As part of the IPA Excellence Diploma, I wrote a fairly lengthy piece entitled: "I believe that the future of brands requires heresy: It's time for a new system of leading beliefs". Even the title is lengthy. So I've turned it into a presentation and chunked it up into three parts. This is the second, which outlines my ‘strong view, lightly held’ of what an alternative belief system for marketing might entail.

1. Part 2: The Ten Touchstones of a New Belief System
@rossfarquhar

2. A strong view, lightly held…

3. 1. Brands exist to speed up decision-making

4. The five functions of a brand
according to Feldwick:
• A badge of origin / guarantee of authenticity
• A promise of performance
• The value of reassurance
• Differentiation or Distinctiveness
• Transformation of experience

5. Notice the absence of ‘to be your friend’.

6. Actually, they’re just there to make this manageable…

7. “It is a profoundly erroneous truism that we should
cultivate the habit of thinking. The opposite is the
case. Civilisation advances by extending the number
of important operations we can perform without
thinking about them”
Alfred North Whitehead

8. Amongst the current discourse of ‘dialogue’, ‘engagement’
and ‘participation’…
…we’d do well to remember they’re a means to an end, and
that end is simply helping us to think less.

9. 2. Start with context, not rules

10. Your brand is the patient…
…you are the doctor.

11. Imagine if your doctor started treating you without
asking you what was wrong?

13. Let’s all get more robust about diagnosis, and less
worried about prescription.
Context first, treatment second.

14. 3. Treat people as people, not ‘consumers’

16. The problem with ‘consumers’ is:
• They’re not an empty vessel, waiting to be
filled with whatever the brand owner wants
• They’re not a homogenous group of people
• Their primary purpose isn’t consumption

17. They’re you and me.

18. Stop seeing them as fixed, and start seeing them
as a “temporary, precarious point of identity,
which is ever-changing, ambiguous and
unpredictable” (Gordon & Valentine).
Or in other words, people.

19. 4. Create, build and reinforce memories
(not messages)

20. Your brand lives here.
(literally – it’s an engram,
whatever that means)

21. Not here.

22. This is not how
your brand is
built.

23. So in that case, brands are multisensorial
memories for the people who know them.

24. And the message you spend huge
amounts of time crafting is just a small
fraction of the stimulus that creates it.

25. How you behave is more
important than what you say.

26. 5. Respect rationality and emotion, not either/or

27. When did we divide on these lines?

28. It seems like emotion is more helpful than
rationality for generating long-term profit…
Peter Field, IPA Databank

29. But less so for stimulating a
short-term direct action…
Peter Field, IPA Databank

30. Who’s in the front seat,
and who’s in the side car?
Emotion and rationality and
profoundly linked.
Action requires both imagination
and reason.
The real question is the kind of
behaviour you want to effect, and
how quickly…

31. 6. Find our connections, not just our
(individual) motivations

32. I don’t know
anyone like
Asimo.

33. But I know lots
of people like
Bender.

34. We aren’t individual,
rational decision-makers.

35. Otherwise why would we queue overnight
for a phone that’s not the best functionally?

36. Actually, we’re profoundly connected.

37. We’re more likely to be obese
if our friend’s friends are obese.
(Ref: Christakis and Fowler – Connected)

38. So perhaps it’s time to stop targeting
us as individuals, and researching as if
we make decisions in isolation.

39. And instead, look for the
group insight….

40. 7. Significant growth does not come
from frequency alone

41. Loyalty beyond reason?

42. This man doesn’t think so. And he can prove it.
Big brands are big because they have a larger number of light,
indifferent buyers, not committed, high-frequency ones.

43. The exception, though, is when you look beyond category borders.
The curve might look normal when your frame of reference is ‘cake’.
It might be completely different if it’s ‘sweet treats’.

44. So growth without penetration looks unlikely.
But rules are dangerous without context…

45. 8. Value fans for quality, not quantity

47. “the primary task of communications is not just
stoking the fires of passion amongst fans, but
nudging the behaviour of the largely indifferent.”
Martin Weigel
W+K Amsterdam

48. Fans are great.
They make up a big chunk of volume.
They advocate on your behalf.
And sometimes they do quite interesting
things.

49. But getting more of them doesn’t tend to grow
your brand. See the last touchstone.
2.5m Facebook fans does not a big brand make.

50. Instead, give them a stage…
The interesting ones are there to nudge the
behaviour of the indifferent. Because we are
more receptive to people than companies.
The behaviour you want to change isn’t of
the fans. It’s of the people they might talk to.

51. 9. Prejudice in planning media is
the enemy of effectiveness

53. TV IS DEAD

54. BROADCAST MEDIA IS DEAD

55. IT’S ALL ABOUT SECOND SCREEN

56. PEOPLE WANT
DIALOGUE WITH BRANDS
(so employ the media that allows it)

57. No.

58. The PWC Payback Study 1 demonstrated that,
over 10 years of data, TV returned the highest
sales ROI of any medium, and had significant
longevity in subsequent years after use
(Thinkbox)
The effectiveness of TV is getting better with
time: campaigns from the IPA databank that
used TV as the lead medium saw greater market
share gains decade on decade from the 80s, 90s
and 2000s (Field).

59. So let’s all just remain calm.

61. Media is the connective tissue between
brands and people.
Ref: John Willshire.
Choose the channel that’s right for the
connection you want, not just what’s worked
in the past or what everyone is telling you
will work in the future.

62. 10. Set business objectives, and
measure against them alone.

63. “We grew brand awareness by 1,000%”

64. Not good enough.

65. It’s chat like that which makes CEOs and CFOs think
we’re not worth having in the boardroom.

66. The marketer’s challenge is to separate
whether something worked and how it
worked.

67. Intermediate measures are fine for how
something worked.

68. But for whether something worked, it
can only be about a business outcome.

69. Hint: I mean econometrics.

70. Common-Sense Orthodoxy New Belief System
Brands form the basis for interaction Brands exist to speed up decision making
Start with rules from the past Start with context we find ourselves in
The public as consumers The public as diverse and temporary
identities
Send messages Create, build and reinforce memories
Decision-making a product of rationality Decision-making a product of
reason and emotion
Decision-makers as individuals Decision-makers within connected
networks
Grow through penetration or frequency Significant growth without penetration is
unlikely
Grow fan numbers Grow fan quality (and use them
to influence indifferents)
Plan media based on experience Plan media based on the connections to be
made
Measure intermediate effects Measure business effects

71. There’s your
alternative belief system.

72. Next:
Part 3: An Idea for an Industry
@rossfarquhar

73. References and Further Reading
Sharp, B. (2010). How Brands Grow: What Marketers Don't Know. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Field, P., & Binet, L. (2007). Marketing in the Era of Accountability. Institute of Practitioners in Advertising. London: World Advertising Research
Centre.
Feldwick, P. (2002). What is brand equity anyway? London: World Advertising Research Centre.
Franzen, G., & Bouwman, M. (2001). The Mental World of Brands. Amsterdam, Netherlands: NTC Publications.
Heath, R., & Feldwick, P. (2007). 50 Years of the Wrong Model of TV Advertising. Working Paper Series. 3. Bath: University of Bath School of
Management.
Field, P. (2010). The IPA Effectiveness Awards at 30. Measuring Advertising Performance 2010. London: World Advertising Research Centre.
Duckworth, G. (1996). Brands and the Role of Advertising. In D. Cowley, Understanding Brands: By 10 People Who Do (pp. 58-81). London:
Kogan Page Ltd.
Gordon, W., & Valentine, V. (2000). The 21st Century Consumer - A New Model of Thinking. MRS Conference (pp. 1-35). London: Market
Research Society.
McGilchrist, I. (2011, October 21). The Divided Brain. (M. a. Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Producer) Retrieved May 31, 2012 from
RSA Animate: http://comment.rsablogs.org.uk/2011/10/24/rsa-animate-divided-brain/
Christakis, N. A., & Fowler, J. H. (2009). Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives. Little, Brown
and Company.
Kearon, J., & Earls, M. (2009). Me-to-we research - From asking unreliable witnesses about themselves to asking people what they notice,
believe & predict about others. ESOMAR Congress. Montreux: ESOMAR.
Roberts, K. (2004). Lovemarks: The Future Beyond Brands. powerHouse Books.
Gilboa, I., Postlewaite, A., Samuelson, L., & Schmeidler, D. (2012, January 29). Economic Models as Analogies. Department of Economics,
University of Pennsylvania . Philadelphia, PA, USA.
Weigel, M. (2012, May 21). Love, Friendship And Brands: The Inadequacy of Metaphor. Retrieved May 22, 2012 from Canalside View:
http://mweigel.typepad.com/canalside-view/2012/05/love-friendship-and-brands-the-inadequacy-of-metaphor.html
Thinkbox. (2007, April). Discover the Power of TV Advertising. Retrieved May 31, 2012 from Thinkbox:
http://www.thinkbox.tv/server/show/nav.1345
Jenkins, H. (2006). Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. New York: New York University Press.
Walsh, M. (2009). Futuretainment: Yesterday the World Changed, Now it's Your Turn. Phaidon Press Ltd.
Willshire, J. (2009). What is media planning? Retrieved May 28, 2012 from Smithery.co:
http://smithery.co/uncategorized/what-is-media-planning/
Young, A. (2011). Brand Media Strategy: Integrated Communications Planning in a Digital Era . Palgrave Macmillan.

74. Download the full source essay, along with some
much better ones, as part of the IPA Excellence
Diploma’s 2012 ‘Campaign’ supplement.
http://www.ipa.co.uk/document/excellence-
diploma-campaign-supplement-2012
@rossfarquhar