Scribbling sense #Squared

Did you know that people hire graphic scribblers to draw out dialog which is said live at meetings, discussions and presentations? They are hired in order to produce a visual representation of key points and messages from the speakers. We had Cara Holland, a freelance graphic scribbler, come in and show us how it is done. 

Example of Cara's work

Visualising dialog is very hard; you have to think about the core message you are trying to convey. In order to do this you have to strip back waffly paragraphs and sentences to one key message. Once you have your sentence or your key core message, you have to underline the key words you need to draw in order to depict the message. It is very easy to get carried away with metaphors and cryptic messages in order to release your inner artist, however, you have to keep it legible to anyone who is reading it. People have to be able to look at your drawing and immediately understand the message you are trying to convey. It has to be said that my drawing abilities are not the best but Cara reaffirmed that you do not have to be a good artist, in fact its not about art at all, it's about being able to communicate your message through drawings. 

Another Example of Cara's work

This workshop really helped us bring out our creativity but it also made us think about the messages we communicate to people every day. Suddenly when you are made to think about the core of what you are saying, the key messages are really quite simple and easy to find. Needlessly to say, it looks like a very fun job but one that takes a lot of experience and skill to become good at. In essence, it's like learning a new language. If you are interested in more of Cara's work her website is www.graphicchange.co.uk

My attempt at drawing my key message

Our constant companion #Squared2012

Mary Meeker believes that by 2014 there will be more people accessing the internet through their mobile than their desktops. The UK is certainly edging towards that way with 51% of the population owning a smartphone, 93% of which access the internet through their mobile phone. Mobile internet is certainly not going to replace the desktop, however, learning how people use technology within their day-to-day lives is crucial within the world of advertising.


I hear people often say 'this is the year of mobile' - which people convince me it is. However, people also say 'every year they it's the year of the mobile but it never is' which then makes me think, maybe it's not? Though, after a presentation by one of Google's top advertisers for mobile communication, I have been more inclined to think that maybe this is the year for mobile advertisement.


The mobile revolution was started by Steve jobs - he brought about the iPhone; the most internet friendly smartphone which changed the way in which we use our phones. This revolutionised the market, which later Samsung and Motorola fully embraced, bringing some tough competition to the market.


The mobile has now become our constant companion, something we check more than we think we do. In fact, on average our phones are never more than 80cm away from our body. This has brought about habits such as dual screening, where we watch TV with our devices at hand; 54% of people actively use their smartphone whilst watching TV.


We know how often people use their smartphones - think about how often you unlock your phone, it is something we use throughout the day at different touchpoints - but it's knowing how and when people use it, in order to determine whether to invest in mobile advertising. It's about knowing when to jump on the band wagon. For example, purchases made via a mobile phone usually have low price points - 28% of items bought via a smartphone include flights, concerts and trains.  This is where Easyjet were smart to develop an app which allowed people to buy and manage bookings via their mobile phone as a result of some valuable market insights of an emerging market. On the other hand, if you sell luxury cars, you might not necessarily sell your cars through the phone but you might direct them to a show room.

There is also a trend of brands creating apps just because everyone else is, but this is dangerous territory and could be counter-effective, The point of the app is for people to use it regularly, which statistics say that we only have maximum of 8 apps which we use actively. There are too many mundane apps which people do not use or want, but brands feel they should be there. If anything, we are starting to experience 'app fatigue', so making sure your brand is relevant for an app is absolutely crucial - they need to be engaging as that's why we have apps in the first place. 


I do feel however, every website should be mobile optimised - to allow people the choice to find out more about the brand via mobile should they wish too - after all, you do not want to be missing out on potential visits to your site. A staggering statistic shows that 40% of people will go to a competitor website if they suffered a bad mobile experience - so this in fact can tarnish your reputation as a brand! Despite Easyjet having a brilliant app, they still have not mobile optimised their site - which suggests to me that they have missed a trick there.


Some tips about how to go about mobile optimising your site are;
- Simplify navigation
- Be thumb friendly
- Design for visibility (use of colours, plenty of space, 3D effects)
- Make it accessible
- Make it easy to convert
- Listen, Learn and Iterate
(for a full personalised report - howtogetmo.com)


In all, mobile advertising is a great place to be, with some very strong statistics backing this up - but making sure you understand how people use their mobiles will help you develop a mobile advertising campaign relevant to your audience. You can get mobile statistics for free at ourmobileplanet.com.

'We don't pay for perfection, we pay for non-crapness' #Squared2012

In advertising, it is our job to make consumers aware of brands, services and products. It is the job of the brand, service or product to fulfill the needs of their consumers. But what makes a consumer need and want them? What makes the consumer decide on a particular brand, product or service?


Rory Sutherland, vice-chairman of Ogilvy One, came to talk to us at Squared about the irrational intelligence of behavioural design. I have touched on this previously in behavioural economics, but I am going to bring another theory to the table - the dual system theory.

Evans and Frankish believed that the brain has two systems - System 1 and System 2 (see table). These two cognitive spectrums of the human mind are in constant battle when we come to making decisions. The way to look at our brain is to think of a rider (System 2) on an elephant (System 1) - the rider thinks it has a plan but ultimately he is not in total control. All our feelings and motivations are determined by what gets filtered by the ‘elephant’ - this processing power is deeply uneven. In neuroscience, decisions are taken elsewhere in the brain, but the rational side of the brain tries to make post-hock rational sense of the decision. Ultimately, we are very bad at making decisions, ‘we do what is convenient and then we post-rationalise’.


System 1 is do to with our belief - it is our instinctive feelings. It has a tendency to see everything in context, whereby we see things in light of our beliefs; this is what Stanovich referes to as 'fundamental computational bias'. However, sometimes there is a need to decontextualise a problem in order to make more rational and logical decisions - this is the primary function of System 2. Businesses focus on talking to the rider, whereas marketeers focus on talking to the elephant.


Businesses often believe that you need to change the attitude of the consumers and this will change their behaviour. This is not necessarily true. The trick is to change their behaviour and then their attitude will change - if the elephant turns right, the rider will rationalise as to why it did so. Humans are very good at post-rationalisation, we always attribute success to a grandiose strategic design and not a fluke, it is this idea of proportionality, big effects = big causes.

However, some of the best creations come from small ideas. In evolution, there is no grand design, sometimes it is about changing smaller things overtime and seeing what happens - progress happens through little improvements. The invention of the generic coffee cup lid for all coffee sizes was a small solution yet it changed everything - we no longer have to search for the 'small', 'medium' or 'large' lid, the difference is in the volume size of the cup, not the rim. Yet, no one gets a noble prize for a coffee cup lid?


Many businesses and marketeers are not doctors in psychology, nor do they use it as a primary mechanic in making their decisions. Most successes and fundamental truths are stumbled upon by accident. Who would have thought that McDonalds, an average burger company, would become one of the most internationally recognised burger companies in the world? The truth is, people don’t want the best burger in the world, they want the same as the last one they had. McDonalds is standardised to military levels. It is pretty safe to eat something that you have eaten before - humans are socially heuristic, you eat what you know it safe. People pay a premium on reassurance - not perfection, just non-crapness. Essentially, brands are a proxy for non-shitness. Although our System 2 brain would massively disagree with this, our System 1 brain tells us 'it's OK, McDonalds won't kill us.'


We need to start thinking more heuristically, so that we can target the elephant more empathetically and strategically. Intuitive judgement is nothing to be sniffed at, some of the best chess players in the world play heuristically - not probabilistically. Rational thinking can cloud creativity, though this is not to say that an element of rationality should not be included when creating advertisements and campaigns. However, being arbitrary can very, very valuable.


Essentially, when designing advertisements and campaigns, think heuristically and target the elephant. You will win.


Rory Sutherland was one of the most inspirational speakers I have ever had the enjoyment of listening to. Follow him on twitter @rorysutherland.


Lesson 17: It is possible to be irrational but highly intelligent, as it is to be rational but illogical and stupid.

Don't give the consumer ''4", give them "2 + 2" #Squared2012

Jeremy Bullmore has to be the most interesting, intelligent and funniest man in media and we were lucky enough to meet with him on the Squared programme. He has written many books and has many awards for his work including an OBE, but the message he gave to us was inspiringly simple; do not give the audience 4, give them 2+2.


The message process in advertising was simple, you have the sender (client) - the medium - the receiver (the consumer). The messages were also simple; it was what the client wanted to say to their consumers and their consumers responded by acting on their message. However, this did not always work, consumers were not always aware of their roles as 'consumers'. Therefore advertisers had to think of another way around this.


Nowadays, commercial messaging has gone from a dialogue to a conversation. Although this has always existed, the difference is that the consumers have more methods of engaging in this conversation. As a result, brands are forced to be honest and forefront with their consumers as they have become much more active, as oppose to their former, more passive roles. What does this mean for brands? Well, they have a golden opportunity to learn about their consumers and use that information to further their brand, not all negative comments are necessarily bad - they are opportunities to learn. It also means they can engage with their consumers on their level through starting debates and conversations around the brand.


Brands can now do much more than just talk to their consumers. Agencies can advise them on what to say but not on their actions. Consumers will draw conclusions of the brand from their actions. Jeremy Bullmore recounted a flight with Air Canada; the pilot did a disastrous landing which frightened and shocked all the passengers and probably almost killed them. The pilot, instead of ignoring the situation, came over the loudspeaker and said:


"in all my 15 years as a pilot, that has to be the worst landing I have ever done"


The pilot empathised with them; he said what they wanted to hear at the right time. The passengers flew with Air Canada again. 


The actions of the brand can help consumers draw their own conclusions of the brand instead of what they try to message through advertising.  A comedian does not stand up in front of an audience and tell them he is funny. He has to say a joke, then the audience will make up their mind whether he is funny or not - it is their choice. This is the same for brands, they should let the consumers make up their own mind about them and draw their own conclusions from their actions. You can help them draw their own conclusions through triggers and stimulus which relate to the product. This encourages brands to strip right back to reveal the core of the product and simplify their message.

Taking this sign as an example, we have no doubt the eggs are fresh, the stimulus of the greenery, the placement and context of the sign allows us to reach to that conclusion. If you write the exact same message and give it a different context, you do not reach the same conclusion.

Nowadays, the messaging process looks a bit like this; sender - medium - stimulus - response. In order to get the best responses, you have to understand their needs and act in their best interests.


That's the point, the brands which are the most empathetic to a problem they are trying to solve, will prosper. 

In the words of Sir John Hegarty.... #Squared2012

Today we had an inspirational presentation. In fact, the word inspirational does not do it justice. Sir John Hegarty spoke to us today about why he believes we make 'now' the golden age with our ideas and creativity. In fact he thinks it is the best time to be in advertising and here is why...

Agencies can refresh conventional media.

In a technological revolution there is a creative deficit, people focus too much on the technology rather than what it delivers. New technology reinvents old technology. The trick is to use traditional mediums to generate a conversation or a debate and then add social to facilitate that conversation.
You can start a debate using the mediums in an incredibly bold and daring way to get people looking at it.The guardian advert made an old medium new through use of technology - it reinvented the way they spread news. It refreshed the newspaper industry.

Agencies can make small ideas big.

Creativity needs technology to expand - otherwise it’s just storytelling to each other. You can get ideas out there which you couldn’t before. Technology has allowed for our ideas to be leaked out and be as big as they can be instead of being constrained within traditional mediums. The hardest thing is getting your client to change with you, but you can change how a client feels and thinks by suggesting ideas on the side and encroaching them into the centre of your big idea. We should celebrate the fact that we are now in a world where we can get a massive debate going. The Homeless Hotspot in America campaign caused a lot of controversy - people were at first very cynical about it at first but it soon became accepted (http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-17345926). This idea which cost $8,000 to set-up, generated $620,341 in publicity value - proving that a good idea can be very valuable and can spread very, very fast.

Agencies creativity can be the media.

In some sense creative agencies piggy back the media and piggyback other peoples creativity. It is really challenging to come up with an idea which is the media itself and forces people to pass it on. We are in a creative deficit at the moment with the technology - it’s about understanding it. It's about breaking from the past and creating something new but how do you break something that has no past?

Agencies can persuade clients to be brave.

It has to be brave and bold to be passed on - creativity is the media. Instead of researching, why not put different video content on Youtube and see which ones connect and then develop that one? When they launched the new xBox they had a radical idea which was very hard to sell to the client. In fact, the client was never going to take it on - instead, they persuaded the client to put it on the internet to see what happens - in 3 days it got some 14 million hits - this proved the idea worked instead of doing ‘stupid’ research. If you see the video below, you can see why it was difficult to sell to the client.

Agencies can tackle growing social issues.

Advertising it not always about selling something but raising awareness. Barnados is a client which wanted to raise awareness about how they help troubled children. Advertising can be powerful and emotive which can help the awareness of good causes. This has to be one of the most emotive adverts I have seen in a long time.

Agencies can expand their influence with clients. Integration is now vital.

Integration has always been there but now it is fundamentally important to creating success. Relationships that you have with your client have changed completely. Now more than ever we need to use our contact points and creativity to create something profound for the client.

Agencies can invent products.

Agencies never make important decisions, they make recommendations. Suddenly when it is your money - you make important decisions. Agencies can look at markets which are lagging behind - 'ila' is a brand and range of products developed by an agency - they saw a gap in the market. Other products include Scootrix; personalised scooter plates and mobile phone pictures which can be sent as postcards. If you are in a world where you analyse markets and are being constantly creative, it only makes sense to take on those important decisions instead of just recommendations?

The future is creative. The final point. No question about it.

It is about having ideas and how you implement them and technology is a fundamental part of that. It liberates the creative process. This is why it is a fantastic time to be in an agency.

Just Add Words #Squared2012

In the wonderful world of search, brands which are investing in Google Adwords are facing an endless battle to make sure their brand comes up trumps when a consumer types in a related search query. The concept of Adwords can seem amazingly complex but can be understood through simplified definitions as reiterated by Einstein ‘Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler’.

I managed to have my own experience in setting up an Adwords campaign in order to increase traffic to a website, if you are reading this now, it has probably worked. These adverts appear either above the natural search results or down the right hand side. The whole concept of Adwords is that you produce an advert (be it text, picture or video) and bid on keywords which you think the consumer will type in when looking for your product, with the aim to get as high up in the search results as possible.

Google Adwords Campaign main screen
(Before any clicks)

A brand wishing to invest in a search campaign has to consider who they are trying to connect to, how they are going to communicate their message and how they are going to convert them. A brand has to fully lay out their marketing objectives before starting the process.The best thing about Google Adwords is that it is real-time - brands can monitor and optimise when things are working/not working and quickly react to external affects which maybe affecting searches for their product. Each campaign will be totally different from the next as product, budget and time are great influencers in the process of the campaign.

How Adwords Adverts appear on the page

However, it is not as simple as bidding on keywords and then suddenly your brand is on the top - there is a science behind it. The most important aspect is the quality score - this is a score that Google places on your website which will determine where you sit in the pecking order of sites. The quality score is essentially how Google make their money and it's what keeps their consumers using them as their primary search engine. There are 3 fundamental things which influence the quality score, these are the CTR, relevancy and landing page. The CTR is one of the most contributing factors to the quality score as it directly relates to the queries, keyword and the creative. 
The higher your CTR, will reflect on how relevant you are which will contribute to your quality score. Moreover, the landing page where you are sending consumers to has to be as relevant as the advert itself. It is a massive Google NO NO to use a fake and alluring advert to then send them to a completely irrelevant website. Therefore Google not only monitor the advert the consumers are clicking on, but also where you are sending them.

A good quality score affects your eligibility (whether your ad is eligible for the query), the position (how relevant is your ad related to the query?), the price (better quality score reduces the price) and the top slot (only quality ads are eligible to appear above the natural search results).

The quality score essentially is the money-maker for Google, so it is very hard to get to the top - many people who work in search strive for the highest possible quality score - but sometimes you have to accept the score you have even if you have done everything right and by the book.

So, how do Google make their money out of the quality score? Well, the more relevant the ad, the more the user experience is enhanced and therefore keeps consumers coming back. If the ads are more relevant and appropriate to your query, the more likely you are to click on the ad, thus making google money. The quality score helps eradicate spam as it is useless to the user and might stop them from using the engine. Imagine if you typed in a search for toothbrushes and you got bombarded with irrelevant spam that had nothing to do with toothbrushes? Useless, right? The fact that google also monitors the landing page, further ensures the relevancy of the search results.

So why would you use adwords search as part of your integrated advertising campaign? You are targeting your consumers when they are actively looking for you. You only pay when you get people clicking on your advert. Simple. If you want to see an absolute kick-ass search campaign, where the benefits of search are hugely exemplified, check out Converse Domainaition.  

Lesson 16: Quality scores are what make Google Adwords interesting

What exactly is Brand Awareness?

If there is one term you will hear again and again in the media industry, it's 'Brand Awareness' - but what does this actually mean? The term is so flippant and used so casually that I begin to forget what it actually is. Media owners are always the first to say that their medium will create 'high brand awareness' and it's almost as if upon hearing this, advertisers are meant to jump out of our seats and book them right there and then. Brand awareness, to me, is almost now a selling terminology which is not always used at the right moment and in the right context - at least people don't explain it properly, I mean what metrics are people using?


Brand awareness is essentially a marketing concept, used to represent how many consumers are aware of a brand - it's metrics are usually referred to as 'high' or 'low', but what exactly is high brand awareness? It is usually measured through surveys by way of brand recall, brand recognition and top of mind awareness. Looking more closely at these metrics; Brand recognition is when the brand and brand category are presented to the consumer and they say if they are aware of them or not; Brand recall is when only the product category is given to the consumer, who then lists all the brands they know within that category and Top of Mind Awareness which is done in the same way as Brand Recall but only the first brand answer is recorded (spontaneous brand recall).


Research has suggested that there is lack of consistency and stability in consumer responses, as their responses can be very attitudinal with lots of external factors affecting their choices. For example, people may recall your brand as you have a campaign running at that moment, but might forget as soon as it finishes. However, if most people say your brand(depending on how many people you ask, of course), even if its not 100% consistent - that is still high brand awareness right? I suppose the very best position for companies to be in, is 100% of all consumers in the world are recalling their brand unaided, both pre and post campaign.


However, what exactly do you do with this information? I suppose high brand awareness becomes an asset which needs to be maintained. The level of a brands consumer awareness is always taken into consideration when planning marketing campaigns and coming up with the idea for the creative. In terms of brand awareness, questions we ask ourselves are; how well do people know it? Can we afford to be more risky with the creative? Do we need to let more people know about the brand? Do people know about the brand but not buying the product/service? What is the level of their brand awareness relative to other similar products/service within the category? This basically allows brands to place ourselves against the competition and form a strategy based on consumers awareness, consumers attitudes and perceptions of the brand in order to change a certain type of behaviour.


Lesson 15: Challenge the next media owner who claims that their communication medium gives 'high brand awareness' - I would like to know exactly how they go about proving this and why they are better than the next.




Laurent, Gilles, Jean-Noel Kapferer, and Francoise Roussel (1995), "The Underlying Structure of Brand Awareness Scores," Marketing Science
Day, George S. and Robert W. Pratt (1971), "Stability of Appliance Brand Awareness," Journal of Marketing Research, 8 (February)
Dall'Olmo Riley, F., A.S.C. Ehrenberg, S.B. Castleberry, T.P. Barwise, and N.R. Barnard (1997), "The Variability of Attitudinal Repeat-Rates," International Journal of Research in Marketing