Steve Walls

This 👇 "Brand marketing is the strategy of cultural influence. Brands used to influence mainstream culture through their advertising on mass media like TV, print, billboards, or public relations. Today, they influence culture through the cultural products they create: content, merchandising, events, aesthetics, experiences, archives, history, entertainment, fandom. These cultural products are directed to subcultures, taste communities, and consumer niches. Through these cultural products, brands tell their story." https://lnkd.in/en6KFPYU

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Day 3 of the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. Here's an M&C Saatchi Group South Africa Brutally Simple wrap. Jacques Burger will also be sharing his perspectives. > IN A WORD < Storytelling. We kicked-off the day with an M&C Saatchi Group event with former BBC news producer Sam McAlister famed for managing to orchestrate the explosive Prince Andrew interview which she wrote a book on (and has subsequently been turned into the hit Netflix show Scoop). Candid, sharp, engaging. Key takeout: powerful storytelling comes down to bringing fact - or in our world an 'insight'- and emotion together. Obvious of course, but not easy to pull off when you see how much work is out there that is devoid of any emotion at all. > IN A QUOTE < "If everyone is using the same tools, the difference maker will be creativity." - Alex Schultz, CMO and Vice-president of Analytics, META Unlike the talk before Alex's where senior execs from Google took the main stage for boring and unashamed sales pitch (it was really, really bad), this talk was a lot more honest and candid on what AI will bring, and the role of creativity. So yes, AI is going to be delivering spectacular and efficient output, but ultimately it will come down to how it contributes to the story you're telling. So yes creative minds are still (very much) needed. > IN A PIECE OF WORK < The Plastic Forecast. This is a great piece of work that again demonstrates the power of bringing fact and emotion together to tell a story. It's from our M&C Saatchi Group AUNZ office, and it has picked up a Silver Lion so far year. https://lnkd.in/dm_pUQ3j

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Don't blame the consumer or claim that sustainability doesn't sell. Consumers crave authenticity and love responsible brands. The truth is, while “good” brands prioritise purpose, other brands operate with a different playbook— focused on building consumer excitement and love for their products. To win in this game is not about a brand's position or purpose; it's about their persistence in creating amazing experiences aligned with the position and the purpose. And doing them authentically and consistently with integrity. Above The Clouds Communication #strategy #marketing #insights #consumerinsights #pr #sustainability

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This is a very good reflection around our Dove The Code campaign. Very grateful for it! The effectiveness of "social" or "purpose" marketing that comes out of this study is a reminder that if your brand talks about topics that matter and does something about them, you might well be building your brand in short term too. Hope more brands see this path. PS. Small build. We are not anti-AI, just hoping to get a more diverse representation of beauty in AI, which can be possible.

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Of course, the classic 4P model (product, price, place, promotion) inspired my 4A (analytics, activation, automation, artificial intelligence) model. Each A can be used to optimise each P, which results in a 4Px4A grid with 16 cells. Sixteen more ideas to develop in my posts... ❤️ Follow me if you want to read more posts about #digitalanalytics and #digitalmarketing in the #realworld!

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Speculative bubbles are a regular occurrence throughout our commercial history. Tulip mania in the 1630's is the first recorded, although wheat prices in Rome in 33AD during the reign of the emperor Tiberius spiked leading to mass starvation followed by some aggressive controls over supply and price. The pattern is the same every time. Prices are driven to extraordinary levels on demand that is fuelled by emotion, false promises, and outright fraud, generating an apparent belief that prices will keep on going up despite the commercial fundamentals being absent. Australia has had its share of speculative crashes. Rum in NSW in the early 1800's, the 1880's land boom, Wall Street in 1929, dotcom in 2000, and we seem to be in another one currently with housing. Question is, are the huge valuations being put on anything that has AI in its name just another bubble? #AI #techbubble #speculativeinvestment

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We are almost half way through 2024, heading towards Cannes still trying to navigate the rest of the year and maybe forsee 2025, let me share 3 links and thoughts for a deep reading... 🤓 1️⃣ Here, the destilled post from Tom Morton trying to give his impressions about the Gartner CMO Survey with one 3 big takeouts 👉 https://lnkd.in/dbPUx44Z 💰 - Marketing budgets are in constraint from a 9% to a 7,7%. It was 10.5-11% in the years before the pandemic. If you ask ChatGPT he/she may asume it should be between 10-15% for a B2C brand. This is called the 'Era of less'. 📱 - Investment in digital media and channels is first with up to 57.1%, being search (13.6%), social advertising (12.2%) and digital display advertising (10.7%) top 3. Last week we shared the predictions from WARC the other day with Social taking over search in the first position. 👨‍💻 - Martech inverstments are 24% of the marketing budget coming from a 29% in 2018 as this investments are covered by others inside organizations and CMOs are prioritizing investments that have 'demonstrable impact' with paid media being the winners. 2️⃣ I've come around a nice post with reference to two of the most inspiring people in adland today. This post stated 'traditional advertising is dead, the ad industry has lost its creative essence. Modern advertising intrudes on lives without adding value, and the rise of AI will further undermine the industry by automating mundane tasks... or as Nick Law ( Accenture Song) frames it: mediocrity is now free. Not bad for a post with Nils Leonard from Uncommon Creative Studio in it and a quote from Banksy 🐀 🖌 . Post 🖊 https://lnkd.in/dtmUcD6i Article 🖊 https://lnkd.in/dsurmjkU 3️⃣ The Marketers Voice 2024 from WARC, states that despite very real concerns about the economy, the majority of marketers are optimistic about 2024: with Two-thirds (61%) expect business to be better in 2024 than in the current year. While shifting towards digital marketing is set to continue, the inflation and consumption restrictions are an excellent opportunity to increase the bet on long term brand building. More here 👉 https://lnkd.in/dHRSTX4b Havas Media España

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Sometimes working on big, broad brand strategy work I risk losing the view of the business at a simple level: make more money than what's been spent.   As much as I love talking and reading about culture, concepts, big ideas - as well as be occasionally exasperated by overusing these buzzwords, my line of work is also a line of business cost. I used to work on the marketing and advertising of Subway (sandwiches) when I was at Saatchi & Saatchi in Singapore, many years ago. The fast food brand is entirely made up of franchises, small to medium business owners who have one or a few shops. They don't have much time for lofty philosophical talk about the semiology of meatballs or the deeper human truths associated with salad toppings. They want and need to know, in simple terms, if these ads and promotions will sell sandwiches, how much they cost, and how much they could expect to get back on their investment. The franchisees pay money into a central brand and marketing budget. Subway has centralised management functions financed by these budgets. Our clients were the Asia-Pacific director, marketing director for Singapore, and there was an elected representative board of franchisees, making sure we're not wasting their money, they had to give final approval for spending the budget. It was complicated at times, though I have to say it also kept me grounded. One time, I remember we presented creative advertising concepts for an important campaign coming up for a new range of products; it was all about the launch of their breakfast offering. We were hoping to talk about the ad ideas in that particular meeting, but the conversation was waylaid: there was animated talk about the food cost of the promotion, the franchisees pulling out calculators and debating things, getting into the nitty gritty of how many cents could or should be offered as a discount for such and such thing. I started asking questions about their food costs, did my best to appreciate that we were no longer talking about Subway the global brand, but that one Subway shop in that shopping mall, owned by a small business, and all the others like it. The debate got to a place where they seemed to agree on a cost figure, and they wanted to advertise a promotion offer with a discount of $x. I didn't think it seemed particularly attractive for customers. While listening to them, I learned that same $x amount was also the cost of a coffee. Looking at the situation from the consumer's point of view, breakfast with a free coffee sounded like a much better deal than buying breakfast with a small discount of $x. Once that was settled, we were finally able to talk about the advertising concepts. Free beats paid for consumers. Money saved and earned beats conceptual thinking for business.

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Nostalgia is in-demand and brands are taking full advantage. Tapping into *percieved* simpler, happier & more innocent times immediately can create a connection. Here is a great example and look how it’s executed creatively. When you take fast food classics and give them a culinary upgrade, throw in some clever branding & you get the recipe for a hot restaurant. #WonderMore

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I like Reddit's showerthougts and the mental madness of ChatGPT. Together an unbeatable mix to see a current problem a little differently in the morning. Germans increasingly dissatisfied: "If Germans are increasingly dissatisfied, does that mean efficiency has its emotional limits?" "Could Germans' rising dissatisfaction be a cultural shift, or just a collective bad day?" "What if the dissatisfaction in Germany is just a national brainstorming session on how to make everything better?" "Could Germans' dissatisfaction be the world’s most efficient way to drive progress?" "What if Germans' dissatisfaction is actually a sign of high expectations, making them the perfectionists of satisfaction?" "Is the rising dissatisfaction in Germany an unexpected side effect of trying to optimize happiness?" "If dissatisfaction is growing in Germany, is it possible that contentment is now seen as complacency?" "What if Germans are only increasingly dissatisfied because they're constantly measuring against an ideal that evolves too quickly?" #gptshowerthoughts

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Timeless advice That will build your influence

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While transiting in Frankfurt, I didn't encounter any digital screens. I was hurrying to my gate, primarily looking at the directional signs. Interestingly, all the boarding gates featured static displays. It took me about 35 minutes of walking, and during my 20-minute wait at the gate, I noticed the first advertisement and realised all gates featured static double-sided displays. It was the best format given the behaviour one tends to find in such an environment. I try not to wear my "work hat" when travelling. I behave like someone outside the media or advertising industries, which allows for clearer insights once the journey ends. Constantly wearing our professional lenses can skew our perspective. Taking it off helps us better understand the audience. Often, people design out-of-home campaigns without directly experiencing the city or adopting the consumers' viewpoint on media consumption. Understanding the audience from their perspective is crucial to evaluating the impact of each media asset. This experience was a reminder for me, and I hope this post becomes one for you. Back to my holidays now #transit #ooh #audience #journeys #attention

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Reading through OpenAI’s white paper on Soro, their new text-to-video generation model which will turn simple text prompts into movie-like videos. One small paragraph really jumped out to me, hinting at the bigger picture: “Our results suggest that scaling video generation models is a promising path towards building general-purpose simulators of the physical world.” We are on our way to building simulations that mimic our world.. While some people might joke that we're already living in a simulation, it’s hard to fully grasp where this tech could take us next. https://lnkd.in/e_hSfMxY

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The Michelin Star story. A great brand activation before brand activations were even a thing? Or just a bloody good idea? Either way, it's a great story. The Michelin Tyre company, seeking to boost demand for automobiles and thereby tyres, introduced the Michelin Guide. Initially intended as a free handbook for motorists offering practical information like maps, tyre repair tips, and hotel listings, it evolved to include restaurant reviews and ratings. To encourage people to travel and use their cars more (and therefore wear their tyres down quicker) Michelin introduced the star rating system in 1926, initially awarding stars to restaurants across the length and breadth of France. The guide was meticulously researched, with anonymous inspectors visiting restaurants to assess their quality. And just like that, today's restaurant food critic was born. The stars soon became a symbol of culinary excellence, coveted by chefs and sought after by diners. The brilliance of this brand activation lay in its synergy with Michelin's core business. By associating Michelin tyres with fine dining and travel experiences, the company effectively positioned itself as a purveyor not just of tyres, but of a lifestyle of luxury, exploration, and sophistication. It created a strong emotional connection with consumers, who began to perceive Michelin not just as a tyre manufacturer, but as a trusted authority on quality and taste. Over time, the Michelin Guide became one of the most prestigious culinary accolades globally, expanding beyond France to cover cities and regions worldwide. Not bad for a company that makes tyres.

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This is a tough one. The incentives models are misaligned. The brand is built to scale, while the agency is built to monetise time. Early stage brands struggle with getting best in class agency partners because they find the costs prohibitive while all agencies want to work with larger brands because they want to monetise their resource time. Maybe the answer is tech enabled agencies, leveraging emergent AI technologies to deliver services at scale with limited resources. But, i don't really have an answer at the moment, just some vague thoughts. #d2cbrands #performancemarketing #brandbuilding #agencylife #growth #scale

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Cannes 2024 - the 'we're already bored of AI' edition.  It started with Publicis' pretty snarky attempt to take down the competition, followed up (ironically) by big, but nebulous announcements of AI partnerships and concluded with Elon telling us AI had a 20% chance of destroying humanity. What was almost totally absent were actual, practical examples of applied AI - of business showing off AI delivering at scale on real business issues.  Rather we heard panel after panel doth protesting that AI can't have creative ideas, don't forget the human blah blah. So, it felt a bit jaded already and I have some sympathy with that. AI seems to be forever promising, but right now only delivering the 'future of the mood board', or crappy Photoshop or long text descriptions of dashboards.  But I think Cannes (and most of the ad industry) maybe missed the point. AI will/is tearing down all the barriers to production. Soon we will be able to make anything, essentially for free and that changes the creative equation. Previously, we had to refine our ideas down to a few executions because it was expensive to make these executions. Now we can make unlimited executions so how do we move from one brand story to infinite brand stories. That's a challenge for and a better use of creative minds. The two best comments I heard at Cannes - both from creative colleagues were that a) "it's no longer our brand, it's their brand. How do we embrace that?" and b) "AI will replace most of what we do in creative and is empowering, but it doesn't have 'taste' - that's the role for people." So post Cannes resolution - no more AI powerpoint or panels. If you can't demo it, you can't talk about it. #cannes #AI #CannesLions #ArtificialIntelligence

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