EP 52: Boring, boring, boring: how to inject creativity into your marketing
Are you tired of seeing tons of boring marketing in the built environment? Well, you're in luck with this week's episode.
It is a short solo episode where I talk about the plethora of boring marketing and how more marketers should be taking a stand to stop it.
Resources and links
Find out about Abbas Marketing here
Check out Rob Mayhew
View Hobbycraft Wimbledon
More podcasts.
Transcript
Ayo Abbas 00:08
Are you bored? And I mean, really, really bored. Tell you what I am. Particularly when it comes to marketing. Welcome to The Built Environment Marketing Show. And yep, it's your rather bored host Ayo Abbas from Abbas Marketing. You know, for my solo episodes, I don't record them too far in advance. And I tend to go with what I'm feeling in my gut. And today's show is a bit of a 4am epiphany.
Ayo Abbas 00:42
I guess for me, that's kind of when I get my creative inspiration, which is a bit of a pain when you're meant to be sleeping. But today's episode is taken from, I guess, a recent LinkedIn post that I did, which I'll read to you shortly, which basically talks about why I'm bored of, I guess, the current state of marketing, and just seeing the same old stuff.
Ayo Abbas 01:05
So here's my post, which read:
Ayo Abbas 01:09
"I am bored and let's be honest, many of our audiences are too. Built Environment, marketing content seems to be stuck on a hamster wheel of blandness. I know so many inspirational engineers, and architects who deliver the most inspiring projects you've ever seen. But great ideas, great for it. And they are quite frankly inspirational but when it comes to the marketing, quite often, it's the same old formulaic thing, Turning out reams of one of blogs, as that's what they've always done. As it's easy. Rather than going and getting all those smart minds together to come up with something way more exciting and way more interesting and way more impactful, maybe under a campaign umbrella. Instead, they tend to stick to doing what they've always done."
Ayo Abbas 02:01
Anyway, so back to this episode today. What I'm gonna be talking about is marketing and how I guess we all need to stop being quite so boring and formulaic. I know, the other week, I was looking at why a campaign I'm doing one of my clients has been really successful. So I started kind of doodling and drawing a diagram about what makes good content. And I came to the conclusion that it's about having some kind of, I guess, constants in what you're doing, but also having some kind of freedom to be a bit more variable and kind of, you know, do something slightly different each time.
Ayo Abbas 02:45
So I think there's that element of having constant, that kind of its familiar, but also a bit of variable, so you can kind of keep it interesting.
Ayo Abbas 02:54
So take this podcast, for example. My colours have always been grey and yellow. My target audience has always been constantly the same, built environment marketing people, the name
Ayo Abbas 03:06
well, let's be honest, I'm now on my third name, So that's been quite variable, that's for sure. Probably not planned.But that did happen anyway.
Ayo Abbas 03:14
And the questions, when I think about the way that I do the questions for my podcast when I do an interview, so under constant, introduce yourself, things like that. But also, some of them are really variable, depending on, I guess what the conversation actually necessitates? I mean, beforehand, I do, do my research on my guests and there's a reason I do tend to invite them on. I know roughly where it is that I want to take the conversation.
Ayo Abbas 03:37
Really, ultimately, it's a two way conversation. And it's a real conversation. So it's kind of governed by what the answers are, to what the kind of next questions are, that I want to pose. It's a real conversation.
Ayo Abbas 03:49
And in terms of kind of the overall structure of the podcast, I have consistent music, it's an overall framework. And I do a mix of solo and interview kind of things. But I also sometimes adding kind of things that I guess catch my eye or catch my attention. So the odd mini series here, like I did on marketing models, or when I rebranded and we did that live going live for five days on LinkedIn. So I'll come up with an idea. And then I'll execute that just to kind of, I guess, because I can, you know, I'm a creative I can come up with an idea I can basically put together and implemented so I'm quite lucky in that respect.
Ayo Abbas 04:25
But you know, it's still kind of my podcast is still got that similar constant framework to it, but at least I can kind of embellish and keep you interested.
Ayo Abbas 04:36
When I kind of think about my best client work, and also the best, I guess, campaigns and marketing that I see in the wild, it does tend to have a structure and direction. But there's also not being afraid to kind of use different ways to tell that story as the story requires. It's a great way of keeping the audience interested.
Ayo Abbas 04:57
I remember watching a clip a few weeks ago About Phoebe Waller bridge, who wrote, what does she write, she wrote that fantastic thing, which I completely forgot what it's called, but you know who she is. She's famous. She's won a lot of awards on the vicar. Oh, I can't remember this quote, I keep thinking the Vicar of Dibley, but it's not that, anyway. Oh, fleabag that's it, she won't feed back.
Ayo Abbas 05:17
Anyway, so she was talking about how she creates her storylines. So she has her characters in mind. And then basically, she sticks random thoughts onto the wall on post it notes. And her kind of idea is the fact that it's the more absurd, the better, which really kind of stuck out in my mind. Then she kind of just moves those post it notes around to kind of create some kind of narrative. I mean, how freeing a process does that sound? how joyful? How kind of open is it? It's like random ideas stuck to the wall. And then you create your narrative around that. And isn't that just great.
Ayo Abbas 05:54
Anyway, you might be thinking, why am I talking about a TV show when actually this is about built environment, marketing and b2b. And to me, it's very much about, you know, next time someone comes up and asks for that usual PDF, but no one in their right minds will really want or download, ask yourself, is there a better way to do this?
Ayo Abbas 06:14
What is that person really trying to achieve? What is it they really wants to communicate? Is there any point? if you and them can't figure out with some clarity the answers to those questions?
Ayo Abbas 06:26
Maybe it's time to just say no. And the same applies to next time someone asks you to post a middle of the road blog with no actual opinion. You know, why bother? Who's gonna read it? You haven't really got much to say, just because you're ticking a box.
Ayo Abbas 06:44
So I think part of marketing has to be, being about not being afraid to challenge, not being afraid to say actually do what maybe you're better off leaving this time. Until we come back we can come up with something that's better. It's a scary thing to do. But actually having so much mundane, middle of road, boring content, I actually think that probably does more damage than good.
Ayo Abbas 07:10
So why am I being so tough on us marketers? Why am I being so tough on boring even?
Ayo Abbas 07:16
Why do I want us to champion more creativity in our marketing? Well, it's because let's face it, the robots are coming near and if you haven't tried Chatgpt, yet, as a marketeer,I really, really think you should do so. You see, what it spits out in just a few seconds is actually pretty good once you've got the right prompts and with machine learning, and the amount of people using it, it is learning fast, and it's improving fast. It's improving way faster than either you or I ever could.
Ayo Abbas 07:49
The machines are coming and soon gonna be churning out way more of this boring content and way more of this fodder that isn't actually that creative, but gives us standard responses. And then you know what, they're gonna do it way faster than you or I ever can. So what's left for us? How do we stay in employment? How do we keep winning work?
Ayo Abbas 08:10
When I tell you what's left, our creativity, our minds, our own inspired thoughts, our very own unboringness.
Ayo Abbas 08:21
And that to me, is why we've all got to get more creative in our marketing. Great recent examples are the comedian Rob Mayhew, who has blown up on Tik Tok for his observational takes on the advertising industry.
Ayo Abbas 08:34
I'll put some links in the show notes to some of his stuff and a recent interview I read about him, which is just really inspiring.
Ayo Abbas 08:40
Another great example, which isn't in the built environment is Hobbycraft Wimbledon, which is my local store. They've basically gone viral because they are so good on Tik Tok, they have so much fun, they're so authentic. And you know, they catch on to the trends. And you know, their TikTok is brilliant, it's so lovely to see. And they basically has a duet with Kylie, which is just amazing, on her current single. I'll put some more links to that in the show notes as well.
Ayo Abbas 09:05
Anyway, so that is the end of this episode, which is about please, let's all stop being boring.
Ayo Abbas 09:11
So if you want to join my quest to rid us of boring marketing, I'd really love to hear what you're about to do to try and make sure that you don't join that usual crew.
Ayo Abbas 09:23
Thanks for listening.
Ayo Abbas 09:31
Anyway, if you want to join me in my quest to rid us of boring marketing, do drop me a line. I'd love to hear your thoughts on what you're going to do to change the status quo. Email me at Ayo@abbasmarketing.com
