This Message Is Real

Historically, marketing has been about crafting key messages and handing them over to creative teams to wrap up in powerful narratives.  This approach has worked well and in many cases still does.  However, increasingly, the style of the modern web is challenging this process.  People find the social web attractive because it's a very personal sphere where they can share the reality of their lives - without a key message in sight.  And that spontaneous vitality is tough for even the best creative departments to fake.  In other words, it’s difficult to craft 'real’.  But that hasn’t stopped some brands trying.  Take the latest social content from Coors Beers which has created a team of lads who hit venues and parties to demonstrate their beer-pouring skills.  “We brought the Coors Lights,” they announce before going onto perform tricks, including standing on the roof of a house and pouring beer into a glass 30 feet below.  Without spilling a single drop!  But despite their efforts to disguise the keyness of their key messages, they resonate with all the  authenticity of William Hague’s baseball cap.  “It’s not me, it’s the vented wide-mouthed can,” declares the leader of the Smooth Pour Crew.  However, the difficulties of brands trying to enter personal communication environments, such as YouTube, are really brought into sharp relief by the responses to the Coors film.  Because, of course, when people are left alone with beer they don’t run to the nearest bar or BBQ and demonstrate the product's key differentiators in an eccentric, quirky manner.  Nope, the reality is much more random.  For example they may try and disprove what you have told them - in an eccentric, quirky manner.  Or have a detailed technical discussion about how it could have been done better.  They may create imaginative ripostes.  Or ignore your key messages about the new style pouring top, and instead rip the bottom off and shotgun the contents.  And then run to the toilets to throw up.  They may provide product reviews using some very real language.  Or, natch, take your new can into the desert and destroy it with a semi-automatic weapon.  So what to do?  Well there are many exciting creative techniques that will work. However, above all, when it comes the modern web, be aware that while you may supply the beginning of the campaign, the rest of the world will provide the conclusion.

Comments

[Kevin Behringer]

I think you make a good point here.

I believe that key messages are still critical for business. They help keep all marketing activities focused and moving in the same direction. BUT, there is one important difference from the key messages of old that truly changes the face of marketing.

Now, those key messages have to be true!

You can't get away with faking a key message any more. The successful companies, now and in the future, will find what they do well FIRST and then find a way to tell people about it.

Kevin

[James Cherkoff]

Thanks Kevin. It's a good point you make about being honest. That demands a type of brutal insight which is pretty thin on the ground. However, I think it goes further than that. Coors isn't being dishonest in the claims they are making, but they are being tricky with their narrative ie presenting the Smooth Pour Crew as real. In traditional media you can get away with such fictional narrative. But on the social web it just looks contrived. Which is a not a great starting point to engage people.

I mean, do you want to be part of the Smooth Pour Crew?