I will be in Japan in the next two weeks

Hello loyal readers!  For the next two weeks I won’t be posting anything because of a trip to Japan.  Stay tuned for future updates.  I will be visiting Kyushu, which is located in the southern area of Japan.  I will be visiting Nagasaki (site of a dropped atomic bomb in 1945), Fukuoka (the largest city in Kyushu), Kagoshima and a few other small towns.

Cheers,

 

Simon Li

Why do some ads get more attention than others?

Back in July of this year, the annual AAAA Account Planners’ conference in Miami occurred.  In one of the talks, a speaker from Crispin Porter and Bogusky, spoke about various story-telling plots that resonate with consumers.  In all advertisements, the message must be relevant to the intended audience in order for it to resonate with them. I did not attend this conference, all the information I will discuss is from the AAAA website.

The first story plot was: “Overcoming the Monster: Traditional examples include Dracula and Jaws. Advertiser example: Virgin. Story-telling track: Call to action; confusion; considered withdrawal and reconsideration. Captive audience: Heroes. ”

Here is a commercial by Nike that has all the elements of a hero versus a protagonist story line.  It captures the audience attention because people have a tendency to always want the hero to win.  Its message is powerful and certainly resonates with the intended audience because people can identify with the challenges of facing adversity, and the rewards of being persistent and defying the odds.

 

Second story plot was: “Quest: Traditional examples include Indiana Jones and Odyssey. Advertiser example: Dove. Story-telling track: Lust/anger; inform others; campaign; solve. Captive audience: Advocates“

This Nike commercial was effective because it reaches out to aspiring athletes that the myriad of excuses to procrastinate is not conducive to becoming a great athlete.  It certainly solves a main problem among people and their tendencies to procrastinate, and it is a major detractor for success.   

 

Third was: “Rebirth: Traditional examples include A Christmas Carol and Sleeping Beauty. Advertiser example: Sainsbury’s. Story-telling track: Fall; escape; recapture, redeem. Captive audience: Rescuers.“

This ad from Sainsbury’s is indirectly tying the themes of “A Christmas Carol” with their message. There are subtle elements of the Dickens’ classic that exist within the ad.  The audience can identify with these themes and it reminds the audience of the importance of the Christmas spirit.

Fourth was: “Mystery: Traditional examples include Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes. Advertiser example: Nike. Story-telling track: Intrigue, hide, seek, reveal. Captive audience: Detectives.“ 

Here is a commercial by Nike that has all the elements of mystery and intrigue.  It captures the audience attention because it keeps people at their edge of their seats wondering what will happen next.

On the web, there was a viral campaign by Blentec, which manufactures blenders.  This campaign showcased their very powerful blenders and their unique capabilities to blend various objects (e.g. iPhone, golf clubs, etc.) through numerous online videos.  It engaged the consumer because of their state of curiosity was invoked by variety of possible objects that could be blended.  This campaign certainly received much conversation and traffic and it became a very successful viral campaign. 

Fifth was: “Rags to Riches: Traditional examples include David Copperfield and Cinderella. Advertiser example: Skoda. Story-telling track: Pity, rescue, struggle, independence. Captive audience: Liberators. “

This Skoda ad can be an example of rags to riches, watching a car being constructed from individual elements of food and into a fully recognizable car.

Examples include the story of a man who won an auction for a 2008 BMW M3 on eBay for $60,000, and the Dealership refused to honor the deal.  Another example, was from a man who had his car booted by the parking authorities in his housing community. In both these examples, their plights ignited other users’ calls to action, strangers suddenly became these people’s advocates.  They went to helped find ways to solve their problems, some even made telephone calls on their behalf.  Both stories on their forums collectively had over a million hits. 

Finally, the sixth was “Voyage & Return: Traditional examples: include Gone with the Wind and Alice in Wonderland. Advertiser example: Google. Story-telling track: Ambition, claim, confront, correct. Captive audience: Conservers ”

This advertisement tying in the unique sound of the Audi RS 4 with movie sound effects.  This captivates the intended audience because of its ambitious claim that its sound is the inspiration for some movie sound effects.

What are some of your favorite ads?  Why?

More examples of Transformation Design

In an earlier posting, I had written about Transformation Design from a business to consumer perspective.  Today, I will discuss business to business examples.  Again, these companies are engaging in designing a system of activity that drives the positive change that the consumer desires to see in his/herself and his/hers community.

Intuit a software company that is well-known for their accounting and tax software, has developed an online forum that is dedicated to help small business owners.  This forum has become a community of users with a common purpose to share, collaborate and discuss ideas.

I had written in earlier posts about the commonality of crowdsourcing and the development of user contribution systems in many businesses.  On Intuit’s website,  there are online guides that facilitate small businesses with the learning and the implementing these tools to their business needs.

A success story for the implementation of a user contribution system is Starbucks as it has been active with crowdsourcing from users for new ideas and innovation to improve their customer experience.  They have an online forum where users can voice their concerns and suggestions.  Some innovations today such as the Starbucks Card, which is a loyalty incentive that enables customers to have a free refill and free two hours of daily Wi-Fi use were ideas from this online forum.

American Express has opened up an online resource for small businesses complete with articles and videos from experts to help and improve small business practices.  For examples, there are articles about the benefits of blogging, methods to improve presentation skills and a number of other self-help and business improvement tips.

American Express and Intuit are engaged in Transformation Design in the context of business to business marketing.  Both approaches (design) are different, but the intent (system) is similar in bringing about positive change in small businesses and its personnel.  For reasons similar to Transformation Design from a business to consumer context, the business to business context also provides goodwill, positive branding, and the positive change to the user and their community as benefits for companies that use and embrace Transformation Design.

Designing Innovation

There is an alarming number of preventable deaths in US hospitals each year according to this article from McKinsey Quarterly, and thus, there was an initiative by a non-profit organization called the Institute of Healthcare Improvement (IHI) that set a mandate to reduce the number of preventable deaths by 100,000 in one year.  It succeeded after one year, and it was able to enroll 75% of all US hospitals.   

As a non-profit, it neither wielded authority nor influence on hospital board of governors, it also faced the unyielding attitudes towards change, differing stakeholder goals, shortness of resources and time  and as such it already faced an uphill battle for this initiative to be implemented.  

How was IHI able to reach its target despite these enormous setbacks? It had to make its initiatives easy to understand and to remember for all stakeholders (nurses, doctors, etc.).   In peer-reviewed medical journals, there is a plethora of information that aids in the amelioration of hospital operations.  IHI took the time consuming part of disseminating this information and presenting and selecting six key criteria that can help with its mission.  

This program was flexible in that not all six criteria needed to be followed and adhered to.  Still, it was crucial some of it required stakeholders to be aware of and adhere to.  Goals were clearly defined with a set timeline and set metrics.  The long term goals (lofty) and short term goals (concrete) were in sync.  Accountability was taken into account by having weekly conference calls and mass emails.

Hospitals that were pioneers of this program, could support and help other hospitals that are starting to implement this initiative.  To encourage additional hospitals to participate, a national network of IHI participants was formed.   Actually, an additional benefit of this alliance, included the motivating the current network of hospitals towards excellence.

I think that both individuals and businesses can learn from this IHI case study.  By defining a clear problem, and defining a clear long-term and smaller and reachable short term goals, using a network of like-minded participants, and thinking in the shoes of the party that one wants to influence.  Anticipating the client’s needs and making their lives/jobs easier by completing the tasks that maybe resource and time intensive and be flexible and understand that not all implementation steps maybe followed.  By combining all of the above should yield solid and sustainable results.

Go out there and manage your brand!

Yesterday, I attended a networking event.  The main lesson from this event was to pursue your passions, be excellent at it, and be full of energy and tie this with your strengths and be able to use this to help others. This lesson can be applied to an individual who is interested in building their personal brand, or to a business that is interested in developing their brand.  I came across this motivational talk by Gary Vaynerchuk some time ago.  I think he has a great message of pursuing your passions and stop doing things that you do not enjoy.  If you for even a second do not believe in what you are doing, get out, now.  He said “Look at yourself in the mirror and ask what do you want to do for the rest of your life, and pursue that.”  With these passions and patience, one can find a way to monetize it.

It is extremely important to build brand equity in yourself and in your business, too.  Finding methods to leverage one’s brand equity can be accomplished through a variety of social networks such as Facebook, Jaiku, LinkedIn, MySpace, Technorati, Twitter, etc.  Whenever, there is a social utility out there, take advantage of it.  You can be accessible anyhow, anywhere, anytime and as often as you can. Interactivity with customers is extremely important.  Building personal and company brand equity can be accomplished through conversation amongst the web users and spreading this message around.

The essence of this talk is that there is no substitute for hard work.  When people are coasting, that is the opportune time to work diligently to surpass the competition.  Gary at one point responded to 700 to 1000 emails a day, as a trailblazer in leveraging social networks (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, etc.) to interact with customers.  Listening to customers is effective, but caring about them is much better.  Reading customers concerns, suggestions, ideas is listening, but responding to emails, interacting with customers through social media is caring about them.  Legacy is greater than currency.  Whatever output occurs, ensure it upholds one’s legacy.  This solidifies either one’s personal brand or business brand, and it will enable future positive returns on investment.  The best way to succeed is to be transparent, and your legacy is all you have.

I have written about the importance of social media in business here and here.  As individuals and businesses are increasingly using these tools, it is imperative to be apart of this.  Adapt or be left behind.  I agree with Gary’s assertions that passion, hard work, patience are keys to success.  The lessons from this inspirational talk were very similar to the networking workshop I had attended yesterday.

Design is in the details

Yesterday, I had posted about a video from Charles Leadbetter about how users through crowdsourcing and open-innovation are contributing innovation of products/services through collaborative and interactive channels.  Today’s discussion is about design, and how the users are able to design products/services that do not necessarily need to solve big issues but may solve smaller ones, which are very important.

This talk was from Paul Bennett, creative director of IDEO.  He has given multiple examples throughout this talk about solving tiny solutions that delivered impact from hospitals to Ikea’s children storage unit to water pumps in Kenya. 

In the case of the hospital in Minnesota, solving tiny solutions was able to deliver a big impact.  The hospital was interested in the ameliorating the patients’ experience.  When IDEO investigated the users’ experiences, the changes that needed to be made were not big systemic ones, but smaller ones. Some ideas included attaching mirrors to the gurneys, to enable the patients’ to see the nurse or doctor when they were being transported around.  They involved hospital staff in their input to make the patient’s experience more enriching. A nurse suggested installing a whiteboard in the patient’s room so that notes, drawings, messages from the doctor/nurses/family/friends can be showcased and brighten an otherwise mundane room.  

Other examples of design innovations that incorporated thinking small and delivered a big impact came from the inventor of velcro.  He was walking through a field and was covered with burrs and that became his inspiration for velcro.

View objects peripherally to find opportunity. For example, notice on the street when there is a yellow line, people inadvertently follow it without any instructions.  Another example is if people put their empty cups (garbage) in one place, everyone else puts there cups there too.  Companies should pay attention to how people come up with their own design experiences and adapt their designs to improve this experience.

Start from scratch, the mind should be fresh. Throw out any pre-conceived notions.  When Ikea had to design a children’s bookcase, the designer understood that the idea of storage to children was quite different than grown-ups, children play on top and below big objects.  The designer was able to design a storage unit underneath tables, where children can place their toys. 

Pick battles big enough to matter, but small enough to win. For example, in Kenya, IDEO was sought to design a water pump that can be used by villagers.  It had to be compact enough to fit on a bicycle.  This pump had to be cost effective.  It incorporated both effective form and function mechanisms to enhance the lives of the villagers.

I believe that being able to think and feel from the user’s perspective is paramount to designing user-friendly products/services.  This certainly extends to so many different facets in life including communicating with people.  Much too often, the message and body language can be disparaging and derisive to the intended audience, and by empathizing with the intended audience, communication becomes much easier.