Facial Recognition Advertising - a privacy step too far?

A couple of columns ago I wrote about temperature controlled ad boards that displayed advertisements depending on what the ambient temperature is. That is a clever use of technology but what happens when the lines between technology, advertising and privacy are blurred?

Most people are now all too familiar with online behavioural advertising where you visit a site and miraculously ads from that site seem to follow you around the web. It is of course impossible to drop a little piece of computer code onto a human being to get the same effect. However now thanks to Sir Alan and one of his subsidiary companies, Amscreen, we are getting close to that.

Amscreen has 5,000 digital advertising boards across Europe and they are now fitting facial recognition cameras to billboards. This will show whether the people looking at the billboard are male or female and potentially even approximate age allowing the boards to deliver more targeted advertising.

It does not stop there. Students at the European Institute of Technology are currently exploring the ability to link Facebook accounts to the computer chips in store loyalty cards. These would then link to in-store ad boards that would flash up ads based on a person’s Facebook likes.

At this point you then get into the big question of privacy. In America the upscale retailer Nordstrom ran a trial of a system that tracked individuals’ movements through their smart phones’ in-store Wi-Fi connections. Sensors within the store collected information from customer smartphones as they attempt to connect to Wi-Fi service. The sensors monitored which departments were visited and how much time was spent in them. When this was released in the media the consumer backlash about privacy quickly ended the trial.

The reality is as technology gets smarter, so will advertising and its ability to engage but potentially also annoy and invade. A marketer’s dream, but how much consumers will be prepared to put up with remains to be seen.

Tim Youngman is Director of Marketing for Archant

The Colgate Brushswap Saga - marketing lessons from Colgate and Philips

It’s a sad but true fact that one of the best way to learn in business if from others mistakes and I would like to share an absolute classic from Colgate. Colgate’s brand has grown from toothpaste to toothbrushes and now electric toothbrushes.

The latter is a very competitive market with brands such as Philips and Braun’s Oral B spending vast sums on TV advertising. So you can sympathise with the marketing team at Colgate when thinking how they could make some noise about the launch of its new electric toothbrush.

What they came up with was BrushSwap. Create a viral noise by having a stand at Waterloo station for a week followed by another at London Victoria station for a week. At the stand commuters could swap their old electric toothbrushes for a brand new Colgate ProClinical toothbrush billed as being worth £170. A great idea you might think, or was it?

The problem with giving away free stuff and announcing it on social media is that it tends to get shared, a lot. On the first day people starting queuing at the stand at 5am, it wasn’t planned to open until 7am. By 9am they were forced to shut the stand after being swamped by people and having run out of brushes. Cue lots of annoyed people who had travelled to London to get this seemingly great offer taking to social media to vent their anger and Colgate trying to respond and explain the situation via twitter.

To be fair to Colgate on paper it was a good idea using a tried and trusted technique. The reality was different.  Colgate has now learnt not to underestimate the reach of social media to spread both a good message and a bad one when things go wrong. It has also moved the initiative online to an open to all draw for one of 7,000 brushes they are giving away. Network Rail is also reviewing what promotional opportunities it allows after numerous complaints from angry commuters caught in the chaos.   

Maybe the real lesson comes from Philips who placed a press ad appearing in national newspapers reading, "The best things in life aren’t free." The ad had an image of the Philips Sonicare electric toothbrush and the strapline, "The UK’s No1 sonic toothbrush. And worth every penny." Now that’s marketing.

Tim Youngman is director of marketing for Archant 

Temperature controlled outdoor advertising – as hot as the weather

The world of advertising likes to paint a picture perfect world of British summertime for particular products. For example, you never see cider ads with people sitting in a pub garden huddling under umbrellas hiding from the rain while wearing jumpers.

It’s often forgotten that bad summer weather causes problems for brands as well as tennis players and farmers. Brands can spend hours and weeks carefully crafting a campaign for their product based on the good feelings generated by good weather, only for it to be completely ruined by it showing during a period of inclement rain and cold. Despite this every summer we are faced with ads filled with images of picture perfect summers days, even when they are the exception and not the norm.

However for every problem there is someone somewhere coming up with a solution and in this case it is, and I am not joking here, temperature controlled ad panels.

Stella Artois is now running ad slots across outdoor advertising company Posterscope digital poster boards for its Cidre brand. When the temperature rises two degrees or more above the average in the specific location using real time data an ad appears for the cider brand.

Costa Coffee has run a two month campaign on the London Underground working with CBS Outdoor who manage the ad slots there and who were pioneers of digital outdoor advertising. They promoted Costas Ice Cold Costa range on the underground network when the temperature went above 22 degrees Celsius. The ads were location specific so when the temperature went up, a digital panel at a station exit not only delivered a promotional message but also direct underground users to the nearest Costa outlet that they could buy an Ice Cold shake.

Not only is this enormously clever but it will also reduce a lot of wasted spend and effort. Ad slots based on increased pollen counts are now also being introduced and this no doubt is just the start of a whole new advertising concept with winter brands already being lined up for temperature based campaigns. So weather sensor based advertising is here and will grow, all we need now is some hot weather!

Tim Youngman is Director of Marketing for Archant www.about.me/timyoungman

Little Chef – the product life cycle and the death of a brand

A few readers may be familiar with the product life cycle concept. This describes the stages a product goes through from when it was first thought of, to launch, growth, maturity, decline and in some instances death. Death of a product is normally caused by such causes as technological obsolescence, massive public distrust or reaction caused by a scandal and in some instances they have just had their time. One such brand which is facing such a fate and which holds deep memories for many, including myself, is Little Chef.

Little Chef was founded by a gentleman called Sam Alper who actually ran a caravn making business in East London. He launched it after trips to America, enjoying its roadside diners which gave a much different experience to the road side cafés in the UK. From his first restaurant in Reading in 1958 grew a British institution that created such entries into the British psyche as the Olympic Breakfast and Jubilee Pancakes.

The iconic Fat Charlie sign dominated the roadsides of Britain for 50 years but from its heyday in the 1980’s consumer habits changed. Roads became better, as did cars and long journeys therefore became less arduous and stops became more infrequent and shorter. Petrol stations offered coffee and decent sandwiches, well they offered sandwiches. Fast food outlets opened on the roadside offering a modern quick option for the weary driver. The words “lets stop for a happy meal” started to have an impact on families tired of bickering children in the back of the car.

Since 2000 the Little Chef business has been bought and sold a number of times and also been in administration. Each time outlets were closed and its grip on the roadside catering industry loosened. It tried different strategies such as in 2004 hiring a brand agency who thought the problem was Fat Charlie and re-drew him as a thinner version promoting 15,000 complaints. Some success came in 2009 when Heston Blumenthal updated the menus complete with Channel 4 documentary but this was a drop against a tide. 

Now the business is once again up for sale but today it only has 78 outlets from its heyday of over 400 in the Eighties with 67 outlets closing last year alone. Bids have been received from McDonalds, Starbucks, Costa and Kentucky Fried Chicken any of whom, if successful, are expected to close and rebrand to their own brands.

So let’s return to the product life cycle. Numerous books have been written on the subject with many more on how products and brands can avoid the latter terminal stage. Many brands have managed to avoid death through revitalising strategies anything from brand extentions, re-positioning and even simply changing your packaging. One of the best often quoted examples is Oil of Olay once a mothers day gift favourite and now a multi-million, multi-brand extension cosmetic powerhouse. 

Sometimes though even if you change the packaging and adjust what’s underneath, if its not what the consumer wants then the inevitable will happen. So it looks certain that in a very short time the iconic roadside image of Little Chef will be consigned to brand history. Without the occasional death there would be no new life. So next time you stop at the services please raise your Costa or Starbucks as you eat your M&S or Waitrose sandwich in memory.

Tim Youngman is director of marketing for Archant www.about.me/timyoungman

Wearable computing – computing is about to get very personal

Another couple of hours spent researching the difference between a Jawbone Up, Fitbit Flex and Nike Fuelband helped me decide on the topic for this week’s column. Those names will probably mean nothing to most readers. For those who are into fitness, or just worry about making sure they are getting enough exercise, those names are probably familiar.

They are glorified pedometers, those things given away with healthy breakfast cereals a few years ago that when clipped to your belt told you that you had not walked enough that day. Today they are fully computerised and not only tell you how far you have walked but everything from how many calories you have burnt to even how well you have slept. This is all backed by various apps for your phones and websites where you can further depress yourself on how you are failing in your keep fit targets.

They and those like them are examples of the new trend in wearable computing. The current epitome of which is the Google Glass which looks like a pair of glasses with a small screen over one eye. With it users can access the Internet, take pictures and videos that you can send straight to your Twitter or Facebook account and even have directions up in front of your eye. It’s on limited sale in the US now for $1,500 and will be sold worldwide from the end of this year. It has already created mixed opinions, mainly to do with it making the user looking very, very geeky and also worrying many about personal privacy issues. Some US restaurants are even asking customers wearing them to remove them to protect the privacy of other clientele.

The company that has the real pedigree of changing the way the world uses technology (listening to music, accessing the internet through our phones) has now effectively admitted the long rumoured Apple iWatch. Tim Cook, CEO of Apple stated at the All Things Digital Conference in the US that wearable computers will likely be "another key branch" of the Apple tree adding “the wrist is natural”. When they do release one it will be marketed to a world awash with existing iPhone and iPod users keen and ready to try the new toy. You can also be sure it will only be compatible with iPhones, iPads and iOS devices and not anything Windows or Andriod based. Unsurprisingly therefore, Samsung and others have also announced they too are working on wrist based devices that will work with those operating systems and probably do everything but tell the time.

Where wearable computing will end up is anyone’s guess and I have learnt not to predict.  One example though came from Tom Staggs, the chairman of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, who last week announced the MagicBand, a wristband that stores information about consumers' identity and preferences, allowing Disney characters to greet guests by name. The ongoing trends of personalisation, big data and potentially even closer targeting of advertising just continue to get bigger. Whether you think this is exciting or just plain creepy I will leave you to decide. As a marketer I know where I stand, I just need to decide which one to wait for!

Tim Youngman is director of marketing for Archant www.about.me/timyoungman

#Fitchthehomeless - a lesson in brand management by Abercrombie & Fitch

A recent article on an American site Business Insider mused on the fact that the clothing label Abercrombie & Fitch does not stock clothing larger than a “Large” size for women. In the article the author referenced another interview with the CEO of Abercrombie, Mike Jeffries, from way back in 2006 in Salon Magazine. Here Jeffries states the following:

“In every school there are the cool and popular kids, and then there are the not-so-cool kids,” he says. “Candidly, we go after the cool kids. We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends. A lot of people don’t belong [in our clothes], and they can’t belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely."

Despite the fact that these comments were made 7 years ago, they have spawned a new anti A&F campaign under the twitter hashtag #FitchTheHomeless. The campaign was started by an LA based film maker and writer Greg Karber who reacted to the article by videoing himself going to a local Goodwill store, buying Abercrombie and Fitch donated clothes and then donating them to homeless people in LA and encouraging others to do the same to break the brand positioning. His video on YouTube has now had over 5.7m views. But is this a PR disaster or actually just very careful and well thought out brand management personified by the CEO?

Most of the media commentary about this centres on how terrible it is that A&F do not cater for larger sized women and that makes them exclusionist. Many have also turned on its policy of only hiring good-looking employees and its habit of having bare torso male models welcoming customers into its darkened, music blaring outlets.

You might be thinking this is nothing new and just one in a long line of CEO PR gaffs. Gerald Ratner famously wiped £500 million from the value of Ratners jewellers with one speech in 1991 with the line “People say, 'How can you sell this for such a low price?' I say, because it's total crap." Or  Alain Levy, chief executive of the music company EMI, who after cutting the roster of artists on a music label they owned in Finland said it was because there were not that many people in the country "who could sing".

They were both classic examples of PR nightmares but in my opinion the comments from Mike Jeffries is actually a good example of excellent brand management. True brand management is about totally understanding both your product and your target audience. It’s about creating a passion in that audience and making them feel so part of your product that they become brand ambassadors.

For some products that mean’s that you might have to upset people outside of your chosen target, but if that’s what you have to do then that’s what you have to do. Abercrombie targets young, pretty, slim people and like it or not young, pretty and slim people do not want to be seen wearing the same clothes as old, ugly and fat people. You might not agree with their positioning but it’s what drives a multi-million dollar clothing empire. They successfully sell to their target market and those who want to be in it and statements such as those from Jeffries only reinforce that ability.    

Tim Youngman is Director of Marketing for Archant www.about.me/timyoungman

Guinness – a lesson in the changing face of marketing

A couple of weeks ago I attended a conference in Dublin with many from the Irish newspaper industry. One of the presentations from an Irish digital marketing agency called Cybercom who has a range of very well known brands as clients one being that most Irish of brands Guinness.

Guinness of course is famous for its advertising and has created some of the most iconic television campaigns over the last 20 years. From the Snail Race to the Swimmer to the multi-award winning Surfer, Guinness has made a name for pushing the boundaries of how it markets its single brand.

Guinness has constantly had to evolve its advertising and walking round the Storehouse in Dublin you can see the history of those campaigns. In the 1930’s when the print ads were the classic “My Goodness, My Guinness”, advertising was simply telling individuals what a product was, why you should buy it and where you can get it from. 

Those fundamentals have not changed but Guinness believes that successful brands are now marketing with people rather than to people. Brands must realise that people are more than consumers who purchase their goods and that they are now using and creating content, rating reviews, having multiple interest streams and are members of different communities. In doing so brands and companies must not interrupt people from what they are interested in, but somehow become what people are interested in.

Of course that is not easy in any way shape or form and is a lot easier if you are a well loved beer than, for example, a maker of screws. However the principle of moving from thinking about consumers just as people who buy stuff, to thinking about consumers as individual human beings, is a big mindset change for many.

Guinness also believe that companies now have to accept that consumers have changed and want to interact with each other and brands on 4 different types of screens. Also digital is the new operating system of the world and a modern marketers job is to understand the technology and how these channels are used to communicate with each other and brands.

To react to that Guinness has invested heavily in digital advertising and social media. Working with Cybercom they created “Insights from Inside the Ireland Camp” which is a Guinness rugby supporters Ireland community to which players delivered regular updates and value adding content.  This content was then shared across multiple distribution channels including guinness.com, an iPhone app, YouTube, Twitter and Facebook.

Cybercom, through its work with Guinness and others, have found that you may be able to speak to someone via Twitter but they are also influenced by people in other environments such as Facebook and even print and that conversation is now in a constant state of flux. Your brand should be part of the conversation but you cannot force your way into the conversation which means that you have to spend time to understand what drives and motivates your consumers.

Conferences are very good at giving you time to think and learn from others. In this case it is clear that it helps if you are company as big as Guinness with its large marketing budget. However many of the lessons that Guinness has learnt, not just in recent years, but across 9 decades of pushing the marketing envelope are applicable to all. 

Tim Youngman is director of marketing for Archant www.about.me/timyoungman