Aristotle on Digital Advertising

I’ve been thinking about the major players in the digital advertising space and it occurred to me that we’re going back to basics with the ancient greek science of persuasion. To convince an audience Aristotle believed there were three important types of rhetorical proof:

• a reasoned argument (Logos), e.g. Huggies absorb up to 50% more liquid than other brands;
• a recommendation based on personal or corporate stature (Ethos), e.g. the Stanford School of Medicine uses Huggies;
• a metaphor, an appeal to the heart (Pathos), e.g. happy babies wear Huggies.

Most traditional advertising uses a combination of these methods – but you’ll quickly note that the third kind, the appeal to the heart, is the most common. Interestingly though, as you look into the digital space we’ve specialized..

Logos.. if I see it just when I need it, I’ll take a look.. it’s search, it’s logic, it’s Google.
Ethos.. if people I care about are interested, I’m interested too.. it’s friends, it’s trust, it’s Facebook.
Pathos.. if I want to be the kind of person that does that, I’ll do it too.. it’s feelings, I connect, it’s Yahoo.

Now these are not exclusive, you could argue that these companies overlap, and are of course complementary..

I’m reading Yahoo News and see a beautiful shot of a Hawaiian beach. There’s white sand, topaz water and a young carefree couple with a cocktail in a pineapple. I dwell on the ad, and see more of them over the next hour or two.

Later that afternoon I update my status from my phone. I need a holiday. When I login from my PC in the evening I see that Mike, Sue and Dave all “Like” the Tropical Sands Resort – it appeared on the right hand side of the page next to my news feed. I click and see that  Sue went last month, she loved it and posted pictures.

The next day, after talking it over with my wife, I search for Tropical Sands and click the link at the top to book. Superior Ocean View, 5 nights & flights. Perfect.

Sure, any variation of the above flow is possible but even using technology to optimize each stage of the proof we have barely scratched the surface. Digital advertising has a lot of growing to do and it’s great to be a part of it.

They all just sat there looking at me..

Soon after she left Yahoo! I asked Michelle how her first week at her new job was going. ”It’s ok”, she said “but we had a big team meeting which was really strange. They all just sat there looking at me.”

“Well yes,” I pointed out, “you are their new boss.”

"We're going to do this as a team,and we're going to do it my way."

It’s natural to want to be one of the group. For a large part of your career you were either told what to do or you were given a broad problem and asked to solve it as a team. As you become a lead or manager you start to take on a different sort of problem: How can I organize the people I have so we can deliver this project successfully? What do I need to do to make sure they can get on with what they do best? Regardless of your role though, you are usually working with plenty of guidance inside a domain that you know well.

The next level is where it starts to get more complicated. As you become a manager of managers you are responsible for direction and results, not day to day deliverables. Your team looks to you to define the problem space and to set targets. Your business expects you to bring value – and to define what this means. You stop working in your team and start working on your team.

This can be daunting. Like a writer with a blank sheet of paper or an artist with a fresh canvas there can be immense pressure to deliver. It would be great to call a big meeting and ask everyone to help out, but designing by committee rarely works. You may find they just sit there – looking at you

Look where you want to go..

Changing a business has a lot in common with rally driving. Let me explain.

Having dinner with a group of colleagues last night the conversation was jovial but when we touched on a project issue the comment was “Ah, well, that’s a typical Yahoo thing.” I’ve heard this again and again over the last year but I’ve had enough. It’s like the kids saying “but I can’t do it!” when presented with their math homework and me saying “Well yes, you can never do math.” Why would we reinforce the behavior we know is wrong?

We know what we have to do, we know we can change, so let’s focus on where we want to be not on where we are today.

We're not lost, it's just around this corner somewhere..

How is this like rally driving? I went on a course a few years ago where they put us in Mk2 Escorts and then took us on forest course. One of the most important things to learn was that you had to keep your eyes locked on where you wanted to be, not on where your car was actually facing. The first time I tried I was flying down a gravel track through the forest and a 90 degree hard left was coming up. The instructor yells the instruction “1/4 turn left, full gas!!” and we’re supposed to be sideways round the corner with gravel flying and a big smile on our faces. The problem is – if you look out the front window all you can see is the trees – giant pines literally a few meters in front of you on a direct collision course. Your brain is screaming at you to step on the brakes or to spin the wheel a full lock but this won’t work. What you have to do is look out of the side window at the road continuing off to your left, then calmly turn the wheel that quarter and put the pedal to the floor. If you get fixated on where you are heading right now, you are unable to execute on a course to get you where you want to be.

And me, well, I panicked and tried to turn the wheel as far as it would go. The instructor pulled on the handbrake and we just pirouetted on the spot. I got it next time though.

The two use-cases of mobile

When working on a product spec a few years ago it occurred to me that mobile use-cases fit into one of two broad areas. Since then I’ve heard a similar pitch from analysts, mobile strategists and product managers the world over. Here’s my definition:

a) You know what you want.
You pick up your phone with a purpose. You want to call your Dad, text your girlfriend, check if BA285 has landed, locate for a recipe for Strawberry Daiquiris or find out what gynophobia is an irrational fear of. You know which app you’re going to use and your aim is to get the task completed as quickly as possible. Search may be your friend, you may have an app for it, or perhaps you love the mobile equivalent of that desktop site you’re always using.

b) You don’t know what you want.
You’re bored and don’t/can’t smoke so you need something to occupy your hands. You confirm you still have no email, scroll randomly through your phonebook, play snake/tetris/bejeweled, check facebook for the 20th time, look up last nights soccer scores, browse the top 25 apps, watch some movie trailers, or find out which TV star has the worst hair. You might hit the carrier homepage, browse a portal (web or app), perhaps navigate directly to a popular news site.

So there you go. Do you know what your users look like and does your product deliver on one of these two cases? It fundamentally affects product value as in case (a) you need to deliver exactly on your promise; while in case (b) you just need to be fun. You’re striving for an excellent product either way, but fun does not solve that pressing need, and a white search box does not keep idle fingers entertained.

Upgrades

Progress, it’s about making life better in some way. For a product, that usually means your users lives, but bizarrely we seem to keep finding the opposite when companies release new upgrades. For example, the latest version of Microsoft Office totally broke the user interface I’d learnt to use over the last 15 years without giving me anything in return. It’s as if they felt they had to keep releasing things to show they weren’t dead.

Anyway, here’s an example that happened to me last week. I received my latest Comcast bill in the post a couple of weeks ago (which was odd, as I’m sure I opted for electronic billing) which looked a little high. As a satisfied Comcast Internet user I don’t find much opportunity to visit their site or support pages, but I remember logging in to setup the automatic payment a year or so ago. I tried to sign into my account and I was redirected to a Security Page which asked me to link my account to my COMCAST.NET account. There was an OK or Cancel, and as I had no idea what a COMCAST.NET account is I just clicked Cancel. This took me to their “customer central” portal, which told me my account was locked and I would need to update my security details to continue.

Yes, of course we are based in the USA. I am very much liking your apple pies and your college footballs.

Great. Clicking the link to update my security info I’m taken back to the page which asks me to link my COMCAST.NET account. I give up and try to contact the helpdesk, which conveniently I can do via online chat. The girl in the chat window takes my details and tells me that from now on I can’t log in with my own email address, I have to use my COMCAST.NET email address. But I don’t use Comcast email I tell her. “It’s ok,” she says, “one has been created for you.” I’ll just have to reset the password so that I can log in. To reset the password I need my COMCAST PIN that was sent to me in the mail when I first signed up for cable service.

Ack. As politely as I can I explain that an unsolicited PIN code I received in the mail over a year ago which was never required to use my Internet service is unlikely to be easy to locate. At this point I was expecting that they would want to send another copy in the mail and my case would be closed. But no, amazingly they have another service to reset your PIN. Which can be used to reset your password. Which can be used to revalidate your account. Blimey.

A charming gentleman with a refined Indian accent called me on my home number within 60 seconds and asked me to confirm my name and address. Once this had happened the girl in the chat window spilled the beans – out came my PIN, my password and my login details. Huzzah.

Good news: I can log in. Bad news: all the charges are valid. I owe them several hundred dollars.

And my experience of the all new “Customer Central” well, I used exactly the same function I did before – I checked my bill. I wonder how many Comcast customers are actually going to use any of the new functionality – online voicemail, DVR programming or ordering caller services? I suspect that most people will use their existing voicemail, program the DVR from the sofa, and stick with the caller services they have. In the meantime, every user of Comcast Internet who does not use them for email will need to spend a half hour with customer care before they can pay a bill online, likely costing Comcast between $30 and $100. Now that’s progress.