Category Archives: Marketing

Made in Provenance: global brands and the second coming of origin stories

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4291-Paul-Smith-sale(Originally published on The Crossed Cow)

Where do great brands come from? Iconic brands often seem like they’ve always been great. That myth is propagated by both companies and agencies. It’s the branding equivalent of the dying myth that success stories come from nowhere and are largely led by individuals rather than by communities.  An often overlooked part of the answer is hidden in plain sight within the question: Where?

One of the earliest roles of a brand was to signify origin. To this day, provenance plays a vital role in many brand narratives. In categories, such as food, fashion and pretty much anything with a design angle, provenance is always a fundamental ingredient these brands use to engage with consumers and position themselves among their peers. When it comes to Italian Gelato, French Champagne (from Champagne, naturally), Savile Row suits etc., provenance is used as shorthand for the authenticity and heritage that product heralds.

It’s tempting (but naïve) to think that in a globally networked market the question of origin is no longer as important as it once was. However, with people having more access than ever imagined to information about brands, it has arguably become even more important. It can still signify quality, authenticity and character but additionally, it now relates to new selection drivers such as environmental sustainability, social responsibility and ideological compatibility.

The global, cosmopolitan consumer may still seek out the international superstar brands, but these brands are successful because their provenance equity is built in. Globalisation is actually one of the main drivers of the importance of provenance. Continue reading →

The keys to the candy shop: how Candy Crush offers a masterclass in marketing

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(Originally published on The Drum)candy

I was standing on a London Underground platform two days ago when an announcement came through the PA system: “Please mind the gap between the train and the platform… even if it means you have to stop playing Candy Crush until you safely board the train.”

That degree of pop-culture ubiquity doesn’t happen often to such a young franchise (since April 2012 on Facebook, November 2012 on smartphones). As with Angry Birds before it, if you are on a train this summer, it feels like every other person holding a smartphone or a tablet is playing King’s Candy Crush Saga. If you are on Facebook, you must be getting “requests” from at least a couple of your friends.

This ubiquity also means big money as widely reported  by the media over recent weeks. King’s figures mention 45 million players playing 600 million times a day. Think Gaming reports $632,867 in revenue per day on the iOS App store alone, and the game is just as high up the charts on Android devices and on Facebook. It’s safe to say that across platforms it’s bringing in millions of pounds every week.

(Note that as a side effect, for any company who deals with related data, Candy Crush PR is a highly effective article bait. At the time of writing “Think Gaming” + “Candy Crush” has over 1500 results on Google.)

But behind the lure of a surprise success story, there’s a master-class in the fundamental digital era paradigm of marketing. Continue reading →

Marketing ideas as disruption, the case of Swatch

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(Originally published on The Drum)Swatch 30th anniversary_0

Swatch turned 30 this year, but its story could have been entirely different if the Swiss watchmaking industry had continued on its downward trajectory of the 70s. A look at how brand embraced disruptive technologies through marketing idea and reversed the fortunes of a floundering industry.

In popular culture, Switzerland is synonymous with clockmaking and watchmaking. The tradition of Swiss clockmaking craft dates back to the 16th century, and while the second world war saw watchmakers in other countries limiting production and supporting the war effort, Swiss neutrality gave the industry an unexpected push.

However, in 1983, centuries of history nearly came to a bitter end as the number of watchmakers shrunk to a quarter of the industry’s size in 1970. The legendary Swiss watch industry was on the brink of being erased.

Continue reading →

Survivorship bias and creative success: it’s a lot more mysterious than we care to admit

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gangnamstyle(Originally published on The Drum)

In a beautifully told blog post, David McRaney, tells the story of survivorship bias.

“Simply put, survivorship bias is your tendency to focus on survivors instead of whatever you would call a non-survivor depending on the situation. Sometimes that means you tend to focus on the living instead of the dead, or on winners instead of losers, or on successes instead of failures…

“It is easy to do. After any process that leaves behind survivors, the non-survivors are often destroyed or muted or removed from your view. If failures become invisible, then naturally you will pay more attention to successes. Not only do you fail to recognise that what is missing might have held important information, you fail to recognise that there is missing information at all.”

Does the above strike a chord?

I would argue that marketing often suffers from survivorship bias. Our challenging task is achieving success and recreating it in a volatile environment filled with unknown parameters. So our outlook gets highly biased towards success stories.

This is most apparent in what is commonly referred to as ‘best practices’. Continue reading →

For inspiring ecosystem marketing – look to gaming

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(Originally published on The Drum)OUYA_0

The ‘future’ of marketing is happening now. Or at least it is for the gaming industry, anyway.

If you are a progressive marketing professional (maybe even one with a touch of idealism) some of your days are spent somewhere between shame and horror.

When I’m having one of those days, I often find there’s nothing like a look at the gaming industry for a jolt of optimism.

Gaming is the largest entertainment industry on earth, and it has been pulling away from Hollywood and the music industry for a couple of years now. But it’s still being snubbed by mainstream media and (despite BAFTA’s embrace) also by the cultural sphere.

It’s maybe this ‘outsider mentality’ that makes this industry reach out to its communities in increasingly ingenious ways.

The example we have at hand today is OUYA: a new gaming console launching around Easter weekend as the first of a new generation of Android-based microconsoles. Continue reading →