Q & A

 

Dr. Rich Luker
Chief Strategy Officer

Contact Dr. Rich Luker

Why did you join TBA Global?

Before joining TBA Global I saw it as an agency poised to take a leadership position in experiential marketing. They were large enough to do the biggest and boldest of new programs. They had diverse capabilities – having joined together specialty businesses that were all related to experiences. They had a broad base with 15-20 offices in the USA so there was a launching pad in all the right places. And while they were large, they weren’t set in their ways. Most, if not all, the largest agencies have an established practice based on experiences that were more effective before the digital age and certainly more effective in prosperous times. It will take scale and adaptability to be most effective in the present business environment and TBA has both.

Since coming to TBA Global I have been thrilled to find the quality of thinking about true problem solving is far better than is commonly seen. And while TBA Global has many pieces, it has done a fine job of integrating the essence of each of those pieces into one way of looking at getting value from live experiences. It turns out “Think, Believe, Act” is the way TBA actually does business! As Chief Strategy Officer that makes my job a lot easier and I believe our future much brighter even in a down economy.

What opportunities does a down economy provide for brand marketers?

We have had nearly five decades of mostly prosperous times. This is the first time since the Great Depression when the selection of products and services is counterbalanced by the need to cut back or conserve. The marketing approach needs to focus on how a product or service is the wisest choice among options and a needed choice at the moment. Identifying the appropriate marketing approach may also mean alternative ways of interacting with the market. In bad times people generally look for comfort and safety. Remote, flashy, impersonal messaging is not likely to be the way to deliver comfort and safety.

That said, there are several opportunities for experiential marketing to help companies reposition their marketing and at the same time provide a sense of safety and comfort. First, some products provide direct relief in hard times. Just after a news segment on Japan’s market falling 10% in a day the network cut to a commercial about depression medication. Ok, that’s a bit extreme. We are in the process now of talking to brands we have identified as having “surprising relief” capability. Without giving away trade secrets, think of the concept of “comfort food” and you will have a sense of our direction. The good news is – if TBA Global is calling on you for the first time now , it is almost certainly because we have identified a way in which your company supplies “surprising relief” and as near as we can tell you aren’t delivering it yet.

Other products are needed regardless of the economy. Staying close to the comfort food idea, we still buy groceries. These become “building block” products and services – stable businesses that can remind us life goes on and can go on in strength. We are finishing a new strategy for building block companies where they can actually increase business in hard time by showing how they are providing stability to America through their products and services.

Finally, hard economic times call for creative thinking to do more for less. We have recently found ways to recycle aspects of experiences that will allow our clients to save 20-50 percent in this climate when they want to provide a live experience.

In your upcoming book, you talk about a “paradigm shift” – what is it and what does that mean for brand marketers?

Technology and mass media marketing have led to a default position where brands and agencies feel they are able to – and need to – dictate the message and outcome. Even when they approach “consumer generated content,” “social media,” or “engaged strategies” the underlying goal is to distribute a specific brand message to consumers. Times have changed, and the broader needs of people have changed – along with how those needs are met. At the end of your work day, you do not go home looking for the next big thing or something bigger, faster, stronger, or more often than you got it before. If you are in a marketing job, however, all day long you are striving for those very attributes. People don’t want or need more, bigger faster. People need relief, reality, and each other.

A paradigm shift is a change in the fundamental way we see things. Right now, American marketers “see” consumers. We need to see people. None of us are dominated by the consumption of any one brand. The center of the marketing world is the message. It needs to be stories. America spends over $300 billion dollars a year on brand marketing. The vast majority is messaging. Are you feeling like you have too little information? Probably not. With over 100 million websites, I think we can find what we need. All those ads that nobody remembers… but we remember stories. Here is an example. Let’s say you go to a party one night and the next day a friend asks how it was. If it was bad or boring you will probably have an answer in less than five words. If it was great, you will tell a story. Right? Stories are the proof of life. We need to shift from lifeless messages to experiences that generate real life stories. But they have to be stories from the lives of people where the brand was valued, not stories brands force feed “consumers.” Let me give you an example.

I was stuck earlier this year with a colleague in the Philadelphia airport on a six hour delay. We started sharing road warrior stories. Our talk took us back to 9/11. I lived in Michigan at the time but was in Florida at a meeting the morning of September 11th. By noon I was certain no planes would be flying for days if not weeks so I decided to take my rental car and drive back to Michigan. I realized the decision might cost as much as $1,000. But at that moment, being at home with my family was more important. It took two days to get home. I returned my Hertz car to a small hotel in my town and braced for the bill. “Do you want to keep it on your card?” she asked. “Yes.” I said. “Thank you, and welcome home.” That was it. There was no extra charge. Hertz thought it was more important I get home too. They forgave the mileage. As it turned out, my colleague was in Atlanta on 9/11, did the same thing, with Hertz, and had the same result. Seven years later we stood in the Philadelphia airport talking to each other with appreciation and passion for what Hertz had done years before. Yes, Hertz is still my choice because of that.

Paradigm Shift:
Think of them as PEOPLE, not consumers.
The goal is real life STORIES, not messages.
The stories come from the lives of real people, not from the creative department of the agency.
The value of the brand was key in making the story happen.

Digital marketing is increasing; media spend on traditional media is decreasing. Is there a concern for a brand if its marketing is heavily online?

Message delivery systems are tools. TV ads might be hammers, maybe the Internet is a screwdriver, outdoor ads a saw. How many things can you build, how many problems can you solve with just ONE tool? Very few. Marketers get so caught up in all these new tools and then go out there to save the world with a screwdriver. It just doesn’t work that way.

When was the last time you woke up in the morning convinced indoor plumbing would fix the economy? Well right now a lot of people think new technology solves everything the way America once thought electricity, the phone, the car, pharmaceuticals or plastics would fix everything when they were new. They are all tools.

The point is this. We need to stop thinking about our tools and start looking at what we want to build and what it will take to build it. The Internet is really a telephone on steroids. It is the great connector. If we use the Internet to keep people connected when we need to be connected, it will serve us well. But the Internet is a medium – meaning, in the middle, between two people who would probably rather be together in the same place at the same time. Brand supported face-to-face experiences provide UN-mediated connection, otherwise known as reality. When we want REAL relationships with people, we need experiences with them. And even with 100 million websites and $300 billion in annual marketing spent in America, we still need messages.

The Internet, live experiences, advertising – all are vital tools. But the key to it all working is asking first: What am I trying to build? Or, what am I trying to fix? From there, choose the right tools to get the job done.

Contact Dr. Rich Luker