Neil Hughes from 56 Up

This week saw the latest instalment of The Up Series.  Originally commissioned by Granada television in 1965, Up is a documentary series that has followed the lives of 14 people from the age of 7, returning to each of them every seven years to see how they and their lives have changed (or not).

Would the format survive with the seven year gap since the last episode, during which the arrival of social media could have made the series redundant? The fact is, it was more powerful than ever and Monday’s 56 Up was about as powerful a piece of television as you’re likely to see this year.

Intimate detail became epic stories on the screen; as a viewer you recognised that not only were the 14 telling you their story, they were helping you to understand yours in a way that only great television can.

This was not the curated ‘authentic’ self of social media nor the self-actualised optimism of ‘Life in a Day’ but the really real deal. With all its mundane glory, earned the hard-but-only-possible way, in the really real-time of 56 years.

A ratings hit? Not quite, but with an 8.1 TVRs versus Scott and Bailey’s 10.0 it certainly held its own, and at the same time set Twitter and Zeebox on fire in a way that signals next week’s episode  (2/3)could grow.

It’s all too easy to think that we live in the era of risk taking, progress and change but can anyone honestly imagine a publisher or broadcaster committing to a project that could take over a hundred years to complete? Well I think I can. C4 has felt the absence of Big Brother and perhaps a look back at the pioneers of 1964 would be a source of inspiration for a channel famed for its daring.

The AGM, sometimes referred to as the “annual geriatrics’ moan” or more commonly “annual general meeting”, is suddenly becoming something of a place to be -an event where scalped big earning chief executives are paraded in front of angry shareholders as penance for years of over-indulgent remuneration amidst falling profits.

It never used to be the case; AGMs used to be a boreathon, where dividend, auditors and executive pay would be silently approved by corporate shareholders who could never be bothered to show up.

And, invariably, they always did approve everything.

The only highlight would be listening to a shrieking single-shareholding prune that had travelled down to London from the outer reaches of Arbroath with the sole agenda of taking issue with say the chief executive of DMGT over the financial wastefulness of the company’s expensive paper stock of its annual report.
The chief executive would never have the gumption or humour to respond to the shrieking woman with something along the lines of “This is the AGM for DMGT, the AGM for PMT is a week Tuesday.”
The AGM  is simply too staid for that, but as Trinity Mirror and Aviva lose their chiefs amidst shareholder unrest, isn’t it about time the AGM joined the modern world and dispended with its soporific mix of corporate platitudes, crap sandwiches and Styrofoam cups in favour of social media and X-Factor style re-appointment of directors.
Why not let the FTSE bigwigs take to the stage, microphone in hand, and in say 10 minutes sing for their suppers (re-appointments) in front of the judging panel: the company shareholders.
The bigwigs could take it turns, taking the mic and kicking off with “the reason I should be re-elected is.”… then cite their high and low points this past 12 months and perhaps at a critical juncture – like when they talk of the day the company’s share price rose  a record 12%- wiping away a crocodile tear or two.

Once they had finished their auditions, the shareholder panel could vote, saying “Yes, We’ve seen the figures and the company has performed OK in the past 12 months, but on today’s performance you have not convinced us you want it enough.

“Moreover, your audition ran for 12 minutes, two more minutes then allowed, and you being a finance director and a numbers man and all that, we don’t think that is good enough. So thanks, but no thanks.”

If not X-Factor style auditions, then live tweets must be introduced, as the AGM is the one chance in the year investors get the chance to question company bosses, so surely it is futile not to make use of the technology whereby investors who don’t want to schlep down to London or wherever can get their voice across.
For too long, at AGMs,  full-time directors and non-executive directors have been silent silhouettes, letting the chief executive and chairman take the plaudits or poo-throwing, depending on the success of the company.
Now is the time to revolutionise the AGM and make it an event that all shareholders will want to attend.

In the last few years you may have noticed how the global recession has impacted upon our collective psyche.  Whilst the nineties and noughties witnessed a throw-away society and mass consumerism recently a new consciousness has emerged – a ‘make-do-and-mend’ mentality and a return to frugality, dubbed ‘austerity chic’.  These phenomena have heralded a new popularity of old skills like sewing on buttons, darning socks and growing your own vegetables.

Media and celebrities have caught onto the trend through programmes like Kirstie Allsopp’s ‘Handmade Britain’ and ‘Homemade Home’ which extol the virtues of domesticity and show viewers how to make items such as decoupage tea lights and clay-baked gift tags.  The Duchess of Cambridge is a key exponent of this trend, recycling her hats and outfits and even swapping them with her mum.

It is into this zeitgeist that Bauer launch their new print magazine, ‘LandScape’; tapping explicitly into this ‘austerity chic’ and nostalgia for simpler times.

Launching a print title in the current market is a bold move.  ABC results published in February made for fairly grim reading; apart from the increase in circulations of free titles Shortlist and Stylist, the rest of the magazine market suffered a down-turn.  Add to this the huge upheavals in the magazine market (consolidation of Hearst and Hachette last year, BBC magazines now in the hands of Immediate Media and IPC re-structuring) and the continuing move of readers to online formats and you start to see the scale of LandScape’s task.

LandScape will sit within the home interest sector alongside titles including Country Living, Homes and Gardens and Country Homes and Interiors.  Bauer believe their closest competitor to be Country Living, but as the title straddles cooking, gardening, women’s monthlies and home interest it will be interesting to see where the readers will migrate from and which titles will suffer as a result of its launch.

Editor Sheena Harvey believes LandScape will be “a haven from the pressures of modern living, a chance to slow down and a reminder of the good things in life”.  Editorial content will be based around the growing seasons and “celebrate the joy of the garden, simple seasonal kitchen food, traditional British crafts and the wonder of nature and the countryside”.

To emphasise the luxurious and relaxing positioning of LandScape Bauer have invested in heavier printed paper with an evocative use of photos throughout.   Currently there are no plans for an online version.  Print feels like the right environment for launch, offering the reader a more relaxing read than digital formats, however if early sales reveal a younger reader than anticipated an online edition must surely follow.

LandScape launched on 18^th April with a print of 170k and a cover price of £3.90. The launch was supported with a 32 page sampler in the Times distributed in last Saturday’s edition (14^th April) and by English heritage who are promoting the magazine to its 1 million plus members. It will also be promoted through the Bauer’s stable of titles where they will drive subscriptions though it will not be cover-mounted. It is set at an accessible price point and will be produced bimonthly to maintain seasonality and the unhurried theme.

Bauer believe it will find its core audience amongst 35+ women with an interest in the countryside and nature.  This target audience is a distinct departure from Bauer Media’s traditional area of expertise with titles including Grazia, Heat, FHM and Closer focusing on the younger end of the market.  Nevertheless, Bauer do have a history of successful launches; Grazia was the UK’s first quality women’s weekly and demonstrated the publisher’s ability to make a brand successful very quickly.

So, will they carve themselves a niche with this new launch?  Well they have certainly tapped into the zeitgeist and with a double dip recession announced last week the age of austerity seems set to continue.  The print market needs continual investment in order to survive, evolve and ultimately prosper. Launches are the life blood of a healthy market and a barometer for the industry and so I can only applaud Bauer’s bravery and wish them luck with their new launch.

Lucy Church is press manager at Manning Gottlieb OMD.

Listening to the radio this morning, I heard U2’s “It’s a beautiful day” and it kind of summed up my week.  Unlike last week’s earworm the Rolling Stones “I can’t get no satisfaction” which was far more relevant (and for once I don’t mean Mrs M).  It got me thinking in a far too Wogan-esque vein, that we should have soundtracks for our days, and more specifically we should have soundtracks for our job roles. 

During my time at Asda we played PJ (“me eyes man, me eyes!”) and Duncan’s “Let’s get ready to Rumble” every day at 4pm in all 300 shops.  This was meant to be an audible cue to rumble the shopfloor and get it looking cracking for the late pm trade. I can still remember all the words.

We have a whizzbang wireless thing in our office and have taken to playing entrance songs as people come in every morning.  It’s a shame we didn’t have this set up when you dragged yourself into work this time last year Jacko, as it would help explain to new starters the significance of “Man in the Mirror” blaring at 20 decibels as you enter the floor each morning mate.

Anyhow, music is important – and  I’ve attempted to have a go at the soundtracks that should accompany our daily toils.

Digital – Stone Roses “I am the resurrection” or maybe a bit of Shaggy “It Wasn’t Me”

TV Buyers – Chumbawumba’s “Tubthumping”. Somehow the lyrics “I get knocked down but I get up again… I drink a lager drink, I drink a cider drink…” have great relevance.

Press buyers – Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls just wanna have Fun”

Media Buyers –   Put the person on hold just make sure its playing Kelis’s “ I hate you so much right now…” or how about a bit of Gaga and “Poker Face”

New biz director – livin on a prayer or blondie – “call me”

Finance – Dolly Parton’s “Working 9 to 5” or R Kelly’s bootylicious “bump and Grind” lyrics, “My Minds telling me no…”

Reception – “Cheeky song (touch my bum” by the cheeky girls

Radio Media owners – Too easy. “Video killed the radio star” or perhaps more positively the Corr’s “Radio” from the late 90’s – I always felt sorry for Jim.

Print Media owners – The Simon and Garfunkel classic “Bridge over troubled waters” or if you work at for one of Richard Desmond’s titles maybe the Eminem’s “Stan” is more frequently on your mind?

Outdoor Media owners –  The Beatles seminal “Help! I need somebody (or I’m going to go void)”, the lesser known B side

Creatives – much more cerebral – the Pixies “Where is my mind” or the Beatiful South’s “ I need a little time…”

Anyone who works at News Int  - “I will survive”

So next time you need to give yourself or your team a rumble about 4pm, download my Media Spotify Playlist and you’ll get to 5.30 in no time.

Now I need to try and work out why my team keep playing a bit of Winehouse “Rehab” when I walk in the door…

Download my Media Playlist Sound of Media

Follow me on Twitter @mullinsarama. Have a cracking weekend. It’s going to be a scorcher. 

Walk on, walk on….

Yesterday evening I was walking down a lane near my house and a man was coming towards me staring down into his mobile phone. I thought, “He will see me, he will see me.” Then I thought, “He won’t see me, he won’t see me.” I stopped and he didn’t. A quick “sorry” and he walked off resuming his downward gazing. Smart phones don’t make smart people it seems.

This got me thinking, which is always a worry. Around two in five adults in this country have a smartphone (Ipsos Technology Tracker) and the figure continues to grow; last year the devices started to outsell PCs (IDC). Three in five teenagers admit they are “highly addicted” to using smartphones, compared with 37% for adults (Ofcom). We cannot ignore the mobile generation, even if they do ignore other people on the pavement.

Internet access through mobile phones will eventually be the default setting for everyone. Mobile will be the one-stop shop for social interactions, finding, buying, selling, playing, watching and reading, and who knows even the odd phone call. Smart devices are not just about communication, they are our identity. They will even select music for you based on your pulse rate or location (not sure I want ‘I’m forever blowing bubbles’ when I’m in the bath).

We, as human beings and consumers, are changing with this technology. We don’t store information, we access it. We used to know a lot about a little, but now we know a little about a lot. That doesn’t necessarily make us smart though.

We, as researchers, know all this information from the data stored on the phone and without having to ask any questions, but it’s a lot of data to work through. Einstein said we cannot solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them. Making sense of all this is the next frontier of media research and market research in general. It will also be the theme of the MRG 2012 Conference in Monte Carlo.

John Carroll is Senior Director in Ipsos MediaCT and Chairman of the Media Research Group (follow @MediaCarroll)

I’m a sucker for a good quotation. The best can make a point far more eloquently and concisely than I ever could, which is why I use them in my presentations all the time. Sometimes it may be historical figures – for example Henry Ford’s “a man who stops advertising to save money is like a man who stops a clock to save time” or Samuel Johnson’s famous quote about advertising overload (written in 1759).

Other times, it may be celebrity classics (Arnold Schwarzenegger – “I think gay marriage should be between a man and a woman”) or homespun words of wisdom (“A computer might beat you at chess, but you can always beat it at kick boxing”)

There will never be a definitive list of my favourite quotations, but from a media perspective, the following are all contenders.

1. “Humans are to independent thinking as cats are to swimming – we can do it when we have to, but we’d much prefer not to.”

This quote is from Daniel Kahneman, the first ever psychologist to win the Nobel Prize for Economics, and the founder of behavioural economics. This idea, that humans spend as much of their time as possible on auto-pilot and only employ their cognitive brain when they have to, has been advanced by numerous experts from neuroscience, cognitive psychology, economics and marketing and yet a disturbingly high proportion of marketing spend is still aimed at the cognitive, attention-based part of our brain, which (according to Rory Sutherland) is “not the Oval Office, making executive decisions, but the press office, issuing explanations for decisions we have already taken”; another favourite quotation.

Kahneman’s work helped to open our eyes to the power of emotion and the long-term, implicit mind within marketing, although there is still reluctance amongst many in the industry to embrace it. The stultifying certainties of the traditional models of communications and influence are much preferred, even though they have been proven wrong time and time again.

2. “Choice is cherished, but choosing is a chore”

This single one-liner pretty much sums up the argument behind Barry Schwarz’s ‘The Paradox of Choice’, but the book is no less important for that. It is a fact of life that we have never been offered so much choice, and never been more prepared to simplify and minimise the choosing process.

How we choose – through habit, instinct, heuristics or via trusted intermediaries – has a huge impact on the roles of marketing and media. We are less homo economicus, applying thought, logic and rational self-interest to our consumer decision-making; we are more homo whimsicalus, allowing a wide range of factors to influence our judgement, such as emotion, social pressures and context. We will generally favour brands that make choosing less of a chore and create the emotional associations that make heuristics simple and intuitive to apply.

3. “Tell me a fact, and I may remember. Tell me a truth and I may believe. But tell me a story and it will live in my heart forever”

This is generally referenced as an ancient Indian proverb, and that is highly appropriate. The power of storytelling to influence learning, memory and human development is as ancient as mankind and applies to social movements, religion (all of the great religions have storytelling at their heart), education and even brands. As the proverb says, stories live in our hearts forever – through our emotions (heart) and memories (forever). Emotions and memory – that is where brands live!

There has been a revival of interest in the role of storytelling within modern-day marketing, mainly through the concept of transmedia storytelling.  Major multinationals now employ storytelling specialists within their marketing function as a matter of course. Although I sometimes worry that the emphasis is often too much on the transmedia and not enough on the storytelling, this is a welcome development. Until brands learn what their ‘story’ is, how to best communicate and spread it, and how it influences the purchase decision, much of their media spend will be wasted.

When even the CEO of Google comments that;

“That’s the gift of advertising – to connect with people in a human way – to make the kind of emotional connections that are at the core of story telling.”

then you know it’s important.

4. “ The problem with market research is that people don’t think how they feel, they don’t say what they think, and they don’t do what they say”

This quote is usually attributed to David Ogilvy, although I have been unable to locate the source. If any David Ogilvy fans out there can help out, that would be much appreciated, otherwise I’m going to start claiming it as my own. I would love to – after all, it is pithy, witty and completely true.

Even today, most market research is based on asking people to say what they think. We now know that this is the most unreliable and limited way to get at the truth. We should spend more time and money looking at what they do and how they feel.  As the previous quotations suggest, what we think has a very small influence on our decision-making, and what we say we think is often based on biases created by phenomena such as post-rationalisation, self-representation, confabulation and memory degradation. And yet marketers still spout out awareness levels, tracking scores and brand preference indices as if they were goals in themselves.

Whenever I have had the opportunity to look inside the heads of consumers – through neuroscience, biometrics, implicit measurement techniques or ethnography – the insights are far deeper, richer and more meaningful than anything that ever came out of survey research or focus groups. Even though David Ogilvy was a keen user of market research during his own career (“advertising people who ignore research are as dangerous as generals who ignore decodes of enemy signals”) I firmly believe that he would have cottoned on to this fundamental flaw in the traditional research model if he had been with us today.

5. “The Medium is the message”

Like David Ogilvy, Marshall McLuhan has been responsible for many memorable quotes.  It was he who gave the phrase “turn on, tune in and drop out” to psychedelic guru Timothy Leary (although he claimed never to have tried LSD himself, explaining to Playboy magazine that he’d rather be an observer than a participant), as well as the insight that “we look at the present through a rear view mirror. We march backwards into the future”

“The medium is the message” has become such an aphorism that I think it has lost a great deal of its meaning.  It was written at a time when media plurality was reaching unprecedented proportions and the power of context was beginning to be understood. We now know, especially through the advances made in behavioural economics, just how important the surrounding context is in terms of how a piece of communication is received, processed and acted upon. How, where, when and through what channels the communication is received are all part of that context, and it makes the media practitioner’s role more important than ever before.

So, why don’t we incorporate it into media practice far more often? As I have written in previous blogs, we are still far more interested in the exposure metrics and far less enthusiastic about engagement research as an industry, and yet that is where the real power of media lies and where the real value can be mined.

Maybe it is time to turn on, tune in and drop out – from the counting culture to the counter-culture.  Marshall would be delighted.

Anyone else catch “Ad Men” on Sky Atlantic?  Great to see our own legends of the small, and large screen, talking about how Ad Land developed, being influenced by the US industry, the creativity of the 70s through to the excesses of the 80s.  Favourite moment was Ridley Scott telling the story of when someone suggested as he was so great at making ads, he might consider making films.

And it was a great excuse to include many of our favourite ads pack into an hour.  From the BA “Face” ad to the Guinness Surfer, so many of the ads, did that very special thing of giving me a #Tingle.  You know that special feeling you get when something moves you and literally makes your hair stand up on end?

Now what if I tell you I can measure if an ad does that to you? (And without something huge strapped to your head!). Biometrics is a technique developed to passively measure your autonomic responses (skin sweat, breathing, movement and heart rate).  And then combines these into a single engagement trace that plots these responses across your ad.

It’s a great technique for all ads, but we especially love seeing the results for the Super Bowl ads.  One of the most discussed superbowl ads was the Chrysler ad.

You can see from the trace below it was an engaging ad and there is a real emotional journey going on for viewers.  The trace dips from active into passive engagement and there are great releases for the audience as the next part of the story unfolds and draws them back in.  There is intrigue, resonance and in this case patriotic fervour.  And the final segment of the ad keeps people in the highly engaged zone right through to the end and branding…which is quite a feat.   And probably why it is one of those ads that gives me that hair raising tingle every time I watch it.

Want to find out more – visit our website or give Keith Glasspoole a shout (Keith.Glasspoole@ipsos.com).

Louise Brice is a Research Director at Ipsos ASI

Mirror, mirror on the wall who is the fairest of them all?
Step forward one Mark Hollinshead, current managing director of Trinity Mirror’s nationals’ division and Media Week’s tip as replacement for Sly Bailey.

Hollinshead, aesthetically speaking, does not possess the credentials of Bailey: he is a short back and sides man, unlike the snow-white mop hair of Bailey which made her so instantly recognisable, nor perhaps does he possess her charisma.

(Media Week once went to a dinner with Bailey and her top Mirror lieutenants. Her lieutenants fell into reverential silence whenever Bailey spoke, which she did a lot.)

But Hollinshead has got to be a top shout for the job: he knows the Mirror business inside out, courtesy of over 10 years at the publisher, heading up both its not unimportant Scottish operations before moving south to head up operations at the Daily, Sunday Mirror and The People as well.

Above all, Hollinshead is a commercial man, cutting his teeth in the world of media agencies.

Not only does he know the business well, importantly he will likely come a lot cheaper than some external big-ticket candidate (with their CVs spilling over with digital successes) pacifying shareholders angry at high executive pay.
To date, Hollinshead has achieved a fair bit at Trinity Mirror.

It was Hollinshead who drove through the selective price-cutting and editorially changes to the Sunday Mirror which helped it make hay after the closure of the News of the World; the lucrative Mirror Football is his baby too.

Anyway, what is the point in looking externally?

Should Trinity Mirror opt externally, then it will take the new broom six months to familiarise themselves with the business, before they will likely diagnose “more investment in digital”.

I’m not sure Trinity Mirror, like say a Johnson Press, needs a digital supremo at the helm.

Yes, the job involves plate spinning digital and printed operations, but make no mistake about it Trinity Mirror’s national titles still make money and are the spine of the business.

Hollinshead knows this all too well. Any anyway, contrary to press reports, Trinity Mirror is not a basket case.

Trinity Mirror’s problems, broadly speaking, are two-fold: a ballooning pension deficit and a practically insoluble regional press market. Manage these two elephants in the room and Hollinshead will be laughing.

Trinity Mirror reported pre-tax profits of £74m in its last full year, compared to, say, operating losses of £38.8m at Guardian News & Media in its financially year.

The Daily Mirror, its flagship publication, is doing OK, at around 1.12m circulation, as are the other national titles. Should Hollingshead get the job, he will likely be  aided by the resurgence in retail advertising which has been flooding out of red-tops of late.

Internally, Daily Mirror editor Richard Wallace could prove a challenge, though Trinity Mirror , I would argue, needs a commercial guy to steer it course through these choppy waters.

“That’s part of your problem: you haven’t seen enough movies. All of life’s riddles are answered in the movies.” Davis (Steve Martin, Grand Canyon, 1991)

Moneyball - a movie about data

Inspired by Sue Unerman’s cinematic references in her last blog I’ve another movie for your attention.

I’m not Brad Pitt, but neither am I Jonah Hill, at least I’m not as smart as he is in the baseball-based movie Moneyball.  It tells the story of Oakland Athletics’ 2002 season. A season where they changed the rules of baseball forever. It’s one of those movies about sport that isn’t about sport. It’s a movie about conviction, destiny, redemption, resistance and duty. It’s also a movie about data.

Pitt is the charismatic, though flawed General Manager Billy Beane, but it’s Jonah Hill’s Peter Brand who impresses as the genius whose detailed analysis of player performance enables the Oaklands to let’s just say, do better than anyone expected.

It’s a great reminder that even in our exciting and increasingly data-driven industry the big breakthroughs come from people. For every GB of data there’s 1K of insight to be found, and it comes from those smart enough to join the dots and charismatic enough to make things change.

To see a whole raft of them (including the peerless David Fletcher) make sure you attend this year’s Media 360 as well as getting yourself a copy of Moneyball.

Restaurant news:

Whilst I’m in an Americana mood and the economy is going to hell I can recommend Pit Cue Co.’s excellent ribs. Depression-era food is all the rage right now (expect more when The Great Gatsby opens on Boxing Day) and these guys have cornered the market in cheap, flavoursome, pulled-pork hits of solace.

One of the things that has appealed to advertisers about the internet since the first dotcom boom has been its global scope. It allows them to communicate with markets around the world as easily as they previously could their domestic audiences. And as we see TV, radio and mobile all using the internet as the medium to reach a worldwide audience, the importance of the internet as a global medium will only grow. But as an advertiser, how do you assess reach across continents?

In a world of increasingly fragmented audiences and segmented media habits, census information becomes key for planning communication, as it is able to identify traffic across geographical regions at an individual unique browser level. Equally important is that advertisers have a universally recognised set of principles to work with, underpinned by local verification that these principles have been met. That means advertisers, agencies and media owners can be confident that they are basing their commercial decisions on sound data that meets an internationally recognised benchmark of transparency.

This means global standards for local markets; a consistent set of underlying global metrics which allow local markets to develop the measurement tools they need and to mature at their own pace. The International Federation of Audit Bureau of Circulations World Wide Web Standards Group reviews these global metrics every year to make sure they remain relevant to the people spending money on online advertising. It has already produced metrics covering everything from page impressions to email delivery, and at the last meeting agreed app and video metric definitions.

What’s important is that this work is done with a sense of realism, rather than idealism. The ideal in digital measurement is total transparency. At the other end of the spectrum is the Wild West approach, where everybody does what they want with no checking and no transparency. Realism means making sure the fundamental building blocks for online measurement are in place to allow advertisers to tell their stories around the world, while still recognising the needs of individual markets and remaining independent of individual technology suppliers. Those building blocks are universally available global standards.

I will be attending the IFABC European meeting in Stockholm on the 9th May. www.ifabc.org