Beware The Age Of Conversation 1stsept

The IPA Excellence Diploma 2007-2008

FINAL ASSIGNMENT

Candidate Number: 7002

Word Count: 6,415

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Beware the Age of Conversation Embrace the Age of Osmosis

Summary It’s said we’re entering an Age of Conversation where people have active dialogues with brands. This desire to ‘engage more’ is symptomatic of the industry’s response to consumers not listening. We’re hopeless optimists. The vast majority of brands simply aren’t that important to people. In an era of time famine where people organise their lives around just-in-time information this piece suggests the most effective brands will be those that demand the least of us. We need to shift our focus by losing our ideas obsession and helping people retrieve brand memories. .

Contents Part 1: The Age of Conversation’? Part 2: Brands Fit Round People’s Lives Part 3: The Age of Osmosis Part 4: Final Considerations

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Beware the Age of Conversation Embrace the Age of Osmosis

Part 1: The Age of Conversation? “It is a profoundly erroneous truism…that we should cultivate the habit of thinking of what we are doing. The precise opposite is the case. Civilisation advances by extending the number of important operations we can perform without thinking about them.” 1 Alfred North Whitehead

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Part 1: The Age of Conversation? The Age of Conversation reprised It is said that we are entering an Age of Conversation because communication has been oneway for too long and no-one is listening anymore. This is a brave new world which portrays us all as eager participants, laptop in hand, cocollaborating on ads, e-mailing our latest product designs, blogging with brands and welcoming them into ‘conversations’ with our mates on social media. It’s breathlessly hailed as the next big thing. A new way for brands to communicate. The future. A phenomenon so patently upon us that the subhead on ‘The Age of Conversation 2’ book simply wonders - “why don’t they get it?”2

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Well, this paper explores whether consumers don’t in fact have better things to do than talk to brands. It wonders whether, conversely, the most important role brands play is in helping us not to think and whether, in an era of time famine, some of the most effective brands will be those that demand the least of us.

The problem with exciting new toys ‘The theory of conversations emanates from the possibilities opened up by the internet, and in particular Web 2.0. When such technologies emerge the tendency is always to explode the possibilities into the next big thing, often killing or destroying what’s gone before. But as Russell Davies notes how advocates get “carried away with rhetoric and enthusiasm (forgetting) that the likely scenario will be that everything will be a blurry munge like it was before, with this new element added in”.4

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Beware the source Moreover, we should perhaps retain a healthy dose of scepticism over the source of these ‘brave new world’ proclamations as they tend to mostly be comms planners in some guise. These people are very much immersed in the technology. They blog. A lot. Far more than Joe Public does and the ‘thirst for newness’ in their DNA engenders an insatiable excitement which is seemingly in excess of that felt by the vast majority of people. Indeed, it’s perhaps revealing that the vast majority of blogs are based on two subjects that are of little interest to the average consumer: marketing and technology.5 The point here is to question whether we’re extrapolating genuine long term trends or simply responding to the new. An extreme view would have it that the ‘planning blogosphere’ creates a kind of insular world where such technology based hypotheses become both self-confirming and self-perpetuating.6

We need a sense of perspective There’s no certainty that conversations with brands will become a mass activity. Technology writer Nicholas Carr is one such sceptic, he believes that “there’s a certain faddish quality to what's going on.7 The impression created is that everyone’s at it but Forrester’s latest report on social media users tells a slightly different story. They show that only 17% of people in the UK watch user generated content and 10% of people in the UK read blogs.8 Moreover there’s evidence that the ‘excitement with the new’ is reaching a peak. The latest ‘blogosphere’ statistics tell an interesting story. They show that overall growth, rate-of-postsper-day’, and number of active blogs are all stalling. 9

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The number of active blogs has stalled at about 15 million while the number of inactive blogs continues to grow

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To compound this, the number of blogs we actually read has been shown to be “statistically insignificant” with a median readership of one.11 The danger is that the industry lives in a ‘Soho bubble’ where we over-project the ‘new’ and ‘novel’ into the next big thing. It’s part of a wider trend to throw all our eggs into one big digital basket when perhaps we should take a more holistic view and consider the internet as simply an additional touchpoint to the myriad already out there. 12

We get very excited by social media. But there’s a faddish element to it all. This excitement will come and go

Do people want to talk to brands? Even assuming a widespread eagerness for interaction, it seems odd that people would choose to spend their time talking with brands rather than their family, friend, favourite band or football team. Malcolm Gladwell has identified that we are only capable of maintaining 150 relationships in our lives at any one time13 - are brands really going to become one of them? Having said all that, it would be foolish not to accept that there are brands - such as the Nikes, Apples and Amazons of the world - that are interesting to people. The issue is the inevitability with which the behaviour of these loved brands is projected as the future model for all brands.14 This piece takes a more pragmatic view.

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Conversations will be the exception rather than the rule There are billions of brands out there and it seems perverse to assume that people care enough to have a dialogue with the vast majority of them. Do people really want an active relationship with Sure deodorant, MFI or Always sanitary towels?

The brands capable of having conversations will be in the minority

In practice, it’s simply not conceivable (nor right) for most brands to have the kind of ‘trusted friend’ relationship that gives you a permission to have conversations. Recognising the brands that can have conversations It’s important for each brand to work out their relationship with consumers. This piece believes that the brands capable of having conversations will fall into the following broad categories:1. Brands that share a passion for an interest you have Bands, football teams, news providers and photography are examples (Radiohead, Chelsea, BBC and Nikon), 2. Brands whose essence is fundamentally related to a cause you believe in (Innocent, Café Direct, and Greenpeace) 3. Brands that have an extreme point of view on life and make you feel like part of an exclusive ‘club’ (Death Cigarettes, Vice Magazine) This paper believes that advising brands to embark on a platform of ‘conversations’ when they don’t have such pre-existing relationships is quite simply bad advice. Indeed, at its most

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extreme, it can be viewed as a self fulfilling conceit designed to make our lives more interesting. So if not conversations, where next? In truth, the Age of Conversation is symptomatic of any number of ‘engagement’ theories that typify our industry’s response to consumers not listening.15 They all have a fundamental assumption at their heart - that people want to actively engage to what brands have to say. We’re hopeless optimists. We expect people to fit round us. Instead we should fit round people.

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Part 2: Brands Fit Round People’s Lives If there’s one thing to keep front of mind throughout this paper it is this: we need to get a sense of perspective on the role that brands play in people’s everyday lives. Brands simply aren’t all that An illustration of how important they are is provided by Russell Davies’ neat, if rudimentary, metaphor (using dolls lying around the kitchen).

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Captain Scarlet’s massive: He represents the importance of family

Action man is big too: He represents the importance of good friends

Yoda is tiny: He’s brands

His video makes clear that, without perspective, we’re in danger of overstating the scale of brands and becoming disconnected with consumer reality. Consumers don’t want to spend time thinking about brands We welcome brands precisely because we don’t have to think about them. This is entirely consistent with our make-up because, as a species, we are programmed not to think. This is summed up perfectly by the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead:“Civilisation advances by extending the number of important operations we can perform without thinking about them.” 17 Indeed, it’s estimated at least 95% of human activity is performed without thinking18 breathing, moving your hands and brushing your teeth are just a few examples which highlight that to be human is to be unconscious. Helping us to not think is the raison d’etre of brands. They help us navigate our complicated lives by acting as ‘heuristics’ - rules of thumb for quick decision making when choosing products. Indeed in a world where psychologists have demonstrated the paralysing effect of too much choice,19 and studies confirm the extent to which we’re suffering from time famine,20 the ability of brands to make choice habitual and automatic has never been more important.

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The tyranny of too much: We’d be paralysed without the power of heuristics to make brand choices automatic and habitual

But we expect people to think about our brands We bombard them when they don’t want to be bombarded:-

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And expect them to spend their time engaging with us. But we’re not that important. This piece of graffiti acts as a sobering reminder:-

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We over-estimate the importance of brands when communicating to people.

This has been exacerbated further by information ubiquity We live in a world where - no matter where we are - we’re only a simple text, click or phone call away from finding out anything we want. In a very real sense, it’s a just-in-time information culture24 where the need to learn and retain information is replaced by an expectation that all the information we need is constantly accessible to us. Accordingly we’re far choosier about the things we do take in. This extract from Nicholas Carr in “Is Google making us stupid” sums it up:“My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.”25 Indeed it’s a world where we’re now relying on brands to make brand decisions for us, as seen with the Moneysupermarket.com’s of this world.26 All this means that it’s simply not a realistic, nor sustainable, scenario to expect people to spend time thinking about brands. We need a new way to communicate. Enter the ‘Age of Osmosis’.

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PART 3. The Age of Osmosis

“Consciousness is the exception, not the rule.” 27 Roy Lachman,

“Our biggest mistake as brand managers is believing that... customers care a lot about our brand.” 28 Patrick Barwise

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The Age of Osmosis Osmosis is defined as the “gradual, often unconscious process of assimilation or absorption.”29 In biology we learn that it’s possible to speed up the process of osmosis. That’s what this piece is all about. It takes its start point from Heath’s Low Attention Processing theory by embracing our capacity for passive learning30 and proposes a model where Clients and Agencies will shift their mindset from please remember to help retrieve. This means demanding less of people by making brand memories easier to absorb and, more than that, helping people retrieve them.

The 5 Commandments in the Age of Osmosis We need an antidote to brand’s increasingly desperate attempts to engage us. We need to let go of the idea that people spend time thinking about brands and squarely assume they don’t. We need a much simpler communications model that fits around people’s lives. We need a model that works for the majority of brands people are indifferent towards, not just the minority that people adore. We need to seek lessons from the past and, at times, be unapologetically backward looking.

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Contents of Part 3 I. Thinking Holistically II. Brands as ‘Clusters of Associations’ III. Encoding Memories: Losing our Ideas Obsession IV. Retrieving Memories: A Shift from Please Remember to Help Retrieve V. Changing The Way We Work

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i. Thinking Holistically Our system of advertising is geared around transmitting messages to people. We then make these messages ‘engaging’ to people through our ideas. At its heart is an asssumption of conscious engagement (that people will put something in to get something out). Of course such active cognition is ideal but, as we’ve seen, increasingly expects too much. Brands in the brain It’s commonly accepted that brands are represented in the brain by a series of interlinked associations (called engrams). The memory evoked at any given time is dependent on the strength of the interlinking connections.31

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An example of ‘7-Ups’ engram. The brand memories evoked depend on the strength of associations.

Instead of ‘hardwiring’ these connections through the “quick hit” of active conscious engagement we will focus on building these connections more iteratively, without expecting them to ‘put something in to get something out’. . Fitting round people’s lives: a more iterative, less intrusive approach Current thinking is almost invariably based on the shiny new power of the internet. But there’s a myriad of touchpoints out there and we haven’t even come close to using effectively yet! This piece thinks holistically about utilising the morass of channels available, without intruding on people’s lives.

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Media fragmentation continues apace and technology is rapidly turning everything into media. We encounter it everywhere we go - we carry it on our i-pods and mobile phones and see it on buses, taxis, the underground and even pub toilets. 33

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We will be surrounded by media

The upshot is that a long tail media landscape will develop.35 A few media will still reach a mass of people but we will need to be better at properly utilising the ‘fragments’ – the morass of touchpoints along the consumer journey.

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The long tail media landscape

Communicating in this world The utter ubiquity of screens in Minority Report will therefore likely prove prophetic, however, it seems insane to assume that people will accept the feeling of bombardment epitomised by the gaggle of brands incessantly talking at Tom Cruise.37

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We won’t accept a gaggle of brands talking to us

Instead it will be more helpful to think of media as a set of signs that fit round people’s lives. In this world, the best brands will help people retrieve the right memories at the right time. In research circles the momentum is behind recognition based (over recall based) methods. Applying this principle to comms is what this piece is about. We need to give people the right triggers to retrieve memories rather than expect them to ‘just remember’.

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ii. Brands as ‘Clusters of Associations’ We need to make it easy to trigger brand memories. This piece believes brands should organise themselves as ‘clusters of associations’. In essence, this means providing a raft of shortcuts which both:i) Make it easier for people to encode brand memories ii) Make it easier to retrieve those memories (by ‘triggering’ these at point of decision making). Those that do this effectively will have a greater chance of being remembered where it matters most – the point of decision making We need to assume society is illiterate Of course utilising associations is not a revolutionary thought, indeed they are the very basis on which many successful brands from the past have been built.38

Ronald Macdonald has values the ‘M’ alone can’t evoke

Dvorak’s ‘New World’ will always evoke Hovis

But this piece believes that they have more relevance than ever. At the turn of the century brands were forced to communicate associations to societies that were largely illiterate.39 They relied on simple visual shortcuts in order to communicate to people.

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Examples of strong, simple brand associations for a less literate society

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Guinness is a great example of a brand communicating multiple associations simply

In a society of time famine where we’re bombarded by 3.125 messages a minute41 would it not be better to borrow from these simpler communication techniques from more illiterate societies. How associations will work in the Age of Osmosis Derren Brown provides a good analogy. In a past series he got two admen to write an ad for a taxidermy firm which - unsurprisingly - turned out to be the same as the one in his pre-sealed envelope. Derren claimed to do this by ‘seeding’ a series of associations that were absorbed on the men’s journey to the briefing without them noticing. These would have lied dormant unless they were unlocked by a series of ‘retrieval cues’ (or triggers) given by Derren.42

An association subconsciously taken in on taxi ride to see Derren

Part of the final ad

The Brand to Emulate: Coke For illustrative purposes Coke provides the clearest demonstration of how associations should be deployed in the Age of Osmosis.

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1. Coke Create Associations Coke have built a rich set of associations

2. They seed associations simply in people’s minds As I write this, Coke have aired a series of 5” TV spots which are ideal for the Age of Osmosis Each communicates an association simply without expecting consumers to actively engage or evaluate complex messages.

Refreshment

Ice

Psssch sound

3. They trigger these associations at the point of decision making We explore how other brands can best do this in a later chapter.

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Moving digital posters rotate refreshment cues outside supermarkets

Ice cold cues on vending machine

Pssch sound on posters outside newsagent newsagents

But associations are accidental Of course many brands already use associations well. But crucially, in our process of creating advertising, they are little more than an afterthought. Sometimes creatives will develop strong associations but very often they won’t. The point is that they are adhoc, accidental and subsumed under the primacy of the idea. We need to put them at the heart of the process.

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iii) Helping Encode Brand Memories: Losing our Ideas Obsession Advertising people are obsessed with the idea of the idea. Our whole system of advertising is geared towards their primacy - it’s how we judge, evaluate and sell work. Indeed ideas are considered to so sacrosanct that it’s almost heresy to question the mantra that ideas are king. John Grant is one such ideas advocate; he puts them at the centre of the brand universe by actually defining brands as clusters of ideas.43 However, this piece believes that our ideas often expect too much of consumers and aren’t in fact the key thing they respond to in communications. It contends that we reframe ideas as vehicles to communicate ‘brand associations’. This is not about losing ideas completely but ensuring that associations are put to the top of the creative agenda. Ultimately, as we see later, it will necessitate fundamental changes to the creative process. Associations are more important than ideas

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Grant’s idea-centric theory encounters few dissenting voices as we’re all convinced it’s ideas that make a brand’s message interesting enough for people to engage with. However, Paul Feldwick recently questioned the very basis of our ideas – the ‘message model’. He believes that relying on message transmission is not the important part in communications and instead….. “What people (experience and respond to is) a wealth of material, visuals, music, dialogue, timing, colour, entertainment, emotions. We’ve got used to somehow sidelining all this as if any add could somehow be summed up in a couple of words”.44 The danger is that most of our thinking is going into the wrong bit. Instead of fixating on making messages engaging through ideas we need to get this “wealth of material” to the top of the agenda. Examples of ads that do this successfully (possibly without realising) Although it’s impossible to reliably pick apart the elements that make ads work (otherwise we’d have answered Lord Leverhulmes apocryphal quote years ago!) this piece argues that many brands derive their strength from the associations they create rather than the ideas they transmit.

Advertising Works 16 shows Magner’s massive success. But is this really to do with their vague idea on time? Or more to do with apples and autumn and ice and good times 45

The idea in Smash “Martians” was aliens laughing at people preparing mash. But did people respond to that or just the “funny robots” and from these get a sense that Smash is “futuristic”.

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Is the success of Guinness ads over the years due to people responding to ideas about waiting? Or is it the “funny dance”, “the horses in the sea” AND the music in both of them

The power of associations: Where ideas often rely on conscious evaluation (epitomised by the long-build-up-to-reveltechnique) associations demand little of consumers. They’re both simple to encode and aid hardwiring. i) They’re easy to encode This is explained better than I could by brain scientist Dr John Medina:-

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A brief exercise also helps to demonstrate their usefulness:1. Spend 10 seconds trying to remember these letters (no cheating... don’t look ahead)

BGITAELTEGDOHTE Most people can’t do this. It’s too complicated to take in.

2. Now spend 10 seconds trying to remember these

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THE EAT

DOG

BIG

LET

Most people can do this. It’s because I’ve given you a pattern to encode it easier. This is an advantage associations have in an era of time famine. They enable quick assessments of the brand message rather than expecting consumer to process information and evaluate it.47 ii) They aid hardwiring over time An unfortunate bi-product of the industry’s ideas obsession is that we’re always looking to the next one. We get bored quickly. However, it’s difficult not to agree with Y&R’s executive creative director, Adrian Holmes, when he says that “we jettison campaigns at the very moment the public begin to get used to them”.48 The importance of sticking with memorable associations is backed up in psychology. The “exposure effect” is a well known, but little heeded phenomenon where a number of studies have demonstrated how people express undue liking for things merely because they are familiar with them. 49

Three examples of likeable associations: FT’s pink colour, the ITV monkey and even the Nokia ringtone has been proven to evoke positive feelings (see e/n 72)

Associations – almost by definition - require nurturing over long periods. Indeed most experts estimate that you need three to five years to build it to where the people can mentally retrieve the memory and connect it to your brand.50 A quick note on that Gorilla This could have been another great association for Cadbury but they got rid of it. Were consumers bored, or is it truer to say that the Agency was bored? Was Trucks really better? If Cadbury’s really are a production company of happiness’51 it seems crazy to jettison the very thing which made the whole nation smile. Perhaps Drench will decide consumers are bored and jettison brains for their next ad?

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iv. Retrieving Brand Memories: Shifting from Please Remember to Help Retrieve “The palest ink is better than the sharpest memory” (Chinese proverb)52 Associations will mean our comms are easier to encode. However, crucially, in a just-in timeinformation society they also provide shortcuts to “trigger” at the point of decision making. The importance of this shouldn’t be underestimated. To use a retail example, it’s an oft-quoted fact that ‘in-store’ is where people make 70% of their purchase decisions 53 The importance of triggers for memory Daniel Schacter has shown that all memories depend on the right ‘triggers’. He gives the example of someone being asked to remember a game of football. Asking them to recall “that match they played on 7th December 1982” versus “that match when that winger broke his leg?”54 makes a massive difference to their ability to draw on the right memory. Indeed, the importance of the right trigger has been shown beyond advertising. New software which mutates holistic faces - rather than ‘piecing’ them together - has proved twice as effective at triggering memory of criminals.55

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Photo fitters have benefited from more powerful triggers

Brands will use triggers better The purchase decisions consumers make are dependent on the triggers brands provide. This makes sense as part of engram theory,56 but desk research helps suggest the extent to which this is important. Respondents were asked the ‘first things that came to mind’ when provided with different images associated with the brand. Each evoked very different memories, for instance on Cadbury’s the ‘top 2’ evoked by glass and a half (dairy, quality) evoked a quite different set of memories than the Gorilla (funny, drums) and the colour purple (indulgence, smooth). 57

Multiple Associations. Multiple Triggers This piece believes brands should provide multiple triggers for consumers – the more the better. This is right for the time as any concept of brands having a USP has faded with the loyal monolithic consumer. Instead, our repertoire behaviour reflects the fact that, in a very real sense, we are different people with different moods at different times.58 The ultimate aim for brands is a rich world of associations to hit different people, in different mindsets at different times. A shift in thinking Traditionally we’ve dismissed the ‘back-end’ of the comms process as somehow slightly dirty. In the Age of Osmosis we need to put triggers to the front of the process – working out how we can help people retrieve memories will be at core of our thinking.

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V. Changing the Way We Work

THE FOUR KEY STEPS:

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Step 1: Identify territory Brands will pick territories to translate into associations. They’ll do this using the ‘Mallet’s Mallet’59 principle of word association. Benefits, propositions and messages overcomplicate the process. Instead we will simply pick the most relevant words that best represent the brand in people’s heads. Brand tags are one tool we could use to get the truest instinctive reaction from consumers:-

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Brandtags is a tool developed by Noah Brier where consumers simply type the first word that comes to mind when prompted with a brand name. The above is Amazon’s brandtag.

Brands can create as many associations as they can realistically support. The ultimate aim, over time, is to create a rich brand world in people’s heads.

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Step 2: Create association Associations are shortcuts that express brand territories. Examples include one of - or a mixture of - icons, music, song, character, a ‘look’, voiceover, celebrity, colour or shape. Celebrities are a very relevant example - it’s no coincidence that their use in advertising has grown over the years as their use both delivers powerful shortcuts to brand values and provide multiple triggers (ie each time you open Heat they should help trigger the brand in your memory). We need to put ‘association creation’ at the heart of the process as, at present, it’s utterly at the behest of the ‘idea’. Challenging the primacy of the idea is no small tweak; instead it’s fundamental to how all creatives think. We need a new structure. New roles: Identity Creators + Creative Realisors The creative task will effectively be split into these two parts - the ‘Identity Creators’ develop a set off associations for the “Realisors” to bring to life at a later stage. A typical ‘Identity Creation’ team would consist of a comms planner, creative and graphic designer. They’d develop associations with the triggering process ‘front-of-mind’ as this will influence their choices to a large extent. The comms planner’s knowledge of media opportunities and insight on the customer journey will prove invaluable in this respect.

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How a creative might “Scamp” up associations

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An aside on semiotics: There may be an increased role for semioticians in this world, indeed, some Agencies may choose to bring them into this team. However, they’re not considered a fundamental part of this process as this paper believes there’s too much complexity and intellectual rigour required for a widespread adoption of this discipline. This is reflected in a paper by one of its leading exponents, Ginny Valentine. In identifying the above obstacles among others – she stresses that there’s no credible way for the discipline to be dumbed down.62 Creative realisors These creatives will be more like ‘ad producers’ than’ ideas machines’ with the emphasis firmly on assimilation skills. They’ll resemble a mix of creatives, directors, art buyers and cool hunters. They’ll be production savvy (like the team referenced below) and far more executional in their thinking. Their role will be the apotheosis of the it’s-not-what-you-say-it’s-how-you-say-it phenomena that’s already evident in the Youtube generation’s increasing reliance on execution to salvage mediocre ideas. The zenith will come when our awards system puts a premium on realisation over ideas. Basically, the more inventive they are at putting associations together, the better. A recent example of how “association first” can work

Kronenbourg 1664: “Smaller bubbles for a smoother taste”. Chefs in the lager widget make smaller bubbles for a smoother taste

The team that created the recent Kronenbourg ad are fresh out of Art College. Their start point wasn’t an idea on taste, but simply creating an association with it. Their ‘schooling’ has been heavily focused on production techniques and ‘putting comms together’ in a way that people respond to. Perhaps the “new breed” isn’t fixated on ideas over all?

So is this Advertising Dystopia? The fear is that putting ‘associations first’ would be a creative mire as it restricts creative freedom and relies heavily on the much maligned concept of consistency. John Grant provides a memorable attack – claiming “only liars need to be consistent.” 63

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It’s really not that desperate..... Associations liberate creativity Firstly Y&R’s Adrian Holmes – as part of his thinking ‘inside the box’ theory - believes that providing parameters “has an extraordinarily liberating effect on the way people think”. He uses a neat analogy of a tennis court to show how important these are to feed off. 64

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We need parameters

Moreover, we can throw off the straightjacket of linear comprehension “Somehow 30 seconds of entertaining nonsense leads to a situation where people pay 35% more for (PG Tips)..but we’re not very comfortable with this” 66 Paul Feldwick

An exciting consequence of losing reliance on ‘message transmission’ is freedom from logical linear narratives and the ensuing dependence on ‘being understood’ in measurement (comprehension is a staple of pre-testing for instance).67 This creative freedom will manifest itself in two ways:-

i) The freedom to create lateral associations. The only criteria is that they communicate the territory required. They do not have to be logical - would associating a Gorilla with chocolate get through any logical linear research for instance? In the Age of Osmosis almost anything can become an association. ii) The freedom from linear narratives when assimilating associations This is all about committing emotional shortcuts to memory. The fact that we make decisions emotionally is well established and is eloquently described by Du Plessis and Franzen among others. 68 Comprehension becomes superfluous to creating emotional ‘markers’ in people’s minds via the associations we create. Classic cigarette advertising provides a good example:-

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Classic illogical cigarette advertising from B&H.

An Iguana As does Flat Eric. BBH chose a yellow puppet to make jeans cool. Then they made him sit in a car and head bang. This makes no logical sense but it was (and still is) loved.

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One of a number of Flat Eric tribute pages

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Step 3: Seeds These use media away from the point of decision making to hardwire brand associations in the memory. The key here is that seeds work in conjunction with triggers. This helps negate the need to be remembered. As Franzen shows, the brain is capable of holding 10,000 memories in the brain.70 The job of seeds is to hardwire these markers in people’s minds. There will be an emphasis on iteratively building associations over time. Key media trends include:

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Frequency. Frequency. Frequency: Without the ‘big bang’ of conscious engagement, the emphasis will be on hardwiring these iteratively but frequently.

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Shorter time lengths will become popular: At its most extreme, Blipverts will be used as an efficient means to seed associations. Tachistocope studies has shown the power of this; one demonstrated how 2000 images were rotated too quickly for the brain to consciously perceive, they were later recognised with 90% accuracy.71

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Experiential marketing will boom: Used properly as an enjoyable (non-intrusive!) part of people’s leisure time this is perfect for the Age of Osmosis as it opens up opportunities for powerful and differentiating brand triggers.

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Step 4: Triggers The associations that are ‘seeded’ will be used to provide just-in-time information to consumers. The exciting thing here is the potential on offer as the technology is not yet close to being fully realised (who’d have thought 10 years ago that advanced technologies such as face recognition technology would exist for instance!). Below are some examples. i) Time based triggers Chris Kamara (one of the associations seeded in Ladbroke’s TV ad) could be used to trigger realtime bets on interactive shop windows. These can tailor messages to the second if needs be72

The Carphone warehouse could trigger their brand when people’s phones are up for renewal. There would be no words no ‘persuasion’ and no message evaluation. They’d simply cue the brand memory through an image using the ‘simplicity’ look and feel they’ve established in their TV ads.

ii) Audience based triggers Puma could seed associations that change according to the gender and age of each passer by, (such face recognition technology exists).73 Shopping mall screens could tailor triggers accordingly – a performance association for men, a fashion based one for women and fun for kids.

….. brands could also simply use packaging better to more clearly communicate audience specific messages.

iii) Season based triggers

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Coke could change digital vending machines seasonally. Cold messages would be most relevant for summer, when Xmas associations could be employed in winter

iv) Location based triggers GPRS systems on mobile will mean brands will have the ability to deliver comms when you are in vicinity of shop Nintendo Wii could use this non-intrusively to play their 2 second sonic trigger when you are near one of their outlets

v) Mood based triggers Marmite could communicate love, strength and authenticity by using packaging more inventively. Packaging will prove a crucial media in the Age of osmosis. Brands will use different associations on different packs to trigger different need states.

vi) Sense Based Triggers: Martin Lindstrom’s brand sense study has demonstrated the power of brands thinking more holistically about the senses they hit.74 To give just two examples: Smell This is the most subconscious of the senses. It’s also remarkably effective at evoking memory –people remember up to 50% more of a movie when the smell of popcorn is wafted into the air. Brands can be creative in how they use this. Companies such as Scentair can replicate these at point of decision making. Birkenstocks sandals could own the smell of sunscreen. Perhaps the Red Cross could trigger sympathy by owning the smell of dirty water? 75

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Sound: A recent analysis found brands that use music that “matches their brand identity” are 96% more likely to be recalled than those who don’t76 Brands will have their own sounds to trigger. Nescafe could play their sonic trigger on enhanced supermarket trolleys (the picture is an early prototype). The point is to keep the triggers non intrusive studies have shown how shoppers are programmed to keep moving not ‘stop, look and listen’77.

vii) Occasion based triggers Carling could prompt relevant drinking occasions very specifically around football grounds by using moving digital screens

vii) Experiential triggers Becks could build the ultimate pub. It would have the best freshly brewed beer, served by beautiful waitresses and have great brands playing. Basically they’d provide the ultimate sensory experience. This would create an emotional marker to trigger every time they see or hearing anything relating to that experience.

Follow the money…. The opportunities afforded by triggers will be music to the ears of Clients. Figures on ‘Instore’ spend shows the extent they’re already shifting money to places where people make brand decisions; the Grocery Manufacturers Association reports that spend has doubled since 2004, and forecasts annual growth of 21% until 2010.78 An article in this week’s Marketing helps reinforce the point:

38

79

An article from this week’s marketing – 27th August 2008

Seeds and Triggers working together To illustrate how these could work together, we’ve taken a few examples from Cadbury. Example Seed

Example Triggers Milk could be seeded via broadcast posters and triggered via the ‘glass and a half’ symbol on packaging. Interestingly they are already selling it in ‘milk cartons’

The Gorilla from the TV ad could be triggered by an animated gorilla dancing for 2 seconds on your computer screen at a designated snack time – 4pm each day....

...or your clock could turn purple at 4pm every day

They could use face recognition posters to have maximum appeal to different demographics. For instance they could use characters that appeal to kids (though it’s a tad unethical for a chocolate!)

39

They could incentivise stores to play ‘In the Air tonight’. Or do deals with radio stations to play it at key times in the day,

Of course, in reality, there’ll be a certain blurring of roles between seeds and triggers. For instance, every exposure will prove mutually reinforcing by hardwiring memories over time. Therefore, to an extent, these should be regarded as a ‘rule of thumb’ split. NB A note on distribution. There will be great demand for an effective means of distributing material to the morass of touchpoints available. To be sure, the complexity in distributing range of materials is part of the reason we’re currently bad at utilising multiple touchpoints. Someone will make a lot of money as a disseminator of triggers across media channels.

40

PART 4: FINAL CONSIDERATIONS Measurement Brands will be judged on the strength of the associations they build in people’s minds. Below are some key implications:1. We’ll ask better questions The ‘brand name’ will simply be one of a number of stimuli - these won’t even necessarily be static and visual as we could test smells for instance. We’ll test and refine the strongest associations. For instance, using the Kronenbourg example, we could test whether chefs or bubbles or French accents provide the best triggers. 2. We’ll test below the conscious threshold Tachistocope Research – where key associations are rotated too quickly for the mind to consciously perceive would be one way to do this 80 3. We’ll be better at testing instinctive emotion We’re currently bad at testing emotional responses to brands. We fall back on words and their meanings. But these are blunt tools which force people to rationalise non rational responses. The emotiscape from IPSOS is one possible tool:

81

An example of how we can lose our reliance on words

An Iguana 4. Pre-testing will be less reliant on comprehension

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At the moment ads basically fail if they’re not understood. We need a model that doesn’t rely on comprehension and the rational take-out of messaging.

42

But What About….? What about…. smaller brands? All the above principles will apply, but, with a couple of key caveats. Firstly they’ll need a more targeted approach by attaching themselves strongly to a core audience. Secondly they should more carefully consider making their associations memetic.82 Setting out to create provocative and infectious associations will help get traction quicker (Wassup, and 118118’s runners are the classic examples) . What about.... when “purchase” isn’t required? This is about using triggers at the right moment to produce maximum impact. TFL’s anti-social behaviour campaign is a good example where seeds and triggers work in harmony and the triggers use touch points most likely to affect behaviour change. Seed

Triggers

83

Examples of triggers being deployed where they can have maximum impact

What about.... new news? Associations would be used as vehicles to carry the ‘new’ information. Moreover, brands could create shortcuts specifically designed to carry new news. For instance, brands that do frequent promotional campaigns can create associations to signpost offers (the way Asda used “rollback” to communicate price messaging is one example) What about.... the power of the retailers? At present retailers have shown little willingness to move on from the ‘cardboard clutter’ when it comes to in-store material. But it’s hard to believe that the non-intrusive technological improvements will encourage retailers to embrace the mutual benefits, just as they’ve done in America.84

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Conclusion In a world where people are ‘no longer listening’ we will stop trying to force our messages onto people. We’re just not that important to them. We’ll stop expecting them to remember all we say and instead we’ll help them trigger the right brand memories at the right time. In a world characterized by time famine and just-in-time information brands will be forced to communicate to an audience that is much less Rainman than Leonard (from Memento).

-End –

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Bibliography Books Advertising Works 16: IPA Effectiveness Awards 2007, edited by Richard Storey (2008) Always On: Advertising, Marketing, and Media in an Era of Consumer Control: The Future of Advertising and Marketing by Christopher Vollmer (2008) BRAND sense: Build Powerful Brands through Touch, Taste, Smell, Sight, and Sound by Martin Lindstrom (2005) Brands & Advertising: How Advertising Effectiveness Influences Brand Equity by Giep Franzen (1999) Complicated Lives: Sophisticated Consumers, Intricate Lifestyles, Simple Solutions: The Malaise of Modernity by Michael Willmott and William Nelson (2003) Creating Powerful Brands by L. De Chernatony and Malcolm McDonald (2003) Permission Marketing: Turning Strangers Into Friends And Friends Into Customers by Seth Godin (2002) Searching for Memory: The Brain, the Mind, and the Past by Daniel L. Schacter (1996) Simply Better: Winning and Keeping Customers by Delivering What Matters Most by Patrick Barwise and Sean Meehan (2004) The Advertised Mind: Ground-Breaking Insights Into How Our Brains Respond to Advertising by Erik Du Plessis (2005) The Age of Conversation by Gavin Heaton and Drew McLellan (2005) The Brand Innovation Manifesto - How to Build Brands, Redefine Markets and Defy Conventions by John Grant (2006) The Hidden Power of Advertising by Robert Heath (2001) The Mental World of Brands by Giep Franzen and Margot Bouwman (2001) The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz (2004)

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The Business of Brands by Jon Miller and David Muir (2004) Wendy Gordon. Brands on the brain: new scientific discoveries to support new brand thinking in Brand New Brand Thinking: Brought to Light by 11 Experts Who Do by Merry Baskin and Mark Earls (2002) Papers / Articles / Magazines “10 things your blogger won’t tell you” by Daniel Cho at http:www.smartmoney.com. “50 years of Using the wrong model of TV Advertising” by Robert Heath and Paul Feldwick “A Century of Change: Trends in UK statistics since 1900 by Joe Hicks & Grahame Allen” at http://www.parliament.uk/commons/lib/research/rp99/rp99-111.pdf “Ambient Signifiers. How I Learned to Stop Getting Lost and Love Tokyo Rail” By Ross Howard at http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/ambient_signifi “Audio branding in the retail environment” by Craig Cesman at http://www.bizcommunity.com/Article/196/87/12649.html “Cues, The Golden Retriever: How our natural responses to stimuli can inform the design process” by Jamie Owen at http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/cues-the-golden “Digital Essays: Free the B word” by Trevor Chambers in Campaign, 30-Jun-06 “Exploding the message myth” by Paul Feldwick at http://www.thinkbox.tv/server/show/nav.1015

Futurelab report, “Ideas trends brand futures and intelligence” (January 2007) at www.thefuturelaboratory.com

“In-Store Advertising: Coming Of Age?” Marc E. Babej and Tim Pollak at http://www.forbes.com/opinions/2007/10/29/unsolicited-advice-supermarketsoped_meb_1030advice.html “Is Google Making Us Stupid? What the Internet is doing to our brains” by Nicholas Carr at http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/google

Marketing, 27th August, 2008

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Semiotics, what now, my love? Market Research Society, Annual Conference, 2007 by Virginia Valentine at Warc.com Total Recall by Gary Marcus at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/13/magazine/13wwln-essayt.html “TV and the Brain” at http://www.thinkbox.tv/server/show/ConWebDoc.959 “Your unconscious is making your everyday decisions” by Marianne Szegedy-Maszak at www.usnews.com Presentations The future of Media: Mass Media, New Media and Television by Tamme de Leur at http://www.slideshare.net/tammeppt/the-future-of-media-mass-media-new-media-andtelevision-3 Visual and Creative Thinking; What we learned from Willy Wonka by Kellsey Ruger at http://www.slideshare.net/themoleskin/visual-and-creative-thinking/ Brain Rules: what all presenters need to know by Garr Reynolds at http://www.slideshare.net/garr/brain-rules-for-presenters Thinking Inside the Box presentation by Adrian Holmes given to M&C Saatchi on 24th July, 2008 Moods, Minds and Motivations. Measuring Emotions for Advertising Results at http://www.ipsos-asi.com/pdf/Global_Ideas_vol7.pdf Websites http//www.ageofconversation.com http://www.advertisingarchives.co.uk/gallery http://www.brandtags.net http://www.doubletongued.org/index.php/dictionary/time_famine/. http://www.nielsen.com http://www.newscientist.com http://en.wikipedia.org. www.thewisemarketer.com http://www.ted.com http://www.thefreedictionary.com www.aqr.org.uk

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http://www.thelongtail.com/ http://www.aglassandahalffullproductions.com/ http://www.millwardbrown.com http://www.warc.com http://www.brainrules.net http://www.prn.com/ Youtube videos http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DqKkWM60lk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_oTvZxtG94 www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyQjr1YL0zg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJbb1v0Kkdo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d72wgT6swCA Blogs http://russelldavies.typepad.com/planning/thinking/index.html http://www.adliterate.com/ http://farisyakob.typepad.com/blog/ http://lbtoronto.typepad.com/lbto/2008/06/what-is-your-br.html) http://www.ageofconversation.com http://technorati.com/weblog/blogosphere http://www.micropersuasion.com/2006/10/brand_engagemen.html http://xkcd.com/c208.html http://henrychilcott.typepad.com/henrychilcott/2008/02/index.html http://blogs.forrester.com/groundswell/2008/05/data-chart-of-t.html http://valleywag.com/tech/notag/expanding-no-more-255660.php http://effectsofnewmediaadvertising.blogspot.com/2008/05/overview-how-advertising-haschanged.html http://mojolocoblog.com/wordpress/2008/07/other-core-brand-drivers-personality-andassociations%E2%80%A6 http://www.brandtarot.com/blog/?p=28 http://adverlab.blogspot.com/2007/01/billboards-with-face-recognition-from.html http://dc-strategic.com/2006/07/13/3000-every-day/ http://www.apa.org/monitor/dec02/nobel.html http://www.brandtarot.com/blog/?p=28. http://adverlab.blogspot.com/2007/01/billboards-with-face-recognition-from.html.

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ENDNOTES

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1

NB Images are from Google images unless referenced

Alfred Mann Whitehead quoted in ‘Simply Better’ by Barwise and Meehan. 2

Although the second book hasn’t yet hit the shelves, the cover design is revealed at http//www.ageofconversation.com. See also ‘The Age of Conversation’ by Gavin Heaton. 3

Images sourced from http//www.ageofconversation.com

4

russelldavies.typepad.com/planning/thinking/index.html.

5

The top 100 blogs as ranked by technorati are indicative as they show 25 are marketing based and 22 are technology based. See http://technorati.com/weblog/blogosphere. 6

Even an avid ‘conversationalist’ like Richard Huntingdon acknowledges this. He says “we can overstate the importance of blogs simply because we (the planning community) use them much more than the majority of the public” adliterate.com. 7 8

Technology writer Nicholas Carr quoted in ‘10 things your blogger won’t tell you’ by Daniel Cho http://blogs.forrester.com/groundswell/2008/05/data-chart-of-t.html

9

See http://technorati.com/weblog/blogosphere for their quarterly “state of the blogosphere” reports. See also “10 things your blogger won’t tell you” by Daniel Cho. All this excitement is symptomatic of all kinds of hype around “digital.” For instance Second Life has died down to the extent that they have a maximum of 40,000 users at a time and brands are leaving in their droves. 10

http://valleywag.com/tech/notag/expanding-no-more-255660.php

11

“10 things your blogger won’t tell you” by Daniel Cho. He uses stats from 2007 and views that we're probably “at or near the peak of popularity of writing blogs." 12

With apologies to XKCD. Image originally from http://xkcd.com/c208.html

13

‘The Tipping Point’ by Malcolm Gladwell, quoted in Beck, ‘Conversations’

14

Theories such as ‘transmedia planning’ and ‘branding as a new religion’ are two apposite examples from last year’s course where brands are elevated beyond their station. Perhaps this all makes us feel better about the difference we can make when it – as Campaign recently speculated – could merely be ‘rearranging the deckchairs’ 15

The industry is awash with engagement theories - “buzz metrics” and “return on involvement” are just two examples.

16 17

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DqKkWM60lk Alfred Mann Whitehead quoted in ‘Simply Better’ by Barwise and Meehan.

18

According to neuroscientists, we are conscious of only about 5 percent of our cognitive activity. See “Your unconscious is making your everyday decisions” by Marianne Szegedy-Maszak 19

The psychologist Charles Schwarz even correlates it to the increase in suicide in the US in the last 30 years. See The Paradox of Choice, Schwartz, Barry, 2004. For a more concise summary see http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/barry_schwartz_on_the_paradox_of_choice.html. 20

Of course this is something we can relate to in our everyday lives. However, studies have shown 67 percent of employed parents say they don’t have enough time with their husbands or wives and 55 percent say they don’t have enough time for themselves. These figures have more than doubled from a decade ago. See http://www.doubletongued.org/index.php/dictionary/time_famine/. 21

“TV and the brain” at http://www.thinkbox.tv/server/show/ConWebDoc.959.

22

http://farisyakob.typepad.com/blog/2006/08/are_all_ads_spa.html.

23

http://henrychilcott.typepad.com/henrychilcott/2008/02/index.html.

24

The trend towards Just-in-time information is identified in a Futurelab report, “Ideas trends brand futures and intelligence” (January 2007).

25

‘Is Google Making Us Stupid? What the Internet is doing to our brains’ by Nicholas Carr at http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/google.

26

We also are now relying on brands to make brand decisions for us. Moneysupermarket.com, confused.com and gocompare.com are the three most visible examples. 27

Cognitive Psychology and Information Processing: An Introduction by Roy Lachman, E. C. Butterfield quoted at http://lbtoronto.typepad.com/lbto/2008/06/what-is-your-br.html. 28

Simply Better, Barwise and Meehan.

29

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/osmosis.

30

We take in things in without paying attention. See “50 years of Using the wrong model” by Heath and Feldwick.

31

The Mental World of Brands by Giep Franzen. These rich complex associative networks are capable of holding as many as 10,000 brand

memories. These are in constant flux - some die slowly whilst others become ‘hardwired’ through repetition. 32

Engram image taken from www.aqr.org.uk/indepth/summer2005/engram.gif.

33

See the video presentation, “The future is now” from Scala digital signage at for the extensive and ubiquitous role digital screens will play in our lives http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_oTvZxtG94. 34

http://www.slideshare.net/tammeppt/the-future-of-media-mass-media-new-media-and-television-3.

35

http://www.thelongtail.com/ . Chris Anderson’s Long tail theory has a seemingly endless array of application in society.

36

http://www.slideshare.net/tammeppt/the-future-of-media-mass-media-new-media-and-television-3.

37

Russell Davies has a wonderful quote for this “we’ll end up with Blade Runner directed by the people who brought you Orangina and Cillit Bang”. See http://russelldavies.typepad.com/planning/2008/08/eat-eck.html. 38

Heath is an advocate of associations. He talks about some of the key ones over time in The Hidden Power of Advertising by Heath.

39

The 1876 report of the Registrar General, noted that, 16% of men and 22% of women could not sign their name in the register with a mark. Even in 1974, around 2 million adults (6% of the population) had insufficient literacy skills to cope with everyday life. http://www.parliament.uk/commons/lib/research/rp99/rp99-111.pdf. When we speak of literacy here its not just the technical definition, it also applies to being “advertising illiterate”. 40

http://www.advertisingarchives.co.uk/gallery

41

This is calculated from the oft-quoted figure of being exposed to 3000 messages a day http://dc-strategic.com/2006/07/13/3000-everyday/. 42

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyQjr1YL0zg. The V/O at the start of the piece is interesting, “Those who work in advertising are masters of persuasion. They weave their images and slogans into our daily lives knowing that we will register so such unconsciously, then we will walk into a supermarket with a sense of familiarity. Its brilliantly calculated and we all fall for it”. It gives us way too much credit, but is not a terrible summary for how we take in things without noticing. 43

The Brand Innovation Manifesto by John Grant (2006).

44

“Exploding the message myth” by Feldwick http://www.thinkbox.tv/server/show/nav.1015 . He views our fixation with message transmission as a comforting construct that fits the cultural myth of ‘rational man. 45

Advertising Works 16 edited by Richard Storey (2008.)

46

http://www.slideshare.net/garr/brain-rules-for-presenters.

47

http://effectsofnewmediaadvertising.blogspot.com/2008/05/overview-how-advertising-has-changed.html

48

Adrian Holmes, taken from presentation to creatives at M&C Saatchi, 22nd July 2008.

49

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exposure_effect. Simply exposing experimental subjects to a picture or a piece of music briefly led those subjects to later rate it more positively than other, similar stimuli which they had merely not been shown earlier. In another experiment, students were shown a Chinese character on a tachistoscope faster than could be perceived consciously. Later, students were asked to say whether they thought specific characters were positive or negative adjectives. Those characters that had been previously subliminally exposed to the students were rated more positively than those that had not. When asked, the students were able to cite specific and detailed reasons why they preferred the characters that they did. 50

http://mojolocoblog.com/wordpress/2008/07/other-core-brand-drivers-personality-and-associations%E2%80%A6.

51

See http://www.aglassandahalffullproductions.com/.

52

http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/cues-the-golden.

53

It has also been shown that 53% of those are on impulse C Vollmer, “Always on Marketing.”

54

For more info see ‘Searching for memory’ by Schacter.

55

www.newscientist.com/article/dn7143.html.

56

See The Mental World of Brands by Giep Franzen. If you take the 7UP engram example from earlier, a trigger of thirst, would link to a different a set than citrus. 57

Respondents were shown an association with the brand name and simply asked “what are the first things that come to mind”. This exercise was repeated with a number of brands including Sainsbury’s, Morrisson’s and Levis. An extensive list of brand associations were used for each. These included endlines, colours, celebrity spokespeople, and music. 58

For more on the demise of the loyal consumer and how we are different people at different times see The business of brands by Miller and Muir (pp75-76). See also Creating Powerful Brands by L.De Chernatony and Malcolm McDonald (p84-85).Wendy Gordon demonstrates how we are different people at different times in Brands on the brain by Wendy Gordon 59

In case you’re not familiar, this was a classic “word association” game from Saturday morning TV.

60

See Noah Brier’s BrandTags idea in action see: http://www.brandtags.net/referrer.php?referrer=sethgodin.

61

http://www.slideshare.net/themoleskin/visual-and-creative-thinking/.

62

Semiotics, what now, my love? by Virginia Valentine.

63

http://www.brandtarot.com/blog/?p=28.

64

Quote from Adrian Holmes during Thinking Inside the Box presentation given to M&C Saatchi 24th July. . Adrian’s presentation shows how great campaigns from Smirnoff, “inside the bottle” and Heineken’s “Water from Majorca” help illustrate. 65 66

Thinking Inside the Box presentation by Adrian Holmes. Exploding the message myth by Paul Feldwick.

67

Milward Brown’s link test is a classic example of testing systems based on communicating messages. They rely on messages being understood. “Do the ads communicate the intended message” is the classic question in Link tests is http://www.millwardbrown.com/Sites/MillwardBrown/Media/Pdfs/en/Services/Link.pdf. 68

“As Franzen says “our emotions see to it that we are convinced of certain views, regardless of whether they are true or untrue.” See The Mental World of Brands by Giep Franzen and The Advertised Mind by Erik Du Plessis for excellent summaries. 69

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d72wgT6swCA.

70

See Footnote 31

71

The Mental World of Brands by Giep Franzen.

72

See the demonstration vide for interactive shop window technology at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJbb1v0Kkdo.

73

Engineers at Microsoft have developed a prototype system that uses a small video camera and facial-recognition software to try to determine a viewer's gender and select an appropriate ad to display. The system is intended for use with large video screens in public places. See http://adverlab.blogspot.com/2007/01/billboards-with-face-recognition-from.html. 74

‘Brand sense’ by Lindstrom. His 5-D BRAND sense study demonstrates it’s potential. For instance it shows that third of customers distinguish between cars simply by the sound of the door closing and more than half of people associated Nokia's ringtone with positive feelings. 75

See http://www.brainrules.net/sensory-integration for the power of smell. Additionally researcher Dr Alan Hirsch (1991) has shown that even weak concentrations below the conscious threshold affect people’s moods subconsciously. Scentair are on company who replicate smells at point of decision making. Their “dry air” technology blends easily into displays and fixtures; they have an ever growing library of over 1000 scents. For more on all of this see http://www.scentair.com/. 76

Study by analysts at Leicester University who tested brands that “make use of irrelevant music or no music at all.” More details at Audio branding in the retail environment by Craig Cesman 77

Nielsen recently conducted a supermarket behaviour study which identified the existence of a ‘supermarket autopilot’ where “….people grab and go without reading the label or reading the price www.nielsen.com. 78

It reveals that in store growth is on pace for compound annual growth of 21% through 2010. In-Store Advertising: Coming Of Age? Marc E. Babej and Tim Pollak. 79

An article from Marketing, 27th August 2008.

80

Tachistoscopes present moving pictures by use of a rotating glass plate with images attached to it.

81

Moods, Minds, and Motivations. Measuring Emotions for Advertising Results at http://www.ipsos-asi.com/pdf/Global_Ideas_vol7.pdf.

82

Memetics were first made famous by Richard Dawkins in his 1970’s book ‘The selfish Gene.’ Robin Wight from WCRS is a big advocate of this technique. 83 84

Photographs sourced internally.

PRN (the firm responsible for the Wal-Mart in-store television network) is being acquired by media conglomerate Thomson Worldwide to the tune of $285M. About 84% of American households shop Wal-Mart, many on a weekly basis, with an average annual trip rate of 16 times per year. With over 2650 Wal-Mart Stores, PRN is reaching about 85 million shoppers a week. .See www.prn.com