Last week, I was at the Google Firestarters malarkey organised by Neil and the guys down at Google, and I was asked by Neil beforehand to stand by a sheet of paper with a beer and a pen.
About halfway down the beer, I decided to road-test an equation I’d been thinking about with people…
Yes, an equation. Rock and roll, huh?
It’s a development on the Verb, Reverb, Amplify stuff I’ve talked about before, and have been refining through talking to people smarter than I about it… If I try and remember you all at this time on a Sunday evening, I’ll miss folk out, so I shan’t… but YOU ALL KNOW WHO YOU ARE.
Anyway, VRA (ooo, abbreviation…) runs along the following lines;
- Verb is the thing a company does
- Reverb is the reverberations of that action across social media spaces (twitter, facebook, blogs… the ‘oooo, did you see what they did’…)
- Amplify is when you take the story of what you did, and the reaction to it, and turn that into stories to tell through advertising.
Basically, advertising is not the thing that you do, it’s the story of the things that you’ve done.
It’s easy to turn interesting things into advertising stories, it’s hard to make advertising interesting enough to reverberate though.
All well and good, but what’s this you were saying about an equation??
Ah, yes, the equation. You mean this?
For those fearing that I’m stepping out of my safety zone with this, don’t worry. Firstly, I did economics with econometrics (shhh, don’t tell anyone). Secondly, my wife is a maths whizz, and not only helped me through this, but helped me through the econometrics too…
It’s a way to explain what sort of reverberations you may expect from the verb, the thing you do. The letters stand for…
r1 = reverberations
v = the thing you do
q = quality of your product/service
b = brand warmth
r0 = reverberations of the last thing you did
It means that there are four ways in which you could make whatever it is you do reverberate more…
Pretty obvious, right? People are endlessly twisting the “advertising is a tax on…” prefix to fit with ‘shitty products’, ‘bad design’, ‘poor customer service’ and so on, but it’s right… the modern age is a place where advertising can’t even sell a bad product once, to paraphrase David Ogilvy.
Next up…
Brand warmth measures; gotta love ‘em, eh? The best way to increase them for a lot of companies is not to spend more on a new repositioning, or more ads, or a funnier scriptwriter. It’s to be human, generous and lovable. To be able to respond to people when they say ‘ooo, I like that thing you did…’.
The action you take, the transformative thing you do. Be it as large as the Pepsi refresh move, or as locally important as Converse saving the 100 Club, as technologically astute as Best Buy’s Twelpforce… what’s the thing that’s going to set you apart from not just competitors, but how everyone else acts. If you want “earned media”, you’ve really got to try and earn it.
So, finally, my favourite bit…
The way the equation works is that the reverberations of the last thing you did feed in this time too. So if you’ve not done anything before, then sorry, but you don’t get anything here.
Which means if you give up after one or two attempts, you’re really not giving yourself a chance. The sorts of companies that get talked about in the social space are, seemingly, the usual suspects. The people who’ve done various other things before. Because they try again and again, and the reverberations from what they’ve done before play back into what they do next time.
That’s where I am so far… I know it’s still a bit ‘fat’ in places (‘verb’ for instance conatins so may different variables, like ‘culture’, ‘company type’ and so on), but would love to hear what you think.
We like.A lot.Apologies for posting the links below, but it’s quicker than a very long hand comment.Live example of ro in action is Uniqlo – http://philadams1.wordpress.com/2010/06/09/the-weight-of-expectation-can-be-a…Live example of both ro and v in action is The Sick Kids hospital in Edinburgh – http://philadams1.wordpress.com/2011/04/04/the-sick-kids-shows-that-being-the...
I like this a lot. Being utterly innumerate I may be misreading the equation, however it looks as if “Make better stuff” is one of four ‘options’. Whether the equation actually says that or not, I sense that it’s the way a lot of marketers and their agencies are tilting these days. For me “Make better stuff” is the verb, “Be lovable”, “do amazing things”, “do more amazing things” are the means of encouraging reverb. Of course “make better stuff” doesn’t have to be restricted to new products or QI, and can embrace improved service, or delivery, etc. Pepsi’s recent travails would seem to me to be an example of believing that “doing amazing things” could be an alternative to doing what it is people actually want or expect them to do better.
Hi Phil – thank you – love the “Uniqlo has built up a positive weight of expectation” – that’s exactly it, you’ll be known for the reverberations you’ve caused before, and people will be more likely to look, and share again. And “Jack Draws Anything”… just amazing
Hi Simon – thanks too. You’re right to wonder about the overlap between the q & v… i did myself, and still I’m not totally convinced. But the reason it’s in this form at the moment is to draw a distinction between the things you make, and how you tell people about them (marketing). Pepsi still make soft drinks, and if they made even better soft drinks, that’d be one way to get more reverberations. But the Refresh activity is way to change internal and external perceptions about them as a company, as a community.But i think one issue with one catch-all equation is that for every company (even in competitive markets), it’ll be different. I might have to think of this as a starter kit to build on for specific examples.
Hi John, interesting points that you have raised here.I think you gave a good list of things to think about when you plan marketing campaigns. However, it would have been more useful if you could mention one or two real metrics in each category. By doing so, one can try to formulate a real function than a conceptual one, which can be useful academically and practically.Young
Hi YoungThanks for this; I have been pondering the real metrics, it would indeed make the equation more useful. For Q & B, it’s probably fairly easy… take the product & brand scores from your category for your product and competitors. For V & R, so much depends on sector, activity, effort, duration, culture… etc etc. And then all factors may need some form of coefficient in front of them to denote how important that is in their sector (Q is more important in mobile phones than it is in floor cleaner etc).Not to say it can’t be done… just it’s a hard one to noodle out, and I (and maybe now you and others) are putting thought into it
Yes. Everyone likes a good story. When we make something impressive, we may talk about it. This creates a relationship with our audience (brand to consumer). Sustain amazing works and the listener awaits. VRA@clweinfeld
VRA, VRA </chanting>Thanks Carol
It’s beautiful. Business owners/marketers need to frame this and hang it on their walls. Consumers want to hear the stories. They NEED to hear the stories. I love thinking as advertising as a way of telling the stories, not just pushing product/service features and attributes with no explanation of the how or why. I think companies with a track record of good products/service will totally “get” this. I also know some companies with terrible products/services, who would look at this and say “What? That’s crap – People want to know what we can offer them now!!” They’ll never get it.Thanks!
What I love about this approach is that it requires action first.Too many companies think that by polishing a turd, you can get more people to like it. And while to a certain extent that’s true, any ideal target market is only so big. By keeping on adding new coats of polish, your ideal market will eventually diminish, and you’ll end up having to go after sub par markets with far less spending power. Until next thing you know, your on the shelves of Family Dollar just hoping someone will pick you up. Focus on doing better. All you can do is improve from there.