The most powerful advertising, those that touch and follow us for days in our minds are those that untap our most basic emotions: joy, fear, hope, love, sadness, rage, anxiety… (there is not one list but I found this one useful).

Last week I was in San Francisco reading USA Today and found this powerful image that crashed into my brain and provoked a strong flux of thoughts (potentially sad ones):

I was not in a sad mood whatsoever but that advertising moved a lot of things inside of me on a “what if” basis. The art and the story are really simple. MetLife foundation chose to use an image that contains a language embedded into it and that is Peanuts‘ language, one of the most famous and influential comic strips ever. If you are an American (and not only) between 30 and 99 year old, you probably know Snoopy and his best friend Woodstock.

The advertising does not need to explain this relationship in words. If you read this comic strip you’ll remember Snoopy’s emotional character, Woodstock’s loyalty and the ability of both to create wonderful stories (through the late Charles Schulz ability to transfer the best of human character to them).

Powerful advertising does not need to be overdone. Think of your product/service or message and target the basic emotion that best fits into it. Then look for the best language to communicate it. It might be based on someone else’s work (like in this case where MetLife uses Peanuts) or might require an original creation. Jump over the conscious thinking and talk directly to the unconscious, to our memories, reality and dreams.

Enjoy Peanuts comic strips here!

Robin Good is a successful Italian online publisher that I met a couple of years ago thanks to 7th Floor. He is based in Rome and from there runs several websites like MasterNewMedia and RobinGood TV and shares his knowledge through “his” university: POP. I’ve seen him in action in many events like Barcamps, Pangea Day in Milan and the World Business Forum… a person full of energy and with a strong charisma. At the time that mobile phone video streaming was not yet available or accessible as nowadays (think of QIK), he had created his own streaming tools and moved around with a laptop tied to his back and a videocamera.

I recently watched one of his great webinars entitled “How to Get Traffic and Relevant Ads by Writing Great Titles” and it was illuminating, with straightforward insights and suggestions.

You can watch Robin Good’s tutorial on how to write great titles by clicking on the following image.

Now I understand why one of my blogposts, titled “Camera Cabaret Shop, pornograhpy for photographers” is getting so much hits. Writing articles for several offline magazines, I’m often tempted to use more “creative” or attractive titles, but there is a big difference between a magazine and a rather small difussion blog: once you buy the magazine, the articles are already in there and you find them as you flip through the pages. With my blog there are two main sources of inbound traffic: 1) people that know me or my blog and follow through the RSS feed or through direct access or links posted somewhere else, and 2) people that arrive to this blog by using search engines which index my content, keywords and… of course… titles!

If you have followed yesterday’s Apple keynote presentation of the new Macbooks (if not, watch it here) you have noticed that Steve Jobs one-man-show was replaced with a balanced, all planned, three-man-show with Steve Jobs, Tim Cook and Jonathan “Jony” Ive. Cook (Apple’s COO) and Ive (Senior VP of Design) are well known as vital parts of the new Apple that was reborn when Jobs came back to the company in ‘97, but have seldom had media exposition and accepted to live on iSteve’s shadow.

But this is changing! Unless Steve Jobs is virtualized ala Max Headroom, he will leave the stage and retire someday. Some say he’s sick (none of my business, though he did look rather thin and less charged that usual) and it will happen sooner while others say he’ll stay as head and showman for at least an extra decade. In any case, he will move on sooner or later and that empty space will be cumbersome and difficult to fill up. Besides, the fluffy financial market speculations on him staying as Commander-in-Chief is one of the many factors making Apple’s stock (APPL) travel up and down.

Yesterday I saw a clear marketing plan in action to:

1) present two important Apple Generals to the wider public (it is rumored that Tim Cook might become the new CEO when Steve Jobs decides to retire). Rarely have Cook or Ive given interviews or talked about Apple in public and

2) introduce them as speakers for future keynotes, in order to make the transition smoother and preparing them to meet bigger audiences in future events.

It is clear that the whole keynote was carefully studied, as they always do. I guess that even the clothes they were wearing weren’t left to chance (in particular Cook’s, almost mimicking his boss’ style). Cook and Ive appeared a bit stiff as this is not their usual environment, but it is normal and they played in this “minor” event at home in order to reduce the first impact. By letting his teammates share some of the limelight, Jobs was saying “See? I’m not the only brain around… these guys are the ones into it!”. I am sure there is a detailed roadmap for future involvement of these and other key Apple figures and I don’t think that Jobs will be leaving in the short term. As with many steps Apple has taken in the past, they tend to be very coherent, a clockwork meticulously oiled and tuned.

The net is talking a lot about the new Macbooks, that always pushing the industry a step forward, but even more about Jobs stepping aside. This is an interesting article on Gizmodo by Jesus Dias.

Japanese Kombinis, from the english “convenience store”, are small everything-you-might-ever-ever-need shops spread all around Japan (more than 40.000 according to Japan Guide) and usually open 24hs. There are many of them, 7 eleven, AM/PM, Sunkus, Family Mart, Heart-in, Lawson (my fav) and often you find several in the same block. I read somewhere (can’t find the source, sorry) that they are a very important player in Japanese retailing with a strong negotiation power against producers.

Inside you’ll find any kind of things that you might need (and I mean it), from food to hygiene products, from emergency clothes to toys. An example of the things you can buy there:

• tooth brush and toothpaste
• disposable underwear (made of paper cloth)
• drinks of any kind (cold & hot)
• potato chips, sweets, chocolates
• soups, sushi, sandwiches and other food (healthy too)
• copier and fax machine
• ATM
• ice creams
• pencils, ball pens and stationary
• insecticides
• washing soap and detergent
• car parts
• magazines and newspapers

As any good retailer knows, unless you’re selling online like Amazon where Long Tail dynamics tend to apply, shelf space is very important. If two competing products have the same category of space available (considering also the product accessibility, visibility, etc) then the battle switches to other fronts like the price or brand. If these are even, then you go to the “attraction” power of packaging. And here is where the real war is taking place in Japan. Packaging is striking: flashy, dynamic, exuberant, or just plain crazy. Even international brands adapt to match its shelf competitors. Products must shout “look at me, grab me, it’s me that you want!”.

So the story goes that this morning I went to a Kombini to buy something for breakfast (iced coffee, chocolate cookies…) and while moving to the cashier my sight was caught… actually captured, judged and imprisoned, by this pack of… err… at the time I only new it was near to the potato chips.

If you’re a psychologist you must be thinking I have a weird personality for taking it. I was curious to see what kind of product could have such a disturbing image: a naked baby cyclops with a typical Japanese cook headband.

How healthy can this be?

Well, more than 12 hours have passed and I’m still alive. They seemed to be some kind of corn balls or “chizitos” (argentinians will understand).

These are other products I bought once I needed something sweet.

More info on Japan’s Kombinis. Kombini Life shows pictures and stories about food found in this places.

If you are the kind of person that judges a book (and he who’s reading) by its cover, well, you might have a hard time doing so in Japan. Japanese people read a lot while commuting in subways and trains (that is if they are not playing with a PSP, fiddling with the mobile phone or listening to their iPods using HUGE headphones). I do a lot of people-watching and I noticed that most of them have the book’s cover protected by either paper, cloth or even leather. In the  first case, when paper is used, it is almost always provided and folded by the bookshop where it was bought. In this way they offer the service of protecting the book cover and the reader’s privacy. As a counterpart they obtain brand visibility,  because the shop’s logo or some other easily recognizable sign is printed on that paper.

I’m not sure whether the egg or the chicken came first and that is the shop wanting to make a subtle branding campaign or the book user wanting to hide what she’s reading (be it hard philosophy or dirty hentai manga). The point is that you can hardly tell what someone is reading on the metro but you can accurately state where it was acquired.

Simple, huh?

Tokyo is full of micro-marketing initiatives and one of the first that caught my attention is the distribution of sponsored paper tissue packs on the street.

Only few times have I seen leaflets being given away, which in most crowded cities is a major source of urban waste (especially around the area in which they are distributed). I am not sure if this behavior is spontaneous creativity or due to some kind of law (Tokyo is full of them, regulating almost every aspect of society). It does seem logic that prohibiting leaflets on the streets works towards keeping the city cleaner but I don’t know if such a law exists and if giving away some kind of “gift” is a way of walking around it.

For example, in Japan playing games for money is prohibited so Pachinko slot machines, a VERY popular activity here,  work like this: 1) you play pachinko and you can win metal balls, 2) you exchange the metal spheres for some kind of prize like a giant teddy bear or other thing, 3) you go to a shop near to the pachinko parlor and exchange that prize for money. So by playing you win prizes which you can then exchange for money. Authorities of course know about this escamotage but they allow it (someone says that’s so because pachinko is controlled by the Japanese Mafia, the Yakuza).

Another common “gadget” are plastic fans, very useful during the summer.

Back to the tissues, these are some of the pros and cons that I have identified:

1) Benefits for the end user

• tissues are a useful product
• you save some money (you won’t need to buy tissues anymore, or maybe just in an emergency)
• during summer days are warm and humid (Tokyo is like an open oven in these days) so they are an useful to wash away your sweat. In winter for blowing your nose (but never do it in public as it is considered very rude!)

2) Benefits for the sponsor

• not seen as waste/spam by the end user but as an useful thing
• people take it voluntarily. Japanese people distributing them are seldom invasive nor aggressive as in other countries
• higher retention of the object which generates multiple exposures to it by the user
• in the case of fans, they are highly visible when used thus propagating the brand’s exposure/visibility

2) Benefits for the city

• being tissues a useful product they are less likely to end up as waste on the street, something very common with leaflets

General cons

• producing a pack of tissues or a fan is much more expensive than a leaflet
• if you already have one you might not take a second one until you need it
• less units are distributed. I don’t know if this is compensated by the higher retention rate of each single product

What a best way of starting to populate this blog than some conclusions on Kevin Robert’s participation to the recent World Business Forum 2007 that took place in Milan 23-24 October. Why him? Well, he’s probably the most representative speaker for a marketer (though I really don’t consider myself a pure blood marketing guy, but a business developer that is lately dedicating most of his business time to something that could be tagged as marketing).

Kevin started with a strong pulse. He felt as the “meat of the sandwich” because his speech was inserted between an italian legend like Alex Zanardi and Renzo Rosso (founder and CEO of Diesel, whom he technically defined as a “fucking genious!“)… “I [Kevin Roberts] am the monkey and Renzo is the organ grinder”. But this feeling didn’t put him aback and he went on in his characteristic provocative way: “in the next hour I’ll try to insult you all, and if I miss you… don’t worry.. no matter what sex you are, what football team you support, whether you’re gay or straight, old or young or all of them… I WILL FIND YOU!”

Immediately after came his most mobilizing affirmation: “it is a great time to be alive in business because everything is changing”. And then came his first straight punch to the jaw of the paradigm of many managers (specially those with an MBA): “I have zero belief in strategy” (and while he was saying it he hoped Michael Porter -another WBF 2007 speaker- was not still roaming in the plenary room).

“I believe the success of a company can be measured directly in inverse proportion to the amount in time it spends on strategy”

Does he really believe that strategies are of no use? My impression is that he does not, but it serves as a provocation against a very general concept that is too often abused. And it’s precisely this abuse of strategy that he fires his guns to. “Strategy” could be applied to businesses in general and also to the micro-activities that compose a company. Roberts attacks static strategies product of too much jerking off, which try to forecast everything on paper or create weird hypotheses to consider every possible aspect (have you ever seen a dot.com Business Plan in the late 90’s? I have and…). Why are strategies useless? “Because we live in a world in constant change, where consumers are not strategic, business are not strategic and governments are not strategic” (come and teach us italians about that!).

Kudos to Kevin on a good argument.

“We used to believe in government, religion, the family. We can’t look to this institutions for leadership anymore”.

“Business is the main event, but not business as practiced today in America and the so called developed world. I am not in favor of capitalism of exclusion. The future for business is inclusive capitalism”.

To his Cambridge MBA students he teaches that “the role of business is to make the world a better place for everyone. Because only we in business can create new jobs, create choice, create self esteem. And that should their role be. It’s a hell of a challenge because until now the main focus of business was only to create shareholder value (which is pretty obvious)”.

And he showed the following video about how they handle challenge in New Zealand (Kevin’s motherland):

Everything relies on the way you set up your business. Our XXI Century society (well, not all societies but that of some European, American and Asian markets) is experiencing a steep power shift that has taken power back to consumers.

His first practical tips and probably the most important (that I hope to make mine): “Go back to your business tomorrow and wright down your dream… get rid of your vision and mision statements”.

We must give much more importance to dreams. “You have to have a dream… People want to be part of a dream, want inspiration, work for something bigger that a product, a dream is about reaching for the stars, not counting them”.

If you’re working for a company that does not have that great dream, change the dream… or change the company!

For those who have never seen Kevin Roberts live, he makes a great introduction to the Lovemark concept (he has recently published Lovemarks Effect). To better explain how a lovemark positions itself against a “normal” brand, he places them on two axis: Love and Respect.

• Low Respect + Low Love: commodities. “no life here. it’s all the same, all crap”.
• High Respect + Low Love: most brands are here (in particular the classic ones)
• Low Respect + High Love: Brands that are fashionable now, which live a short but intense life (reality shows, tv, britney spears. “no money to be made here”).
• High Respect + High Love: Lovemarks!

The following are some other short concepts I cherish from his speech:

• Not “attention economy” (to bombard people to capture their attention). We live in the “attraction economy”. From interruption to engagement.
• There are two kinds of ROI. The “wrong one”, Return on Investment, difficult to calculate and not always representative, and the “right one”: Return on Involvement, which concentrates on the empathic relation with people/consumers.
• Move from big promises to intimate gestures… (“consumer is sick of all this promises and false claims… everybody is claiming the same stuff: bigger, faster, whiter, cleaner…”)
• “You must not become marketers anymore, you must become connectors!”
• Consumers don’t want to be marketed… “they’re too fast, too wise…”. “You must learn to connect with them… to give up control”. This reminds me of so many company blogs that don’t want to give up control, that don’t accept the rules of a medium which should have sincerity and freedom of expression as an undiscussed base. So many companies treat their blogs as an extension of their direct marketing instruments, losing the opportunity to develop a communication channel which allows them to interact with their own customers, fans, prospects and more generally, the world itself.
• ”Stop thinking about consumers and start thinking about people” (louder please, it’s about PEOPLE!!!)
• ”No btob or btoc but ptop” (people-to-people)
• ”Wright connectivity plans, not marketing plans!” (I swear I’ll try!!)
• ”Lovemarks belive in mistery, sensuality and intimacy”
• “Rationality leads to conclusions. Emotions lead to action”
• Big budgets do not matter. People don’t know how to spend that money anyway.

The only thing I didn’t fully understand was his joke on Al Gore, who according to Roberts got the Nobel Price on “good powerpoint use”. Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth does strongly use a powerpont-esque presentation, but it was structured like a movie, the kind of stuff Saatchi & Saatchi does in many of its spots. From my point of view, Al Gore’s work is strongly based in SiSoMo -sight, sound and motion- more than what Roberts wants to give him credit for. I’ll try to ask Kevin the next time I’ll happen to meet him (if you know me, you know that during the events that we organize I hardly have time to socialize with speakers, as I’m always working in the background, taking care that everything works the way it has to…).

This edition of the World Business Forum has also been about leadership with General Colin Powell, strategy with Michael Porter, design with Giorgetto Giugiaro and Renzo Rosso, innovation with Clayton Christensen, the experience of top CEOs like Antonio Perez (Kodak) and Bruce Chizen (Adobe), Alex Zanardi’s speech on safety and responsibility, world economics with Alan Greenspan and exploring our next 50 years with technologist and futurist Ray Kurzweil… and then so much networking, a series of conferences with more than 30 italian speakers and a great exhibition area.

This is the spot he used to close his speech

Related links:

• HSM (World Business Forum’s organizers)
• Kevin Roberts blog
• Kevin on Saatchi & Saatchi’s website
• Some of the spots used by Kevin Roberts during his speech and some other interesting presentations during other events are available here