The Venus Report - WHAT’S THE STORY?

Monday, October 08, 2007

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As an Advertising Agency, the staff at Venus find that more than ever, we are tasked by our clients to come up with big ideas that will "generate buzz" for our clients brands.

Ideas that go beyond traditional paid media to make the message become a living part of the popular culture.

Fortunately we are exceptional at doing this… but make no mistake, this can be a daunting task: modern time-poor consumers are overloaded with choices, and saturated in media and information.

To make things harder, consumers are evolving in their ability to instantly identify and filter any unwanted stimuli. Today consumers don’t care so much for being talked at. They like to control the conversation, if and when it suits them.

What is ‘buzz’ anyway? Isn’t it a self-sustaining conversation about something that, while initiated by a marketer, ultimately must be owned and driven by consumers to survive?

What sort of things do people want to talk about or pass on?

We think it’s newsworthy things.

Stories.

More specifically, ‘remarkable’ stories.

Like Peter Alexander’s pyjamas.

Krispy Kreme’s donuts.

The Apple iPod that revolutionized consumer behaviour.

Stories still make our worlds go around.
We think we live in a world of overload, but it pays to remember loads of people still line up every week and pay a significant amount of money to spend 2 hours in a dark crowded cinema to satisfy their need for a good story.

Evening news is no more than a collection of stories.

Celebrity magazines? Stories.

If you have a close look, you’ll find all famous companies have a good story: something ‘remarkable’ at their core that sets them apart from their competition. And I use the word ‘remarkable’ quite literally.

If you asked 20 of their customers "What’s the best thing about Brand X?" you would get a pretty consistent story relayed about the brand stand for.

The web has turbo-charged the importance of the concept of ‘remarkability’. If you are great, your fans will probably be out there on the web singing your praises. And if you don’t live up to expectations, they will definitely be out there.

I had a bad experience with a Telco recently (their name is ironic, because with this kind of bad service they should be as dead as one now…).

Having tried several times, for over 18 months, to stop them from debiting my credit card for an old and long-closed internet account. They had been incredibly easy to sign up to, with great customer service. But when it came time to leave, they were incredibly unhelpful and difficult to contact. I became incredibly angry and frustrated, and even began to suspect their bad behavior could be a cynical business strategy, so I googled their name along with the words ‘scam’ and ‘disconnect’.

There it was at the top of my search, on a website called Whirlpool – pages of angry bloggers talking about the same Telco and their same experiences on the difficulty of trying to close account with them.

I wasn’t alone! When I called the bank to try and get some help on canceling the Telco’s direct debit, they had a remark for me – they told me they had loads of complaints about this particular supplier debiting accounts! I decided to share this insight by adding my post to the blog to satisfy my frustrations.

This may be an extreme example, but even if it’s not in the blogosphere, what are people saying about your brand?

Is your service remarkable? Your style? Your value? Anything?

As advertisers increasingly look to create buzz, not enough of them seem to realize that the basis and secret of buzz lies with them – with their brand.

If you are remarkable, then you have something to leverage.

If your offering is unremarkable, or your brand tired and dusty, don’t expect gimmicky ideas to give you any sustainable competitive advantage.

As the adage goes, you attract more bees with honey, than vinegar.

So start your brand buzzing.

venusadvertising.com.au

Sunday, October 07, 2007 5:29:02 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

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