Finding Candor

At the core, we are in the ideas business. We will thrive or die based on the quality of our ideas – in every department. Without honest feedback, those ideas will not be as good as we need them to be and our people will not be pushed as hard as they should be. We all lose because we were too timid to be straight with each other.

I don’t think I've always been so good at this. Sometimes I’ve withheld candor because I didn’t want to hurt someone’s feelings. I’ve withheld candor because I thought my opinion would be unpopular. Sometimes because it just didn’t seem worth it. And that sucks.

It’s a gift to engage in a conversation about how to be better in whatever you do. Too few people give their co-workers that opportunity. Be brave enough to share the truth as you see it. Be bold enough to make your case with humility. Be eager enough to invite feedback for yourself. Be ready to accept that you may also be wrong. 

It could mean speaking up when something isn’t as good as it could be, when you see potential holes in logic or when someone puts you in a bad position. But in all cases, it means being generous and frank with those around you because you care about their success.

So consider a few things –  How can you be more verbal when an idea, deck, plan, product is not good enough? How can you get better and more regular with constructive feedback? How can you be more direct and clear when you speak? How can you remain calm and accepting when faced with criticism? How can you share feedback with the humility of a person who also has room to grow?

Be Brave and Be Kind

"We are the things we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit."

Aristotle

 

For a few months, I’ve been sitting a few moments with my daily affirmation at the start of each day. It’s nothing big or time-consuming, but a few notes to myself that I think will make my day better. 

 

It’s been effective for me, so I thought you might benefit as well. There’s no big process. I just scribbled some notes one day and stuck them in my pocket. I’ll refresh them whenever that paper gets worn. Sometimes I’ll write little notes to myself around the edges. Sometimes I'll add a note if it feels like I need something extra, or I’ll delete one if it no longer seems relevant. Here’s what I read this morning.

 

Stay within yourself. Others are acting for their good too.

I added this because I’ve gotten myself in the most trouble by reacting emotionally to a problem or some form of resistance. I still believe that using my emotional engine is important; it just works better when filtered through a calm, rational mind.

 

Don’t be wooed by pride.

Pride leads to overconfidence, and overconfidence leads to becoming stale and ignorant.

 

Be grateful.

You cannot be greedy or angry and grateful at the same time. Starting with an appreciation for things that make me full keeps me grounded for anything else that might come my way.

 

Practice really listening to what those around you say.

This is a comment on presence. I’ve had too many bad interactions because I’m consumed with something outside of the room I’m in. Eye contact and active listening helps me work better with others.

 

Breathe and keep your mind calm.

Return to the breath, my friend. When my mind is out of sorts, everything else goes with it.

 

Welcome difficulty as an opportunity to show your character.

As Ryan Holiday said, the obstacle is the way. The biggest benefits lurk behinds the greatest challenges. So don't deal with them, but seek them out. There is no growth to be had inside of a bubble.

 

Live and work with urgency. It’ll end too soon.

Whenever it ends, it’ll be before I want it to. I’m not interested in looking back on all those wasted moments or wasting anymore moments today.

 

Enjoy this. Every part if a gift.

Maybe most important. The good, the bad, the ugly and the indifferent, being here is a gift. Time gets shorter the longer we live. We should appreciate it more.

 

Do the few things that make the most good.

My tendency is to chase after whatever thing is in front of my face. This is a reminder to sit down and write down the most important thing to accomplish. If I only work on the most urgent things, I'll never put energy behind the most important things.

 

Be brave and be kind.

I stole this from Rachel. This the simple summary of all these ideals. I don’t think it needs more explanation.

 

I don’t do them all well, and that’s why they all remain on the list. It should be unique to you, the challenges you face and how you want to grow. But thinking about it every day makes you a more active participant in getting where you want to go.

 

On Management Philosophy

A few days ago, a former member of my department asked for a little help developing a management style. I suck at blogging these days, so I'll use this opportunity to steal those email thoughts and make them a bloggy thing. I'll pick up after the niceties. 

__

The shortish bit though, I think it's really important to think in principles first. That's more of an all encompassing philosophy for me, but it's particularly important here because you’re dealing with lots of different individual personalities. And many of those won’t work or think like you do. If you're pretty clear on the big picture, it's easier to figure out how to adjust on the fly day to day.

So a couple different things to think about - one is how they work, and the other is about the work itself.

The first thing on how they work - do they give a shit? Some people are willing to let things be just okay as long as they can get out of the office. Those people usually get written off pretty quick. But you'll notice how many times I talk about that though. Mostly just to make clear what the expectations are. As in, this isn't about me - but you taking ownership of making yourself better. That means learning and expanding your thinking on your own, and not expecting others to do it for you. Some people will talk a lot about how to motivate, but I sort of think my time is better spent finding motivated people than getting unmotivated people to work harder. That being said, clearing out all the typical agency crap that can be demotivating is still really important.

Second is empathy. Not only putting yourself in the shoes of the client or whoever you're trying to reach, but to think about what other people you work with need from you. If you spend 5 minutes thinking over what everybody wants, you can take care of those parts and gain a huge amount of latitude to get done what you need to get done. For a young strategist, that usually means worrying about the details. Pay attention to spelling, don't be late, do stuff on time, be considerate, that sort of thing.

Third is acting and looking like a pro. The way we frame our thinking or ideas is half the battle if you want anything good to get a listen. No reason to get stuff kicked back because you wrapped an interesting core thought or idea in an uninspired argument or a document that looks like hell. If it looks sloppy, most people will assume the thinking is sloppy too. The more your work is joy to follow, the more credit you'll get for the thinking. Sort of related to the last point.  

Fourth is staying opportunistic - which is essentially to say, don't be passive. The highest goal is the quality of the end product, so don’t wait for people to tell you what to do. Look for opportunities to improve what that thing is and don't make excuses or blame other departments when something sucks.

For younger planners, if you can get those things right, it makes talking about the work itself that much easier.

Then for projects -  I'm generally watching the story or the argument. When you boil down all the big stuff, what is the larger thing we're building to. That's difficult usually for younger planners. It’s way easier to collect lots of stuff than it is to make it say something. So it’ll often be your job to show them how that collection of things can turn into an argument or a direction when re-assembled in the right order and positioned in the right way. That's what the 30 second pitch framework was all about - making sure everyone was thinking about how pieces become a whole.

After that, it’s staying connected to what makes a brand interesting above anything else. Which basically means thinking about what people give a shit about and matching that with how a brand can relate to that thing. So most new planners start with a selling statement - our cars are the fastest, our pencils have lead that doesn't break. Bla bla bla. But 90% of the time, that's not what makes that brand interesting to people. It does happen, but we’re usually something close to functional parity and we’re influencing along other dimensions. So as you’re discussing an approach or an argument, that’s consistently asking questions about what people care about, or why they care, or what people do with the brand, or where the brand comes from, or how a brand got big in the first place. That's all stuff that can be windows in to a overall more interesting story. 

Then last thing is giving people space to gets things done in a way that suits their personality. Some people think more visually, some people more in stories, some people in numbers, some people like writing stuff out.  Then some people want to spend lots of time in groups, some like to do most their thinking on their own. I think the crappier managers will impose their way as the only approach that works, but if you try to get someone who is a little quieter to constantly do all their thinking out loud, you won’t get the best work and that person will likely flame out. Now that being said, strategists in particular need to do some shapeshifitng, so it’s good to get people uncomfortable from time to time - whether that’s how they work or the type of work, but you’d still want the bulk of their time on projects where they’ll naturally be more proficient. 

Sooooo - I think that's my big principles. Obviously, you make calls as you go, and you change around the edges depending on what that particular person needs, but I think you'll be better equipped to direct them if you start with what you want them to be and how you think the work works best. Then it’s asking the right questions, giving them good inputs, funneling the right work to the right people, that sort of thing.

What to Expect from Your Agency When All Hell is Breaking Loose

My article from our new magazine, Connote. Enjoy, folks!

It’s a mess out there. Proven channels are delivering diminishing returns year after year. Everyone says engagement is important, but that usually means another coupon or promotion that inevitably forces you to lose profit for likes. The line between marketing and operations is getting murkier.

There are more opportunities than ever, but it’s only gotten harder to determine if or how they make a difference to your business.

Media channels have disintegrated into an increasingly complex network of possibilities. Broadcast television is noticeably suffering as Netflix, DVRs, and a hundred cable channels divide audiences.

Mobile is already upending the way the Internet works and altering how all of us shop, eat, read, drive, and communicate. The cost of attention has skyrocketed. It takes more time and more money to break through. Decades of paying for eyeballs has made the challenge of earned engagement that much more difficult. The good old days are gone.

WHERE’S THE SPARK?

The challenge of advertising was never a matter of making things. There was no app that helped you manage your shopping experience. We didn’t consider what happened after a click.

There was no expectation for the viewer to do much of anything. Agencies were left to do one thing really well—create a spark between a brand and a customer. Products were made more profitable through this inherently intangible notion.

After the screams of the death of advertising, the need to stop telling great stories and get on with making great utilities, our conversations changed. We spent less time on the spark and more time on where this or that button should go. We worried more about functionality and less about emotion.

It is the difficulty of doing. We are easily wooed by the rationality of the tangible, often at the expense of the spark.

Whether we are creating apps or status updates, you should expect advertising and marketing to do what it was always meant to do—add intrigue, emotion, thoughtfulness, story, surprise, magic—in ways that make you more noticeable. The biggest wins will always be when we use these new tools not just to make peoples’ lives easier, but to add the stuff of advertising at its best.

THE MODERN INTEGRATED AGENCY

“Integrated” can’t just mean campaigns that happen to cross channels. That’s table stakes. We’re meant to create conversations. To use data we didn’t have 10 years ago. To understand organizations, incorporate customer service, and invent new products. We’re meant to operate like publishing houses, pushing content on a daily basis and receiving judgment immediately through the tweets and likes of fans.

It also can’t mean that every potential need you might have will be executed within our walls. Sometimes you’ll need specialists, and it’s not realistic to trade expertise for practicality.

Advertising and marketing are not statements of a product we make, but of our purpose. We make products easy to like. We make them more famous, more attractive, and more familiar. Truly integrated agencies are those that keep this purpose central while remaining effective with new partners, in new places, and different methods. We will still create magic, but that magic will only sustain itself if we are repeatedly and ruthlessly committed to it.

In Defense of Big Strategy

I'll start by saying - I have much respect for Teehan + Lax. Most of what they do makes me insanely jealous. Same goes for Eric. Super smart human. But I was a bit perturbed by their depiction of big strategy as being necessarily wrong-headed, wasteful and exclusive. Strategy at its core is simply defining where you are, where you want to be, how you'll get there and how you'll measure your progress. If you spend 3 months crafting a strategy for a single tactical output, that's probably wasteful assuming you have good inputs and clear objectives. But combining all instances of strategy into that one bucket undervalues what strategy can be when done and applied properly.

Eric characterizers "big strategy" through this idea.

"They dutifully comb through consumer research and reports, hoping to uncover some magical insight that will unlock some door. For instance, they might discover that there is a statistically significant percentage of 16-24 year olds in Missouri who like kitten GIFs. So they recommend that their tortilla client sponsors a Facebook kitten GIF contest. Maybe they’ll even create a microsite for it. They will spend months planning and conceiving a campaign, cross their fingers and pray that it will ultimately deliver results."

So here's the thing. If that's your job, you are not doing big strategy. You are doing bad strategy. It's not all that hard to use 'big strategy' as a punching bag if you characterize it as chasing after inconsequential stats such as who likes gifs the most. When you actually need strategy, you should not be looking for one magical consumer insight to drive a single communication or platform, but a deeper understanding of the organizational inner workings, the competitive landscape and the marketplace that will uncover opportunities for new growth.

In big organizations with complex problems and complex marketplaces, creating a strategy helps to build commitment from the broader spectrum of the company. It helps us to consider the implications of what we do, both internally and externally. It helps us to get outside of our own assumptions and create a more nuanced understanding of those we need to reach. It helps us think more broadly about the business result of the outputs. When you leap too quickly into the product without working out some of those bits first, you are relying entirely on the generally limited knowledge that exists in the room. Again, sometimes that's okay. But not always.

Even the military photo introducing the post is wrongheadedly dismissive to the impact of strategy. Military organizations use strategy and planning more extensively than any other organization on the planet, precisely because they are dealing with incredibly complex challenges that require a nuanced understanding of the people they may affect. What you will see from the military is a model more like the one I endorse; understand the problem, get agreement on the end state, define the decision making frameworks and measures tha'll help you know whether or not you're progressing, then finally - make sure everyone knows and understands that direction so you can decentralize decision making to the highest degree without losing effectiveness. But frankly, you can't do that last part without understanding those before it.

Eric goes on to say.

"This is the main source of digital marketing landfill – countless microsites that were never visited, mobile apps that nobody used, contests that only had 20 entries, and tweets that were never read. They are the unfortunate result of an approach that attempts to predict a positive outcome in a world that resists these types of predictions."

Frankly, that's just wrong. The idea that the digital marketing landfill is a product of big strategy is ridiculous. It's usually matter of total marketing myopia where everyone in the room doesn't question whether anyone would actual use the thing. A good strategist will help bring a customer or segment to life in a way that externalizes the team's thinking. That's a really really good cure to bullshit microsites.

"Big Strategy" helps us define the right problems to solve precisely so we can break old dogma and forge into unexplored territories while remaining rooted in the realities of the outside world. I would ask:

• Does it make sense to understand how customers buy a product before we jump in and start designing how we'll make it easier?
• Does it make sense that a company looks outward to understand what has worked and what has not when approaching a new market?
• Does it make sense for a company to analyze what competitors have done if they want to stand out themselves?
• Is it ever important for a company to consider the resources they have that may help them grow in new areas they may not have considered?
• Is it ever important to develop a new capability rather than creating a new tactic in order to accomplish an objective?
• Are the problems our clients face ever about doing too many things rather than not enough?
• Are there times when investment is required, even if profits haven't caught up with the potential?

If you are not equipped to tackle these kinds of questions, it doesn't mean that they won't be asked and answered. It just means that it will happen without you. We are screaming towards a time when digital shops will either need to diversify and move up the chain or focus and act more like technology companies than marketing agencies. Both will exist. Both will probably thrive. But it is a choice.

So I guess all I'm really saying is that you can't throw all strategy into one big bucket and call it a waste of time. You can rail against misapplied strategy, bad strategy or non-inclusive strategy that assumes it is only the purview of intellectuals, but it remains an effective tool in sustaining growth across a series of tactics when done at the right time and in the right way.

"The great virtue of thought and analysis is that they free us from the necessity of following recipes, and helps us deal with the unexpected, including the imagination to try something new."

Harold McGee on Food and Cooking

Photo credit: Carmen Marchena

The Big Ol' Idea

Only some ideas are big - big enough to cross boundaries of media, partnerships, screens, and audiences. Big enough to spin off 1,000 smaller ideas that can all work together in a cohesive way.

So let's take an example. What if you had the idea to chop up every Schwarzeneggar movie scream and put it into one video. That would be super. So someone did it.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aLR-8c11ms]

But then you took that idea to a community manager, an offline agency, a media company, the client, the fans - what do they do with that idea? It's limited. You can take the video and place it in pre-roll. You can share it. You can talk about it in a status update maybe. But there's not all that much to add. 

But what if you had expressed that idea one level up? The Supercuts meme takes movies and television shows down to their essential ridiculousness to expose the cliches or shared techniques that exist within them. When you frame it that way, everyone gets to play. You could get this.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Dw3m-vIj7A]

Or this.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VssO5bKFJU0]

Or this.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvMCq4bdRN8]

That's often the difference between big, integrated ideas and stuff that just does a single job. One gives everyone the freedom to create, the other does not.

So - let's talk examples.

 American Express - Create a Black Friday for Small Business

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgmLC6jbxfg]

 Levi's - Reinvigorate a city by putting its residents back to work

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYUyXB_GCX0]

You can think of these ideas as gardens. They define both boundaries and fertile territory where other ideas can grow. American Express could have just made the small business tools and Levi's could have just made the tv spot about a fictional steel town getting back to work. And that may have done a job, but it probably wouldn't have spurred as much participation or conversation either.

Even when we do stay solely within the digital space - more often than not, things tend to work better when it's big enough to become a banner ad, a series of social updates, an influencer program, a website, a video and on and on. If all you can do in each of those spaces is tell people that this other thing exists somewhere else, your idea will limit the content teams, social media teams, bloggers and whoever else wants to help it spread.

This isn't always about good ideas or bad ideas. Sometimes our ideas need to be big, programatic, expansive, and sometimes they need to be very specific. But it's important that you understand the difference because even the smaller ones should be additive at the core.

So putting it together - go for ideas that give room for others to play. Infuse them with borrowed elements from music, art, tv, film, fashion, books, memes and magazines to gain attention and make them feel familiar for the audience. Marvel at how awesome you are.

Working Out the Big Idea

Pull out a sheet of paper. On the top - write "The idea." In a few words, write down the basics of the idea.

Below that - you could write this:

Banner ad:

YouTube video:

Facebook status update:

Blogger outreach:

Tumblr:

Then beside each one (and feel free to add other channels) - write down a related idea that would fit with the big idea at the top. If the only thing you can think to do is to tell people about the big idea or you have a slew of hackneyed, unworkable nonsense - might be time to think bigger.

Why Celebrity Matters, Part 2

Here's part 1 in case you missed it.

Simple, not simplistic.

Simple messages are more likely to be remembered and shared. Which is why most briefs have "one key thing." It's also why trying to game the brief by adding a double entendre or a two-pronged one key thing makes it exponentially more difficult to use. 

Pay with a tweet is easy to talk about. A mobile application that is a social network within a game that measures the speed of your car and gives you points to move up and down levels and and and - not so much. And things that are hard to talk about don't get shared.

As we build increasingly complex digital things - a website, an application, a community, a campaign - the imperative for the easily explainable idea becomes only greater. If you want to sell big ideas, you have to give clients the tools to sell them to their teams and the audience the tools to sell them to their friends. 

But there's a tension - simplicity without nuance is boring. And boring things get ignored, too. So while our ideas need to be simple and shareable - each of them need to be packed full of interest generating elements. Or reasons for me to pay attention. And that's where cultural connections matter most. They help our audience identify who it's for and how it can be used. 

Mr. Porter

Given the nature of the site, the big idea is the brand itself. Let's call it 'Classic style for refined men.'

But the site isn't only a rack of clothes. It's full of little content ideas that help me decide if what they sell is for me. So if I'm a lumberjack or something, the whole site would feel foreign. The interviews, the style advice, the profiles of old-school dapper celebrities, they all work together to help me know whether this is something I should stop down for or not. The content never distracts from your purchase, but helps to subtly explain it.

Converse // Wall to Wall Toronto

Converse adds the nudges at the bottom - Music, Basketball, Skateboarding, Style - each a reminder, I am for you. The shoes protect your feet - the music, the art, they infuse it with style. The communications aren't just a way to sell more shoes, they are as much a part of the product as the rubber or the canvas.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vw15-usLY3o]

Pop Secret Labs // Movie Cards

Earlier this year, Pop Secret launched Pop Secret Labs to use technology to make in-home movie watching more social. Each idea is designed to reach a specific audience or community - a Chrome application for the tech folks, then they've made partnerships with Someecards and OKCupid, reaching out to those that have already shown an ability to connect large audiences.

In each case, the core idea of the brand or the campaign uses smaller ideas to create the world it should live in. They are the connective tissue from the function of the thing to its meaning. When done properly, they make our ideas no less simple, but provide much richer, contextual experiences that give the audience a reason to pay attention.

This is often where campaign microsites and utility for utlity's sake applications consistently fail. While creating an airbrushed stereotype of our audience, we strip the reality, the nuance, the humanity from them. We create a fake world for our audiences instead of a rich world that reflects the one they actually live in. It's in this area that digital shops have the most catching up to do. Even the most technologically interesting solution will fall flat if it remains barren and disconnected.

In short - 

If you want to make and sell big ideas, make them easy to talk about and share.

If you want people to watch or participate, use references to create familiarity, context and invite attention.

All for now. More to come. 

Why Celebrity Matters

We talk a bunch about making stuff, but we spend much less energy connecting that stuff to what our audiences are already doing, reading, watching or making themselves. So let's start getting after that.

Stick with me here. It looks long, but at least there are lots of fun videos and stuff. 

Why does celebrity matter?

Sometimes they lend credibility. So if I need to sell a tennis racket, maybe I'd want Monica Seles as a spokesperson. Or if it was 1995 maybe I would. Because she is great at tennis, so she must know something about rackets. Just like 4 out of 5 dentists recommend Crest, and they know more than you about teeth, so better to take their advice.

Or second, they have existing communities. When I attach myself to Jay Z, I'm not just buying him, I'm buying what he represents to the people who listen to him. So he may sell Pepsi or American Express, two products he has little special credibility in. Except maybe that he's rich and has awesome taste buds. Either way, the line is way less clear than she plays tennis so let's give her a tennis a racket. 

You could think of Jay Z as a publisher himself, not all that different from Rolling Stone or GQ. So when you bring him in, you're effectively buying space in the mind of his audience. Or at least occupying the same space.

But there is a bigger thing happening here than just credibility or attention. Mostly we're buying familiarity. 

Now - think about your own social circle. How did you get to know them? Probably some sort of commonality. Maybe you went to the same school, or you work with them, or you were at the same show, whatever. That commonality provides the basis for a conversation. And that basis gives you leeway to explore other interests you may have in common. Might be music, books, political leanings or even a worldview. You make connections with others because of all the ways you're the same.

The same goes for how you connect with brands. We tend to favor those that seem familiar. People usually choose things that they know over change, even if the new thing is better. I could spew some psychological mumbo jumbo here, but suffice it to say - creating a sense of familiarity matters a lot whether you're meeting someone new, chatting up a potential client or trying to get someone to buy something. So all those associations you pack into the things we make also amp the likelihood someone will use it, trust it, share it or frankly - just give it a chance, which is half the battle.

So a few examples.

Adidas - Star Wars Cantina

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJhN-S6GIN0]

A weird one to be certain, but think of all the little snippets of connections they're using here, creating a world where Star Wars geeks, fans of Snoop Dog and club DJs can all play. All in a style natural to the thousands of remixes that appear on YouTube. And all brought into the Adidas universe. We can argue of how effective it is, but it certainly provides lots of reasons for people to stop down and give it a watch.

Toyota - The Force

Keeping on the Star Wars theme, here's Toyota's Super Bowl spot from 2 years ago. Pretty brilliant connection between a feature and, well, the enterprise.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R55e-uHQna0]

But let's focus on the year after, where they continued to expand their cultural tapestry, starting with the teaser for last year's super bowl spot. 

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqBfZ6vXPS8]

They stuck with Star Wars bit by having a dog choir barking the Imperial March, but added a throwback to the most annoying Christmas song ever made. The extra touch of the dogs resembling the characters just gave another nice angle to talk about.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCBhQCCyhTo]

But then it gets more interesting with the spot itself. Starts pretty basic with the cute pup. But then we pull back into the Star Wars universe in the middle of a meta debate on which spot was better - a conversation that would happen across millions of households only seconds later. Maybe a little weird, but packed with cultural currency.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-9EYFJ4Clo]

Hospital for Sick Children - Pain Squad

Video-centric examples tend to be the easiest to explain, but sometimes a bit harder to follow into the digital space. So think of the Pain Squad mobile application. Maybe it wins at Cannes without the Rookie Blue and Flashpoint integration, but I doubt it.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrH0n6D5ICw]

Nike+ Fuel Band

The invention of the Nike+ FuelBand sucks up all of the attention, but it is the world Nike, Wieden and R/GA crafted around it that elevated it from just a cool thing for runners and tech geeks to something of more interest to a much wider audience.

How did they launch it?

With this-

Counts

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MT50eLLxPco]

And this-

A Day with Nike+ FuelBand

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C28vPth3Xio]

Or this- 

A Day with Ndamukong Sug

This one was super interesting because they used football player Ndamukong Suh, but also partnered with Path, introducing a whole new community. And setting up a relationship with SXSW.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0l67l-WLPk]

Or this-

Connecting to the Portland music community and introducing a new use case.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIHwj_gOAdI]

Oreo

The simplest example is this single post from Oreo. They could have just put up another video of you dipping your Oreo into milk or something, but instead - they chose to play in the real world.

The status of products are often derived not from their function, but from their cultural viability. The voice-over, the music, the style of the shoot, the actors, the language you use, all of it - creates a playground of opportunities and a cultural shorthand for the brand. Every choice is a chance  for the brand to say - I like this thing, so do you, so now we can have a chat. 

By now, you've probably figured out that this isn't really a post about celebrity. It's a post about common references. That can be a meme, a phrase, a book, a song, a band, a youtube video, a media property, stylistic element or even another brand. Sometimes it's overt and sometimes it's more subtle - but packing these elements into our products builds the connective tissue that gives it a punch that an unknown voice actor or a custom-made song could never supply.

So how often do we play with these elements? How often do we think of these audiences and question - what do they watch, read and play with? What stuff comes across their newsfeed? What do they talk about in line at Starbucks? And how can we take all of this cultural noise and use it to make our stuff more meaningful.

None of this is new. But it isn't structural to how we assemble our work. And it probably should be. Our baseline job might be to create another action, to provide better experiences, to get someone from point a to point b - but all of that works better and harder when you make the cultural stuff that matters to our audience work with you rather than trying to fight it, or worse, ignore it.

Anyway, more to come. Then we'll get into method.

A version of this was cross-posted on Core, the internal engine of Twist Image

Good Stuff From the Internet

It's not complicated, it's just hard. 

"Lots of things are like that. They're not complicated. They don't require brilliant, innovative strategies, they're just hard. They require more work and more effort and than anyone might reasonably expect. The best managers create organisational room for that to happen."

Saying No to Crap. A Resolution.

"All that effort, all that ingenuity, all that inspiration, all those years perfecting one’s craft, all those long hours, all that Powerpoint, all those conference calls, all that feedback, all those brilliant rationales, all those missed school plays and cancelled dates, all those postponed vacations, all those lovers never loved, all those bedtime stories never told, all those plans postponed, all those dreams on hold, all those promises broken, all those interests never pursued… To produce crap?"

Be Wrong as Fast as You Can

“The Big Fear,” Jacobson writes, “is that times will get so hard that you’ll have to drive five or six nights a week instead of three. The Big Fear is that your play, the one that’s only one draft away from a possible showcase, will stay in your drawer. The Big Fear is thinking about all the poor stiff civil servants who have been sorting letters at the post office ever since the last Depression and all the great plays they could have produced. The Big Fear is that, after 20 years of schooling, they’ll put you on the day shift. The Big Fear is you’re becoming a cabdriver.”

Behind the Scenery

"Baum believed that a window should "arouse in the observer cupidity and the longing to possess the goods". Before him, and the set-pieces he photographed for his magazine, most shopkeepers regarded their windows as simply places to cram with as much merchandise as possible. Baum, though—having lived, and performed on stage, by candle, oil lamp and gas jet—gloried in the potential of electric light, installed in many store windows after the high-voltage World’s Fair of 1893. And he understood that, in this new world of material plenty, goods alone had lost their primary appeal. A better idea would be to sell a powerfully lit, yet edited fantasy, every article of merchandise auditioned and few chosen—except at Christmas, when too much was never enough."

Jerry Seinfeld Intends to Die Standing Up

For Seinfeld, whose worth Forbes estimated in 2010 to be $800 million, his touring regimen is a function not of financial necessity but rather of borderline monomania — a creative itch he can’t scratch. “I like money,” he says, “but it’s never been about the money.” Seinfeld will nurse a single joke for years, amending, abridging and reworking it incrementally, to get the thing just so. “It’s similar to calligraphy or samurai,” he says. “I want to make cricket cages. You know those Japanese cricket cages? Tiny, with the doors? That’s it for me: solitude and precision, refining a tiny thing for the sake of it.”

Doppelganger Series by Francois Brunelle

Liberalisms

Walter Russell Mead:

"'Liberal' and 'progressive' are two of the noblest and most important words in the English dictionary. They describe essential qualities of the American mind and essential values in American politics in a country born in reaction against oligarchy and concentrated autocracy. They sum up in a nutshell what this country is all about. A liberal is someone who seeks ordered liberty through politics—namely, the reconciliation of humanity’s need for governance with its drive for freedom in such a way as to give us all the order we need (but no more) with as much liberty as possible. In this sense, liberty isn’t divided or divisible into freedoms of speech, religion, economic activity or personal conduct: Genuine liberals care about all of the above and seek a society in which individuals enjoy increasing liberty in each of these dimensions while continuing to cultivate the virtues and the institutions that give us the order without which there can be no freedom."

Now this is a conversation worth having. What exactly is the future of liberalism?

I don't agree with the whole article. Mead tries to break down the barriers of right versus left, but things get muddled when you call the size of government a "blue" issue given the growth under both Democratic and Republican control. And characterizing Tea Partiers as a reaction to taxation without a guarantee of a safety net sounds more like wishful thinking than reality. Beyond that, it paints a pretty stark picture of where things are and why the notion of liberalism is in dire need of an update.

There is a liberalism emerging today that tends to focus a bit more on outcomes than ideologies and cherry picks from both the traditional right and left. It has a laissez-faire attitude towards social differences and a favoritism towards market-based ideas.  This class believes a social safety net and open education are needed to create equality of opportunity and a conservative approach to the environment is probably more pragmatic. Militarily, 'speak softly, but carry a big stick' seems a more effective use of power than just frantically waving around the stick.

Markets are best at keeping costs low while spurring progress, regulations work when they secure fairer competition rather than enshrining entrenched interests and the safety net is a mechanism to create the structural stability people need to change jobs, start businesses and climb the economic ladder. Reduced spending doesn't necessarily mean reduced services, investments aren't the same thing as costs and defense is still viewed as discretionary. The question isn't big versus small, tax or no tax - but bringing the right toolset given the nature of the problem.

"Americans want to believe that all four goals work together: that defending their security, promoting their prosperity, preserving their freedom and equality and fulfilling their global mission are all part of an integrated package and worldview—and that the commonsense reasoning of the average American can understand the way the pieces fit together. They are, in other words, looking for more than a set of unrelated policies that accomplish certain discrete goals: They want those policies to proceed from an integrated and accessible vision that meshes with their understanding of traditional American values and concerns."

The future of "freedom through order" won't be fought between big government Democrats and economically small government, socially conservative Republicans. Who knows where the parties shake out. The challenge ahead is to bring durability in a belief system that unites the mix of these ideals, then chart a path that doesn't rely on traditional party structures to disseminate them.

Anyway - read the article.

photo via Michael Ignatieff