I have seen the future and it works

Happy New Year to you.

Or as the Celtic tribes from across Hadrian’s Wall will say ‘lang may yer lum reek’ which translates as ‘long may your chimney smoke’. Nope, don’t know why either.

And apologies if you rushed to this site last week eager to have your Cicero fix. You must have been bitterly disappointed. Sadly Cicero was defeated by the weather conditions. But now Cicero is back and the year can continue from where we left off prior to the Saturnalian revels. It is good to be back and to commune with you again.

Hopefully you have survived the recent and continuing bout of dodgy weather. This is not the time to be smug and gleeful but there is a degree of shadenfreude to be enjoyed watching the so called climate experts try to explain away the recent snow drifts when we are supposed to be facing cataclysmic global warming. Have you noticed how there is now a distinction being drawn between climate and weather? How much snow needs to fall, how far does the temperature need to plummet, how much ice does there need to be on our cars in the morning, before we acknowledge that global warning is just wonky weather? Given that our meteorologists now have their own dodgy and sexed up dossier to rival Blair’s, it can’t be long now.

But enough of the weather.

Cicero has seen the future and it works.

Regular and devoted aficionados of these musings will know that Cicero has long predicted the demise of monologue advertising as practised by many big brands. And for Cicero the future is all about developing communication programmes which practice the art of 4 C Marketing-communications which encourage co-creation, collaboration, conversation and communities. This kind of 4 C marketing is especially relevant, but not exclusively so, when a brand wants to get down and mix it with the kids or with the yoof, innit.

Now for many marketing directors and their teams it is all about size, the size of their marketing budgets, that is. For with big budgets you can run big expensive glossy advertising programmes that are seen by millions; or you can undertake huge direct marketing programmes which carpet bomb hallways across the land with the precision of a B49 bomber in Vietnam; or have your brand on more street corners than inebriated women on a hen night.

But recently Cicero was privy to a 4 C marketing campaign which reached fewer people than have toes and fingers. And which worked in delivering its objectives. And also in winning a fair few effective marketing awards, which are the best kind to win unless you are a true advertising ab fab luvvie.

The campaign in question was for the RNLI, the people who pull you from the sea when you are on the verge of drowning, who wanted the yoof to become more aware of their work. And it did this by engaging in their world through their influencers and through their channels. It wanted to take them on a journey to show that the values of today’s yoof were indeed closely aligned with those of the RNLI, despite the media portrayal of naughty yoof stereotypes.

And to do this it identified a dozen or so key yoof bloggers and sent them unbranded parcels and hoodies and encouraged them to blog about the ‘mystery parcel’ and to challenge yoof stereotypes. The RNLI was off and running and a viral yoof conversation was swiftly underway, a community formed and the yoof audience instantly involved in the co-creation and collaboration to define the true values of today’s yoof. Eventually the brand was revealed and the experience of the brand and its values demonstrated and brought to life.

This is not the forum to do no more than outline the mechanics of the campaign, you are a busy person with a life to lead, but you will no doubt be unsurprised to learn that the Ciceronic blog was excluded from participating in this campaign, much to Cicero’s bemusement and annoyance.

Did it work? Yes. The content generated by the campaign was seen over a million times, over 11% of yoof audience saw the material and even newspapers covered the developing story. Not bad for the price of 12 packs.

As said above, Cicero has seen the future and it works. And it also just goes to prove that you really can teach an oldish dog new tricks.

Is it only me?

The other day I was sitting at my desk in my Top Secret State Bunker, or TSSB, minding my own business but of course worrying ceaselessly about your safety and security, when the taxpayer funded phone on my State supplied desk rang. It was another apparatchik ringing from his TSSB.

Naturally I was expecting to discuss important matters of State or at least a review of the body politic. All I got was some chit chat about our respective states of well being. But after a bit we finally moved onto the coup de grace of the discussion and the real purpose of the call and it was…..wait for it…..and I kid you not…..to be informed that I was to be sent an e-mail later in the day to arrange for said apparatchik and myself to meet and to swap war stories and tales of malfunctioning lifts from our respective TSSBs.

Yes, you heard it right. The purpose of the call was to warn me that an e-mail was wending its electronic way to me. How absurd is that? Very, in my book.

Do we do act like this with any other form of communication? It is no wonder that our in boxes are full to bursting each and every day. It is no surprise that server capacity is close to saturation with pointless e-mails like the one I am to receive, with cheap promotions for dysfunctional penile remedies and off colour Tiger Woods jokes.

E-mails were supposed to make our lives easier but I can only wonder at the high level of inefficiency in built to our communication processes if we are constantly making phone calls to warn of the impending arrival of an e-mail. It defies even my logic that it was not possible to conclude our arrangements when we were communing on the telephone instead of waiting for my e-mail missive to arrive which will no doubt generate a flurry of e-mails as we make our arrangements. And all the while my attention is diverted and your security and well being imperilled.

But then of course it might only be me.

Have a great week.

Sis felix. Et sis fortunatus. Semper.