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Kylie, doing your thing and brands

I took Mrs Northern to see Kylie in Manchester last night. She loved it, which is all that matters, but I couldn’t help but enjoy it.

Not only was it a great show, there’s something about strength in numbers that makes shows like this really special. In spite of yourself, you can’t help the mirror neurons firing, smiling, clapping along and generally feeling like you belong. Brands don’t bring their tribes together enough in my view.

More people in agencies should go see performances like last night because:

1. They show how to present to a crowd. I didn’t see the lyrics behind her as she sung, like you do with most powerpoint presentations. The visuals, films and lights were a backdrop that added to songs, made them more powerful. That’s how to present.

2. Kylie was shamelessly populist when she started singing, then tried to go cool, grungy and even indie. Didn’t work. No one wanted a grungy Kylie, it wasn’t her ‘thing’, they wanted a little pop princess Kylie. That’s when she came back in from the cold…cacatchy pop songs with a added dollop of sexiness and genuine innovation in her shows. That’s her thing, that what she does best.

That’s a lesson for agencies, who are prone to making their work what they want it to be, rather than what the brand’s fans do. And it’s a lesson for clients, who are often guilty of wanting their brand to be something it’s not.Kylie’s no Joni Mitchell, but what she does, she does well, and her public loves it.

Which brings me to Orange’s new ‘"I am" work. It’s taken a pasting in the trade, but I bet it’s working. It’s a truth for a start, we’re all shaped by how we interact with others (last night showed that). But also, the people I’ve spoken to who don’t live in an advertising bubble think it’s really nice, gives them  warm glow and makes them ‘like’ Orange. Attention? Tick. Involvement? Tick. Salience? Tick. Talkabilty? Tick again.

I hate those Halifix ads with the staff. You talk to their customers, it’s like catnip. We’re here to suprise and delight THEM not us, our creative directors or Claire Beale.   

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6 responses to “Kylie, doing your thing and brands”

  1. John Avatar
    John

    Absolutely right. But I have to say that I felt uneasy reading the penultimate paragraph. Do non-advertising people really think about advertisements unless you actually ask them and does the act of asking them undermine the whole thing? The concept of prompted recall makes me similarly queasy. Am I being pedantic? Would be interested in your and others’ take on this.

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  2. Rob @ Cynic Avatar
    Rob @ Cynic

    The biggest problem with adland is quite often they target the people in adland rather than the people who can make a real difference to the clients business.
    That doesn’t mean you have to make lowest-common-denominator blandom communication [believe it or not, people are way, way, waaaaaay more intelligent than most agencies/clients give them credit for] but it does mean you have to be relevant to those who don”t lunch at the Ivy, have a little black book full of film directors names and define their achievements by 30″ bits of wallpaper they had a hand in developing.
    I must admit I’m not too sure that Kylie is the best analogy – I do get what you’re saying – it’s just she’s more of a popularity whore than someone who fundamentally stands for something specific – but then my plane is late so I’m in a bad and contrary mood 🙂

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  3. northern Avatar
    northern

    john I agree that quant tests of recall are bogus, but ads are still culturally relevant enough for people to want to talk about them, it’s just that too many people in marketing think they’re the only topic of conversation.
    Rob, she knows her place in her fans’ lives. That’s the point isn’t it?

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  4. Rob @ Cynic Avatar
    Rob @ Cynic

    I told you I was in a crappy mood!
    I do appreciate that Kylie is consistent within her fans expectations … the bit that amuses is me is that she is quite inconsistent as an overall ‘brand’ [my wife will kill me for referring to her as that] because her music/concert persona is different to her to her perfume product persona which is different to her television persona which is different to her “gossip magazine” persona … but I think I should shut up there before I upset the entire gay community or Mrs NP or even NP himself 🙂

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  5. Rob @ Cynic Avatar
    Rob @ Cynic

    Too late …
    Jackson, the biggest Kylie fan in the Universe [his words, not mine] has just bollocked me because quite rightly, he points out that Kylie has been consistent in frivolous exuberance and extravaganza whilst Andy, the biggest perv in the Universe [my words, not his] pointed out that Kylie looked much better than Moss in those television underwear ads so I should shut the hell up. Which I will, Sorry.

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  6. northern Avatar
    northern

    ..and she had the most consistently perfet bottom in showbiz.

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