🍱 Think better; Master audio ads; Be inclusive
🍱 Think better; Master audio ads; Be inclusive
Guess who's back
Hello and welcome back to The Marketing Kable, where I'm taking you along on my journey to discover ideas, voices and campaigns that can inspire us.
something to read
"Bhabo, bhaba practice koro." (Think. Practice thinking.)
This dialogue from filmmaker Ritwik Ghatak's cult classic 'Jukti, Tokko Ar Goppo' has inspired Bengali audiences for generations. Although used in a very specific context in the sombre and serious 1974 film, this profound utterance quickly found itself inserted into casual everyday conversations.
Don't know what to have for lunch? "Bhabo, bhaba practice koro."
Can't decide whether to watch cricket or football when both your favourite teams are playing at the same time? (Yes, these are the types of concerns Bengalis have). "Bhabo, bhaba practice koro."
Jokes apart, Ghatak's call to "practise thinking" deserves keener attention in these thoughtless times. Today's world is designed to nurture shallow and automated behaviour - those that think deeply often find themselves 'left behind' in the collective rush to an elusive summit of success.
And yet, true greatness can only come from deep thinking and nothing else (the sooner we realise that the better).
So today, we're going over to fs' blog post, 'Mental Models: The Best Way to Make Intelligent Decisions', where they've examined multiple frameworks for approaching problems and summarised them for the rest of us.
Here are the ones I was intrigued by
Circle of Competence: Pride can lead us to ignore important things, but identifying our strengths and weaknesses can help us make better decisions. Understanding our circle of competence improves both personal and professional outcomes.
Inversion: Inversion is a helpful method to improve thinking by turning a problem upside down. It helps to identify obstacles to success and view the problem from a different perspective.
something to listen to
listen up. When was the last time you listened to the radio?
I can't remember anymore because I gave up on the radio when they decided to bombard listeners with a constant barrage of (mostly cringe) ads instead of focusing on music and other types of creative content.
Audio ads are now creeping their way to podcasts, music streaming, gaming, and apps. For an audio ad skeptic like me, this is not good news. I just want to listen to what I'm listening to in peace.
But alas, the world does not in fact, revolve around my likes and dislikes. Audio ads are here to stay, and this is my deeply personal appeal to fellow marketers to make good ones.
Creating a successful audio ad can be tricky. It requires a unique approach and investment of resources by the brand (which usually likes to kill two birds with one stone and use the same content for all kinds of ads).
For more insight, we're listening to Amy Houston from The Drum talk to Jack Preston, head of Acast's creative department.
Preston makes clear that for a great audio ad, it's important to have well-written copy, a captivating voiceover, and even clever use of 3D audio. By involving sound designers in the creative process, we can create even better audio ads.
I scoured the web for a good audio ad - one that might tick some or all of the boxes in Preston's book.
Lie this one by Wunderman Thompson for the West Australian Ballet and West Australian Symphony Orchestra's performance of Bach's 'Goldberg Variations'?
Bach created the piece to help Count Keyserling, an insomniac, sleep better. To promote the performance, the agency created its own sound to help listeners sleep, and played it on the radio between 2 am and 5 am, accompanied by an encouragement to get tickets to the show.
I like this one in particular for the way it leaned into its theme, and medium - generating a perfect symphony (see what I did there :P ) that was bound to boost its recall value.
Maybe there's hope for audio ads after all!
something to watch
what you see when you see. Who is this world made for? The devout may say, "for the ones who have faith". The mystic may say, "for all of us". The cynic may say, "for nobody."
But what does the data say?
The data says this world is made for able-bodied people.
According to the WHO, 1 out of 6 people is living with a disability. And yet, our societies, infrastructures, policies - everything centres on the able-bodied population (any of whom may join the disabled population in the blink of an eye).
As marketers and advertisers, how mindful are we? Do disabled people only need products that cater to their specific needs? Nope. They need everyday stuff, too - loofahs and yoga mats and detergents and hangers and nightlamps and all that jazz.
So when we tell stories about our products and services, we've got to make them as accessible as possible.
Here's something to watch from Mastercard, who produced an audio-description-backed commercial featuring a blind protagonist using their cards. The cards are designed with unique notches that help them identify what kind of card it is: "square for credit, circular for debit, triangular for prepaid".
This is a rare example of a product and a campaign that practices what it preaches -- we could take a page out of this book.
That's it for this edition of The Marketing Kable. If you received this newsletter as a forward, do consider signing up. It's forever free and just for you.