Owners Workshop Manual

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1012012 (M)

Britain 2012Foreword

2012 marks one hundred years since H.K McCannfounded our agency, introducing our motto of ‘Truth Well Told’, which is still our guiding principle today.This philosophy reflects our belief that advertising isat its most effective when it speaks from an authenticunderstanding of the world. It is critical that weinvest and pursue the insights and truths that feedour creativity.

There has never been a time where this principleis so important: both economically and socially, 2012 is shaping up to be just as volatile and uncertain as2011. However, it will also be a year of promise andhope for Britain, with the Olympic Games providingus with a once-in-a-generation platform to stand infront of the world and show our worth, and theDiamond Jubilee reminding us of our heritage.

To unravel these intertwining risks andopportunities our in-house consumer think-tank, Pulse,is continuously scanning the horizon; forecasting thecoming social and commercial environment. Theirinsights keep us ahead of trends, allowing us torespond with clarity and agility to traverse even theroughest of terrain.

This guide to 2012 is designed to provoke andarm you for the challenges and opportunities youface, and to invite discussion around how to navigatethem. We hope that you find it useful and insightful,and would love to have your feedback and thoughtson the issues it raises.

We wish you a fantastic 2012.

Chris MacdonaldChief ExecutiveMcCann London

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1-1A Chapter 1 Rebooting Britishness

FIG.1 National Pride Reset Button

Chapter 1 Rebooting Britishness 1-1B

1 It’s been hard to feel proud to be British over the last few years. The optimism of ‘Things Can Only Get Better’, New Labour and Cool Britannia is but a distant memory. Two long and unpopular wars, a series of scandals causing crisis in our institutions and financial meltdown in The City put paid to that. No wonder we feel like a nation at sea.

2 Closer inspection, however, reveals the upswing in national pride in the early Blair days to be the exception rather than the norm. Being down on Britain has been the defining feature of Britishness since VE day. From the wind-down of the British Empire through the 50s and 60s, to the demise of the manufacturing sector in the 70s and race riots of the 80s – Britain has for a long time felt like a country that has lost its sense of purpose.

3 However, 2012 might just be the year when we finally put our post-colonial angst behind us. 2011 saw a final move away from Britain as a military power thanks to budget cuts – and some will have felt relief. Today we feel more comfortable influencing the world through our cultural assets. And what assets we have to be proud of – just look at the success of BBC America and the BBC Arabic service.

4 Next year we will start to feel more comfortable in our skins for the first time in decades. The Olympic Games and the Diamond Jubilee will be our opportunity to prove to the world, and more importantly to ourselves, that we can still mix it on a global scale. But this time using our heritage as an asset rather than a crutch. Expect to see a more humble, realistic and comfortable expression of Britishness. And a sense of pride for all the things that are great about Britain today.

For Britain the past was tense and the future…perfect?

1.1 Rebooting Britishness – The return of pride

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2-2A Chapter 2 All opinions strictly personal Chapter 2 All opinions strictly personal 2-2B

2.1 All opinions strictly personal –Living in a one-faced world

1 In a 2002 episode of ‘Sex and the City,’ redhead career girl Miranda’s pregnancy is revealed at work after an imprudent colleague lets it slip. She then repays the favour by outing him as gay. These disasters turn out to be blessings in disguise and an hour later we have all learned a lesson about ‘being who we are’.

2 Today, this storyline would be totally implausible.Miranda would have posted her sonogram on Facebook (as is the case with nearly 1 in 4 babies today), and her colleague would have been wrenched from the closet kicking and screaming, courtesy of his‘Google reference’.

3 We have become used to this erosion of the private sphere and the traditionally un-British desire to ‘share’ has taken over. Once, we were expected to keep work and home separate. Today, the idea of being a different person with different people is seen as not only strange, but also duplicitous. In the words of Mark Zuckerberg: “Having two identities for yourself is an example of a lack of integrity.”

4 Until now, the drivers of a transition to a ‘one identity world’ have been pull factors – we decided we enjoy sharing and started updating our status 83 times a day. In 2012 we will be further pushed towards complete openness. The new role for Facebook as a portal that logs and shares all our internet activity – and the mainstream arrival of Twitter – will make ‘public’ our default setting.

5 The impacts could go one of two ways. Either we will feel we have to repress anything that we wouldn’t want everyone to see. Or alternatively openness may form a virtuous circle, whereby exposure to the quirks of others may make us feel more comfortable to disclose our own eccentricities.

Either way, from now on all you can be is all of you, all the time.

FIG.2 Personal Broadcast Modulator

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3-3A Chapter 3 Safety first Chapter 3 Safety first 3-3B

FIG.3 Young Person’s Safety Kit

A. BANK OF MUM & DAD

B. MARRIAGE HELMETDouble insulation against financial uncertainty

D. PERSONAL CONTACTSSTEEL TOE-CAPPED BOOTSTo walk over competition

C. CLEAN FACEBOOK HISTORY ELBOWPADSTo protect you in job market

3.1 Safety first – The rise of the Young Fogey

1 Two things defined youth for the Baby Boomergeneration – expectation and freedom. The expectationof a world with ever increasing wealth and opportunity,and the freedom to experiment and ‘find yourself’ in amore free-wheeling society.

2 Unfortunately, for today’s young people it appears ‘youth’ reached its pinnacle around the time of rave culture and has been in retreat ever since. To them the future looks bleak. Their expectations? Competing with 300 graduates for a shelf-stacking job and living with their parents into their 30s. Their choices? Going on the dole, or going to university and then going on the dole….with a mountain of debt.

3 When the stakes are so high, it’s hard to bet on anything but a dead cert. Faced with so many new ways of not making it, young people will shun experimentation in favour of predictable life choices. The new conservative youth has arrived and what they want is a future of mainstream normality. In an age of nasty surprises, dull is good.

4 2011 saw a trend of markedly fewer young people applying to universities, with 2012 admissions due to drop by around 10%. 2012 will see the hedonistic trends of the Nineties and Noughties go into reverse. Marriage age will come down, as a one-income-existence becomes increasingly impossible. And kids will lay off the wild living, for fear that ‘those’ photos on Facebook might be the thing that scuppers their chances of landing their dream job further down the line.

5 The effects this mindset will have as the Young Fogies rise to be the leaders of tomorrow are uncertain. But the dangers of an upcoming generation that favours tried and tested routes in an age of radically shifting economic poles are clear. Without a spark of youthful creativity, Britain might be left behind.

The youngsters of today might not be able to afford to be frivolous… but can we afford them not to be?

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4-4A Chapter 4 Rewriting history

FIG.4 Online Identity Airbrush

Chapter 4 Rewriting history 4-4B

4.1 Rewriting history – Social curation goes old school

1 In the Noughties we built our online identities. We uploaded, commented, liked and gamed our way to comprehensive digital facsimiles of ourselves. Social networking tools such as Facebook have always allowed us to curate our identities, de-tagging those less than flattering photos and deleting drunken Wall -posts from friends. We filtered what we added in realtime to achieve an idealised online reflection – you,minus the rough edges.

2 But just as football didn’t start with the Premier League, society didn’t begin in Mark Zuckerberg’s Harvard dorm room. Today, the difference between the volume of recent history and that from further back has never been greater, and never so skewed in the favour of the former. Facebook see their Timeline as a radical change, turning your profile from a series of snapshots into an everyman’s ‘This Is Your Life’.

3 However, everyone on the north side of 30 has lived more of their lives offline than on, leaving agaping hole of 20-odd years in which they existed,but Facebook didn’t. 2012 will be the year thatpeople start backfilling their online identity. Expect tosee tools which will help to pull other online sourcessuch as blogs and email into your Facebook profile.And as they do, they will also begin to help people re-write their own back stories, erasing ex-partners and airbrushing out the failed career cul-de-sacs toproduce a sanitised version of their history.

The future of the past is yours to choose.

What do you wantto happen...?

What do you wantto happen...?

Make smaller

5.1 All in it together – Micro democracy in action

1 The last few years have left people feeling a little disenchanted with direct democracy. In the US, the 2008 Presidential Election left those on the right feeling their country has been stolen and those on the left wonderingwhat happened to the promised radical shift in policies.And in the UK, the expenses scandal has left politicians ona par with Sir Fred Goodwin in the nation’s estimation.

2 The sense that ‘it doesn’t matter who I vote for’ has never been stronger. Despite media proclamations that the 2010 General Election was the most important for a generation and all those thousands of column inches and hours of TV coverage, turnout did not top 60%.

3 With people rejecting traditional elections, a counter-trend has been emerging for greater embracement of more direct and small scale forms of democracy over the last year, by both citizens and institutions. Be that the consensus decision making of the ‘Occupy’ protests, the emergence ofcustomer-led CSR programmes from Waitrose and Natwest,or councils polling residents on their priorities. These formsof micro-democracy are appealing to people, by offering discrete and understandable choices with meaningful andobservable outcomes.

4 We expect to see this trend go mainstream in 2012.Institutions required to make unpalatable choices (of which there will be more) will turn to people for consent to soften the blow and shift some of the blame. Citizens and consumers will become stakeholders in the decision-making process. And all this will be facilitated by the now ubiquitous social media tools. So in 2012 you can expectyour favourite brands to consult you on whether they should,for instance, increase price or reduce size to cope withincreasing food costs. This will build closer, more mature relationships between brands and consumers, as companies show transparency and responsiveness, and customers are encouraged to empathise with the real dilemmas of being amass market operator.

Power to the people.

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FIG.5 Consumer Polling Device

A. VOTING BUTTONS

5-5A Chapter 5 All in it together Chapter 5 All in it together 5-5B

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Chapter 6 Digital first 6-6B

1 The children of the TV age built the internet; the children of the internet age will remake our world. The coming-of-age of digital natives has blurred the lines between the real and online worlds. For kids of the 21st century digital development does not just run alongside real world, but outstrips it. Recent global research shows 2-5 year olds today are six times more likely to be able to use a mouse than tie their shoelaces.

2 These digital natives will increasingly explore and make sense of the world through the lens of the touchscreen, and to them a distinction between physical and digital will be meaningless.

3 Today the potential to document, curate and share our real world experiences online is enhancing and extending in ways we could not conceive only a few years ago – be that commenting on the talent (or lack thereof) of this year’s X-Factor contestants on Twitter, or asking friends for advice on a new outfit by posting pictures on Facebook from a store’s changing room.

4 Until now digital has been a tacked-on afterthought to real world developments. However, we are beginning to see some early examples of a ‘digital first’ approach. And no surprise that it’s the kids market leading the way. Products such as Lego’s ‘Life of George’, the Macy’s ‘Believe-o-magic’ app and Cheatwell’s ‘App-Player’ board game seamlessly fuse real-world and digital aspects, with the digital element being an indispensable part of the experience.

5 2012 will see the trend spread to other arenas, with anonline life being baked-in to products from their inceptionand TV shows being built around social media communities.As people increasingly adopt the ‘if it’s not online it didn’thappen’ philosophy, thinking ‘digital first’ will become thesine qua non of success in the digigration age.

Let’s get phygital.

FIG.6 Digigration Map

6.1 Digital first – Building online into the real world

6-6A Chapter 6 Digital first

Chapter 7 On auto-pilot 7-7B

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FIG.7 Decid-O-Bot™ 2012

A. SUPER-FAST BRAINTo weigh complex options

B. QUICK HANDSTo grab best offers

C. STRONG LEGSTo chase deals

7-7A Chapter 7 On auto-pilot

7.1 On auto-pilot –Delegated decision-making in the internet age

1 There has been a power shift in the retailer/shopper relationship over the last decade. In the pre-internet world, finding the best price involved a good deal of legwork. And that supposed there was more than oneshop selling what you were looking for within 50 miles.Nowadays, even those trying to find Fly Fishing by JRHartley in the Outer Hebrides have umpteen online shops vying for their business. And search engines andcomparison sites allow us to effortlessly find the best deal.

2 But pockets of low mobility remain. In some cases this can be down to good old consumer inertia – where the effort of comparing and selecting does not seem worthwhile. This is why people stick with bank accounts and insurance policies year in, year out. Other choices can just seem incomprehensible. Even to the sharp purchasers of the internet age, choosing the best energy tariff can seem like attempting a Samurai Sudoku puzzle.

3 In 2012 new services will step into this gap – the Switching Engines. Like a comparison site, they will seek out the best deals for our needs. However, they will take the extra step; choosing and purchasing products and services on your behalf. For many this will be a god-send – allowing them to delegate decisions they have little interest in, or do not feel capable of. However, for others this will doubtless feel like a step too far – the moment we gave up thinking for ourselves. They will approach the companies offering these services with suspicion, enquiring for whom this represents a good deal – businesses, consumers, or the middle-men. Trust will be essential. Therefore, expect the winners in this market to be the ones who approach it with an attitude of transparency and fairness.

Get ready to take your hands off the wheel and letcyberspace steer.

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8-8A Chapter 8 The Twidiot Filter Chapter 8 The Twidiot Filter 8-8B

1 Social networking used to be all about the people. Facebook is, essentially, an online version of the school gate, garden fence and water cooler in one. A place to catch up with friends, gossip and pry into the lives of others. Now it is more like a grand version of the town hall meeting – a place to hear from people you probably don’t know on issues you care about. It has made us all a media outlet, and put Joe Average on a level playing field with the great and the good.

2 This built-in democracy is alluring in principle – but anightmare in practice. To quote 19th century American writerJames Fenimore Cooper, “The tendency of democracies is, inall things, to mediocrity”. Popular Twitter hashtags like #bbcqtcan now get an average of more than 10 tweets a second,making following a topic based on hashtag nigh-on impossible.Additionally, there is a sense that the tweets that add to thedebate are increasingly hidden among a cloud of retweets, ill-informed statements and nonsense.

3 Peer ranking services like Klout have begun to suggest that all tweets are not born equal, and some people are more worth listening to than others. As Twitter continues to add users at a rate of knots in 2012 (new signups have trebled to nearly 1 million a day thanks to its inclusion in Apple’s iOS5 operating system) expect to see rating, filtering and sorting tools being built in to social media more and more.

In the age of overshare, quality will trump quantity.

8.1 The Twidiot Filter – Sorting the wheat from the chaff

FIG.8 Twidiot™ After-Market Social Media Purification Card

1 We all know the story. The financial crisis drove the world economy off a cliff and crashed consumer confidence. Time has officially been called on the great half century shopathon. And the Mayan prophecy of global Armageddon now looks like the safe money for 2012 when compared to predictions of a return to economic growth.

2 All true, but that’s only the story if you think the world extends no further than Los Angeles, Berlin and Seville. The saying used to be ‘If America sneezes the whole world catches a cold’. No longer, apparently. Rather than a touch of the sniffles, the US has been on life support for 3 years now. In the meantime the BRIC nations have been steaming ahead, with their economies growing at rates that dwarf those of G7 nations.

3 So China and India are the economic powerhouses of the future. Nothing new in that. But what is new is the consumer spending power their people are beginning to exert. Yes, they still have huge issues with poverty. But they also have a huge fledgling middle class – growing in confidence, discovering new tastes and ready to spend.

4 The last few years have seen luxury brands developingproducts aimed explicitly for the super-rich in these countries.In 2012, mainstream companies faced with flat-lining sales intraditional consumer markets will turn their attention to the BRICs.Expect to see companies bidding to woo them by developingproducts that play to the culture and sensibilities of these nations.And these will be mass market items for a global audience, soyou should expect to see them too.

From now on, we are a small fish in an ever bigger pond.

9.1 BRIC Attack – Made in China becomes made for China

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Chapter 9 BRIC Attack 9-9B

FIG.9 Consumer Pole Compass

9-9A Chapter 9 BRIC Attack

1 We live in exponential times, in both choice and information. But we have a day that stubbornly refuses toextend beyond 24 hours. This disconnect makes the questfor relevance all-important. It’s about getting what you want,when you want it.

2 But what do people really want? An age-old question that comes sharply into focus with the advent of technologies that filter out anything not in keeping with our past wants and desires. And the word ‘filter’ is important here.

3 We’ve always had our own particular way of looking at the world. But traditionally we have had to flick past others to get there – with everyone using the same architecture to arrive at different places. Now that architecture moulds around us. Most of us are aware that adverts we see online are based on our search history. But fewer of us are aware that a Google search can now provide infinite variations of results for the same search – all individualised and tailored to the users’ habits. The benefit? More personalised, relevant results. The potential pitfall? Less discovery and serendipity.

4 2012 will see people challenge companies to take them beyond these echo chambers. They will do this in twoways. Firstly, by championing surprise and coincidence.Secret Cinema in London, for which people buy a ticket toan unknown film, has built a loyal following. The second,still largely untapped route, will be to use our data more intelligently, helping us to go beyond the obvious and make leaps to things we may not have thought of (or even been aware of). Using smarter algorithms to deliver products and concepts outside our immediate thoughts, but not beyond our desires. Data is indeed the new oil, and those that can refine in the most interesting, imaginativeways will reap the benefits.

Prepare to embrace your digital destiny.

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FIG.10 Destin-O-Matic™ Cyberspace Serendipity Generator

10-10A Chapter 10 The return of random Chapter 10 The return of random 10-10B

10.1 The return of random – Escaping the ‘you-loop’

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FIG.11 Public Service Power Grid

A. PRIMARY GOVERNMENT POWER PLANT

B. CORPORATE RESERVE GENERATOR

11-11A Chapter 11 A helping brand Chapter 11 A helping brand 11-11B

11.1 A helping brand – Where PR meets ER

1 The phoney war of the post credit-crunch era is very much over – we have undoubtedly reached the Blitzkrieg phase of public service cuts. At a local level particularly, this means a lot of very visible and well-loved services starting to disappear, as local authorities concentrate on protecting distinctly unflashy necessities. Parks and leisure centres are taking the hit, as wafer-thin council budgets are focused on keeping roads serviceable, bins empty and books in schools.

2 What is undoubtedly a crisis point for local communities may be the opportunity brands have been looking for; a chance to attach their names to popular and high-profile activities, which will aid local communities through funding. The benefits of such a programme are manifold – make staff feel good about themselves, engender loyalty, build brand profile at the grassroots, and on top of that actually do some real good.

3 There have been a few leaders – Kellogg’s sponsoring of breakfast clubs, Google’s linking with the Citizen’s Advice Bureau in a campaign on internet safety and Honda’s funding of Service by Emergency Rider Volunteer (SERV) Blood Bikes. In 2012 expect to see more companies trying to link with not-for-profits with campaigns that aim to engage the public via social media, and ‘loynation’ schemes, that reward customer loyalty with charitable donations rather thana treat or bonus, that generate positive PR, and, yes,even help out.

Will the collision of big business and big society be the key to bridging the gap in public services?Watch this space.

Contact us

Tom Rothenberg – New Business DirectorTom.Rothenberg@mccannlondon.com020 7961 2417  

Jamie Copas – Client Services DirectorJamie.Copas@mccannlondon.com020 7961 2001  

www.mccannlondon.co.uk

©McCann London 2012

1012012 (M)

TRUTHWELLTOLD