Guerrilla thinking

Here we are again.
Every time we hear advertising people talking they are always complaining.
They miss the good old times, when zillions rained out of nowhere in their pockets and the only effort required was to create a nice tv ad.

They complain now. They say clients haw shrunken budgets.
And they even decide to invest part of it in stupid web campaigns!
How can they betray the good old tv for such an evanescent medium?
The web is for kids and nerdy guys. People don’t click on banners and likes don’t move a thing when it comes to driving people to stores.

Bullshits. Of course they are.
And behind them lies the worst thing that a man working in the communication and advertising industry can face: fear.
They fear what they just can’t understand.

But if they looked at our times from a different perspective, they could find some peace of mind. The web is not killing traditional advertising. 
For at least 3 good reasons. Here they are. 

1) GOOD CREATIVITY AND PASSION ARE ALWAYS A MUST-HAVE

Being users essentially people, all of the messages that a brand or product conveys on a digital arena will always have to be thought, visualized and told in the most creative and engaging way.
Of course some technicalities will be (and actually are) still required but good creative talent and will to evolve will be sufficient to do the job.

2) VIDEOS ARE STILL THE MOST ENGAGING WAY TO TELL A STORY

Watching is easier than reading. And people are lazy, also on the web.
Videos will always be the best way to reach them and touch their feelings.
The many possibilities the web has to offer can grant even more and innovative ways to develop campaigns and tell longer stories than what we can do in tv-broadcasting  mode.

Again, you gotta learn these possibilities and how to exploit them. But if you do, your video story telling skills will do the job perfectly.

3) WEB AGENCIES SKILLS ARE NOT SUFFICIENT TO UNLEASH THE POWER OF THE WEB

This may seem a paradox, but we think it’s totally true.
As we just said, the web expands the possibilities of traditional advertising to the maximum. But that’s true if you know how to tell a story, if you know how to build it up and get it to touch your target’s feelings and wallets.
And this is not about coding or implementing.
Coding and implementing are necessary things, but the core of communication is a creative idea.
And web agencies are not used to think and generate ideas. They can be excellent at making it viral, getting it to go around the web and empower it with tools to put it in the hands of users.
But building the story requires storytelling abilities that they just don’t have.

FINAL CONSIDERATIONS

Rather than counterposing ATL and Digital, creative agencies should try to understand that the 2 skills must be integrated as much as possible.
Digital folks should understand that they have a lot to learn from ATL creatives, and those latter ones should exploit the knowledge of tools and technicalities that digital folks have to deliver a creative message in the best way.

This might seem expectable, but if you step into some advertising company you will clearly notice it is not.
ATL and DIGITAL coexist as 2 different entities and sometimes disrespect each other.
There is no faster way to failure than this.

The 2012 adv agency should be REALLY media neutral, not just tell the market that it is. It should be able to convey a great creative idea in the best way, no matter what the channels are. And we really mean it.

So please agencies managers and creatives, stop complaining and start acting.
Start getting digital people and ATL ones in the same rooms. Start to raise down walls and barriers. Ban “digital” and “ATL” from your dictionary and train your people to think of ONE SINGLE CHANNEL: human experience.

Stop proposing to the market with an ATL brand and its little “fresh”, “young” digital son.
This is so 90s… The fact that you still have a digital agency and an ATL one clearly outlines that you are unable to have a full, single, complete and organic view of communication.

Think about it. And then take your decisions.
At guerrilla thinking this is what we do. And it always works.

 

 

Here we are again.
Every time we hear advertising people talking they are always complaining.
They miss the good old times, when zillions rained out of nowhere in their pockets and the only effort required was to create a nice tv ad.

They complain now. They say clients haw shrunken budgets.
And they even decide to invest part of it in stupid web campaigns!
How can they betray the good old tv for such an evanescent medium?
The web is for kids and nerdy guys. People don’t click on banners and likes don’t move a thing when it comes to driving people to stores.

Bullshits. Of course they are.
And behind them lies the worst thing that a man working in the communication and advertising industry can face: fear.
They fear what they just can’t understand.

But if they looked at our times from a different perspective, they could find some peace of mind. The web is not killing traditional advertising. 
For at least 3 good reasons. Here they are. 

1) GOOD CREATIVITY AND PASSION ARE ALWAYS A MUST-HAVE

Being users essentially people, all of the messages that a brand or product conveys on a digital arena will always have to be thought, visualized and told in the most creative and engaging way.
Of course some technicalities will be (and actually are) still required but good creative talent and will to evolve will be sufficient to do the job.

2) VIDEOS ARE STILL THE MOST ENGAGING WAY TO TELL A STORY

Watching is easier than reading. And people are lazy, also on the web.
Videos will always be the best way to reach them and touch their feelings.
The many possibilities the web has to offer can grant even more and innovative ways to develop campaigns and tell longer stories than what we can do in tv-broadcasting  mode.

Again, you gotta learn these possibilities and how to exploit them. But if you do, your video story telling skills will do the job perfectly.

3) WEB AGENCIES SKILLS ARE NOT SUFFICIENT TO UNLEASH THE POWER OF THE WEB

This may seem a paradox, but we think it’s totally true.
As we just said, the web expands the possibilities of traditional advertising to the maximum. But that’s true if you know how to tell a story, if you know how to build it up and get it to touch your target’s feelings and wallets.
And this is not about coding or implementing.
Coding and implementing are necessary things, but the core of communication is a creative idea.
And web agencies are not used to think and generate ideas. They can be excellent at making it viral, getting it to go around the web and empower it with tools to put it in the hands of users.
But building the story requires storytelling abilities that they just don’t have.

FINAL CONSIDERATIONS

Rather than counterposing ATL and Digital, creative agencies should try to understand that the 2 skills must be integrated as much as possible.
Digital folks should understand that they have a lot to learn from ATL creatives, and those latter ones should exploit the knowledge of tools and technicalities that digital folks have to deliver a creative message in the best way.

This might seem expectable, but if you step into some advertising company you will clearly notice it is not.
ATL and DIGITAL coexist as 2 different entities and sometimes disrespect each other.
There is no faster way to failure than this.

The 2012 adv agency should be REALLY media neutral, not just tell the market that it is. It should be able to convey a great creative idea in the best way, no matter what the channels are. And we really mean it.

So please agencies managers and creatives, stop complaining and start acting.
Start getting digital people and ATL ones in the same rooms. Start to raise down walls and barriers. Ban “digital” and “ATL” from your dictionary and train your people to think of ONE SINGLE CHANNEL: human experience.

Stop proposing to the market with an ATL brand and its little “fresh”, “young” digital son.
This is so 90s… The fact that you still have a digital agency and an ATL one clearly outlines that you are unable to have a full, single, complete and organic view of communication.

Think about it. And then take your decisions.
At guerrilla thinking this is what we do. And it always works.

 

 

That’s it.
It’s all in the title.

We had the chance to talk to some of our fellow Italy-based GTs a couple of days ago.
Frustration was all over the air. 
The web in Italy is failing. Not used to its all potential. 

Here are the answers to the question: why are Italian companies failing on the web?

1) MOST OF THE PEOPLE IN COMPANIES ARE TOO OLD AND PROUD

Don’t misunderstand us. It’s not a matter of real age. But it is surely a matter of MENTAL age and disposition. People taking decisions in Italy are too often unable to understand the trends and follow the market. They are stuck into their product/brand state of mind and unwilling to think as a consumer.
Even when they pretend to do it, they always universalize their point of view.

You can hear them say: “I would never tweet” , “I don’t use Foursquare”, without understanding that there are many, so many other people that actually would and do.
Rather than getting them to trust their agency, this incapacity plays on their pride and get them up to themselves and ultimately in the position not to understand what is being proposed.

2) NOBODY EVER TAKES THE RISK TO DECIDE ANYTHING

Think about it. How many times have you held a 3 HOURS presentation to a large audience of people in a room and heard right afterwards that they would present that to their “boss” and decide?
In Italian companies (or at least in big ones) only a few people take the risk to decide. The rest of them simply flow from one presentation to the other, unable to even express their own opinion.
You can see that for yourself. Next time you hold a presentation, ask to your interlocutors what they think about it.
If the boss is in the room, you will see that nobody will ever talk before him/her.
And when they do, they will simply go after their boss.
People working in Italian companies are FOLLOWERS by nature.
But how can you expect a brand carried by followers to be a leader? You can’t.

3) MARKETING PEOPLE DON’T KNOW THE DIGITAL MARKET

This sounds funny, doesn’t it? 
When you hear the word “marketing” you might expect that these people actually study, know and deepen their market. But when you face them in a meeting you soon realize they don’t.
Sure, iF they sell, let’s say, coffee they might know many things about coffee but they don’t really never know how the coffee is discussed, loved, hated and connected to their target online.
Never have our Italian GTs found during their presentations to clients someone sitting on the other end of the table able to give them a vision of their digital awareness and reputation and a clear brief of their goals.
“Digital” is a word that means a lot and nothing to them.
Most of them still think that it actually means having or creating a website.
Too many times you can hear them saying silly things like “Facebook is for kids” or “Youtube can’t make money, it will close sooner or later”. 
Truth is that they rarely even have a Facebook account. 
There’s no passion, no real interest.
They read an article in a newspaper and they think they know it all. The problem is that the article is written by another Italian average market thinker who pretends to be a guru but it’s just, most of the times, a jackass.

4) PEOPLE IN ITALIAN COMPANIES LACK IN PASSION FOR THEIR JOB (AND LIFE)

Communicating a brand/product is one of the best jobs you might happen to have.
But you can’t live it as a day by day career.

In order to really succeed and make a difference you must live it as a passion.
You must be curious about people. You must ask yourself questions like: what do they do? where do they do it? And most importantly: WHY do they do it?

This is even more true when you are talking of the digital landscape.
After all, the web is all about passion and love.

But people working in the marketing areas of most Italian companies just don’t get it.
And they really don’t do this anymore. They pay zillions euros to idiot research agencies that will pop out a million slides powerpoint to say nothing that you can easily understand going out in the streets for yourself.

Please Italian guys, stop sitting on the throne of your brand growing a fat ass.
Go out, breathe, listen to the people, get them to talk, use a bus, get on a train, LIVE and watch.
And learn.

That will do a lot more for your work than any research can do.
And you will stop failing.