We don’t need digital ideas, we need ideas for a digital world, according to James Sowden, Engagement Planning Director and David Webster, Digital Business Development Director of BBHAsia Pacific, at the Alpha Terra Marketing Conference in Jakarta recently. This is a summary of their presentation.
Five shifts in thinking are needed for effective marketing in today’s digital world.
1. Behaviours, not places
Think of digital as a set of behaviours – digital is collaboration, entertainment, communication, gaming (three billion hours a week are spent on gaming), discovery, creation, education, shopping. Yet all these behaviours are being fulfilled by fewer devices – the tablet has become the one single device.
Targeting behaviour cuts across platforms and technologies.
Example: The Johnnie Walker campaign targeted self-expression in China, a unique behaviour on the mainland.
The brand built a platform for films of self-expression – under the Johnnie Walker Yulu Project –– and told the story of one journalist’s (Wang Keqin) fight for justice through this video.
It produced 11 films under the project which gathered 90 million views and 13 million commented on and shared those films.
The question: “What behaviours could you brand target to cut across technologies and behaviours?”
2. Ecosystems, not channels
Fifteen years ago, connecting people and ideas was simpler with broadcast media – where does digital fit? It doesn’t – it’s not linear, it’s not silo. Digital surrounds, is deeper and has more texture.
It’s an ecosystem of interdependent networks that feed into each other. Digital is “a murmuration” – a flock of birds moving – and depends on how consumers move. (See images of murmuration here)
An average Internet user visits 89 domains a month. An iOS user uses an average of 10 apps a day. The average digital day is a complex pattern.
The question: “Do you know what your brand ecosystem looks like and what strategies do you have to optimize and evolve it?”
3. Members, not customers
We are all members of communities. Sites like Kickstarter allow members to fund and follow creativity, to become something bigger. The Internet is the largest stage in the world which spurs people to do things in the real world.
The Chrome Open Spaces video, launched in Jakarta, celebrated street art with the local community. It allowed people with no street art experience to experience the opportunity to have their art created in public spaces.
The question: “How should your brand behave if you’re trying to build and retain members vs attract customers?”
4. All of us, not just us
“The strength of the team is each individual member. The strength of each member is the team.” – Phil Jackson, NBA coach
The best engineers in the world do not want to work for advertising agencies so BBH outsourced a game – piethis.com – and collaborated with a team of engineers.
Good games are hard and expensive to make, games are not like apps where you build it and leave it there. Create platforms that facilitate collaboration.
The question: “How will you use collaboration and collaborative tools to improve the value of your brand and develop a more efficient and effective organsiation?”
5. Their terms, not your terms
How do you create content that is sharable, not broadcast? Expecting people to share means content must have certain elements baked into it. When people share content, it’s about them, not you, and thus content must be topical, relevant, entertaining.
Sowden and Webster shared a campaign BBH did for Mentos during Singapore’s National Day when instead of celebrating the day like everyone else, it played into the topical news of the times – which was Singapore’s problem of not having enough babies – and launched its National Night video, which captured the nation’s imagination on social media.
The question: “How can your brand create content that is sharable?”
