Category: Strategy

Social media and the future of retailing

It has long been my mantra that the social media revolution is all about the separation of information from a restrictive means of distribution.  The interesting thing is how this schism plays out across other areas: for example, the separation of trust from institutions (trust being the information side of the equation and the institution being the distribution side), journalism from journalists, or music from the music business.

A couple of weeks ago I was shopping in John Lewis in Oxford Street, and this caused me to reflect on how this separation was playing-out within high street retailing.  I was aided in this reflection by the recent excellent series of documentaries on the history of British retailing by the BBC’s Robert Peston, the last one of which was examining the whole digital revolution in retailing.  Effectively what Peston was identifying was a growing separation between visiting a store, where we go to experience products, and purchasing those products which we tend to do on-line.

In the pre-digital world the information (the products) had been tied to a means of distribution (the store) and to a large extent it was the nature of the store – its size and location and thus its cost – which determined what products could sit within it.  This mirrors the way in which media, as a means of distribution, has shaped the information that sits within it.  But now retailing information is being separated from its (restrictive) means of distribution – product display is  being separated from product purchase.

The implication in all of this is that information side of the equation can (in fact must) adapt itself to a world where is has no default distribution partner to shape its destiny.  From a retailing perspective this means that certain types of physical store need to move away from their distribution function and shift into becoming providers of information and experience (albeit it you may still purchase items within a store, but probably by doing it using a mobile device and having it delivered to your home, rather than taking an item to a check-out desk and then having to carry it home).

Clearly there will be some types of products that will remain more distribution dependent  – groceries or any other product required for immediate usage or consumption for example – and the stores that provide this are what will form the mainstay of what will become a much reduced retail estate as the non-distribution dependent elements shift entirely into the digital space.

I do love it when a theory appears to have a universal application!

The EACA Euro Effies: the marketing equivalent of You’ve Been Framed?

A couple of weeks back I got the opportunity to attend the awards ceremony for the EACA Euro Effies.  These are essentially advertising awards (or more precisely awards for advertising agencies) that are not judged by creatives for their creativity, but judged according to how effective they are in meeting the clients’ business objectives.  (Should there actually be any other types of awards I ask?).  The interesting thing was how little actual advertising featured in many of the winning entries.  It reminded me of the sage words of Lou Capozzi , former boss of the MS&L PR network, who – on looking at the changing marcoms landscape – declared  “it is all just become PR with zeros added to the budget.”

Even those winners that were more ad-focused had submissions that were surrounded by a blizzard of ‘social media engagement’ and some of the more memorable appeared to be almost entirely social media-based, with no actual ad either produced or deemed worthy of featuring in the case study presentation of ‘the work’.  Examples here included a campaign for Mercedes-Benz about an invisible car, a stunt recreation of Felix Baumgartner’s famous Red Bull jump in Lego and a campaign to get people to visit Iceland in the winter based around an invitation to visit ordinary Icelanders in the homes.

I found all of this quite confronting, not least because I spend all my time telling people to forget the idea of using social media to reach audiences – pumping out lots of content – yet here were examples of just that, which were winning awards for effectiveness.   Continue reading →

Social media and the shift of trust from institutions into processes

This is actually chapter 6 from my book.  I have put it here in order to liberate it from a restrictive means of distribution – so it can operate effectively in the social digital space. The liberation of content from a restrictive means of distribution is, of course, what the social media revolution is all about. Apologies therefore for its reference to other chapters and concepts not similarly liberated (unless you wish to buy the book of course).

Back in chapter two I mentioned that I think one of the most profound changes that the world of social media is heralding is a shift of trust from institutions into processes. The reason this is so important is that trust (and its close cousin influence) is the single most important commodity upon which all societies are built.

We live in a society where trust lives in institutions. We trust banks to look after our money, because there isn’t another way to create the bonds of trust necessary to conduct financial transactions at any form of scale (insert your own joke about trust and bankers here). We trust the media to present to us a representation of the truth (insert your own joke about…). We also trust governments… (say no more). We are, perhaps co-incidentally, at the moment suffering a reversal in our trust of institutions but perhaps this may be more than just co-incidental. Part of the reason may be that we are starting to see other ways to scale the creation of trust, that don’t rely on its management within institutions. There is nothing like a bit of competition to create dissatisfaction with the established order. Continue reading →

The BBC Culture Show, YouTube and the future of TV

FireShot Screen Capture #248 - 'BBC iPlayer - The Culture Show_ 2013_2014_ YouTube - The Future of TV_' - www_bbc_co_uk_iplayer_episode_b039r4s9_The_Culture_Show_2013_2014_YouTube_The_Future_of_TVI have just watched the latest programme of the BBC’s The Culture Show.  It looked at the phenomena that is young people creating ‘programmes’ on YouTube that are attracting audiences as large as those associated with conventional TV programming.  It therefore posited the question “Is YouTube the future of TV?”

On one level it was an interesting and well produced programme – but on another it was naive and deeply flawed, exposing the familiar inability of traditional media to understand social media.

The first flaw was the idea that social media only starts to become serious when it produces something that looks like traditional media.  The artists and programmes featured may well be generating large audiences, but they none-the-less represent only a tiny fragment of the content or usage of the platform that is YouTube.  It is of course this other usage of the platform, that The Culture Show did not feature, which is having by far and away the greater cultural, social and economic impact.  But because this didn’t look like TV, it was ignored.  This is a usage, incidentally, which YouTube itself is also ignoring, because you can’t easily grow advertising dollars within it. Continue reading →

Note to marketing department: there are no audiences in social media

audience(Here is my column for publication in this month’s Digital Age).

Organisations only start to create measurable value from the usage of social media when the senior management of those organisations really understand what social media is all about.  Unfortunately, the journey towards this understanding is often a long and difficult one.

The first mistake senior management usually make is to assume that social media must fall somewhere within the remit of the marketing or communications department.  This is an easy mistake to make because this thing is called social ‘media’ and media is something that marketing people are paid to understand.  Marketing people themselves are usually keen to assume responsibility because it seems to present opportunities to create this thing called engagement with their customers which sounds good.  They will also find that the agencies they deal with are already knocking on their doors trying to sell them social media solutions and they are not knocking on the doors of any other departments.  Therefore having the marketing department take responsibility for social media seems such a logical decision that it barely generates any consideration at all.

However, there is a fatal flaw in setting off in this direction.

Marketing depends for its success on the identification or creation of an audience. Continue reading →

What is the E=MC² of social media?

To continue the theme of simplicity.  I like analogies and stories.  Here is one about simplicity and the need to shift from observation to explanation.  Before Einstein, physics appeared to be a complicated business and there were lots of people running around describing this complexity.  Then Einstein came along and said “you may see complexity, but what I see is E=MC²”.  This is probably the greatest piece of simplicity the world has ever seen.  Even I can understand that formula and yet it has the power to the explain the way universe works.

It didn’t necessarily make physics itself easier, but it provided a framework for understanding it and building practical applications.  We need something similar in social media.  We have plenty of people running around describing what is happening, but not enough people trying to explain why it is happening.  We need to find the E=MC² of social media.

My attempt at it is this.  The social media revolution is all about the liberation of information from restrictive means of distribution.

That is it.  The medium is no longer the message, the message can be itself, freed from the requirement to shape itself to the channels (networks, platforms etc) it has to sit within.  The implication of this for communications is the we are likewise liberated from the need to talk to audiences.  The implications of this for society in general is that trust has been liberated from institutions and can now live within transparent processes.  Information can be trusted on its own account, rather than via trust vested in the channel or institution from which comes.  After all, what is Twitter?  It is not an institution, it is a process, Wikipedia likewise.

Unfortunately, we all remain channel or institution fixated, because that is the way we have always done things, or because we have a commercial interest in a particular channel or institution.  Or because to embrace the implications of this shift is to accept that the world is going to change.

Social media: the simplicity manifesto

Social media is not complicated.  There may be people who want to make it look that way because it helps them make money.  Or there may be people who make it look that way, because they themselves are looking at it the wrong way (Brian Solis, Jeremiah Owyang).

I have been in the communications business for 25 years and I have always seen my job as creating simplicity: to take a complicated thing and reduce it to its essence, be that an essence expressed in a few words or a definition of basic principles.  So here is my simplicity manifesto for social media: a reduction of seven years of thinking into 10 core principles or statements.

1. It is a Big Thing – just look at history

Social media is a big thing, Continue reading →

Brian Solis and his new conversation prism. Useful or just confusing?

JESS3_BrianSolis_ConversationPrism4_WEB_1280x1024Brian Solis has just published a new version of his conversation prism.  You have probably used one of the previous versions as the title graphic for your presentation on social media – it has almost become the default here.  I used to use it as such, but then I stopped.  I did this after someone attending a workshop said “whoa – stop right there.  That’s the problem.”  I asked what she meant and she explained that this picture simply illustrated why she was intimidated by social media – multiple segments, hundreds of bright shiny tools you need to be familiar with.

I think she was right.  Diagrams such as this perpetuate a way of thinking which, increasingly, I try and lead people away from, which is the idea that social media is both complicated and defined by a dazzling array of tools.  Continue reading →

Econsultancy’s code for confusion

Antony Mayfield of Brilliant Noise recently drew my attention to this piece by Peter Abraham of Econsultancy.  Antony is one of the relatively few people in my Thinkers Twitter list because he is one of the relatively few thinkers in the social digital space that are any good.  However, in this instance I have to disagree with his thinking because Antony called this a great piece.

I actually think it is just another piece of blah blah from a marketing or digital agency that is struggling to maintain relevance in a space they either do not really understand or do not want to understand.  Harsh words indeed – but hear me out. Continue reading →