putting the you in ux

last week i went to an #ogilvychange talk in the very snazzy ogilvy offices in canary wharf. rory sutherland hosted the evening to promote matt watkinson's new book, the ten principles behind great customer experiences. this is a summary of some of the points that were discussed.

principles not processes
with business and purchase decisions being emotionally driven, we need to rely on using psychological principles to make decisions about the customer. matt readily admits that the principles are obvious but that they are abundant by their absence. a lot of emphasis is currently put on authenticity and meaning within brands but i believe it's as manageable as making people aware of why you're asking for a certain action, this clarity is really what leads to good will and participation.

ux's part in the customer journey
the customer journey is more extensive than we imagine and provides many more opportunities for brands to be helpful to their customers than the straight forward service they promote. that said, if customer experience is so important why isn't it better? why is it so difficult to make it better? matt believes it falls upon companies to set their customer expectations and to then meet them. by examining what distractions your customers are experiencing you can map out a more streamlined route for them to take - ux should be effortless and stress free.

the objective and the super objective
if your brand is the answer, what is the question? to fully explore this it's interesting to look at the difference between the somewhat obvious objective and then to delve deeper into the super objective that may not necessarily have been thought of by the customer when they set out to fulfil their primary objective. this was illustrated by matt by looking at photography. the objective would be: take a photo. this is solved by a brand such as kodak. however, if we push this a step further to the super objective: share experiences and the way we see the world with others, the real solution would be brands such as instagram and tumblr.

sensory indulgence
according to matt, "great customer experience should indulge the senses" and he demonstrated this with the satisfaction in the textures that come with unboxing the leica. another great example of this, as cited by adam powers, is the little bit of resistance and puff of air that comes when you open an apple product. these relatively minor considerations do a great deal to add to the customer experience of the product and subsequently their perceived image of the brand.

great expectations
the implications for managing people's expectations are really far reaching and vary greatly between brands. as matt pointed out, there are a different set of expectations on apple than there are on android. harking back to a recent blog post by james caig, john lewis don't exceed expectations but you know what you're going to get. people want what they know - they don't want the best burger, they want a burger just like the burger they had the last time.

many other points were raised in the q&a and it made for a really engaging talk. i only wish i'd been able to stay longer. along with matt's book i also managed to pick up a copy of this handy dandy #ogilvychange book, which is beautifully designed and offers interesting insights into behavioural science practice from a range of the best behavioural economics books out there. snap one up at the next #ogilvychange talk.

bye bye h

what a climactic end to the year! in the same month that i acquire my master's in the art of advertising (Em M. MA) i have also come to the end of a three month placement at one of the world's most notorious agencies.

i really enjoyed my past few months at bbh. really enjoyed them, they flew by and i'm sad to have left.

i entered into bbh through their home grown scheme along with three other 'home growners' and was placed on the second floor in sprint (the office is divided up into six, sprint, mint and penthouse - it makes sense once you're in there...) my first tasks included researching how people are using nfc for barclaycard and delving into social media for virgin media. we were lucky enough to be given talks by both charlie rudd and jon peppiatt in our first week who gave us a sense of what bbh is about and the kinds of attributes they seek in the people that work there.

in my second month, as building work began and the agency transformed into a submarine, i was kindly taken under the wing of the research department on the premise that as a junior strategist the way that i could be most useful would be if i can find things quickly. richard helyar and his team opened up google a new for me as well as giving me a clear breakdown of their tools, including tgi, sysomos and warc. during this second month we also got a talk about insights from jim carroll (as mentioned in a previous post, a man who evokes huge respect), he explained the importance not only of condensing thought but also expanding it, setting tasks which may be worth a post in themselves.

throughout our time there we had the homegrown team, including abi and rishi, to go to with any concerns or queries and many other people were also generous with their time to have a coffee and impart their advice. i never took for granted the power of the minds in that building, as well as how nice everyone was. the old paradox of being good and friendly really holds true there (at least in my experience).

in my final few weeks i worked on a weekly digital zeitgeist for audi and a mobile thought piece for nick fell, which i'll be posting shortly. i also shadowed the prodigy that is tim jones. i helped him and the virgin media team on a commercial strategy and got to go to my first focus group.

the great thing about doing my placement at this time of year was that i got to go to the company meeting in the guardian building and the office christmas party. the less great thing is that it's not the best time for hiring and although it had always been made clear that there wouldn't necessarily be a job available, it would have been the perfect end to the year. i shouldn't have drunk so much of the kool-aid but this hopefully won't be the absolute end to my time there. as i said to john hegarty on my last day "i hope this is more 'au revoir' and not 'adieu'", yes, i actually said that to him. goals for 2013 include working on my inner monologue and being less awkward around advertising legends.

such a warhol

‘what’s great about this country is that america started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. you can be watching tv and see coca-cola, and you know that the president drinks coke, liz taylor drinks coke, and just think, you can drink coke, too. a coke is a coke and no amount of money can get you a better coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. all the cokes are the same and all the cokes are good. liz taylor knows it, the president knows it, the bum knows it, and you know it.’

the philosophy of andy warhol: from a to b and back again

guardian summit summit

on wednesday jamie and i went to the guardian changing advertising summit. there was a great mix of interesting speakers and we have co-authored a post about the key themes that were covered.

have great content

yes, that one. perhaps the most obvious point became one of the most laboured points of the day; have great content. it would seem obvious to most that this is the absolute starting point, so i felt that we should get that out of the way quickly. it goes without saying that if you have great content, people will interact with it, they will share it, it will increase affection towards your brand. it’s worth noting about 5 different speakers drew reference to red bull’s stratos event – not that every brand has to send a man into space.

bruce daisley

be media agnostic

this point really leads on from having great content, a great, big idea can live in any platform. or as chris maples of spotify says “most of the rules are still the same, it just happens that the platforms have changed”. just because there are a variety of channels and platforms available to you, it doesn’t mean you have to use them all. when felix jumped (yep, again) over 8 million people watched it live on youtube and the only comms used were BTL. but bruce daisley of twitter highlighted adidas’ #takethestage olympic campaign, as they took a hashtag and expressed it across all of their channels – ATL and BTL. he explained a couple of reasons that this campaign worked so well, one - the hashtag was not branded, people could make it their own. it created it’s very own narrative by being turned into #stagetaken – giving the campaign flexibility and longevity after the games. charlie hiscocks summed it up best with “we shouldn’t be asking what is our digital strategy – ask what is our strategy for a digital world?”.

have a social strategy

that moment when the client says 2 weeks from launch “let’s do something on facebook!”. know why you are doing something. rené rechtman from goviral boldly said “red bull are selling one boring drink and they made a media brand out of it – you have to do this to survive. but it’s not a one size fits all scenario, discern the line of credibility – you only have to deliver on your benefit. Just because you can do something, it doesn’t mean you have to”.

thomas marzanno

thomas marzanno, CD at philips, took everything right back to its basics – “brand is not what you say it is, it is what people say it is. and the only instrument a brand has is its behaviour”. social networks are designed for brands to interact on a personal, one to one, basis with their customers, brands need to understand this and what is the most effective use of this. especially on facebook, brands are fighting against our friends, as our very own mel exon said: “what can a brand do that my friends can’t?” this is the attitude brands should have. everyone has to communicate, but are you communitcating value? don’t fill more space with less content.

john winsor

into a world of “co-s”

there were a lot of co words being used when talking about the future of brands; co-creation, collaboration, co-action. cindy gallop said that today is about co-creation and tomorrow is co-action – brands making money because they do good. john winsor, founder of victors & spoils, a crowd-sourcing ad agency spoke about the importance of co-creation. he claimed that one of the main reasons agencies such as his need to exist is that owing to the proliferation of media platforms, there is a greater need for more ideas. we’re not sure if we agree with this, especially when it comes to having an integrated campaign but he pointed to examples such as harley davidson and american airways where it has worked. john urged agencies to be the change, to disintermediate themselves (hand over power to the fans) and focus on compensation on outputs not inputs.

cindy gallop

as highlighted earlier, there is a chance for real connections between brands and consumers and cindy said this needs to be leveraged so they work together, not as slaves to each other.

mobile

according to the 'mobile shopper survey' conducted by draftfcb this year, people are starting to use mobile more than broadband. news consumers (readers) are choosing mobile web over apps by nearly 3 to 1 and during the olympics 42% of olympics-related traffic came from mobile. the question is how should we adapt to this? other forms of media have been successfully incorporated into this surge, examples of collaborations with mobile during the day included out of home from coca-cola and banner ads for the release of 'the amazing spiderman'. bruce daisley said that “a lot of people don’t get twitter until they’ve used it on mobile”. people want a seamless experience between online and offline and mobile facilitates this, mobile is an extension of ourselves.

matt gilbert & charlie muirhead

instancy

the CEO of guardian news and media, david pemsel stated that “the audience is always ahead of us”. This is because brands are faced with the challenge of an ‘always on’ audience. five year plans are no longer relevant, the focus now has to be on creating the right user experience. twitter has seen the flow of ideas increase in speed, hashtags are used to see instant (if short-lived) trends. the rise in sharing is due to the fact that no one can be a constant real time decision maker, ready to be engaged 24/7. debra coughlin from draftfcb explained that the most recent information is the most significant and an availability of tools builds confidence in a brand.

authenticity/transparency

jane, graham & marian

this need for instancy has meant that people need to prioritise when creating content - don’t over-complicate it. as cindy pointed out; the new marketing reality is complete transparency. she demonstrated this with the example that when you meet someone you share information about yourself in order to learn more about them. recent customer service activity on twitter has seen a revolution in the tone of voice of brands, o2 being a prime example. a brand is what people say it is; a reflection of consumer feelings. brands that are making promises that they are not living up to are being exposed. it was the opinion of marian saltzman that BP should have shown more humanity instead of feeding us with corporate speak; we will tolerate a lot of indiscrepencies when brands are authentic, honest and human.

kate, chris, rené, jonny & charlie

and finally; no one's cracked social yet
it was perhaps a slightly sobering thought from droga5’s CSO jonny bauer right at the end of the day, but it was certainly honest and refreshing. it’s very easy to get caught up in social, getting obsessed in engagement levels, reach, likes, retweets and the next big thing. but has anyone really cracked it? jonny said that the only brand that has gotten anywhere near monetizing social is nike with their fuelband. it was agreed in the end that we’re still very much on the way to working out social and digital and as mel said – we need to stop talking about it and get on with doing it.