The Zombie Strategist Guide to… Split Propositions

In this bright fresh new world, compromise is King. Or Queen. Or sometimes a bit of both – you do you.

As a Zombie Strategist (in Adland, over forty, not quite dead), my entire existence is about compromise. Not alive, but not quite snuffed it, I exist in a grey place that is not one thing or the other but smells strongly of rotting cabbage.

I like to think of myself as ‘Living Adjacent’.

This extends to the workplace – I would like to devour people, popping their heads off like Smartie caps to get the delicious grey thinky paste that sloshes around in their cranium. Peter from HR would rather that I didn’t do that, and instead suggested a day in which we workshop the downsides of eating my co-workers and the joys of compromise.

And so we have compromised.

I have eaten Peter.

But not all compromise is this positive.

For example – when it comes to a Single Minded Proposition, compromise can be a bad thing.

Modern marketers have a lot more pressure than their predecessors. More hoops to jump through, more targets, a great deal more stakeholders. Some of that is positive. Some, maybe not so much.

Which leads to ‘Stakeholder Inflation’.

Stakeholder Inflation starts with ‘The Client’ – a single point of sign-off, an intelligent individual that you can form a working relationship with based on mutual respect and an understanding of each other’s motivations.

It is a relationship based on trust.

But to get the budget they need to do their job, sometimes ‘The Client’ needs to pool budget or approvals from other people. And the meetings can start to balloon a little.

More people means more points of view.

Things can take a little more time, but with the right systems in place, this can be managed smoothly and the group can expand inline with the initial working relationship. Respect, trust, mutual understanding.

If that relationships is not closely managed, inflation gets out of control and before you know it, it’s the office equivalent of Weimar Germany, people are moving amends by the ton in wheelbarrows, and you have enough stakeholders for a pop-up chorus line and performance of Cabaret.

And at the end of that process you can’t quite get sign-off on the Single Minded Proposition.

And so your SMP gets… compromised.

Why do you need a Single Minded Proposition and what is it?

You need a Single Minded Proposition to communicate the thing that sets you apart and that you want the audience to know/think/feel within a fraction of a second of seeing any communication from your brand.

Because your company does loads of cool stuff – but you don’t have time to communicate all of it. You need to pick what you want to say and stick to it.

It’ll be on the brief that goes to the creatives. It’ll form the backbone of the messaging that goes out.

So… why does it matter if it’s compromised?

One of the benefits of having worked in Creative and Strategy over the years is that I’ve been kicked in the goolies by both sides. It has given me a keen understanding of the art of not getting kicked in the goolies.

If you have a split proposition – the ideas that your creatives can start from become massively limited.

Here’s a theoretical example – Let’s say that back in the day, Guinness’s SMP was – “A Guinness is so good, it’s worth waiting for”.

Creatives can take that almost anywhere – give the brief to five different teams you’ll get hugely different interpretations.

Feedback comes in and says something along the lines of – Mmmm…. We’re worried that it looks a little ‘loner-ey’ – I think that it would be good to show that it’s good to enjoy it with other people.

Now, let’s split it – “A Guinness is so good it’s worth waiting for and sharing with friends”.

or let’s say you want some provenance in there instead.

“A Guinness is so good it’s worth waiting for and has been brewed in Dublin since 1759”

With one change you haven’t just changed the SMP – you’ve written the adverts. You’ve written the strapline (near as dammit).

You’ve manacled the teams to an SMP that is simply too complex – by the time they have explained your whole SMP – there isn’t any room for any storytelling.

Which means that the campaign will be executional rather than creative.

There’s a lot of examples out there. I’m not going to be mean and point them out.

So… how do you prevent this?

This on the agency. We are always trying to do our best for our client, to make them look great. And we are aware of timings, and budgets, and the internal pressures facing our clients.

We want them to be happy, we want to get sign-off… and so we do the unforgivable.

We make ourselves believe that the compromise won’t really be a problem. That just because it’s split, the creative team can still pull it out of the bag.

Having stood in both camps I understand the problem.

But a split proposition will screw everybody.

Because in a meeting six months from now, a person you have never met will be judging your output based on the document you compromised on. And for them it will be mandatory.

You will have been screwed over by your own compromise.

And so we need to take one more meeting. Risk annoying one more group of people. Do the work, present the research, show the findings, illustrate the thinking and cut down the options.

To get the split to become a single.

Because in the end, it’ll be worth it. In the words of Zombie Winston Churchill – “BBbbbbbbBBBrrrraains….”

An inspiring message we can all agree with.

#Advertising #Marketing #Strategy #Zombies