theIdeaStudio (Customer Crossroads)

Get your own car logo, make your own stickers -- co-creation is everywhere

This is my Scion crest. I don't actually drive a Scion, but in the interest of keeping you well informed, dear reader [and avoiding real work, of course] I went to their site and designed one. It has several symbols that make sense to me. I had a lot of trouble picking the animal for the top, but the crest just didn't look right without it.

You can make the crest using the provided elements. The site is really easy to use, and free. You can download the crest and get it printed up if you wish.

To be honest, I'd never even heard of the Scion. Maybe you hadn't either. This is buzz at its best, quite apart from showing your loyalists that you understand them. And Toyota has never been known for innovation in this area. Looks like that's changing too.

If you want to see some interesting research video, you can also find that at the Scion Speak site. They came up with the icon after sending a graffiti artist around to talk to Scion owners, and some of the clips are here.

Somehow, the ability to make your own car crest reminded me of Moo, who now offers customizable sticker packages for a mere $9.99. This is not much more expensive than the stuff I buy at Staples, and a lot more interesting.

I am a stationery junkie at the best of times, and when I found out about these stickers, I had to seriously restrain myself from ordering great gobs of them. [I would have the coolest discussion groups around, surely! Okay, I've only put it off till I have a good business reason.]

Co-creation is everywhere. This is not going away anytime soon.

Resources

Do-It-Yourself Logos for Proud Scion Owners, New York Times, March 24, 2008

Global Village Study on Teens and Technology

About this time last year I was helping to plan a global study on teens and technology use, called Global Village. This idea was cooked up by my colleagues Ilka Kuhagen (Germany) and Corette Haf (South Africa) as a way to demonstrate the power of using bulletin board research to gather global insights.

We sponsored this research as a group, and conducted the research with 12 groups. This was an impressive team of researchers, it was my honor to work with them. 

During the planning process, we had many logistical issues to work through. For example, our platform sponsor, Focus Forums, had to add Mandarin character capabilities to the bulletin board.

A decision was reached to focus our efforts on teens aged 14 - 16 years old. A challenging target in some ways, as ethical guidelines require parental permission to conduct research with this age group, which added to the logistics of the project. But we saw that this group is entering young adulthood with access to a level of technology that they have enjoyed since childhood. We wanted to see where things were heading with this group. So we found teens that had a cell-phone and used the internet relatively heavily.

The bulletin board was a fantastic tool for the project, and the teens loved the format. Age and gender barriers that would have been a major burden in a face-to-face setting evaporated, and we had high engagement and considerable openness and honesty.

In addition to this, the research team was also easily able to watch the research unfold, and share our own discussion about questioning strategies over the project schedule. This meant we could change and shift the later stages of the project based on earlier stages.

It was fascinating to see the style differences among the research team. As findings started to emerge, we were all impressed by how similar, in many ways, the attitudes of the teens were in each country. In picture sort exercises, for example, the same concepts -- and even the same images -- came up over and over again. We weren't really expecting this, it was a fascinating finding.

One thing is for certain -- these teens are joined at the hip to their cell-phones, and this is their life-line. If their house was burning down, it's one of the things they'd grab. The research team found text messaging a much more effective way to send out reminders to participate. (With an adult group, we would use e-mail). Almost none of the teens in the whole study had heard of Second Life. A few had been on Habbo Hotel, but these sites no longer held  -- they are way too busy forming real-world relationships to care too much about the virtual world. Yet.

Overall, a fascinating group of teens. The Canadian group were very much "the New Phoenicians" -- ethnically diverse, open to new ideas, enterprising and optimistic. I wanted to give them all a virtual hug, they made me feel proud to be Canadian. I have no doubt the other researchers felt the same about their own youth.

I'll be presenting on this project with my colleague Betsy Leichliter from New York at the ARF conference next week, and also in Winnipeg at the MRIA conference in May. Other team members are presenting at various conferences around the world, including the upcoming AQR/QRCA conference in Barcelona. The slide at the top came from a presentation done by Diva Oliveira in Brazil.
 

You can also read the write-up that Ilka and Corette did for the QRCA publication VIEWS, which is available free online. How Global is Your Village?  (the link spawns a PDF. Article is on pages 18 - 27)

Interactive content targeting teens: stupid.ca is a big improvement in the anti-smoking lexicon

For a few years I was pretty hooked on some interactive games like Myst and Riven, and their successors. In particular, I loved the design aesthetic -- kind of steam punk'd (before I'd ever heard that word!)

When I went to look at stupid.ca today, it immediately reminded me of the world of computer games. I don't know how successful this campaign was, but it's pretty innovative work. Definitely worth browsing around on your own. I captured a few screen shots to whet your appetite.

[I'm still learning to use my new Bamboo Fun, so please excuse the sloppy handwriting]

There are things to interact with in every room. It's not neat, it's messy. There are teens hanging around doing not much.

The briefing room below was the closest thing to familiar propaganda. I didn't stay long to see the movies. But the tone might have appealed to someone in their teens -- hard to say.

I loved that I could start or stop the movies, or anything else, at any time, and it was all under my own control. I never felt trapped. [Skip intro anyone?]

I wish more of the nutrition and green-living information we are getting crammed at us every day had this much fun-factor built into it.

Buzz marketing: what it's like to be paid to buzz

A great little article showed up today in a sample magazine, describing the experiences of author Bonnie Staring as she tried being paid to buzz about products.

It dealt with a question I'd been wondering about for a while, namely, what is it like to be part of one of these paid networks of influencers?

Initially, it feels kind of cool getting new stuff, especially a toothbrush that she really liked herself. But later, she thinks she may be overdoing it with people.

Some of my closest friends have asked me to stop talking about the fall shows. And the toothbrush. And the vacation-planning website... They didn't need "the sell", they said (although they were happy to take the coupons and free samples). Huh. I hadn't thought of what I was doing as selling. I was just sharing my opinion, wasn't I? I asked my husband. "But before, you used to wait for someone to ask for it," he answered.

The author concludes that she is not really enough of a trend-setter to enjoy this type of thing, and that overall, she was "trying too hard".

One thing I learned that I did not know before is that legitimate word-of-mouth (WOM to insiders) networks insist that their agents disclose their participation in a paid network. Sean Moffitt, a WOM expert interviewed for the article says transparency is essential to avoid a very negative backlash to the brand.

Resources:
Word of Mouth Marketing: Smart or Sneaky? Homemakers Magazine, April 2008
Bonnie Staring's blog
Sean Moffitt's blog -- Sean is our local buzz marketing guru, and the founder of the Influencers network

Marketing savvy consumers and what this means for marketing

I was cleaning six months of paper out of the office last weekend. Predictably, after a few hours of energetic tossing out, recycling, and crisp decision-making, I started to drift, re-reading this and that, shifting paper from place to place. [But also ... uncovering things worth sharing!]

I heard Chris Barnham speak at the QRCA conference last October. I had a few notes on this presentation that seem worth sharing.

[1] the consumer has become more sophisticated. They see brand owner "intentionality" everywhere. And they want to know what the brand's agenda is

[2] consumers may like the brand but distrust the marketing

[3] the brand and the brand owner are no longer the same thing. the brand owner has become a force behind the brand with an agenda of its own

[4] when the brand owner is not synonymous with the brand, the brand is not a vehicle for the owner's message, it is the thing that is being experienced. The brand is a repository for meaning. A wonderful analogy to explain this: the brand is to the company as the novel is to the author. We see the connection, but we don't see them as the same. We experience the brand as text on its own. Another analogy: Macbeth is not just a story about witches, it has much more richness than that.

[5] this situation makes the whole awareness --> interest --> decision --> action model of advertising / brand communications pretty unhelpful in unpacking what is going on with a brand, and a consumers relationship to a brand

[6] the brand is instantiating the values and meaning of the brand essence.

[7] the reality of the brand is in the mind of the reader, the watcher, the experiencer.

Mr. Barnham made reference to G.P.Radford, and his book, "On the Philosophy of Communication". Radford says that before the 17th century, the word communication is more about sharing, participation and association. Our notion of the word communication implying transmission of a message is relatively new. We went from the notion of sharing an idea to the notion of conveying an idea.

In the new world of branding, this old notion of communication is back. The one being communicated with is in communion with the sender -- in fact, both are sharing the creation of the idea. [Co-creation anyone?]

So, where does that leave us?

According to Mr. Barnham, if the brand is the manifestation rather than the sender of the message...

Then marketing activity becomes the actualization of brand essence ...

And brand communication needs to refocus on 'sharing' rather than 'sending'.

More practically, when we are conducting research, we may be going down the wrong path if we ask what a brand is saying. We should ask how a brand is being.

These are biggish ideas, with heavy duty implications. 

Also learned from this presentation:

[8] red type on a purple background is practically invisible. But the message was so good I stayed with it.

When metaphors go wrong

I've been spending time recently evaluating print materials for a client. In this case, a multi-page document that we might call a booklet or a brochure.

And I discovered something new. Like so many discoveries of new things, once discovered, they are perfectly obvious. I've been hovering around this one for a while, and suddenly it gelled for me. We each have our own internal library of metaphors and meanings, and while they may be similar, they are not all the same.

But I need to set the stage here. We need to first consider the creative process -- how this print material came to be.

A graphic designer and a creative development team takes a bunch of requirements from the client. In this case, the requirements have been informed by our previous research into the topic. There are some concepts to be communicated. There is language to be chosen. There is a flow and a tone and a manner to the whole concept. And there are graphic elements that will bring the whole thing to life and add richness. Everything from the finish on the printing to the weight and feel of the paper stock will be chosen to support the overall concept and mission of this piece of creative work.

Everyone involved in creating this messaging is drawing on their own internal library of meanings, of symbols, of metaphors. They are drawing on the nuances they understand for words, their knowledge of how typeface affects those nuances. And so forth.

When the work is done, or at least done enough to test, here's what happens.

These words and metaphors are sent out to the target audience, who is supposed to take a certain meaning from them, perhaps have certain emotions evoked, and generally be moved in some way.

But it's entirely possible to have graphic metaphors used that aren't in the library of the recipient of the message. It's like saying something in a foreign language. It's not that you don't want to understand, it's that you simply don't have those words, those meanings, in your internal dictionary.

And this is what happened on my project. There was a visual metaphor that was just as clear as anything for the project team, and that meant nothing at all to the target group. Well, not quite nothing... it meant something entirely unconnected.

When you consider how rich and extensive the internal library of visual metaphors must be for an experienced visual design person, it's a wonder this kind of thing doesn't happen more often.

The more subtle and refined the communication needs to be, the more of a challenge this is. Because a rock is not just a rock, it can stand for many things, from solidity and reliability, to stubbornness and old-fashioned thinking, and a thousand other meanings.

Ultimately, a brand often needs to develop and assign their own meanings to things, to shapes, to colors, to words. Because this is the only way to really reference unique meanings. If you don't do this, you have to share meanings with every other product, object and image out there.

Consider Apple's white color and finish. It's to the point where you see an object with this look, and assume it is Apple even if it isn't.

I have to admire the art of the creative process. To be able to take the brief, the research, the instructions, and to find ways to imply things without saying them directly. To imply things very precisely. With just the right amount of humor, of intelligence, or seriousness, of history, of whatever is desired. This is truly amazing, an amazing skill. It is truly magical.

More on fitness and personality: Ed Bernacki tells me about Les Mills

Ed Bernacki noticed the previous post on how personality affects consumer behavior, and sent me a very interesting note about Les Mills, the New Zealand fitness phenomenon.

"I find this fascinating as I have been a gym guy since I first worked in New Zealand and walked into Les Mills World of Fitness. (www.lesmills.com ) I saw a totally new type of aerobic program with classes of up to 300. The energy felt more like a nightclub. The instructors get that it is about entertainment. Most of these participants rarely touch a machine or weight (outside of the Body PUMP class which weight lifting to music). These are the play people as there is just enough structure to know that it is a safe and hard workout yet you have lots of flexibility. Some instructor tells you what to do and does so in a motivating way.

"Then you have the weight lifters …..who tend to be far more structured. These are the people who tend to carry a clipboard to record what they lift, how often and when.

"Everything about this gym was cool – the music, the funky architectural design, the parties, the clothing lines, etc. I often talk about Les Mills in my innovation stories. What I did not know as a member is that Les Mills (the actual person) noticed that no other gyms had such aerobic programs. They found a Kiwi way to license programs to other gyms.

"Fast forward 20 years…..11,000 gyms around the world use one of six branded and packaged programs. It is a brilliant idea. If you visit any GoodLife Fitness all its aerobic programs are licensed from Les Mills. Every GoodLife member sends my Kiwi gym money.

"From my perspective, GoodLife is a model of Canadian mediocrity in action. There is nothing innovative about it other than its sales model. Service is bland by design. Even the classes to do not live up to the potential I saw overseas. Unfortunately I am one of the few that knows the innovator and the imitator. Virtually all people only know the imitator.

"What I do find odd is that many of the promotional brochures and videos used by GoodLife actually use Kiwi models and shots of the NZ gym – it is not even GoodLife! Go figure."

This was news to me, I had no idea all of these programs were coming from New Zealand. Clearly, the success of these programs has a lot to do with keeping people entertained. Just think how much more could be done, beyond putting televisions in the gym. Where's that party atmosphere?

[Distracting aside:Too bad we don't have a clearly Canadian approach to compete with. I'd love to see the Second City fitness tape series. This winter, we could have had the shovel-your-way-to-a-great-body fitness series.]

Resources

Ed Bernacki's web site, The Idea Factory, has a lot of stuff about innovation. Ed's thoughts on innovation in the Ottawa Citizen, here.

Les Mills corporate site is here. Their clothing site (free shipping from New Zealand anyone?) is here.

Making things easy for your customers

There are so many ways to make things easy for customers. Here's one I encountered today: integrating travel arrangements into your Outlook calendar.

I'm headed to New York at the end of the month to speak at the ARF conference. So I was just on the Marriott web site to reserve a room.

Quite apart from the simple reservation process, and the opportunity to ask for extra towels in advance, there were a couple of things that were really nice.

First -- a nicely formatted form to print that didn't produce a bunch of extra pages of gobble-de-gook.
Second -- easy function to e-mail to others.
Third -- one click upload to my Outlook calendar. That one was a WOW.

We are starting to expect these things from travel oriented services. But surely they are more widely applicable. Here's a couple of ideas.

Anytime I make a booking or complete a transaction, give me a nice statement

For example, a nicely formatted confirmation would be great to have for many financial transactions, from transfers between accounts to tax payments. For a business account, this sort of thing should be a given, but it isn't. For the most part, you have to print what's on the screen using your browser, which doesn't necessarily give you a complete summary of the transaction and the confirmation code in one easy-to-record document.

Easy e-mail function for the statement or confirmation

Second, the easy e-mail function. Having now put a simple summary page in place, let me e-mail it. I find I am quite often faced with sending a link to a page. And we've all been faced with getting an e-mail that is unintelligible, or a link that we can't use, sent by someone who wanted us to have this information about an event, an order, a whatever.

This functionality should be far more ubiquitous than it is now.

Easy upload to calendars or other personal management software

So many things in our lives are part of a schedule. We've got a lot of electronic devices set up to help us manage these schedules, deadlines and dates.

Why should I have to remember when my term deposit comes due -- why can't I have an upload option?
For that matter, why can't the tax-man let me upload key due dates for me or my business into my calendar?
What about a reminder that a delayed shipment is due for a book on back-order?
I don't want all of this stuff in an e-mail -- more often, it would be nice to have the option to put the dates or details into my electronic calendar.

Depending on your market segment, you might need to consider platforms other than Outlook. I've seen lots of evidence of teens managing their calendars on their cell-phones. And they are a forgetful bunch, they need at least as much help as I do to remember important dates and deadlines.

Are you using pseudo-language with your customers -- or are you communicating?

The articles in management consulting news often have gems that relate generally to customers and customer experience. I saw another excellent example in this interview with author Tom Sant. Here's the paragraph that made me stop:

"I think many people are afraid to put important messages in writing, or they don’t feel confident that they can write well. The mistake they make is that, instead of trying to communicate in their own voice, they try to use somebody else’s voice. They lapse into what I call pseudo-language, a nonfunctional way of communicating which they think is somehow superior to what they could produce themselves."

Doesn't that just sound like so many marketing letters you have seen? Especially the ones vetted by something called the brand council, or similar committee whose job is to extract all meaning from letters sent by big companies to their customers.

When you go through your stack of mail today, see how many examples of this you can find. I guarantee they'll be in abundant supply.

But no one wants to read this stuff. We don't have the time trying to tease meaning out of paragraphs thick with marketing speak.

Sant identifies four types of pseudo-language. I'm sure you've seen all of this, as I have:

• Fluff -- vague generalizations and assertions. Phrases like "best of breed products." Non-specific and lacking any supporting evidence
• Guff -- big words, long sentences, convoluted construction and passive voice -- all designed to show how smart and sophisticated the writer is, and difficult to extract meaning from
• Geek -- jargon and acronym-filled writing that assumes insider knowledge -- people who either don't care, or are just too lazy to try to say something in simple language
• Weasel -- qualifiers like "might be," "prudent to," and other approaches that lack a clear statement of recommendation

Susan's cure:

There may be no cure for the brand council but there is a cure for this kind of writing.

Stop yourself and say out loud the things you are trying to communicate. Now write down what you just said. Now you have something to work with. Force yourself to limit the number of words you add, especially qualifiers and meaningless adjectives.

If you get writing like this from someone else, ask them to just tell you what they are trying to communicate.

When you look at the result, it might not look like a typical corporate communication. That's a good sign you are on the right track.

People love to have key metrics, so here's one to try: track the number of people calling in to get a real explanation of the letter. If there aren't very many, you're on the right track.