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Well, if you're watching this and you are a marketing communications professional or a business owner or a founder, you might have come across the word integrated marketing communications.
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Now, let's talk about integration for a minute because I think people get it wrong.
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Integration is not the achievement of any single function or a single profession or any single brilliant idea.
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It is a collective discipline which is the capacity of an organization and all of its communication partners to hold a shared strategic direction and express it faithfully, distinctively, and consistently across every touch point, every channel, and every moment of the contact of the audience.
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That sounds simple, but it's not.
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Because here's the situation every marketing communications executive faces.
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And I'm sure business owners you'll face that as well.
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Multiple channels, multiple messaging, multiple teams, multiple agents, multiple everything, all of which must produce at the point of contact with a consumer.
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The experience of a single, coherent, purposeful brand speaking with one voice.
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Well, welcome to the making, right here on Mad Conversations.
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This is where I sit with the book, The Rules of the Marketing Communications Executive.
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We've been running through this for the past four episodes.
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The book is written by Professor Ebohinson and Joe Nete.
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And if you're just joining us, I would advise that you go start from episode one.
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And if you haven't yet got the book, I also advise that you get it because there's just so much more in there that I can't cover in this episode or in the whole series that we are running.
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And I want you to learn along.
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But before we get into the main episode, I want to introduce a new book by Professor Robert E.
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Bohinson that he authored with the current Chief of Staff, Dr.
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Julius Deborah.
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The title is Citizen Experience, a research for superior public and civil service delivery.
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This is what it looks like.
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And if you're enjoying all the lessons from the rules of the marketing communications executive, I'll suggest you read this.
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If you've been following the news this week, it's been devastating for the people of Ghana.
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There's been flooding.
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And the government's response to the flooding has left more to be desired.
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Even has left a bitter taste in most people's mouths.
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When you tune in to your radio, you when you tune in your radio in the morning, you will hear news pundits and people from different divides talking about the response from government, how either it was slow or it wasn't it didn't feel relatable.
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The president issued a statement, government issued a statement, but people felt that he was just lamenting rather than being pragmatic about the situation.
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And this is why I believe this book is relevant, The Citizen Experience, because the authors argue that the book was born from a conviction that the public and civil service in Africa can be transformed, that the gap between what citizens experience and what they deserve is not inevitable, not permanent, and not beyond the reach of leaders who are willing to make the right decisions and build the right systems.
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The frustration is that this transformation keeps being promised, and the promise keeps failing to arrive.
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So, you see, as citizens, I believe that we need to arm ourselves with this if you if you know anybody in government, if you know anybody who is aspiring to be a leader of the nation.
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I think we all need to come to the knowledge of this.
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Um, even as citizens, if you're not in government position, you need to be able to get this, read it, and share the experience amongst ourselves.
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Let's be able to hold our government accountable.
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Thankfully, a government official in power co-authored the book.
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Again, his name is Dr.
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Julius Debra, the current chief of staff.
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Okay, let's get back to today's episode.
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So today we are in part six of the book, and it's titled Integrated Marketing Communications Strategy.
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There are 15 rules in this part, but I'm only covering three, as you already know if you've been following us.
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I'm covering 53, 54, and 61.
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And these three answer three questions.
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Rule 53 asks, What does integration actually mean?
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Rule 54 is asking us another question, which is why is it so hard to achieve?
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And 61 asks, how should the communication in itself be achieved so that it doesn't work against the human brain but it works with it?
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So coherence, alignment, and narrative.
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Let's get into it.
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Rule number 53 Integration is not omnipresence, it is coherence.
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The most common misreading of integrated marketing communications in practice is that it means being everywhere simultaneously, which is activating every available channel, producing content for every platform, ensuring the brand has visible presence in every media environment the target audience might encounter.
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This reading produces enormous activity and frequently strategic incoherence.
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The budget is spread thin.
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The creative energy is dissipated across too many executions to maintain consistent quality.
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The brand is visible in many places, saying slightly different things in each, leaving the consumer with a diffuse and unresolved impression rather than a clear and compelling one.
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The channels are selected in service of a strategic purpose.
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They are never the purpose themselves.
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Integration is not about how many channels you activate, it is about whether every channel you activate is saying the same strategic thing.
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Build coherence.
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The rich will follow.
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Before I give you my perspective on this rule, let me take you somewhere quite unexpected.
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The book I'm breaking down with you is by Professor Henson and Joanetti.
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But there is another book, Integrated Marketing Communications by Don Schultz, Robert Ludaborn, and Stanley Tannenbaum.
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The book traces the origin of integrated marketing communications as far back as World War II.
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Schultz argues that the first true integrated marketing communications program may have been the massive propaganda campaign that overcame lingering American doubts about foreign involvement and enlisted every man, woman, and a child in the war effort.
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Every media element that existed at the time, and a few that were specially invented, had one single theme defeat the AXIS powers.
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So newspapers, radio, newsreels in movie theaters, posters, billboards, comic books, serial boxes, even classrooms, every printed surface, every moving image, every sound source, all saying the same thing.
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And the result?
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It wasn't just awareness, it was a change in behavior.
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Young men lined up to join the army.
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Children carved aircraft shapes for sporter training.
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Housewives collected cooking fats and went to work in war factories.
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An entire nation moved in one direction, not because the campaign was everywhere, although it was, but because everywhere it was, it was saying the same strategic thing.
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And that is integration.
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It's not omnipresence, it is coherence.
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Do you get it now?
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That's what the book is talking about.
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Now, fast forward to today and look at what we call integrated marketing in this market.
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You walk into a strategy session and someone says, We need a digital strategy because they're probably a digital marketer.
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The other one says, Oh, what's our social media strategy?
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Another person says, Oh, we need a TikTok strategy.
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Oh, we need a WhatsApp strategy.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
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And before you know it, you have five separate strategies for five separate channels with each having its own objectives, its own tone, and its own creative direction.
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And it feels like it's not thorough.
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Because we've been told that consumers consume differently on different platforms.
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And they do.
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I do.
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If you post anything funny on LinkedIn, I'll probably ignore you.
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I'll tell you, you don't know what you're doing.
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It depends on the context, though.
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But we all know their format is different.
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We agree.
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Their attention span is different across uh platforms.
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The context in itself is different.
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And it's not wrong in itself to think about how each platform works differently.
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It's not.
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You should actually think about it.
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A 15-second TikTok is not a billboard.
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An Instagram story is not a press release.
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Understanding the mechanics of each channel is part of the job.
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But here is where it goes wrong.
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When you build separate strategy for each channel, you can lose sight of the one thing that should never change, which is the brand meaning.
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The expression can adapt, the format can shift, but the strategic meaning underneath all of this must be the same everywhere.
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And when it's not, when your digital team is saying one thing, your advertising team is saying another, and your PR is operating in its own world, and your customer service team is communicating something entirely different, the consumer doesn't experience five well-crafted channel strategies.
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They experience confusion.
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The book gives an example of a telco that was doing exactly this.
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If you read a book, you'll find out communicating across multiple channels with high activity.
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But advertising was saying one thing, digital was saying another, and service teams were saying a third.
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The consumer encountering these three incoherent signals could not form a stable brand impression.
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High activity had produced low impacts, and when they finally established a unified positioning, which is dependable innovation, and they reoriented every channel around it, the communication had become genuinete for the first time.
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Not because they added new channels, but because existing channels were finally saying the same thing.
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Think about the difference between the telco and the World War II campaign.
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In 1942, every channel, from newspapers to serial boxes, was unified under one theme.
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In 2024, a telco with a fraction of what of the complexity couldn't get three teams to say the same thing.
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Their tools have gotten better, their discipline has gotten worse.
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That's the distinction the book is making.
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Integration is not about how many channels you activate, it's really about whether every channel you activate is working towards the same strategic meaning.
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A campaign in three channels with perfect alignment is more integrated than a campaign in 12 channels where each channel is doing its own thing.
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And here is a line from the book that I want you to hold on to.
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The channels are selected in service of the strategic purpose.
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They are never the purpose themselves.
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That means TikTok is not a strategy.
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Instagram is not a strategy, digital is not a strategy.
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They are channels.
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The strategy is the meaning you are building.
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Their channels are just how you deliver them.
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So the next time someone in a room says, or as a business owner, someone comes to you and says we need a TikTok strategy, the right response is what's the brand strategy that TikTok needs to express?
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If you can't answer that, you don't need a TikTok strategy.
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You need a brand strategy instead.
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Build coherence.
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The rich will follow, as the book says.
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Now let's get into rule 54.
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Rule 54, the consumer does not see your organizational charts.
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They see one brand.
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Inside most large organizations, marketing communications is a territory divided and subdivided by functional boundaries.
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There is an advertising team, a PR team, a digital team, a social media team, a CRM team, which is customer relationship management, and a content team.
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And in many cases, each of these teams has its own agency, its own budget, its own objectives, and its own definition of success.
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These boundaries exist for a legitimate operational reason.
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They produce work that within each faction's own terms can be genuinely excellent.
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But the consumer sees none of this.
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The consumer does not encounter the advertising team's campaign and then separately encounter the digital team's campaign.
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They encounter the brand.
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They see a television spot on a Wednesday evening, scroll past a social media post on Thursday morning, receive an email on Thursday afternoon, and walk into a brand or store on Friday.
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They are not mentally separating these into distinct functional communication streams.
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They are assembling them into a single accumulated impression of what this brand is, what it stands for, and whether it can be trusted.
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The consumer assembles all communications into one impression of one brand.
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Make sure every team that contributes to that impression knows what it is supposed to be building.
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When I started working at the agency, my first real agency job would go for client meetings at the client's office.
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I don't want the name drop, but it was very prevalent, it's very prevalent in big multinational campaigns.
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And I remember walking into these meetings for big campaigns and seeing a room full of people from different agencies.
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At the time, my agency was handling digital.
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So my account manager and myself would go in there and have these meetings.
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You'd find another team or another agency handling BTL, another on PR, another on Media Buy.
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Each agency had their own team.
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Each one reported to a different person within the client's marketing department.
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And I want to be fair here, in my experience, the system worked.
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There was usually a big idea, a central strategic concept, and every agency's job was to translate that idea into their channel.
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Digital expressed it one way, BTL expressed it another way, PRO expressed it another way, but their core meaning was the same.
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And when it worked like that, it was cohesive.
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The consumer received one impression because everyone was building from the same foundation.
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So I'm not going to stand here and say the book is describing every organization.
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Some do it well.
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Some have the discipline, some have the leadership to hold it all together.
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But I've also seen what happens when it breaks.
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And it doesn't break because of incompetence per se.
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It usually breaks because of one thing: ego and politics.
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It happens when one agency decides that their interpretation of their big idea is better than what was agreed upon.
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It happens when a department head wants to put their stamp on the campaign and pushes their channel in a different direction.
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It happens when someone in the room says, I understand the strategy, but for this platform, we are going to do it our way.
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And in that moment, which is the moment that one team prioritizes their vision over the shared meaning, their coherence fractures.
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And the consumer would feel the same way immediately they encounter your brand.
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They can't tell you what is wrong, they can't name the fragmentation, but something feels off.
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The brand they saw on social media doesn't feel like the brand they encountered at the activation.
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The tone shifted, the energy changed, the promise is slightly different, and that inconsistency, even if it's subtle, erodes trust.
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Because listen, as we've established throughout the whole series, the consumer is assembling every touch point into one impression.
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We just read it.
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And when the pieces don't fit, the impression doesn't hold.
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And inside most large organizations, marketing communications is divided by functional boundaries.
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Advertising team, digital team, PR team, social media team, even a customer relationship management team, each with their own agency, their own budget, their own objectives.
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And each one is producing work that within its function and its own terms can be genuinely excellent.
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But excellence in isolation is not integration.
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If nobody is managing the overall impression, if nobody in the room has the authority and the discipline to say this doesn't align with the big idea, let's take it back.
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Then you get what the book is describing.
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Four good pieces of work that the customer would experience as four incoherent signals.
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And sometimes it may come up as noise.
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And incoherence is not neutral.
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Let's get it straight.
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The book is clear about this.
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The consumer's assembled impression of four slightly different messages is not the average of four communications, it is confusion.
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And confusion actively erodes the brand's ability to build the kind of stable, trustworthy meaning that drives preference.
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So it comes down to this.
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The architecture can work, multiple agencies, multiple touch points, one brand.
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It's not inherently broken, but it only works when every person in that room puts their big idea above their ego, when every agency translates faithfully instead of interpreting freely.
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And when someone on the client side has the authority and the backbone to hold the coherence together.
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The consumer assembles all your communications into one impression of one brand.
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Make sure that everything that contributes to that impression knows what it is supposed to be building.
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And make sure that nobody in the room is building something else because they think they know better than anybody.
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Ego is the enemy.
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Let's get into the last rule, rule number 61.
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Rule 61.
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Narrative is not a creative preference, it is cognitive necessity.
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The human brain is not optimized for processing information in lists, specifications, or abstract claims.
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It is optimized through millions of years of evolutionary development and thousands of years of cultural practice.
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That is, for processing information in the form of stories.
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Narrative is not one way among many of organizing communication.
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It is the way the human mind naturally makes sense of experience, forms memories, constructs identity, and transfers meaning between people.
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The campaign that delivers information through narrative is working with the brain's architecture.
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The campaign that delivers information through pure rational arguments or future enumeration is working against it.
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Every brief should ask, where is the story here?
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Not as a creative decision but as a strategic one.
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What is the transformation this audience is experiencing or aspiring to?
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And what is the tension they are navigating?
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What is the role the brand plays in moving them from the one to the other?
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These are story questions.
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Answer them, and the brief will generate creative work that moves people because it is aligned with how people actually process meaning.
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Narrative is how human beings make sense of experience.
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The campaign that delivers information as a story is working with the brain's architecture.
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The one that delivers it as specification is working against it.
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You know, when I read this rule, it reminded me of our season one uh episode, one of our season one episodes.
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And it is the one with Eriqua.
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You can check it out on in the description in the description below.
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She said something that I think every marketer needs to hear.
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And in fact, if you're a business owner, you need to hear this as well.
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People don't care about your products.
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Do you know what they care about?
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They care about how you make them feel about your product.
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These are two different things.
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You know, sales-driven jingles, which filled woefully.
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And did it teach you that people don't really care about your product?
00:22:07.599 --> 00:22:07.839
Yes.
00:22:08.240 --> 00:22:09.599
It's actually made me realize that.
00:22:09.759 --> 00:22:13.119
Yeah, they care about how you make them feel about your product.
00:22:13.599 --> 00:22:18.240
And she didn't say it as a theory, she said it as someone who has lived it.
00:22:18.400 --> 00:22:21.359
Not once, not twice, three times.
00:22:21.680 --> 00:22:25.680
She was working with Techno, you know Techno, the phone brand.
00:22:26.160 --> 00:22:29.839
And at the time, Techno had a perception problem.
00:22:30.079 --> 00:22:32.960
People knew it as a feature phone.
00:22:33.359 --> 00:22:37.200
Most didn't even know that they made smartphones.
00:22:38.400 --> 00:22:40.640
So the team's approach was logical.
00:22:40.799 --> 00:22:42.480
Let's sell the specifications.
00:22:42.559 --> 00:22:47.279
Because when you have an iPhone or Samsung Galaxy, you know the specs, right?
00:22:48.240 --> 00:22:50.559
So they created jingles.
00:22:50.799 --> 00:22:55.680
They said, let's sell the specifications, let's show people what this phone can do.
00:22:56.160 --> 00:22:59.039
Their jingles were product-heavy jingles.
00:22:59.359 --> 00:23:09.599
I'm not gonna sing it, but essentially what it lined up was Camon 16, that's the name of the brand, 64 gigabytes, this camera, that battery capacity, all of that.
00:23:09.680 --> 00:23:11.519
They had a mascot dancing and all of that.
00:23:11.599 --> 00:23:12.319
It works.
00:23:12.559 --> 00:23:14.319
But sadly, it failed.
00:23:14.960 --> 00:23:18.160
And it didn't fail once, it failed three times.
00:23:18.480 --> 00:23:22.000
One of those campaigns got less than five participants.
00:23:22.240 --> 00:23:23.839
A brand as big as Techno.
00:23:24.640 --> 00:23:25.279
Five.
00:23:26.640 --> 00:23:29.279
The jingles were technically accurate.
00:23:29.519 --> 00:23:34.559
Every specification was real, but nobody could remember them because they didn't care.
00:23:35.599 --> 00:23:37.519
Nobody could sing along.
00:23:38.559 --> 00:23:46.319
Nobody truly felt anything about it because the brain doesn't process a list of specifications the way marketers think it is.
00:23:46.640 --> 00:23:47.920
Or it does.
00:23:48.160 --> 00:23:51.200
And that's exactly what this rule is talking about.
00:23:52.400 --> 00:23:59.359
The human brain is not optimized for processing information in lists or specifications or abstract claims.
00:23:59.440 --> 00:24:08.480
It is optimized through millions of years of evolution and thousands of years of cultural practices for processing information in the form of stories.
00:24:08.720 --> 00:24:12.000
Before we had the writing, we had stories.
00:24:12.319 --> 00:24:17.599
Before we had the schools, we had griots sitting under trees.
00:24:18.079 --> 00:24:27.200
Before we had PowerPoint presentations, we had elders passing down everything a community needed to know through a narrative.
00:24:27.279 --> 00:24:30.160
And as SMCU CSURA, you remember?
00:24:30.640 --> 00:24:32.160
That's the architecture.
00:24:32.319 --> 00:24:35.359
And you can either work with it or work against it.
00:24:35.440 --> 00:24:36.480
The choice is yours.
00:24:36.720 --> 00:24:40.880
But techno specification jingles were really working against them.
00:24:41.119 --> 00:24:48.880
Their brain heard 64GB RAM and processed it rationally, critically, and sadly, forgettably.
00:24:49.119 --> 00:24:52.079
Because that's what their brain does with specifications.
00:24:52.240 --> 00:24:55.599
It evaluates them like claims on a spreadsheet.
00:24:55.839 --> 00:24:57.519
People want to be in touch with nature.
00:24:57.759 --> 00:25:06.960
And in the market where every competitor is shouting similar specs, or people know the specs of your competitor, there's nothing to do.
00:25:07.200 --> 00:25:09.119
There's nothing to hold on to.
00:25:09.279 --> 00:25:12.079
No emotion, no story, no memory.
00:25:12.240 --> 00:25:18.799
When you think of the big brands, you didn't buy the phone you're using because it had 256 gigabytes.
00:25:19.119 --> 00:25:26.160
You didn't buy an iPhone because their camera was, most of us didn't buy an iPhone because the camera was high spec.
00:25:26.640 --> 00:25:29.200
So Eriqua changed their approach.
00:25:29.519 --> 00:25:36.480
After their campaign failed, the jingle campaign failed, the spec heavy jingle campaign failed.
00:25:36.720 --> 00:25:46.720
She took a trending Stone Boy song, We Move, and instead of stuffing it with every specification, she stripped it down to almost nothing.
00:25:47.200 --> 00:25:54.480
Just super powerful camera and the more don't need because people must know that it is come on 16.
00:25:54.880 --> 00:25:55.920
That's it.
00:25:56.480 --> 00:25:59.359
Two product references in the entire song.
00:25:59.680 --> 00:26:04.559
Everything else, a feeling, energy, movement.
00:26:04.960 --> 00:26:06.000
You know what's interesting?
00:26:06.079 --> 00:26:07.839
She wrote the script herself.
00:26:08.319 --> 00:26:15.119
She wrote the script that fits Stone Boy's natural style and attached a dance campaign to it.
00:26:15.680 --> 00:26:18.079
And she let the audience participate.
00:26:18.960 --> 00:26:23.680
Remember, I told you how the previous campaign received only five participants.
00:26:24.240 --> 00:26:27.440
For this, the result was staggering.
00:26:27.680 --> 00:26:31.839
They anticipated 10 million impressions, yeah, because it's Stone Boy, right?
00:26:32.480 --> 00:26:33.759
Do you know what they got?
00:26:34.000 --> 00:26:35.519
200 million.
00:26:35.759 --> 00:26:40.400
They were expecting 100 campaign entries because come on, you you were from five.
00:26:40.880 --> 00:26:42.079
You don't get ahead of yourself.
00:26:42.160 --> 00:26:43.599
So they didn't even say 500.
00:26:43.680 --> 00:26:45.839
He said, 100 should be good.
00:26:47.519 --> 00:26:49.680
They got over 5,000.
00:26:50.880 --> 00:26:52.799
And here's what matters the most.
00:26:53.039 --> 00:26:56.480
The facts about the phone didn't change.
00:26:56.720 --> 00:26:59.680
It was the same Common 16.
00:27:00.240 --> 00:27:06.240
Not a single specification was different between the Django that failed and the song that exploded.
00:27:06.480 --> 00:27:11.039
The camera was the same, the battery was the same, the RAM was the same.
00:27:11.359 --> 00:27:14.079
What changed was the frame.
00:27:14.480 --> 00:27:16.880
What changed was the narrative.
00:27:17.039 --> 00:27:20.559
The information went from specification to a story.
00:27:20.640 --> 00:27:23.440
It went from abstract to fail.
00:27:24.000 --> 00:27:29.839
And from something their brain evaluates to something that the brain experiences.
00:27:30.079 --> 00:27:44.079
The book says when a person enters the state of narrative transportation, when they are immersed in a story's progression, they engage emotionally and cognitively at the same time.
00:27:44.319 --> 00:27:46.240
They lower their critical resistance.
00:27:46.319 --> 00:27:48.480
They're not too resistant to it.
00:27:48.960 --> 00:27:57.279
Their attention goes toward what happens next, not necessarily toward evaluating the claims being made.
00:27:57.519 --> 00:28:06.880
And the memories they form are more durable and more emotionally charged than the memories that are formed through the factual exposure.
00:28:07.119 --> 00:28:10.319
That's exactly what the Stoneboy campaign did for them.
00:28:10.559 --> 00:28:14.480
People weren't critically evaluating techno specifications.
00:28:15.200 --> 00:28:18.559
They were just dancing, they were having fun, they were singing.
00:28:18.880 --> 00:28:23.119
Because they felt something, because their brain was experiencing something.
00:28:23.279 --> 00:28:26.319
They were participating in something that felt good.
00:28:26.799 --> 00:28:28.000
We all want to feel good.
00:28:28.079 --> 00:28:30.079
It's why we take vacations, don't we?
00:28:30.319 --> 00:28:34.319
And in the middle of that feeling, the brand embedded itself.
00:28:35.359 --> 00:28:38.960
Not through an argument, but through experiences.
00:28:39.279 --> 00:28:48.559
Techno went from outside the top 20 smartphone brand in the market to the top three within the same season.
00:28:48.960 --> 00:28:54.480
Not because the product changed, but because the story changed.
00:28:54.799 --> 00:29:00.000
Think about what that means for your work as a marketing communications professional.
00:29:00.240 --> 00:29:04.319
How many campaigns in this market are still leading with specifications?
00:29:04.799 --> 00:29:10.720
Fastest network, lowest rates, best coverage, 4 gigram, or we hear all of those.
00:29:10.799 --> 00:29:11.920
Those are claims.
00:29:12.400 --> 00:29:15.039
And in fact, in Germany, you can't even do that.
00:29:15.200 --> 00:29:17.200
So we'll talk about that later.
00:29:17.519 --> 00:29:23.119
They are not stories, and the brain would process them as just claims.
00:29:23.279 --> 00:29:27.680
Critically, skeptically, and like I said, forgettably.
00:29:28.160 --> 00:29:33.359
The book says that every brief should be asked one simple question.
00:29:34.400 --> 00:29:36.160
Where is the story here?
00:29:36.400 --> 00:29:40.720
And you shouldn't ask it as a creative device or a creative decision.
00:29:40.960 --> 00:29:43.599
You should ask it as a strategic one.
00:29:45.200 --> 00:29:47.039
What is the transformation?
00:29:47.839 --> 00:29:51.920
What is the transformation that we want the audience to experience?
00:29:52.160 --> 00:29:54.640
What is the tension that they are navigating?
00:29:54.799 --> 00:30:00.160
What is the role that the brand plays in moving them from one to the other?
00:30:01.279 --> 00:30:11.359
Answer those questions and the brief will generate work that moves people because it is aligned with how people actually process meaning.
00:30:14.400 --> 00:30:18.480
The campaign that delivers information as a story is working with the brain's architecture.
00:30:18.640 --> 00:30:23.200
The one that delivers it as specification is working against it.
00:30:23.440 --> 00:30:25.440
So what is part six really telling us?
00:30:25.599 --> 00:30:27.039
Let's bring it all together.
00:30:27.359 --> 00:30:35.440
Integration is not about being everywhere, it is about being coherent everywhere you choose to be.
00:30:35.599 --> 00:30:39.359
So nobody is saying, oh, choose three channels, choose four channels.
00:30:39.440 --> 00:30:42.799
You can choose all 16 channels if your budget allows you, right?
00:30:43.440 --> 00:30:47.039
But that coherence doesn't happen by accident.
00:30:47.359 --> 00:30:54.559
It requires every team, every agency, every function to be building toward the same impression.
00:30:55.920 --> 00:31:05.920
For medium and small scale enterprises, you might have a lean team, but even within that, you still need to apply this.
00:31:06.319 --> 00:31:10.319
Because the consumer doesn't see your organizational chart.
00:31:10.559 --> 00:31:17.680
What they see is one brand and they assemble every touch point into one judgment about whether you can be trusted.
00:31:17.759 --> 00:31:26.160
And the communication itself must work with how the brain actually processes meaning, which is through narrative and not specification.
00:31:26.480 --> 00:31:31.759
The campaign that tells a story is working with this architecture that we've established.
00:31:31.920 --> 00:31:36.640
But the one that lists features is massively working against it.
00:31:36.880 --> 00:31:40.160
Remember, one person's strength alone is not enough.
00:31:40.799 --> 00:31:43.680
Integration is a collective discipline.
00:31:43.839 --> 00:31:49.440
And the collective only works when everyone is telling the same story.
00:31:49.680 --> 00:31:51.279
So let me ask you this.
00:31:51.440 --> 00:32:15.279
If the consumer assembled every single piece of communication your brand has put out this month or in the last month of June, the social media posts, the billboard, the radio sports, the customer service call, the email, all of that, would it feel like one brand or would it feel like five different teams who never talked to each other?
00:32:15.519 --> 00:32:21.200
If you're not sure, this episode just showed you why that question matters.
00:32:21.680 --> 00:32:25.920
And I need you to get the book, The Rules of the Marketing Communications Executive.
00:32:26.000 --> 00:32:27.440
It's only 200 CDs.
00:32:27.519 --> 00:32:33.519
Uh, you should be seeing it on your screen now, and it's by Joel I Nete and Robert Ebo Henson.
00:32:33.680 --> 00:32:36.000
The details will be in the description.
00:32:36.240 --> 00:32:37.839
There are 15 rules in this chapter.
00:32:37.920 --> 00:32:38.799
I mentioned it at the beginning.
00:32:38.880 --> 00:32:40.319
We've only discussed three.
00:32:40.480 --> 00:32:45.119
There are 12 others that you need to discover for yourself.
00:32:45.440 --> 00:32:46.880
It's waiting for you in the book.
00:32:46.960 --> 00:32:48.000
So please go get it.
00:32:48.160 --> 00:32:51.279
So thank you for staying till this point.
00:32:51.519 --> 00:32:58.799
Share this episode, drop a comment, tell me which route challenged you the most, and subscribe so you don't miss when uh the next one is coming.
00:32:58.880 --> 00:33:03.680
This has been The Making, right here on Mad Conversations, and I've been your mad friend.
00:33:03.839 --> 00:33:04.640
Abeku.
00:00:00.160 --> 00:00:11.199
Well, if you're watching this and you are a marketing communications professional or a business owner or a founder, you might have come across the word integrated marketing communications.
00:00:11.679 --> 00:00:15.599
Now, let's talk about integration for a minute because I think people get it wrong.
00:00:15.919 --> 00:00:23.600
Integration is not the achievement of any single function or a single profession or any single brilliant idea.
00:00:23.920 --> 00:00:40.479
It is a collective discipline which is the capacity of an organization and all of its communication partners to hold a shared strategic direction and express it faithfully, distinctively, and consistently across every touch point, every channel, and every moment of the contact of the audience.
00:00:40.799 --> 00:00:42.960
That sounds simple, but it's not.
00:00:43.200 --> 00:00:47.679
Because here's the situation every marketing communications executive faces.
00:00:47.759 --> 00:00:49.920
And I'm sure business owners you'll face that as well.
00:00:50.159 --> 00:01:01.600
Multiple channels, multiple messaging, multiple teams, multiple agents, multiple everything, all of which must produce at the point of contact with a consumer.
00:01:01.759 --> 00:01:07.120
The experience of a single, coherent, purposeful brand speaking with one voice.
00:01:07.439 --> 00:01:10.480
Well, welcome to the making, right here on Mad Conversations.
00:01:10.640 --> 00:01:16.400
This is where I sit with the book, The Rules of the Marketing Communications Executive.
00:01:16.480 --> 00:01:19.200
We've been running through this for the past four episodes.
00:01:19.599 --> 00:01:23.359
The book is written by Professor Ebohinson and Joe Nete.
00:01:23.760 --> 00:01:27.439
And if you're just joining us, I would advise that you go start from episode one.
00:01:27.760 --> 00:01:38.799
And if you haven't yet got the book, I also advise that you get it because there's just so much more in there that I can't cover in this episode or in the whole series that we are running.
00:01:38.879 --> 00:01:40.719
And I want you to learn along.
00:01:41.760 --> 00:01:52.079
But before we get into the main episode, I want to introduce a new book by Professor Robert E.
00:01:52.159 --> 00:01:57.519
Bohinson that he authored with the current Chief of Staff, Dr.
00:01:57.680 --> 00:01:58.799
Julius Deborah.
00:01:59.280 --> 00:02:06.000
The title is Citizen Experience, a research for superior public and civil service delivery.
00:02:06.079 --> 00:02:07.519
This is what it looks like.
00:02:08.000 --> 00:02:15.280
And if you're enjoying all the lessons from the rules of the marketing communications executive, I'll suggest you read this.
00:02:15.840 --> 00:02:22.479
If you've been following the news this week, it's been devastating for the people of Ghana.
00:02:22.639 --> 00:02:24.479
There's been flooding.
00:02:25.039 --> 00:02:30.639
And the government's response to the flooding has left more to be desired.
00:02:32.240 --> 00:02:36.800
Even has left a bitter taste in most people's mouths.
00:02:37.120 --> 00:02:55.840
When you tune in to your radio, you when you tune in your radio in the morning, you will hear news pundits and people from different divides talking about the response from government, how either it was slow or it wasn't it didn't feel relatable.
00:02:56.240 --> 00:03:06.159
The president issued a statement, government issued a statement, but people felt that he was just lamenting rather than being pragmatic about the situation.
00:03:07.039 --> 00:03:36.960
And this is why I believe this book is relevant, The Citizen Experience, because the authors argue that the book was born from a conviction that the public and civil service in Africa can be transformed, that the gap between what citizens experience and what they deserve is not inevitable, not permanent, and not beyond the reach of leaders who are willing to make the right decisions and build the right systems.
00:03:37.199 --> 00:03:44.639
The frustration is that this transformation keeps being promised, and the promise keeps failing to arrive.
00:03:44.879 --> 00:03:55.360
So, you see, as citizens, I believe that we need to arm ourselves with this if you if you know anybody in government, if you know anybody who is aspiring to be a leader of the nation.
00:03:55.439 --> 00:03:58.000
I think we all need to come to the knowledge of this.
00:03:58.080 --> 00:04:05.919
Um, even as citizens, if you're not in government position, you need to be able to get this, read it, and share the experience amongst ourselves.
00:04:06.000 --> 00:04:09.199
Let's be able to hold our government accountable.
00:04:09.360 --> 00:04:14.240
Thankfully, a government official in power co-authored the book.
00:04:14.319 --> 00:04:15.120
Again, his name is Dr.
00:04:15.199 --> 00:04:17.279
Julius Debra, the current chief of staff.
00:04:17.519 --> 00:04:20.959
Okay, let's get back to today's episode.
00:04:21.279 --> 00:04:29.519
So today we are in part six of the book, and it's titled Integrated Marketing Communications Strategy.
00:04:29.680 --> 00:04:35.600
There are 15 rules in this part, but I'm only covering three, as you already know if you've been following us.
00:04:35.680 --> 00:04:38.399
I'm covering 53, 54, and 61.
00:04:38.560 --> 00:04:41.199
And these three answer three questions.
00:04:41.759 --> 00:04:46.959
Rule 53 asks, What does integration actually mean?
00:04:47.279 --> 00:04:52.959
Rule 54 is asking us another question, which is why is it so hard to achieve?
00:04:53.120 --> 00:05:01.439
And 61 asks, how should the communication in itself be achieved so that it doesn't work against the human brain but it works with it?
00:05:01.519 --> 00:05:03.920
So coherence, alignment, and narrative.
00:05:04.079 --> 00:05:05.040
Let's get into it.
00:05:05.199 --> 00:05:11.279
Rule number 53 Integration is not omnipresence, it is coherence.
00:05:11.600 --> 00:05:29.600
The most common misreading of integrated marketing communications in practice is that it means being everywhere simultaneously, which is activating every available channel, producing content for every platform, ensuring the brand has visible presence in every media environment the target audience might encounter.
00:05:29.920 --> 00:05:35.600
This reading produces enormous activity and frequently strategic incoherence.
00:05:35.759 --> 00:05:37.839
The budget is spread thin.
00:05:38.160 --> 00:05:44.240
The creative energy is dissipated across too many executions to maintain consistent quality.
00:05:44.639 --> 00:05:57.199
The brand is visible in many places, saying slightly different things in each, leaving the consumer with a diffuse and unresolved impression rather than a clear and compelling one.
00:05:57.920 --> 00:06:01.600
The channels are selected in service of a strategic purpose.
00:06:01.759 --> 00:06:04.079
They are never the purpose themselves.
00:06:06.240 --> 00:06:15.360
Integration is not about how many channels you activate, it is about whether every channel you activate is saying the same strategic thing.
00:06:16.240 --> 00:06:17.839
Build coherence.
00:06:18.160 --> 00:06:20.560
The rich will follow.
00:06:24.399 --> 00:06:29.120
Before I give you my perspective on this rule, let me take you somewhere quite unexpected.
00:06:29.279 --> 00:06:34.480
The book I'm breaking down with you is by Professor Henson and Joanetti.
00:06:34.720 --> 00:06:41.759
But there is another book, Integrated Marketing Communications by Don Schultz, Robert Ludaborn, and Stanley Tannenbaum.
00:06:42.240 --> 00:06:49.120
The book traces the origin of integrated marketing communications as far back as World War II.
00:06:49.519 --> 00:07:04.560
Schultz argues that the first true integrated marketing communications program may have been the massive propaganda campaign that overcame lingering American doubts about foreign involvement and enlisted every man, woman, and a child in the war effort.
00:07:05.040 --> 00:07:14.000
Every media element that existed at the time, and a few that were specially invented, had one single theme defeat the AXIS powers.
00:07:14.240 --> 00:07:28.160
So newspapers, radio, newsreels in movie theaters, posters, billboards, comic books, serial boxes, even classrooms, every printed surface, every moving image, every sound source, all saying the same thing.
00:07:28.399 --> 00:07:29.199
And the result?
00:07:29.839 --> 00:07:33.839
It wasn't just awareness, it was a change in behavior.
00:07:34.160 --> 00:07:36.480
Young men lined up to join the army.
00:07:36.639 --> 00:07:40.959
Children carved aircraft shapes for sporter training.
00:07:41.279 --> 00:07:46.560
Housewives collected cooking fats and went to work in war factories.
00:07:46.959 --> 00:07:58.480
An entire nation moved in one direction, not because the campaign was everywhere, although it was, but because everywhere it was, it was saying the same strategic thing.
00:07:58.639 --> 00:08:00.319
And that is integration.
00:08:01.680 --> 00:08:04.399
It's not omnipresence, it is coherence.
00:08:04.639 --> 00:08:05.360
Do you get it now?
00:08:05.600 --> 00:08:07.279
That's what the book is talking about.
00:08:07.519 --> 00:08:13.759
Now, fast forward to today and look at what we call integrated marketing in this market.
00:08:14.959 --> 00:08:22.639
You walk into a strategy session and someone says, We need a digital strategy because they're probably a digital marketer.
00:08:22.800 --> 00:08:25.920
The other one says, Oh, what's our social media strategy?
00:08:26.720 --> 00:08:29.279
Another person says, Oh, we need a TikTok strategy.
00:08:29.360 --> 00:08:30.560
Oh, we need a WhatsApp strategy.
00:08:30.639 --> 00:08:31.519
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:08:32.240 --> 00:08:43.519
And before you know it, you have five separate strategies for five separate channels with each having its own objectives, its own tone, and its own creative direction.
00:08:43.679 --> 00:08:47.440
And it feels like it's not thorough.
00:08:47.759 --> 00:08:52.799
Because we've been told that consumers consume differently on different platforms.
00:08:52.879 --> 00:08:53.519
And they do.
00:08:53.679 --> 00:08:54.320
I do.
00:08:54.960 --> 00:08:58.240
If you post anything funny on LinkedIn, I'll probably ignore you.
00:08:58.480 --> 00:09:00.879
I'll tell you, you don't know what you're doing.
00:09:01.120 --> 00:09:02.799
It depends on the context, though.
00:09:03.519 --> 00:09:05.679
But we all know their format is different.
00:09:05.759 --> 00:09:06.159
We agree.
00:09:06.240 --> 00:09:09.120
Their attention span is different across uh platforms.
00:09:09.360 --> 00:09:11.440
The context in itself is different.
00:09:11.840 --> 00:09:16.159
And it's not wrong in itself to think about how each platform works differently.
00:09:16.320 --> 00:09:16.639
It's not.
00:09:16.720 --> 00:09:18.320
You should actually think about it.
00:09:18.639 --> 00:09:21.519
A 15-second TikTok is not a billboard.
00:09:22.000 --> 00:09:24.879
An Instagram story is not a press release.
00:09:25.360 --> 00:09:29.440
Understanding the mechanics of each channel is part of the job.
00:09:29.679 --> 00:09:31.519
But here is where it goes wrong.
00:09:31.759 --> 00:09:40.879
When you build separate strategy for each channel, you can lose sight of the one thing that should never change, which is the brand meaning.
00:09:41.279 --> 00:09:49.600
The expression can adapt, the format can shift, but the strategic meaning underneath all of this must be the same everywhere.
00:09:49.919 --> 00:10:11.200
And when it's not, when your digital team is saying one thing, your advertising team is saying another, and your PR is operating in its own world, and your customer service team is communicating something entirely different, the consumer doesn't experience five well-crafted channel strategies.
00:10:11.440 --> 00:10:12.960
They experience confusion.
00:10:13.279 --> 00:10:18.480
The book gives an example of a telco that was doing exactly this.
00:10:19.200 --> 00:10:27.519
If you read a book, you'll find out communicating across multiple channels with high activity.
00:10:28.240 --> 00:10:35.519
But advertising was saying one thing, digital was saying another, and service teams were saying a third.
00:10:37.360 --> 00:10:44.080
The consumer encountering these three incoherent signals could not form a stable brand impression.
00:10:44.320 --> 00:11:00.080
High activity had produced low impacts, and when they finally established a unified positioning, which is dependable innovation, and they reoriented every channel around it, the communication had become genuinete for the first time.
00:11:00.480 --> 00:11:06.320
Not because they added new channels, but because existing channels were finally saying the same thing.
00:11:06.720 --> 00:11:11.440
Think about the difference between the telco and the World War II campaign.
00:11:11.600 --> 00:11:18.559
In 1942, every channel, from newspapers to serial boxes, was unified under one theme.
00:11:18.799 --> 00:11:27.840
In 2024, a telco with a fraction of what of the complexity couldn't get three teams to say the same thing.
00:11:28.080 --> 00:11:32.159
Their tools have gotten better, their discipline has gotten worse.
00:11:32.399 --> 00:11:34.399
That's the distinction the book is making.
00:11:34.639 --> 00:11:44.480
Integration is not about how many channels you activate, it's really about whether every channel you activate is working towards the same strategic meaning.
00:11:44.799 --> 00:11:54.399
A campaign in three channels with perfect alignment is more integrated than a campaign in 12 channels where each channel is doing its own thing.
00:11:54.639 --> 00:11:58.960
And here is a line from the book that I want you to hold on to.
00:11:59.279 --> 00:12:03.759
The channels are selected in service of the strategic purpose.
00:12:03.919 --> 00:12:05.840
They are never the purpose themselves.
00:12:06.080 --> 00:12:08.879
That means TikTok is not a strategy.
00:12:09.120 --> 00:12:12.480
Instagram is not a strategy, digital is not a strategy.
00:12:12.639 --> 00:12:13.840
They are channels.
00:12:14.480 --> 00:12:17.200
The strategy is the meaning you are building.
00:12:17.279 --> 00:12:20.159
Their channels are just how you deliver them.
00:12:20.480 --> 00:12:32.320
So the next time someone in a room says, or as a business owner, someone comes to you and says we need a TikTok strategy, the right response is what's the brand strategy that TikTok needs to express?
00:12:32.480 --> 00:12:35.200
If you can't answer that, you don't need a TikTok strategy.
00:12:35.279 --> 00:12:37.360
You need a brand strategy instead.
00:12:37.600 --> 00:12:39.039
Build coherence.
00:12:39.279 --> 00:12:42.639
The rich will follow, as the book says.
00:12:43.200 --> 00:12:45.840
Now let's get into rule 54.
00:12:46.320 --> 00:12:51.039
Rule 54, the consumer does not see your organizational charts.
00:12:51.200 --> 00:12:53.519
They see one brand.
00:12:54.320 --> 00:13:01.440
Inside most large organizations, marketing communications is a territory divided and subdivided by functional boundaries.
00:13:01.600 --> 00:13:11.919
There is an advertising team, a PR team, a digital team, a social media team, a CRM team, which is customer relationship management, and a content team.
00:13:12.080 --> 00:13:20.960
And in many cases, each of these teams has its own agency, its own budget, its own objectives, and its own definition of success.
00:13:21.600 --> 00:13:25.279
These boundaries exist for a legitimate operational reason.
00:13:25.519 --> 00:13:31.360
They produce work that within each faction's own terms can be genuinely excellent.
00:13:32.000 --> 00:13:34.240
But the consumer sees none of this.
00:13:34.960 --> 00:13:40.879
The consumer does not encounter the advertising team's campaign and then separately encounter the digital team's campaign.
00:13:40.960 --> 00:13:42.799
They encounter the brand.
00:13:43.679 --> 00:13:54.240
They see a television spot on a Wednesday evening, scroll past a social media post on Thursday morning, receive an email on Thursday afternoon, and walk into a brand or store on Friday.
00:13:54.399 --> 00:13:58.639
They are not mentally separating these into distinct functional communication streams.
00:13:58.799 --> 00:14:08.159
They are assembling them into a single accumulated impression of what this brand is, what it stands for, and whether it can be trusted.
00:14:10.799 --> 00:14:15.440
The consumer assembles all communications into one impression of one brand.
00:14:15.679 --> 00:14:22.159
Make sure every team that contributes to that impression knows what it is supposed to be building.
00:14:22.399 --> 00:14:31.279
When I started working at the agency, my first real agency job would go for client meetings at the client's office.
00:14:31.440 --> 00:14:37.519
I don't want the name drop, but it was very prevalent, it's very prevalent in big multinational campaigns.
00:14:37.840 --> 00:14:48.080
And I remember walking into these meetings for big campaigns and seeing a room full of people from different agencies.
00:14:48.799 --> 00:14:51.200
At the time, my agency was handling digital.
00:14:51.360 --> 00:14:55.919
So my account manager and myself would go in there and have these meetings.
00:14:56.240 --> 00:15:02.320
You'd find another team or another agency handling BTL, another on PR, another on Media Buy.
00:15:02.879 --> 00:15:05.919
Each agency had their own team.
00:15:06.240 --> 00:15:10.720
Each one reported to a different person within the client's marketing department.
00:15:11.039 --> 00:15:15.120
And I want to be fair here, in my experience, the system worked.
00:15:15.360 --> 00:15:25.679
There was usually a big idea, a central strategic concept, and every agency's job was to translate that idea into their channel.
00:15:26.000 --> 00:15:34.399
Digital expressed it one way, BTL expressed it another way, PRO expressed it another way, but their core meaning was the same.
00:15:34.639 --> 00:15:37.600
And when it worked like that, it was cohesive.
00:15:37.840 --> 00:15:44.159
The consumer received one impression because everyone was building from the same foundation.
00:15:44.320 --> 00:15:49.200
So I'm not going to stand here and say the book is describing every organization.
00:15:49.360 --> 00:15:50.639
Some do it well.
00:15:51.120 --> 00:15:55.360
Some have the discipline, some have the leadership to hold it all together.
00:15:55.679 --> 00:15:59.600
But I've also seen what happens when it breaks.
00:16:00.000 --> 00:16:04.159
And it doesn't break because of incompetence per se.
00:16:04.320 --> 00:16:10.000
It usually breaks because of one thing: ego and politics.
00:16:10.320 --> 00:16:18.320
It happens when one agency decides that their interpretation of their big idea is better than what was agreed upon.
00:16:18.799 --> 00:16:25.200
It happens when a department head wants to put their stamp on the campaign and pushes their channel in a different direction.
00:16:25.360 --> 00:16:32.559
It happens when someone in the room says, I understand the strategy, but for this platform, we are going to do it our way.
00:16:33.120 --> 00:16:42.480
And in that moment, which is the moment that one team prioritizes their vision over the shared meaning, their coherence fractures.
00:16:43.120 --> 00:16:48.000
And the consumer would feel the same way immediately they encounter your brand.
00:16:48.159 --> 00:16:54.240
They can't tell you what is wrong, they can't name the fragmentation, but something feels off.
00:16:54.799 --> 00:17:00.720
The brand they saw on social media doesn't feel like the brand they encountered at the activation.
00:17:01.200 --> 00:17:11.440
The tone shifted, the energy changed, the promise is slightly different, and that inconsistency, even if it's subtle, erodes trust.
00:17:11.839 --> 00:17:20.720
Because listen, as we've established throughout the whole series, the consumer is assembling every touch point into one impression.
00:17:20.960 --> 00:17:22.079
We just read it.
00:17:22.319 --> 00:17:26.400
And when the pieces don't fit, the impression doesn't hold.
00:17:31.680 --> 00:17:37.200
And inside most large organizations, marketing communications is divided by functional boundaries.
00:17:37.599 --> 00:17:48.880
Advertising team, digital team, PR team, social media team, even a customer relationship management team, each with their own agency, their own budget, their own objectives.
00:17:49.039 --> 00:17:54.640
And each one is producing work that within its function and its own terms can be genuinely excellent.
00:17:54.799 --> 00:17:58.400
But excellence in isolation is not integration.
00:17:59.440 --> 00:18:09.920
If nobody is managing the overall impression, if nobody in the room has the authority and the discipline to say this doesn't align with the big idea, let's take it back.
00:18:10.400 --> 00:18:13.599
Then you get what the book is describing.
00:18:13.920 --> 00:18:20.960
Four good pieces of work that the customer would experience as four incoherent signals.
00:18:21.039 --> 00:18:23.279
And sometimes it may come up as noise.
00:18:24.000 --> 00:18:26.480
And incoherence is not neutral.
00:18:26.559 --> 00:18:27.279
Let's get it straight.
00:18:27.440 --> 00:18:28.960
The book is clear about this.
00:18:29.279 --> 00:18:37.279
The consumer's assembled impression of four slightly different messages is not the average of four communications, it is confusion.
00:18:37.519 --> 00:18:46.400
And confusion actively erodes the brand's ability to build the kind of stable, trustworthy meaning that drives preference.
00:18:46.640 --> 00:18:48.319
So it comes down to this.
00:18:48.960 --> 00:18:54.799
The architecture can work, multiple agencies, multiple touch points, one brand.
00:18:55.039 --> 00:19:07.759
It's not inherently broken, but it only works when every person in that room puts their big idea above their ego, when every agency translates faithfully instead of interpreting freely.
00:19:07.839 --> 00:19:14.480
And when someone on the client side has the authority and the backbone to hold the coherence together.
00:19:14.720 --> 00:19:19.200
The consumer assembles all your communications into one impression of one brand.
00:19:19.440 --> 00:19:25.920
Make sure that everything that contributes to that impression knows what it is supposed to be building.
00:19:26.079 --> 00:19:33.599
And make sure that nobody in the room is building something else because they think they know better than anybody.
00:19:33.839 --> 00:19:35.119
Ego is the enemy.
00:19:35.359 --> 00:19:38.319
Let's get into the last rule, rule number 61.
00:19:38.799 --> 00:19:40.000
Rule 61.
00:19:40.319 --> 00:19:45.039
Narrative is not a creative preference, it is cognitive necessity.
00:19:45.680 --> 00:19:52.240
The human brain is not optimized for processing information in lists, specifications, or abstract claims.
00:19:52.400 --> 00:19:58.640
It is optimized through millions of years of evolutionary development and thousands of years of cultural practice.
00:19:58.880 --> 00:20:02.240
That is, for processing information in the form of stories.
00:20:03.200 --> 00:20:08.319
Narrative is not one way among many of organizing communication.
00:20:08.960 --> 00:20:18.559
It is the way the human mind naturally makes sense of experience, forms memories, constructs identity, and transfers meaning between people.
00:20:18.960 --> 00:20:23.759
The campaign that delivers information through narrative is working with the brain's architecture.
00:20:24.000 --> 00:20:30.240
The campaign that delivers information through pure rational arguments or future enumeration is working against it.
00:20:30.559 --> 00:20:34.000
Every brief should ask, where is the story here?
00:20:34.160 --> 00:20:37.519
Not as a creative decision but as a strategic one.
00:20:38.319 --> 00:20:42.559
What is the transformation this audience is experiencing or aspiring to?
00:20:42.720 --> 00:20:45.279
And what is the tension they are navigating?
00:20:45.599 --> 00:20:50.720
What is the role the brand plays in moving them from the one to the other?
00:20:51.839 --> 00:20:53.759
These are story questions.
00:20:53.920 --> 00:21:02.880
Answer them, and the brief will generate creative work that moves people because it is aligned with how people actually process meaning.
00:21:03.599 --> 00:21:06.400
Narrative is how human beings make sense of experience.
00:21:06.559 --> 00:21:10.880
The campaign that delivers information as a story is working with the brain's architecture.
00:21:10.960 --> 00:21:15.759
The one that delivers it as specification is working against it.
00:21:16.640 --> 00:21:22.799
You know, when I read this rule, it reminded me of our season one uh episode, one of our season one episodes.
00:21:23.119 --> 00:21:27.039
And it is the one with Eriqua.
00:21:27.680 --> 00:21:32.400
You can check it out on in the description in the description below.
00:21:33.279 --> 00:21:37.359
She said something that I think every marketer needs to hear.
00:21:37.519 --> 00:21:40.720
And in fact, if you're a business owner, you need to hear this as well.
00:21:41.039 --> 00:21:43.279
People don't care about your products.
00:21:43.920 --> 00:21:45.519
Do you know what they care about?
00:21:45.759 --> 00:21:49.200
They care about how you make them feel about your product.
00:21:49.359 --> 00:21:50.319
These are two different things.
00:22:00.559 --> 00:22:04.720
You know, sales-driven jingles, which filled woefully.
00:22:04.880 --> 00:22:07.279
And did it teach you that people don't really care about your product?
00:22:07.599 --> 00:22:07.839
Yes.
00:22:08.240 --> 00:22:09.599
It's actually made me realize that.
00:22:09.759 --> 00:22:13.119
Yeah, they care about how you make them feel about your product.
00:22:13.599 --> 00:22:18.240
And she didn't say it as a theory, she said it as someone who has lived it.
00:22:18.400 --> 00:22:21.359
Not once, not twice, three times.
00:22:21.680 --> 00:22:25.680
She was working with Techno, you know Techno, the phone brand.
00:22:26.160 --> 00:22:29.839
And at the time, Techno had a perception problem.
00:22:30.079 --> 00:22:32.960
People knew it as a feature phone.
00:22:33.359 --> 00:22:37.200
Most didn't even know that they made smartphones.
00:22:38.400 --> 00:22:40.640
So the team's approach was logical.
00:22:40.799 --> 00:22:42.480
Let's sell the specifications.
00:22:42.559 --> 00:22:47.279
Because when you have an iPhone or Samsung Galaxy, you know the specs, right?
00:22:48.240 --> 00:22:50.559
So they created jingles.
00:22:50.799 --> 00:22:55.680
They said, let's sell the specifications, let's show people what this phone can do.
00:22:56.160 --> 00:22:59.039
Their jingles were product-heavy jingles.
00:22:59.359 --> 00:23:09.599
I'm not gonna sing it, but essentially what it lined up was Camon 16, that's the name of the brand, 64 gigabytes, this camera, that battery capacity, all of that.
00:23:09.680 --> 00:23:11.519
They had a mascot dancing and all of that.
00:23:11.599 --> 00:23:12.319
It works.
00:23:12.559 --> 00:23:14.319
But sadly, it failed.
00:23:14.960 --> 00:23:18.160
And it didn't fail once, it failed three times.
00:23:18.480 --> 00:23:22.000
One of those campaigns got less than five participants.
00:23:22.240 --> 00:23:23.839
A brand as big as Techno.
00:23:24.640 --> 00:23:25.279
Five.
00:23:26.640 --> 00:23:29.279
The jingles were technically accurate.
00:23:29.519 --> 00:23:34.559
Every specification was real, but nobody could remember them because they didn't care.
00:23:35.599 --> 00:23:37.519
Nobody could sing along.
00:23:38.559 --> 00:23:46.319
Nobody truly felt anything about it because the brain doesn't process a list of specifications the way marketers think it is.
00:23:46.640 --> 00:23:47.920
Or it does.
00:23:48.160 --> 00:23:51.200
And that's exactly what this rule is talking about.
00:23:52.400 --> 00:23:59.359
The human brain is not optimized for processing information in lists or specifications or abstract claims.
00:23:59.440 --> 00:24:08.480
It is optimized through millions of years of evolution and thousands of years of cultural practices for processing information in the form of stories.
00:24:08.720 --> 00:24:12.000
Before we had the writing, we had stories.
00:24:12.319 --> 00:24:17.599
Before we had the schools, we had griots sitting under trees.
00:24:18.079 --> 00:24:27.200
Before we had PowerPoint presentations, we had elders passing down everything a community needed to know through a narrative.
00:24:27.279 --> 00:24:30.160
And as SMCU CSURA, you remember?
00:24:30.640 --> 00:24:32.160
That's the architecture.
00:24:32.319 --> 00:24:35.359
And you can either work with it or work against it.
00:24:35.440 --> 00:24:36.480
The choice is yours.
00:24:36.720 --> 00:24:40.880
But techno specification jingles were really working against them.
00:24:41.119 --> 00:24:48.880
Their brain heard 64GB RAM and processed it rationally, critically, and sadly, forgettably.
00:24:49.119 --> 00:24:52.079
Because that's what their brain does with specifications.
00:24:52.240 --> 00:24:55.599
It evaluates them like claims on a spreadsheet.
00:24:55.839 --> 00:24:57.519
People want to be in touch with nature.
00:24:57.759 --> 00:25:06.960
And in the market where every competitor is shouting similar specs, or people know the specs of your competitor, there's nothing to do.
00:25:07.200 --> 00:25:09.119
There's nothing to hold on to.
00:25:09.279 --> 00:25:12.079
No emotion, no story, no memory.
00:25:12.240 --> 00:25:18.799
When you think of the big brands, you didn't buy the phone you're using because it had 256 gigabytes.
00:25:19.119 --> 00:25:26.160
You didn't buy an iPhone because their camera was, most of us didn't buy an iPhone because the camera was high spec.
00:25:26.640 --> 00:25:29.200
So Eriqua changed their approach.
00:25:29.519 --> 00:25:36.480
After their campaign failed, the jingle campaign failed, the spec heavy jingle campaign failed.
00:25:36.720 --> 00:25:46.720
She took a trending Stone Boy song, We Move, and instead of stuffing it with every specification, she stripped it down to almost nothing.
00:25:47.200 --> 00:25:54.480
Just super powerful camera and the more don't need because people must know that it is come on 16.
00:25:54.880 --> 00:25:55.920
That's it.
00:25:56.480 --> 00:25:59.359
Two product references in the entire song.
00:25:59.680 --> 00:26:04.559
Everything else, a feeling, energy, movement.
00:26:04.960 --> 00:26:06.000
You know what's interesting?
00:26:06.079 --> 00:26:07.839
She wrote the script herself.
00:26:08.319 --> 00:26:15.119
She wrote the script that fits Stone Boy's natural style and attached a dance campaign to it.
00:26:15.680 --> 00:26:18.079
And she let the audience participate.
00:26:18.960 --> 00:26:23.680
Remember, I told you how the previous campaign received only five participants.
00:26:24.240 --> 00:26:27.440
For this, the result was staggering.
00:26:27.680 --> 00:26:31.839
They anticipated 10 million impressions, yeah, because it's Stone Boy, right?
00:26:32.480 --> 00:26:33.759
Do you know what they got?
00:26:34.000 --> 00:26:35.519
200 million.
00:26:35.759 --> 00:26:40.400
They were expecting 100 campaign entries because come on, you you were from five.
00:26:40.880 --> 00:26:42.079
You don't get ahead of yourself.
00:26:42.160 --> 00:26:43.599
So they didn't even say 500.
00:26:43.680 --> 00:26:45.839
He said, 100 should be good.
00:26:47.519 --> 00:26:49.680
They got over 5,000.
00:26:50.880 --> 00:26:52.799
And here's what matters the most.
00:26:53.039 --> 00:26:56.480
The facts about the phone didn't change.
00:26:56.720 --> 00:26:59.680
It was the same Common 16.
00:27:00.240 --> 00:27:06.240
Not a single specification was different between the Django that failed and the song that exploded.
00:27:06.480 --> 00:27:11.039
The camera was the same, the battery was the same, the RAM was the same.
00:27:11.359 --> 00:27:14.079
What changed was the frame.
00:27:14.480 --> 00:27:16.880
What changed was the narrative.
00:27:17.039 --> 00:27:20.559
The information went from specification to a story.
00:27:20.640 --> 00:27:23.440
It went from abstract to fail.
00:27:24.000 --> 00:27:29.839
And from something their brain evaluates to something that the brain experiences.
00:27:30.079 --> 00:27:44.079
The book says when a person enters the state of narrative transportation, when they are immersed in a story's progression, they engage emotionally and cognitively at the same time.
00:27:44.319 --> 00:27:46.240
They lower their critical resistance.
00:27:46.319 --> 00:27:48.480
They're not too resistant to it.
00:27:48.960 --> 00:27:57.279
Their attention goes toward what happens next, not necessarily toward evaluating the claims being made.
00:27:57.519 --> 00:28:06.880
And the memories they form are more durable and more emotionally charged than the memories that are formed through the factual exposure.
00:28:07.119 --> 00:28:10.319
That's exactly what the Stoneboy campaign did for them.
00:28:10.559 --> 00:28:14.480
People weren't critically evaluating techno specifications.
00:28:15.200 --> 00:28:18.559
They were just dancing, they were having fun, they were singing.
00:28:18.880 --> 00:28:23.119
Because they felt something, because their brain was experiencing something.
00:28:23.279 --> 00:28:26.319
They were participating in something that felt good.
00:28:26.799 --> 00:28:28.000
We all want to feel good.
00:28:28.079 --> 00:28:30.079
It's why we take vacations, don't we?
00:28:30.319 --> 00:28:34.319
And in the middle of that feeling, the brand embedded itself.
00:28:35.359 --> 00:28:38.960
Not through an argument, but through experiences.
00:28:39.279 --> 00:28:48.559
Techno went from outside the top 20 smartphone brand in the market to the top three within the same season.
00:28:48.960 --> 00:28:54.480
Not because the product changed, but because the story changed.
00:28:54.799 --> 00:29:00.000
Think about what that means for your work as a marketing communications professional.
00:29:00.240 --> 00:29:04.319
How many campaigns in this market are still leading with specifications?
00:29:04.799 --> 00:29:10.720
Fastest network, lowest rates, best coverage, 4 gigram, or we hear all of those.
00:29:10.799 --> 00:29:11.920
Those are claims.
00:29:12.400 --> 00:29:15.039
And in fact, in Germany, you can't even do that.
00:29:15.200 --> 00:29:17.200
So we'll talk about that later.
00:29:17.519 --> 00:29:23.119
They are not stories, and the brain would process them as just claims.
00:29:23.279 --> 00:29:27.680
Critically, skeptically, and like I said, forgettably.
00:29:28.160 --> 00:29:33.359
The book says that every brief should be asked one simple question.
00:29:34.400 --> 00:29:36.160
Where is the story here?
00:29:36.400 --> 00:29:40.720
And you shouldn't ask it as a creative device or a creative decision.
00:29:40.960 --> 00:29:43.599
You should ask it as a strategic one.
00:29:45.200 --> 00:29:47.039
What is the transformation?
00:29:47.839 --> 00:29:51.920
What is the transformation that we want the audience to experience?
00:29:52.160 --> 00:29:54.640
What is the tension that they are navigating?
00:29:54.799 --> 00:30:00.160
What is the role that the brand plays in moving them from one to the other?
00:30:01.279 --> 00:30:11.359
Answer those questions and the brief will generate work that moves people because it is aligned with how people actually process meaning.
00:30:14.400 --> 00:30:18.480
The campaign that delivers information as a story is working with the brain's architecture.
00:30:18.640 --> 00:30:23.200
The one that delivers it as specification is working against it.
00:30:23.440 --> 00:30:25.440
So what is part six really telling us?
00:30:25.599 --> 00:30:27.039
Let's bring it all together.
00:30:27.359 --> 00:30:35.440
Integration is not about being everywhere, it is about being coherent everywhere you choose to be.
00:30:35.599 --> 00:30:39.359
So nobody is saying, oh, choose three channels, choose four channels.
00:30:39.440 --> 00:30:42.799
You can choose all 16 channels if your budget allows you, right?
00:30:43.440 --> 00:30:47.039
But that coherence doesn't happen by accident.
00:30:47.359 --> 00:30:54.559
It requires every team, every agency, every function to be building toward the same impression.
00:30:55.920 --> 00:31:05.920
For medium and small scale enterprises, you might have a lean team, but even within that, you still need to apply this.
00:31:06.319 --> 00:31:10.319
Because the consumer doesn't see your organizational chart.
00:31:10.559 --> 00:31:17.680
What they see is one brand and they assemble every touch point into one judgment about whether you can be trusted.
00:31:17.759 --> 00:31:26.160
And the communication itself must work with how the brain actually processes meaning, which is through narrative and not specification.
00:31:26.480 --> 00:31:31.759
The campaign that tells a story is working with this architecture that we've established.
00:31:31.920 --> 00:31:36.640
But the one that lists features is massively working against it.
00:31:36.880 --> 00:31:40.160
Remember, one person's strength alone is not enough.
00:31:40.799 --> 00:31:43.680
Integration is a collective discipline.
00:31:43.839 --> 00:31:49.440
And the collective only works when everyone is telling the same story.
00:31:49.680 --> 00:31:51.279
So let me ask you this.
00:31:51.440 --> 00:32:15.279
If the consumer assembled every single piece of communication your brand has put out this month or in the last month of June, the social media posts, the billboard, the radio sports, the customer service call, the email, all of that, would it feel like one brand or would it feel like five different teams who never talked to each other?
00:32:15.519 --> 00:32:21.200
If you're not sure, this episode just showed you why that question matters.
00:32:21.680 --> 00:32:25.920
And I need you to get the book, The Rules of the Marketing Communications Executive.
00:32:26.000 --> 00:32:27.440
It's only 200 CDs.
00:32:27.519 --> 00:32:33.519
Uh, you should be seeing it on your screen now, and it's by Joel I Nete and Robert Ebo Henson.
00:32:33.680 --> 00:32:36.000
The details will be in the description.
00:32:36.240 --> 00:32:37.839
There are 15 rules in this chapter.
00:32:37.920 --> 00:32:38.799
I mentioned it at the beginning.
00:32:38.880 --> 00:32:40.319
We've only discussed three.
00:32:40.480 --> 00:32:45.119
There are 12 others that you need to discover for yourself.
00:32:45.440 --> 00:32:46.880
It's waiting for you in the book.
00:32:46.960 --> 00:32:48.000
So please go get it.
00:32:48.160 --> 00:32:51.279
So thank you for staying till this point.
00:32:51.519 --> 00:32:58.799
Share this episode, drop a comment, tell me which route challenged you the most, and subscribe so you don't miss when uh the next one is coming.
00:32:58.880 --> 00:33:03.680
This has been The Making, right here on Mad Conversations, and I've been your mad friend.
00:33:03.839 --> 00:33:04.640
Abeku.
