The largest brands in the world all have one thing in common: attention. More specifically, the attention of the masses. Attention builds brands. Attention creates opportunity and leverage. Brands become household names because they are known. To gain attention, brands must stay consistent with their marketing and branding efforts and continually differentiate themselves from their competition through content, strategy and service.
The biggest brands in the world focus their efforts on getting as much attention to their brands as they can. They constantly invest in their brands through marketing and advertising efforts in order to continuously remain relevant in the modern day. Today’s ability to market online and on social media has caused smart brands to invest marketing dollars where consumers have transitioned their attention.
The commodity of gaining attention is a process that requires time, consistency, creativity, strategy, research and execution. You must find where the attention you want is and create a strategy to gain it. Years ago, that meant brands fighting for attention through print ads, TV and radio commercials. But now there are fewer barriers to entry by marketing on social media platforms, which is where most consumers spend a lot of their time anyway.
Every business needs consistent attention and new eyes on it because the more known it becomes, the greater its chance of generating leads and sales.
Attention — especially when paired with an amazing product or service — can generate more opportunity, leverage, influence and longevity for a business and brand. It will require, however, devising a strategy that will connect with the consumer at a deeper level. When done right, this can eventually create brand loyalty. And if consumers enjoy what you’re providing, it’s more likely they are going to continue the attention momentum for you by spreading it via word of mouth.
Attention is its own stock market and has volatile trends, reflecting on where marketing dollars need to be spent. However, attention has moved to social media and is where businesses and brands need to focus on marketing and advertising strategies to gain market share.
Social media allows businesses and brands to know where the attention is and helps you do market research on what will capture your target audience’s attention. Social media enables brands to attract new clients quicker and more efficiently than ever before because it gives them access to figure out consumer behavior within a given industry. You can find out what type of content consumers want from you with only a few clicks of a button, allowing you to utilize polls and other forms of data-collecting tools.
Here’s how attention helps create opportunity, leverage, influence and longevity:
Opportunity
With newfound attention, opportunity begins to present itself. Investors, consumers, brands and businesses all want to get involved with businesses that have attention. It opens your business up to the possibility of collaborations, sales, fans, investment money, partnerships, etc. The more attention you have, the more opportunity you will see.
Leverage
Having attention creates leverage in your industry. If you’re well known in your industry, you have the ability to be a trendsetter and capitalize on opportunities before others can.
Influence
When a brand has attention, it can more easily gain influence in its industry, causing disruption. This requires competitors to pivot, and while they are strategizing to keep up, you are now a step ahead. Influence can also be used to persuade the consumer to buy or vote.
Longevity
I believe this is the most important element of what attention can do for a business and brand. Attention can keep a business and brand relevant, which, in return, can result in longevity. Consumers nowadays will move on to something else if they feel as though you are not keeping up with the times. Therefore, the longer you sustain positive attention, the longer your company will generate revenue.
Attention is obtainable through unique marketing and advertising strategies on social media. Not every business may want attention, but in order to grow, every business needs it. Attention will keep your pipeline full, referrals coming in, leads coming to you and sales generated. Businesses cannot expect attention to come to them; they need to actively work on acquiring it. But once they do, attention creates opportunity, influence, leverage and longevity. Attention is an asset.
The magazine publisher’s partnership with MRI-Simmons builds on the Meredith Sales Guarantee to track business outcomes
Meredith Corporation, the multimedia conglomerate known for its stable of glossies including People and Better Homes & Gardens, is moving to convince marketers of the value of continuing to advertise even as the pandemic-spurred recession bears down, by rolling out something it’s calling MAAG: the Meredith Audience Action Guarantee.
Basically, the Des Moines, Iowa-based company is guaranteeing that a specified number of readers will take action in response to seeing campaigns in Meredith magazines, in their May through December issues, with benchmarks and performance targets determined on a category-by-category basis. MAAG expands on the company’s existing ad-effectiveness-tracking program, the Meredith Sales Guarantee, and is designed, per a company spokesperson, “to help advertisers during the current crisis.”
Ad Age spoke with Doug Olson, president of Meredith Magazines, to get some specifics on MAAG. At one point, Olson threw the mic, so to speak, to Catherine Levene, president of Meredith Digital, to answer questions about digital traffic; her response, which she supplied by email, appears at the end of this post.
The following has been lightly edited and condensed for publication.
Walk us through how the Meredith Audience Action Guarantee will work. What sorts of business outcomes are you tracking, and what external solutions are you deploying to monitor consumer actions?
We’re tracking the engagement of our readers through MRI-Simmons’ Starch AdMeasure, and measuring the specific number of readers who have taken an action as a result of seeing a brand campaign in our magazines. By “action,” we know if our readers have clipped an ad, visited a brand website, looked for more information, recommended the product, considered/purchased the product, and the like. For instance, the consumer may have talked to a doctor or taken a photo of a QR code or visited a social media site.
We’re working closely with our advertisers as they navigate this crisis. They want to know that our readers are taking action and their investment in print advertising is working.
How does this build on what you’ve already been doing with the Meredith Sales Guarantee program?
At Meredith, we stand behind the power of our brands to drive action for our partners. That accountability was first established a decade ago when we introduced our Meredith Sales Guarantee, which proves that Meredith’s print, digital and video properties impact sales and deliver ROI. We’ve executed more than 200 successful campaigns.
MAAG allows a broader number of advertisers and categories to be included. Examples of categories include financial services, prestige beauty and entertainment—for example, tune-in ads.
If a given campaign doesn’t live up to the “action guarantee,” how do you compensate?
We’ll provide a “make good” in print.
Let’s talk for a moment about the Meredith magazine portfolio, which of course primarily targets a female audience. You’ve got a set of titles that are actually quite well-suited to self-quarantine and staying in. Better Homes & Gardens and Real Simple, for example, have always been about making the best of your home life.
We believe our brands’ focus on food, family, home and entertainment reflect consumers’ desire for normalcy and the kind of transportive experience they’re looking for during this time. From providing meditation/yoga guidance and other workout-from-home exercises, as seen in Health and Shape … to suggestions for getting dinner on the table from Allrecipes, Better Homes & Gardens and EatingWell … to sharing tips on cleaning and organizing your home from Real Simple, or how to set up a home office, as seen in Reveal’s current issue. Our brand content across platforms is resonant right now.
Now tell me how you’re dealing with consumers’ widespread lack of access to newsstands during lockdown. What’s your overall subscription/newsstand mix?
Meredith brands possess one of the highest direct-to-publisher rate bases in the industry. Our strong, longstanding relationships with more than 36 million subscribers allow us to enjoy an approximately 96 percent subscriber / 4 percent newsstand split, which insulates us from a downturn in newsstand sales.
So what have you seen at the newsstand?
We experienced an uptick at newsstand in the early days of this crisis, though mid-March, though the newsstand is currently soft and has been so during the past couple of weeks. For more context, the bulk of our brands’ newsstand sales are generated at major grocery chains, Walmart and Target, which remain open and are currently receiving considerable traffic. Though there’s no traffic at newsstands at airport terminals and at Barnes & Noble.
Are you sticking with your existing frequency schedule across your titles?
There’s currently no change in our publishing schedule. We continue to closely monitor the situation across our supply chain, including the paper and printing areas, and we fully expect to maintain our circulation rate base delivery.
There’s been a lot of coverage of how TV viewing is up during quarantine, which you’d totally expect, and is obviously good for Meredith’s TV stations. What about magazine readership?
We’re seeing increases in consumer engagement with our print editions as we track how the coronavirus is impacting women’s daily lives. Thirty-five percent of women are reading more magazines as a result of the coronavirus, according to data from our Meredith Consumer Pulse: COVID-19 tracking report.
NOTE: As mentioned above, in response to specific questions about Meredith’s digital traffic, Olson connected Ad Age with Catherine Levene, president of Meredith Digital, who emailed to say:
Our most recent estimates, as of Sunday, April 12, show that our April month-to-date traffic across the Meredith Digital network was up 40 percent year-over-year. Social alone was up 30 percent MTD. Video has also experienced a stellar month so far, up 150 percent YOY. The week that ended on Saturday, April 4, represented Meredith’s biggest week ever on YouTube, with more than 13.4 million views. March was the biggest month ever for our brands on YouTube, with over 46 million views across the portfolio.
We’re working together across disciplines to identify and address our consumers’ real issues and current needs. The data team is pulling real-time trends and predictive insights; the content team is leaning into those trends; and the growth team is driving traffic via search, social, email and browser notifications, and they are driving new emails sign-ups and membership. It’s the perfect circle.
For a long time, conventional retail mistakenly treated technology as the opponent’s weapon while all along it should have been the tool for innovation and re-invention
At the turn of the millennium, what started as innocuous online book marts had already started spreading their influence and outreach across product categories bringing digital disruption to the doorstep of every retailer. The ease and convenience of shopping online and improvements in supply chain management coupled with enhanced user experience ensured that the ubiquitous online was now a real alternative to the traditional retail sector.
With rapid improvements in Internet proliferation—both in terms of reach and speed—now made for a compelling and complete rout of retail dinosaur as we had known it. For a long time, conventional retail mistakenly treated technology as the opponent’s weapon while all along it should have been the tool for innovation and re-invention. This switch is no more a luxury but a pressing need of the hour.
There are many ways in which technology as a disruptor can be useful to retailers in bringing the wandering consumer back; tools that can improve efficiency, increase profitability and enhance customer experience and thus bring freshness to the brand based on shopping experience as the primary dimension.
Some of the most promising futuristic technologies where the ‘online’ was the early adapters can in effect become the hallmark of the ‘new retail’ driven by consumer experience. Focusing on this tacit advantage of physical presence of the consumer at the store would also allow the retailer to encash on the sense of touch and other sensory perception. Some of the disruptor technologies include the use of artificial intelligence (AI), geo-fencing and beacon, data-driven targeting and virtual reality tools to enhance in-store navigation and experience.
Artificial Intelligence
Technological advancements such as virtual shopping assistants, in-store stylist robots, AI-powered recommendation engines, bot-managed billing counters, etc., have altered the dynamics of retail drastically. Heuristic learning has given these bots the ability to execute in real time with smartness gathered from customer data mining. The largest of retail companies are now finding means and methods to utilize these robots in their day-to-day operations to streamline functions such as stocking, store layout and product presentation, among others, and in the process, also becoming relevant in the face of their online counterparts.
Geo-fencing and beacon
Mobile empowers marketers to reach larger audiences in a way that is real-time, personal, location-aware and geo-targeted. This is where geo-fencing and beacons come into picture, and benefits retailers. Increasingly, retailers are installing in-store beacons for location-based marketing enticing customers to walk into stores (geo-fencing) and provide value-added experience in-store (beacon), giving them competitive advantage over others.
Data-drive customer targeting
Data analytics and data intelligence, similarly, present a striking picture of reinvented retail and retailers have found myriad uses for it. Customer identification and contextualization that can deliver a highly personalized experience is a virtual gold mine. Collecting, transforming and analysing customers’ online and offline shopping behavior, preferences, demographics, social profiles and every bit of customer details for accurate customer target, is what Big Data offers to retailers.
Shopping customized to individual requirements
E-commerce websites work in a manner where they always accurately understand the needs of the customer and information is available on whichever device the customer chooses to use. This well-selected, organized and presented style of shopping makes it easy and convenient for the customer and he or she does not have to waste precious time in browsing different online stores to find the right one. Today’s technology-savvy stores contain smart screens and tablets to give a personalized experience to their customers.
Renovating brick-and-mortar stores as emotion-experience centres with advanced elements like AI-enabled virtual mirrors is helping bridge the individual limitations of these two platforms and leading to a well-co-ordinated marketplace for the customer.
Finally, retailers are also realizing that offline and online channels do not need to compete with each other and can effectively integrate to provide a seamless footprint in an omnichannel world exploiting the benefits of both the platforms to become omnipresent to the consumer.
Driven by tech-savvy customers, retailers can now provide them with a seamless shopping experience whether the customer is shopping online from a desktop or mobile device, by telephone or in a brick-and-mortar stores. To keep their business growing, brands have put their products on multiple channels for the easy convenience of the customers. In fact, augmented reality is providing a new face to the omnichannel consumer experience.
These technologies thus, promise to better equip retailers for turning prospects into a buyer and a buyer into a loyalist while simplifying the entire sales cycle.
Data visualization can transform large amounts of business-generated raw data into useful and actionable information nuggets for decision makers.
Many businesses use data visualization and analysis applications to transform large amounts of generated raw data into useful and actionable information nuggets for decision makers. One of the more popular applications in this genre is produced by Tableau Software.
Whether your data is stored in a simple text file, Excel worksheet, or large database, Tableau Software can read it, process it, and then present it in an informative manner which can be read and understood by practically anyone through data visualization. The transformation is relatively intuitive, but the application of certain tips and tricks will make the process smoother.
This how-to tutorial shows you how to connect data to Tableau Software and then transform that data into a simple data visualization with a few mouse clicks.
Modern businesses generate reams and reams of potentially enlightening raw data every day, every week, every month, and every year. That data can exist in many formats, including simple text files, Excel worksheets, and databases. For this example, we will use the public version of the Tableau desktop application to connect to an Excel file. The public version is limited in scope, but otherwise the same as the paid version.
After downloading and installing the Tableau Software desktop application, you should find a new shortcut on your desktop. In Windows 10, you double-click that icon to start the app. You should see something like the screen shown in Figure A.
Figure A
The first step for any project is to establish a connection to a data source. Click on the Microsoft Excel link listed on the left-hand navigation bar of the Tableau app. You will be presented with a File Explorer dialog box that will allow you to navigate to the folder where your data resides. Click the appropriate file, in our example it includes data on mortality rates by country between 1970 and 2010. Tableau will preview the data as shown in Figure B.
Figure B
If the data is inconsistent or otherwise “dirty,” the built-in data interpreter may help clean it up for better data visualizations.
To start your new chart project, click the Sheet 1 tab at the bottom of the Tableau screen to reveal the visualization creation screen shown in Figure C.
Figure C
The Tableau app has performed some interpretation of your data to develop a list of Dimensions and Measures. These various pieces are what you will use to create a data visualization.
How you present your data visualization is a function of what your data represents. For example, from the sample data, we could drag the Year data point to the Column box and the Death Rate data point to the Row box, as shown in Figure D. This gives us a simple line graph showing the rate over time, but there is a more effective way to view this data.
Figure D
What if we take advantage of Tableau’s ability to automatically parse data into better formats? If we double-click the Country Name dimension, which is defined as a geographical data point, the software will automatically create a world map, as shown in Figure E. If we then double-click the Death per 100,000 measure, which is defined as a number data point, we will get a much better and more relatable visualization of our data.
Figure E
To get a good view of your new chart, click the Presentation Mode icon on action bar or just press the F7 function key. All the data construction cards will fall away, and you will be left with a clear view of your data visualization (Figure F).
Figure F
Press F7 again to return to the data visualization construction worksheet again.
This merely touches the surface of the data visualization possibilities. For example, the next step in our example data visualization would be to add the ability to step through each year of data (1970 – 2010) on our map instead of just showing the total for all 40 years.
Just like our education and healthcare systems, our information supply has been heavily commercialised in the past decades. Truth has become a product, aimed at satisfying a need. The advent of digital capitalism turned truth into whatever makes you click.
Even if you haven’t been following the news particularly closely the past couple of years, it probably won’t have escaped you that a certain word has been getting a lot of attention: truth.
So it turns out my philosophy degree can be put to good use after all.
Ever since the election of pathological liar Donald Trump This is a great piece on CNN about the psychology behind Donald Trump’s lies. in 2016, Britain’s decision to leave the EU based on a misinformation campaign, and our social media timelines flooded with fake news stories, a new theory has emerged: we now live in a “post-truth” society. A world in which truth no longer matters, where facts are countered by “alternative facts”, and reality is more about your media diet than about the world as it is.
It’s not hard to see why people feel that “truth” has become irrelevant, given how ubiquitous political lies and conspiracies posing as journalism are nowadays. It’s no surprise, either, that all of this is often linked to the rise of populism more generally. In a society that no longer believes in the importance of truth, populism can certainly thrive as never before.
But an obvious question we often forget to ask in all this theorising seems to be: what is truth? Or more specifically: if we are “post-truth” as a society, which truth have we left behind? And perhaps even more importantly: what, if anything, has taken its place?
Making of “Concorde” (original by Toshihiko Sato, 2000). Made in 2013 for the series Icons by Cortis & Sonderegger.
Three types of truth: metaphysical, scientific, and constructed
First up is metaphysical truth, characterised by the idea that truth exists outside of earthly reality, and is therefore beyond human reach. It resides in what’s often called the realm of the transcendent and is accessed through revelation and faith. It cannot be known; it can only be believed – the basis of every world religion.
Second is scientific truth, characterised by the idea that truth is very much within human reach and can be found through reason, perception and experiment. Modern science is based on this conception of truth. It is independent from how we, human beings, see the world – also known as “objectivity”. Yet at the same time, this type of truth is closer to humankind than the transcendent, in the sense that it is actually attainable. People can access it through knowledge: you don’t need to believe it, you can know it.
‘There are no facts, only interpretations’ – Nietzsche
Lastly, there is constructed truth, characterised by the idea that truth is not “out of reach”, or even independent from human perception at all. On the contrary, we make truth ourselves. This school of thought does not regard truth as something transcendent or superhuman, nor as something objective or findable. Instead, truth is subjective and made by us. Or to put it more simply: it would not exist if we didn’t exist. The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche perhaps best summarised its essence when he wrote: “There are no facts, only interpretations.”
Making of “Tsunami“ (original by Unknown Tourist, 2004), made in 2015 for the series Icons by Cortis & Sonderegger.
Three ages of truth: premodern, modern and postmodern
Although all three types of truth have been present in all societies throughout history, different types have been dominant in different eras.
During the pre-modern period in the west (roughly everything up to the 16th century), metaphysical truth captured the zeitgeist. During the modern era, roughly between the 16th and 20th centuries, scientific truth became the dominant narrative. And during what became known as postmodernity, roughly from the 20th century onwards, the idea of constructed truth became increasingly accepted.
Just to clarify: no era has ever abandoned any type of truth. In our current, scientifically advanced society, transcendent truths continue to play an important role. And even though we often characterise our society as secular and postmodern (“God is dead”, everything is “just an opinion”), belief in things such as objectivity, facts, and reality is equally widespread.
So our society is a mixture of all types of truth – in fact, all of the social debates being waged can, in essence, be traced back to a struggle between these three truths. Debates, in the end, all boil down to a very fundamental question: what is truth, really?
Making of “Death of a Loyalist Militiaman, Córdoba Front, Spa“ (original by Robert Capa, 1936), made in 2016 for the series Icons by Cortis & Sonderegger.
Truth as a product, driven by commerce
If these three types of truth are still prominent in our society, why do so many commentators, scientists and Twitterati speak of a society that is “post-truth”? I believe the answer is to be found in a fourth shape that truth has taken: truth as a product.
In our age, let’s call it post-postmodernity, truth is primarily shaped by the laws of commerce.
The most important reason for this is a development that has been picking up speed, near the end of the 20th century especially: the commercialisation of our information infrastructure. Market forces in healthcare and education have been discussed and criticised extensively, but there has been far less debate about the market forces at work in the production of our worldview.
Almost all influential information about the world around us – from television to books to news sites – is in the hands of some 30 multinationals. Hypercommercialised corporations that are primarily driven by ratings, clicks, ad revenue, and – of course – profit maximisation.
Making of “Munich Massacre“ (original by Kurt Strumpf, 1972), made in 2014 for the series Icons by Cortis & Sonderegger.
Google and Facebook: the pillars of digital capitalism
The beginning of the 90s saw another development: the emergence of what Belarusian thinker Evgeny Morozov calls “digital capitalism”. Its history is too broad to do justice to here, but it boils down to this: our digital information infrastructure (computers, smartphones, the internet), invented by universities and armies around the globe and funded primarily by taxpayer money, was brought to market and became capitalised by private companies for private profits.
Here, too, there has been an enormous concentration of capital and power over the past three decades. Our complete digital infrastructure is pretty much owned by a mere handful of private corporations, with Google, Facebook, Apple, Huawei, Microsoft and Amazon topping the list of the almost all-powerful.
Google and Facebook have been able to make a historically unprecedented claim to our information provision
These internet giants are responsible for what you might call the “monopolisation of the internet”. Google and Facebook in particular founded the internet business model, which can easily be summarised as: free services, paid for by ads.
With this model, they have been able to make a historically unprecedented claim to our information provision. Almost all our information comes to us through one of their platforms – whether it’s Google Search or Google News – or one of their giant subsidiaries, such as YouTube, Instagram or WhatsApp.
Imagine just two companies owning that much of our means of communication and interaction. Almost one billion people get their news through the Facebook feed alone on a daily basis – and together these two companies control over 50% of the online advertising market in the US.
Making of “9/11“ (original by Tom Kaminski, 2001), made in 2013 for the series Icons by Cortis & Sonderegger
The new oracle: the algorithm
This has fundamentally changed the source of truth. In the pre-modern era, the source of truth was revelation from a world beyond our grasp. In modern times, the source was science, which came to us through rationalism and experimentation. In the postmodern era, the source was the Self – the subjective experience of human beings themselves.
But in the post-postmodern era, the source has become the algorithm.
In that sense, Google’s search algorithms and Facebook’s timeline algorithms may well be the most important inventions of the late 20th century. These algorithms – the precise operation of which is shrouded in mystery, their criteria well-kept secrets – have become the most powerful influences on our worldview.
To a substantial extent, these algorithms determine which information is made, how that information is distributed, and what information we actually get to see. They are the hidden source code of our picture of the world: what news we see, what search results we see, which sources are labelled as trustworthy or fake. In short, they largely determine what we believe, know and think.
Although they’re secret for the most part, we know a few things about how these algorithms work. Google, for example, ranks its search results by looking at how many links refer to a particular site. These links are, in turn, ranked in reliability and authority by, among other things, the number of links that refer to those sites themselves.
Facebook uses similar criteria: a message ends up in your personal timeline faster and more prominently if it is liked and shared a lot – and even more prominently if your friends, or friends of your friends, have liked or shared it too. Both companies also personalise information to a high degree: your own search, like and sharing behaviour largely determines which results, messages and sources you’ll see prominently, less prominently, or not at all.
The truth is not what is right. The truth is what clicks
These criteria exert a huge influence not only on the method of disseminating information but also on the method of production. What kind of information is made, and how it is created, is increasingly determined by the preferences of Google and Facebook algorithms.
Traditional news media are guided in their choices and presentation by what is most liked, shared or retweeted. Media companies based entirely on this principle have emerged, ranging from mainstream (Buzzfeed, The Huffington Post) to radical (Breitbart, Infowars). In other words, Google and Facebook determine, directly and indirectly, which information is consumed, in which form, and to what extent.
That’s how digital capitalism turned truth into a product – the product of a technological infrastructure dominated by information monopolies with advertisements as a revenue model, driven by algorithms that select on the basis of linkability, shareability and popularity. Or, as Evgeny Morozov Read my colleague Maurits Martijn’s profile of Morozov here. puts it: “An economy ruled by online advertising has produced its own theory of truth; truth is whatever produces most eyeballs.” Read more about ‘digital capitalism’ here.
The truth is not what is right. The truth is what clicks.
Making of “Black Power Salute at Olympic Games“ (original by John Dominis, 1968), made in 2017 for the series Icons by Cortis & Sonderegger.
We’re not post-truth. It’s just we no longer understand its source
Now, of course, there are many more sources of truth than the internet. From books to films, from documentaries to radio shows, from academic papers to conversations with friends and family: information comes to us through numerous avenues. However, the influence of online information giants should not be underestimated: they deeply impact our patterns of consumption, our political preferences, even our social “bubbles” – in short, all important aspects of our world view.
And the key question then is: has that influence led to a society that has gone beyond truth, as many thought leaders argue? Is there less truth? Or no truth at all? Or is it just a different kind of truth?
Personally, I think it’s just a different kind. Our society doesn’t contain more or less truth or untruth than before. The crucial difference is that the power has been shifted to other sources. Until recently, truth was mainly produced by professional “information producers”: government agencies, mass media, churches, think tanks, universities.
Untruth, in the form of gossip, lies, conspiracy theories and backlash, was just as prevalent; it just remained much more limited in scope. It wouldn’t travel much further than the local pub, the village square, or the private social circle.
Truth-producing power has shifted from traditional elitist strongholds to new elites and non-elites
The big difference that Facebook’s and Google’s algorithms have brought about is that they have undermined the monopolies of traditional truth producers (politics, media, science) while at the same time building a revenue model for the type of information previously limited to the village pump or bar: gossip, backbiting and plain lies.
The truth-producing power has shifted from The Hague, Washington and Brussels (politics), from Hollywood, New York and London (media) and from Boston, Tokyo and Paris (science) to Silicon Valley and its sibling click farms in Albania and Ukraine – in short, to the algorithms that provide whatever makes you click.
Truth-producing power has shifted from traditional elitist strongholds to new elites and non-elites. That’s why traditional information monopolists (politicians, journalists, op-ed writer) in particular speak so eagerly of a post-truth society: their truth no longer commands power. They must now share that power with whomever Silicon Valley provides a platform.
To be clear: I’m not saying that traditional information producers ever had “a monopoly on truth” – and that only now liars can suddenly run rampant. No, the main difference is that almost nobody can quite understand or see the source of truth – the algorithm – anymore. And more importantly: nobody bears moral responsibility or can be held accountable for the truthfulness of the information it spreads.
You can hold a newspaper accountable by cancelling your subscription. You can hold a scientist accountable with peer review. You don’t expect a gossip magazine to be truthful to begin with. And bar chitchat has not ever reached millions at once.
Yet none of this applies to Google and Facebook. They are not liable for the information they distribute – the truthfulness of which is hard or impossible to gauge. Their reach is global and their moral obligation is none, except for the financial one it owes to shareholders.
Truth still is, as always, given, discovered, constructed and produced. But nobody really knows how, by whom, or to what end anymore.
Making of “Tian’anmen“ (original by Stuart Franklin, 1989). Made in 2013 for the series Icons by Cortis & Sonderegger.
The ‘new normal’ is a phrase that we are all currently being bombarded with from many sources as society starts to adjust to life under lockdown and people consider how life may be different once we come out the other side. As the everyday realities of their customers experience changes (some significant, others more subtle), brands are faced with the question of how, or indeed whether, to adapt their marketing to reflect these changes.
For many brands the idea of showing slick, aspirational advertising content in a time of global crisis is just not an appropriate option. Then of course there’s the more practical question of how new content is actually going to be created when most of us are confined to our own homes. The days of exotic location shoots and ensemble casts for TV ads are, at least temporarily, gone.
In its place we are seeing a seeing a significant rise in the use of user generated content (UGC) in marketing, featuring raw, hand shot footage from staff or customers which is designed to reflect our collective new reality and create an emotional connection with audiences. Examples include the likes of Apple, TSB, Tesco and Co-op, who recently replaced their original Easter campaign to promote the sale of Easter eggs for a new staff-led advert to highlight their support for food redistribution charity, Fareshare.
While many of these campaigns have been positively received, is UGC a form of content that is here to stay? Will it continue to be valued after this crisis has passed, or is it merely a temporary trend?
Here’s what two Mission Agency leads, themselves working with clients to adapt their marketing to the current climate, have to say on the subject:
Kate Cox, chief executive officer at Bray Leino:
”Creative comprising of user-generated content is clearly a practical way of getting around the physical filming restrictions during lockdown. Currently there is also an acceptance for ‘rough and ready’ content (be it commercials, programming, schooling, podcasts, radio shows). Plus, no brand wants to be insensitive creating extravagant production pieces or be seen to be defying official advice around social distancing, so UGC is a perfect workaround.
”Who knows what the future holds, but the chances are it will be a temporary trend. When the new normal comes, we will clearly have all learnt things, picked up new and effective ways of working and living, created new life habits etc, but we will also revert to some ‘old’ behaviours. Human nature and what drives us doesn’t fundamentally change, so it’s likely that marketing will continue to reflect this. The key is, we need great insight, variety in our ideas and our executions, one-size-fits-all is clearly not the way to go – it’s the opposite of standing out and having impact.”
John Quarrey, krow Group chief executive officer:
”UGC has offered a quick fix solution to the current production challenge for brands, but it isn’t, and shouldn’t be, the only solution we find for producing new content in a socially distanced world. Stop-frame, 2D & 3D animation, professional stills, self-shooters, influencers, re-editing of existing content are all production approaches largely unaffected by the lockdown and offer a wide variety of executional styles.
”Just as we shouldn’t be restricted to UGC as a production technique, we also need to avoid making execution the defining factor at the start of the communication process. Rigorous insight that delivers stand-out creative work will always have the greatest potential to transform business performance.
”As for whether brands should reflect the new normal in their ads, there is no easy answer. For most brands, using ‘slice of life’ vignettes to reflect the lives of its audiences seems an obvious and logical way to establish an empathetic connection. But beware the ’brandwagon’ – brands that are too late to the show and lack originality run the risk of blending in and themselves becoming the new normal. And brands with strong advertising equities or fluent devices might find that more of the same is better than a quick attempt to join in. Aside from that, I’d imagine most people are well ready for a break from the omnipresent Covid-19 coverage. Aligning too closely could see brands being screened out, not standing out.
”As the veil of global lockdown is slowly lifting, advertising will continually evolve to reflect our new social norms. The big questions being, what will those norms look like and which brands will be doing it best? It’s an exciting challenge for our industry.”
Now, more than ever, brands are having to evolve their products, services and communications to suit the shifting tides of consumer behaviours, demands and expectations. While UGC is undoubtedly a popular way to engage with consumers at this time, as marketers maybe our task right now should not be to hold a mirror up to the people of the country, but to take time to understand how the world around us has changed in the past few months. And how what people want to hear from brands has changed too.
We are living in extraordinary times. And while it may not be business as usual, social media data can help us navigate this new norm. By looking at the conversations happening on Twitter and listening to direct feedback from people on the platform, we’ve gained a better understanding of what people expect from brands during this time.
Here’s what we’ve learned based on Twitter data:.
1. People are turning to social media during this crisis.
At a time like this, knowledge can be a grounding force. That’s why so many are logging on to Twitter to stay informed. In fact, as of March 23, quarter-to-date monetizable daily active users (mDAUs) increased by 23 percent year-over-year to 164 million.
It’s about more than information, though. People are turning to Twitter to learn the latest, but they’re also coming to find levity, take a mental break from the pandemic and stay connected with each other during this time of isolation.
This increase in people on Twitter has also led to higher video consumption. There’s been a steady year-over-year growth in video watch time across key categories such as entertainment (85 percent), news (73 percent), creator content (34 percent) and sports (31 percent).
So what does this mean for the state of ad performance on social media in general and Twitter specifically?
2. Ad performance remains stable.
Media Rating Council video view rates increased by 5.5 percentage points in March 2020 compared with March 2019 in the U.S., showing that ad receptivity remains strong, as people consume more promoted video content.
On top of that, the brand impact of ads remains healthy. Internal Twitter data from January to February 2020 compared with March 2020 shows that brand effect study results have remained positive. In fact, ad recall and brand awareness metrics increased modestly by 0.3 and 0.6 percentage points, respectively.
3. Ads translate to normalcy for users.
People on Twitter say seeing ads gives them a sense of normalcy. In fact, only 37 percent of people on Twitter in the U.S. believe it’s insensitive for brands to continue advertising as normal. What’s more, there’s particularly strong support for brands that use ads to showcase how they’re supporting their communities.
Now that we know people expect to hear from brands, what should you say?
4. Actions speak louder than words.
Of those surveyed, people on Twitter specifically want to see how brands are supporting others, be it vulnerable individuals (86 percent), frontline staff (82 percent), their own employees (80 percent) and their local communities (77 percent).
What you say matters. So does the way you say it. People on Twitter are most interested in seeing brands take on supportive (45 percent), informative (44 percent) and positive (35 percent) tones on social media.
When it comes to advertising during crises, don’t steer clear. People want to feel a sense of normalcy in these trying times, and advertising in content they’re engaging with can provide that while positioning brands for the new normal.
Presenters should be expected to be excellent in what they do. Their audience relies on them for new information as well as solutions to their would-be problems. Mind you… it takes more than just being comfortable and confident in speaking in front of a crowd. You need to give a well-thought-out, amazing presentation too.
However, there is no such thing as perfect presentations. Same with humans, we are bound to make mistakes – rookies and experts alike. If being a ‘better’ presenter is what you strive to be, worry no more. There is a way to help you achieve that – avoid these common presentation mistakes presenters make.
1. Not defining presentation goal
Here is where most of the presenters make mistakes – they do not define their presentation goal. Even before you plan out your outline, content, you should know what your presentation’s goals are. As a presenter, are you looking to inform, educate, activate, persuade, inspire, or purely entertain your audience?
There is no concrete rule on this, it’s not like you need to choose only one goal then work on it. You can say that you want to educate, inspire, and entertain your audience. Once you have that in mind, you can then proceed to plan out your presentation and meet your goals.
2. Lack of enough preparation
Many times a good presentation is ruined simply because a speaker did not take time to prepare. Remember this: preparation involves attention to both professional and personal aspects.
3. Not enough knowledge on the topic
It is your mission to share additional knowledge to your audience. You want to be that person who can answer their would-be questions. That’s why being ‘just knowledgeable’ with the topic is not enough.
You have to have enough knowledge and information ready. You can tell whether you have that enough knowledge because you can already predict their questions and have the answers right away.
Professional aspects include researching information about the subject, organizing your content, and preparing the visuals needed (presentation slides or handouts). Personal aspects include your body language, the tone of your voice, and whether you are presentable enough to face your audience.
4. Not utilizing the use of visuals for the slides
First of all, your presentations should capture the audience’s attention. You will want them to look at the information you prepared for them. But, nobody likes a dull presentation, right? Admit it, you would not want to listen to a presenter whose presentation is just plain white and text, let alone look at it. That’s why it’s important that you design your slides.
Make use of the tools available in the software. Try out free PowerPoint templates for a beautiful and unified design on each slide. Also, you can incorporate images on each point of your slides. This will not only catch your audience’s attention but also help you convey your point to them.
5. Too much text in one slide
Would you want to look at a slide with nothing but thousands of text in them? Of course not! As presenters, we don’t want to bore our audience with information that will not be useful to them. Here’s the thing, when you put too much info in your slide, your audience would read these rather than listen to you.
One of the most important aspects in presentations: the element of surprise. Keep your audience’s interest by not sharing all the information on your slides. Arouse their curiosity by only giving clues and hints. Then, deliver the main point in verbal discussion.
6. Too many effects and animations on the slides
When text effects and animations are being used and implemented properly, they can do a lot to help alleviate your presentation. But abuse it and you will find yourself with a dizzy audience who probably wants to get out of the room and throw up!
Seriously, you will face the risk of losing your audience’s attention. Also, it will distract them from seeing important points in your slide. Do not incorporate animations and effects on every single aspect of your slide.
Here’s a trick! Before you apply on an animation ask yourself: does this add value to my presentation? If the ‘no’, then drop it. But if the answer is ‘yes’, then, by all means, go ahead and the effect. Stick to simple effects and animations, and don’t overdo it.
7. Not knowing who the audience is
Tailor-fit your presentation to suit the needs of your audience. Before anything else, find out the size and demographics of your audience. To help you, ask yourself questions like what are the positions of the people who are attending? How much knowledge do they have on the topic? What is their native language? What are the cultural expectations that you should be aware of? Consider these factors and you will likely increase the effectiveness of your presentation.
8. Not dressing properly and appropriately
Although we have the freedom to express ourselves through fashion, we can’t just waltz in a conference wearing anything we like, especially if you are the presenter. You want your audience to listen to you rather than pay attention to what you’re wearing.
The best advice – dress conservatively! Whether we like it or not, professionals are expected to dress in a certain way. Do not wear clothes that are too revealing for both men and women. Furthermore, avoid wearing flashy pieces of jewelry, wacky hairstyles, and bright colours.
9. Presenters read the slides
This happens all the time! Presenters just read whatever information there is on the slide. They make the mistake of not engaging with their audience. Chances are, you’re just going to bore your audience to death and guaranteed they didn’t even understand a word of what you’re saying.
10. Use of inappropriate humour
Now, this is where “know your audience first” comes in handy. That process is not just so you can give an informative presentation. More often than not, presenters strive to insert comedic act on their presentations to get the attention of their audience.
One thing to remember is, what may be funny in a certain area/country, can be offensive or taboo in the other parts of the world. And you don’t want that to happen to you, your audience might just storm out of the room because you have unconsciously offended them.
11. Not checking if the file is working
Most of the time, you won’t have a technical team on standby when delivering your presentations, whether you’re doing a one-on-one or in a large crowd. It’s important that you make sure your file is working beforehand.
Test it out in the equipment that you will be using in your presentation. Another trick is to have backups… copy it in another laptop, external drive, or flash drive.
12. Non-functioning equipment
There is nothing more frustrating than finding out the equipment you will be using in your presentation is not working. Unfortunately, much of our work nowadays depend on technology, and no matter how advanced it is it sometimes has some troubles.
Prepare some handouts that include essential and important information on your presentation. So that when this happens to you, you can still go on with your presentation seamlessly.
13. Starting/Ending presentation late
Like you, your audience also has time restrictions. Respect them by starting and ending your presentation on time. If you have a certain time allowance, stick to it. Learn beforehand how many minutes or hours you are allotted with and fit your presentation to it without compromising the quality as well.
14. Speaking in a monotone voice
When presenting, it is important that you convey your points properly to your audience. Don’t speak in a monotone and emotionless voice, trust me, your audience wouldn’t like that. Incorporate different tones in each of your points.
For example, when explaining a piece of major information, use a serious voice. When asking for questions, use a tone that would ignite the audience’s curiosity. It makes the audience intrigued and comes off as you really want an answer to your questions. When it comes to the good news, use a cheery tone.
15. Not making eye contact
Although you’re more knowledgeable of the topic (since you’re the presenter), the audience wants to feel like they are your equals. Presenters always make this mistake – not making eye contact with your audience.
This gives the audience an idea that you are nervous, do not really know anything about the topic, or not interested in delivering the presentation at all. Let me tell you… when that shows off to your audience, they don’t want to listen to you!
Avoid these common mistakes!
The goal here is not to create a perfect presentation. As mentioned, there is no such thing! This does not happen overnight either. It takes patience and a lot of practice to be able to become a better presenter in your respective fields. Master and avoid the mistakes above and it will help you become the best presenter that can offer a fun and informative presentation to your audience!
Shoppers much prefer ads with practical messages during the coronavirus lockdown and are shunning generic messages about “togetherness”, new data shows.
Advertising related to the Covid-19 pandemic from brands such as Heinz, Tesco, and Aldi have been the most effective to date, according to analysts Kantar, while ideas from McCain, Nike, and Bird’s Eye have fallen short.
Where Heinz saw success with its campaign to launch 12 million free breakfasts for vulnerable children, which scored well for long-term potential and short-term sales, and Tesco’s “Helps for safer shopping” also invoked a widely positive response, Bird’s Eye’s “What’s for Tea?” TV ad performed poorly, with low memorability and consumers suggesting they were unlikely to engage.
Shoppers want practical advice as well as good humour
Kantar ranked marketing campaigns’ effectiveness out of 100, measuring long and short-term potential in how they resonated with the public, and noting how likely they would be to lead to sales.
The data shows brands focusing on what they are actively doing to help people during the virus outbreak have proven more successful than those trying to push sentimental messages about pride and a common purpose.
Nike’s “Play for the world” campaign, for example, wasn’t disliked, and sparked some emotion, but failed to cut through, Kantar said.
While Aldi’s lighthearted relaunch of its Kevin the Carrot series, a recent Christmas hit, not only reminded consumers of happier times, but also looked to raise money for the NHS.
Empty campaigns without a clear, specific message aren’t as memorable
“An unwritten set of category codes gets established because these key moments are considered essential to conveying what the product is and what it does,” Kantar said.
“If you’re a deodorant brand for example you need to show wetness, armpits and the product being applied. This is often accentuated further when the brand doesn’t have anything different to say about itself versus other alternatives.
“The brands that win out are those that pursue a creative and distinctive creative platform, through a powerful and original human insight that resonates deeply, or through a unique brand vision or purpose,” Kantar says.
“Ads that reference the current situation but don’t have anything different to say to the next brand, struggle to cut through. They don’t make the featured brands feel different to other alternatives and they aren’t strongly building love towards the brands either.”
Feature Image Credit: Tesco has produced a helpful campaign (Photo: Getty)
Instagram is adding new features to combat online harassment.
The Facebook-owned app is making it easier to block multiple people at once, letting users pin comments on posts, and introducing tools to restrict who can tag users.
Instagram has been criticised in the past over its use as a platform for online bullying.
The new features were announced alongside the latest version of Facebook’s Community Standards Enforcement report.
Instagram is making it easier to block people and delete comments in a bid to crack down on harassment. The app is also adding the ability to pin comments on posts.
On Tuesday, the Facebook-owned photo-sharing app announced a bunch of feature that are, it says, collectively intended to “mark the continuation of our effort to lead the industry in the fight against online bullying.”
Instagram users will be be able to delete up to 25 unwanted comments on a post at once, instead of one-by-one. Similarly, users will be able to block multiple people at the same time. The app is adding a feature that will allow users to “pin” certain comments made on posts, which the company said in a blog post “gives people a way to set the tone for their account and engage with their community by pinning a select number of comments.”
And thirdly, Facebook is letting users set restrictions on who is able to tag and mention their account on Instagram. It can be set to everyone, only the people that the user follows, or no-one.
Instagram has largely escaped the scandals that have bedeviled its parent company Facebook over the past few years — but it has been criticized by some over its alleged impact on mental health and its role in online harassment. In 2018, an investigation by The Atlantic detailed numerous instances of harassment on Instagram, headlined bluntly: “Instagram Has A Massive Harassment Problem.”
Tuesday’s new features were announced alongside the publication of Facebook’s twice-yearly Community Standards Enforcement report — a report on Facebook’s content moderation work, and how it policies its social networks for harassment, hate speech, and other illegal or objectionable content.
