Jonathan MacDonald, co-founder of this fluid world, has over the last couple of weeks published some insightful macro trends of the 21st century on his blog. They are a summary of his observations over a period of time and are some the key things that we take into consideration when we help companies understand the evolving communications environment, when assisting these organisations in adding value to their products and services and achieve competitive advantage. None of these ‘Macro Trends’ are exclusive to the 21st Century but all of them are critical to it.
I will say farewell here as I think the trends speak for themselves!
Below is a list of the first 6 macro trends, click on each link to read about them in more detail (enjoy, I know I did, thanks Jonathan! )
During my time at WPP I did a lot of work in the retail space. Buy one get one free (BOGOFs) were, and still are, a huge headache for brands as they are expected to take on the cost of the promotion (such is the power of the retailer, but we will discuss that some other day).
Walking down the street I see signs like this everywhere (not to mention in supermarkets).
But this morning, as I was cleaning out old newspapers, one ad really caught my eye.
Pardon my Swedish, what it says is ‘One extra room when you buy”. Basically when you buy an apartment you get the smallest room for free. No this is not WHSmith where you get three books for the price of two (or if they were more transparent they would admit that you get the cheapest for free). No these guys are advertising apartments!!!
You know you live in extreme times when you can get BOGOFs on a flat (well on rooms!)!!!
Many would say this is a great summary of how today’s communications world works …and its influence on the purchase cycle. It basically covers most touch points (pre and post purchase). The whole journey starts with envy/need, followed by google, reviews, youtube, blogs, twitter, the uncle, the friend of a friend, the neighbour, ownership, personal reference, facebook, tweeting, recommending etc etc etc
The video finishes with a statistic:
Brands that act on customers behalf have 44% more advocates.
And a tag line…
When advocates talk brands grow
Ok so now we know something we already knew…word of mouth is a powerful thing, and an advocate of a product/service is more likely to tell others about it! I have no intention in questioning this.
I want to talk about something entirely different…. Watching the video did not make me feel enlightened in anyway. However it definitely reinforced another feeling, one I have had for a while.
I CAN’T BE DOING WITH ALL THIS ADVICE AND FEEDBACK ANYMORE!!!!
Where did the time of ‘I would quite like one of these, so I stroll down to the closest shop, do a bit of looking around, touching and feeling, have a chat with the sales guy and Bob’s your uncle’ go? The whole process used to be over and done with in just a few hours, or less in some instances. To me all this ‘help’ seems to be dragging the purchasing cycle right down to infinity!!!!
I know what you’re thinking, I would end up paying X% more than if I had gone on line to buy it ….this is probably true. But looking at it from the bright side, I would not have spent valuable time reading through 1,000,000 reviews, or watching 10,000 Youtube clips.
You’re now asking yourself how, if I go about it this way, can I possibly know that I have chosen the best product. That is the point, I don’t! I don’t because I did not expose myself to a million websites, reviews and chat forums in an attempt to make an educated choice. Because I did not do that my consideration set was a lot smaller. This is exactly what made my choice (and therefore life) easier. But wait it does not end there, because I’m not aware of all the products I could have chosen, I don’t have any post purchase ‘have I made the right choice’ freak out!
In summary I have saved time, my soul is at ease, and that to me is worth any markup on price!
It is a tough day when you have to rely on a regulatory body’s understanding of creative advertising work to point out to you that what you thought were an ad spoof is actually a real FT ad! (see previous blog entry).
So I will save the FT brand manager some time and slap myself on the hand. This while thanking my wonderful friend at Ofcom for discretely pointing this out to me and also for sending me the continuation of what is clearly an ad campaign.
Well done Mr Brand Manager, you got my attention!!!
I am not sure who I love the most…the guy who hand made this ad or the newsagent on Marylebone High Street who put it in the window! Advertising made by the people…distributed by the people…I don’t know about you but I would love to see the face of the FT brand manager if he saw this!
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