Category Archives: Marketing

False Economies – if it’s cheap, there must be a reason!

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When I was 7 or 8 years old, I asked my parents to buy me a specific brand of toy as a birthday or Christmas present. With the best of intentions, they chose instead a close approximation of the real thing – presumably because it was cheaper, and to them it was exactly the same. Of course, being cheaper, it was badly designed, poorly made, and was nothing like the toy I had asked for. From memory, it only lasted only a few months before falling apart.

This was my first lesson in false economies – cheap and cheerful can quickly become cheap and nasty, rather like some cheaper brands of peanut butter, which are bulked out with sugar, oils, fats and other additives (instead of containing 100% peanuts).

Many years ago I had some shirts made in Shenzhen, because they seemed like a bargain. Sadly, another false economy – after I got them home, I realised the cut was all wrong, and I’m sure they had substituted a cheaper fabric to the one I had chosen. They were unwearable. On the other hand, some jackets I had made in Hong Kong lasted nearly twenty years, because I had paid a bit more to go to an established tailor.

I’m not saying that more expensive branded goods and so-called luxury items are always “better” – but as a general rule, when doing like-for-like comparisons, you get what you pay for. When an item costs more to buy, it invariably lasts longer because of the materials used, the better design, the superior manufacturing and the overall higher quality.

I appreciate that in the current economic environment, consumers are even more cost conscious, and are looking for value for money, if not actual bargains. But just because something is cheap, doesn’t mean it’s the better option. Look at the true cost of fast fashion, fast food, fast money…

Next week: The Law of Diminishing Returns….

How digital brands are advertising

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During a recent visit to the cinema, I was surprised to see adverts for major digital brands on the big screen, ahead of the main feature.

I’ve always thought of cinema advertising as falling into one or more of the following categories:

  • ads you don’t see on TV (often longer than their small screen counterparts)
  • luxury names and aspirational brands (travel, spirits, fashion, financial services)
  • local businesses (the pizzeria “just a short walk from this theatre…”)
  • movie tie-ins (highlighting the product placement in the film you are about to see)
  • seasonal themes (especially Christmas)

What struck me on this occasion were the ads by three DNBs (digitally native brands), featuring LinkedIn, Tik Tok and Audible. Despite the disparate nature of their businesses, I realised that there was a common element.

As the above-linked McKinsey report states, successful DNBs are really good at connecting with (and understanding) their audience, identifying and fulfilling very specific needs with unique solutions, and leveraging the very technology they are built on to promote their services and engage with their customers. Witness the well-timed “alerts” from food-delivery platforms in the early evening, the viral campaigns designed to enforce brand awareness, and the social media feeds designed to build customer engagement and loyalty. (Note that the report features Peleton as a poster child for its thesis, before the personal exercise brand ran into recent difficulties.)

If you look at most DNB campaigns, they are primarily generating demand via very specific human drivers:

1. Aspirational – the pure FOMO element (not unique to DNBs, of course, but they do it more subtly than many consumer brands)
2. Experiential – highlighting the tangible benefits (of mostly intangible products)
3. Socialisation – the paradox of building a trusted relationship through hyper-personalisation and constant sharing…

These three cinema ads each contained implicit “story-telling“. LinkedIn positioned itself as a platform for establishing our own narrative (telling our own truth?); Audible promoted its audio content (books and podcasts) as a means to find authentic stories that resonate with us (and this was long before the recent shenanigans over at Spotify); and Tik Tok used a well-known viral video as the basis for building community around shared stories.

Of course, story-telling is hardly a new concept in brand marketing, and has been eagerly adopted by digital brands (think of campaigns during the pandemic which have featured on-line connectivity and remote working). However, it has become an over-used technique, and is often cynically exploited in the service of corporate green-washing, jumping on social bandwagons, and blatant virtue signalling.

Call me jaded, but I’m old enough to remember the fad of consulting firms pitching their clients on building a “corporate narrative“, drawing on employee stories and customer experiences, as the foundation for those anodyne mission/vision “statements” – but they typically ended up as exercises in damage control in case the truth got out.

These particular cinema ads managed to use story-telling to create a human dimension (authenticity, connectivity, community, sharing, etc.) that is more than simply “buy our product” or “use our tech” (although obviously that’s the ultimate goal). It would be very interesting to read the briefs given to their creative agencies, given that the ads were all in the service of corporate branding.

Next week: Doctrine vs Doctrinaire

 

 

 

The Current State of Popular Music

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Over the holidays, during a family get-together, two younger relatives mentioned what their favourite pop song was. I did not know the song by title or artist, and until very recently I actually I thought it was an advertising jingle. I now understand that the combination of the song’s novelty factor and its ubiquitous appearance had helped to make it very popular. I can see why it may appeal to kids – but I doubt it will become an evergreen classic….

The song they mentioned incorporates a number of musical tropes very prevalent in many current pop songs, especially as regards the vocal styling and lyrical phrasing. But like much of the music being produced these days, it will likely be forgotten within a couple of years at most. The inherent “novelty” of the vocal could render the song a one-hit wonder, and the artist a one-trick pony.

I have nothing wrong with pop music per se, but if “we are what we eat”, surely we can become what we listen to. An unending and unvarying diet of mainstream pop music (as defined by commercial radio playlists, as measured by self-serving charts compiled by streaming services, and as financed by major record label marketing budgets and promotional tie-ins) is the equivalent of eating nothing but fast food and processed snacks.

So, at the risk of being labelled a grumpy old man, here is a list of things that are mostly wrong with contemporary pop music:

1. Vocals that feature one (or more) of the following:

  • the sound of cutesy chipmunks on helium
  • forced falsettos, cracked breathlessness and over-emoting warbling
  • singing from the back of the throat (as if constipated)
  • singing through the nose (as if congested)
  • whining, strained upper registers  (as made infamous by a certain tantric pop star)
  • auto-tune effects (especially those in search of a melody…)
  • shouting in place of projection
  • turning vowels into consonants, and consonants into vowels
  • adding syllables that don’t exist, and leaving out ones that do
  • over-stressed sibilants

2. Lyrical phrasing, scansion and rhyming schemes courtesy of Dr. Seuss,

3. Slogans, nursery rhymes and shouty phrases in place of lyrics

4. Drum and percussion tracks either programmed by ADHD, or inflicted with St. Vitus’s Dance

5. Boring, boxy and plodding 4/4 rhythms, with no syncopation or variation

6. Same set of production techniques and sound effects as used by every other producer or DJ

7. Samples based on the nastiest ringtones available (or programmed on the cheapest synths around)

8. Never mind a lack of key changes, or an absence of chord progressions, songs that revel in one-note vocal lines

9. An absence of interesting melodic or harmonic structures

10. Sound compressed into the smallest available bandwidth so it is easier to stream, but which ends up sounding flat and claustrophobic, and with exactly the same sound dynamics as every other song

11. No space to let the music breathe – every available beat and bar has to be filled up, especially with vocalese stylings

12. Too many cooks – songs by “X feat. Y with Z” are usually contrived concoctions dreamed up by the record company (“hey, we can flog this song to fans of all three of them!”) that end up as filler tracks on their respective solo albums

13. Kitchen sink productions (as in everything BUT the…) – you can almost imagine the producer in the studio shouting, “cue flamenco guitar, cue rapping, cue 80’s sample, cue metronomic rimshot, cue call and response vocals, cue detuned kick drum….!”

Part of the problem is that with the cheaper costs of recording, and the wider access to the means of production, anyone can make music, and release it direct to the public online. Meaning there is just so much more new music to listen to. However, the major record labels and their media partners still control most of the marketing budgets and distribution costs, that largely decide the songs we tend to hear, and that ultimately determine which songs become “hits”. By default, this process prescribes much of what is deemed “popular taste”. With the increased use of algorithms and other techniques, artists, producers, labels and media platforms can increasingly predict what songs will be successful, in a self-fulfilling prophesy of what will “sell”. it’s like punk never happened….

Next week: Sola.io – changing the way renewable energy is financed

Startup Vic’s SportsTech Pitch Night

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Last month’s Startup Vic’s Pitch Night featured SportsTech, one of the semi-regular topics in Startup Vic’s themed pitch nights. Hosted by LaunchVic at the Victorian Innovation Hub, supported by the Sports Geek podcast and Track, Victoria University’s sports partnership institute.

In a new partnership between Startup Vic and LaunchVic, upcoming pitch nights will feature EdTech, Diversity and HealthTech. Meanwhile, back to the sport. The competing pitches were (links in the names):

Benchvote

Describing itself as a Sports Fan Engagement Platform, Benchvote has a tag line of “the Canva of creating high performing digital campaigns for sport”. Covering marketing, sponsorship and commercial, the platform claims to achieve 50%+ conversion rates on campaigns, partly achieved through a gamification aspect to appeal to fans.

The platform offers campaign templates, drives social media traffic to users’ own websites,
thereby converting that traffic into firm leads. It also has the potential to support other related verticals – including entertainment, media and betting. The proprietary nature of the solution is the combination of a SaaS model plus insights algorithms.

Asked by the judges about customisation versus scaling, we were told that it is a totally white label solution. Although the platform can support agencies as well as product providers with creative content and digital assets, the preference is to let clients do their own (given the business origins as an agency turned software company).

In terms of the competitor landscape, it’s between agency solutions and software services on one hand, and integrated platforms and single solutions on the other.

Potentially integrating ticketing data, the team are also looking at international expansion, and are in the middle of a raise.

MarineVerse

This is a VR sailing platform, that claims to be “Democratising sailing by enable people to sail in VR”. A big call.

Already running a VR Regatta competition, the team is building a community of clubs, members, and daily races. There’s also a VR sailing classroom, with the MarineVerse Cup – a two-week event – to come. Competition exists in the form of Virtual Regatta, which is actually a non-VR, e-sports platform.

Offering a $10 per month subscription model, MarineVerse is banking on the new
Oculus Crest device to boost adoption. The business has been bootstrapped for three years, and is experiencing 8% monthly growth.

Targeting a demographic of 30-55 year olds who are cashed-up and time rich, the team are also developing multiplayer races. The judges asked if there was potential to support high-performance training and use player data for predictive performance or behaviour.

Unite

A platform for sports club and team administration, Unite developed by Eastwood sports tech offers apps such as training calendars, fixtures management, media engagements, sponsor obligations and travel planning. Designed to help manage “Commitments to the team and individual level”, Unite offers a B2B subscription module (individual team players are the actual users) for professional, semi-professional, e-sport and collegiate teams.

Although TeamWorks is a major competitor, in fact there is much more competition at the grass-roots level, because peak bodies and administrators want to own the data. Currently at the working prototype stage, with an MVP. The service is designed to manage and approve player activities and such as media commitments, sponsorship and endorsements. It is built as a hosted SaaS using AWS security features, sitting behind the  club’s own fire wall.

Wedge Pro

As the name suggests, this device is all about “The Art of Wedge Play”, designed to reduce player handicap, and help with short game training, especially lifted wedge shots. According to the pitch, many amateur players suffer from poor technique, poor distance control, and lack confidence.

Apparently, there is a $2 billion global market for golf accessories, such as this physical attachment which launches a monitor linked to an app.

A 2017 winner at the La Trobe Accelerator Program, the team is looking for an app developer for data capture. While offering post-sales service and device re-calibration (for adjustments according to player height, the cord length matrix and player handicap), judges wondered if there was also the opportunity for VR applications as well as the kinaesthetic experience. Asked about distribution, the team mentioned getting the product into golf shops and pro shops (without providing any specifics), while building a brand for a suite of golf tech products.

After all the cotes were counted, the People’s Choice was Unite while MarineVerse was the Judge’s favourite.

Next week: FinTech Fund Raising