Digital Uprising

Beyond Revolutionary Banners

No we are not going to talk about Imran Khan, for that you have to read your digital news feed. Although, if we were to take Imran as a brand and just like any brand team revisit campaign KPIs, he is not doing bad in terms of ‘likes’, and his TOM is increasing day by day, but does it help achieve the overall business objectives for the brand?

I have been planning to bring digital revolution to Pakistan, where campaigns will focus on smartphones, GPS will be key element in most of them, youtube videos will go viral, twitter will start countless conversations, facebook will make them look great on every ones profile, and Google+… well still not sure about that one, but you get my idea of a perfect digital campaign. And then my perfect digital world came to a halt when a friend shared some heart breaking stats, more than half of our telecom population are not able to send SMS, more than 150million are not yet online and his brand spends approximately Rs.7 Million/month on web banners.

Naturally I was interested in that 7 million now, so I gave it a thought and turned those stats upside down, we have a phone in at least 60 million pockets, 20 million plus are online and facebook is the ever increasing social platform of opinion leaders. Apparently it wasn’t just me who discovered that fact, as I never got those 7m. But the good thing was every brand started spending pennies on facebook, sadly they looked at it as a banner rather than a conversational tool.

Once I pitched RFID led activation linked directly to potential consumers’ personal facebook profile but the brand team leader killed the idea of offline experience shared online by asking a simple question “How many likes will I get on this page? Coke Studio has an X number” upsetting I know. 

We have certainly evolved now. My brief was to be a critic and I thought I will have a lot of campaigns to criticize and to my surprise brands are testing new things, a lot of viral content is being generated, some brands are having serious conversations on twitter and multiple facebook pages are popping up as I write, but sadly marketers have been aimlessly chasing fans, no clear objectives are set for digital and apart from the word digital, there is no integration in overall marketing mix. No matter what anyone says, but as a planner I do believe that brand building is the most essential part and digital can help brands on that side.

As I went through my news and twitter feed, skittles(fruit-flavored sweets) came to my mind, in fact ill pop open a packet right now, but I am talking about their extremely interesting website which was simply consumer-generated. All they did was place a widget on their site linking Flickr for photos, youtube for videos, twitter for conversations and facebook for fan pages, a simple execution to use existing  platforms to your advantage and here on my feed most of the brand were focusing purely on facebook with standard invite & win, play & win, like & win etc. Some actually had nice addictive games but for that I have an iPhone now.

Around cricket world cup I came across Coca Cola’s Junooni campaign, where they tried to own the word Junooni by hiring quite a few university students and paid them hefty amount for their facebook profile, they also ran an online video competition where winners were joined by ‘cha cha cricket’ at the stadium in Sri Lanka, I don’t know how it did for the brand but the word Junooni is still associated with the Rock Band. Qubee and Telenor have taken a ‘caring’ route their digital campaign right now revolves around social cause but in my opinion PTI is doing it a little better than these, now for the most bizarre viral content, “A public service message by kuch khas” Lolz!, In my opinion… spot on, we all said wtf! (Well that’s fantastic) and would probably like to have a coffee at ‘kuch khass’ next time we are in Islamabad. And my most liked campaigns are always going to be these small business who build their fans purely by WOM, one that I liked the most is HD Junkie, they have managed to achieve  something rather interesting, an online DVD store with free home delivery of HD content, a niche clientele but a reliable one. They have also managed to divert traffic to their own amazon lookalike website for orders purely using an existing platform where they have a pre-sale conversation with clients on their own facebook profile.

But I am supposed to criticize the current campaigns and to me these are the few that stand out, I possibly cannot help myself and be nice to all of these as the digital agencies managed to sell it to their clients and I am still trying to sell mine.

Brand: Karachi Snob

Platform: Website

Effectiveness: With these guys I am impressed they don’t focus much on existing platforms, except for maybe a group page on facebook but that’s it. Here is an information portal that focuses on what’s happening in the metros of Pakistan, with comprehensive city listings and other guides. Not a unique idea but a desi version of timeout guide.

Such listings are generally for tourist to explore the city with ease but we the ‘yo’ crowd live in city bubbles and possibly qualify to be tourist as well and snob sites are the best way to explore and discover ‘happenings’.

This site is so effective now that a café or any small business that pops up in the city must have themselves registered with one of the snob sites. A membership card is being pushed by the site which will keep the audience hooked.

The only thing I found missing was a dialogue, almost all the reviews were by business owners and none by actual audience.

Verdict: A brilliant replica but lacks mobility may be a mobile app or a simple SMS address delivery will give them extensive database.

Brand: Pepsi Pakistan

Platform: Youtube & facebook

Effectiveness: Remember Afridi celebrating his birthday, Shoaib and Razzaq playing cricket at some airport and the biggest of them all “Kis nay kaha tha pepsi per 5 ruppay kaam karo?” All of these were big hits on social media and went viral beyond brand team’s imagination. Although I still think “kis nay kaha tha 5 rupay kaam karo” was not intentional, it just happened and created enough user-generated content to encourage brand & agency to take ownership and may be make a case study out of it(I would have done the same thing).

But did anyone of you saw batting and bowling tricks, which were made to look like raw footage by street cricketers? I do, only because my brother was in it. It just did not click, who is to be blamed? Of course the agency.

More attention-grabbing work is being carried out on Pepsi Pakistan facebook page, a simple “Captions Competition” on preset player avatar (I have to admit we crack great jokes on cricket and politics). All you need to do to win is get 20 people to like your caption, instantly shared.

Verdict: We can sit and say it’s too early or start experimenting. There is nothing better than free media.

Cool Batting Trick: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KedFZ5S1zA0

Cool Bowling Trick: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnNeMWbog3c

Brand: Nescafe Pakistan

Platform: Facebook

Effectiveness: Nescafe Hum Hain Jawaan is not just a fan page looking for fans but it is a perfect example of how to engage audience using their own content. This fan page actually comes with a nice user-friendly app, which encourages youth to share their stories using video or a rich full of emotions and props comic strip toolkit.

The greatness of “Hum Hain Jawaan” campaign is that it keeps the big idea intact across all the mediums and a well thought digital execution gives them more than expected engagement numbers.

I wonder if this app is backed by some ground activation or secret seeding on college forums but they have generated a pretty decent traffic.

Verdict: Probably the only campaign in Pakistan dependent on a digital execution, such campaigns will indeed set a benchmark for other brands to follow on social media.

Brand: Zong

Platform: Facebook/ Twitter

Effectiveness: They have a lot going on, let’s start with the special Manchester United SIM offer, although no one knows what they are up to after watching their teaser for over a month between every over bowled. There is nothing fancy about their page that will attract traffic but they have kept a simple rule, get the audience in a conversation and there is nothing better than for brand to start chatting up with their audience.

They don’t have a dedicated ManU/Zong page so cricket by default is part of their updates, what they did with cricket is being applied on football now, predict score, discuss games and win exciting prizes.

During their last M9 launch they did something simple and exciting, every hour a re-charge code was being posted and first one to redeem obviously gets to keep the balance. Now even M9 page is catering to Manchester United but more to my surprise they post exactly the same stuff on this page with a delay of 1 second.

Another interesting contest that I spotted was Twitter Contest which actually encourages you to join twitter just to retweet ‘Zongers’ and win weekly. I am sure the number of followers and the conversations are not what Zong aimed at. I think they need a twitter popularity contest like Ashton Kutcher and CNN to get to at least 2,000 followers.

Verdict: Confused. A lot of conversation going waste due to lack of simple digital strategy.

Brand: Head & Shoulders

Platform: Facebook

Effectiveness: Branded Afridi fan page.

No one really needs to do anything if you can afford the only super star of 180 million people, just upload some videos, pictures and start a conversation related to that super star.

But what I noticed or at least felt that this page is not just there to worship Afridi, they are actually using it to gather insight with random one click polls related to product/category and they are getting more and more clicks on these polls, which wasn’t the case before they signed Afridi fan club.

Digital team needs to keep the page enjoyable, conversation relevant and data useful, whereas the client actually needs to use this data to justify their investment.

Verdict: Say Something… Afridi makes these research polls fun but is that what this page is all about?

Brand: Wateen

Platform: Facebook

Effectiveness: An interesting app offering a trip to infinity & beyond, all you need to do is capture (image or video) emotion of your choice and upload.

What I like about this app is its simplicity, Wateen is not trying to sell you your dream destination but makes you discover Pakistan, all they want you to do is express yourself and if the brand can get that out from their followers “Jo Chaho” is spot on.

Verdict: Keep it simple and catchy!

Revised version published in Aurora Magazine in Januat 2012  

http://auroramag.wordpress.com/2012/01/26/beyond-banners/

Angry Birds

It all started when newspapers introduced engaging games which challenged our intelligence, they meant no harm(sort of) and after centuries came digital gaming era, to me they all had one thing incommon, engage the audience and create a new breed of anti-social species.

World of gaming completely changed with the advent of smartphones phones, but this left the gamers divided in two, complex gamers with a gaming IQ of 1000 (not to insult gamers this number may be adjusted according to your kills in modern warfare 3) and simple gamers who were there just to kill time (I do not suggest their IQ to be any lower, just so you know).

Amidst of all the play boxes and stations, one needs to stay mobile, sneaky audience, seems to shut down their consoles to live a life, we need mobility. The 80’s geeks are probably laughing so hard right about now, remember when you used to pick on them for being glued to their Atari, playing ping pong or galaxy…yeah its payback time.

In between all these conflicts a new war was declared between birds and pigs, to be fair the pigs started it, all they wanted was some fried eggs for breakfast, which naturally angered birds and now they are out to take revenge on the green pigs who stole the their eggs.

It’s a battle which requires you to catapult the titular angry birds at a series of structures built by some devious pigs. Oh boy and this battle picked up big time and took angry birds on top of the charts on iTunes in 2010.

“Let me tell ya, these ain’t no ordinary finches we are talking about. These here are the Angry Birds, the ones that’s going to kick you in the ‘nads  and they’re the ones on your side. They must be from Galapadapados, or sumptin’.” – Col. Angus.

As this tweet by world famous bird expert suggests no one supported pigs but they are still holding fort and laugh at your every miss. 

Key to the addictiveness of this game is its simplicity (again not suggesting at all that it is aimed at the dim witted) just drag your finger over the catapult to aim your bird, then let go and watch it fly across the screen to the target. However, the tricky part is twofold: first, working out which bits of the pigs’ fortress you should target and second, getting your shots to land in the right places by using unique destructive powers of angry birds.

Each of 120 levels takes less than a minute to play so this makes each second wasted count. It gets too frustrating when one stray block falls in the wrong place and wrecks our otherwise perfectly executed plan. Angry Birds features hours of gameplay, challenging physics-based castle demolition, which requires simple logic to crush evil green pigs.

What boggles the mind is the amount of media the game has been able to muster up, fans all over the world have posted tons of videos for the love of Angry Birds, also to keep its big wheel going the game releases season specials such as Christmas and Halloween. Rovio a Finnish computer game developer have us cornered, our black magic phone pulls us towards it during a highly superficial brand plans or concepts are being presented or even in between red and green lights on road...ARRGH!!!! (Must shoot pigs….)

A random guy on a bus once declared “Protect global warming or play Angry Birds!”

Next up we have an alligator in a tub, fruit massacre and terrorists paradise, flight control.

Revised version published in Aurora Magazine Dawn Group (Annual issue 2011)

A penguin from Madagascar

I am a strategic planner. I said that proudly the day I was made one in 2005. Although I wasn’t sure what it actually meant, it sounded cool. It still does. I still show off my designation, but now the only people I manage to impress are students, bankers and maybe my family. However, for people who know what being a planner means, this is no less than being one of the penguins of Madagascar – they are the most unreliable creatures, they live in their own world and most of their plans fail. But then, at the end they are the ones who save the day – almost.

The most difficult part in a planner’s life is to explain what he does. I am still trying to figure out what I do (but then so is everyone else in the industry) because to be honest all I do is think about either non-work related stuff or my next travel destination. But the beauty of this job is the more you think and look, the more productive you become. The idea is to consume whatever you come across and magically your planning is done; all you need to do is keep it relevant. Yes, we consume everything, especially time.

To make matters more interesting, I work in activation, which most of you still refer to as BTL and a few of my clients even call us vendors. A planner’s job in activation is no different from that of a planner in a different advertising discipline; we even have to develop campaigns based on ‘imaginative’ insights backed by researched ‘assumptions’.

My day usually starts early at 11:00 a.m. (when I am not off on my quarterly vacation). The first person I meet and greet is the most important person in the office. He knows everyone, knows all our company secrets and he is the only one who personally meets all my clients and serves them tea. He is my office boy. Office boys are integral to agencies. He is the one we all use as a perfect example when we talk about the ‘masses’. If we need to do a brand analysis we ask him to run down and buy it and he keeps the smooth flow of chai going even if we are working past midnight. Next, I meet my laptop, the second most important part of my life after my phone. I check Facebook, Twitter and all the other ‘creative’ platforms. We planners are curious by nature so we need a couple of hours to ourselves to read random stuff, which can vary from The Sun to Harvard handouts. Being an activation planner gives us the added responsibility of keeping an eye on activation campaigns and not just TVCs on YouTube. As a result we need to read more as there is not much on YouTube apart from flashmobs.

Although most people would still say I am young, especially given my dress sense and the way I look, I do have people younger than me on my team who, by now, are usually ready with a brief. This is the time when I switch off the technology. This is the most fun time for any planner. We play with the briefs – criticise objectives, laugh at the target group description, completely ignore budgets and think wild. There would be no fun or even great work if we stopped challenging briefs. Some might say we challenge just out of fun, but in reality most of the time activation teams are a bit more experienced about on-ground events than the assistant brand managers, if not the brand managers. Once my team has got the direction, we involve the operations team and we conduct our pre-production meeting where all our wild and over ambitious ideas are killed in the name of reality check. Eventually, we simply say:“You are the experts. How can we do it?” and surprisingly the ideas killed earlier now have multiple solutions.

The meeting is adjourned and we start work on PowerPoint when suddenly… wait! A client wants to meet ‘now’ about the activation proposal we put together within 24 hours and emailed to them urgently two weeks ago and within 15 minutes we are in the client’s boardroom. The meeting begins after half an hour drinking coffee and chit chatting randomly about the competitor’s useless campaign. Finally the assistant brand manager walks in. He has one year’s extensive experience in brand management. He usually starts with a brief overview and apologises for the brand manager not being available because of another important meetings. The plan is presented, everyone loves it. The brand team will review it, have it approved and get back to us before the weekend.

Or (alternative scenario) Wait! A client wants to meet ‘now’! Within 15 minutes everyone is in the boardroom (including the brand manager). We hear the marketing director will be joining us. Everyone is tense. He walks in after a couple of slides are presented, greets everyone saying he has 10 minutes, and please continue. Half way through the presentation he asks about the strategy behind the campaign. I reply with my usual passion that it is ‘to create a brand world through which we can build a loyal consumer base.’ He turns to his brand team and asks. Sales? He turns to me and says they will discuss this internally and get back to us before the weekend.

Or (further alternative scenario). Everything goes as planned and the client even trusts us. In which case, back at the office my boss wants to meet and hear about the meeting. We discuss the outcome of the meeting. He calls in his GM. Three Marlboro Lights are lit, three bun kebabs are ordered as we are on a diet (not me) and our beloved office boy brings in three cups of tea. We discuss the possibility of launching new activation platforms or even expanding the agency outside Pakistan. The meeting is then interrupted by the finance manager, who wants to talk about the cash flow situation. At this point the idea of expansion is put on hold and we start talking about getting more clients. A few calls are made and few blind dates with possible clients are set. Everyone is happy and positive for a day.

It is 6:00 p.m. and depending on my workload, this is usually the end or the start of my day.

I enjoy working at night or at least I say that to justify my laziness and tendency to leave things to the last minute. Like this piece. I was told to write it over a month ago, but here I am up past midnight doing it, like any other proposal.

It sure is the end of the day for my team as they don’t enjoy late sittings or working through the night, whereas I am more productive then. And with my headphones on, no one dares to come near me as they know I am working in my silo. Yes, you heard that right but then again I have spent all day with non-silo workers and I now need my own space.

Note: This timeline fluctuates daily and at times hourly depending on the mood of clients, teams and wives (not sure about the last one, readers are requested to verify).