Yesterday I was at the TrendsPlus conference in London learning from a very interesting bunch of speakers. I was tweeting much of the time but looked up enough to catch some of the great slides and video clips.
I think it was also the first conference in a while I've been to where people seemed happy to introduce themselves and make conversation and not just hang out in their little company cliques. Whether that had anything to do with the fact that it wasn't the usual digital crowd I'm used to, I couldn't possibly say!
During the day we not only did a couple of Mexican waves but also watched the classic coffeeshop scene from 'When Harry Met Sally'. It was certainly different!
I took a few notes, so here are some of the memorable things that stood out for me. I've split this into two parts as it's rather long!
Bruce Daisley from Google (but soon to be at Twitter) talked about how brands aren't as liked as they would think, and how their efforts in social media too often look like they're trying to be cool and failing miserably. In fact, people just aren't interested in brands or ads per se (a theme that came up again later) or jumping through hoops in order to 'engage' with brands via social media.
He told a story of his time in local radio when car bumper stickers were all the rage, and being told by the management to 'get more stickers out there.' But in actual fact, radio audiences don't grow through exposure to more and more bumper stickers, but because they like what the station puts out. In other words, don't confuse the sticker with the show - focus on the thing that creates the emotional pull.
Nick Morris of Canvas8 showed us some really interesting stats about cultural change and how the US and the west is no longer the centre of things, and how this is already affecting a 'new world order.'
In fact 'Asia First' was a recurrent theme - we heard how Harrods now has 75 mandarin-speaking staff and a cash machine where Chinese shoppers can access their Chinese bank accounts, resulting in a 40% increase in Chinese customers in Q1. Impressive! Things like airport signs in Denmark in both English and Chinese, BA introducing its new 1st class service on flights to China, not the US. and Hermes launching its high end sari range first in Mumbai, then Paris later. The message was clear - we need to be awake to the emerging new world order, respect the change and reflect it in our communications.
The scheduled speaker from the Cabinet Office pulled out but Sam Nguyen was sent in his place, and did a solid and very confident job of presenting on the subject of behavioural insights and their applications to marketing. One thing that stood out for me was the insight that people buy more quickly the closer they are to the goal. The example given was a loyalty card where you buy ten coffees and the last one is free, versus the same card with a small difference - there are twelve coffees to tick off before you got your freebie, but the first two are already credited to you as 'bonuses'. In tests, because it looked as if you're already two coffees towards your goal, it was found that people actually filled their cards more quickly. Even though the number of coffees they needed to buy was the same as on the card with no 'bonuses'.
Before lunch we had a presentation from Mark Earles of Herd Consulting which had one very strong message, 'I'll have what she's having', other words, people copy those around them, often subconsciously. The point was illustrated in many ways including getting the audience up and jumping and with reference to the behaviour of shop-lifting rioters in the summer. It doesn't matter how much advertising you blast people with, if there's a choice to be made, in the absence of any strong feelings either way they will basically do what their friends and those around them do.
Rory Sutherland of Ogilvy delivered a cross between a presentation and an after-dinner speech, without slides ('as I will only overrun') and laced with plenty of non-PC opinion! But in between the funny stories and throwaway insults there were many fascinating insights, clearly the result of a long career in the business and a razor-sharp analytical brain.
A couple of things I noted: framing is important. For example, the way that student loans were introduced was a disaster, said Rory, as is the way that people are offered 'compensation' for giving up their house if it sits in the way of a new road being built. Most teenagers wouldn’t have worried about taking out a student loan, firstly if it wasn't called a 'loan' and secondly if they're told, 'you'll only start paying it back when you're nearly 30 and earning £40k' because that’s a long way into the future and may never happen. And the house owner, by being offered 'compensation' is already seeing losing his house as a grievance and a loss, whereas if he was offered a £5k a year bonus, in perpetuity, for moving house, he'd probably be very happy.
Another Rory-ism - 'satisfising' - ie we don't want perfection, we just want what we had before, what we know and trust. 'The avoidance of disappointment is more important than perfection' - hence the popularity of MacDonalds.
That's it for now - part 2 to follow shortly...
