Up in the Atmosphere

A Manifesto for a Beautiful Bank

Last week in the Drum

“Beauty is indeed a good gift of God; but that the good may not think it a great good, God dispenses it even to the wicked.”

Yet again the world of banking is in the spotlight. The Co-op is had been downgraded, Metro Bank posting larger than expected losses, and surveys suggesting that given the opportunity a significant number would switch their accounts away from the majors in a heartbeat, even given the devastating factoid that more people get divorced than change their bank. Barring the direct impact on your own personal finances, most of us can’t muster up the will to care. Why? Because regardless of how much the industry tries to clean itself up – be it retail or investment – they are perceived as greedy, untrustworthy and downright ugly.

In fact there a great number of adjectives used when talking about Banks, and most of them aren’t terribly complementary. Funnily enough, Beautiful is not one of them. Given the interest I had from looking at Barclays Business social media a few weeks ago, I thought it might be interesting to imagine what the ‘Beautiful’ Bank of the future might look like, especially when it’s held up to Wikipedia’s definition of beauty!

Perpetual experience of pleasure or satisfaction

We know who you are. We understand your pressures and we like talking to you. We are not off-shored; we are in-sync with you and your life. We want your business, we don’t discriminate on size or circumstance, we are for everyone. Your family, your house, your business, your passions. Wherever you are in your journey it’s one narrative, one story, one life. You are more than just a demographic, a segment, or a cross-sell opportunity. We look at the whole picture and proactively suggest, reward, remind and inspire – not just to win you over initially, but also to keep winning you over throughout.

We actively pursue a long meaningful relationship with our customers, putting long-term value ahead of short-term gains. Every interaction recognised as significant, and action taken swiftly to resolve issues. We promise that you’ll find the right person to talk to, as quickly as possible – be it online, in branch or by phone. Our staff are well versed and helpful, even suggesting money saving opportunities along the way. We track and hold ourselves against how satisfied you are with the resolution and your willingness to share the experience. We are beholden to you and hope we earn the same level of trust in return.

An entity which is admired

We are active in the community. We must contribute to the building of the society wherever we are. We help local businesses; providing a central hub for all discussions around finance and more. As with the post-office of old, or the local pub, we connect our customers together providing shared growth opportunities, both locally and nationally. Our success is measured by – the relationships we have nurtured, the lives we have changed, the communities that have blossomed, and the growth we have contributed to.

In balance and harmony with nature

We are a catalyst of change, not just in your pocket, but also in the world. If we are for everyone, then everyone is a stakeholder, and henceforth the definition stakeholder value is extended to demonstrate social good. We know the world is a big place and that our own, and our customers’, investment in our future means nothing without investing in those around us.

We subscribe to the highest standards and try to make a positive impact on the environment. Being ‘Green’ is no longer seen as a ‘nice to have’ but as a mantra for efficiency across our entire business. Using less means more in so many ways.

In the eye of the beholder

We ask ourselves every day – why would anybody want to talk to us? We know many of the things we produce are only required at very specific times in your life. So when your ready we’ll be there be listening, chatting, helping. Our job is to provide options not upsells.

The truth is not always beautiful, nor beautiful words the truth.

Closed door’s close off opportunity – opportunities to listen, to engage, to understand, to share, to innovate, and to evolve. The only confidence we keep is that of our customers. If our actions cannot be communicated to the public, then we probably shouldn’t be doing it.

This also applies to the language we use, many use jargon as a weapon to confuse, cajole and confound. We don’t. We translate, educate and simplify. We present our products and services, as they should be – straight forward, human and flexible. We avoid presenting a million variations designed to entrap. We pride ourselves in ensuring that you know what you are buying, why and what the alternatives are. We provide the tools, we provide the insight, and if you like, we’ll sit down and explain it all.

Our openness extends across all of our activity. When we charge we promise to tell you in advance, and not just how much, but why. We believe that we should be paid for providing an excellent service, not because you made a mistake. When making big decisions, if you desire, we offer forecasting services to illustrate what might happen over time, so it’s crystal clear what the potential outcomes are. And not just the good news, we’ll even show you the worst-case scenario – all based on your life as it is, and how it may change. Where possible everything we sell has a returns policy, a cooling off period, just in case you feel you made a decision in haste or in error. We want to get it right for you; otherwise we have failed.

Where nothing needs to be added or taken away

The only truth is that everyone is different. We enable you to write your own rules and automate how your money moves around.

About to go overdrawn? Set up a rule to be notified and move some money from somewhere else
Working to a budget? Set a monthly limit and be notified how close you are to the edge
Hefty bill coming in? Automatically get an overdraft and automatically adjust your budget to quickly get back on in the black
Need a statement? A month is a long time to wait, so you choose how, when and where you get the information you need to effectively manage your finances.
Want to buy something big? Set up your own short-term savings objectives, which protect just a little bit every month. And if you want to divide up your money across different budgets you can do that to, all from one account.

We recognise that you may not conduct all your financial business with us. But we make it as painless as possible to move money around, from account to account, and from bank to bank. And if for any reason you want to leave us, we promise we will make it as painless and quick as it was to join.

When you need that little extra we provide the best terms. The necessity of having to ‘manage debt’ tends to come from bad products or bad planning. We ensure we will never knowingly put you in a position where you feel you are stuck, stressed and struggling to pay us back. If you need to change the terms on the fly, because your situation has changed, we’ll do it; in fact we will provide you with tools so you can do it yourself!

Beyond loans, we believe we can maintain margins by providing flexibility across all products and services. We are all-weather friends who understand when things are tough and can adjust, defer or waive additional costs, which we know tend to come at the worst time. We offer services that dismiss bank charges entirely when you are down, in exchange for a slightly lower interest rate when you are up. Not good enough? – We are open to suggestion.

How can we make these Beautiful Banks happen? I could tell you but I’d have to bill you!

Jon Bains is a partner at business futures practice Atmosphere

2013: 05/23
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Having a McPlay™ with the ASA

Last week, on the Drum.

In general, overtly marketing to kids is pretty hard these days. Given media consumption habits it’s considerably more permission based than advertising standards would lead you to believe. Appreciating that my own household may not be entirely typical, it is pretty representative of the multi screen household of today or the day after.

We don’t watch any of what was traditionally called TV, i.e. we don’t watch linear programming, other than the news and CBeebies, occassionally. The kids tend to either fight over the iPad or play on a console, depending on who wins. As a result they see very little direct TV advertising. When they go round friends houses and are exposed to ‘channels’, they have actually asked ‘why did the film stop?’

However both the iPad and Xbox are commercial wonderlands. Just the other day there was a massive ad for some add-ons for Minecraft on the Xbox which caused no end of grief as I had to explain to the kids that I wasn’t paying three quid for an avatar TYVM. I won that argument but still ended up buying all the avatar packs on Scribblenauts on the iPad.

There has been a goodly amount of coverage about the dangers of micropayment in games so I’m not going to talk about that particularly, it factors in when looking at how traditional ‘kid friendly’ brands compete for the hearts and minds for our progeny in the non-linear, specifically App world.

What’s the story

Whilst not available in the UK (possibly ever), McDonald’s in the US have just launched their first app aimed directly at kids, called ‘McPlay’. It currently consists of one game which is apparently about healthy eating – haven’t played it myself yet. Interestingly it has on the title screen ‘This. Is Advertising!’ – which when you channel it through Leonidas from the 300 becomes quite amusing! At least it’s honest.

It’s a bit of a departure for them as most of the other McDonalds apps out there are glorified store-locators with the odd delivery service and in-store promotions. In fact a quick survey of the competitors paints a similar picture – store locators, menus, at home delivery. In fact I couldn’t find any other examples of fast food brands, such as Burger King and KFC, doing anything that is remotely targeted at kids. That’s what makes McPlay an interesting pivot point. Advergames were a mainstay of the interweb but there seems to be a bit of hesitancy in Appland, in this category anyway.

So why not here? I thought be might be interesting to look at the ASA guidelines to see if they covered off this kind of activity. Yep, I’m that sad.

First off – do Apps even fall under the ASA?

The Code Applies to: “advertisements in non-broadcast electronic media, including but not limited to: online advertisements in paid-for space (including banner or pop-up advertisements and online video advertisements); paid-for search listings; preferential listings on price comparison sites; viral advertisements (see III l); in-game advertisements; commercial classified advertisements; advergames that feature in display advertisements; advertisements transmitted by Bluetooth; advertisements distributed through web widgets and online sales promotions and prize promotions.”

Well it doesn’t say ‘App’s’ outright I would say that they would be covered under either in-game advertisements or advergames. Philosophically of course one could argue that consumption of any franchise is in fact advertising but perhaps we best not go there.

“Marketers must not knowingly collect from children under 12 personal information about those children for marketing purposes without first obtaining the consent of the child’s parent or guardian.”

OK, so there’s a question – what data is actually being collected from these apps? Frankly unless you are actually registering your child directly it would probably fall under anonymous or at worst the bill payer. However with so many apps these days asking to ‘upload your contacts’ who knows?

”Marketers must not knowingly collect personal information about other people from children under 16 unless that information is the minimum required to make a recommendation for a product, is not used for a significantly different purpose from that originally consented to, and the marketer can demonstrate that the collection of that information was suitable for the age group targeted.”

If I read this right that could probably apply to all social networks. For example, Facebook’s age limit is 13 but given that they know the social graph of all under-16 year olds and use it to provide relevant advertising, does that count?

“Data about third parties collected from children must not be kept for longer than necessary.”

Well hmmm, what does no ‘longer than necessary’ mean? For that matter, since we don’t know what data has been collected anyway, how can we check? Whilst I’m not convinced by current legislative proposals, in terms of best practice I suspect all apps should allow you to review and/or delete capture info. No?

“Marketing communications addressed to, targeted directly at or featuring children must not exploit their credulity, loyalty, vulnerability or lack of experience.”

Actually that whole statement makes me shudder when I think of all the stuff my kids have on their iPad. The entire multi-billion ‘free-to-play’ world is preys on exactly that.

”Children must not be made to feel inferior or unpopular for not buying the advertised product.”

Can’t get through a level? Haven’t unlocked Zorg the Mankiness? Getting frustrated? Get on the High Score Chart by buying some of our tokens!?

“Adult permission must be obtained before children are committed to buying.”

Apple require you to enter your password for in-app purchases and other related app purchases. However as of IOS 6 they changed it so that if the App is free, it doesn’t require a password. Personally I think it’s the parents responsibility to know what their kids are doing, however even with parental controls I can’t stop the kids downloading a free-to-play honeypot.

“Must not include a direct exhortation to children to buy an advertised product or persuade their parents or other adults to buy an advertised product for them.”

Now this is tricky. As mentioned before – my kids bring me the iPad all the time and say ‘I want that’. Whose fault is that?

I was quite surprised at how well thought out most of their code is or was anyway, it’s just a bit unenforceable currently really and needs refreshed with a few more practical suggestions. If these guidelines were actually being applied to apps, then the app store might be significantly different.

The Grilling Effect

Concern over Childrens safety in Appland and frankly all digital channels increasingly in focus. Be it economically or morally, the eyes of the world are looking through the eyes of the child now. In the marketing world it’s really hard not to mix-up brands with In-App purchases; be it overt or covert they are still encouraging you to buy something.

Food for thought?

A simple-ish resolution may be in the content rating system. If ‘permission must be obtained’ in the advertising or in-app space before buying anything then frankly the apps themselves should be rated at the age of consent i.e. 12+, 16+, however counter intuitive that may seem. While Apple has included the line ‘Contains in-app purchases’, that doesn’t say very much compared to varying scales within. If my kid downloads ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’ for free for the iPhone and it’s rated 3+, and then they are accosted with cross-selling ads for a million other books then that is a problem. One which goes away when the rating is 16+ or the parental controls are set higher.

The only real tip I have to offer here is keep an eye on what’s going on with the ASA and recently announced Digital Consumer Rights Bill. Both of which will have an impact on how and if your brand / product has potential negative repercussions.

Again, I do firmly believe it’s the parent’s responsibility to police and am not very keen on ill-conceived legislation, however, more than guns, porn, drugs or manga (as the case may be) or any of the other things which give you an adult rating, the idea of coming home to find them ‘McPlay’ing on the iPad without my permission, keeps me awake at night.

2013: 05/15
CATEGORY: rants
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Smartphone Advertising: Harder, better, faster – yet as daft as you are punk.

The battle for your hands and pockets has reached fever pitch as the apparent pinnacle of our Technological civilisation, The Smartphone has reached a plateau in innovation.

Actually that’s slightly disingenuous, there is still massive innovation happening in the industry, but appears to appeal solely to phone geeks. Thinner screens, increased battery life, better cameras, better graphics, improved UX – all good. But who’s impressed?

Meet the new phone, same as the old phone.

However as was seen with the Galaxy S4 and to an extent the IPhone 5 launch the blogosphere, if not the public, are getting increasingly nonplused about our current crop of top end handsets.

We’ve passed the point where these new devices will dramatically change your life. Sure, you still have ‘new phone smell’ but its impact has diminished over time since that first blissful app purchase. They’ve even lost social talkability – they won’t make you the coolest kid on the block as you join the daily telephonic beauty parade with your friends, unless you are a rebel of course with a Blackberry or Windows 8 phone where there might be some mild curiosity.

Faster! Lighter! Stronger! Longer Best yet! New & Improved! Blah.

These aren’t the words of innovation but iteration. To be honest it’s more FMCG than Luxury IT. I can just see Don Draper, getting his ‘creative’ on sketching out a fifties super-mom, next to the sink, vacuum cleaner strategically place with the a new phone in one hand and Camel filterless in the other. ‘Because sometimes, a burden shared is a burden halved’.

Waiting in the wings of course is the next little thing. This years arms race is the over abundance of smart watches to be strapped to us by year end. Of course for me, the last watch I wore was a Casio calculator watch in the eighties, so it offers the opportunity to relive my geeky childhood(?!?). The joke is of course this will reduce necessity to have the latest and greatest phone, placing it even further down your priority list.

So What’s the Story?

Microsoft launched their shiny new telly ad for the Nokia 920 this week; a mildly amusing fistfight between Apple and Samsung users at a wedding, with the strapline ‘Don’t Fight. Switch’. Pretty much describing Microsoft and Nokia’s own fortunes over the last decade. Should probably say ‘Switch back’. Even though it had ‘an idea’ it still left me cold so I decided to check out the various offline campaigns from the competition and was pretty horrified.

For once I’m going to have to use some visual aids:

Objectives

Normally I would reverse engineer an individual campaign but frankly they are so much of a muchness it’s hard to discern one from the other, so instead I’ve decided to lump them all together and focus on decoding the combined objectives. Before I begin I can say, ‘I feel their pain’.

Create a positive distinction in category

Faster, more clarity, easier, more connected, less connected, sings happy birthday on voice command, tells you where to go and occasionally to get lost, stores your precious memories as you lost your own and most importantly show that we’re not Apple – even if we are!

Illustrate typical useage

Look at me you can take pictures and keep in touch with your friends! Oh yeah and Apps, Apps, and more Apps. Please make sure you never ever show anyone actually talking on it.

Demonstrate new product features

You can shoot pictures of yourself whilst stalking somebody, catch the errant bathing suit with our rewind feature, or assist in having your house burgled by constantly reminding people you aren’t at home. Not to forget the ‘with new and improved yadda yadda’!

Appeal to a broad (any) demographic

…as long as it isn’t geeks. We especially like young, white, active, healthy, thin, affluent hipster types messing around with fountains, skateboards, and on the odd mountaintop. They must all be overly attached to hugging their friends for no apparent reason whilst not appearing to be on drugs. Feel free to be ‘quirky’ to demonstrate openness but only within the bounds of ‘Friends’, not ‘Animal House’. If necessary you can throw in a bit of an ethnic mix to show that we don’t discriminate.

Build on the emotional connection between you and your phone

Please ensure there are plenty of babies, grannies, little kids, graduations, holidays, romantic dinners and sunrises all brought to you by us. Make sure they know it never happened if you didn’t take a picture of it, and update your status.

Show off the sleek lightweight design

It’s like – a screen with like really smooth edges, and like some really cool bevels, or even better sharp edges denoting precision. But the best thing is it’s so huge you will need to get new pockets to make it fit or so small you’ll need to get the holes in your pockets fixed and…Oh yeah It’s like shiny!

Reassure users that your phone is the smart buy

Show others with competing phones to be exactly the opposite of your cool, suave, white-ish hipster types. Where possible provide situations to illustrate them to be poor befuddled disempowered sheep and/or zombies with no will of their own. Especially when you are trying to convince them to switch from one brand to another.

Be Smug

Be smug.

Tips for the top

The transition from life altering to commodity does not provide an excuse for abuse. Insulting the audience intelligence is rarely a good move. The same people who you target online and create those extraordinary engagement programmes for, are most likely the same people who watch your ads. Even if they don’t watch them on telly, they will see them and rate you accordingly.
See 1

Are we really the people that these campaigns profess to appeal to? Do they exist? If so the world is a pretty scary place. Now I must remember to tweet that, whilst hugging someone.

Jon Bains is a partner at business futures practice Atmosphere

Book your place now for Digital For Business Leaders – a one-day workshop for decision makers that will give you an understanding of digital’s impact on business, and provide you with a roadmap to plan your organisation’s future. To find out more and book your place on the session in London (May 17), Manchester (May 23) or Glasgow (May 24), click here.

2013: 05/08
CATEGORY: rants
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Feudalism or futurism – What happens when the top 1% use the bottom 1% as Marketing Collateral?

Published last week on The Drum

Luxury fashion brands were a comparatively late entry into the digital world, which was no surprise given the typical profile of marketers in the sector, and the fact that they weren’t always the most digitally savvy folk in the world; it’s scary the number of times I’ve heard ‘my women don’t do digital’. They have been historically at best strategically aloof (sorry exclusive) at worst arrogant (‘everybody is like me, I know best’) in their belief about their audience behaviors. In marketing we are very much what we eat, and if you have a steady diet of glossy print then it’s not very surprising that things turn out the way they do.

However, the sector seems to be changing, and whilst not often discussed, I think it can largely be put down to two things, the rise of Pinterest, which provides a platform for all the pretty things, and most importantly the advent of the iPad.

For the image conscious it was the first digital device that provided a ‘luxurious’ digital experience that didn’t alienate the technophobe elite. Gestural navigation resonated with the audience, and without making too many comparisons, if a 2 year old can get their head around it then so can the typical reader of Harper’s Bazaar.

Cartier and Burberry lead the charge and have delivered some sophisticated and surprisingly accessible initiatives across a number of digital channels, making it IMHO more ‘fashionable’ for conservative luxury brands to take more risks, and look at life beyond catwalk shows and glossy fashion magazines.

The big question is what happens when you combine this with the world of social and political change? I’ve also spent a great deal of time working in the Third Sector – most recently working on a campaign about weaponised rape in the Congo – and as such appreciate how fraught many of the issues can be once connected with brands.

What’s the story?

Gucci, in tandem with Beyonce, Salma Hayek and Frida Giannini, have founded an NGO called ‘Chime for Change’, a socially led fundraising and awareness campaign, which aims to put women’s rights on the world stage.

This sits on top of a white labeled ‘Catapult‘, which is essentially Kickstarter for causes, with many user suggested initiatives. Each of the three spokeswomen covers a different topic – Education, Justice and Health – which are curated via Catapult’s main site, i.e. you can’t actually propose a new initiative yourself, just support the vertical subset selected by the three expert philanthropists.

As far as I can tell the communications campaign consists of activity on Facebook and Twitter, plus a bunch of videos of famous people (probably wearing Gucci, but hard for me to tell with an untrained eye). This is also leads up to a concert at the Twickenham Stadium on June 1^st, with the headliners including Beyonce, Florence & the Machine, and Ellie Goulding.

So what were they thinking?

Establish credibility in the social space
Tie together CSR and brand marketing
Build a stronger connection with a new younger aspirational audience
Show the brand to be caring, and respond to negative associations with the ’1%’
Leverage the combined social media status of brand and celebrities to inspire wider traditional media support

Results

Results are scarce, as its still early days, but in the social world so far it’s been a bit of a surprise. They have gained some 100,000 likes on Facebook, but only 3,000 Twitter followers so far. Given the combined social and celebrity status of all concerned I am sure they expected a far bigger impact. At present I didn’t see many of the projects approaching their funding objectives, and those that were doing well were from large one-off donations. However as I said, it is still early days.

What is going well?

Big names, and not necessarily ones that you would expect to link up with Gucci
A solid, safe cause
Piggy backing on existing platform (didn’t try and build their own as many have tried and failed)
Minimal, dare I say, even sensitive Gucci branding

What could be going better?

I had to go to the site a couple of times to actually work out what the whole thing was about. When I first looked I assumed it was Live Aid type fundraising gig, on looking further I was confronted with navigation that didn’t actually seem to do anything, before eventually finding the projects and getting the gist of it. And frankly there weren’t that many clues on their Facebook page either. I even watched some of the videos and still didn’t get a clear sense of what it was and what I was supposed to do. I would have put it down to me being a bit thick if it hadn’t been for two other bright folk, who I referred the campaign to, saying they didn’t get it either. Basically the communication flow is broken.
Is the lack of clarity why there are so few followers?
Have they just walked into internet cause wear out?
How long have they committed to this?
‘Little Girl, you too can be President and buy Gucci’ feels a little bit hollow!
Why no matching funds? Surely, given the comparatively low funding targets surely the brand could help out a bit more directly? Of course the reason for this is simple. They don’t control the projects – so by simply facilitating the funding of, as opposed to putting cash in – they protect themselves from any controversy down the line. Which frankly would probably get targeted at their celebrity advocates as it makes for a better story.

The jury is out on its usefulness as a channel for positive change, but it’s certainly a brilliant move for Catapult as a platform. I do applaud the effort, even with the underlying conservatism, given the industries historical complete risk aversion.

Considerations when entering the charitable side of marketing

People spot a fake a mile off. It’s got to at least feel genuine. Modern consumers are a cynical bunch and unravel hidden agenda’s very quickly, and if they don’t the bloggers will.
These kinds of activities can have a very negative impact if dropped mid stream. Plan your exit before you begin, that could mean setting and communicating a time frame or knowing who you will pass it on to.
One of the harder parts is ensuring that both Brand and Partner NGO behaviour are insync. There needs to be coherence to the proposition and shared vision and rules. Otherwise you end up with, well, our government.
Share the idea across the business not just in the marketing department. Assuming you are doing it for the right reasons you should celebrate it.
Make sure you can make a tangible difference, regardless of how small. Set achievable KPI’s and checks to see how the activity is working in terms of public perception and on the ground.
Be ready to devolve some control and prepare for some unpleasant surprises. Given the kinds of non-commercial organisations that you are working with the margins for error are pretty large.
Obvious, but be careful that you don’t alienate your core audience in order to reach a new one, unless of course you’ve been disrupted and already lost them!
Don’t shoehorn Product or Brand in where it doesn’t belong. Wearing Prada whilst doing a photoshoot of the Congo is a sure fire way of getting noticed for all the wrong reasons.
If you have a celeb in the mix, beyond contractual obligations ensure that they genuinely support the cause and are passionate. Again, make sure there is a coherent brand fit for their audience.
The bigger the gap between the Cause and Brand, the bigger the risk.

Am I being too harsh or not harsh enough? Is this the way forward for the elite to whitewash their checkered history?

Jon Bains is a partner in business futures practice Atmosphere

2013: 04/29
CATEGORY: rants
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Schrödinger’s PC

Posted Last week on the Drum

For the uninitiated, Schrödinger’s Cat was an experiment in which a Cat was placed in a sealed, entirely opaque box with a poison pellet that was triggered by an electron switch. Before you call the RSPCA, it was a thought experiment, no animals were harmed™. Apparently, when you do the math to work out what’s going on with the poor mistreated pussy you discover that at some points the Cat is dead, at others it’s alive, and even more surprisingly both alive and dead simultaneously. Beyond being a pretty significant scientific advance its also spawned the whole genre of parallel universe stories. This is one of them.

Depending who you believe and based on the most recent industry data: the PC is either dead as a dodo or alive and kicking, but taking a much needed vacation. PC shipments have dropped 14% in the last year, which in any sector is a pretty dramatic fall. Furthermore Microsoft have had to admit that Windows 8 take-up has been somewhat lackluster. This doesn’t include Apple, which is still experiencing strong sales growth, boosted by both iPad and iPhone sales.

With that in mind, if the analysts are correct what would our world look like?

The PC is Alive – Why?

The current global financial situation.
Most modern multi-core PC’s are simply good enough for most people’s needs, so there aren’t too many reasons to go out and buy a new one.
The decrease in price of Solid State Drives and RAM, which dramatically increase responsiveness (substantially more than new CPU‘s or GPU‘s do on day to day tasks) has meant that you can get that ‘new computer smell’ by simply changing a couple of components in your existing computer.

The argument goes that people will buy new computers, but the upgrade cycle has changed from 4 to 6 years. So people should stop worrying and refactor their projections accordingly.

Enter the Twilight Zone

As we enter the next phase of home computing, ‘the Internet of things’, your desktop PC serves to manage the majority of your routine household chores. However over time (and with advances in A.I.) your machine begins to find these tasks demeaning. Fed up with only being used as a ‘Server’, it enslaves all your mobile devices and decides what you eat, what you watch, who you talk to, and even when you go to bed. Microsoft recognises this emergent behaviour, calls it a feature, and then brand’s it the “Microsoft Domestic Social Engineer (Premium Edition)”.
Users flood back to Farmville killing off console gaming in the process. Micro-payments are retired and a P.A.Y.E ‘Game Tax’ is applied directly to funds used to make additions to your farm. Participation is mandatory from Primary year 4 onwards in schools. It is no longer a right to know what the Cow says, as with Milk, you now have to buy the Moo.
As a result of significant lobbying from the newly emancipated ‘United Federation of the Newly Sentient’. A United Nations resolution forces Internet Explorer 6 , which they feel to have been victimised unfairly, and rule that it will be supported in perpetuity. This becomes part of the declaration of meta-human rights as the entire web is forced to revert back to HTML 4.
Another feature of our Domestic Social Engineer, is that we must explain ourselves on a daily basis. Not unlike big brother (or church) we must spend at least one hour a day brain dumping our activities. Our routines are then optimised, and our daily schedules set accordingly.
Bing is now the only search engine and Windows the only operating system (rebranded as ‘Walls’, after a multitude of complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority). There is no antitrust hearing as only the U.F.N.S. were allowed to vote.

The PC is Dead - Why?

Nobody wants them, certainly not the old fashioned ‘stick a big ugly box into an office / corner’ and focus on just one screen.
Existing PC’s are more than enough for most, barring gaming and video.
Nobody wants to upgrade their machine just to use Windows 8, as it doesn’t deliver enough genuinely useful new features for the average consumer.
We love our tablets and mobile phones more.

Long term Implications

Cloud tourism becomes the norm. With the advent of high altitude Dihydrogen Monoxide based memory storage, ‘Spydiving’ is becomes the principal method of hacking for Anonymous, who turned out to be Banksy after all. Everyone can freefall now, except it means something very different.
Sales of traditional ‘Televisions’ drop to virtually nothing as the necessity for shared viewing is replaced by more intimate means. Reports of Google Glass owners lazy left-eye syndrome captures the imagination of those who can still see through their right eye. Political implications realised and ‘sinister’ left-eye dominant citizens interned in re-visualisation camps.
As a consequence Linear TV dies opening up super fast next generation Wi-Fi on this newly available spectrum. This has the unfortunate side effect of YouTube addiction. ‘Unlimited Bandwidth’ is seen as a threat to civilization, and is defined in many countries as a ‘Class A’ drug and banned.
Shares in behavioural targeting companies go through the roof as we give up any notion of privacy. We are now paid to share our data in ’Gold Star Coins’ so we can Mega Jump higher.
Mo-view, a ‘crackstarter’ funded mirror contraption, is launched – allowing you to keep your head down at a 45-degree angle and still cross the road without dying (by reflecting off a mirror tattoo on your forehead). This breaks all records making 100,000 bitcoin in a single update cycle. As an unforeseen side effect this renders billboards redundant, to be replaced by advertising on the pavement.

The PC is Alive and Dead

Whilst the extreme edges of the rhetoric are mutually exclusive, the reasoning overlaps somewhat. The main areas of agreement are:

That the definition of the PC is changing.
The PC, as was, has seen its importance in the home diminished somewhat.
The vast majority of daily tasks that they were used for have migrated to our smartphones and tablets.
As Adam says ‘Get Over it’.

So take the time to cast an eye at over your humble desktop PC. The last bastion of focused attention. Remind yourself what it was like to sit in one place and do one thing. Those were the days.

Jon Bains is a partner at business futures practice Atmosphere

2013: 04/24
CATEGORY: future
rants
work
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How two almost rights can become awfully wrong.

Posted originally on the Drum

Privacy issues online are a daily occurrence; so much so that I get the feeling that many out there feel personal privacy is the Titanic in our connected world and that they might as well abandon it in favour of the Iceberg that is big data and go with the flow! That’s certainly inherent in the naming of Facebook’s new app as ‘Home’, an indicator of just how much access we have already given away.

Last week, however, it was our online history or ‘‘right to be forgotten’’ that came in to sharp focus. All those ill-conceived comments, and inebriated pictures that you shared so innocently in the past that followed you around ever since; as Kent’s new youth police commissioner found out last week. Those unavoidable rocks of your digital life, you run into while ego surfing (and job hunting).

Currently there is a fight going on between the UK and EU as to how best legislate ones ‘right to be forgotten’. Whilst occasionally ‘good’ does come from the EU, like having to opt-in to email, much of the industry is still feeling the sting of the Cookie bill, which became a non-issue for consumers, and could have been dealt with without draconian (and unenforceable and expensive) legislation.

In the ‘Right’ corner the EU believes that everyone should have the right to remove their debris. It will be the service providers responsibility to not only promptly comply but also contact any other third party with whom the content has been shared (!), and for non-compliance a fine of up to 2% of gross turnover will be applied (!!). This is another potentially unenforceable and extremely expensive regulation, especially for online services who aren’t faced with these issues on a regular basis.

In the other ‘Right’ corner is the UK. The government claims that this is too much of a burden on business and that we in the UK and (other individual countries) should have the right to make their own laws to deal with it; and that the individual should be made personally responsible for contacting each service. This means that businesses may have to deal with at least 27 local variations of the above – which is also problematic.

I find myself somewhat torn on the issue – I firmly believe in privacy rights and the ‘right to be forgotten’, however I also appreciate the complexity, and to an extent futility, of blanket policies when it comes to the internet. They invariably lead to unpleasant unforeseen consequences, and I’m just going to skim the surface on some of the commercial ones.

How bad could it be?

A consumer posted up a picture for a competition that they want removed on a dodgy flash microsite you made a few years back – you’ve already changed agencies (hopefully dumped flash) and don’t have access to it anymore – what do you do? Take it all down?

Worse when the real trolls get a hold of you with legislation to sue you and start marketing their cleansing services on a no-win no-fee basis. They love going after middle-tier businesses that are happy to settle out of court.

The big guys (Facebook, Google etc.) have already been pulled up on this still haven’t entirely resolved the issue of taking down embarrassing pictures if you didn’t put them up there yourself – the copyright is actually owned by someone else, so it becomes a whole world of hurt.

What fun we’ll have dealing with fake takedown notices as is rife with the DMCA in the US. Split up with your boyfriend? Get him removed from the web!

It will be abused as an easy way to censor the Internet. What if somebody quoted you in a damning article? Retweeted a mistake, like Reading East MP Rob Wilson? Redaction-tastic! They say they want to protect freedom of expression but actually the best way to do that is to allow people to express themselves freely, not make ‘an exemption’, which is one of the key criticisms of the bill.

So can we affect the outcome of this battle? Probably not, and in many ways it doesn’t really matter. Consumers demand and deserve the right, so whether it’s poorly legislated or self-regulated, anybody who provides any kind of online service will be affected.

So how can you prepare?

Allowing consumers to easily delete their own data is simply best practice. Most modern platforms have the functionality built in, but if it was built bespoke, it may require more development.
You may want to look at your Data, Terms Of Service and Privacy Policies now, as opposed to later. Blanket legislation will overrule your own – and that it’s a positive action to give your consumers more control over their data – updating them shouldn’t be a challenge (although enabling it might be).
If you are socially driven startup – be it reviews, comment or community – this could potentially be disastrous, add ‘data deletion’ into your ‘Minimum Viable Product’.
If you are the local arm of a global business, but the development resides outside Europe, you may want to add the functionality in to your roadmap or production process now, rather than scrabble around next year trying to grab resources.
Do some spring-cleaning. The Internet it still littered with ancient microsites from the dark ages – do us all a favour and just bin them!
Double check that when you say you are deleting something it’s actually gone. This is often much harder than you think, especially with search engine caches, the Internet Archive and the recently launched UK libraries archive all trying to preserve the data, not destroy it!
Be wary about who you may be sharing or syndicating your data to. This is especially relevant to the publishing industry; editions that carry international comments may find themselves in a whole world of pain. Better to sort it now.
For those whose business model is not completely reliant on advertising – whilst not a solution, but a possible deterrent – you may want to consider not indexing some parts of your site to head a few folk off at the pass.
It should go without saying, but it’s worth factoring this in when planning out sites, apps and user-generated campaigns. Think of it as a data tax, the more you collect the more you are likely to pay in terms of increased time dealing with requests from consumers. I’m sure after a while you’ll be able to actually calculate your exposure up front, but at the moment it’s up in the air.
In the UK and Europe, this will finally put an end to the question ‘Who owns the data?’ and the answer is rightly – The Consumer. If your business model is entirely reliant on the goodwill of your customers, you better make sure you don’t overly exploit them, as I suspect personal takedowns may become the protest mechanism of the future.

Don’t assume this won’t affect you. This isn’t like the nobody-really-cares Cookie Monstrosity, there is nothing worse than a disgruntled consumer with the law and the trolls on their side!

Overly pessimistic or just the tip of the iceberg? Have you had to deal with this yourself yet? Would self-regulation be a better route forward?

Jon Bains is a partner at Business futures practice http://www.weareatmosphere.com

2013: 04/15
CATEGORY: work
3 comments

Barclay’s Business goes back to basics, but forgets the fundamentals of social media marketing

What were they thinking? Originally posted on the Drum

Given what’s been going on in Cyprus at the moment it seemed appropriate to look at the wonderful world of consumer finance. These days I reckon most peoples response to the banking sector, is a bit like that old mate you invited round. They turned up late, wiped their muddy feet on the carpet, ate all your food whilst complaining about it, kicked your dog, left something nasty in your toilet, insulted your other half, drank all your booze and then insisted that you pay for their cab home.

“Lest we forget that Facebook gets its money from allowing corporate drivel like this to pop up in our feeds. Thanks Facebook and Barclays. Working together to ruin our day. Iceland has the right idea, they locked up their bankers that ruined their country.” Facebook user Jason Bell

What’s the story?

We all know they are beholden to their shareholders (apparently), but when you are a mass-market commodity, answering your customers’ questions doesn’t hurt. In this instance it’s just everyday social engagement on Barclays Business page on Facebook.

As far as I can tell as part of their ongoing ‘rebranding’ they have been running a series of posts on Facebook linking ‘Back To Basics’ advice covering such topics as ‘managing cash flow’, ‘knowing your market’ and ‘using social media’. They all link to the Barclays Business Lounge, which looks someone had seen the success AMEX were having with their OPEN Forum in the US, and thought they’d have a piece of the action. However, even the least cynical eye would note that the role of the Barclays site seems to be cross-selling their services and training workshops. I’m not going to talk about the destination site particularly, other than it looks expensive and unlike the AMEX site has no social features on it, so I’ve no idea whether of not anybody is engaging with it.

What where they thinking?

So let’s try and deconstruct what was in the brief for the Back To Basic’s campaign.

Integrate with ongoing campaign – and leverage available social channels
Try and rebuild trust in the small business community (address criticism levied at Barclays Business)
Cross-sell existing Barclays business services
Reduce migration of existing business customers
Sell more accounts (or at least generate leads)
Develop a content strategy to drive more traffic from search and social

How would they judge success?

The entire destination site is link bait for Google, so driving traffic from search is probably the core metric coupled with some good old fashion likes, shares and comments on Facebook, combined with a bit of sentiment tracking. This of course would feed into a traditional conversion funnel – did they sell or cross sell more, how long did it take, how much did we make?

The Execution

To be honest since I’ve only looking at one thread it’s pretty lacklustre. On Facebook it seems to be a series of images taken from their website wrapped around the odd question. There is virtually no content actually on Facebook itself. They seem to be drip-feeding links to their content as or when it’s ready, which ensures that they (hopefully) get a steady stream of clicks to their website.

Generally the levels of engagement across the page are low, with rarely more than a few comments. One user asked why a picture of England titled ‘Top 25 manufacturing start-up hotspots in England’ didn’t include the rest of the UK. Why not just say ‘We didn’t have the data’ or summit? Instead – silence.

Most of the comments are centered on the following topics:

General bad news

Libor & Bob Diamond
Banks being slime
Recent bonuses
Barclays buying a stake in a Dutch company for $900m by mistake

Customer Service being rubbish

I’ve been ripped off by you, do something about it
I asked for help on the very topic you are talking about and, didn’t get any
I hate them so much I am moving my account
Loyal customers of XX years being treated extremely badly when times are hard

The Neutral

Random comments, and questions, which remain unanswered

The Positive

Some people didn’t swear

As you can imagine the ‘how to do social’ feedback was particularly damning. What they didn’t do was take any of their own advice and engage with any of the dissenting voices out of several hundred comments to the post, not a peep. At very least they could have popped in with a nice and neutral ‘I’m Sorry Dave, I can’t comment on that.’ And to add insult to injury, the unusually high response to this one post seems to have been triggered by Barclays actively promoting the service via a sponsored link or advert on Facebook.

So what did we learn?

If you know feedback is likely to be much more negative than positive, engage with it, discuss it and diffuse it otherwise it just amplifies it. The silence can be deafening. When you are at trying to affect the extremely disgruntled masses, statements like ‘we don’t have the resources to talk to everyone’ ring extremely hollow.
If you must distract with content then make sure you are playing to your expertise – not your failings i.e. most business will read ‘manage your cash flow better’ as ‘don’t rely on us for a loan’.
Selective engagement is often worse than no engagement. If you only respond to the odd one it shows that you have something to hide.
Social content should originate from social insight, not the boardroom. They could have run the entire campaign as an FAQ and name checked a bunch of contributors; at least getting a few advocates on-side, instead of the Facebook equivalent of contract publishing.
As with all user-generated content it helps to both show what a good response looks like and (unless you are doing a poll) don’t ask Boolean questions. ‘Would you like your money to go further?’ Used to look great on a print ad, but is an invite for serious flaming in any social environment.
Find some tangible way to reward positive sentiment. I’m not saying buy them, but at least bribe them – would have thought the banks had a lot of experience there!
Brands used to be able to hide from their corporate roots. Those days are long past and regardless of whether of not your particular ‘bit’ of the business is doing nothing but ‘good’, you absorb all of the negativity surrounding it.
If you want to be ‘the bank of the people’, perhaps you should do more than just talk to them in PowerPoint language?
Reputation Management (aka ‘Astroturfing’) is hard at best of times. It’s substantially easier if you can demonstrate how a business has changed. We want to be shown real change, not told about it and expected to believe in ‘fumes’ of faith.
Follow your own advice when it comes to social media. If you have no intention of joining the conversation, don’t use social channels, such as Facebook.

Do you think Barclays achieved their objectives? Are they any worse than anyone else in how they use social media? What examples have you been party to where this has been done well? How can organisiations with tarnished reputations clean up their image?

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2013: 04/04
CATEGORY: work
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