citizenbay

IMM08: Fraser Riddell and the Perfect Pitch

(Photographer: David Banks)

At IMM08 this year, we were lucky to get a stunning presentation from Fraser Riddell of Mediacom

He wanted to help the attendees understand what makes a great pitch presentation to a client.

He provided solid tips for everyone present, but it was most memorable for two things:

First he bizarrely wore a pair of underpants on his head for most of the presentation to make the point that we should always understand the 'briefs' we are given. A strange visual/word gag, but highly effective!

Second, he shared with us how Mediacom won the Shell $300m pitch. Presentation all ready in powerpoint, all looking beautiful when just as they about to start, the presentation would not work. 10 minutes into the pitch time and several attempts to transfer the presentation to another laptop failed.

So Mediacom decided to wing it. They stood up and pitched with NO POWERPOINT. They just talked with passion for their ideas and belief in their ideas for Shell.

The fact that they won the account tells us a few things about agencies pitching to clients:

1 Clients want passion and belief, not manicured presentations
2 They buy into people not a document or slides
3 At a pitch, clients are about to entrust a significant amount of the company's future and their own future to you, so show you understand and appreciate that through your own commitment to them.
4 There is no formula for the perfect pitch, other than great ideas rooted in deep knowledge and insight expertly brought to life.

Great fun and loads of tips from Fraser. Thanks.

IMM08: VISA is not-for-profit

(Photographer: David Banks)

Joe Clift of VISA kindly spoke at IMM08 this year. He gave everyone present an insight into the challenges facing VISA.

51bn transactions, 1.3bn cards and forever expanding opportunities for consumer to pay for things with cards, rather than cash.

VISA exist to grow their members (the banks) business, not to make money for VISA - makes sense when you are a non-for-profit company such as VISA.

Yet how many of us actually see VISA as a non-for-profit company?

It certainly got me thinking on some ideas for Joe, so off now to drop him a note...

Nick Vale hates Big Ideas

(Photographer: David Banks)

Ah the promise of the BIG IDEA. Don't we just seduced by the promise of one. Our mouths water, the hairs at the back of our neck get ready in anticipation, our palms start to sweat...and then the BIG IDEA is announced to us with great fanfare...

And the Big IDEA is...having our product stuck to a poster whilst people walk by and 'engage' with it. Stunning...brilliant...fabulous...what a let down...

Well, all of us in media and marketing have been involved in ideas that are talked up as BIG IDEAS but are ultimately effective (one hopes) tactical ideas.

Clients demand BIG IDEAS from their agencies...agencies demand BIG IDEAS from media owners or other third parties...often without clearly understanding themselves what a BIG IDEA is.

citizenbay truly detests the words BIG IDEA, as it has become a wall to hide behind for many so that the real work of idea development is not dealt with. Words that have encouraged throwaway ideas for the short term, not ideas that effect positive change for businesses.

So when Nick Vale, planning director at MediaedgeCIA London, stood up and said he hated BIG IDEAS, I was cheering from the sidelines...

Drawing in part upon the book written by his colleague Jim Taylor (called Rigorous Magic) Nick put forward the case for the search for Ideas that work for a brand. Not BIG ones, but the right ones.

Nick beautifully laid out the differing types of IDEAS in the form of a periodic table. Check out the book and find out more. Great stuff. Thanks Nick.

IMM08: Steve King seeks a new breed of media professional

(Photographer: David Banks)

As always, a great contribution to IMM08 from Steve King, CEO of ZenithOptimedia. In a room full of media agency and media owner professionals plus a smattering of brand representatives, he called his presentation ‘ Everything changes but you’. It was a challenge to all present to face up to the fact that the media agency and media owner has to evolve if they want to continue to be relevant to brands in the future.
Steve gave a great summary of how simple life was for the media agency and creative agency in the past.. Show a great TV ad in great programming, watch the ad recall measures go through the roof. Even simpler was the role of the international department which acted as a central resource of ‘Best Practice’ and monitor of local agency performance. Steve stated that central clients wanted info on the local markets, so agencies created central departments to provide it.

Consumers now have more choice, more ways to make their choice, more media, more brands and more information, and we have seen the simple relationship between advertising and ad recall is declining rapidly. Agencies can no longer depend on GRPs.

Steve is absolutely right. The communications model of buying heavy weights of media space, based on people needing significant exposure to a message to remember it, is flawed.

His demand for a more holistic view on communications planning is not new, but it is still urgently needed.

The ultimate challenge in Steve’s mind is the people who work in the communications business. To be able to grapple with the new consumer realities, the industry needs a new breed of people who think holistically, can construct strategies that do not carry the weight of old ways of working and be trenspotters.

So is your company finding these kind of people? They are out there, but it might be just that you are not looking in the right place…More on this in a future post…

IMM08: The Making of a Global Pop Star...

citizenbay is co-chair of the IMM08 conference this year. This conference mixes great speakers with a case study that the delegates work on in groups for a final presentation in the last day. The delegates attending come from media agencies, media owners and brand marketing, with approximately 5 years of experience.

citizenbay has written the case study for IMM for 5 years now. We love being involved with this, as this is a chance to see the future stars of the industry solve a problem from a refreshing perspective. It is also a chance to see in action the promises of many companies who promise integrated planning/holistic planning/360 ideas and so on.

The case study this year takes up the challenges faced by the makers of pop talent shows. Such shows make significant revenue from TV, sponsorship, mobile voting and the sales generated by CDs of the winning artists.

However, the programme makers and their record company partners struggle to take the winning artist further than the first album or the country where they won. The long term music success of the winners of such shows is extremely rare.

However, a potential global star has been found, and people behind the scenes are looking for the right long term marketing strategy to help this artist become a global credible superstar.

The case study will challenge the delegates to re-think the formulaic record company approach to marketing. Let's see what they come up with. Should be good.

The perfect retail experience?

I think I have discovered retail heaven.

The place is called You Don't Bring Me Flowers and it is found in south London right near to Hither Green train station.

I had to meet my friend Gauti Sigthorssen to discuss our on-going research project on the rise of DIY culture in music (you can find more on this over at the citizensound blog).

He insisted I made the trip to Hither Green ('where?' was my first response).

The place is fabulous. Flowers on sales outside.

Inside the walls covered in an eclectic mix of fair trade jewellery and interesting objects. They serve all sorts of tea, coffee and cakes. Cups and saucers don't match. Chairs and tables are a stunning mix of tastes and eras.

For me though the icing on the retail cake so to speak is the 1950's dansette on top of the old fridge. With a rack of LPs to choose from (Ella, Nina Simone amongst others) you can just go ahead, choose a record, and put it on the dansette yourself. I sat back and enjoyed my tea and toast listening to Ella Live in Berlin.

Oh and no wifi.

If you live in London, please make the trek there. It is truly an oasis.