Wind Tunnel Marketing

The Propulsion Wind Tunnel Facility - Photo by Phil Tarver

I wrote a post on BBH LABS which Campaign magazine (campaign live) asked me to expand on. This is one of two posts – on the subject. The second is a post entitled Raging Against the Machine: A Manifesto for Challenging Wind Tunnel Marketing,

Have you noticed that all the ads are looking the same?

Perfectly pleasant, mildly amusing, gently aspirational.

The insightful reflection of real life, the pivotal role of the product, the celebration of branded benefit.

Advertising seems so very reasonable now.  Categories that were once adorned with sublime creativity are now characterised by joyless mundanity.

Some of you will recall the day in 1983 when we woke up and noticed that the cars all looked the same.  There was a simple explanation.  They’d all been through the same wind tunnel.  We nodded assent at the evident improvement in fuel efficiency, but we could not escape a weary sigh of disappointment.  Modern life is rubbish…

Are we not subjecting our communications to something equivalent: Wind Tunnel Marketing?

Have we not so formularised the process that we’re eradicating some of the elements that made advertising so effective in the first place?  And has the Recession made us more dependent still on this Wind Tunnel Marketing?

The Origins of Wind Tunnel Marketing

I guess it all began with the best intentions:  businesses taking Marketing more seriously.

Some years ago, with increasing globalisation, there was a drive to identify best demonstrated practice, to codify it and coach it. We developed acronyms, characterful shapes and ring-bound folders. We attended conferences, bunjee jumped together and went home with wittily sloganned T-shirts.

With the pressure at Board Room to demonstrate ROI, we became obsessed with proof and measurement, with norms and traffic light systems. What gets measured gets done and what gets green gets made.

Now of course the development of a common Marketing language and a culture of effectiveness has to be a good thing.  But few noticed,  as the industry professionalized, that the Cavaliers were being marginalised.  A steady stream of mavericks made their way to the exit door, their hitherto precious gut instinct no longer deemed valuable.

Few noticed, as we learned to lean more heavily on our norms and pre-tests, that expertise and judgement were a devaluing currency.

And few noticed, at least at first, that the measures designed to raise the floor of communication output were at the same time lowering the ceiling.

The researchers had taken over the asylum.

When Relevance Trumped Difference

When I was young I was taught that behavioural change could be achieved through communication that was relevant, motivating and different. Somewhere along the way we’ve lost our faith in the power of difference.

There was an Age of Innocence.  An era when brand owners were driven by an obsession for product and functionality.  They had foresight, a passion for the positive impact a brand might have on consumers’ lives in the future.  And they were steeled by the competition to believe that difference was critical to commercial success.

In the face of imitation and commoditisation, it became harder to sustain rational product differentiation. Increasingly we sought difference through communicating “emotional selling propositions”. And over time we learned to excuse the absence of difference if we could at least achieve some kind of emotional resonance with consumers. In our headlong pursuit of relevance, we commissioned endless focus groups and we worshiped at the altar of consumer insight. Gradually we have arrived at an industry consensus around what makes effective communication. But it is a very narrow definition, one that emphasises consumer insight and relevance, and one that minimises or excludes  the once critical role of difference in the selling process.

Relevance has trumped difference. We now inhabit a world in which most brands in most categories approach most problems by asking the same people, the same questions, in the same way.

Is it any wonder that we keep coming up with the same answers?

Does Any of This Matter?

Perhaps it matters little that Wind Tunnel Marketing diminishes difference.  So what if it makes for a less creative, less interesting industry? So what if the ads all look the same? Surely none of this matters if the Wind Tunnel produces more effective communication.

My own conviction is that Wind Tunnel Marketing is turning communication into a numbers game, a game where scale of resource wins every time – whether that be media budget, distribution network or sales team. The cost  efficiencies of brand differentiation are notable largely by their absence. Surely in a fragile economic environment this represents an oversight.  And in an environment where increasingly we need to earn rather than buy attention, it’s lunacy.

Of course, out of a crisis comes opportunity.  And a number of Clients have already concluded that the rewards for bravery, subversion and calculated risk have never been greater.

Excepting these noble attempts to rage against the machine however, I’m concerned that at a macro level Wind Tunnel Marketing is gradually eroding the very foundations of  consumers’ affection for communication and brands. The pop combo Groove Armada memorably remarked “If everybody looked the same, we’d get tired of looking at each other”. I suspect we’re creating consumer fatigue through our homogenisation of our own product. Conventionally, when we see long term declining scores for brand trust and advertising enjoyment, we blame Own Label or the internet or Sky or the banks or BP or Naomi Klein.  But maybe we as a Marketing and Advertising community should look in the mirror.

First published BBH Labs: 19/09/2010

No. 5

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Wind Tunnel Politics

Guardian/Dan Chung Dan Chung

It was going to be the most important Election in a generation.

It was going to break the mould of British Politics.

It should have been so exciting.

So why did it all seem so unfulfilling? Why did our eager anticipation of the first debate turn to a stifled yawn by the third? Why did our ardour for the new kid turn so quickly to complacency? Why did we shrug at the glossy manifestos, put the recycled thinking straight into the recycling bins?

This was the Sunblest Election. The Election when all the mighty forces of Marketing created three soft, medium sliced, plastic packaged loaves. Designed to please, guaranteed not to let you down. Perfectly pleasant on their own terms, but curiously unsatisfactory.

You see, all three candidates and campaigns had been put through the same Marketing Wind Tunnel.

Rolling focus groups, private polling, polished PR, whispering spin doctors, joy stick analysis…They had collectively eradicated the edges, the uncomfortable, the unpalatable.

They had created three glossy, smooth undifferentiated paradigms of  inoffensiveness.

Everyone knows that the debt needs tackling, that there are hard decisions to be made, jobs to be cut, taxes to be raised. But the focus groups said the electorate didn’t want to hear it and so the candidates didn’t want to tackle it. Efficiencies, my arse… No surprise perhaps, that an exclusive consideration of undecided voters produced indecisive outcomes; that researching marginal constituencies produced mainstream opinions; that endless focus groups produced unfocused group-think. It all seemed so timid, so spineless, so lacking in confidence.

It pains me as someone who works in the communications industry to see the techniques designed to sell soap powder applied so assiduously to such substantive matters. It pains me not just because politics ought to be a little more complicated. But also because the Marketing model that’s been applied is itself broken.

Advertising Agencies used to be in the business of finding and articulating difference. We used to help our Clients establish strong, compelling, differentiated truths. Don’t just ‘hold a mirror up to the consumer’, we said. Consumers don’t want their worldview mirrored and reinforced; they want  to be challenged, stimulated, inspired. But over the last ten years Marketing has fallen victim to formularisation and commoditisation. ’Best demonstrated practice’ has been distilled, codified, taught and tested. The researchers have taken over the asylum. The quest for difference has been replaced by the quest for inoffensiveness. Holding a mirror up to the consumer is no longer anathema; it is the recognised norm, standard practice. Have you ever wondered why the beer and car ads you used to love now look so similar, so sane, so sensible?  Well the Agencies and Marketeers that produce them have been looking for the same answers, in the same way, in the same places.

They’ve all been through the Marketing Wind Tunnel.

This was also supposed to be the first Digital Election. We had visions of grass roots participation, of new voter engagement, of a more visceral, real time debate. Indeed there was a vibrant online conversation, but it was a conversation fuelled by the big beast of telly. I guess the political establishment fell for McLuhan’s seductive aphorism: the medium is the message. They imagined that arming our MPs with Twitter accounts might send the youth of Britain into a swoon. But the truth is the medium is not the message. It communicates and amplifies the message; in some cases it prompts participation with the message. But it is not the message.

It’s obvious that Obama wasn’t successful simply because he designed a cunning digital strategy. It’s obvious that Obama hadn’t been through any Marketing Wind Tunnel. In our world we’d say he was a great product, a great brand, with a real difference, with something worth saying…

I hope, perhaps somewhat optimistically, that all Politicians, winners and losers, are humbled by this Election. I hope there is a rebellion against the insipid, spineless, formularised Wind Tunnel Politics that have deprived us of the vital engagement the electorate craves and the issues demand. They may not want to talk to the likes of us again. But if our political masters want some communication advice for next time, let’s give it to them. Get yourself a great product, with a strong sense of difference. Be confident in who you are and what you stand for. And then sing it from the rooftops (and the blogs and the Twitter feeds). You know what. People may not mind that you’re saying something different or challenging or hard to stomach. They’ll respect you for it. They may well want to talk to you about it.

And if you say it well and persuasively, they might even vote for you.

First published BBH Labs: 12/05/10

No. 4

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I Will Not Follow

In 1983 Celtic troubadours The Waterboys released a song called “I Will Not Follow”. I’m pretty sure it was a response to U2′s anthemic “I Will Follow”. Answer songs have a rather mixed history (though I’m grateful to the category for providing us with Roxanne Shante and Althea & Donna…), and I suspect “I Will Not Follow” was not The Waterboys’ finest moment  Nonetheless, I admired their courage in taking on the emerging Titans of Rock. And I loved the sentiment. The determination not to go with the flow, not to follow the masses, not to get lost in the crowd. A passionate rejection of passivity. A celebration of the power of negative thinking.

When I was in my last year at College, thoughts turned to possible careers. It was the late ’80s and , in the wake of the Big Bang, there was a magnetic pull towards the Big Job in The City. It was natural, obvious, exciting. The dark satanic thrills .. I recall my decision not to apply for a City role felt more significant to me than any subsequent active career choice.

I used to interview young graduates looking for a job. I found that their CVs were curiously similar. When asked what they’d achieved in life, they’d say they’d travelled to Asia, captained the hockey team, and they liked skiing and reading. But when one asked what the candidate had chosen not to do, more singular answers were forthcoming.

Some of our most important decisions are the paths we choose not to take,the roads we refuse to travel. Our lives can often be best understood by mapping the things we didn’t do, the words we didn’t say. Perhaps we should more often consider a brand’s unspoken truth, quiet regret. Because in its silence and inaction may reside its strength and identity.

‘If you gave me a pound for all the moments I’ve missed,
And I took dancing lessons for all the girls I should’ve kissed.
I’d be a millionaire, I’d be Fred Astaire’
ABC – “Valentine’s Day”

My first job after College was as a Qualitative Researcher. ‘Brand elasticity’ projects were very much in vogue. Could this everyday family margarine perhaps be a cheese, or a biscuit, or a ready meal or a jam? With a sip of Chardonnay and a nod of assent, my respondents would consistently give the green light to a whole host of reckless innovations and insane brand extensions. And over the years the song has remained the same, even if the lyrics have changed. Could my brand be an experience, a portal, a membership club? Could it be a hotel, a hub, a content provider? Could it release a clothing line with rugged check shirts, boxer shorts and rain resistant outerwear? Isn’t my brand more a lifestyle choice than a yellow fat?

Curiously perhaps, research respondents find it easy to endorse our grandest aspirations. But then it’s not their money and maybe they’re just being polite. Sometimes it seems we need to be better at defining the limits of our ambition, at identifying the red line, the point beyond which we will not go. Sometimes we need to demonstrate more restraint, more discipline, more negativity.

Many Clients are instinctively suspicious of the negative perspective. Surely it betrays a lack of confidence, enthusiasm, ambition? In order to sustain consistency they develop processes and platforms, models and matrices, funnels and formats. But best demonstrated practice is often worst demonstrated imagination. Over the years negative thinking has inspired truly exceptional communication by the likes of Dunlop, Audi, Marmite, Volvo, Stella and Guinness. What would a world be like without this brand? Who are its enemies? What is its weakness? Whenever one is confronted by the bland, boring or undifferentiated, it’s always helpful to reach for a liberating ‘not’.

Of course in the age of the social web possibilities seem infinite. We want campaigns to be all embracing, 360º, holistic. We want to tick off platforms like

some bizarre game of I Spy. We want all the colours in all the sizes. Yet I wonder if the democratisation of knowledge and opinion creates a kind of accelerated conformity: the Consensus of Crowds. Surely brand behaviour on the web would benefit from a little more negative thinking? Perhaps more discipline and self denial? Maybe we need to see more of the brand that likes to say ‘no’, the brand that will not follow…

Every morning I face the horrors of commuting as I change Tube at Kings Cross. Crowded, crushed, compressed. Downbeat, dour, depressed. In order to get onto my teeming southbound train into the centre of town, I walk along the less cluttered northbound platform. Periodically empty northbound trains stop and then recommence their journey out to the quiet leafy suburbs. I’ve always promised myself that one day I’ll jump on one of those empty northbound trains, make my way to the end of the line, find a caff and settle down to The Guardian, bacon, eggs, tea and toast. One day…

No. 3

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The Birds That Sing At Night

Sometimes recently I’ve woken up in the middle of the night and there have been birds singing in the street outside. Two or three o’clock in the morning, well before sunrise and they’re chirping away, casually, confidently.

I’m no ornithologist, but shouldn’t they be saving it for the dawn chorus?

Inevitably one is troubled by the abnormal. My initial concern was that their singing portended some dark event, an omen of impending doom.

But the world didn’t implode.

I wondered was I witnessing some form of ecological fallout? Was the nocturnal bird song an unnatural response to an unnatural environment?

The bird authorities’ website reassured me that our feathered friends sing primarily ‘to attract a mate and defend territory’ and that some species are just  happy to do these things at night.

I prefer to imagine that the birds outside my window are adapting to the modern world. Working, socialising, eating and courting on a more fluid, 24 hour, ‘always on’ basis.

Perhaps the collective unconscious of London sparrows has connected with humanity’s accelerating metabolism. Perhaps they’re embracing deconstructed social norms, flexible working, speed dating.

Maybe this also explains the migrant foxes that have long since given up the tedium and conservatism of rural life for the bright lights and diversity of the metropolis.

I have always liked the idea that change is a social, collective thing. That we like to change together, that we are reassured by community even when that community is evolving in different directions.

I have sadly found it frustrating to entertain philosophies to which my Clients do not yet subscribe.

As a student I was taught that a society in some respects behaves like an orchestra. It assigns ‘in tune-ness’  to behaviours that are consistent with everyone else and it rejects abnormal behaviour as ‘out of tune’.

This of course has its downsides. But it’s reassuring to consider that, as we run at the future, we may be taking the the wildlife with us…

First published: BBH Labs: 27/5/2011

No. 2

From Art to Apps: Data Visualisation finds a purpose

I recently attended an excellent Made by Many event hosted at BBH which featured a re-presentation by Manuel Lima of his 2009 TED talk on data visualisation. Manuel is the curator of visualcomplexity.com and is an eloquent, modest, charming pioneer in this fascinating field.

As a novice myself, I could not help wondering why we are all so immediately and instinctively attracted to the best of data visualisation.To start with, I’m sure there is some fundamental truth that for most of us data become meaningful only when we can see scale, change, patterns and relationships. Seeing is understanding.

It’s also very reassuring to discover that complex, seemingly chaotic data sets and networks can be expressed as elegant, colourful, ordered maps and models. Perhaps there’s something akin to what the Enlightenment scientists felt as every new discovery revealed the endless beauty of nature.

Indeed the best examples of data visualisation have their own aesthetic beauty. (I felt a nostalgic pang as I recalled time spent with spirograph in my bedroom as a child.)

Like spirograph, but better: Email map by Christopher Baker

To some extent however this elegance, which makes data visualisation so immediately compelling, also represents a challenge. It’s possible that the translation of data, networks and relationships into visual beauty becomes an end in itself and the field becomes a category of fine art.

No harm in that perhaps.

But as a strategist one wants not just to see data, but to hear its story. And it can seem that for some visualisations the aesthetic overpowers the story. I spent many hours when younger staring at data tables, yearning for them to reveal a narrative. It is the prospect of bringing articulacy to hitherto cold, laconic facts that should be at the heart of the excitement around data visualisation.

The more compelling projects from Manuel’s archive did indeed seem to reveal some insightful truth about the relationships that they considered. Enron’s email patterns, the map of Segolene Royal’s supporters, the plotting of visitor eye traces in Barcelona, all looked extremely useful.

Enron Communication Graph, by Kitware Inc.

With this last instance in particular,  one can start to imagine how understanding the dynamic patterns of tourist traffic around the city and its most photographed areas might enable the development of all kinds of helpful tools and services for both tourist and city.

Tracing the Visitor's Eye by Fabien Girardin

Manuel himself talked about ‘turning tools of curiosity into tools of functionality’. In this respect he quoted Chaomei Chen: ‘A taxonomy of information visualization is needed so that designers can select appropriate techniques to meet given requirements.’ And clearly this desire to enable greater utility is driving Manuel’s own research into the different methods and models of visual representation.

As a pioneer in his field, Manuel discussed the opportunities emerging in interactive data maps and he described a Californian experiment in which it should be possible physically to interact with a huge data set distributed about a six storey building.  Blimey. I think I’ll leave that to the true data connoisseurs …

Finally, as a grey haired strategist, I found myself considering how the paucity of visual representation techniques had impacted the way we tackled problems in the past. I think we knew fundamentally that most events were precipitated by complex systemic pressures and relationships. But our limited power to disentangle the many elements in one system reduced us to characterising most strategic problems in rather monochrome ways.

So, this is progress indeed. Data visualisation has radically improved our understanding of these complexities. The real question is: what will we do with that understanding?

First published: BBH Labs 27/08/09

No. 1