Janet Barker-Evans, Direct Lions juror
Friday, June 20, 2008 - With judging behind me, it’s been great looking at all of the work in the other categories, and I’m finding new inspiration everywhere—and it comes from all parts of the globe. Yet, whenever I run into anyone, I am repeatedly asked the same question over and over. Where was the direct work from the U.S.?
The reality is that some direct marketers, and even some sales promo folks, feel that Cannes is the bastion of general agencies. Some commented that the Direct Lions aren’t really about direct marketing at all, but about cool creative ideas masquerading as direct marketing in an attempt to win an award. Hmm.
I can’t say I completely disagree, since I sat through hundreds of direct entries and some of them are quite clearly not direct at all. But the truth is, there is a hell of a lot of innovative direct work—that truly IS direct—being done by U.S. agencies, and it simply isn’t being submitted.
Some of the smartest direct ideas I saw as a juror were simple yet
powerful examples of how direct marketing can move consumers to action.
But they weren’t all very sexy. Which may be the problem.
I have
never believed that effectiveness is gained at the expense of
creativity—in contrast, I believe that great response requires
incredible creativity. Creativity in thought and in execution, however,
are not always recognized as "good creative" when placed in a field of
work that includes more artistic work or brand awareness campaigns.
And, truth be told, direct marketing is geared toward a specific
consumer. Our audience is never intended to be a panel of judges
sitting in a conference room in the French Riviera. Our jury is the
target list, and they vote on every campaign by responding—or not. The
real award for creative and innovative direct marketing is a high
response rate.
I also subscribe to the belief that, as direct
marketers, our job is to support the brand, not define it. Akin to the
doctors’ credo to “First, do no harm,” we are to leverage the
attributes and essence of the brand to create a response.
The
beauty of direct marketing—and of sales promotion as well—is that we
actually CAN affect consumer behavior and get a response. And there are
a few things at work here that are so profoundly important to our craft
that they simply cannot be overlooked.
Direct marketing has
always been about the right message to the right person at the right
time. Sending a message to your consumer when you know they need your
product or service, or are most likely to make a purchase, is just good
business.
This is why one of my favorite campaigns in the Direct
Lions was by Bullet in Brazil for Mizuno Wave running shoes. Quite
simply, they took photographs of runners’ shoes while they were running
at a marathon, and then sent Mizuno users a "speeding ticket" (complete
with the photo) for running too fast in their Mizunos. The mailer
wasn’t very sexy—it was designed to look like a speeding ticket. So it
looked like … a speeding ticket. I argued for this campaign, but most
of the jury didn’t see the creativity I saw in it, or they dismissed it
as having been "done before."
That’s another thing that makes
Cannes a hard sell for direct marketers. When we find something that
works, we keep doing it until we find something that works better. So
we don’t devalue something for having been "done before." In fact, we
applaud it—as long as it works.
Many jurors reconciled all of
this in their minds because, they argue, there are already award shows
for "effective" direct marketing, and that Cannes should be all about
the creativity. The cool factor. The "never seen before." Cannes is a
platform for innovation and ingenuity, not for response and
effectiveness. Having now been invited to dine at the table of
creativity, many of these direct marketers have seemingly lost their
appetite for effectiveness. But let’s be honest—we’d all like to eat
dessert first.
Which is precisely why we probably don’t see more
work from the U.S. Or from other parts of the world as well. Sure,
direct marketers would love to come and join their brethren on La
Croisette once a year to celebrate the best of the best. But if what
"the best" means in direct marketing isn’t better understood by those
judging the work, and if the definition of direct as provided by the
International Advertising Festival remains as nebulous as it is, it
isn’t very likely we’ll see more effective direct marketing being
submitted anytime soon.
I would also argue, however, that many
of the award submissions were not as informative as they needed to be.
Some were overly complicated and took far too long to understand.
Others were lacking in any real information. They key for those
submitting is to quickly explain what the marketing problem was, and
how your creativity solved it.
Response was not ignored, that’s
for sure. And we made light of many entries that listed their response
as “the client loved it” or “the client wants to run this campaign
again.” Hardly an appropriate response for a DM campaign. So the judges
are indeed looking for response.
The question now is how to
package this insight back home to get more of our country’s great work
here next year. I’ll have to get back to you on that. Rest assured it
will involve a measurable DM campaign.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008 - When I first looked at JWT India’s Times of India campaign, “Lead
India,” I wasn’t sure what I was looking at. They sent along an
eight-minute video showing the campaign, the effects of the campaign,
and the execution of the various elements.
Now, anyone who has judged an award show can tell you that after a
couple of days of judging, you begin to tire of the overwritten entries
and the complicated rationales in lengthy videos. Often, the videos do
little to provide clarity about the campaign and serve only as video
adaptations of the work itself. So I wasn’t looking forward to sitting
through an eight-minute video about a direct response print ad.
Lunch discussion that day centered around “Lead India.” I’ll admit, I
was skeptical that a print ad in a newspaper was the same campaign they
were all talking about. So I was certainly not the first person to
recognize the brilliance of the “Lead India” campaign. I was actually
one of the last. But once I reviewed the campaign and really understood
what they had done, I felt the way a miner must feel when they wipe
back the dirt and reveal the sparkle of a diamond.
All week I had bemoaned the lack of targeting in so many campaigns.
And for days I had been looking for those gems—those ideas that truly
elicited a response. Ideas that in my heart of hearts I know are what
direct marketing is all about. After a long search, “Lead India” was my
reward.
To begin to understand the beauty of this campaign, you need to know a little bit about India. I come from Chicago, which is about 8,000 miles and an entire world away. But I am a student of the world, and the changes in India have certainly not escaped my attention.
India is the second largest country in the world, with a population of 1.1 billion people.
It’s a country where human trafficking exists in abundance, and widespread poverty leads parents to sell their children into slavery. Where a caste system defines your worth solely based on tnhe family you are born into. Add to that environmental issues like pollution and deforestation made worse by a growing population and increasing demands for water, food, and raw materials.
Alongside all of this is a new India. Where business and technology thrive, where advancement and education are valued and prized. The basis of the “Lead India” campaign is that there are two separate Indias. One is healthy and thriving, and the other is weak and failing. Many Indians complain about the political leadership of India, the worldview of India, and even of the many problems within the country. And the country waits for an answer.
The Times of India is the largest English-speaking newspaper in the world. Perhaps tired of waiting for the answer, it launched a campaign with a provocative manifesto on the front page of the newspaper on the very first day of India’s 60th anniversary as a nation.
Those words struck a match that lit a flame that began to burn in the hearts of Indians everywhere. I don’t think they had any idea of the response they would get to that one simple page of words.
They saw the opportunity to create a change in their world, and they invited the whole of India to step forward and lead the country into the future. And they mobilized a nation.
As direct marketing, I find it brilliant. They knew their target audience, and they knew it well. They had deep insights into the hearts and minds of the people they were talking to. And they sought a response. They asked people to log in and propose a change, and nominate themselves to “Lead India.” Some 34,000 people answered the call.
But the response goes beyond those 34,000, because people everywhere began to change their minds. They began to think differently. Act differently. As the ad itself suggests, they began to understand that they are not sitting in a traffic jam, they ARE the traffic jam. Yes, 34,000 signed up, but countless others began to hope.
And above all of this, as a key component of the most traditional direct marketing campaigns, they had one hell of a convincing offer: Do this, and you could change the world.
Friday, June 13, 2008 - Bright and early tomorrow morning the
Direct jury is meeting to review the short list, and everyone is eager
to see which campaigns have risen to the top. Over lunch today the
question was repeatedly asked, “Do you think you’ve seen the Grand Prix
yet?”
There’s another question that’s been repeatedly bandied about, and that is: “What makes something direct marketing?”
According to the official definition from the International Advertising
Festival, “the definition of Direct Marketing within Direct Lions
encompasses targeted creative communication designed to generate
response and build relationships. It is NOT limited only to work that
contains a response mechanic—coupon, phone number, etc., but should
have had some directly attributable effect on behaviour or experience.”
We’ve all seen a lot of work the past few days that feels much
less like direct and much more like everything else. Some of the Media
and Promo jurors have voiced the very
same issue—a testament, perhaps, to the changing nature of every type
of communication we create for our clients. The blurred lines make it
difficult even for those of us creating the work to place it cleanly
into one category over another. I would even argue that our clients
don’t often see the difference, nor do they care that a difference
exists. They want smart marketing that moves their business. Nothing
more.
Which is why we found ourselves questioning the very nature of direct
marketing and how it is most properly defined. If, as the definition
above suggests, direct marketing needs to be targeted, then most forms
of advertising today would qualify. Does that targeting need to be
narrow? What are the criteria for targeting? After all, TV spots are
not usually written to a target audience of “everyone.” Advertising, at
its very core, is targeted communication.
What, then, of the idea of generating a response or building a
relationship? Wouldn’t we all agree that is the most fundamental of all
objectives for each and every thing we create? And who among us would
argue against the idea that the work we do most certainly has a
directly attributable affect on consumer behavior?
Perhaps you begin to see the dilemma. The only issue more hotly debated than that this week? Who will beat whom in Euro 2008.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008 - Direct
marketing will always hold a special place in my heart because, at its
very core, it's like the extreme-sports version of advertising and
marketing. Not even considered “real sports” by some, extreme sports
have long been the outlaws of the sporting world.
Wikipedia
defines extreme sports as different from standard sports, in part “due
to the relatively higher number of inherently uncontrollable
variables.” Which, as I continue to develop this metaphor as I write,
strikes me as an odd contrast to direct marketing’s ability to
identify, measure and refine variables on an ongoing basis, often to
craft ever-increasing rates of response and return.
But alike they are—often misunderstood and maligned as somehow “less”
than their more traditional counterparts, yet a haven for those seeking
to tread the delicate sinew between thrill and skill. And today,
becoming not only more accepted, but even embraced due to changes in
technology, society and the world.
While extreme sports can thank indoor climbing walls and sticky-sole
shoes for some of their advancement, we can thank the Internet and
advances in digital technology. It escapes no one that, quite
literally, our entire industry has been transformed.
Some will argue that good direct marketing requires nothing more than
a targeted message and a measurable response. Others will contend that
measurement isn’t critical, as long as there is a targeted message to a
distinct audience. Still others will say that the audience isn’t as
important as the inclusion of a response mechanism. Such are the murky
waters that we on the Cannes Direct jury had to traverse today.
Is every banner ad direct? Can you call anything sent by mail a
direct mail piece? Is a URL enough to be a response device? The
blurring of media, messages and measurement provides a dizzying
backdrop for our challenge to seek out and identify the best direct
work submitted.
It is, however, a challenge we all passionately embrace, as was
evidenced by our conversations, arguments and very vocal points of view
on this, our first day of judging.
One thing on which we all agree? It won’t make it past any of us if it isn’t based on one hell of a good idea.
—Janet Barker-Evans is group creative director at DraftFCB and a Direct Lions juror.
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