Mail Unleashed Live: the Cannes Lions conversation - Transcript
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:01:23
Hi, I'm Rory Sutherland.
00:00:01:23 - 00:00:05:15
Welcome to Cannes. I'm here with Marketreach. Here at the Empower Cafe.
00:00:05:15 - 00:00:06:06
Let's go.
00:00:24:10 - 00:00:27:18
Joining me on stage. In order.
00:00:27:18 - 00:00:31:15
Next is Mr Andrew Tindall, the Chief Growth Officer for System1.
00:00:31:15 - 00:00:34:09
Andrew, come and join us on stage.
00:00:34:09 - 00:00:36:05
Fantastic.
00:00:36:05 - 00:00:40:09
Claire Sadler, CMO of the British Heart Foundation.
00:00:40:09 - 00:00:48:07
And Kate Mackie, who is the Global Chief Marketing Strategy and Operations Officer for EY.
00:00:48:07 - 00:00:52:04
So this is absolutely a joy to be on board.
00:00:52:04 - 00:00:54:07
As I always say, the weird thing is.
00:00:54:07 - 00:00:56:03
That this applies both
00:00:56:03 - 00:00:59:05
to media selection and to creative execution.
00:00:59:05 - 00:01:02:22
Which is, as Bill Bernbach pointed out. Fundamental human psychology
00:01:02:22 - 00:01:04:15
doesn't actually change very much.
00:01:04:15 - 00:01:07:03
There are lots of things where we had the benefit of
00:01:07:03 - 00:01:11:10
20,30, 40 years experience. Which worked extremely well 10, 15, 20 years ago.
00:01:11:10 - 00:01:14:14
In many cases they never stopped working.
00:01:14:14 - 00:01:17:18
What happened is people stopped talking about them.
00:01:17:18 - 00:01:22:15
And what's actually important and what gets talked about.
00:01:22:15 - 00:01:25:06
Are emphatically not the same thing.
00:01:25:06 - 00:01:28:05
And so, for example, I would make the case jingles still work.
00:01:28:05 - 00:01:30:09
Although you've got to call them sonic branding now.
00:01:30:09 - 00:01:33:22
Long copy press advertising still works.
00:01:33:22 - 00:01:38:07
You know. Mass TV still works. Okay.
00:01:38:07 - 00:01:39:17
All that simply happened.
00:01:39:17 - 00:01:42:03
Is that when these things die off, it's
00:01:42:03 - 00:01:45:01
never for a good reason, fundamentally.
00:01:45:01 - 00:01:46:24
So I think there's a role for media
00:01:46:24 - 00:01:49:08
conservatism and media arbitrage.
00:01:49:08 - 00:01:50:24
Which is simply double down
00:01:50:24 - 00:01:53:05
on the things that everyone else is ignoring.
00:01:53:05 - 00:01:54:17
What would you say,
00:01:54:17 - 00:01:57:13
there's also a new creative brand lion.
00:01:57:13 - 00:02:00:10
Which is probably many, many years overdue.
00:02:00:10 - 00:02:04:10
Which is an award for effectively sustained work.
00:02:04:10 - 00:02:07:02
Work over the long term.
00:02:07:02 - 00:02:09:03
What’s worth mentioning here.
00:02:09:03 - 00:02:11:07
What role has mail played in that?
00:02:11:07 - 00:02:16:00
I mean in terms of those sort of elements of consistency.
00:02:16:00 - 00:02:18:06
In terms of sustained brand building.
00:02:18:06 - 00:02:20:15
So I think how a brand creates
00:02:20:15 - 00:02:24:11
lasting effects needs to focus on creating brand memories obviously.
00:02:24:11 - 00:02:25:20
We were talking about this earlier.
00:02:25:20 - 00:02:27:20
And I think what I've found in my research
00:02:27:20 - 00:02:31:05
with Effie and System1 is. Over the past
00:02:31:05 - 00:02:33:23
five years, we've seen a shift in different brand effects
00:02:33:23 - 00:02:36:06
being more linked to profit and market share growth.
00:02:36:06 - 00:02:40:12
Trust and fame are becoming really, really important.
00:02:40:12 - 00:02:43:16
And I think, when you need trust and fame,
00:02:43:16 - 00:02:45:24
leaning into these unpopular
00:02:45:24 - 00:02:49:09
traditional media channels is really useful.
00:02:49:09 - 00:02:52:21
Especially with mail, it's trust building.
00:02:52:21 - 00:02:56:12
You see a massive impact on the amount of trust
00:02:56:12 - 00:02:59:21
a campaign creates if you include mail, but alongside
00:02:59:21 - 00:03:02:13
kind of radio and TV as well.
00:03:02:13 - 00:03:06:04
Why do you think that is, that conventional media are
00:03:06:04 - 00:03:08:09
vastly better trust builders?
00:03:08:09 - 00:03:10:14
I mean, I think you're spending time in someone's house.
00:03:10:14 - 00:03:14:03
Yeah, I think that's a that's a kind of a big point. Creepy.
00:03:14:03 - 00:03:15:01
I know creepy.
00:03:15:01 - 00:03:17:19
Well, Andrew, definitely, if you're there with your fans.
00:03:17:19 - 00:03:19:21
But I think if you're going through someone's
00:03:19:21 - 00:03:22:00
letterbox rather than their inbox.
00:03:22:00 - 00:03:25:18
The in real life versus URL piece, absolutely lasts.
00:03:25:18 - 00:03:28:13
And it means that you as a brand are driving much more, I think trust.
00:03:28:13 - 00:03:30:17
Because you're not a flash in the pan.
00:03:30:17 - 00:03:33:10
You're not just pushing junk into mailboxes.
00:03:33:10 - 00:03:37:15
You're absolutely driving post through somebody's front door.
00:03:37:15 - 00:03:40:19
In the case of charities, by the way.
00:03:40:19 - 00:03:45:15
You could argue that probably 50% of the world's charities wouldn't survive.
00:03:45:15 - 00:03:47:23
And certainly wouldn't have been created without it.
00:03:47:23 - 00:03:49:06
That's probably fair.
00:03:49:06 - 00:03:49:24
I mean, you know.
00:03:49:24 - 00:03:52:03
When we got attacked in the old days of direct mail.
00:03:52:03 - 00:03:55:10
People always replied, yes, but it saved the whale.
00:03:55:10 - 00:03:57:09
Which was, broadly speaking true.
00:03:57:09 - 00:04:01:07
You wouldn't have achieved that level of regular donation without it.
00:04:01:07 - 00:04:02:16
Definitely.
00:04:02:16 - 00:04:06:23
And mail still forms an important part of our overall media mix.
00:04:06:23 - 00:04:10:20
But it does land in people's homes and it sticks in people's homes.
00:04:10:20 - 00:04:16:07
If it's well done, i.e it's relevant, it's engaging.
00:04:16:07 - 00:04:18:00
It cuts through the noise.
00:04:18:00 - 00:04:18:20
A piece of direct
00:04:18:20 - 00:04:21:17
mail will hang around for a few days or a few weeks.
00:04:21:17 - 00:04:25:00
A lot longer than an email will or an Instagram will.
00:04:25:00 - 00:04:26:19
So it depends.
00:04:26:19 - 00:04:28:14
It always depends on what your objective is.
00:04:28:14 - 00:04:31:11
What's your marketing objective? What's your communications objective?
00:04:31:11 - 00:04:35:20
But it absolutely has a really important role to play within our mix.
00:04:35:20 - 00:04:39:07
And certainly some pieces of activity particularly
00:04:39:07 - 00:04:41:14
if we're trying to get sign ups
00:04:41:14 - 00:04:47:21
for regular giving, or sign ups for legacy pledges in the future.
00:04:47:21 - 00:04:53:15
It can contribute 6% of those signups. So it's fairly significant.
00:04:53:15 - 00:04:58:19
That's a really interesting idea how long an ad hangs around for.
00:04:58:19 - 00:05:00:12
So I did some research with the IPA
00:05:00:12 - 00:05:02:23
called compound creativity.
00:05:02:23 - 00:05:03:24
Looking at consistency.
00:05:03:24 - 00:05:10:02
In that research we looked at the average time someone keeps a TV ad on air for.
00:05:10:02 - 00:05:15:16
And some brands keep their TV ads on air for about seven days on average.
00:05:15:16 - 00:05:20:04
Whereas, I think mail on average hangs out in someone's house for eight and a half days.
00:05:20:04 - 00:05:22:06
B2B wants to take on that?
00:05:22:06 - 00:05:24:10
Well, I think from from our perspective.
00:05:24:10 - 00:05:29:24
We sell at an enterprise level. So it's quite hard to really target B2B.
00:05:29:24 - 00:05:32:05
And get through the gatekeeper.
00:05:32:05 - 00:05:36:18
The gatekeeper often of the CSO is the EA is the PA.
00:05:36:18 - 00:05:41:05
So trying to get that cut through within DM is more difficult.
00:05:41:05 - 00:05:42:14
So you have to differentiate.
00:05:42:14 - 00:05:45:02
It can't just be the kind of normal letter.
00:05:45:02 - 00:05:48:00
Years ago when I worked at Ogilvy.
00:05:48:00 - 00:05:51:10
One of the things we did was send top hats to Schroders clients.
00:05:51:10 - 00:05:54:19
To invite them to Ascot. And that, you know, that cut through.
00:05:54:19 - 00:05:56:22
Yes, because it's different. It's unusual.
00:05:56:22 - 00:05:59:18
You're in people's hands, you're getting past the gatekeeper.
00:05:59:18 - 00:06:02:02
And it's really driving the right outcomes.
00:06:02:02 - 00:06:04:10
But you have to. To your point, it has to be part of the mix.
00:06:04:10 - 00:06:08:24
And it has to be part of the targeting. And we ordered, by the way,
00:06:08:24 - 00:06:12:16
Launched a defence on top of some very, very expensive direct mail.
00:06:12:16 - 00:06:16:08
We produce something for Rolls-Royce Aero engines.
00:06:16:08 - 00:06:19:08
Where each piece ran into four figures.
00:06:19:08 - 00:06:21:00
But the point is a single aero
00:06:21:00 - 00:06:23:19
engine order renders that completely irrelevant.
00:06:23:19 - 00:06:26:16
There's also that incredible value of costly signaling, isn't there?
00:06:26:16 - 00:06:29:16
Which is the amount you spend on the communication
00:06:29:16 - 00:06:32:06
is inferred by the recipient
00:06:32:06 - 00:06:36:10
as evidence, both of its importance, but also its exclusivity.
00:06:36:10 - 00:06:40:05
Because patently you're not sending those things to 50,000 people.
00:06:40:05 - 00:06:46:10
And so you refer to the fantastic phrase of mail as a super touchpoint, don't you?
00:06:46:10 - 00:06:47:11
Which I think is.
00:06:47:11 - 00:06:48:24
Which comes out of System1 research.
00:06:48:24 - 00:06:50:13
Which I think is really, really interesting.
00:06:50:13 - 00:06:54:23
Yes, I have stolen that phrase from JICMAIL.
00:06:54:23 - 00:06:57:23
But they were using it kind of like, you know, flippantly.
00:06:57:23 - 00:07:01:14
And I was like, no, I'll put some numbers to it. So sort of.
00:07:01:14 - 00:07:05:10
So, a super touch point. I call a super touchpoint.
00:07:05:10 - 00:07:07:17
Well, I'll explain where it comes from from a data point of view.
00:07:07:17 - 00:07:08:19
If you look at the
00:07:08:19 - 00:07:14:07
types of media touchpoints used in campaigns and across the Effie data
00:07:14:07 - 00:07:17:05
set that I often research. Because US and Europe.
00:07:17:05 - 00:07:17:23
You could actually look
00:07:17:23 - 00:07:22:14
at the average impact on direct effects and long lasting brand building.
00:07:22:14 - 00:07:26:12
And the ones that kind of buck the trend that do both really well.
00:07:26:12 - 00:07:27:21
I will call a super touchpoint.
00:07:27:21 - 00:07:30:22
They can do the long and the short unusually well.
00:07:30:22 - 00:07:34:20
The other interesting thing is that there is something about a letter
00:07:34:20 - 00:07:37:06
which even bizarrely, it's not.
00:07:37:06 - 00:07:40:06
It's not something that just addressable mail has as a property.
00:07:40:06 - 00:07:42:08
Because email doesn't have this property.
00:07:42:08 - 00:07:45:18
You feel a piece of direct mail warrants some sort of response.
00:07:45:18 - 00:07:47:16
Now, that response may be no.
00:07:47:16 - 00:07:49:22
But you are at least in a hot seat
00:07:49:22 - 00:07:51:21
and you're in a position where you have to make a decision.
00:07:51:21 - 00:07:55:08
Do you have the opportunity to do programmatic direct mail?
00:07:55:08 - 00:07:56:14
Physical mail?
00:07:56:14 - 00:07:57:03
Yes.
00:07:57:03 - 00:07:59:10
It's dependent on your data.
00:07:59:10 - 00:08:03:08
And what data you have and behavioral signals you have.
00:08:03:08 - 00:08:05:21
We do use it
00:08:05:21 - 00:08:09:18
in, I suppose, a personalised way.
00:08:09:18 - 00:08:15:05
In terms of more 1 to 1 personalisation within direct mail. Yes.
00:08:15:05 - 00:08:18:03
But those behavioral signals in terms of lifestyle changes
00:08:18:03 - 00:08:19:16
and what people might be searching for
00:08:19:16 - 00:08:22:07
and how much of that you can capture.
00:08:22:07 - 00:08:23:22
Comes back to how, you know.
00:08:23:22 - 00:08:25:22
How effective you are in terms of data capture.
00:08:25:22 - 00:08:29:22
And ultimately understanding your customers.
00:08:29:22 - 00:08:31:00
How about B2B?
00:08:31:00 - 00:08:31:18
Do you do anything
00:08:31:18 - 00:08:35:16
because programmatic seems to be a big growth area both in the US.
00:08:35:16 - 00:08:38:18
So the way we look at it, account-based marketing.
00:08:38:18 - 00:08:40:21
So it's much more around the account itself
00:08:40:21 - 00:08:44:16
and how you're trying to drive the account holistically forward.
00:08:44:16 - 00:08:46:24
So depending on who the individual is.
00:08:46:24 - 00:08:49:19
What their kind of position is themselves.
00:08:49:19 - 00:08:51:13
What you might be trying to sell to them
00:08:51:13 - 00:08:53:24
might give you different generosity points.
00:08:53:24 - 00:08:56:04
Which could be delivered through programmatic.
00:08:56:04 - 00:09:00:19
So for instance, if we are. I'm brand side at EY.
00:09:00:19 - 00:09:03:10
So one of the things that we do from a generosity perspective is
00:09:03:10 - 00:09:06:18
we happily tell our story about any of the things that we do internally.
00:09:06:18 - 00:09:08:22
As a kind of client zero.
00:09:08:22 - 00:09:10:16
And that case study of how we do it.
00:09:10:16 - 00:09:15:12
What we've learned, what we can do is something that CMO really value.
00:09:15:12 - 00:09:17:13
Because they get the okay, you did it.
00:09:17:13 - 00:09:18:24
And you know how you got through
00:09:18:24 - 00:09:20:20
that kind of process and transformation.
00:09:20:20 - 00:09:23:23
So there's a lot of generosity of time
00:09:23:23 - 00:09:25:09
in terms of putting people in.
00:09:25:09 - 00:09:27:09
But obviously, because it's part of an account
00:09:27:09 - 00:09:28:11
based marketing perspective.
00:09:28:11 - 00:09:32:01
It means that you're furthering the relationship and driving revenue
00:09:32:01 - 00:09:35:07
ultimately in the end. And presumably you can also do it.
00:09:35:07 - 00:09:36:07
I mean. Were you influenced
00:09:36:07 - 00:09:39:13
by the LinkedIn research that showed that in the wider decision
00:09:39:13 - 00:09:42:17
making unit over any appointment in B2B.
00:09:42:17 - 00:09:44:08
Bizarrely, you know,
00:09:44:08 - 00:09:48:12
brand saliency and recognition is disproportionately important because.
00:09:48:12 - 00:09:49:10
It’s hugely important.
00:09:49:10 - 00:09:50:09
We talked about this.
00:09:50:09 - 00:09:57:03
The importance of emotion in B2B marketing, probably 15, 20 years ago Rory.
00:09:57:03 - 00:10:00:08
It's still absolutely. Still selling to humans.
00:10:00:08 - 00:10:01:16
You're still selling to people.
00:10:01:16 - 00:10:02:21
There's there's also brilliant.
00:10:02:21 - 00:10:04:09
The toothpaste thing. You don't get fired.
00:10:04:09 - 00:10:07:11
You don't lose your job if you buy the wrong toothpaste.
00:10:07:11 - 00:10:09:20
So the idea that B2B decisions aren't
00:10:09:20 - 00:10:12:00
emotional is obviously nonsensical.
00:10:12:00 - 00:10:15:06
Because the downside consequences of getting it wrong
00:10:15:06 - 00:10:16:20
are usually considerably worse. Yeah.
00:10:16:20 - 00:10:18:10
We did something very interesting.
00:10:18:10 - 00:10:20:05
Which I'll share with everybody else.
00:10:20:05 - 00:10:24:10
Which I thought was a really interesting approach to the decision making unit.
00:10:24:10 - 00:10:28:22
Which is we wrote to everybody in the decision making unit.
00:10:28:22 - 00:10:32:17
Now, the decision making unit would have been someone from procurement,
00:10:32:17 - 00:10:36:11
someone from engineering, someone from finance.
00:10:36:11 - 00:10:38:13
And we explained
00:10:38:13 - 00:10:42:15
not what they wanted to know. But what the other people wanted to know.
00:10:42:15 - 00:10:44:21
Now they'll never forgive me, by the way,
00:10:44:21 - 00:10:47:20
if we don't talk about door drops.
00:10:47:20 - 00:10:49:16
Which is also part of the mail medium.
00:10:49:16 - 00:10:51:24
It has the advantage, many of the advantages.
00:10:51:24 - 00:10:55:05
It's not addressable. It's not so good at costly signaling.
00:10:55:05 - 00:10:57:17
It doesn't convey exclusivity.
00:10:57:17 - 00:11:01:03
But in other respects, it has a lot of the advantages
00:11:01:03 - 00:11:03:14
of the mail medium and at scale.
00:11:03:14 - 00:11:05:11
And it's physical and keepable.
00:11:05:11 - 00:11:08:13
And you might argue also, you know.
00:11:08:13 - 00:11:13:15
In a sense, the trust element of tangible things.
00:11:13:15 - 00:11:16:00
Seems to me all fairly, fairly important.
00:11:16:00 - 00:11:19:01
And the publicness of it. So when you really want.
00:11:19:01 - 00:11:21:08
So you guys obviously need to be building trust in your industries.
00:11:21:08 - 00:11:23:03
But then also like in finance as well
00:11:23:03 - 00:11:25:18
and education, it's super important.
00:11:25:18 - 00:11:28:18
If you're choosing a medium and you can't lie in public.
00:11:28:18 - 00:11:30:19
Is like a really important thing.
00:11:30:19 - 00:11:34:17
You must test extensively, both emotional and.
00:11:34:17 - 00:11:36:17
Yeah but, I‘m going to upset Andrew now.
00:11:36:17 - 00:11:39:09
Because the one thing you know. System1,
00:11:39:09 - 00:11:41:06
everybody uses it, we use it indeed.
00:11:41:06 - 00:11:43:22
Do you? Oh amazing. Thank you very much.
00:11:43:22 - 00:11:49:10
But, System1’s framework in terms of star and spike metric,
00:11:49:10 - 00:11:52:04
rewards positive emotion in terms of hope,
00:11:52:04 - 00:11:58:04
happiness, fun, enjoyment, humor. Which in a charity world.
00:11:58:04 - 00:12:02:01
Can be hard to advertise and create.
00:12:02:01 - 00:12:04:16
You know, I'm not. I’m so glad you brought this up.
00:12:04:16 - 00:12:09:23
I'm not ever seen a charity ad using humor. Because to do
00:12:09:23 - 00:12:13:00
it would would be incredibly hard for it
00:12:13:00 - 00:12:19:07
to land in the right way without it being insensitive. Completely.
00:12:19:07 - 00:12:23:16
So, you know, the emotions that we always try to evoke with our work.
00:12:23:16 - 00:12:25:20
That do get rewarded in terms of System1’s.
00:12:25:20 - 00:12:32:06
And are proved to be effective. Is hope, as a positive emotion.
00:12:32:06 - 00:12:35:01
Different mediums force
00:12:35:01 - 00:12:37:09
creative teams to think differently.
00:12:37:09 - 00:12:40:17
And actually David Ogilvy always said, not a bad place in which to end.
00:12:40:17 - 00:12:42:10
You're not advertising to a standing army,
00:12:42:10 - 00:12:44:14
you're advertising to a moving parade.
00:12:44:14 - 00:12:49:00
And some of my children's behavior, as with vinyl records.
00:12:49:00 - 00:12:51:12
Seems completely mystifying to me.
00:12:51:12 - 00:12:53:19
Until I realised that they never grew up with them.
00:12:53:19 - 00:12:58:10
And so to them, the idea that there's music on a round plastic
00:12:58:10 - 00:13:00:19
thing is genuinely interesting.
00:13:00:19 - 00:13:02:18
Fantastic. Well, thank you very much for coming.
00:13:02:18 - 00:13:05:14
You've all marked yourself out as wonderful individualists.
00:13:05:14 - 00:13:07:08
So thank you for coming here to discuss this.
00:13:07:08 - 00:13:09:05
But immense thanks to the panel as well.
00:13:09:05 - 00:13:12:07
You've been absolutely wonderful. So thank you all so much.