Have you ever made the mistake of making something too complex?

I remember when I was about 12 years old at school and we did a project called “Make a Million.” The idea was the children had to team up in pairs and then run a project that, during break times, would create revenue. Looking back, it was a great way for the school to instill some business and entrepreneurial skills into us as kids.

However, my project didn’t go down so well. Whereas some teams sold posters of clipart that they printed from their computer, or sold a set of 5 penalty kicks, or charm bracelets that they had made, my business partner and I decided to make a complex game which was a mix of snakes and ladders fused with monopoly. Suffice to say that when break time came, we normally sold one run on the game as it took the whole break to play it. But even then, people were reluctant to play because it was, well, just so complex! It was easy to buy a poster or kick a ball, but this was just too much.

Thus it was here that I learnt my first business lesson. Keep it quick, simple, and scaleable. I’d like to tell you that I learnt my lesson there and then, but my perfectionist mindset has struggled with this one for a long time as I have often defaulted back to building the perfect system as opposed to a profitable one, or even a useable one!

The simple one wins. Ask Dropbox.

I read a similar, more grown up version of the same story on Quora. Isaac Hall, co-founder of Syncplicity discusses why Dropbox is more popular than other tools that have similar and often better functionality. What he boiled it down to was simplicity. It just works. No tweaking necessary. (You can read his answer here, just click on “change log” to see his full response.) The most pertinent part of it was this:

In the end, it really came down to one incredibly genius idea: Dropbox limited its feature set on purpose. It had one folder and that folder always synced without any issues — it was magic. Syncplicity could sync every folder on your computer until you hit our quota. (Unfortunately, that feature was used to synchronize C:Windows for dozens of users — doh!) Our company had too many features and this created confusion amongst our customer base. This in turn led to enough customer support issues that we couldn’t innovate on the product, we were too busy fixing things.

After I left Syncplicity, I ran into the CEO of Dropbox and asked him my burning question: “Why don’t you support multi-folder synchronization?” His answer was classic Dropbox. They built multi-folder support early on and did limited beta testing with it, but they couldn’t get the UI right. It confused people and created too many questions. It was too hard for the average consumer to setup. So it got shelved.

I like this – Dropbox could have multiple folders, but they don’t, because people just don’t get it.

Making things simple is about making sure people get it. It’s realising that too many options paralyzes people (which one should I do?), that asking for settings scares people (what if I get it wrong?), that an unclear benefit deters people (why spend my time on this?)

Starting with simple

My friend Darren Smith is an expert in user design and experience and he tells me that when it comes to design there is a general rule to ensure that no matter how advanced a design gets its core remains simple, ensuring that any further levels of complexity advance the feature set without compromising the simplicity of the core.

This useful point helps us with something that Brian Driggs and I have been discussing on the subject of making meaning and also writing SMART email. When it comes to building a platform for people to live their lives on, it needs to be simple with optional further levels of complexity. As to how that looks, I’m not sure – but I’m up for discussing it.

5 ways to keep it simple

So what are the main lessons here? My main points, in contrast to my failures with my efforts to make a million at school, would be:

1. It can be explained in a sentence. My game couldn’t.
2. You can look at it and know what it is. You can look at a poster and know that you buy it. But when you look at a peice of card with directions scribbled on, it’s not that obvious.
3. You don’t need a manual. What is good about the iPhone is when you get it, it’s ready. No configuration. This isn’t the case with many phones that I’ve tested!
4. It’s quick. The great thing about Dropbox is that you install and it’s done, and you can use it right away. Again, no more configuration.
5. Any complexity is guided step by step. I loved playing this pinball game that I downloaded on my iPad a while ago that taught me how to use it step by step in a test run. This isn’t anything new, but it’s amazing how many platforms lack this and just expect you to figure it out through trial and eror.

So those are my 5 lessons. Now over to you:

Your Leading Thoughts

• Thinking offline, how do we take the platforms that we are building and ensure they are simple, with further levels of complexity?
• When does simple harm you?

Photo courtesy of visualpanic

Every wondered how you know an advert is for a product without seeing the logo or the product?

One of the hot new trends in marketing circles at the moment is neuromarketing. It’s the science of marketing in the sense that it measures people’s brain activity when they are looking and engaging with marketing messages, and thus seeks to deliver a quanitfiable answer to questions like “does engaging senses make a difference?”, “are logos effective?”, and “do anti smoking signs make people stop smoking?”

The leading book on this right now is Buyology (aff link), by Martin Lindstrom, which is a very well written journey through Lindstrom’s vibrant mind that debunks traditional marketing methods.

Of course those of us who are part of the social revolution know that traditional marketing is becoming more and more ineffective, but this book not only says in a way that your boss will listen, but goes one step prover and scientifically proves it (to a degree – the samples are small.)

Buyology

Over the next weeks I want to look at three or four of the main learnings that I drew from this book, along with adding the others things that I’ve been thinking about at the moment that extend his ideas further.

Each one is a lesson in how marketing, and indeed communication, has changed – or rather, has always stayed the same and only now have we realised how wrong our methods have been.

So without further ado, lesson one.

The Logo is Broken: how Association is the new Branding

Something I’ve been saying more and more to our sponsors for Like Minds is that I want to embed them into the narrative of our events. I’ve always known that banners on stage or logos on a website were not just cringy, they were ineffective, and instinctively I’ve always tried to make our sponsors the same companies that provide us with something that is used in the very fabric of the event. Starbucks provide our coffee, Ooyala provide our video platform, Optix provided a social media survey, etc.

According to Lindstrom, my approach is actually correct with the science of association. In fact he goes as far as to say that the association of a product, like the shape of a Coca-Cola bottle of the red of the Coca-Cola brand, neither with the logo in sight, is more powerful than seeing the logo. What Lindstrom did was wire people up to his MRI machine and scan their brain activity whilst showing them various images, videos and sounds. More brain activity meant more success, less meant failure. So this is what he found:

1. In measuring the effectiveness of Coca-Cola’s, Ford’s and Cingular’s sponsorshop of American Idol, Coca-Cola came out trumps and Ford didn’t get much benefit at all. Lindstrom says this is because Coca-Coal was part of the actual story of American Idol. The judges have Coca-Coal red glasses and seats that are modelled after the shape of their bottles. Contestants are interviewed in a Coca-Cola red room, and the song tracks can be downloaded courtesy of Coca-Cola.
   Ford however are not involved with the contestants or judges at all – they only get an advert played at the beginning of the commercial break. What Lindstrom says is that the product or brand must be critical to the storyline. So he’d say that that one-off shot of the Sony Ericsson phone in Casino Royale wasn’t best placed because it wasn’t pivotal to the plot.
2. When measuring smoker’s reactions to cigarrettes, they reacted more strongly to the red of Malborro against a desert sunset (their branding) than they did to the logo. He did numerous other experiments that said the same thing. This is why he says we know when an advert is for a brand when we don’t even see the product – it’s all the associated feelings, colours, sights, sounds, storyline, etc. This is why Marborro do a good job with sponsoring Formula 1 – apparently when he showed people Forumla 1 images, the same part of the brain that craves cigarettes lights up because this association with the brand is so strong.

His conclusion is that our minds are so bombarded with logos all day that when we see a logo or know something is an advertisement, our guards go up automatically.

Smashable Brands and Strong Assocations

The marketer’s response, he says, must be to then strengthen the associations that we have with our brands. He calls brands that have very powerful associations smashable brands, as you could smash the brand into tiny pieces, pick up one of the those tiny pieces, and still know that it was the brand.

So in the case of Coca-Cola, if you smash a Coca-Cola bottle, you still know it’s Coca-Cola. Likewise you can tell a Mac OS X icon apart from a Windows one. Or take the image of the Ferrari at the top of this page – or is it? We think it’s a Ferrari becuase it’s bright red, but it might not be. That red on a car is so associated with Ferrari that we think it is. And also when I look at it I also think

The conclusion that I draw from all of this is that I need to far more aware of all the elements that either people already associate with my brands, and also what I want to associate. I think that whilst I’m keen on design and love branding, I actually haven’t been thinking enough about association.

I’d say most people take association as far as a logo, a font and a colour. We should be thinking about associating much, much more.

A critical part of this is knowing what to associate with. A association has the potential to harm our brand if it doesn’t have positive connotations and reinforce the values of our brand.

Your Leading Thoughts

I’ve chucked out a few thoughts here and certainly haven’t followed the thought line for long, because I think we need to discuss it here.

• First of all, what are you comments on this? Have you seen other brands do association well? Have you experienced it yourself?
• Second, what are some of the ways that we can be better at association? How do we ensure we pick correct associations?
• Thirdly, given that many of us are knowledge workers with our own “brands”, how can we use association on a personal level?

Image courtesy of kaneda99

Today: how on earth do you make a brand meaningful?

Guy Kawasaki, when he discusses the Art of Innovation (exceptional videos – 10 minutes long), says that you must make meaning with your offering. He explains that products that go deeper than entertainment and touch at purpose at the ones who are making meaning – that their existence in the life of their customer is one that helps the customer define their world.

There are two core parts here for me that I would say we could distill “making meaning” down to:

1. Help people understand and define their life through your offering. Deliver offerings that empower people to make sense of where they are today, and where they were yesterday.
2. Move beyond entertainment to purpose. Provide people with direction, help them to discover their reason for being, where they want to be tomorrow. Make your brand something that people can derive identity from.

So we’ve got yesterday and today, and tomorrow. Understanding yesterday and today, and directing tomorrow. I believe that offerings and brands that do this are meaningful to me on the most fundamental level.

For example, my church, The River, is a meaningful brand to our community. We help people through teaching resources understand where they are and where they’ve come from. And our events, our community, and our strong emphasis on life application and living life on purpose provides direction.

Labs

So how do we go to the lab and make meaning? If our two key words are understanding and directing, then we must take what our offering is and adjust it to provide these two. Some ideas:

1. Deliver tools that help people categorise themselves. This categorisation helps them define the world within them. Note that this isn’t boxing people in. For example, the book “Now Discover Your Strengths” by Markus Buckingham was meaningful to me because the large set of skills that it assigns you with via the online test helps you better understand yourself. The label increases self awareness with restricting me. Apple do this with their product types – “Are you a MacBook Air or a MacBook Pro – or are you an iPod Nano?”
2. Deliver tools that people can build on. The idea of building platform is what Apple did with the App Store. Because of it, other developers have an income, therefore Apple is meaningful to them. Guardian also did the same with their Open API.
3. Deliver tools that help people define the world around them. The power of faith is that it gives people a decision making framework through which they can understand their life. Decisions are powerful and when we help people make them and define their worlds, we are meaningful to them. Consider here how powerful youth tribes are in that they provide slang that defines what is part of their tribe, and what isn’t. That slangs defines their world.
4. Deliver tools that help people direct their life. Or perhaps more pertinently, helps people make their next step. If your offering is making the next step for someone easier, then you matter to them. I’m doing courses with my wife on how to breastfeed, change nappies, give birth, etc, and the fact that these courses are preparing us and helping us make decisions about our life is meaningful to me. They are helping direct us.
5. Deliver tools that people can use to help others. The power that I’ve seen in affiliate and networking marketing programs is how they give their distributors all the tools in the world to get others on board. And guess what? That type of assistance directs people to do it more, and the original distributor draws value and direction out of this.

More?

For a more in-depth and academic approach to making meaning, read this article that I found on “developing meaningful brands“.

Otherwise, I’d like to hear your thoughts: how do YOU make meaning?

This is how I start:

Olivier Blanchard‘s latest Twitter bio says “Pray that I never become your competitor’s secret weapon.” When I read that, I tell you what I do do – I click on his link and find out more.

Why?

How many times have you seen a Twitter bio that says “Husband. Father. Thinker. Runner. Twitterer. Love design and the web.” or words to that effect?

As I get more followers, deciding who to follow back is an important decision for me. I don’t want to have a full tweet stream and I also don’t use applications like TweetDeck or Seesmic to keep lists, so having a good list of people that I follow is important. And my criteria for who I follow is quite simple: will you add value to me?

I don’t know if many of us have ever thought deeply about why we follow certain people and don’t follow others, but my criteria goes something like this:

• Are you unique from everyone else out there just talking?
• Are you well versed in your area and therefore able to bring me new insights?
• Are you similar to me or I do relate to you?
• Is your location, company or job of immediate interest to me?
• Do you talk back to people?

I then go on to explain the importance of having a unique Twitter bio. You can read the whole article here.

Robin Wight said in his insight at Like Minds that brands exist to make the purchasing process easier. This was an eye opener for me because I realised how it is indeed the case that a brand reduces my need for original critical thought and makes me rely on what Robert Cialdini calls fixed action patterns – fixed ways of reacting based on certain mental shortcuts.

Certainly for the majority of brands that you’ll see at a supermarket, that’s their role. But what most of the Friends reading this will be in the business of doing is moving beyond brands that merely make it easier for us to purchase or align with. We are interested in making maning, in aspiration, in purpose, in challenge. Our ideal brand is one that people derive identity from.

The brand on three levels

In an exceptional video entitled Rethinking the Idea of the Brand, Umair Haque talks about three levels of brand. (Thanks to Brian Driggs for emailing it to me.)

• Functional brands seek to differentiate one product from another by targeting a particular demographic. This is what Umair describes as the base level of branding.
• Aspiration brands emerged as status symbols: I don’t buy a Samsung MP3 player, I buy an iPod. This is where Umair says we’ve been for the last 3 decades.
• Meaningful brands are, paraphrasing Umair, where a brand has a tangible output on the consumer’s life in terms that matter for them. He says furthermore than meaningful brands are the opposite of egocentric demand, which he calls alocentric. The general thrust is that a meaningful brand contributes to the human race, not just me as an individual.

(Side note for another discussion another day: I would understand Umair’s description of meaningful brands to be highly linked to community and we could also label them as social brands.)

Overcoming indifference with purpose

The power of the meaningful brand is that is overcomes indifference. With functional and aspiration brands saturating markets left, right and centre, a meaningful brand taps into something deeper than a brand meeting my immediate functional need.

In actual fact, I see meaningful brands as tapping into Maslow‘s top hierarchy of self-actualisation - or as I say – purpose.

Recently I was talking to someone who unites a community of people around an event. They wanted to know where to take the event, and my response was that they needed to go beyond entertainment (uniting people around a good time) and instead unite people around purpose. In other words, make meaning by helping the community make meaning.

As a church pastor, community builder, mentor and with Like Minds, I’ve always seen the direct benefit of basing the orgnisations purpose in the helping of others find their purpose.

How can you be indifferent to something that has helped further you on your quest for purpose and meaning?

Making your brand meaningful

We’ve covered enough ground for today, so tomorrow we’ll discuss just exactly how we make a brand meaningful. And what we need to discuss that is your feedback on this post now. The conversation has begun – now add your thoughts:

• How do you move a brand from aspirational to meaningful?
• What the meaningful brands in your life?

We talked a while ago about ‘building the kingdom’ – looking at how a strong team is made up of individuals who strongly compliment one another. This is the type of thinking that I’m saying our youth aren’t getting so much of. It requires putting down your ego, and making others kings instead of yourself – being a kingmaker. Contrary to this, most young people want to be the king. Hey, I did, you probably did too.

My concern is, however, that the ‘be the king’ message is way out of hand, and I think it most subtly appears in the whole personal digital brand movement.

What I mean by this is that there is an inordinate emphasis on image and being ‘the social [insert area] guru‘, complete with logo, branded blog, branded avatar, slogan – and then complete lack of actual work. The idea of beefing yourself up is something that Jim Connolly is actually debating right now and is well worth getting in on the discussion.

Again, I’ve been here and made this mistake MANY times. For years I had the issue of having a better logo than actual business, and for years I made myself look bigger than I was. Thankfully, I’ve grown and balanced out somewhat through the mentoring of you guys and others.

But many young people lack this mentoring, and to be honest, we so focus on content online that it makes sense that it would be there starting point, rather than actually creating substance. It seems following is more important than delivering.

What Young People Say About The Myth

I want to share two good pieces on this to get our mind juice flowing a little. The first is from Daniel Agee, who wrote “Make Me King” recently:

I have a photographer friend who is determined to be the most well known photographer on the face of the globe. He is underselling workshops and speaking at as many conventions as he can. He is getting his name out there with abundance. He’s been turning down actual photography work to speak about his photography.

The problem is, his photography is mediocre at best. Where he shines is the experience his studio offers. While he is fighting to show how great he is and how much he can help others, he’s killing his own studio. By no longer walking the walk, he’s become an annoying bastard that must likes to talk about how great he can make your studio. His priorities are shot, and if he’s not careful, it will kill his business.

Instead of being the best, he’s trying to show he’s the best.

These people are too concerned with being king. One day, they’ll realize being king isn’t what’s important. It’s about making a kingdom worth being king of, not making yourself king.

Then, Annie Syed said this in a comment:

Moreover, I am discovering that the internet is really round and there is almost an incestuous circling of the same old people, again, and again, and again. Like really? How about you (not *you*) step out of your comfort zone and perhaps change the flow. I do see it happen here and there and it is refreshing. I see you in that line of creating a new momentum. And when I do, I am a religious zealot trying to “convert” others unto these humans. But for the most part it is disappointing.

And you know what is most disappointing is this masquerading of “I can help you” which is really another way to sell your services, product, book, etc. Now, you may be saying, “Well, Annie, people have to make money. We can’t live in a free-for-all society.” I agree. But just keep it authentic. And if you “truly” have no desire to connect with another beyond the talk of the product (or “work”) then state that too. It’s okay.

I guess my biggest realization is how rarely people tap into the humanity of one another. This doesn’t mean one has to spill all their personal stories. Not at all. But here we have a medium like the world wide web, shouldn’t it be beyond a reflection of how “business as usual” is happening on Earth? Or am I right that it is just a reflection of how we function on Earth?

Your Leading Thoughts

• Where, culturally and historically, do these false images come from?
• Rather than trying to modify behaviour, what are the roots behind this thinking, and how do we shift those mindsets?

Photo courtesy of francistoms

If you can’t see the video, click here, or watch it directly on YouTube.

In this video I just share a few branding thoughts and community thoughts over voting. I wrote two very popular posts last month, one called My Vote For Sale: Price Engagement, which was about my disillusionment about the lack of engagement from candidates with their constituencies. It was so popular, that it’s the third result in Google for “vote for sale“.

My second post was about 10 Do and Do Nots for Social Media Campaigning in the Election, which has some great comments and great advice in at the end from all the collaborators around this blog.

This post now wraps up the story really – I voted – but even as I did, there were a few final parts of unengagement that I experiecend. Namely two things:

1. You’re voting for your local candidate – however I’m sure many people don’t know who their local candidates are. They vote according to the overall party. The thing is, the overall party name is very small on the sheet – it is the names of the local candidates that are large on the page. I realised at this point how I wasn’t voting for a manifesto for a country as much as for local change – did I know what those changes would be?
2. The voting form is black and white. All the branding use of colour is lost. I found it strange how I just did not see the logos on the form until I looked for them. Normally, they stand out so clear and strong.

On one hand you can dimiss these points as trivial (and most aware, proactive voters probably don’t even notice it), but there is a group of people who are voting for the first time who don’t understand the election system, who have grown up with brands and advertising and were motivated by the parties branding and advertising, which did not connect with their “in-booth” experience. That needs thinking through.

Joanne Jacobs is always excellent on understanding these things, so I’d subscribe to her blog to see what she writes next about all of this.

One final thought. I can’t help but wonder what the Real Asset is with all of this. Do you have any ideas?

When I announced this on Twitter at the end of last week, my friend Martin Howitt immediately replied that my vote should be based on principles – it is a duty and a decision that is not like buying a TV or picking which movie to watch at the weekends. Martin said that not voting devalues us, and someone else concurred, saying I should vote for the party that aligns with my values and the one that stands for what I believe in. I agree with Martin, however:

The reality is my generation doesn’t known what the parties stand for.

When you consider that all the information that most of my generation has ever needed has found its way to us through targeted advertising and customisation, the only bit of information about any political party that makes its way to me is that each party dislikes the other political parties.

When I see them on TV, I only ever see them arguing. When I drive and see their billboards, they are mocking one another, or just so corny it turns me off. The realities of our political system are irrelevant, because I wasn’t taught them in school and am guided by my negative perception, and the negative things I see in the press.

I hoped that following my local Member of Parliament on Twitter would give me insight into what they are doing for my city, and how they are relavant to me. Instead I just found another avenue where they mock their opponents.

The 2001 General Election had the lowest vote percentage since 1918, where only one third of under-25s expressed a desire to vote. One report for an election in Wales in 2003 detailed that only 16% of under-25s voted. A recent survey revealed less than 1 in 10 under-25s think politicians have their best interests at heart. This excellent post on Youth Apathy gives a range of statistics, all leading to one core, unfortunate, but present truth:

Participation in politics is now a lifestyle choice.

In other words, some people are sporty, others are musical, some are smokers, others follow a religion, and some are voters. This is why voting, for us, is a brand decision, based on our lifestyle. How we do decide which brands to follow? We do so emotionally, based on:

Engagement

Do we engage with brands that we are ignorant of? No. We do engage with brands that there is mystery behind, where is knowledge is not complete, but there is no mystery to the political system, just ignorance.

I am 26 and have never been told how our political system works - not by peers, not by authority figures, not on the playground. The news channels that work so hard to cover it talk in language that I was never taught and would not understand unless I read about it – on wikipedia, no less. I wonder how many gaze at it in misunderstanding and bewilderment.

Growing up in a working class home, focussing on English at college, there is no point where even the idea of politics has engaged with me. My parents raised me and 4 siblings on very little and I never remember them voting – probably for lack of time and focus on it – and so they never passed any political understanding down to me. The only people I know my age who vote are those who studied politics at College or come from middle class families that have a history of alignment to a party.

I also have little motivation to vote, as does most of my generation. I’m just not engaged with the idea. First of all, we don’t think voting makes a difference, and the fact that it does make a difference is not communicated to us. Secondly, we don’t see the need to vote as we will be the ones who make the difference in our own lives. If they raise taxes, we’ll earn more money to look after ourselves. If they change university funding, it doesn’t matter because we’ll be rich by the time our kids get there. We genuinely think we can make all the difference that we need in our own life, no matter how false this might actually be.

What is tragic about this is that even if we did vote, we’d vote according to what we need, not what the country needs. We don’t think about the community, about each other, but about our best interests. Community is another idea that tragically I wasn’t taught at school, and probably not at the dinner table either (I was watching TV during dinner, not sat at the table learning manners, the same as most people my age.)

All my life, the information I needed sought me out, and if it didn’t, I had no need to seek it myself. With the business of life that everyone today seems to be in (no matter how busy they actually are), few of the people I know my age when I ask them neither intend to vote or know anything about what policies the parties have.

Every brand I follow has engaged me. We live in age of brands. Stickers, logos, tags, markings – in what we eat, drink, wear, do, use, support and desire. They identify me. Brands engage me and grant me identity.

This isn’t about Social Media (although I can be engaged there, too), because engagement happens across all mediums, methods and medias. When I ran Feedback, the youth charity I started in 2003, we had about a thousand young people a month at our events by 2005. When they came, I didn’t engage personally with them all, on a one-to-one basis. I engaged with them by modelling a lifestyle and an attitude that they could look at and imitate. I told them they are better than that, that they have stuff on the inside of them, that they could learn skills and tackle pressures and break habits, and I lived a life of kindness and understanding to show they how to do it. My lifestyle was the engagement – and you could be engaged by talking to me, or engaged from afar – and the idea was that I was showing them something different.

But when I look at the politicians, I don’t see anything different. They all look the same. The ones that were caught in the expenses scandal looked the same as the ones that weren’t. This is branding 101 and it’s irrelevant what the reality is. Branding is all about perception – hence less than 10% of under-25s believe politicans can be trusted. The reality of whether they are trustworthy or not just doesn’t matter if we don’t think they are.

I am not engaged from afar by our politicians. Well, except for times like this:

This is David Cameron talking about the death of his son, Ivan. Some people think, as one commentor said on this article, that politicians should be banned from giving a “touchy-feely, sobathon” like this, but regardless of whether this is right or wrong, to me this is a shade of reality and the beginning of differentiation.

Here I see a man who is real, human, and experiences pain, like me. In this moment, he isn’t mocking his opponent, or in his lavish second home: he’s hurting. Call it what you will – staged, planned – but I sure wouldn’t want to lose my son and can’t imagine what he must’ve gone through.

Can Politicians Engage?

Yes, they can (thanks for the tagline, Obama.)

Joanne Jacobs wrote on Sunday about THE digital engaged MP, where she points to Tom Watson and in particular his ‘digital pledges‘. Joanne writes on the subject, with words that I could’ve written myself of late:

In an age where (broadcast) messages have been equated with business success, speaking rather than listening has been valued.  And indeed, one of the reasons why blogging became so instantly successful at the turn of the century was because easy access to a soapbox – the capacity to be heard – was highly appealing in a society that worships celebrity.  But true engagement is about listening to commentary and responding to contributions made by the community.

Ah yes – Broadcast vs Social. The first is one way – about publishing. The second is multiway – about listening, speaking and adapting.

If you go and read Tom’s digital pledges, he utters these incredible words: “After the passing of the Digital Economy Act last week and before the political parties each launch a manifesto next week, I wanted to ask your advice on my own Internet pledges.”

WOW – he wants our advice? You mean he wants to listen to the needs of the people he represents? Oh wait – that’s the whole idea, isn’t it?

Tom Watson, without even talking to me, has engaged me. The same goes for Ed Balls, who does an incredible job of talking with his constituents and putting his discussions with them on his website, and replied to my praise of him on Twitter very quickly.

Tom and Ed, if they asked for it, have my vote. They’ve engaged me, and I bet they’ve engaged a lot of other people’s votes too.

Who has engaged with you?

I spoke a while ago on the idea of what I’m calling ‘brand mystery’ – we looked at JJ Abrams’ TED Talk and Lost, and how he tells a story by suspense. He never provides the complete picture, and this is what keeps you hooked. This is contrary to what one copywriter thought when he said “every advertisiement should tell the complete story” – to which I wholeheartedly disagree. Discovering a brand, and unravelling its mysteries, is such a rich experience (and one that I’ve been enjoy since childhood) that it ties you emotionally into it for years to come.

I wrapped some of these ideas up under the word ‘Suspense‘, which I describe as the experience of anticipating an experience. Today, using Star Wars, Apple, Lost, Louis Vuitton, Like Minds, and general meandering between them and other examples, I’m going to hit you with three (long) pointers, and then open this up to discussion to expand our ideas. Let’s begin.

Episode 1. Anticipation is tied into expectation.

No greater example of dismally failed expectations exists in my life than when I saw Star Wars Episode II: Attack Of The Clones. For 3 years leading up to the film I had been building it up and up in my mind, imaging how the events of the next episode in the saga would unfold. For the months leading in I read everything about it that I could, re-watched the trailers ad nauseum, read every ‘theory’ on what would happen from other geeks fans as deduced from the trailers, and even made my own costume to wear to the premiere, complete with glueing a Jedi-inspired braid into my hair. Yeah, I know. Diehard.

Suffice to say that nothing could match my expectations. They were huge. As my suspense peaked at galactic heights just before the credits rolled, the ensuing 3 hours just slowly sucked away my love for Star Wars. From then on, I was bitter. They had lost a brand advocate.

Suspense begins with expectation. If I don’t expect anything, then I have nothing to anticipate. But if I expect something, then I anticipate it, and woe betide anyone who fails at delivering on expectations. So it is required then that my expectations are correctly managed, motivated or manipulated (depending on how you see it), in order to increase in my levels of anticipation, and therefore, my experience.

This provides lesson 101 of suspense (and indeed, much of marketing), which is, what expectations does your product/event/org/service set? When I look from afar at the product/event/org/service, what do I expect to get when I transact (purchase) it?

This expectation is very sensorial, even though we often find it hard to express our expectations. Certainly in my research, I’ve found when people’s expectation’s aren’t met, there is a mix of ‘feel’, ‘look’, ‘sound’, ‘taste’ that weren’t right. They are all built up in the mind by expectation.

So then, we enter the world of branding, and language, semantics, images, connotations, etc etc. The question to ask yourself is: what are you making people expect? I think this might be an even more important question to ask than “what are you making people feel?” Branding, marketing and advertising can make people feel things, but I’m more interested in getting their suspense built up than just playing with emotion.

I could give lots of examples here of how this works, but I don’t want to make this too long, so I’ll present one from this week. Yesterday I was drawing up an advert that we’ve been given space to put up for Like Minds in February, and rather than getting bogged down into the details of the event, given the small size of the advert, I created this:

Yeah. It’s little. It doesn’t say much. But you expect three things from it: 1. that this event is so well known it doesn’t need to say when it is, 2. that this event is so well attended that it doesn’t need to say when it is, and 3. that this is a statured event, because it doesn’t try to promote when or what it is. The result of those expectations? Hopefully, that you’ll click the link, and come, based on an impression of stature and a hint of mystery (more on that later.)

(Also, just to cover my back here, I’m not saying that those things are necessarily true about Like Minds and I’m not being all arrogant – we have a long way to go.)

So, getting back to the story – the original story, that is – how could this Star Wars disappointment have been circumvented? I’m not sure it could’ve – this is a very extreme case because I had been building up to it obsessively for years (I’ll tell you more why that matters in a moment.) But I think there is a lesson that can help others not make the same mistake that lies in what Apple does:

Episode 2. Expectation is best when the end is not known (and also why Customer Satisfaction is a load of rubbish.)

As we know, a few times a year when Apple is getting ready with a product launch, they leak a little bit of information which subsequently gets the rumour mill going. The rumour mill creates mockups, ideas and conspiracy theories all around this stuff, and stock begins to rise like an eagle as the world braces itself for the latest Apple innovation.

Yet no one knows what this latest innovation is. They’re all caught up in suspense. (Side note: yes, stockholders get caught up in suspense too.)

Haven’t you ever wondered how this happens so well? Well…

When the end isn’t known, you allow what Guy Kawasaki calls ‘letting 100 flowers blossom’. People’s minds just go to work letting 100 flowers blossom that have nothing to do with the actual thing they’re making. And this is a good thing – it’s your message spreading. This is what’s happening with Apple – people don’t know the end (the product) so they go off in 100 directions and create all new and wonderful ideas which in turn keep the buzz up and the shares rising.

The beauty of this is because no one knows what the thing is – what the end is, that is – they know they might be wrong. When they know they may be wrong in the first place, they are acknowledging that “if you disappointment me, I know that it was because I was expecting something that you didn’t promise.” So if Apple doesn’t do exactly what they had in their mind, they are emotionally prepared for it, and don’t feel disappointed because Apple broke a promise – the promise didn’t exist.

This idea of promise here is a big deal in my opinion. ‘Customer Satisfaction’ is talked about like it’s the great goal to achieve, but satisfaction is really just what happens when someone receives what they were promised. It means my expectation is met. If I get less than what you promised to give, then I’m not satisfied – I’ve had to sacrifice. You have not fulfilled my expectations. And if I get more than you promised, then you exceed my expectations and I am very satisfied – or rather I am surprised. But satisfaction, really, is no big woop. Seriously, in this day and age we should be beyond just delivering what we say we will.

You may be wondering where suspense fits in. So glad you asked. If you continue to surprise me, then what happens? I expect the next surprise – which is an experience of  anticipating an experience. That’s suspense.

This model below explains the four levels. I’ve modified it from something similar that Joe Pine did in the Experience Economy (good read, and an affiliate link)

The diagram reflects that most people are in customer sacrifice, and most companies are delivering to that level. Then we make our way up to the heady heights of suspense. Just to note, some great advice on using this is available on my blog, on the subject of ‘Under-Promising, Over-Delivering.’

So, going back to Apple – that’s the secret of their product launch success and cult fandom? Well the better question is, what do they wonderfully avoid doing when they leak these bits of info about their new products? They avoid making promises. Bingo. That way, the fan’s expectations can’t be met, over met, or under met.

They essentially avoid dipping (for the most part) below satisfaction because they never made a promise to sacrifice on in the first place!

Well, they didn’t make a promise, except for one little thing:

Brand Promise.

This is the big promise that is in everything you do. Everything. So although Apple avoids making the smaller, more specific promises, it has to deliver on the big promise. It must check the big promise box, which for Apple, is innovation.

I told you earlier I’d say why Star Wars could never make this work. So, why didn’t Star Wars work? Because I knew the end. I knew that they had to fit certain storyline elements in – things that I had imagined how they’d happen for years – meaning they had to compete against the whole world that I had built in my mind. I experienced customer sacrifice. And there was no way that I could be wrong here, because it wasn’t like I knew that that I was wrong, as in the case of the Apple fan that dreams knowing they are only dreams. In this case, it was just a matter of how.

And we know that how you do something matters a lot to a lot of people. When people don’t know how, or are marvelled by how, you have magic. But when people scrutinise how, then you have criticism.

Think about it. When books become films, what do people say?

So we’ve now got two guiding principles. Let’s go through one way to make this work – at the end of which, I’ll tell you how Apple could do an even better job with their product launches.

Episode 3. The trick of mystery is all in what you don’t see

I began this peice by discussing brand mystery. I prefer this to the idea of brand story to be honest. A story is something you read, but discovering a mystery is a game you play. It’s far more involving. It’s far more participatory. It’s far more spreadable.

If you watch Lost or 24 (two of the most enrapturing programmes on television), every clue or peice of information is made out to be of vital importance. Of course in a few episodes time, that subplot won’t matter much any more, but for the time being, it is all you can see, and accordingly your mind fixates over it with the questions “what does this mean?” and “what happens next?”

It’s funny isn’t it. What you see has made you think about what you don’t see.

(Where else does that happen? Oh yeah, with Apple!)

Take, for instance, the recent release Daybreakers. After seeing that trailer I was hooked. Questions running through my mind like “how did they become vampires?” and “how does this humanised vampire society function?” and “what’s going to happen?” The trailer didn’t make me say, “I want to go to the movies to just see that same scene again“. It made me want to go the movies to go and find the answers to all these questions that I had.

It’s like lingerie – lingerie beautifully accentuates a woman’s body by glamourously covering her up. It’s about what you don’t see as well as what you do see!

In letting “100 flowers blossom”, and for your audience to begin anticipating, you need to consider what you aren’t showing them (and what they will want to see) by what you are showing them. Philosophical I know. You could also put it this way:

People want to see what they can’t see.

If we go back to my advert for Like Minds, what am I showing them? I’m asking them “what do the thinkers have in common this February?“, so on the surface, I’m telling them that there is something for ‘thinkers’ and that it is in February. From what I have shown then, what do they not see, that they want to see?

I’m guessing they want to see what the thinkers have in common. They want to see what who the thinkers are. They want to see why there’s such little information here.

So now they have a level of suspense. Really, it’s ignorance. They don’t know what they don’t know. They probably have wrong impressions about Like Minds. I remember thinking a whole bunch of things about Nike trainers that were wrong. It’s part of the game.

Say they visit the website – now they have information, and enter a new phase of suspense, in which they’ve acquired some information. This is important. If you allow someone to feed off of ignorance for too long, then they cement their false expectations. Of course, you don’t give them all the info they need: just enough to make their expectations more aligned to reality, and enable them to make their next discovery. It’s like planting a trail. Each part only leads onto the next.

After information, comes intelligence. This is when they can decipher the bigger picture – which is still exciting, and still full of suspense. One major reason why this phase is perhaps even the most exciting is because up until this point you might not have ever purchased the thing you are in suspense and playing the brand mystery game with. Let me provide a personal example with the help of Louis Vuitton.

The first time I heard the name, I assumed this guy Louis was alive. I knew he made hangbags, because someone said they dreamt that “Louis Vuitton had asked them to make handbags”, and I had to no reason to think that Louis was dead, or that he was actually a fashion house! (On another side note, I know my friends have whacky dreams. Mine are even whackier.) At this stage, I had ignorance.

Then after sometime I began to acquire information. Louis Vuitton made a bag that has his initials on, and in actual fact, he was around a hundred years ago, and so was no longer living, except through the fashion house in his name. At this point, though, I thought all they made were bags. The intelligence started coming when I started searching online and found fakes on ebay, found they did other types of bags, and even did bags for men. But it was when I first went into a Louis Vuitton store that intelligence completely set in and I understood that Louis Vuitton was more than bags. And as I said above, at this point, I had not bought anything from Louis Vuitton – yet I was enamoured over them. I had the bigger picture.

This was many years ago, and to this date, I have not bought a Louis Vuitton item. What stage am I in now? Intention. One day, I will purchase this item. I intend to do it. Of course I do – we have history!

The below model presents these stages in the same way to the Pyramid of Expectation:

Intention means I am poised to purchase when I am in a position to. And the waiting game makes this intention stronger in many cases – especially with luxury goods.

Epilogue: One More Thing

So what about Star Wars? Did Episode III regain my trust. No. But it wasn’t as bad. And subsequently I’ve been less and less disappointed with movies. You know why? Because I don’t expect much from them anymore.

And this is the danger when your audience experiences customer sacrifice, they stop expecting. They stop getting too excited.

There is a lesson here for Apple. It’s hidden in all this thinking, but hear me out:

When Apple announced the iPhone there was fanboy hysteria. There it was, in Steve Job’s hands in January 2007, and over the following 6 months I, along with many others I’m sure, browsed the pages of the iPhone website over and over, watching tutorials and seeing how it would work. When it came to seeing the phone for the first time, there was still hysteria. I was pumped to get my hands on it (I was in America for the launch), and when I laid my hands on the thing after this 6 month wait .. I surprisingly .. had little to do with it.

You see, Apple had done such a good job of pre-selling the iPhone, that when it came to holding it my hands, there was nothing new for me, because I’d done it all over the 6 months.

You know what would’ve been cool? If there had been one more thing. Steve’s awesome product lacked his defining line.

What if there had been something on the phone that they didn’t tell you about upfront? A surprise. What if when you held the phone, there was an app, or something that it did, that made you hold the thing for longer and really want to explore it because you hadn’t seen it online and read about it ad nauseum?

That would’ve created a whole new surge of Fanboy interest – the fact that there was something on the phone that you could only see if you went and held onto it – not just looked at it online. That would’ve been innovative. But it’s not too late, Steve, if you’re reading – you still can do it with other products!

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I pointed out brand examples I’d use at the beginning of this post, and a few times said I’d get to discussing a point in full later in the article – and took a while to get around to them. My expectation would be that you might’ve forgotten about those by now – but when you read them, they created just a little bit of suspense that helped you get through this post!

So let me hear from you. I’ve used these ideas for numerous events and campaigns, but I wonder if you’ve been using them too. I’m also curious about how you think this works with Social Media and a ‘connected lifestyle’. For instance, didn’t the article title create a little bit of I want to see what I can’t see in you?

Finally, there’s one more thing: there’s more in the post than there was in the title. That doesn’t seem to be the case with many blogs today, where there’s more in the title than there is in the preceding 400 words. One more thing – the hidden thing – is what you put in when you are more interested in connections that crowds.

At the end of every play I see at the theatre, I feel so connected to the actors that I always wish I could go and have a drink with them and thank them. It’s as if they’ve given a part of themselves to me. If I wait around long enough, I get to talk to them. But I can’t just see the headline of the play, I have to experience all of it, and get to the end.

The one more thing that I put into Like Mind,  and those of you who read this blog regularly, is me. It’s not in the title. It’s hidden.

You have to get to the end to get it.

[sm mailto="scott@scottgould.me" txt="Scott"].

Today we’ll look at the second case study, namely Pepsi’s decision to invest it’s $20 million Super Bowl spend rather into Social Media. As I said yesterday, I’d certainly recommend reading both ABC News’ article and Augie Ray’s article at the Forrester Marketing blog, as they both provide excellent analysis and further examples of other companies doing similar things. I don’t actually want to talk about Social Media here though, as they haven’t started the campaign yet – I actually want to focus on Cause Marketing, Authenticity, and, well, you can read the title!

Case 2:  What Is A Cause?

According to ABC News, “The Pepsi Refresh Project will launch on Jan. 13 with a Web site where people can outline their projects to refresh their communities to make a better world.” They continue, “Visitors to the site can start voting on Feb. 1. Pepsi estimates they will fund thousands of projects spending in excess of $20 million dollars and hopes to start a movement where others will begin funding community projects in the same manner.”

So what Pepsi are doing, from what I can see here, is not putting all of their redirected Super Bowl funds into Social Media. No doubt a lot has gone into the build, and a lot will go into the management, but the primary use of the $20 is to fund local community projects.

This idea of marketing through social change, cause and community is this Cause Marketing concept that I want to investigate. Whilst the idea of a ’cause marketing’ was identified in the 1970 as a more clearly defined non-profit and charitable cause, it has morphed into becoming a moniker for any gathering of community around a mutual passion or pain, where a platform is built for people to unite and thereby the product is seen as either the platform itself, or the facilitator.

To paint a picture, I think one of the best examples of cause marketing is the numerous ways that Churches today evangelise – by cleaning lawns, helping the poor, building up broken buildings, raising money. On the top level, Churches carry out these activities as a way to market themselves. By carrying out these activities, they show (market) to the onlookers that they care, that they are actively involved in the community, and that they are culturally relevant.

The second level of marketing is more subtle – by actually involving people in the activities, you market to them by providing a platform for them to fulfil their passion or elevate their pain. The aim is to move them towards brand advocacy – participation sweetens loyalty. If I’ve worked with you, with sweat, blood and tears, then I’m not likely to criticise you, am I? On the other hand, I’ll stand by what we’ve done together.

The keen, regular readers (hey guys, how are you?) will know that I’ve actually been doing this for years – most recently with Like Minds. By building a platform for people’s passions and pains I’ve marketed my consultancy, my Agency and my thought leadership, not to mention Like Minds itself. Whether people paid to come, or really got stuck in and helped out, I marketed to them all. It’s important to point out that this isn’t deception – you really are helping people, and providing them with what they want. I love nothing more than to work side by side with people, innovating and pioneering new things – I’ve just learned over the years how to do this better. The more pertinent question, rather than if all this is deception, is whether this is authentic.

What is Authenticity?

The thing is, when I look at Pepsi’s plans, I see a fundamental difference from my examples above. In the above instances, the platform is the product. But what in the world has Pepsi got to do with social change? That’s where the issue with authenticity comes in. I see it, currently, in two lights. Either:

1. The platform is the product, which means there aren’t strong authenticity issues – because you are being what you are, or
2. The platform is not the product, in which case, there are strong authenticity issues – because you are not being what you are.

I recently met a hero in the form of Joe Pine whilst he was in London. Joe’s book Authenticity (affiliate link) looks at some of these issues, but at the lecture he was giving that I attended, he touched on a very interesting thought I had forgotten. He suggested that in an Experience Economy, businesses face the issue of authenticity with regards to the experience that they deliver. Therefore, he went on to say, businesses need to begin rendering authenticity, in the same way that a service industry improves quality, or a good industry controls cost.

Now I know that’s a deep paragraph, and it would take a lot to explain – so I do suggest you read the book. But in a nutshell, Joe is getting at this idea of authenticity being a case of rendering said authenticity in the right light. How do you convey the right level of authenticity? Consider the whole ‘transparency’ debate – just how transparent do you want us to be? There will always be selectivity – not because I’m hiding from you, but I’m protecting you. You don’t really want to hear my toilet habits, do you? But you do want to hear my daily productivity habits. That’s selectivity. Furthermore, consider that no one is really authentic – even our language doesn’t authentically portray how we feel – how much more, then, are businesses often inauthentic?

Lets skip into February when Pepsi release the Pepsi Refresh Project. How is it authentic? Indeed, can they really truly care, whilst they are simultaneously doing this for profit? Then again, is their decision to plough $20 million into community projects evidence that they do care? Where is the line of authenticity here? It feels like a never ending circle, but I’m sure together we can come up with some answers.

What’s in Common?

The other challenge, when the platform is not the product, is that commonality becomes an issue. Pepsi drinkers, for instance might not be the most altruistic people on the earth, and therefor have little in common with the campaign. However, Like Minds attendees are interested into thought leadership, and therefore have much in common with my thought leadership. You see the difference – which when we carry it along, I come to the conclusion that:

It is easier to unite people around a platform that is a product, than a platform that is not the product.

Why? Because your audience partakes of your product simaltaneously as they participate in your platform.

Think back to the church example. If you are mowing lawns with a church, then are you participating in church – even if you aren’t a Christian. Why? Because as I said, when the church mows a lawn, the church is being what it is – church. Which means if you are mowing the lawns with them, then you are, in that moment, being one with them.

Pepsi’s inherent problem then, is that whilst people are involved in these community projects, they aren’t simultaneously partaking of the Pepsi product. Hey – they aren’t even participating in Pepsi’s brand proposition or brand values.

This for me seems to be a problem – there’s no relation, no commonality. Their probably are ways to find this commonality – but to be successful, doesn’t this require at least some brand values to shift towards this social model, in order for their to be more authenticity?

A Question of Connection

My final thoughts tend towards how strong a connection this type of campaign makes. We’ve yet to see it go live – and of course, given that it is about social change, I’m keen for it to succeed. I’m just curious about how they are going to execute this.

First, like I said earlier, I don’t see this kind of activity to be in line with Pepsi’s brand values. Second, Facebook will be the main draw with Social Networking (that’s where the audience lives) – so how will they tie that in, and get anywhere near a good participation level (given that the whole campaign is likely to be held on another site.)

I’m currently thinking about levels of participation, and this campaign strikes me as one that will require high levels. So who do they have on the ground? How have they tied people in already? You can’t create a campaign with high levels of participation, and hope it goes viral. You need to have prepared your sneezers well in advance.

So

So let me here from you. Specifically, I’d like to you if you think it’ll work – if so, how? Also, what are the implications with authenticity here? Authenticity seems to be very muddy waters, mainly because it is subjective, rendered, and never fully actualised. Let’s talk it through!

Photo with thanks to Thomas Hawk.