On Friday, I did a talk to 1,500 people in Brighton.
I got to the venue just before kickoff, 9am.
Masses of people were queuing round the block.
I was told this was the theatre where ABBA won the Eurovision song contest.
I went into the huge empty theatre to test out the equipment.
Then I got a coffee and waited.
While everyone filed in I chatted to one of the audience.
I asked him if he lived in Brighton.
He said no, he’d come down from Birmingham just for the SEO conference.
He said people came from all over the country for it every year.
I asked him what the SEO conference was.
He thought I was kidding, he said “It’s this.”
A little red light started flashing in my head.
I said “Er, what exactly does SEO stand for?”
He said “Search Engine Optimisation, you should know you’re the keynote speaker.”
But I didn’t know.
I had assumed SEO was just another set of initials for some advertising organisation.
Like IPA, APG, D&AD, WACL, ASA.
Suddenly I realised, in 5 minutes I was about to do a speech in front of 1,500 people, on a subject I knew nothing about.
I tried to sound casual.
I said “What does that mean: Search Engine Optimisation?”
He still wasn’t sure if I was pulling his leg.
He said “Well Google is a search engine, right? You tap in the word ‘plumber’ and 500 names come up. Everyone who’s here today, it’s their job to make sure the plumber whose website they’re working on comes at or near the top of the list.”
I said “So what you have to do is beat all your competitors, right?”
He said “Basically, yes.”
I breathed a huge sigh of relief.
Then they called me up on stage to do my speech.
The first words out of my mouth were “The problems for everyone who works in Search Engine Optimisation are very similar to the problems for advertising.”
And I was able to do pretty much exactly the talk I’d prepared.
Which was a talk on Predatory Thinking.
You see everything in it was clearly as relevant to Search Engine Optimisation as it was to advertising.
Because in each case the purpose is to beat the competition.
That’s a simple human truth.
And as Bill Bernbach said, that’s what we deal in.
Simple, timeless, human truths.
That’s where the power is.
Not in the latest fashion, not the latest gimmicks, not jargon, all of that is just obfuscation.
Insecure people trying to impress other insecure people.
However fashion changes, whatever the latest technology, what will never change, what will always work will be simple human truths.
Which is why that speech was as relevant to advertising as it was to an area I knew absolutely nothing about: Search Engine Optimisation.
That’s why the talk on Predatory Thinking worked.
It’s not a gimmick, it’s not jargon, it’s not fashion.
It’s a simple human truth.
People have always needed to beat their competition.
That doesn’t change.
There are new ways to do that, new technologies, but that’s the job.
To beat the competition.
And in our terms that means standing out from the competition.
In advertising it means standing out from the thousands other of ads.
In SEO it means standing out from the thousands of other searches.
Standing out.
Beating the competition.
That’s the job, that’s the simple human truth.
That doesn’t change according to fashion or technology.
And that’s the same in any creative field.
Advertising, graphic design, film, photography, writing, music, dance, theatre, editing, painting, sculpture, journalism, SEO.
Show me someone creative who doesn’t want to stand out, someone who wants to be just like everyone else, someone who wants to be invisible, someone who wants to go unnoticed.
And I’ll show you someone who’s in the wrong job.
Jo, jo, vid Waterloo Napoleon fick ge sig
Men, men, sitt öde kan man möta på så många skilda sätt
Själv känner jag sen jag mött dig
Historien upprepar sig
Waterloo – jag är besegrad, nu ger jag mig
Waterloo – lova mej nöjet att älska dig
Waterloo – allting känns rätt, och det är min tro
Waterloo – du är mitt öde, mitt Waterloo
Wa Wa Wa Wa Waterloo – du är mitt öde, mitt Waterloo
…u must’ve been tempted, Dave.
Grilla Login - 17 September 2012 10:21 am
Dave,
Could you have stood out by organising a sit-in?
The only trouble I see is that everyone tries to fit the problem to their predetermined media solution. I guess the digerati think the answer is always lurking in the machine or rather they’ve convinced the client that’s where the solution lies and it’s only them that have the answer.
john p woods - 17 September 2012 10:54 am
Did the care what you said after the first page….that is my attempt at a SEO joke.
Jim - 17 September 2012 1:51 pm
“Show me someone creative who doesn’t want to stand out, someone who wants to be just like everyone else, someone who wants to be invisible, someone who wants to go unnoticed.
And I’ll show you someone who’s in the wrong job.”
In my opinion you’ve just nailed everyone who works in a markrting department. They seem to want to be just like everyone else, unnoticed, invisible.
They are definitely in the wrong job.
Timmy Trimble-Thwaites - 17 September 2012 2:48 pm
It’s amazing how many times a day I hear “Find out what the competition have done”. As if replication is anywhere near the same thing as creation.
I’d much rather do something different and fail than go unnoticed. As a creative, “Failing quietly”, as you put it in Brighton, should be the worst thing you can do.
Andrew - 17 September 2012 3:17 pm
Now that I know what SEO is, that’s a perfectly respectable joke Jim.
Dave Trott - 17 September 2012 3:30 pm
thanks; merci; cheers; ta; grazie; danke; – not such a good joke that one.
Jim - 17 September 2012 4:13 pm
I was at brightonseo last week.. Really enjoyed the talk dave Thanks!!
gabs - 17 September 2012 4:41 pm
My pleasure Gabs,
really nice bunch of people.
Dave Trott - 17 September 2012 4:47 pm
A search engine optimizer walks into a bar/cafe/restaurant/pub/brasserie/alcoholic drink
vinny warren - 17 September 2012 5:54 pm
@ 4: “If you want to spend millions making yourself invisible, buy a stealth bomber” – Lee Clow’s Beard.
John S - 18 September 2012 8:20 am
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FsVeMz1F5c&feature=related
Grilla Login - 18 September 2012 9:13 am
@Andrew:
In order to be different, you have to know what is/has been done. No?
steakandcheese - 18 September 2012 12:34 pm
SEO is a social discipline, in much the same way advertising is. The objective is usually to get some sort of action from a user (maybe a sale, maybe a sign up, the list is endless), using search engines as your means of transmission. Ideally, you need a certain amount of technical knowledge, to be best able to put your call to action in front of the right people, but pretty much everything you said in your talk applies fairly directly to SEO. It was good, very thought provoking
TallTroll - 19 September 2012 10:20 am
Dave,
That’s very funny.
Did a lecture at Falmouth years ago on different styles of art direction in advertising.
Wrote tons of notes and left them all on the train.
Showed these guys about 90 slides on the history of great Saatchi ads
and the silence was deathly.
Left what I hoped was best ad til last and pressed the final slide through.
“Beaver Espana”
like it was setting off an Atomic Bomb.
All the students burst into laughter
I breathed a sigh of relief
and the head of the college looked devastated.
Needless to say I never got invited again.
Love the bit about
insecure people trying to impress other insecure people
it sums up advertising in a nutshell.
Voice in the wilderness - 20 September 2012 8:26 am
Dave, first of all, thank you.
I really enjoyed hearing your thoughts with regards what we traditionally perceive as the media and your principles of “how to kill your competition” – basically with ICP and focussed effort. My head just wouldn’t stop nodding along, that’s how much you affected my mind!
However, with regards your thoughts on Psychographics, would you think it’d be right in saying that I like to think of myself as part “Former” and part “Follower”? As I believe it can depend on the topic of discussion (and one’s own experience and reputation of the toic) as to how strongly one can persuade another. For example I know quite a lot about owning pet house rabbits (because I’ve owned 2 for over 6 years now), but I have little knowledge about owning a pet alligator (have never owned one, nor would I – though I once held a baby alligator for about 3 minutes).
Or would you say the Psychographics theory you presented was more about a type of person, i.e. one is either a Leader or a Follower?
I look forward to your feedback and thank you again for an inspiring Friday morning.
Thanks also to Kelvin Newman and all the Sitevisibility Team for a really great day!
Becky Rowland - 20 September 2012 9:45 am
Hi Becky,
It’s a good question.
Maybe some people are opinion formers in areas where they have a lot of knowledge, and opinion followers in areas where they don’t.
In which case it’s up to us to define that before we start work.
This might split along High Involvement and Low Involvement category lines.
If we’re only talking to a High Involvement sector (like hobbies, or mums with babies) we don’t have to work hard to get attention.
They want all the information they can get.
If we’re talking to Low Involvement sector (like petrol or washing powder) we have to work hard to get attention, no one’s interested.
Obviously opinion formers are much more important in the low involvement sector.
We have to generate attention.
So I think we have to define the sector before we start and that helps us define the audience.
Hope this helps Becky.
Dave Trott - 20 September 2012 9:54 am
Thank you very much for your feedback Dave, I really appreciate your time.
I agree, it does make sense to differentiate the sectors, as you mentioned on Friday – “standing out from the crowd and making an impact will enable you to beat competition, as the mind is like a pattern making machine that constantly pre-selects stimuli into groups” (I hope I noted that down correctly).
So basically, having unusual and different visual and/or content will have a greater chance of being noticed.
I really liked your examples of ads, especially the one you helped t create: “You can break a brolly but you can’t k-nacker a Knirps.” (http://www.adslogans.co.uk/site/pages/gallery/you-can-break-a-brolly-but-you-cant-k-nacker-a-knirps.8412.php).
Are there any you would pick from http://adsoftheworld.com that you personally think have ICP down to an art?
Becky Rowland - 20 September 2012 1:16 pm
Dave,
Whatever happened to intuition, spontenaiety, and pure genius.
Is creativity to be contained in test tubes to be mixed to exact proportions
according to market trends?
Why do people expect to comparmentalise life.
Life happens.
It’s the random element.
The unexplainable.
The incompatible.
The joy of discomfort that all good creative know only too well.
It cannot be spreadsheeted.
Kev - 21 September 2012 12:39 pm
Andrew – finding out what the competition has done is the way to make sure you DON’T replicate it? How else can you make sure you’re doing something different. To add on to one of Dave’s war metaphors, if you don’t know where the enemy army is, how can you attack it?
Tom - 21 September 2012 4:11 pm
Hi Becky,
Sorry to have taken so long to get back.
I looked at that site, but I didn’t see anything there that did it for me.
Have you tried a book called “A Smile In The Mind”?
That has some great examples.
Dave Trott - 24 September 2012 10:16 am
Hi Dave,
Thank you very much for getting back to me and for taking the time to have a look at the adsoftheworld site.
I too wasn’t that impressed, just looks like a back-catalogue of corporate ads rather than providing insight as to results – which is what I’m more interested in.
Thank you for recommending “A Smile In The Mind” (http://uk.phaidon.com/store/design/a-smile-in-the-mind-9780714838120) – I’ll see if my local library has a copy.
I came across this site but I don’t think it bears any relation to Beryl’s book http://www.asmileinthemind.org?
Just out of interest, would you also be able to recommend any B2B marketing industry events, whether they be hosted by a company or by a publisher?
Looking forward to your reply.
Best Regards,
Becky
Becky Rowland - 2 October 2012 3:40 pm
Sorry Becky, I can’t help you out with B2B industry events I’m afraid.
Dave Trott - 2 October 2012 4:54 pm
Hi Dave, not to worry. I really appreciate your time though. I shall continue to follow your blog updates and hope to see you present in Sussex again soon.
Best Regards,
Becky
Becky Rowland - 3 October 2012 9:57 am
Hi Dave,
Hope all is well.
I recently came across this information “Proof of Performance: Making the case for magazine media” via FIPP (http://www.fipp.com/page/about-us) and thought it might be of interest to you.
Best Regards,
Becky
Becky Rowland - 8 November 2012 12:06 pm
Oops, sorry I missed out the link to the information I actually wanted to share with you, so here you go: http://www.fipp.com/POP?utm_source=FIPP+Vital+Guide&utm_campaign=8944bad640-FIPP_Vital_Guide_11_07_2012&utm_medium=email
Becky Rowland - 8 November 2012 12:07 pm