Too many marketers rely too much on metrics and logical, rational thinking, at the expense of the mercurial genius of emotional, irrational stimuli. The result: a multitude of me-too marketing campaigns and content that do the opposite of their intended purpose. They resemble each other instead of differentiating your products and your brand. Here’s why, and what you can do about it.
I’ve
worked in B2B tech marketing for the last few years. It has been a real education,
and a great challenge for a right-brained bloke like me to work in a
predominantly left-brained environment. Having a PhD in English Literature
means I appreciate the quicksilver of artistic inspiration that often defies rationality.
The problem is that this doesn’t often fly in the logical world of technology,
coding, software and analytics. Consequently, it becomes bloody hard to persuade
people in this world to do something different, something counter-intuitive, or
just plain nuts, because they want metrics to prove everything. Instead, they become
slaves to ROI, KPIs, SEO, PPC and other such inelegant acronyms.
Nevertheless,
I’ve never relinquished my nagging suspicion that great marketing, and great marketing
content, defies all this measurement, because it’s just as much of an art, as
it is a science. At times, I’ve even
come to loggerheads with tech marketing leaders about this, but I can’t simply
discard my principles. I’ve always felt that trying to accurately measure effectiveness
of some content and campaigns is like trying to catch water in a net, but at
times I’ve felt like a lonely swimmer against the tide. Until now.
I’ve
just discovered a powerful ally. I recommend you read his work and watch his
talks online. They might change what you want and expect from marketing and content.
They explain why you should be more open-minded about it, and why you should do
more than just rely on metrics to create your campaigns. Here’s a bit about him.
Alchemy: the magic of original
thinking
My new ally is Rory Sutherland, and his thought-provoking
book, Alchemy:
The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don’t Make Sense.
Now,
Rory’s a man who knows what he’s talking about. He’s the UK Vice Chairman of
the global advertising powerhouse Ogilvy.
During his career he has been President of the Institute
of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA). He’s been in the advertising
game since 1988 (bloody ages, in other words), and most importantly, he’s the
founding father of Ogilvy Change, his agency’s behavioural science practice,
which investigates and applies principles from cognitive psychology, social
psychology to marketing and advertising.
I’m not going
to go into great detail here about what he says. You can read the book to find
out. Trust me, it’s really engaging, entertaining, intellectually robust and
persuasive. Plus, this is meant to be just a blog. My purpose here is to introduce
him to you and encourage you, in the words of Apple’s legendary advertising
campaign, to “Think Different.”
Wikipedia
nicely sums up what Sutherland highlights in Alchemy,
that great marketing ideas are often
built around a core that is profoundly irrational.
He argues that
we behave in ways that are both logical and what he calls psycho-logical,
rational and irrational. Some of the things that we do, say and decide are the
result of conscious and clear decision-making process, based on the premise of
experience, knowledge and understanding that can be plotted and measured in a
straight line from cause to effect. This plays to what I’ll crudely call, scientific,
or logical thinking: X causes Y, so we should do Z to amplify and expedite X.
It’s tidy, and it’s measurable.
However, Sutherland
says that many of our actions and decisions are governed by unconscious responses
and anticipations. A lot of the choices we make don’t result from what we think
but what we feel. These responses aren’t logical or rational. They are driven by
what we might identify as gut instinct, or reflexes that are so innate or
natural that we aren’t even consciously aware of them. In these cases, it’s not
always easy or possible to identify a clear line from cause to effect. Instead,
it’s a kind of magic, or alchemy.
So, why
this is important for content and marketing? It’s important for two reasons. Widening
differentiation and increasing engagement.
Alchemy widens differentiation
Firstly, it
opens up the possibility of doing things differently. Organisations find logic
and measurement very comforting. CMOs can justify their activity and budgets to
the rest of the C-suite by showing that their choices work, based on metrics gleaned
from what’s happening or what’s previously happened. The problem with this is
that measurement is, by its nature, retrospective and logical. It examines what’s
gone before and extrapolates from that what will work again, so the default
response to it is to follow what it identifies as successful. In short, this
means replicating good campaigns and doing more of the same. That’s fine, but it
most likely means you’ll follow best practice, and best practice means doing nothing
new or provocative. It’s conservative. It neglects or suppresses innovation and
imagination in marketing, advertising and communications, and it risks leading
to dull, uninspired campaigns that lack differentiation.
I’ve lost
count of the number of times I’ve sat in meetings and people have said, “Let’s
see what our competitors are doing, so we can do them better.” And I’ve thought
to myself, “I don’t care how they do things. Our identity and how customers
feel about us should come from how we want them to feel and think, and our unique
voice and standpoint.” My gut feeling has always been that if you spend too
much energy identifying and aping what your competitors do well, you’ll simply
sound, look and feel just like them. And what’s the point in that? You end up as
one of an undifferentiated mass of options that the customer has, making their
choice more difficult.
Surely, if
you do something different, counter-intuitive or even plain bonkers, they’ll at
least sit up and take notice, and they might just say, “Hey, these guys are
doing something interesting,” even if that something is more costly, or
functionally more limited than competitors. Sutherland himself contends that history
is littered with great products and services that died a death because they
didn’t stand out. Similarly, there are other things that should never have got
out of the starting blocks, but for illogical or irrational reasons, they did,
and do.
One example
he uses is the automobile. He says that initially, it was a hugely costly, quite
mad innovation that was barely more powerful than the horses it sought to
supplant. It was complicated to maintain and functionally its advantages were
small to none. Logically and rationally, there was little to recommend it. Yet it
was a mark of status, both in terms of wealth and in terms of being ahead of
the pack, that led to its early adoption. Only once Henry Ford got his head
around his revolutionary manufacturing techniques, did the product become better,
simpler and cheaper, thereby spearheading the success of what could so easily
have been a white elephant.
Magic increases engagement opportunities
Secondly, if
we’re too logical, we’re missing a lot of potent opportunities to communicate,
engage and connect with audiences in more meaningful and impactful ways.
Ironically, this stands to reason. And by embracing alchemy, magic, ineffable qualities,
call them what you will, you’re tapping into a huge reservoir of possibilities that
are neither obvious to the naked eye nor highlighted by logical analysis.
Sutherland
uses numerous examples to illustrate his point, most of which focus on how things
make people feel rather than what they do or whether they are cost-effective
or efficient. Functionality and cost are persuasive considerations, for sure,
but they aren’t everything. On the face of it, a highly portable multi-functional
tool like a Swiss Army knife is a perfect proposition, and it’s certainly useful,
but it doesn’t supplant individual single function tools that either do
specific jobs better, or make customers think they do them better.
To raise an
example of my own, what’s better: an Apple Watch or a 1968 Paul Newman Rolex Daytona?
The former is a modern multifunctional technological marvel.
People are
prepared to spend eye-watering amounts to own one. In fact, its value continues
to rise. It’s a symbol of status, of success. It makes a statement to others
and makes the owner feel different to their peers. That’s far from logical, and
far from rational, but it’s a fact nonetheless.
Another
consideration is reassurance. Sutherland gives examples of how changing the
framing or experience of a product or service can alter customer perception. For
instance, Transport for London (TfL) improved how commuters feel about using
the London Underground not by making trains faster, cleaner or more frequent,
but by installing digitized information boards at stations that tell commuters how
long before the next train arrives.
So, what should marketers and content creators do
about this?
On
the face of it, it’s quite simple, although it’s much more difficult in
practice. And it’s this: Be less logical. Be more psycho-logical. Take more
risks. Go nuts.
If
you want to create content and marketing campaigns that really stand out, take
your head out of the spreadsheets and the metrics and let your gut do the
talking. It’s much tougher to rationalize than best-practice <yawn> and it’s
a shit-load more random. There’s a lot of trial and a ton of error involved,
but if you get it right from time to time, your product and your brand just
might set the world on fire.
A little caveat
As
you can tell, I’m quite excited by reading Alchemy, because it resonated strongly
with me, and really articulated how I feel about this subject. Like Sutherland,
I recognize that metrics and measurement, logical and scientific approaches to
our disciplines, are significant and necessary parts of what we do, but I simply
want to stress that they shouldn’t be the be-all and end-all of the thinking
behind every bit of marketing and advertising. Alchemy and
magic are qualities that are too valuable to ignore.
I
hope I have done justice to Sutherland’s book and his line of argument. That
has been my intention. Don’t take my word for it. Get yourself a copy of Alchemy
and decide for yourself.
Thanks
Adam
PS.
I have no personal or professional links to Rory Sutherland, his publishers or
to Ogilvy. My blog post is merely the ramblings of a fanboy.