From Tunbridge Wells with love

What is that one phrase that makes you think? What is that one phrase that makes you smile? What is that one phrase that makes you stop what you are doing and focus on the person who said it?

I love you.

Think back to the first time you heard that said to you. 

Think about where it was. 

Think about how it made you feel. 

Think about how many times you’ve heard it since.

Thought about it? Good. 

Like how your attention has been nicely diverted whilst reading this blog post? Well the Tunbridge Wells Borough Council has done the same with their road work’s messaging on the A21.

The message is “Someone loves you”.

Now this is supposed to make you drive carefully through the road works so you can return to your loved one/s. However, it completely distracts you from driving. It makes you think about something other than driving. It does the exact opposite of what it was meant to do.

The TWBC has clearly tried to use emotion to force safer driving. But if they had read a bit further into behavioural economics they would have seen that “emotions can act as triggers of other mental states (stored memories, new beliefs, new preferences, and the like)” (Cecchi, 2015). Stored memories is what I am really trying to drive home here (excuse the pun). If you are accessing stored memories you are not focusing on the job in hand. And that job is driving.

Happy to hear your thoughts on this too, so please leave a comment.

Incredibubble....

Marketing Age's piece on Salman Rushdie's recent speech at the IAPI's Advertising Effectiveness Awards is a great read. Here are some highlights. Of course we all know Sir Salman as an author and unwitting recipient of a fatwa from Ayatollah Khomeini but before that he was a copywriter - memorable campaigns like 'Naughty. But nice.' for fresh cream cakes and 'Irresistibubble' for Aero chocolate.

He talks about failing a copy test at JWT - including 100 words explaining how to make toast to a Martian who mysteriously spoke English (Charlotte one for the Monday workouts perhaps?)

He recounts working at Ogilvy's where you saw large numbers of people wearing red braces, because that's what David Ogilvy liked to wear - such sycophancy. “The other thing that we all knew about David Ogilvy was that when he was in the building you had to lock your desk before you left work because he would prowl around the agency and open people's drawers to see what was in there. Of course everybody there had sitcoms and novels and first drafts of plays, all kinds of unsuitable things, so you had to keep your drawer locked." So Dave, is that a film score on your Mac book?

But the story I really love is about Aero 'Irresistibubble' and how the campaign was born out of panic. He believes panic to be very helpful in the creative process. "The writer whose job it was to do this had frozen and was panicking and when he was panicking he'd begin to stammer". Rushdie was asked into his office to help as the client was due in that day. He describes the phone ringing and this poor chap panicking so much that his stutter became very pronounced and whatever he was asked he said he couldn't do - "It's impossib-ib-ib-ible". That was enough for Rushdie who thought ... ping! While the guy was still on the phone sweating and stammering he wrote down every word he could think of that ended with 'able' or 'ible' and turned it into 'bubble'. Hence, 'Adorabubble', 'Delectabubble', 'Irresistibubble' and 'Incredibubble'.

Rushdie says one of the most important things he learnt from his time in our industry was personal discipline. "One of the great things about advertising is you have to say a lot in very little. You have to try to make a very big statement in very few words or very few images and you haven't much time.

"Beyond that, it taught me to write like a job. If you have, as my sweating friend did, the client coming in that afternoon for his new campaign, you can't not have it. You have to have it. What's more, it has to be good. You can't afford temperament, you can't afford days of creative anguish; you have to sit there and do your job and you have to do it like a job, get it done on time and well."

Pretty inspiring stuff wouldn't you say?

If you want to know the story about 'Naughty. But nice' the read the article in full at http://www.businessandleadership.com/marketing/item/11676-a-writers-tale

Minding your P’s and Q’s

The thing with our line of work is that you don’t often switch off. The work we do surrounds us all the time; marketing is not a 9-5 job or preoccupation. Or maybe I’m just a marketing geek who needs to get a hobby (there’s a knitting group that gathers in the café we can see from our office window, there’s a spare seat. Perhaps it has my name on it?… perhaps not.)

Anyway this week I am mostly preoccupied with P-ing. It’s got nothing to do with the September rain or the incontinence of the knitting ladies. No, it’s the 4 Ps of the marketing mix, the first thing you ever learn as a shiny new grad (when you are not being shouted at). Product, Price, Place, Promotion. It’s such a gloriously simple concept. Why oh why then do some many of the local retailers of Tunbridge Wells refuse to entertain the 4th ?

A friend of mine had a friend recently who opened a beautiful new shop selling delicious fresh product that was oh so right for the good citizens of the wells. Right prices, perfect place. When my friend congratulated the owner and asked him what marketing he had planned, the chap replied – “marketing? Oh I am not going to do any of that” with a look of utter disdain as if my mate had just told him he’d secured him the best seat next to Beryl at Friday’s knitting group and a knitting pattern for a pair of giant knickers to make the group green with envy. Business lasted less than 6 months. It’s a common theme. They come, they go. (The knitters as well as the retail outlets of RWT judging by their age).

Another example: There’s a really lovely French café that’s opened in Tunbridge wells, a bold move to take on the ubiquitous coffee shop brands. It sells coffee that is better and cheaper than the big brands and the environment is delightful. It’s got Gaelic charm in spades and the smiley staff tolerate my children’s oh so charming habit of trying to snaffle as many of the posh sugar lumps into their pockets as they can with cheerful resignation. But, it’s almost always empty (we Dahl’s know this first hand as we are single handily mounting our own quiet crusade to keep it in business by virtue of our presence) while the big brands have customers busting out of their beany seams.

Wake up and smell the coffee people. Get yourself out there. Do some old fashioned marketing to draw those coffee loving mamas and papa’s and their offspring micro-scootering through your doors.

You are the David to Starbuck’s Goliath. Be brave. Behave like a challenger brand. You don’t need Baz Lurhman, a 6 figure budget and an A - lister to get people’s attention. You just need to decide what your brand is all about, why it matters to your customers and come up with a few good ideas to get on their radars.

Never mind minding your Ps and Qs, if you forget your 4th P you can forget any queues.

Oh and PS – Mad Men started last night. My future postings may become a little preoccupied with it, so apologies in advance.