't just happen because consumers were getting advertising they wanted to receive at a quantity they found acceptable.

Consumers are much less patient than they used to be, and with good reason.

Even though they continuously told us, through their words and deeds (like buying the DVRs) that they don't like ads, the industry responded by placing more ads on TV and otherwise trying to find ways to force consumers to watch their advertising.

Is that the way to build trust?

Who controls the brand?
I noticed that some speakers relied too heavily on the concept of customer "engagement."

Based on my observations, I suspect that "engagement" is defined, to an advertiser, as whatever it takes to interrupt a consumer with an ad -- as if consumers are falling over themselves trying to find an ad that suits them. Eyetracking studies and abysmal click through rates demonstrate that this is not the case.

Most speakers seemed to say that the consumer ultimately is in control.

But when they follow up such statements with this fantastic notion that they can force the consumer to do anything -- to "engage" them, it doesn't make much sense.

The legal situation also doesn't help. We live in a highly litigious society, and several panels mentioned the consequences of doing it wrong. At some points, I thought some of the speakers would resign control of the brand to the lawyers. I hope that's not true.

That isn't a knock on lawyers. Lawyers are just a reflection of reality. They are not the source of it.

The reality is this: Corporations are afraid. They fear not being in control of their message. They fear someone will say something wrong and it will get the company into legal trouble. CMOs are afraid they'll lose their job in 26 months or less. And... Truth be told, they probably will.

So history tells us it isn't an unfounded fear, but we need to make it a manageable one. Life is more chaotic than ever. We need to be able to adapt to it. It isn't realistic to expect our old methods to work.

What are your thoughts?

1. Where do you think the industry is heading?
2. How do you think it should adapt?

- Cam Beck

Absolut-ly Overblown

Recently Absolut has found themselves in the midst of an uproar about their new Reconquista ad.  The ad, pictured here,  created by  Teran/TBWA in Mexico City, was designed to appeal to the Mexican consumers specifically without any ties to the current election and the much debated issue of immigration reform. Absolut said the ad was intended to recall "a time which the population of Mexico might feel was more ideal."

Conservative columnist Michelle Malkin posted the ad on her site while and hundreds of people have voiced their own ban on Absolut.  One reader had the following comment:

Absolut -

I run a bar in Pt. Richmond, California - where the Kaiser Liberty Ships were built during WWII. After seeing your ad Campaign where you show a western map of the United States in which California is part of Mexico again, I’ve decided to do the following…

1) Never carry Absolut. Ever.
2) Lower the price of Ketel One vodka to $2 a shot indefinitely to build loyalty.
3) Print a copy of your ad and put it above the Ketel One drink special.
4) Tell all my friends and family what Absolut thinks of the United States of America and our right to enforce border laws.

I am on the front line of illegal immigration and its effects. Where are you? Oh yes, Sweden.
Good riddance.

Sincerely,

Matthew Rogers
Pt. Richmond, Ca.

My take on this is that people are just itching this political season to find anything they can jump on to point the finger at someone else.  Clearly this ad wasn't a power play to infiltrate American politics and insinuate that Mexican borders should include Texas and all of the western states.  Even if Teran/TBWA and Absolut were completely malicious in their intent, how are so many people offended by this ad?  Mexico is as much a threat to the United States as MC Hammer is likely to have a comeback. In the end, Absolut has to love all the press they've received off the ad even if some nuts are up in arms. - John Herrington

Building a Website is Harder Than it Looks

When Wendy McHale of The Madison Avenue Journal first asked me to review a website for an Ad:Tech finalist, I chose Visa's Business Breakthrough because it is, in a way, a marketer's interactive dream project. It obviously had a large budget, and the video was skillfully shot and implemented throughout the site. A technician could certainly appreciate the production quality.

A big part of my job at Click Here is to troubleshoot websites at various stages of development, and this means looking for and finding the problems that do or might cause the users to fail completing whatever task they came to the site to accomplish. This way, I can cut through the bull to get to the meat of the issue, and everyone working on the project can do so with full awareness of what needs to be fixed and how to go about it.

My first review of the site, which I did not submit, was highly critical of the effort at businessbreakthrough.com. It reflected, I think, my typical approach to reviewing websites.

I reread it a few times, and I wasn't pleased.

As I thought about Steve Krug's mantra about website criticism, I reminded myself that it's always good to take a step back and remember just how hard it really is to build a website. Not only do you have the technical issues to consider, but you have to be able to:

1. Pitch a concept internally and to the client (often in multiple stages),
2. Secure the budget and resources
3. Try to reconcile the visions of everyone in the project who has a say in it -- including the technicians who are telling you that what you're asking can't be done on this budget -- and
4. Put together all the various pieces cohesively so that when users come to the site, it does not break.

The ugly truth about web design
I've been doing it for awhile, and though it's always enjoyable, it's never been easy (If it were, we couldn't be proud when we did it right). Everyone has a different opinion of what the site should be, and the person making the ultimate decision might not have the same grounding in the interactive space, including the way humans use it, as the people building the site.

So not only must those building the website be good at what they do, they also must have unimpeachable skills of persuasion. To convince the decision maker who might be biased toward another medium, they must be able to back up their claims with research the allotted budget of time and money didn't pay for.

The people paying for the site must feel as if the site is theirs.

Of course, we always have best practices to point to, but it doesn't help that the principle author of them is so hated by designers.

Because of this, those building the site must often sacrifice what they know to be right because of these external considerations, but that shouldn't stop us from admiring the things we know they executed well.

Click here to read the review, which is an edited version of my third draft. - Cam Beck

For more information: See Jakob Nielsen's latest synopsis of various usability mistakes made by several webites.

What I Learned from Blogger Social

Ryan tagged me in a "what I learned from Blogger Social" meme that David unintentionally started. It's a large canvas to paint, since I try to learn from every situation (whether I learn the right things or not is arguable). Here goes:

1. My wife is amazing. The day I left, our daughter Faith got sick, and she stayed that way for the entire weekend, and into the next week. Janell had to do 10 loads of laundry while nurturing a baby who wanted nothing else but to be close to her mom. Not an easy task. Without her, I'm nothing.
2. David Reich has a heart of gold. I have liked and admired David since he started posting comments over at MPDailyFix.com. David opened up his own house to strangers (though some of us were stranger than others) -- or at least friends in a strange situation, so that we could attend the event. Thank you again, David.
3. New Yorkers are nicer than I thought they'd be. Seriously. And it's not just because the New Yorkers in attendance at Social broke the curve. I didn't even witness a mugging. New York gets a bad rap, I'm sure, for having a bad attitude. That wasn't the case this weekend.
   
4. Greg Verdino is a freak. And I mean that in the best possible way. You get a sense from the imagery he chose to use on his blog that he has a sort of hidden rocker side, but the stoicism he conveys through his polished presentations and thoughtful writing do no justice to this very joyful, fun-loving person he is.
5. Scott Monty is a master presenter. Besides the fact that his voice is made for radio -- or those movie trailer voice overs (Cue: "One man... on the run from the law for a crime he did not commit...") -- he worked the crowd like a true professional. After he presented $30,000 check from ooVoo to the Frozen Pea Fund (to great dramatic effect), he effectively used the playful ribbing the crowd was giving Joseph Jaffe to further the cause of the Frozen Pea Fund.
6. Kris Hoet and Luc Debaisieux are sheer geniuses. First of all, they're probably the only two throughout the entire event, including those with allegedly "above average" intelligence, who can spell and pronounce Luc's last name (and Luc patiently told me 3 or 4 times), but besides that, between them the speak like a gazillion languages and are well versed in just about everything.
7. CK can herd cats. Or at least, that's the rumor in New York City since she was able to organize all of us bloggers.
   
8. There is hope for the future. With people like my housemates Nathan, Ryan, and Mario representing the future of marketing, perhaps we'll still have a world to bequeath to my grandchildren, after all.
9. Bloggers come in all shapes and sizes. Who knew that Sean Howard, Todd Andrlick, Geoff Livingston and Matt Dickman were so freakishly tall? I mean, I know they blog that way, but literally?
10. First Life still kicks the pants off of Second Life. 'Nuff said.

- Cam Beck

Turn it Around for the Good of Mankind

The industry continuously talks about converting audiences into "brand advocates." I wonder how much more effective these companies would be if they simply became consumer advocates. - Cam Beck

Be a Leader by Getting Out of the Way

Tim and Wendy McHale of Madison Avenue Journal kindly invited me to attend Ad:Tech in the hopes that I would extend my meager observational talents to review some of the finalists for the "People's Choice Awards."

I know that some of you are thinking, "Cam, what qualifies you for this duty?"

As evidence of my expertise, I submit to you Exhibit A.

As you can see, I am, in fact, a people (The indefatigable Doug Meecham snapped that shot with me and my two friends, David Reich and Lewis Green).

For my first review, I took on the ever-popular ElfYourself. please do me the honor of heading over to Madison Avenue Journal and letting me know what you think. - Cam Beck

Gone Social

See y'all in less than 24 hours! - Cam Beck

Drawing by Gannon Beck for OO-RAH.com (with a slight modification).

How Many Five Year Olds Could You Take in a Fight?

After a quick question and answer session, I've finally answered a question that has plagued me for years.  I don't really have any application to this other than the fact that it is hilarious and they've made it easy to share. How many can you take? - John Herrington

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