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Most of the casinos use “winning big” as the core idea for all communications, it’s interesting to see different approach in advertising. Grand Casino Beograd, a casino in Serbia recently launched a series of fun, hip, and sexy print ads, with less “winning” aspect in the visual. Using party photos of young and attractive models with simple copywriting to connect to gambling, these ads are placed in outdoor and magazine media. Quite brave and clever I would say.

So far, the ads have been quite successful with people posting photos of their billboard ads on their Facebook page.

I’ve recently attended a company training about the science of communication, influence, and storytelling, one of the interesting point that’s stuck in my mind is the simple facts about human’s ability in receiving (and remembering) information, so simple and common that many brands have forgotten.

The simple trick to build memorable stories

After this training, I started to pay extra attention to most of the business leaders and marketers, they all share the same skill in communication: they speak to/ into audience’s emotions. Now, this is not rocket science, but it is one of the most powerful ways to make your story become memorable, no matter how rational your audience is.

Simplest way to do it?

It takes so much for brands to convince their targets about their product features and benefits in this low-trust world, building a story that can win audience’s emotion is not easy, here’s the little trick for companies to achieve it – have a true mission.
Brands can not communicate with a top-down approach anymore, instead, they need to “recruit” people (consumers) who have the same belief, the belief or mission that a brand truly believes in. I really like a quote that I heard from a recent client meeting, “we (the brand) don’t sell to our target anymore, we just need to win handshakes”, this quote truly captures the essence of speaking to targets’ emotions.

Below is the latest video I’ve seen that does very well in speaking to people’s emotion. Enjoy and feel free to share any thoughts on this.

Dying to do Letterman — In Theaters Soon with YOUR Help from Joke and Biagio on Vimeo.

I really enjoy looking at the big ideas brands try to execute these days, Members Project by American Express is one of them, a campaign that lives on Facebook. Idea of the campaign is to “make a difference”, make very small steps to make this world a better place. Below is the full description of the campaign.

Making a Difference is Simple

It starts with you and your first step. Whether it’s one volunteer hour or one dollar, we all have a part to play and something to give. Members Project from American Express, makes taking your first step simple, by providing a platform to express your passion— in small, manageable actions. Everyone can get involved.

Take your first step today by becoming a fan of Members Project on Facebook! Join the discussion, share your stories with others, and rally your friends to your favorite causes. Volunteer your time, donate, or just spread the word. And be sure to check back for new polls, apps, videos and more.

The campaign was completed with quite successful outcome, below is one of the demonstrating video showing the spirit of this campaign, the short film is inspired by the story of 4 girls from Harvard who created a soccer ball that captures energy from kicking, dribbling and throwing. Kids can play a game, then bring the ball home and charge a LED lamp, cell phone or battery.

I really enjoyed watching this video, sometimes it’s difficult to realize something too obvious, something that happens to you everyday.
I have to admit, although I’m truly happy about others’ positive experiences, sometimes it’s just a better story when people struggle.

The experience of the miners in Chile is now turning into a movie, one of the best films of all times (in my opinion) Cast Away is just about a person struggling, the homeless person with the “Golden Voice” Ted Williams recently landed a job because of his “struggles”.

Keeping this human behavior in mind will not only benefit PR related tasks, in fact, if you look into some of the great marketing campaigns (both offline and digital), many of them have included the element “struggle” in the strategy. On top of that, almost all NGOs rely on people’s interests in struggle to get their words out.

Businesses are supposed to be built around, or even within consumers these days, that’s why research is becoming more and more important when it comes to any kinds of business development, but should companies trust their customers?

Polls, surveys, and focus groups are what most companies use for consumer insights, I don’t doubt the accuracy of the surveys and I know companies and agencies are getting very good at conducting them. The problem is, do consumers know what they really want themselves?

In the world that’s driven by creativity and innovative ideas, it’s tricky to just rely on consumer research. If Apple developed products based around a survey on whether people would want to have a phone with only one button, iPhone would never exist. If Mark Zuckersburg built a platform based around a school research on whether people would want a space where everyone can “connect”, Facebook wouldn’t be created.

Numbers don’t lie, but people do, even when we don’t mean to. People tend to respond in ways to reflect what they want/ hope to become subconsciously, instead of what they really think.

Companies should make sure they know exactly what insights they can expect through research, it’s surprising how multinational brands trusted well-conducted research blindly and failed without knowing the reason.

Fox Sports just announced that all their commercial spots for Super Bowl next year are all sold out. Super Bowl starts around first week of February every year, commercial airtime from previous years was sold out around December or even January.

We’ve been hearing companies shifting their marketing budgets from tradition marketing/ advertising to social media, Pepsi made huge buzz last year when they decided to skip Super Bowl ads and went for new media. Last year’s ads cost around USD 2-3 million per 30-second slot, companies could do highly viral and effective campaigns with the similar amount of investment. Does it mean social media didn’t give high business impact for companies like Pepsi? What’s the reason for them to get back to advertising this year?

My view:

I’m expecting there will be more social media integrated TVCs in this coming Super Bowl, meaning companies are likely to try and use tradition media/ marketing to drive online engagement activities, such as a Facebook campaign. But of course, the sex and humour in the ads will still be as good as usual.

What do you think?

The favorite girlfriend

A man can have multiple girlfriends, but there’s always a favorite one or the wife who they want to (or have to) pay most attention to. This man would try his best to satisfy this one woman, he would put this woman in the centre and make plans around her. This woman is just like the biggest client in an agency that the team has to make sure they deliver the most out of all the clients.

Timing

Guys with multiple girlfriends (especially the married ones) have to have the best time management skill. Time slots have to be perfectly planned otherwise they won’t get to see any of the girlfriends. Getting too many girlfriends without a proper “project” management strategy will also easily end up with breakups. Similar working in marketing agency, too much client work without a good workflow system might end up getting nothing done. Greatest marketing agencies are not the most creative ones, they are the ones that can make the creative ideas happen.

Dating ideas

When a guy try to make plans with one of his girlfriends, he would make sure the locations don’t overlap with where the other girlfriends usually go, at the same time they would try to recycle the ideas/ lines they use. Just like how agencies try to leverage on existing work/ content while they have to avoid executing similar ideas on different clients.

Memories and Lies

Guys with multiple girlfriends need to have great memory skills too, they need to remember every girlfriend’s personality, favorite color and favorite food without mixing up with other girlfriends, just like marketing agencies having good client servicing and manage to learn all details and project progresses of all clients.

Pitch

There are also moments when the woman meet another guy. Similar happens when agencies try to pitch a client and the client is not convinced, the agency would go, “Is there another agency?”

Many of us are aware of how fast the luxury market has been growing in China, it is currently the second largest market in the world for luxury goods. China is also a country with most internet users, so it’s pretty obvious that luxury brands should start targeting netizens and let Internet plays huge role in their marketing strategies, but they all face the same problem; Chinese people still don’t purchase online.

Weak e-commerce

There’s no Paypal in China, other than popular site like Taobao (Chinese version of eBay), Chinese people do not trust many online payment platforms due to safety issues, so purchasing online is not as common as other countries. Especially for industries like luxury fashion goods, consumers prefer to buy at offline stores so that they can actually try them on.

Why many brands are still not on Chinese Social Media

There are of course many reasons behind brands for not engaging on Chinese social media, but I can see 2 major reasons for it.

1) Complexity of Chinese social media landscape – People (including most agencies in China) still can’t figure out how to develop a proper social media strategy for China as the online space is very different from any other country in the world. Government and mainstream media still play a huge role on social media in China as they have so much control over it.

2) Unclear ROI – As I mentioned above about the weak payment method, many luxury brands have very traditional marketing teams that are not very comfortable with the ROI when considering investment on social media since e-commerce is very weak in China, they don’t see, and perhaps don’t know how to measure how engaging on social media can directly benefit the brands financially.

Why are brands on Chinese Social Media?

China is the world’s youngest luxury market, high Internet penetration with users who are extremely active on social media, Chinese also love to share branded messages online more than any other countries. But beside all these obvious reasons, there’s one huge opportunity in China that many brands have ignored…

I’m not expert in fashion, but lifestyle and fashion trends are extremely driven by social media in China, people are influenced by what other netizens think, the peer is the true trend setter. For example, whenever a product is featured on Taobao, or most voted by other users, it would become the new trend in fashion. Singers/ celebrities actually dress themselves based on what people like, or what’s hot on social networks like Kaixin, not the other way around like most other countries where celebrities can easily influence purchase decisions. Although they don’t purchase it online (yet), the power of this peer trend setter drive obvious sales offline, and the good news is… there are ways to measure it!

Photo Credit: Ivan Walsh @ Flickr

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A smart experiential campaign was recently created by Creative Agency Owen & Stork. Simular to Ogilvy & Mather’s $73,000 bill from a bar campaign, the key to this is to attract instant attention by reproducing something that does not happen in everyday’s life. If you’ve read Seth Godin‘s book Purple Cow, you must know how powerful it can be to be “memorable”.

Not that hiring hot girls to give out free samples wouldn’t work, but this is taking free sampling tactics to it’s fullest because this piece of content can be leveraged online afterwards if the whole process was filmed.

Dansk Port Teknik (DPT), garage door company recently worked with agency JWT Copenhagen this creative advertisement that really takes the most out of Toyota’s recall. This ad promotes 20% off on all garage doors, for Toyota owners only along with the broken garage door.

Marketing/ advertising industry is often cruel. It’s been only a week, Toyota loses more than $20 billion in market share and recalls couple million cars, companies have already published ads making laughs of their mistakes to generate sales.