Digital Lethargy

Does digital make us lazy? Have we lost the urge just to do stuff or stand up and speak out for what we believe in? Does digital give us the chance to dabble in something but not actually see it through?

Well there have been a few things lately that have made me think about digital lethargy. The point in which a person’s interest or involvement online isn’t mobilised into something that arguably has a greater influence and/or effect (it's not a real post unless you have coined a term by the way). Perhaps it is political or merely something more fulfilling personally. Or maybe even a sale.

I criticise myself a lot for being too lazy. I have strong opinions about politics and the environment, but I don't really do anything about it. I rarely read the paper properly anymore. I use Facebook instead of making an effort to go and visit friends and family. I go on many cool branded sites but rarely buy the product or even think differently about it, at least not consciously. And of course posting too much about things other people have said or done rather the things I have done or think.

Noah and the guys from Zeus Jones have written this and this respectively about how digital habits are manifesting themselves in traditional forms of media consumption/behaviour, which is an interesting concept in itself. Although not related to digital, John Mcure of Reverend and the Makers fame also wrote this in the Guardian that touches on people doing sod all politically. I particularly like this paragraph.

“Yet a deafening silence prevails, save for on soft issues that don't require our leaders to remove the splinters of middle England's fences from their derrieres. Bono talking hungry Africans is a safe issue. He's a man they're happy to do business with, borrow some cool from. Everyone agrees we should act. Comic Relief, Sport Aid? No brainers. A far cry from the counterculture radicals who so affected our broad thinking during the late 60s or even during the punk era.”

So praise be to god my dying belief in mankind was saved when I went to my first APG event in Sydney and Sam McLean from the not for profit Getup.org.au gave us a presentation on how they use digital to mobilise people around specific issues such as the environment or the price of fuel for example.

Now I think Getup is awesome and it is genuinely more than just an online petition site, which lets face it is the most lazy form of activism. It has 280,000 members. People create content for their campaigns for free and people donate money to pay for the media spend and launch it as a TV ad. They even organise ‘Getogethers’ across Australia that do influence policies at varying levels. Getup are a great example of how digital can be used cost effectively to create grassroots interests and participation, but more importantly how they turn that interest into something potent by using ‘old media’.

If you haven’t seen it yet, Getup is responsible for the following movie. And if you want to donate towards the media spend you can do it here.



Now I’m sort of going off course a bit but I will maintain the ramble. The rub for me on this is ‘what does this essentially mean for brands?’ I often hear it said, particularly in the alcohol market, that their respective audiences aren’t online. Which isn’t true, but what is true is why should someone bother to gather, ‘online or offline’, anywhere other than a pub for a bottle of lager? And that is where digital agencies are failing. Why would any self respecting lager drinker bother to jump through these hoops just win a fridge or hear about all of their exciting news via email? Do they really care enough to do what is being asked of them?

This to me is the part that clients want us to answer and is imperative if digital agencies are to play a greater role from a brand leadership perspective. Rather than throwing stats at them that say 21 – 35 year olds lager drinkers now consume x amount of Internet hours compared to TV, therefore we must do something in digital. We must be showing them how we can use digital in a way that is relevant for people’s relationship with that specific brand. How can we snap them out of this lethargy and create communications that are more than just forwarding an email on to a friend, entering a competition or signing up to a petition against global warming? How can we mobilise the masses and not just those who are motivated enough to play with the latest communication just because it's cool and innovative? Perhaps there is a market for a digital, come experiential, come PR agency?

I've got a PR problem

Don’t get me wrong, I'm fond of PR and I have a lot of respect for people in the industry - I have to. Other than the fact that my other half works in it; it's also where I started my career. I would go as far as saying PR is a good place to start if you want to be a planner - although probably not something that will stand out on your CV to a prospective employer.

There are several reasons why it's good. You develop an eye for a story, you hone your writing skills, you do you own research, you have to come up with your own strategy without the help of a planning department, you're under pressure to come up with your own ideas without the help of a creative, you have to do you own media plans and you also have to actually role your sleeves up and implement all of this. Lee has written a good post on this before but I think it goes further than just being a good journalist.

So why do I have an issue with PR? (I'm excluding public affairs, CSR and lobbying from this as they're completely different disciplines in my opinion) It's essentially the reason why I got frustrated and moved in to planning. Out of all the marketing disciplines people in PR, more often than not, tend to be the ones with the least knowledge of brand strategy and are way behind others in terms of innovation.

Although this isn’t a great yardstick for measuring how innovative a profession is, you will be hard pressed to find many PR blogs out there that talk about anything other than how the Interweb is affecting the industry. No shit Sherlock!

Many proposals I see regarding the use of online are pretty staid. So despite the rhetoric I don’t believe that PR is the best discipline to manage your brand online just yet. Many, but not all are just using the same rules as they adhere to offline. They’ll tell me that any brand worth its salt should be on Myspace with no explanation as to how they would use it or why it’s even relevant. They will treat bloggers exactly the same as they would treat journalists, people just waiting to hear about a products wonderful new features and competitive price point. They will claim to be able to create buzz and influence opinion directly in forums with obviously no experience, as they are unfamiliar with the terms ‘advertising scum’ and ‘flaming’.

I get bored of the same tired old tactics, that are just that - a bunch of tactics, wheeled out for every client with no real strategy supporting them. You normally get a celebrity (that you will have no chance of actually using or they only have a very tenuous link to the brand). There will probably be a survey, a competition and maybe even an event thrown in. It’s not the tactics being used as such that annoys me, it’s more the thought that goes into the ideas. I very rarely see the same creative and strategic thinking that you get from people in other disciplines.

Some PR professionals are also great at using a number of power word and phrases that obviously proves they get it. My favourites being:

“We’re an agency that gets results”. Phew, good job we didn’t use that agency that doesn’t get results.

“As an agency we pride ourselves on effectiveness”. You mean you have a press cuttings service.

“We know how to manage your brand online”. Then how come when I asked if you use Instant Messenger did you say is that a good courier service? (This didn’t happen, but I thought it made this long rant a bit funnier).

“Here are our key messages….” No, they are the brand’s key messages, you’re just reading them back to me.

Then there are the same objectives on absolutely every proposal with no expansion as to what this means for the communications:

1. To raise awareness
2. To change perception
3. To deliver ROI

Of what, why and how? Ohhh, refer to the strategy you say. I’m sorry all I can see is a load of tactics and for your information, I don’t think Mr Motivator is a good idea. I’m sure he hasn’t been on TV for at least 15 years.

I do genuinely think PR has a major role to play in a brand’s communications mix and I’m not suggesting everyone in PR is incompetent, I just think the ones I’ve personally experienced recently are giving it a bad name.

I don’t think PR will ever have the position at the head of the table unless they can think more strategically and ensure it isn’t separate, second, or even non-existent to the idea they propose. They must understand how to use emerging media and not just that it’s out there. And finally I would like to see better, smarter, more involving ideas. Perhaps the pressure from clients to get column inches rather than a share of people’s conversations stops them from doing all of this, I don’t know? One thing is for sure, it is about having more than a little black book full of journo’s numbers.

The importance of objectives

Guy Murphy has a really interesting post on objectives over at the IPA Strategy Group’s blog. I personally find poor and restrictive objectives really frustrating. You end up spending too much time in ‘strategy’ meetings going round in circles, but more importantly it stops you from creating great work.

The way an objective is formed, presented and articulated can have such a major influence on the direction of a strategy. I agree with Guy, people should give it more attention. I’m always surprised by how often people fail to make a distinction between the different types of objective you may see in a brief such as campaign objectives, project objectives, business objectives, marketing objectives and communications objectives.

I love the analogy Guy has given: “If the objective set by Dick Fosbury in the high jump was to complete a perfectly executed Western Roll we would not have heard of him. A Western Roll is an interim measure of success. Instead, he set himself the objective of ‘jumping as high as possible’. Enter the Fosbury Flop. Not only did getting the objective right achieve a better result, it released creativity and freedom into the strategy”.

Working on a brief without a good objective is like playing football when you are a kid. Every time the ball gets kicked in a different direction everyone on the pitch runs after it with no purpose, other than to get the ball. You might win you might not. Only once you have decided on a match-winning objective can you play the beautiful game and not just win, but also win in style.

You can read Guy Murphy’s full post here.