Royal Mail's View From Here...

Bit of Background:

For about the last 18 months I have been working with Royal Mail on how to establish a dialogue with the wider marketing community about the role of DM in an ever changing world (see Velocity Age below). One of the initiatives I have been involved with is the seminar-based think tank of marketing gurus who offer a POV about the state of marketing and the common challenges they currently face - all hosted by none other than Jeremy Vine called The View From Here. Past events have seen such marketing luminaries as Jeremy Bullmore, Peter Stringham and Sir Keith Mills debating things like the 'brand concept' and how one manages a global brand in today's fragmented market.

This is a quick overview of some of the key things I took out of the evening and is a bit of a ramble - my apologies as I am just going through my notes and dont have time tonight to edit properly. I believe there will be a blog/website thing coming which Alex will be contributing to so I will post a link as/when that is ready some time this week.

Great venue:

The latest event took place on Thursday evening at the Kempinski Hotel in W1 - nice venue incidently as in a previous incarnation it was the country’s second oldest magistrate’s court which held such names as Napolean III, John Lennon, Oscar Wilde, Keith Richards and Mick Jagger. Nice bar too!  Anyway the event was well attended (oversubscribed) and quite a lot of mates from Royal Mail and others from across the marketing spectrum showed up which was great.

The Panel L2R:
Jeremy Vine, Richard Reed (Innocent), Martin Raymond (Future Laboratory & editor of Viewpoint magazine), Jon Wilkins (founders of Naked Communications and excellent fellow), Alex Batchelor (Marketing Director of Royal Mail)

Cool stats and worrying implications...

Martin Raymond was in great form and had a couple of interesting statistics to share that I had not personally come across before which are worth some consideration if you are not familiar with them:

1) YouTube serves 100m videos every day (think about it!). Now that took me aback as the implication for media owners is quite staggering. This explains quite neatly where all the viewers have gone. Hardly any of those videos are brand related either - other than those that are negative in some way - and most of them are of ungainly people playing at Star Wars in their bedrooms of course.

2) As much as 40% of all internet content is now consumer created. Now this is intriguing as most of the material we use to navigate around our world used to be edited by media owners. It makes me wonder whether this will lead to a more open '360' view of the world and how it works. Actually I think it will polarise generational ideologies i.e. greater tolerance of others viewpoints (younger generation) - greater tension and sense of loss of control (older generation). I guess time will tell but what interests me is that the emerging powerhouse nations such as China are trying to control and properly regulate it politically - which of course it can't.

Incidently there was an interesting comment from the panel (can't remember who said it) which was that Stuart Rose of M&S has decided not to get involved with the internet for another 5 years! I wonder if this could be his undoing as M&S struggles to regain its form...

Jeremy checks his notes!

The panel was great with thought-provoking contributions from Richard Reed especially as he regaled us with stories of how he once invited a naked man to Fruit Towers as he calls HQ (no not Jon Wilkes) and how he likes to remain 'porous' (love 'Porous' as a notion - must think some more about that)enough to allow customers to create the Innocent brand through shared community. There was a bit about how things are becoming more and more negotiable with consumers but that one thing that was non-negotiable was that they wish to leave things a little bit better than when they found them. Cant argue with that can you?

The importance of a purpose idea and carbon footprints:

Jeremy probed the guys about what the successful companies of the future would have in their DNA and it surfaced that what you needed was a 'purpose idea' at the heart of the company (something that Mark Earls has been saying for nearly 10 years now) - something people could be 'part of' or that stood for something other than making profitable commodities.

Martin was superb on this and took the conversation across a whole host of areas that have implications for future-proofing a business - not least of all carbon footprints and the implications on governments and global businesses of the film An Inconvenient Truth which seems to be the focus of so much company and brand communication currently.

In fact afterwards both Martin and Richard spent a considerble amount of time discussing carbon footprints and the implications for communicating it - in Richards case - on pack. I also overheard Martin talking about how much carbon we are all using at the moment - something I have not really been into I must confess. I took this off the BBC's website earlier:

Justin and Bee's carbon budget
Total 10 tonnes carbon

Justin Rowlatt is a writer who took part in a spot of research about how much carbon his family created per annum - and the graph shows how they create almost 10 tons a year! I wonder how much my family creates. Be good to find out.

This makes me think that the future of communications may well be driven heavily by the carbon agenda and the best ways to create or utilise media that is effectively 'carbon neutral'. Perhaps we will have 'Carbon Neutral Planning' in future too - who knows!

By the way is there anyway to do your own carbon footprint like the one above - bet there is - anyone know?

The Rule Of Fluidity and Baldness:

Martin went on to say that without a doubt there is the beginnings of a totally new business model emerging which makes perfect sense when you have the variables at your fingertips. Jon Wilkes made a comment about companies not realising the pace of change and how important it is to be able to spin on a dime as a company - or to be totally fluid. He said most companies are currently in a state of denial and used the following delightful story:

Mark Finney, a clearly hairless head of media for Orange, Europe's third-largest wireless carrier and Alex's old company once said that he used to kid himself he wasn't going bald and that he'd pull his hair forward, covering it over this way and that, looking in the mirror and thinking, 'It's never going to happen to me', then suddenly realizing he looked really stupid. . . . The point is that most companies are covering their baldness, and at a certain point, they're going to look stupid.

The panel went on to debate whether you could enforce new models on old companies or whether they could manipulate the market in some way to maintain the status quo. What transpired is that the market and by implication consumers always find a way to seep around it - no place to hide in other words.

Measuring Fluidity

The conversations switched to how consumers are now creating their own products and companies are merely facilitating the delivery of them - which made me think about how the financial models will have to change in time to accommodate this. I started wondering what the likes of Standard & Poor's ratings might be based on in future. 'Fluidity' perhaps? Imagine a 'fluidity Index' and you probably wont be far wrong.

The new rules:

This is a summary of where the conversation ended up:

1) Let go of the 'format' but own the 'territory'

2) Look at those things we really want to protect as a society (brands rather than public institutions?) and relentlessly improve the format by using your consumers in the process

3) Make smaller runs of everything

4) Customise then customise some more

5) Using customers to make the brand the best version of itself possible by giving the means of production

6) Use 'Generational content' i.e. be relevant for each age group.

7) Work out what you are prepared to let go of

8) Cultivate 'Creative Deviance'

9) Take lots of smaller but revolutionary risks

10) Invest in your people not in your brand (love this one - spot on)

11) Make relevance interesting (ahh my old friend 'interestingness' again)

12) Sense test YOURSELF by asking 'is this lame?' rather than a focus group

There was much more that I will elaborate on when I have more time to absorb it, but suffice to say it was a great evening and very thought provoking. I liked the focus on things being 'fluid' and having 'porous' as a key ingredient of future success - all very liquid on what was a rainy night.

Final words:

Martin concluded his bit by saying he felt that customers should never accept product mediocrity because marketing cant fix a poor product and that management need to promote the customer conversation at the highest level. Jeremy gave Alex the last word on how to transfer all we had heard in the evening to the office the next morning, to which he said 'I'll take one problem at a time.' Nice.

Comments

[Holycow]

Mark - what a pleasure to have you back - and a great quote too - thanks. The purpose idea seems to be one of the last things that companies can cling to as a future proofing strategy that makes any sense anymore. I am a big fan of the purpose idea - the thing that is bigger than just making money - its what gives a company heart surely?

Mark

[Mark Earls]

Ah, the purpose thing.

When you dig around a bit, most of the companies and brands we admire seem to be driven by some purpose beyond an obsession with filthy lucre. The money is the reward for acting out Apple, Youtube, Honda UK, Howies etc. Even Starbucks (whatever you think of them as homogenisers of our high streets) were initially at least driven by a passion beyond money.

Guy Kawasaki is making much the same noises right now.

Can't claim to have done more than spot this. But it's slowly being accepted. I Interviewed David of Howies for my latest book (HERD) and he says "belief is great fuel. Fuel that money can't buy".

Nuff said.