Branding – Wade Howland

January 12, 2021January 18, 2021

In Context

Louis Theroux recently hosted Scottish comedian Frankie Boyle on his Grounded podcast, and part of their conversation was around some of his edgier jokes and the resulting media outrage. Boyle in turn makes a really good point, and it’s one relevant to all of us in professional communications.

Context.

His opinion is, of course something he says to a comedy crowd at 10pm in Newcastle doesn’t read as well in a newspaper as someone has breakfast in Surrey.

Context.

The comedy crowd’s ready for the punchline. Someone reading a paper looking to stoke outrage – and maintain easy content for a week or so – not so much. Of course not. They haven’t (literally) bought in to the joke and the person telling it.

Let’s not forget this principle applies to all communications we put out there; from internal comms to industry to ads and marketing campaigns.

Does your message make sense to your audience in context?

I’ve seen organisational announcements so long some employees literally didn’t read all the way through to the actual announcement.

We’ve all seen ad campaigns so busy celebrating their own creativity the product and brand effectively disappear.

Online copy so bad it seems to forget you know what the internet is and how it works.

Context (to put it scientifically) gives your messaging ooooomph. It makes it more digestible for your audience – and in turn more effective.

Think about what your message means to people. Where it will work best. How and when it will be consumed.

A lot of people – and organisations – forget this. They spend time working on getting the message right to their own minds, and it then becomes an unwinnable challenge to try to force it into places it doesn’t always naturally sit.

The context of your message delivery really matters, and building it into everything you do, or write, or publish, or create, will ensure you’re in a position to really see a return on the investments and resources you use.

To talk to me more about how context is critical to your communications, start with an email to wadehowland@internode.on.net

January 21, 2020

Horizon: Zero Done – How Sony’s Surprise Move can Grow their Customer Base

With the next generation of gaming consoles expected to launch this November, Sony has pulled an unexpected move in an attempt to grow their install base.

They’re making one of the PlayStation 4’s biggest exclusive titles available on PC.

Horizon: Zero Dawn, developed by Guerrilla Games, was a brand new IP for the PS4. The game itself was a risk – a studio moving away from a well-established series to create something new to drive hardware sales – and it paid off spectacularly, having sold over 10 million copies.

A PC version is a surprise. It’s an unusual thing to happen. But it looks like a shrewd move by Sony, despite the predictable gnashing of teeth by some fanboys.

Sony is giving non-PlayStation owners an opportunity to play one of their best first-party games (that is, developed by a studio which Sony actually owns). And look at the timing. They’re doing it on the eve of the PlayStation 5 being officially launched.

One of the most anticipated titles for the PS5? A sequel to Horizon: Zero Dawn.

In the world of video games, PC gamers are the self-proclaimed ‘master race’. Their machines are more powerful than mainstream gaming consoles, and able to be upgraded as and when the user wants to. As consumers, they see console gaming as a step down.

But give them a chance to play Horizon: Zero Dawn and they may just love it.

As a revenue-driver the game is effectively done. This is a clever move by a business to squeeze more profit from an old asset, which now sells on PS4 for a budget SRP.

By inviting non-users into the Horizon: Zero Dawn universe, they stand to grow their user base as the new hardware looms ever closer.

The next challenge is to migrate them to the PS5 with the game’s sequel as the lure.

March 26, 2019

Isn’t The Fight Worth It?

The recent discovery of an elite college admission scam in the US was shocking (in scope) but not terribly surprising. An article today was written by a college professor who teaches the ‘entitled students’, complete with advice from staff to new educators.

“Lower your standards,” they advise new colleagues. “The fight isn’t worth it, and the administration won’t back you up if you try.”

This results in an increased workload as staff find themselves

hounded to provide a remedial education on top of an already heavy set of official duties.

In other words – watering down their expertise.

This results in intelligent, highly-educated people having to compromise their abilities and efforts to placate those undeserving of this level of support. From my outsider’s perspective it seems not only damaging, but unsustainable.

It really jumped out as it comes just a day after a tweet from Tom Goodwin (@tomfgoodwin) had me thinking about the parallels in marketing and advertising.

The brutal truth is clients are being given too much say in their creative direction.

The revenue chase sees businesses placing more value on money coming in than work going out, which in turn creates a disproportionately-weighted sense of worth in what clients want and expect.

Despite our experience and education, we often find ourselves in a position of having to defer to people who don’t have the benefit of either of those things. And this is no casual client-bashing. The ability to listen to clients and understand their business and category is a fundamental skill for all marketers and communicators.

But there’s a clear parallel between the influence money has in both marketing and education: both sectors are wilting to accommodate revenue streams. Both risk diluting their ability to deliver the quality they’re meant to. It’s a sense of short-termism so short we can’t see it happening.

The fight is worth it. Our first step as creatives and marketers is to openly acknowledge it as Tom did in his tweet. Only from there can we really address the problem.

July 25, 2018July 26, 2018

Is Sport the Best Game in Town for Marketers?

A (sponsored) piece this week in Marketing Mag looks at sport in the marketing mix. Overlooking my hatred for the term engagement, it raises some interesting points.

For context: I like sport, so I look at this from the middle ground of curious marketing professional AND target audience. This middle ground is admittedly anecdotal, but worth investigating.

Anne Parsons is absolutely right in saying ‘sport is the content choice that will always deliver a mass audience’. It’s demonstrated clearly in the value of broadcast rights, and in viewing figures. In a fragmenting industry offering more and more options for audiences, live sport is a constant.

But is there a high level of engagement for the sponsorship and advertising communications around the action? Surely the audience is sold as ‘highly engaged’ because it is absorbed in the actual game?

Parsons also makes two claims I can’t agree with. She writes: ‘what occurs in the two-and-a-half hours of an AFL match is the stuff that is then talked about at water coolers around the country for the rest of the week’.

With all due respect, this may betray the fact she’s not a sports fan herself.

From experience across sports, countries and environments, the ‘water cooler’ talk is heavily weighted towards the next game. As such, any marketing communications audiences were exposed to during the broadcast are no longer relevant (if recalled at all, which we’ll get to). The focus isn’t on the broadcast as a whole. What matters is the game, and how it shapes expectations for fans as they move towards the next one.

The article also states ‘[the consumer’s] level of animation and care…. is reflected in their attention to the game and their receptivity to the messages they receive as part of that environment’.

Did you spot the contradiction? ‘Attention to the game’ by definition precludes an ability to be receptive to ‘the messages they receive as part of that environment’. Don’t mistake watching the minutiae of the game for focussing on the broadcast as a whole.

Keep in mind the score, timeclock and other statistics taking up screen space. As a fan there’s a lot of constantly updating information to absorb before you can even think about peripherals like in-stadium advertising and broadcast sponsors.

This is borne out in a 2016 study by Ho Keat Leng, with research demonstrating that ‘when spectators were more involved in the…event, there was a significant decrease in the number of brands recalled’.

Not ideal if you’re paying big money.

Sport delivers a vast audience. But you risk wasting your marketing budget unless data reveals your target audience and its sport-viewing habits are genuinely receptive to the execution and delivery of your message. And this is usually only realistic for big brands.

Better ROI for SMBs may be driven by thinking broader than advertising during broadcasts, or at the ground. Consider other options available in your market.

Does a local team offer individual player sponsorships? Do TV and radio outlets in your market have weekly player segments you can sponsor or align your brand with? Look at popular sports podcasts you can partner with.

There may even be more value by investigating grassroots opportunities in markets around you.

Sport is big business, but leveraging it for measurably successful marketing demands an analytical approach and smart thinking.

In this game, due diligence is everything.

June 6, 2018

100 words on…your brand and esports

The momentum behind esports is now unstoppable. The hows and whys are no longer important.

This is: if you’re smart you can now access an audience that has traditionally been difficult (at best) to reach.

Tomas Haffenden has this great piece up at Mumbrella well worth a read. Traditional marketing is not the way forward here.

One answer comes from the 1996 game Wipeout 2097. Red Bull was heavily featured in-game, with advertising around the track. The brand fit the game, the audience and the experience.

Esports are not for every brand. But for some they’re a chance to impact an elusive audience.