Editorial Articles

Tom Eslinger, Digital Creative Director at Saatchi & Saatchi talks to Figaro about the interface between social and search and explains why marketers need to shift their focus away from specific channels and towards specific sets of behaviour

"We're only seeing the very tip of social media's impact," says Tom Eslinger, Digital Creative Director at Saatchi & Saatchi, the agency who rolled the royals down the aisle to East 17 for T-Mobile's massively successful viral campaign earlier this year.

"It's going to change the tools we use. The way the money's spent. It's going to change the way businesses are structured. Our tools and experience have been based on the idea that users are sitting at a PC in a single place. That entire experience will change to become absolutely location based. What's exciting is this is the first time so many disciplines have been working together at once. Exciting - but for clients a little scary."

Eslinger is well-placed to judge. He's been on Saatchi's worldwide creative board since 2002. A passionate advocate and theorist of innovation in technology and design, he's picked up multiple Cannes Lion Awards, done several stints as a juror at the festival and still finds time to design his own fonts, some of which have featured in Saatchi campaigns. Marketing's focus in the 21st century, he says, needs to shift away from specific channels and instead focus on specific sets of user behaviour.

Search & deploy

With this in mind, Eslinger and his colleagues have been considering the interface between social media and search, and he's currently at work on a number of projects bringing the practices together. Eslinger describes how Saatchi's social media partners have been monitoring the buzz in the lead up to campaigns, then using that information to identify who's talking to who about what. The collated data then forms part of a toolkit which, he says, "we're feeding up into the campaign when we see that sweet spot happening."

That approach provided the genesis for Saatchi's award-winning Swagger Wagon US viral campaign in 2010, on which Elsinger worked. 'Swagger', it transpired, was a recurrent term in social conversations taking place around Toyota's family-friendly Sienna minivan. Using information gleaned from social media, Saatchi's creative team came up with happy rappers the Sienna family, whose gently self-mocking take on hip-hip style helped overhaul Toyota's dented public image and recast the Sienna itself as the vehicle of choice for suburban parents looking for a ride with some roll. The result was one of the most viewed viral clips of 2010 and demonstrates how traditional distinctions between channels have given way to a more holistic approach centred round sentiment and behaviour.

Listening post

Social's great strength is that it allows marketers to refine and refocus their approach, enabling brands to go directly to their audiences and talk to them about the things they're already talking about. From there, explains Eslinger, it's possible to start building up an integrated campaign through banner ads, video content, in-store events and whatever other avenues are appropriate. So, as the number of channels expands and the distinctions between them blur, is targeting the key to forging meaningful relationships with users?

"It's not just targeting," says Eslinger. "It's giving better creative. Targeting is great when you're trying to reach someone and make an actual emotional connection." But, he says, merely placing your message in a place where users tend to congregate is no guarantee that anyone will actually pay attention. "It can be like being stalked," he says. "There's someone you don't want to see, and every time you turn round, there they are - standing behind you."

Of course, recruiting users to a multi-channel campaign is only half the story. Just as important is taking them with you as the campaign evolves. So what's the key to retaining relationships with engaged users?

"The most important thing during that journey," says Eslinger, "is letting people know what's going on and what to expect when a particular part of the experience is over." A lot of the traffic to Saatchi's T-Mobile campaign came through the YouTube channel. That meant thinking about how to migrate users through to subsequent stages of the campaign. "It's about talking to the community and letting them know what's going on. People can be alerted early that something's going to happen in whatever channel they want – whether that's a text, an email, a tweet or through Facebook."

Equally vital, says Eslinger, is a developing a clear notion of where people will want to socialise a particular idea.

"With T-Mobile, for example, it's simple: 'Life's for sharing' – sharing is social. That's easy. But when you start looking at pharmaceuticals, clothing, soft drinks, cars – where will people want to socialise those ideas? In some cases, creating something on Facebook is entirely the wrong way to do something. Right now a lot of companies and marketing folk think Facebook is a website. They'll build a fanpage rather than a website, but they're completely different things. Selling something on a traditional website with its own url is not the same as putting something into the largest shopping mall in the world. And I don't necessarily mean that in a solely commercial sense. When I was a kid shopping centres were where people socialised and that's how I look at Facebook now."

So there's little point in targeting users unless, having got their attention, you actually have something cool, useful or entertaining to offer them. Eslinger points to Dell and online shoe retailer Zappos as examples of companies who've done just that, fully integrating social into their culture. Context and contact point need to be perfectly aligned if consumers are going to convert. It's unlikely, after all, that many of us will adopt Facebook as our first port of call if we're simply looking to buy new socks. "Unless," notes Eslinger wryly, "You're giving away a free Ferrari with the socks. Then it's an awesome idea."

Future watching

Of all the new channels currently opening up, none is more significant than mobile, a field about which Eslinger is particularly passionate. And, like many working in this sector, he believes we've barely begun to exploit its potential.

"When you have that kind of computing power in your pocket with access to social, search and location-based technology, it's phenomenal." But, he adds, "Everyone's making apps now because they're sexy, but nobody's really looking at why we're doing that and what we're going to do with all that information."

Part of the problem, he says, is that the marketing industry is struggling to keep up with a new generation of users born into a world where social media rules and brand allegiances are in a constant state of flux. Those of us on the far side of 30 may talk about 'digital', but for kids growing up in this new landscape, the term is almost meaningless. "For them," he says, "everything is digital. The attitude is, 'that's just how I live'."

However, not only is mobile uniquely versatile and accessible, the information – and the nature of the information - which NFC-enabled devices are capable of delivering is vast. Already work is being done in developing sensors which will track ever-more detailed movement and even smell. Miniaturisation means mobile chips will be incorporated into clothes. (Bluetooth-enabled apparel, Eslinger notes, first appeared five or six years ago.) And the devices themselves will communicate with each other intelligently.

This, says Eslinger, is a field auto-manufacturers are already investigating: new technology will make it possible for cars to 'talk' to each other on the road, alerting drivers of potential hazards before they become visible.

What's significant about all this from a marketing perspective is the amount of valuable, synchronised information becoming available, providing brands, agencies and technology providers with extraordinarily detailed insights into users' interests and activity. Data is both building block and currency and, as ever in digital, it's not just what you know. It's what you do with what you know.

Article by Jon Fortgang