media | Half The World Away

Where were we?

Just to recap, in the previous post I was reflecting that context should be given the same attention in our industry as content is undoubtedly receiving (and an excellent recent post by Karen Nelson-Field asks some necessary challenging questions about the effectiveness of social video here).

The power of context to change behaviour is immense. Brands should be finding ways in which to harness it more effectively.

However, we’re now less able to control message delivery in the way we once were through, for the want of a better term, old school media planning. We now have less control over the ‘who’, ‘when’ and ‘where’ that ensured a message was delivered in a tightly controlled medium.

But new technologies and platforms are allowing us to think less about channels and become more aware of the context of communication; to leverage the contextual opportunities presented for system 1, impulsive behaviour.

Google Now is an intelligent little app that sends contextually relevant information to your mobile dependent on time and location. For example, the app’s alarm doesn’t just remind you to attend your lunch date. The time it chimes depends on how far away you are from the restaurant and how much traffic there is on the way, offering alternative directions if necessary. As Google describe it, ‘The right information at just the right time’. This perhaps could be great for retailers with time sensitive promotions for example.

But what if we could go further and start to link data sets? For instance, somebody searching Google for dining tables on their home desktop then gets in their car 10 minutes later. A Google Now enabled device would recognise this from their geo-location data and serve an offer from Ikea straight to your mobile, with directions of their nearest store and how to get there.

A new context aware mobile platform called Gimbal does link people’s online and mobile behaviours with physical location awareness using geo-fencing technology (there’s a great video about it here). So we can actually now deliver context aware, personalised, relevant content at precisely the right time.

Let me try and explain further…

My phone might recognise me as a Cappuccino loving Hong Kong resident working in the marketing industry with an interest in 1980’s comedy sci-fi films just from my online behaviour (Searches, cookie data and social activity leave some pretty large digital footprints!). On my way home from work, my phone’s geo-fencing technology would identify when I’m within 2 minutes of a new Starbucks I’ve not been to before (it knows my regular haunt is Java Java) and sends me a notification of a new coffee blend on the menu and an offer to redeem. Great, I think. I’ll try that. When I get home, the cup has a QR code of a free rental of Back to the Future which by taking a photo of enables me to download the film for free through their promotional tie-in with Netflix. I download the film with my Facebook log-in, in the process telling my friends in a 5km radius of the new Starbucks about the store and the free film download, driving more footfall.

The opportunity to combine this contextually aware technology with the predictive power of Google Now, the purchase behaviour data of the likes of Amazon or a Taobao and the social behaviour data of Facebook or Weibo, could obviously open up countless new revenue streams for brands.

All of this essentially means new technologies, particularly mobile, are making it easier for brands to identify contexts and leverage their power through physical and mental availability.

The right information at just the right time.

We hear a lot in our industry about branded content. It can sometimes be effective. People do sometimes want to watch a brilliantly crafted piece of film from a brand, or a water-cooler moment (I’m thinking Red Bull Stratos here) or other forms of great branded content that makes brands famous. But content of any sort is only consumed or interacted with if it’s either entertaining, useful or relevant, not because of the popular myth in our industry that ‘people are demanding more from brands’. It’s simply not true. Marketing is still largely the uninvited guest to the party and as such has to work bloody hard to even get noticed, let alone be demanded to return.

As the industry continues to loudly bang the content drum, one thing we’d do well to remember is the critical importance of context in communication. And for good reason.

Context drives so much of our decision making, our choice of brands. It’s in context that communication derives meaning. Contexts change behaviour.

But context isn’t just a matter of channel selection. In the traditional communications model, brands could simply plan and control which channels messaging (content) would be received in, almost guaranteeing the ‘who, when and where’ of communication . But in an increasingly fluid media landscape where brands tell their story across multiple touch-points, the channel is less relevant than the context it’s received in.

And in purchasing scenarios, it’s often our unconscious mind (driven by emotional responses we’re rarely aware of) that makes decisions for us, such as deciding between brands.

Nowhere will you find this more eloquently explained than in Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow. In it, he makes the distinction between the two systems of human thought.

‘System 1’ is the kind of intuitive, effort-free thinking we do without realising we’re doing it and drives most decision making in our day to day lives. For example, just reaching out for the bottle of Evian on the shelf rather than cognitively evaluating each and every bottled water brand on offer.

‘System 2’ is the conscious, effortful decision making that’s laborious and slow. We’re fully aware we’re doing this kind of thinking, such as solving a complex maths problem.

We’re rarely engaged in System 2 thinking as it expensively drains the brain’s energy mentally and physically – ‘one if its main characteristics is its laziness, a reluctance to invest more effort than is strictly necessary’.

Impulse purchases or purchases made on ‘autopilot’ are characterised by this. These types of purchases aren’t made with prior intention or through system 2 processing. They’re made on impulse based on emotions stored about the brand and because of the context of the environment – a gentle nudge at the till, the weather outside or what other people next you at the table have ordered.

People’s behaviours are often modified by what’s close to them, what’s available – stimuli in the immediate context. In How Brands Grow, Byron Sharp explains how brands that are easier to buy through mental and physical availability tend to be bought more often by more people. Although this sounds simplistic, his theory of ‘availability’ suggests that just being thought about at all in a buying situation increases the chance of purchase.

So it’s imperative for brands to identify, understand and leverage the contextual opportunities for system 1; impulsive thinking.

The role of content in all of this is obviously to generate the sort of emotions and salience to make the brand thought about in these buying situations. It’s importance shouldn’t be undermined. My argument is more that context is being more overlooked than perhaps it should.

In Part 2, I’ll look more at how brands can apply technology to go about identifying, understanding and leveraging contextual opportunities for System 1; impulsive thinking.