Information and Stories

"Audience show up for the information, but they stay for the stories"

This line which I came across here explains the simplest and only formula for attracting a following through communication. If you doubt that, just study a popular politician or spiritual guru or your favorite teacher.

This simple truth also applies to brands.

Conference Calls Part 2 - The Key Moment

The Key Moment from No-Domain on Vimeo.

(Courtesy)

This is based on a true conference call story on the weirdness of pitching and managing creative projects. Not as weird as conference calls themselves.

Big Data - That same old sinking feeling again

The movie ‘Lives of others’ was brilliant in its depiction of life in East Germany under the watchful eyes of Stasi, the dreaded and repressive state police. These guys collected information about people whom they suspected of having anti-state (or ‘pro decadent West’) leanings in an almost obsessive compulsive way. Every aspect of the ‘suspect’s’ life was covered. At the height of Cold War, Stasi probably spied on more than a third of the population and collected astonishing amounts of information and data about them. But none of the information and data could prevent this from happening.

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Emotion trumps data, any day. And emotions cannot be predicted. Behaviour, linked to emotions, even more so.

But brands don’t seem to believe in this. They are going to town with their ‘investments’ in big data and analytics. They probably see in data and analytics the answer to all the problems the brand is facing, a holy grail. Data is something absolute and finite. It gives the marketer a sense of control, a sense of being ‘scientific’ in their decision making. It also helps them justify any decision, more often than not, the wrong one. And their favorite game, Analysis-Paralysis, gets even better with big data.

But big data can also give interesting insights leading to interesting stories if one knew where to look. But I doubt very much whether that will happen.  Maybe, they should look at this interesting case for small data.

Robert Campbell in his usual irrepressible style urges brands not to become data fashion victims. He says,

“We have jumped on the data bandwagon to such an extent that we’ve seemingly forgotten how normal human beings respond to stuff.

Instead of using the findings and learning’s of data to create stories that have emotional value and meaning to our audience, we are now seeing more and more ads that basically regurgitate the data as the actual message.”

The tech industry which made big data fashionable has also been a victim to its distracting powers.

One of the most loved brands of the dotcom era Yahoo is now on life support. One of the reasons for this sorry plight was their over-fascination with big data (and analytics) through their investment in Hadoop. This obsession with data meant that their attention was diverted from doing what is fundamental to their business – creating a wonderful user experience.

Google, the tech giant, prides itself on data-based decision making as one of its cornerstone of its strategy. Can someone explain to me why then are they tripping almost everywhere except in their bread and butter, Search? Be it the buyout of Motorola or their ‘Facebook’ obsession product Google Plus, Google seems to be losing their mojo. I hope they do not wind up like Yahoo.

Therefore, it is not surprising to see comments like the one below on a recently held conference on big data involving the usual suspects.

All the data in the world won't fix the (banner) ad nobody sees Global Brands Talk Big Data, Big Problems shar.es/cvfUj via @adweek
— Tarik Sedky (@tariksed) October 22, 2012

Lastly, one of the biggest names in the telecom world continues to sink faster than a guy with cement shoes in water while their investments in big data and analytics continues to grow. The only solution to their plight is ‘Change’, beginning with the management. But then data and analytics cannot help in that. It requires something that is rarely used these days. It is called common sense.

No Interface

Today the market offers SmartTV, SmartFridge, SmartCars, SmartPhones...and a host of devices with complicated and sometimes unnecessary user interface to make you look stupid. Agree?

I came across this wonderful post on UI, The best interface is no interface. The title says it all. It is almost as if the author knew how we feel about (over-designed) interfaces. More importantly, the author advocates 3 principles for the 'no interface approach' with interesting examples to prove his point. Here are some nuggets:

"Creative minds in technology should focus on solving problems. Not just make interfaces. 

As Donald Norman said in 1990 - 'The real problem with the interface is that it is an interface. Interfaces get in the way. I don’t want to focus my energies on an interface. I want to focus on the job…I don’t want to think of myself as using a computer, I want to think of myself as doing my job.'

It’s time for us to move beyond screen-based thinking. Because when we think in screens, we design based upon a model that is inherently unnatural, inhumane, and has diminishing returns. It requires a great deal of talent, money and time to make these systems somewhat usable, and after all that effort, the software can sadly, only truly improve with a major overhaul.

There is a better path: No UI. A design methodology that aims to produce a radically simple technological future without digital interfaces......

......Several car companies have recently created smartphone apps that allow drivers to unlock their car doors. Generally, the unlocking feature plays out like this:

1. A driver approaches her car.
2. Takes her smartphone out of her purse.
3. Turns her phone on.
4. Slides to unlock her phone.
5. Enters her passcode into her phone.
6. Swipes through a sea of icons, trying to find the app.
7. Taps the desired app icon.
8. Waits for the app to load.
9. Looks at the app, and tries figure out (or remember) how it works.
10. Makes a best guess about which menu item to hit to unlock doors and taps that item.
11. Taps a button to unlock the doors.
12. The car doors unlock.
13. She opens her car door.

Thirteen steps later, she can enter her car.

The app forces the driver to use her phone. She has to learn a new interface. And the experience is designed around the flow of the computer, not the flow of a person.

If we eliminate the UI, we’re left with only three, natural steps:

1. A driver approaches her car.
2. The car doors unlock.
3. She opens her car door.

Anything beyond these three steps should be frowned upon. Seem crazy?" 

 

 

Get Real

The gear shift is pushed higher. The throttle is pressed hard. The car leaps and zips along a beautiful highway. The car swerves dramatically a full 360 degree. The car screeches to a halt. Steve McQueen steps out of the car. 

This car.

BTW, I was kidding. About Steve McQueen.

Seriously, if ever there was a lemon it is the car above. No amount of dramatic television spots will move this beyond a taxi-wallah’s favorite. 

I have not singled out this brand for special treatment. This malaise of ‘stupid’ hyperbole cuts across brands and the evidence is there for all to see, on television and online. I must also admit that I have been part of such work. I must also admit that in all the instances, the client was told of the ‘stupidity’ of such an approach. But then, we were clobbered with logic, stats and the ultimate crutch of marketers, research. We had to quietly relent.

Call it mid-life crisis or burn-out or whatever, I am increasingly finding it difficult to be part of such an exercise. It is to my mind a case of 'good money behind bad money'. 

Is there a way to call the crap on this kind of marketing and advertising? 

Why don't marketers and agencies realize that there is merit in being honest and real? The creative possibilities are far more interesting with such an approach. The believability and empathy is also likely to be more. I am not saying no to hyperbole. But hyperbole for a product/service that is at best a ‘turkey’ should be avoided.

I recently read a charming post by an UX expert that beautifully captured this thought. Here are some gems from the post.

“Our best chance for establishing trust with our users is to be honest. After all, trust inspires confidence. And it’s confidence—not just a knowledge of differences—that compels decision-making.

Perhaps we should stop fixating on what makes us different and, instead, acknowledge the real aspects of who we are, what we do, and why people choose us.

We often overlook our own assets because they’re real. Real things aren’t flashy, polished, or perfect. That’s often what makes them an asset in the first place.”

Finally, there can be no better validation of this approach than from The Master. Recognize this?

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5 types of social media strategies

 

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As always, Tom Fishburne nails it with the above cartoon. There is also a wonderful quote in his post attributed to Kathy Sierra.

“It does not matter how awesome your product is or your presentation or your post. Your awesome thing matters ONLY to the extent that it serves the user’s ability to be a little more awesome.”

Social media can never help if the organization (and brand) is inherently anti-social. Being anti-social takes many forms. For example, the organization imposes restriction on 'free speech' or customer service sucks( and is rude) or the product/service is bad. Simply put, social media is not a substitute if the brand and organization suck in the real world. It is an amplifier, an enabler.

Finally, brands and their agencies have to work towards making the customer more 'awesome'. And that is a lot of hard work.

Conformity

Solomon Asch conducted the above experiment in 1962. This experiment was repeated in recent times by USF with the same results.

People will agree with others or follow them even when others are wrong. Conformity is everywhere. Government, industry, marketing and advertising. People think they are setting out do something different and yet all they wind up doing is more of the same.

Conformity of the group is the reason great ideas get mauled in research, much like a hapless victim getting mauled by hungry lions in a Roman Colosseum.

'Innovation', is the most powerful word invented to help us live in a state of denial about being conformists in our actions. This is specially true of marketing and advertising. In recent times, I have been to meetings and presentations that I can recall were seen as 'innovative' fifteen years ago. Innovation is used to describe anything from a front-page takeover of a daily to creating a Facebook page. 

I guess, being a conformist must be lucrative. There are a lot of them around.

Mini Cooper - Action speaks

Time and again Mini does stuff, be it on a movie screen or like the event in the video above. Little wonder that they possess die-hard fans. Simply put, building brands requires some doing, if you know what I mean.

BTW, wouldn't it be great if they had an event to demo extracting Mini from a super-tight parking space?

Land Rover

(via)

Land Rover is a brand that tells stories through its product. It is a brand where the product is as daring as its user. A brand that places the product in users hands and lets them do whatever their imagination lets them to. Hey, I am talking about the huge of can of whisky in the video. What were you thinking?

Dan Weiden - Marketers and agencies better listen and learn from him

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Dan Weiden is one of the few people left in the agency business who talks sense. Not only does he talk sense, he has demonstrated it in the work created by his agency.

I picked up these two gems from the video.

"This business(agency) is about creating strong provocative relationships between good companies and their customers. Those relationships will then feed the business(sales). But you have to feed the relationship first."

"We are not in a place where we can chose between doing broadcast and interactive. That is ridiculous. It is like saying do you want the right hand or left hand. I want to use both my hands and some other appendages too. It is not a choice. It is just expanding the opportunities."

Well said, Dan.

State of Strategy

The Colbert Report
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I used to always wonder as to how the consumer would react were they to read one of the strategy documents churned by marketers in collaboration with their agency. Steven Colbert provides the answer in the video above. It is meant for a good laugh.

Ask anyone in the agency business(or clients) and they will tell you that only a handful of strategists and their output makes any sense. The rest in the words of Austin Powers is best described as 'Shagadelic, baby'.

Did Hitchcock script this moment?

“I am to provide the public with beneficial shocks.” - Hitchcock

I love the term ‘beneficial shocks’. Wasn’t that the case in the brilliantly plotted moment seen above? In true Hitchcock style, there was unexpectedness and drama that magnified the tension for the unsuspecting victims (and audience). The tension was released by bottles of beer…er…the brand. A brand moment brand managers would die for.

 BTW, I might be wrong about Hitchcock. Could it have been Woody Allen who scripted this?

The World Of Mobile

Sowing seeds by yiibu

View more presentations from Bryan Rieger.

Courtesy via Conrad Lisco

I couldn’t help post the above presentation for two reasons.

Reason 1: It is a great presentation of thoughts and stats that reinforces simplicity as the key to succeed in creating mobile experiences. 

Reason 2: We have been hearing the constant drone about the ‘future is mobile’. Yes, the stats are impressive and the projections even more so. Yes, at a socio-cultural-economic level the impact of mobile technology has been phenomenal. This is best represented by aid to Haiti or the service to farmers in India or m-pesa in Africa. And we know that this is just the beginning in this sphere of mobile activity.

However, brands have made very little headway in trying to tame this beast. There are examples though but they are more an exception than the norm. 

This wonderful presentation by a young strategist, Avin Narasimhan, is maybe just the answer brands need. He has provided an easy framework for us to look at people’s mobile behaviour and brands. The reason I am endorsing this POV is based on my personal experience in December 2009. In order to demonstrate the capabilities of my client’s mobile technology (3dSoc) to a prospective client, I had worked almost on the same lines as Avin has suggested in his presentation. I knew then that I had hit a sweet-spot in the approach to mobile for brands and so did my client. And when I came across Avin’s presentation sometime in 2010, it was a déjà vu of sorts.

I also think that the beginning of a new year (and a new decade) is a good time to place before you thoughts and information that I have collected on this interesting subject. So here goes: 

The amazing Mary Meeker sets the tone with some stunning stats and predictions here and here. By default most presentations today carry key slides from her presentation. Frankly, this has increased my annoyance quotient considerably, not at Mary Meeker but at these unimaginative hacks.

When an industry has astonishing growth figures, the VC’s cannot be far behind. Here’s the latest view from the highly respected Fred Wilson on the direction mobile is headed. It might seem predictable. But hey, you might want to know what the VC’s think for you to wrangle the all important $$$ with the sliver of an idea buzzing in your head.  

Academia too have strong views on the subject with MIT summing up 2010 neatly.

Youth form the largest base of mobile owners with 1.5 billion of them owning it across the globe. But do we know how they use it? For example, did you know that rural youth in India spend nearly 5 hours every day listening to music on their mobile? You can find such information about youth from across 65 countries in the amazing MobileYouth.

Tomi Ahonen is One of the leading experts on mobile and marketing. He is a rich resource of insights and information that one should tap into regularly.

Finally, the icing on the cake is this crystal-ball gazing effort on the part of guru’s on what mobile trends in 2020 will be like.

Let’s not go that far though. Let’s begin with 2011 and hope it truly ushers in the ‘decade of the mobile’. 

Happy New Year!

PS: More suggestions welcome

Of strawberry jams and the anomalous outcomes in research

If I were to ask you to name three Hollywood action movies that you liked in recent months, your spontaneous answer might be - Inception, Expendables and Salt - in that order. Now if I were to ask you as to why you prefer one film over the other with a detailed questionnaire, your (spontaneous) ranking is likely to be reversed with Salt now becoming your most liked film.

Hard to believe? But it is true.  


Jonah Lehrer, renowned psychologist and author, in this wonderful article (courtesy via Bobulate) talks about the findings of a path-breaking study that was undertaken using various brands of strawberry jam. According to him, thinking too much causes us to focus on variables that do not matter. 


In the research, the respondents could easily pick the brand of strawberry jam that gave them the most pleasure.  


When researchers added extra analysis to the study, asking participants to explain the why of their jam preference and justify their decisions, the “extra analysis seriously warped their jam judgment” – the really lousy jam won.

Why is this so? 


“Thinking too much” about strawberry jam causes us to focus on all sorts of variables that don’t actually matter. Instead of just listening to our instinctive preferences, we start searching for reasons to prefer one jam over another. 


The researchers also showed that the same effect interferes with our choice of posters, jelly beans, cars, IKEA couches and apartments. We assume that more rational analysis leads to better choices but, in many instances, that assumption is exactly backwards. 


These studies represent an important re-evaluation of the human reasoning process. Instead of celebrating our analytical powers, these experiments document our foibles and flaws. 


The implication of this study on the research we do for brands can be profound. We think respondents behave like scientists providing well analyzed, rational answers on the choices they make. It is far from the truth. Respondents are people first, like you and me. Spontaneity and irrationality rules but we do not want to admit that. Now, it stands to reason why the best of ideas are toast in research and why mediocrity triumphs most of the times. Little wonder that over 80% (or is it 90%) of product launches and campaigns fail in the marketplace.


Therefore the most successful marketers and business leaders, according to Dave Trott, are the ones who dare to take the intuitive leap ignoring research and its anomalies. This is best exemplified by this quote from the legendary Akio Morita: 


“The biggest assistance I had, in growing Sony to a worldwide brand, was the total failure of nerve on the part of western businessmen to move without research.” 


Need I say more?

(Dilbert courtesy via)