By Andrew Roberts, Managing Partner

On 17th May we were invited by our friends at Immediate Media to speak to over 100 of their cycling contacts at The Bath Spa Hotel in Bath England.

With a mix of brands, retailers and partners we presented a provocative call to arms to get involved in social and provided 5 key principles for making social work in the Sports industry along with best in class examples including our very own Allianz 'Pass Round the World'
See the whole presentation here:

http://www.slideshare.net/ajfroberts/gravity-thinking-social-media-can-change-the-world-immediate-cycling-conference-10th-may-2016

Andrew Roberts (Originally featured in The Guardian

Mad Men’s leading man Don Draper’s maxim that “if you don’t like what’s being said, change the conversation” really stands the test of time. Brands are now controlled and shaped by consumers, and being part of this conversation is critical for brand success.

The problem is that far too many brands have misunderstood the point of this conversation economy. Yes, they are creating relevant and interesting activity, but most are simply joining the conversation. Given that organic reach on Facebook has reached a lowly 1-2%, being engaging has never been more important – and that means “changing the conversation”.

Change is a deliberately big word. Brands need to create new or refreshingly different experiences, using their content and channels carefully, to guide them through the fragile gap between awareness and dismissal.

That’s why we have our own principles for how we work with our clients to change the conversation.

Connect emotionally

The best way to a lasting committed relationship is to connect with people the way a close friend would.

Show, don’t tell

It’s not enough to talk about what you do or how good you are; you need to demonstrate it, directly, with impact and meaning.

Own something

“If you don’t stand for something, you will fall for anything.” Choose something relevant and focus on it.

Context is queen

Context is your best friend or worst enemy. Choose it wisely, study it well and be respectful.

Give, give, give, take

Take nothing for granted; in order to ask something of anyone you must earn their trust and respect first.

Give options

Don’t expect everyone to be the same; consider offering different levels of involvement.

As Oscar Wilde said: “The only one thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.” It’s a sagacious observation that applies as much today as in Don Draper’s day.

The title obviously gives away the subject but I wonder if you would have guessed it from the facts above? when I tested this on the team in recent meeting no one got it - and why would they ? after all QR codes are dull and boring right? WRONG! (IMHO) and here's why......
QR codes are well and truly here to stay - they are cropping up everywhere from gravestones to bus timetables and you can even get a tattoo with a QR code - but that doesn't mean that they are being used correctly and to their best effect - after all not everyone can be as creative and bold as ebay were recently bringing its ‘buy-it-now’ shopping experience in the form of a pop up shop to London for Christmas. to inspire your Christmas shopping by allowing people to scan a code with the eBay app on your smartphone and buy it for home delivery right there and then- they even had HTC phones on hand for the smartphone-less.
So here are Gravity thinking's top 5 tips for how to make QR codes work for you:
- LOCATION LOCATION LOCATION: Tesco in South Korea (called Tesco Homeplus)  wanted to expand their market share - the problem was that shopping was seen as a "dreadful task"   especially given the crowded nature of the country - they came up with an ingenius solution - take the store to the people by developing a virtual store in a subway where people could order using .....you've guessed it QR codes....and have shopping delivered direct to their home. So an innovative solution to a difficult challenge - one point of warning - remember where the audience is located - in South Korea they have mobile phone access on subways - Red Bull forgot this in the US and ran a QR code campaign in subways and Continental committed a similar gaffe on a plane.
- CTA - As the use of QR codes spreads it is inevitable that people will become immune to them and the challenge is then to drive scans in the first place -  The August/September 2011 issue of VIBE Magazine introduces the first ever interactactive trend issue of VIBE. The 5 page spread features 7 QR codes and exclusive mobile landing pages connecting readers to valuable trend information and trusted e-tailors to buy.
- CONTENT IS KING: As with all social and digital work if you have done the hard work of getting someone to act then please please please ensure that the place they end up is relevant and engaging and above all mobile compatible don't just send them t your PC compatible website ! The recent CNN Republican Presidential Debate was a great example - they delivered QR codes throughout the programme that unlocked exclusive mobile content and even linked to Twitter...which brings us onto number 4....
- INTEGRATE - the aforementioned debate featured a dedicated Twitter feed #cnndebate which encouraged people to be part of the conversation - they used the content to enhance the programming. Diesel recently did this to great effect when they encouraged people to share their favourite denim from their stores using QR codes at retail fixtures. 
- IMPACT - As with all campaigns understanding the effect is essential to learn and develop - include elements such as scan rate, time spent, location, numbers etc. but also elements such as shares and referrals. There are some great bespoke tracking services out there such as Tappinn
Although these may seem obvious many brands are ignoring some real basics and whether the future is all about QR codes or the new alternatives such as digital watermarks as trialled by House Beautiful this month the same principles apply - just make sure (to borrow / bastardise the title) "all your sins are not remembered" so don't get caught out in 2012




  

Over the last few years Social media has grown at an exponential rate. The founders of Facebook, Myspace, Youtube and twitter could not have foreseen the uptake, or the impact that they have on popular culture. With elections being contested, news of earthquakes alerting the emergency services and fan bases emerging from the broad to the niche, social media is a new defining force in our everyday lives.

This has mean that some things which in the past we have become accustomed to purchase, have been forced to go free - nowhere is this more visible than in sites such as Spotify, Zattoo and lastFM, plus of course file sharing sites like BitTorrent,, Graboid and Napster.

Chris Anderson, author of “The Long Tail” recently penned a soon to be best seller, “Free” (which incidentally if you visit his site http://www.thelongtail.com// , you can download for free) in which he argues the free model has a basic premise - offer content for free, then up-sell to your consumer the benefits of purchasing whatever it is they have taken.

The free model in music was taken to a whole new level in 2007 when Radiohead released “IN RAINBOWS”, the first totally free album, downloadable from their web site - it was a worldwide success, but fans didn’t just want a digital copy, instead 100,000 people pre-ordered the album and original EP’s at full cost and the physical CD still sold 1.75 million copies worldwide, which puts them alongside Lil' Wayne in proving that making music free digitally doesn't necessarily impede sales. Interestingly despite the album being available to download for free on Radiohead's website, 30,000 Americans paid full price to get "In Rainbows" from iTunes in its first week of release (go figure!) - it was Radiohead’s second largest selling album in over fifteen years.

Each of these free sites subscribe to Anderson’s model - Spotify do offer free music they do offer a three tier model - free music, with an audio advert every five songs; pay £0.99 advert free for a day, or £9.99 advert free for a month. The site has over 30 million users, 1 million from the UK alone.

Zattoo is free TV over the net. No more paying your TV license, and with more channels subscribing every month, it’s soon to be a force to be reckoned with – at present digital MPU’s are the only distraction however I am sure that there is an income generation model coming soon.

File sharing remains extremely popular. It was estimated that over 2 million files are shared every day. TV programs, music, Films and so on. A legality question ensues, and sites are being taken to court every year and being forced to close down, but you have to ask, are you, the user just as responsible as the administrator sharing those files?

What remains is this. The net will continue to grow, and whilst technology will develop and allow us to continue benefiting from free forms of entertainment and purchases at faster and less intrusive ways, the models need to adapt just as well. The free model can’t continue to be sustainable forever. Independent sites will need finance and advertising to keep going, which could be to the detriment of your viewing/audio pleasure; big retailers can only give so much away for free, you will eventually have to purchase items and services, to keep them in business.

But what makes this truly different is the landscape. Businesses now have a choice. Attract new customers by giving them what they want for free, gain loyalty and then start to sell. As for the consumer, if they truly want something, they too have a choice.

As Chris Anderson says, “you can listen to music for free, but going to a concert has never been more expensive”

I have waited for months now to write a post with that title and when I saw a campaign that Nissan ran recentl y I found the perfect excuse. In short to promote their new car, the Cube in their words "they avoided the usual mainstream quadrangle of TV, radio, print and billboard to trumpet their car launch" and instead used a social media led campaign targeting the creative classes to spread the word according to Jeff Parent, Nissan Canada's vice-president of sales and marketing "The creative class is what's motivating everything these days they are the ones that other people coalesce around. Creative people make their art to infect others. For us, it was a natural fit."In short five hundred finalists were assigned a blank webpage on Nissan's hypercube.ca website and invited to creatively "audition" for their chance to win a free vehicle - one of the winners award winning Canadian artist Greg Sczebel ended up generating more than 4,000 votes and 21,000 profile views.
So what is the point in the title ? - well the point here is not the campaign - it is not particularly innovative or different - but rather that a huge company chose the launch a new car in this manner and spent (according to them) a third of the amount they would normally would for a car launch of this type as PHD's Rob Young says "The thinking here is that you could spend $5 to reach 1,000 people in a TV commercial at a relatively low level of involvement, or spend $5 reaching 10 people at a high level of involvement. The high level of involvement – if you get the right consumers – is a better payback." My issue is that that this is not a UK based campaign (it is from Canada) and it is by no means normal and the reason is not because of agencies not presenting these ideas (I am convinced that any agency worth its fee will be pushing social media activation wherever relevant) but rather that Clients at best do not understand the opportunties afforded by this approach or at worst are not willing to embrace the myriad of opportunties that are available in the new media landscape and "think outside the cube"
So the conclusion has to be fairly aimed at Clients to raise their game - and the although the risks are high so are the rewards, as Ice T says in the aforementioned song "If you out for mega cheddar, you got to go high risk" but I am sure the rewards will be worthwhile.

Last month I was invited by UTalkmarketing to attend a round table discussion on social media with (their words) "some of the UK’s biggest agencies, brands and experts in the world of social media." the full article is included in "an unmissable ezine" which you can download here - as they say "It gives you everything you need to know about social media - all in one place!"

My take out from the discussions was encouragingly everyone involved agreed that social media was not just another channel but rather a whole new opportunity for brands to get involved in in a huge number of ways - from listening to learning, embracing to engaging and talking to energizing - the reality check was that there was a general lack of knowledge about the opportunties and concern about the potential fall out.

Personally I think this can be overcome by not creating such a halo of complexity and black magic around the area but rather talking about how easily social media integrates and enhances more traditional marketing - that way it is not seen as a step into the unknown but instead a hugely interesting and exciting opportunity.


Have a read and let me know what you think.

As a regular reader of Peter Kim's blog "being Peter Kim" I came across his paper entitled SOCIAL MEDIA PREDICTIONS 2009 which is a collaborative selection of various points of view on the industry and its potential for 2009. For me 4 immediately stand out namely:
- Recession will mean the huge potential to achieve a lot with dwindling budgets will mean that social media will be expedited - as per the entry by Ann Handley " - or rather as she puts it "low cost social media (will) look like the pretty girl at the ball"
- Metrics are to become essential to prove the affect and stave off the critics as per article by Joseph Jaffe "We're going to develop a set of better metrics to help guide, direct and validate 'commitment'."
- Leadership - as Rohit Bhargava says "you may not always start the year as a leader, but you can certainly finish it that way" so we are all now pioneers and adventurers !
- Finally I also found Todd Defren's article to be interesting - as he points out "the tipping point has not only been reached but could still tilt away from social media" - this is an area that we strongly believe in - namely that social media needs to be integrated into all the campaigns that we conceptualise and create if it is to be accepted and taken as seriously as it should be - after all if we really just trust each other as this chart from Forrester shows then the future surely has to be (as Josh Bernoff touched on) to focus on energizing using word of mouth and supporting customers to help each other –rather than what most brands do - namely just talking and telling consumers!"

I am of course referring to the 7 deadly sins of social media article published by James Clark co-founder of Room 214 and featured on their website called capture the conversation
It is worth a read and I am sure that very few involved in the area of social media can read it without a shiver of recognition and regret and a "note to self" to ensure that they reform before the note (or post) comes from someone else !
It would have been good to see a few moore examples of where companies or indivuduals have strayed, in order to make the sins come alive, but maybe he does not want to incur the wrath of those people or show his own greed .
Have a read and decide if you are "Saint or Sinner"

I was recently introduced to a new service that initially I found fascintating but on reflection (and at the risk of sounding like Jeremy Clarkson) it makes me despair for humanity.
The service is called Slydial, a new technology that allows you to leave voicemail messages for people without them knowing that you've called.On the site they give a few different situations where they thought that the service would be useful including the practical "When you are short of time", the spineless "when you want to avoid an awkward conversation" and the crafty "when you want to avoid someone" - they also proffer some scenarios such as when you want to play the field more effectively and leave all your conquests a VM rather than an impersonal text message !
Slydial looks like a great new technology that is mostly designed to bring out your inner coward and take over another sacred part of your space - so I am sure it is only a matter of time before we start getting messages from brands on our voicemails - maybe Nike asking me how my last run went or Innocent reminding me to stock up next time I am at the supermarket.
Anyone have any ideas how brands could use this to their (and their consumer's) benefit ?

I have recently made friends with John McCain, Sarah Palin and Stephen Fry - none of this reflects my political persuasion or sexual orientation but rather shows how pervasive, democratic ('scuse the pun) and voyeuristic social networking has made society - it is fascinating seeing that 30 people have recommended John and only 1 (that is one)- who incidentally is John McCain, has recommended the lipstick'd pitbull AND I know that Stephen (first name terms now we are "friends") is currently filming in Africa and loves F1 and Lewis Hamilton (via Twitter). This anecdotally backed up some research I read last week from TNS, TRU & Marketing Evolution called "Never ending friending" which shows how social networking has caused a quantum change in how we interact – with each other, with bands and brands, and with the entire media landscape. Perhaps most importantly it also details a
set of best practices that will govern behaviour in this new world - this should help me understand how I interact with my new found friends - I am just waiting for Obama, Hilary and the original "6 degrees guy" Kevin Bacon to accept my "friendship"