A marketing miracle

By now, we've all seen this video of the amazing stunt marketing event from the Canadian Airline, WestJet.



Actually 19 million people have viewed it directly on Youtube, more on social media channels and millions upon millions have read about it thanks to all the press its garnered in just the week since it was posted.

How did they achieve such success?

Let's start with the concept. It's big. No, not just big, huge. I can barely get the shopping done for my family in the weeks leading up to Christmas. Buying Christmas gifts for 250 people in just a few hours is a massive undertaking.

It was executed perfectly.

Starting with Santa on video gathering wishes, to the army of employees who were sent to do the shopping to the decorations around the baggage carousel, they nailed every detail. It was magical from start to finish.

This effort was clearly genuine, heartfelt and relevant, promoting the company's real differentiator, service.

The result is that for less than the cost of producing a national TV commercial, WestJet was able to create international fame. This is an incredible marketing achievement that is sure to be honored at Cannes and every other advertising festival next year.

The question is, how can they take the momentum from this event and use it to build their business in the coming year? Their brand now stands for 'miracles' and they have to deliver on that promise on a regular basis, maybe not with grand stunts like this, but little gestures that demonstrate how much they care about their passengers. Otherwise, this big event is just marketing and all the energy it created will be drained as quickly as the batteries in a child's toy on Christmas morning.

I'm assuming that a company smart enough to create and execute this event knows that. So I'm looking forward to seeing what they do next.

Pack attack

If I were in charge of the economic development department in my adopted home state, I'd be worried. Wisconsin's image is about to take another hit.

No, we haven't produced another Jeffrey Dahmer. Nor have the protests reignited around the capitol.

It's even worse.

TBS has just green-lighted a reality show called Cheeseheads in hopes of doing for Wisconsin what Duck Dynasty and Swamp People have done for the state of Louisiana.

Here's how TBS describes the show in their press release:

“Green Bay, Wis., is home to the World Famous Green Bay Packers and their fans: The Cheeseheads. These citizens don’t just bleed green and gold; they eat victory for breakfast. For them, being a Cheesehead is more than just being a fan. It's a way of life. This show will take viewers into the hilarious subculture through the eyes of a group of proud Wisconsinites as they navigate life in the only way they know how – loud, proud and with lots of beer. For these folks, there is no off-season.’’

And here's a video release of some of the auditions.

Having been to more than a few Packers games over the past 20 years, I have met my share of Cheeseheads. I know they are a part of the Wisconsin culture. I also know they're really nice people and a hell of a lot of fun.

But if you're trying to sell Wisconsin as a place where sophisticated, 21st century, high-tech businesses can find the workers they need to succeed in a global economy, your job just got a whole lot harder.

The best of the web

One of the beautiful things about the web, is that amid all the dreck there are gems.

Not every blog is about how to enhance your social media presence or five ways to increase traffic to your site. 

Not every app is juvenile game designed to distract you from the important things that are happening in the world around you. 

And not every video is a 15-year old girl showing you the uh-may-zing top she got for cheap on her latest trip to the mall, or some pseudo-celebrity's masturbatory exercise in self-exploitation.

Sometimes you find things like this and you can just take pleasure the talents, passion and craftsmanship of the subject and the filmmaker.

Shaped on all Six Sides from New Canada on Vimeo.

Enjoy.

JWT India goes rogue

Every creative at every agency has one, a file filled with ideas that were killed at one point or another by a creative director, account director or client. Most of us have the good sense never to share those ideas with the outside world.

Such was not the case with some staffers at JWT India who decided share these offensive ad comps with Ads of the World in an effort to show how creative they are.

Oops.

Now the team at Ford has a full-fledged PR crisis on their hands, JWT global executives are bending over backwards to try to save the account, and the people who thought this was a good idea are deservedly on the street looking for new jobs.

The fact that they spent the time and money to hire a professional illustrator to create the comps leads me to believe that someone at a senior level in the creative department approved these "ideas." I'm not sure if they ever made it to the client, but somewhere along the way, this concept was rightfully killed and should never have seen the light of day.

The advertising business – thanks to its fascination with youth – has always attracted people who feel their talent and creativity entitle them to privileges well beyond their years, that their inflated titles and meteoric rise make them smarter than everyone else in the room. It's that attitude that leads to events like this.

Advertising is about creating memorable messages to support and build a client's brand. That requires creativity, maturity and judgement. Unfortunately it appears that no one in the creative department at JWT India has any of those qualities.

In an update, this article by Ad Age suggests that not only did people at the highest levels of JWT India know about these ads, but so did someone at the client who had to sign a document stating that the ads were real before they could be entered in a local awards show. My guess is more people will be losing their jobs very soon.

More of the same

Well, that was fast.

Commonwealth is no more. Goodby is leaving Detroit. And McCann now controls 100% of the Chevrolet business in the U.S. and around the world.

This news is not that surprising. In fact, it was inevitable once Joel Ewanick and GM parted ways.

The only question that needs to be answered now is, "Will the work get better?"

Chevrolet marketing and advertising has been suffering through a miserable dry spell. Nothing created by either agency was particularly effective or memorable. Even with a new Malibu, Sonic, Cruz and Spark, Chevrolet is selling fewer cars this year than both Toyota and Ford.

Will having all the work consolidated under McCann change that?

We shall see.

What I do know is that GM needs to settle its marketing and advertising issues quickly so it can concentrate on the business of selling cars.

A Groupon goodbye

If you haven't read Andrew Mason's resignation letter, you should.

It is the perfect mix of humility and hubris. It explains why Groupon became such a phenomenal success and misguided underachiever.

His ability to pinpoint his own failings in this moment of self-reflection are admirable. It's refreshing to see him accept responsibility and know that his presence will only prevent Groupon from moving forward.

The lesson here is that great idea people are not always great leaders. And, sometimes the noise of "experts" can cause you to lose sight of what got you to where you are.

Good luck in your quest to lose that Groupon 40. Pritikin has worked well for a few of my friends. I look forward to seeing what you come up with next.

A brand is a brand is a brand

I'm currently working on a brand strategy project for a global business-to-business conglomerate and in the process of researching other global b-to-b brands, I've discovered something.

They're all the same.

They're all producers of quality products.

They're all solutions providers.

They're all innovative.

They're all changing the way you think about [insert product category here].

They're all focused on sustainability.

They're all about ethics.

They're all promoting diversity.

They're all building a culture of collaboration and respect.

They're all providing opportunities for their employees.

They're all strengthening the communities they serve.

All these issues are relevant and important to their customers, regulators and channel partners. I get it. But by focusing only on what's relevant, they're missing the second part of creating a great brand: being different.

Yes, it's hard to be the first to step out of the pack, but there are great rewards for those that take the risk. Because, while rational thinking and functional benefits matter in business decisions, just because someone is sitting behind a desk doesn't mean he checks his emotion at the front door. You're still talking to people with hopes, fears, needs and desires.

Great consumer brands are built on emotions. There's no reason great b-to-b brands should be any different.

Yesterday's news

The next couple of days are jam packed here at OBX Thinking's global command center, so rather than letting the blog lay idle for a couple of days I'll be reposting content from a few years ago. Today, we revisit the evolution of obsolescence.

In the 1950s designer Brooks Stevens coined the term "Planned Obsolescence" to describe the fundamental underpinning of our burgeoning consumer economy. Companies were deliberately designing their products in such a way that within a few years – thanks to ephemeral style, technology or performance – people would be forced to buy new stuff on a regular basis.

My, how things have changed.

We've gone from a time when companies felt they had to design obsolescence into their products in order to guarantee future sales, to one where global competition is so intense that people are afraid to buy the latest computer, cell phone, car or fashion item for fear that it will be out of date by the time they get it home.



We're living in the era of "Forced Obsolescence." No one has the luxury of allowing products to become obsolete on their own timetable. The competition will do that for you.

If this had been the '50s, Apple would have launched the iPad and milked that platform for a few years before making significant investments in changing it. Instead they knew that competitors would quickly enter the marketplace and the iPad 2 was launched with more features, more functionality and an improved design for the same price less than a year later.

Apple knows, and hopefully your company does too, that today you have to eat your own young before the competition does it for you.

The birth of cool

I saw this headline in the New York Times yesterday and have spent a little time thinking about what it means and why it's true.

Samsung is cool not because they have cool ads. Not because their products look cool. Certainly not because of the blazer their EVP is wearing in the picture.

Samsung is cool for the same reason Apple is cool.

They're both great at what they do.

Cool is not about what you say, how you act, or how many black mock turtlenecks you have.

Cool is about excellence.

Miles Davis wouldn't have been cool if he weren't a supremely talented, incredibly innovative trumpet player.

Steve McQueen wouldn't have been cool if he weren't a gifted actor.

Apple wouldn't have been cool had their products not worked so damn well.

Companies need to stop focusing on being cool and start trying to be great. Once you've achieved greatness, cool will come.

Creativity is alive

The art of creative strategy is taking a client's message and transforming it into something that people other than the client will watch, internalize and talk about.

This spot from the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada is a great example of that.



By combining the pop culture meme du jour – zombies – with a quick lesson in how to make people undead, more people will remember the basics of CPR and lives will be saved.

Brave client + smart agency = great advertising.

Well done.

The right way to innovate

Because I've been lucky enough to work with a lot of companies in developing new products, I'm often asked, "what's the best way to innovate?"

My answer, though seemingly flippant, is always "the way works best for you."

There's no secret formula for coming up with new ideas and getting them into the market. There's no one process that will guarantee success. If there were, do you think large companies with very smart people and lots of resources would have created these products: Microsoft Zune, Crystal Pepsi, Quikster, Disney's John Carter?

Developing new products requires an understanding of consumer needs, an idea that provides a better way to fulfill those needs than anything that's available now, and flawless execution of the idea in the end product or service. In this day and age, you also have to do it quickly while simultaneously developing a breakthrough communications plan, so you can launch your idea and own the space in the consumer mind before your competition quickly follows your lead.

It's not easy.

So the best way to develop a new product is the way that's most natural for your company and your culture.

For Apple that was a very top down approach driven by a relentless visionary leader. It's something they seem to be struggling with now that Steve Jobs is gone. Many have said they never would have released the flawed maps app in the iPhone 5 under his watch.

Google uses a collaborative approach where scientists, engineers, designers and researchers work together to solve problems and create new products.

Open innovation is all the rage now, where companies like Frito Lay are asking their customers and other experts to help them with the development of new products.

So how should you innovate?

Know your culture and design an approach that fits based on the scale and scope of the project.

Asking Microsoft to innovate like Apple would be like asking Rob Schneider to play Hamlet. Sure he can read the lines, but you're not going to like the result.

Five ways to make twitter work for you

I'll admit it. I've kinda gotten into this twitter thing. I'm no Rainn Wilson, but I have over 400 followers. I follow a few hundred interesting people. I also participate in a couple of tweet chats a week on branding and innovation.

It's been about a year and here's what I've learned works when it comes to building a community and even attracting business on Twitter.

1. Give
This is open source communication. You only get something of value from Twitter when you give something of value first. Give your knowledge away. Give your opinions. Give your experience. Give your advice. At 140 characters, it's not too big a burden to give what you can.

2. Accept
Take what others are willing to give. Read the articles they share. View their videos. Listen to their advice. There's a lot to learn from these short bursts of communications if you're willing to listen.

3. Ask
Have a question on a project? Need to find an expert on thermodynamics? Want a recommendation for a great restaurant in Kuala Lumpur? No matter what you need to know, there's probably someone in your network who either has the answer or is connected to someone who does.

4. Share
Share articles. Retweet interesting tweets. Post the occasional photo. Don't be afraid to share some things that aren't strictly business. Your followers want to know the person behind the avatar.

5. Thank
Take a moment to thank those who retweet your content, those who answer your questions, those who follow you and those who you follow. Do it publicly so everyone knows who's adding value to the community.

Twitter isn't a silver bullet to help you build your business, but it's a great place to learn, connect and share ideas with people who you may never otherwise interact with. It makes the world smaller and more efficient. And sometimes, as is the case with @Rainnwilson's tweets, it's good for a laugh.

Getting to great

The difference between good and great isn't a big idea. It isn't breakthrough technology. It isn't a billion dollar launch campaign. Nor is it the celebrity you've hired to endorse your product.

The difference between good and great lies in the details.

It's in the curve of a surface.

It's in the simplicity of the interface between your device and the server.

It's in the elegance of your code.

It's in the feel and placement of a switch.

It's in the ability of salesperson to remember a new customer's name.

It's in the casting of your commercial.

It's in the editing of your newsletter.

It's in the the quality of your images.

It's in the kerning of your type.

Great ideas are a dime a dozen.

Excellence in execution is the most important determinant of success. It's what separated iPod from Zune, Ford from Chrysler, Avatar from Land of the Lost.

In a time when consumers have more choices than ever, good enough just isn't good enough. You have to sweat every detail on your great idea. People are not interested in shelling out their hard-earned pay for mediocrity.

If you're not willing to go all the way to great, you might as well not even start.

Sonic goes boom

This is what fear does to ad agencies.



You see back in October 2010, Sonic fired Barkley the agency that created a campaign featuring the two guys at the drive in. Apparently growing from $776 million to over $3 billion in sales over the 17 year relationship wasn't good enough.

After a review the business was awarded to what I considered to be one of the better agencies in the country, Goodby, Silverstein & Partners. Their work, however, which has been largely formulaic and forgettable, hasn't moved the needle in the right direction. Sales have declined .9% over the past year.

So Sonic Sonic made the decision to return to what had been working and bring back the two guys.

Here's the funny part. They didn't go back to the agency that created the characters and helped them grow for all those years. They had Goodby execute the campaign.

I'm sure the guys a Goodby fought like hell to come up with and sell their own original idea. But someone at the client had made up their mind to bring the two guys back. So with several other high profile client losses already this year and a very public layoff of a lot of good employees, Goodby did the "smart thing" and acquiesced.

If Goodby hadn't just lost HP and Sprint would they have fought harder? If they hadn't just laid off over 100 people, would they have done the "right thing" and resigned the account over "creative differences" as other agencies in similar situations have? Who knows?

If I were part of the team at Barkley that created this campaign, I'd be pissed. But the client paid for the work, so the client owns the work. Sonic can do whatever they want with their characters.

Unfortunately for Barkley, Sonic found out a year too late just how valuable those characters actually were.

Story time

Recently a friend of mine on Facebook posted a recommendation for Benson Backpacks and a link to their site.

I didn't need a new backpack, but something about the post intrigued me, so I took a look. What I found was a great product with a great story, the two key ingredients to any business.

Now don't get me wrong, you need a lot of things to create a successful business – dedication, hard work, good timing, and a great accountant – but in my mind your product and your story are the foundation and everything is built from there.

In the case of Benson Backpacks, the product is nice, but without the story of this Tanzanian porter and his struggle to educate his children, I have no real reason to buy their backpack over the thousands of other options I have from companies like The North Face, Timbuk2, Easton and others. Conversely, while the story is inspiring, if the product were junk, I wouldn't pay a dime.

Great companies have a mythology around them, an oral history that gets told over and over, passed on from consumer to consumer building the legend and the brand. Nike does it. Apple does it. Google does it. And so does Benson Backpacks.

So today, I offer this simple lesson: You may have a great product. But if you don't have a great story, you'll never have a great brand.

Handling bad news

There's no easy way to lay people off in the wake of business losses, but Jeff Goodby shows us all how it's done in an email he sent to AgencySpy.

Today, we at Goodby, Silverstein & Partners have begun adjusting the size of our staff in the wake of losing Sprint and parting ways with Hewlett-Packard.  We don’t divulge the number of people or the percentage of our staff affected, but it’s commensurate with the numbers you’d have for accounts this size.

It pains us immensely to do this stuff, but we have a responsibility to the people here to maintain a healthy, vigorous company going forward. We will have that, and are confident about the work we are doing right now on all fronts.

It is an emotional day. These people are not just co-workers but friends. As always in these situations, we will help them find other positions with an open heart and no doubt welcome many of them back someday.

Thanks for respecting their privacy about all this in the meantime.

Jeff-Goodby
Co-Chairman
Goodby, Silverstein & Partners
San Francisco 

He doesn't sugar coat it. He doesn't try to weasel out of it. He doesn't try to explain it. He states the facts he's willing to share, along with the emotions I know he's feeling. This can't be a good day at Goodby, but by tackling the issue head on, they're getting out in front of the story and will make the best of it.

In the wake of all the bad PR we've seen lately, it's nice to see someone do it well.

Right. Now.

The pace of work is accelerating thanks to all the cool new tools we have at our disposal, the democratization of information and our ability to communicate with an ever expanding audience in an instant.

We can develop videos, ads and other messages in hours or minutes, instead of the weeks it used to take.

We can distribute them with the push of a button to millions of people via Twitter, Youtube, Facebook and other media.

But there's something more important than being fast in this era of instant communication – being right.

Just ask the folks at Blackberry, McDonald's and Qantas. 

Before you launch that next Social Media campaign, think about everything that can go wrong and plan for it before you push send.

Because you can't just be right now. 

You have to be right right now.

3 Ways to Tap into the Voice of the Culture

For decades we’ve been taught the surest way to developing successful new products is to listen to the voice of the customer. Companies have spent billions on VOC research encompassing everything from massive quantitative surveys to rapid ethnographies, in-home use tests and social media customer feedback mechanisms. Some have created whole divisions dedicated to it with executives who have titles like Chief Customer Officer and Director of Customer Experience.

The New VOC
 Putting your customers at the center of your enterprise isn’t a bad idea. But if you want to separate yourself from others in your field, you should innovate around a different VOC – Voice of the Culture.

Think about the most innovative companies in every category: brands like Google, BMW, Apple, Target, DC Shoes, Virgin and others. They don’t stop at doing what the customer says they want, they go beyond. They understand the very culture of their users, introducing products that do more than attract mere customers; they create passionate fans.

Filtering out the noise 
As innovation professionals, there’s one thing we rarely lack, data. We’re not just swimming in it; we’re drowning in it. Everyday new information comes across our desktops that seemingly contradicts what we knew to be true the day before. One customer wants it bigger. One wants it smaller. One wants it red, while another would prefer black. Listen to the voice of every customer and soon you’ll be spun in so many directions, you won’t know which way is up. The result in many cases is a tangled mess of line extensions and SKU proliferation that is practically unmanageable.

Tap into the culture, however, and you’ll be able to create real value for your users.

The irrational consumer 
We’ve all seen it in focus groups and on surveys. Consumers tell you they want one thing and then turn around and do another. Ask who wants a cheaper smart phone and everyone raises their hand. Yet Apple continues to dominate the market. The new iPhone 4s is only in pre-order, and they’ve already sold a million of them at $399. 

Apple knows it’s about more than functional benefits and price.

Innovative Culture 
Innovate around charts, graphs, numbers and dots and you’ll get incremental improvements that people will appreciate but rarely pay extra for. Remember when only luxury cars had power windows and automatic climate control? Now you can find those features on entry-level subcompacts. BMW continues to demand a significant premium for its cars, however, because it ties those features into the culture of driving. BMW positions itself as The Ultimate Driving Machine and thus those who own one see themselves as ultimate drivers. Every feature and interface is designed to reinforce the culture of driving from the power assist steering that gives you excellent feedback to the adjustable suspension with sport mode that lets you dial in a setting for more spirited driving.

So how do you gain an understanding of the culture of your customers? 

1.) Immerse yourself 
Harley-Davidson does it by making sure product developers, engineers, designers and other key employees attend the various gatherings and rallies that happen around the country every weekend. From poker rides organized by local dealerships to the massive annual gatherings in Daytona and Sturgis, Harley employees are everywhere interacting with customers, looking at their bikes, listening to their music, seeing what they’re wearing, paying attention to their stories – not just about bikes, but their lives. With this as a backdrop Harley was able to create their new H-D1 Custom Bike builder concept

2.) Don’t ask what or why 
If you want to change the world or at least your business, stop asking people what they want and why they want it, and ask them for a window into their world. A few years ago on a project for major global beverage company, we gave video cameras to 15, 16 and 17 year old boys, asking them to create a movie of their lives for us. After 5 days, they brought us the footage and we sat with them editing the biopic, complete with the songs that served as the soundtrack. The resulting Culturescape™ videos held incredible insights into not just their eating habits; they also communicated volumes about their relationships with friends, siblings, and parents; as well as expressed their aspirations, dreams and fears in a way no interview could have. This cultural deep-dive provided incredible insight for product development as well as provided the inspiration for innovative marketing programs.

3.) Become an expert or hire one 
Companies like Target have formal structures and processes for staying in touch with the cultural values of their customers, for spotting the trends that will interest them, and using that information to inform both product development and customer experience. They have teams dedicated to and individuals responsible for identifying and integrating the latest cultural trends.

The extreme sport apparel company, DC Shoes employs a network of athletes and artists who their customers have identified as influencers to help them make sure their products don’t just follow trends, but set them. There’s not one right way to keep your cultural edge. The most important act is to adopt a mindset that what your customers believe is more important than what they say. Then develop a program that helps you understand those beliefs and integrate them into your organization so you can create products and services that embrace that culture.

Do that and you may just create the next Mini Cooper instead of the Yugo.