advertising, campaigns, challenges, creative, insight

On The Edge Of Glory

2022 has been a bit of a personal creative renaissance.

After a couple of years that were decent, but not exactly breakthrough, I felt like I was finally leading the kind of work I’d always aspired to. Work that landed strong business results, caught fire on social media, was discussed by the industry and managed to bag us a bunch of awards too.

This didn’t happen by chance. Looking back, I can pinpoint the moments in time where I was introduced to new ideas that helped shape our thinking. And led to work we’re immensely proud of: #SearchForChange, #YukBukaSuara, #IndiaKiUdaan, #KeepTraditionsAlive (Eid, Diwali, Raksha Bandhan), and more.

Discovering, absorbing and acting on the ideas I’ve learned from Les Binet, Peter Field, Orlando Wood, Byron Sharp and Jonah Berger has turned me into a student of creativity and marketing effectiveness.

And if there’s one thing I’m dead certain of, it is that marketing stands at the precipice of a creative renaissance: we can either choose to step back and continue down a path of average-ness, or step off the cliff into the bold, glorious unknown.

LinkedIn is full of people summarising what they’ve learned from this new group of marketing thinkers. So I thought I’d give it a shot, and share how I’ve synthesised their work into a method that has worked for me. Any errors in understanding their work are mine alone, and I welcome your critiques and builds.

Here’s my buck; now where’s my bang?

Messrs. Wood, Binet, Field and Sharp have shown, with evidence, that long-term campaign effectiveness has declined as Extra Share Of Voice (Share Of Voice minus Share Of Market) has declined. While award-winning campaigns continue to be more effective than the also-rans, the effectiveness of these campaigns too are on the decline, suggesting a fundamental shift – in the wrong direction – in advertising principles altogether.

Made you look?

The root cause of this decline is what the group calls The Triple Jeopardy of Attention.

As budgets have moved from brand to performance, with a focus on short-term effects at a large scale, the mental availability of brands (salience) has declined.

It doesn’t help that marketers still mistakenly believe that one impression on platform A has the same value on Platform B, whereas different platforms generate different kinds of attention. For example, Linear TV is becoming less and less relevant while Social continues to rise, with users turning to influencers and friends for trusted, credible recommendations and content. An impression on Social thus might have more value than one on linear TV.

Finally, ads themselves have changed in the performance marketing era, to narrow-focus, chopped narratives. While they’re designed to quickly land the brand message with people who aren’t paying attention, they aren’t designed to drive any attention in the first place: making this a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Relationship Status: It’s Complicated

The times, they are a-changin’.

The world is in polycrisis, heaving from one issue to another.

Two years of the pandemic have forever transformed society and the way we consider living our lives, fuelling meaningful conversations about gender and racial equity.

Economic recovery has been short-lived, with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine dealing a blow to the global economy.

Misinformation is proliferating, and the new media cycle about AI has sparked more questions than answers.

And then, of course, the threat of drastic climate change looms large.

In this age, multiple studies suggest that brands that demonstrate a strong understanding of lived realities, focus on inclusion and representation and address real problems are likely to win.

I’ve drawn some conclusions based on what I see with the work we do.

A simple, contextual and insightful text tweet promoting a feature is likely to get way more attention, and spark more engagement and conversations about the feature than a 30-second ad film about the same feature.

Ad films rooted deeply in lived realities and local culture are more likely to drive earned media and become part of the conversation than traditional slice-of-life storytelling-driven ads; the latter seem to need a higher paid media spend to drive business impact.

All of which just goes to show that traditional advertising is more likely to be ignored; unless a consumer simply can’t escape seeing it.

For FFF’s Sake!

Binet and Field’s seminal work, The Long And Short Of It, proves two points in particular.

One: Emotional campaigns are more effective across almost all business metrics – and are able to get more attention than rational campaigns.

Two: Fame-driving campaigns in particular (defined as those that build word-of-mouth advocacy for the brand, get talked about, create authority for the brand, and give the sense that the brand is doing the most running in the category) outperform all other kinds of emotional campaigns on all business metrics.

Simply put, campaigns that are built to get attention do better than those that aren’t.

Binet, Field and Wood found the following common threads between those attention-grabbing campaigns.

Firstly, they drive Fame, or salience, building long-term memory structures to bring the brand to mind.
Secondly, they generate Feeling, an emotional connection that orientates our attention and puts things in long-term memory to make one choice more obvious than others.
And thirdly, they have high Fluency, and are highly distinctive from other campaigns.

Instinctively, the FFF framework feels right: the more shareworthy, insightful and distinctive the work, the better the results.

Take your first STEPPS

Late in 2021, I rediscovered a framework to help me put FFF into action. Courtesy Jonah Berger, and the Viral Sprint he hosts for Section, Scott Galloway’s online education outfit.

Prof. Berger shows that brands which have scaled rapidly have done so by focusing not just on sales results, but brand results. The tl;dr is: campaigns that are designed to drive Adoption+Advocacy drive greater business impact than campaigns designed to just drive Adoption.

It’s called STEPPS, and is designed to inject talkworthiness/memorability/attention-grabbingness (my submission for the Oxford Dictionary’s Word Of The Year) into your campaigns. Turning what could be a potentially average campaign into something that drives both Adoption and Advocacy.

The acid test

The first campaigns we implemented these frameworks on were for our 2022 International Women’s Day campaigns, in both India and Indonesia. The resulting work, and the impact it drove, changed my thinking forever. Both campaigns generated way higher volumes of social conversation and press coverage than we’d anticipated, while landing strong business results. The India campaign has become Google India’s most-awarded campaign in recent years.

We fast-followed with the India@75 campaign, #IndiaKiUdaan. And ended up being talked about more than even the government’s own efforts to celebrate the moment!

Since then, STEPPS and FFF have become the muses of my personal creative renaissance. And helped me redefine and reinvent how I want to approach my work for the next several years.

#TIL Forever

The journey isn’t over yet. There’s more to read and learn from Binet, Field, Wood, Sharp, Berger and others. I’ve yet to dive deep into Mark Ritson’s work – I keep seeing pieces of it on LinkedIn that excite and energise me.

In the meanwhile, if you’re looking for further reading, here are my sources:

  • The Long And Short Of It, by Les Binet and Peter Field
  • Lemon – How The Advertising Dream Turned Sour, by Orlando Wood
  • Contagious, by Jonah Berger

I’ll leave you with one last thought:

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Rita Mae Brown

It’s time to jump off that cliff.

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careers, challenges, opportunities

The One Where I Listen To Ross

1 Jan. 9 Jan. 20 Jan. 3 Feb. 17 Feb. 18 Feb. 21 Feb.

We’re just over two months into 2023, and it’s been a year of great change – personal and professional. Change is never easy, and brings along with it uncertainty and anxiety…but also opportunity.

As I went through these last two-odd months, I found the space to reflect, upon the past and upon the future. And, as I found clarity, I also found myself remembering a talk I’d made at an offsite last year. A talk about finding clarity, driving change…and pivoting. For anyone going through similar musings this year, I hope this helps.

I turned 40 last January.

Yeah, yeah, I know. You’re wondering – 40? Samit looks not a day over 28!!!

But…who am I to argue with how we measure time?

So. I’d just turned 40. That’s a fairly significant milestone in anyone’s life. And a good moment to step back, reflect and take stock.

I was, I reflected, happily married.
I was a new Dad, something that has always meant a lot to me.
I was part of a great team at work, leading a great group of people in doing meaningful work.

But…

The pandemic had still separated us as a family.
I was struggling with my own health and fitness.
And I was, frankly, a bit lost from a career perspective. I didn’t quite know what I wanted to do or should be doing…or if what I was doing was making me truly happy.

The work I do has always been a huge part of who I am. And the last question was haunting me, dragging me down…making me somewhat unhappy.

I ended most days exhausted, feeling as if I were running on a treadmill – putting in effort but not really moving forward.

My energy was declining, and it was harder and harder to be positive and find motivation.

One day, during a conversation with my coach, I shared some of my thoughts with him.

That’s when he introduced me to the Japanese concept of ikigai.

Many of you will be familiar with this already. 

Ikigai means, “a reason for being”.
It refers to something that gives someone a sense of purpose, a reason for being.

My coach asked me to spend time reflecting on what my own ikigai was.

It took me some time to get there. But after several weeks of reflection, I discovered – no, I remembered – my ikigai.

And this led me to make two profound changes. One professional…the other, personal.

I’ll start with the professional.

Last June, in a 1:1 conversation with my manager, I shared with her my struggles and fast-declining happiness with what I was doing.

You see, the reason I joined Google was to build my favourite brand from the inside out. To tell our story to the world, to help people see the company the way I do.

Somewhere along the way, I had lost sight of that.

I’d buried that goal under the idea that I was still building our brand, through the work I did.

But the work I was doing was taking me further and further away from what makes me happy, from what gives me energy, from the areas I was strongest. From the very reasons (I think) Google hired me in the first place.

The thing is, it was right in front of me all this time.

On the first line of my social media bio.

“Reader. Writer. Geek.”
Reader: Someone who is fond of reading.
Writer: A person who writes books, stories or articles.
Geek: A person who collects facts and mementos related to their fields of interest.

My ikigai lies in connecting everything I read and collect, developing ideas and telling stories.

And that’s what I found I enjoyed most, even after all these years.
Dreaming up ideas, telling stories.
I could wrangle the stakeholder management and even survive budget management – with a little help from my team.
I learned a hell of a lot.
But I needed to be focused on telling stories.

That conversation led to me stepping away from Brand & Reputation Marketing, and refocusing on Brand last June.

And, every night, no matter how hard the work day has been, I go to bed happier and wake up more energised than I have in the two years past. Using everything I learned in those years to good effect, too.

Now on to the personal.

Very simply, my ikigai is my family.

And, after becoming a father, I found myself more determined than ever to have more time in this world with the two people I love the most – my wife Saav and my son Reyaan.

That’s literally my reason for existing.

Since November, I’ve been on a journey to combat ageing and extend my lifespan. (Bizarre but true.) 

I began with a lot of research on nutrition and supplementation that’s already borne results…but that’s a story for another time.

In January, I realised that my fitness just wasn’t where I wanted it to be. I knew that doing the same thing over and over again would just give me the same results, over and over again.

I needed to make a drastic change.

On the 7th of March, I started out at Ultimate Performance Fitness. The gym that media reviews call, “The Goldman Sachs, Real Madrid, Apple of personal training. They’re so far ahead of the field.” I discovered it on Google – it had 499 reviews that day, of which 498 were 5-star and 1 was 4-star. How could I not sign up?

I have to say…

It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
Harder than adjusting to the client side.
Harder than B&R.
Harder, sometimes, than even parenting.

The very first day, I found myself strapped into a machine that was nothing less than torture equipment, physically crying, and yelling at myself – “Remember why you’re doing this! Remember why you’re doing this!”

The programme combines an incredibly strict calorie-deficit diet regimen with a weight training routine that is based on the concept of Progressive Overload. And is supplemented by an active lifestyle – I have to get 10k steps a day, come what may.

Since March I’ve sacrificed dessert, alcohol, and eating out. I’ve had 4 drinks since I started. Food isn’t a source of pleasure – it’s just sustenance, something that my body needs to go on living.

But I’m gradually learning a new, healthier, more sustainable way to live.

Slowly, every day began to get easier. My body began to transform, visibly. I began to end workouts strongly, and look forward to the next one.

The result? I’ve dropped 10kg and 12% body fat…so far.
And gained 4kg of lean muscle.
I have more energy than ever before.
I’m no longer disappointed when I look in the mirror.
I feel more confident – and I think it shows.
And I’m only halfway to my goal.

But, most importantly, I’m happier. I know I’m investing in my ikigai – and that any additional years I get with Saav and Reyaan are worth the pain I’m going through now.

So, what have I learned from all of this?

One: Prioritise happiness. Not success, not promo, not money, not transient pleasures. The long-term outweighs the short-term, no matter how difficult or far away it might seem. Finding a role you love. Find those things in your personal life that set you up for happiness. When you prioritise waking up happier every day, things just have a way of coming together.

Two: Purpose is the most powerful motivator. Reflect deeply. Once you’ve found your true purpose, it’ll blaze so bright within you that it’ll illuminate a path for you in the darkness. Understand your purpose, your why, and everything will become much clearer.

And, three: Don’t just embrace change – trigger it. It’s when things seem the most difficult, the most complicated, the most unachievable, that triggering change can set you on a better path. And that’s where leading with ikigai can guide you along the way.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

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careers, clients, creative, insight

How I Moved From Creative To Client-Side, With Google…#truestory!

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“Good! Good!! I can feel your interest!!!”

In the nearly three years since I joined Google India, I’ve lost track of the number of times people have asked me what I do.

(And no, the designation doesn’t seem to help.)

I’ve also been asked, several times, about what it’s like for a creative director to move to the client side in a brand role.

And that’s why I thought it was time for a blog post to answer these questions and satisfy the world’s curiosity. And, as is my wont, to offer $0.02 worth of gyaan that may help you if you’re contemplating a similar decision.

(At this point, I suggest you step out for a bio-break, or a cup of coffee. This is going to be a #longread.)

“How did you get into Google?”

My journey to this point began more than two years before I actually joined Google. When I was working as Creative Head at Jack In The Box Worldwide, back in 2011.

I’ve been (and remain) a longtime Google and Android fan. I was among those who wept when Google Reader was shuttered; among those who found a reason to use Google Wave and other awesome Google services; and a very vocal advocate of Android.

I also followed Google’s creative work closely. Especially the awesome interactive experiences that the folks at Google Creative Lab built – cultural experiences built atop products, which made me fall in love with the brand all over again.

One night in bed, faffing on my laptop, I started chatting with my wife about how Google would be the one client I would kill to join. And about how perhaps they could use an agency Creative Director to help build great integrated marketing campaigns for the India market. On a lark, we navigated over to google.com/jobs – and was blown away to find that there was an opening for a similar role in Singapore.

With complete excitement, I swiftly polished up my CV and uploaded it to the job listing, said a prayer and called it a night.

And completely forgot about it for the next two years.

Cut to November 2013. I’m prowling the halls of a Delhi hospital, nursing my father-in-law. And an email from a Google recruiter pops up in my inbox. It seemed they had a role open in India, and my CV had come up in their database.

My first phone call, purely for screening, happened the next day from the hospital. I was then connected with a recruiter for a more serious conversation – the ball was rolling.

Nine interviews later – nine gruelling, thought-provoking and absolutely amazing conversations later – I bid adieu to home, Bombay. And the wife and I winged our way to Gurgaon, where we’ve been ever since.

“So what exactly do you do there?”

The role I was hired to play was a new one altogether for Google. So, I don’t hesitate to admit that it took me – and my colleagues – quite some time to figure out how to make it work. I walked in expecting to work like an in-house Creative Director. With the kind of responsibilities that an agency Creative Director bears. But I was mistaken. My designation – Brand Lead – pushes the in-house Creative Director envelope quite a bit further. And goes beyond a traditional brand marketing role, too.

I head up Brand & Creative Marketing for Google India, and am hence responsible for any and all creative work for Google India. This includes, primarily, our marketing campaigns. It’s my job to work with Product Marketing Managers to tell great stories for our products and initiatives, across every medium possible. TV ads, YouTube videos, digital, social, traditional media…you name it.

Apart from being as creatively strong as possible, it’s on me to make sure that the work we do is “on-brand”. That it reflects Google’s core values; that it looks, feels and sounds Google; and that it accurately reflects our brand mission of helping make information universally accessible and useful.

I lead the thinking on our social media strategy. I lead our creative agency relationships, identifying great partners to work with and managing them end-to-end. And, lastly, I look after a bunch of special projects that fall under Brand Marketing.

A lot of this sounds like a regular Creative Director job, I know. But here’s the difference:

I haven’t been hired to write the scripts, or craft the copy. That’s the job of our agencies. My job, as I see it, is to set the parameters, create the sandbox, in which our agencies can play. To be a bridge between us and them, thus guiding and shaping the work in a fluid, fast-moving environment. And, if ever needed, to put on my copywriter hat and work side-by-side with them.

There are several aspects to this. One: I work very closely on the brief. Making sure it’s clear, contextual, single-minded and inspiring. Trying to foresee the kind of work it will lead to. Two: I bring our different agencies (brand, digital, social) together to build a campaign that’s not just 360°, but truly integrated. Three: I work to make sure our brand and products are being depicted correctly. Four: At the risk of sounding immodest, I try to keep the benchmark high, pushing our agencies to consistently deliver work that’s truly worthy of Google.

The big difference that a creative person can make inside a client org is to bring creative agency knowledge into a client institution. It means that, as a team, we now have a better understanding of how a particular brief or feedback will impact the end product, with lesser room for miscommunication and misunderstanding. This leads us to sharpen our briefs, consolidate and hone our feedback, leading to better work, with fewer iterations.

I’d like to think I’ve also helped ensure that we’ve avoided the “agency v/s client” mindset that occasionally creeps into client minds, by being a bridge to and supporter of our agencies.

“Sounds great. What does it take to succeed at the role?”

Every person who takes on this kind of role is going to tackle it differently. I don’t believe one size fits all, but this is how I tried to make it work for me.

Your first priority should be to understand the organisation. Ad agency structures are pretty simple, and one always knows who one’s stakeholders are. It’s a lot more complicated at a client, especially one with the scale of Google.

Leadership isn’t about dictating a way forward; it’s about taking everyone forward together. Be a team player. Try to take your peers along. Most marketing managers don’t have the inside knowledge on how agencies and advertising work that you do. Few have been to a shoot. Few have built large-scale campaigns. Make them your friends and allies. Take the time to explain your point of view. Consult them for input on the work you’re doing, and take feedback constructively, making sure everyone’s on the same page from the start. It isn’t always easy, but I’ve learned that it will save me time, money and heartache on every single project.

Great work depends humongously on the people doing it. One of the things I’m grateful for is having great partners to work with. They’re worth their weight in gold. The best agencies bring a great mix of humility and self-confidence to the relationship, are open to feedback, and willing to fight to see a good idea come to life. They learn from their mistakes, and are committed to helping you learn from yours. They’re keen for me and my team to learn and contribute more to the advertising process. And, most importantly, they’re not assholes.

The converse of this is that you need to really support your agencies. Be honest and transparent. Don’t shy away from glowing praise or constructive criticism. Stand up for them when I know they have a great idea, no matter what the opposition. Help them navigate the organisation. Don’t conduct business just over email and the phone. And pay them fairly – it’s the only way they’ll be able to give you the work that you want. 

Expect to stretch yourself in ways that you never have. On my first project, I handled everything, including deliveries to media. I negotiate with agencies, and draft their contracts. Not quite what an agency creative director is used to, but par for the course on the client-side.

The most important thing, though, is this: let go of your ego. Every creative person worth their salt has an ego, probably well-deserved. You have to realise that you’re surrounded by smart people who know their business better than you. And that you’re working with agencies (and creative icons) that collectively have far more wisdom than you alone. Be open-minded. Walk into office every day believing that there is someone else out there who can bring a new perspective and make your work better. It’ll help you get the best out of your agencies, and keep you from competing with them.

“Do you think I should also shift client-side?”

There isn’t a black-and-white answer to this. And there are several things to consider, notably the difference between working in an agency and on the client-side.

The first thing most people ask me is about the work-life balance. Truthfully, even though we work really hard, it’s been better for me than in my agency days. Even a 9-5 day is intense, simply because we go without the Counter-Strike breaks that agency folks take – and need to, frankly! That changes when we’re neck-deep in a launch, when my team and I work the same long hours as our agencies.

I’ve also been asked if I miss coming up with ideas and writing scripts. Well, I’m still coming up with ideas. All the time. It just happens before the brief, rather than after. I begin most projects with a mindmap full of cross-platform ideas, which we then build upon together. And I have occasionally put on my creative hat to help our agencies crack an idea or craft a script, so I do stay in touch with the trade I’ve learnt over the last 16 years.

The one slight doubt I had, which has disappeared over time, is this. Most agency creatives enjoy working on a variety of categories and brands, rather than just one. I did too. You learn a lot more than you would working on one category. And can implement successful ideas from one category for another too. You won’t get this freedom if you move client side. But, if you work for a company with as varied products and initiatives as Google, you do have a wide variety of things to work on.

Doubts and questions aside, I think you should just ask yourself one thing.

If there is a brand that you’re truly passionate about; whose purpose you truly believe in; whose products you’d publicly defend to the death; for whom you’ve secretly been coming up with portfolio ads; you may have found the client-side gig you’re looking for.

I know I’ve found mine.

As always, the views expressed here are personal and not intended to reflect those of my employer.

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advertising, campaigns, communication, conversations, digital, how to, measurement, social media

Marketers, Rethink What Your #SocialMedia Should Be Doing

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Sound familiar?

For the longest time, marketers have had the wrong expectations from social media.

I’ve spent years, both on the agency side and the client side, hearing about the need to “educate”, “drive engagement”, “sell”, “build awareness”, “drive traffic” and other such goals. All devised with the intention of “moving the needle”.

To be fair, I’ve been part of the problem, pitching these expectations to clients. And at this point, I’m willing to go out a limb and suggest that I’ve been mistaken.

When marketers write an integrated communications brief, we do it with an end goal in mind:

  • Increase usage by x points over the course of the year
  • Sell y units by the end of the quarter
  • Convince z people to sign up for the programme
  • And so on.

The error we make is the assumption that (organic) social media can have an outsized impact on these ROI/revenue-driven goals the way that paid media does.

Why is this assumption an error?

As of 30 June 2016, India’s Internet-going audience was estimated at about 462M users. This is roughly 37% of India’s population.

Here are the reach figures for the top 3 social networks in India.

  1. Facebook: 161M (Source: Facebook Ads Manager)
  2. LinkedIn: 35M (Source: Statista.com)
  3. Twitter: 23.2M (Source: Statista.com)
  4. Instagram: 16M (Source: Napoleoncat.com)

It’s fair to assume that everyone with a LinkedIn, Twitter or Instagram profile is also on Facebook. So, the size of India’s social media population is 161M. This works out to 35% of India’s Internet population and 13% of India’s overall population.

We also know that, courtesy algorithms, current Facebook organic reach for pages with over 50,000 followers is at a mere 1%. Or even less for pages with high fan following. This article dated June 2016 pegs it at 2% and declining fast, towards zero. Facebook will also cut organic reach for posts that they deem too promotional.

So, here’s best case scenario for a brand with 18M fans on Facebook, assuming no further decline in reach:

The absolute maximum reach a single Facebook post can get is 1% of 18M = 0.18M = 0.000144% of India’s population. Assume that a brand creates 5 organic posts a day, each of which reaches a different audience (which we know is not true), you get to about 0.9M people a day. Or a mere 0.00072% of India’s population.

With figures like this, there is absolutely no way organic social media content can move the needle on ROI/revenue goals at scale for large brands.

So what should the end goal of social media be?

Let’s remind ourselves that social media is not a place people visit to shop. They’re here to kill time. To be distracted. To be entertained. To see what’s going on in the world at large. To share stuff that helps them build the image they want for themselves.

It’s true. People share things that help them appear interesting, knowledgeable, opinionated, concerned, trendy, cool, fashionable, successful, happy, and so on. Things that they subconsciously believe will raise their esteem in the eyes of their networks. Every analysis I’ve ever read points out different things that people share, and different reasons. The common thread uniting them all: the not-so-latent need for everyone to be seen in a very positive light by their peers.

This is where we marketers have a chance. Because, among all the other things people post to boost their image, are the products and services they use; the useful products and services they want to tell their networks about; and the brands they feel suit the image they want to create for themselves.

If we can create content that builds both brands – ours, and the user’s – we have found a recipe for social sharing, a recipe for starting positive conversations about our brand.

A recipe for brand love and advocacy.

Which, of course, has a knock-on effect on sales and revenue.

And that, grasshopper, is what we should orient our social media towards.

 

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