think story experience

A changing context requires more focus on context

Lots of stuff going on in the world and no time (or energy) to write about it recently.

Chris Anderson's new book, Free, sets up interesting discussions about the old-world of scarcity thinking and the new world of abundance thinking. He talks about how the shifting landscape is changing what is valuable, and what now deserves to be free. Here's his original article in Wired on Free, and here's the book which explores the concept fully.

It's easy to assume that Free is a discussion most relevant to digital music sales and similar categories that have been directly transformed by the power of the internet. In truth, the kind of paradigmatic shifts that Free is based on are happening in all sorts of categories, both in the old and new media spaces. The question is not, therefore, if it is affecting you...but how it's affecting you and what you're doing about it.

Rather than wait for an over-priced trendwatching agency to tell you what's going on, you need to start forming a clear hypothesis about where your sector is going and the forces that are going to drive it in that direction, and then you need to start testing and refining that hypothesis through every article you read and every conversation you have.

Two examples in the NY Times today of articles that have helped me develop my thinking about the world of experiences...

This piece on shifting trends in the New York bar and club scene talks abut the rejection of exclusive bars and clubs in favour of inclusive social environments. It has helped me to refine my thinking on the kinds of experiences people are looking for in 2009, the kinds of contexts they want to frame their lives within.

This piece on the changing pressures on American shopping malls has helped to reinforce my belief that the context we create around live experiences is often now more important than the core content of that experience. The shopping mall example in the article talks about the growing importance of events and ancillary experiences, and the relative drop in significance of the shopping experience itself, driven by the recessionary realities of 2009 combined with the convenienceof online shopping.

Nothing new then. Just more stimulus, more brain fuel. The question, as always, is what you and your orgnisation should do about it...

Practising what we preach

The other day I posted about how much spaces matter.

It's always nice to know you're practising what you preach. 

Check out the pictures of Jack Morton's lobby and office space in NYC. 

We keep telling our clients to invest in brand experiences for their employees that create the culture and behaviours required for success. 

In our case the challenge is to remain creatively hungry and curious at all times, and our environment is a great way to remind us of that. 

Lots of stuff popping up

Is the pop-up dead and dead dull? Or does it remain one of the more interesting and (by definition) dynamic features of our retail and experience landscape?

I'm definitely in the latter camp, because while I fully subscribe to the broadly-accepted thinking on good pop-ups (that they should be unique, curious, and fresh, and should be driven by a story beyond temporary retail) I think to dismiss the idea of time-limited and pop-up activity as a passing fad already past its sell-by date would be akin to dismissing television advertising because too many people have made bad ads.

That was a long sentence. Sorry about that. But the point stands...new, fresh, short-term, surprising, and constantly-reinventing stuff is interesting. Just as long as it is...interesting.

What's interesting me right now are things like...Banksy's ultra-stealthy exhibition that has suddenly popped up in his home town of Bristol...London's collaborative art-cum-drinking space The Doodle Bar...Andre Balazs' summertime-only hotel Sunset Beach (where I'm heading for a weekend break in a couple of week)...and the brilliant public art programme in my local park.

Why should everything last forever? Aren't some things better in shortish bursts of relevant fun? That's the thinking that will ensure that pop-up activity reains a big part of our experiential landscape for the foreseeable future.

Let them experience it straight

There was a time when the prevailing wisdom in advertising circles was that brands had to get away from talking about product features (which bored and confused consumers) and should instead move on to focusing on product benefits (differentiating themselves through the emotional connections they made with people). They had to focus on higher-order needs, as it were.

For brands dealing in commoditised or undifferentiated currencies (like most banks, insurance companies, and internet service providers) that remains true. It shouldn't of course...they should be focused on creating unique product or experience innovations...but that's how it is today.

And then there's a different type of brand, one operating in a savvy universe of already-experienced consumers. Like Bing. Looking to take the fight to Google after the failure of Live Search. For Bing to promote itself by talking about emotional benefits would be absurd. Every (and I mean every) target consumer for Bing is already using a search engine, every day of their lives. For Bing to promote itself by talking about the joys of search would not only be pointless, it would potentially be damaging, suggesting that it was five years out of date and completely blind to the Google revolution.

Instead, Bing is fighting on design...visual design, interface design, search design. Bing is offering different features, different functionality, and a different experience. This is the future...no more distracting debates about a focus on rational product features or emotional brand benefits. Instead, a total focus on the experience, on all the tiny (but massively consequential) pieces that comprise that experience. And definitely no wishy-washy higher-emotional needs waffle.

Space matters

It's a statement of the obvious, of course. But doesn't mean it's not worth repeating. Space matters.

The design of a space matters. The feeling created by a space matters. Whether you call it feng shui, or just good interior and experience design, the point is that spaces help to shape and contextualise our experiences (and the feelings we have about those experiences).

So whether you wantto build better relationships with your employees or your customers, whether you want to get people to work harder or talk and spend more, I'm betting that the physical space where they interact with your brand every day is not what it could be.

Am I right? And, if I am, why don't you do something about it? Surely there's something less important that you're currently wasting your money on...

Free fatigue

I'm just following up on my post about (Ex-NIN drummer) Josh Freese's unique album retail model (starting at under ten bucks for the download, and going up to $75,000 for a variety of extraordinary experiences, including having Josh work for you for a month).

Here's a great blog post by Kate at Outlandos Music, which helps to make sense of Josh's rationale. Kate argues that we're all suffering from free overload, that free is now dead, that expensive is the new free, and that tangible things count most. Read her post here, it's really good stuff.

The experience behind the album

For a while now, I have used the example of bands making more money out of live concert revenues than album sales to illustrate the fact that 'live' and 'real' experiences remain the most important things any brand can create. From the Michael Jackson to Andre Rieu, the demand for live experiences remains off the charts.

Now, thanks to a great post by Max Lenderman (whose new book, Brand New World is all about the power of limited, niche, exclusive, experience-based brands), I have a new favourite example of the all-trumping relevance of the experience.

Josh Freese (ex-NIN) is selling his new album with added-value experiences. See Josh's website for the full story, but for the quick version, just read this description of the $75,000 package (limited edition of one)...

• Signed CD/DVD and digital download
• T-shirt
• Come out on tour with me for a few days
• I write, record and market a 5 song EP about you and your life story
• Take home any of my drumsets (only one but you can pick which one)
• Take shrooms and cruise Hollywood in Danny from TOOL's Lamborgini OR we play "quarters" and then hop on the Ouija board for a while
• If you have a band, I'll join it for a month....play shows, record a CD together, have a swim party, etc.... or none of the above. We could also just sit in yer basement and jam old Van Halen. OR If you don't have a band I'll be your personal assistant for a month (4 day work weeks....10 am to 5 pm) and then we take a limo down to Tijuana and I'll show you how it's done (what that means I can't legally get into here, right this minute). If you don't live in LA but are in the USA I will come to you and be your personal assistant/cabana boy for 2 weeks
• Take a Flying Trapeze lesson together in the San Fernando Valley and then Robin from NIN and his wife make us raw lasagna

Erm. Fully experiential, right

An auto show and a motor show are the same thing

A couple of months ago I wrote about my experiences at the Melbourne International Motor Show in Australia. Today, I attended the New York International Auto Show. It was one of my first experiences of an expo, trade show, or lifestyle show in the US.

The commonly-shared human truths vastly outnumbered the cultural differences (the most distinctive thing being Americans' greater willingness and enthusiasm to participate in competitions and activities on the stands).

A few observations...

ONE. The primary form of brand experience on motor show stands remains interaction with the cars. Most brands haven't figured out what to do to create great interactive experiences beyond the cars. Most attempts at brand experiences are poorly thought-out and executed...asking people to do things of no value or interest to them. Most attempts at lead generation and data capture are clumsy and brand damaging. And then there are the brands that just give up and let people play on aWii, in the hope of creating some stickiness around their stand.

TWO. People love seeing themselves with cars. They love to day dream, and share those dreams with friends and family. So they love being pictured with cars they don't own. And not just Ferraris, but far more everyday cars too.

THREE. The most interesting things at motor shows are the new, the curious, the exotic, and the unaffordable. Gone are the days when a comprehensive range was an interesting thing, or when people went to motor shows to gather information. These days it's about experience, and the stands that thrive are bolder in their decisions to show interesting things and represent an idea (rather than show a complete range of showroom-ready vehicles).  

FOUR. Curious brand partnerships continue to grow in popularity. Microsoft, Sony, W Hotels, and Wired were just four brands that were prominent in their automotive involvement.

FIVE. Stuff that doesn't work sucks. More than 50 per cent of all technology I interacted with didn't function as intended. That's plain poor.

Some images that go with the comments and observations above...you can make up your own mind which go with which...

 

  

Events and conferences in 2015

I was part of an interesting discussion with members of the global Jack Morton community this week. The topic...how will events and conferences look in 2015?

Following are the nine topline thoughts I took away from the discussion. I think there's a lot of relevance beyond the live event and conference space...

EXPERIENTIAL. For years, content was king. Now context is king. Already today it’s the experience that counts most. And, as the ability of technology to deliver content on tap grows exponentially, so the experience will become the only point of difference of a live event. It’s about the ability of experiences to fulfill a human need (the same kind of human need that stops many of us throwing away our vinyl records)…

HUMAN. There are a bunch of human truths that have been around for a thousand years and aren’t likely to change anytime soon. These are needs that experiences have an incredible capacity to fulfill…“Entertain me”, “Immerse me”, “Inspire me”, “Connect me”, “Add value to my life”, “Make me part of something”, “Give me an experience”.

ONGOING. Experiences may prevail, but standalone conferences and big events will die. The future will be about ongoing activity of which a conference (a live experience) is just one piece. The future is about creating live extensions of campaigns (which the brand will pay for), conversations (which brands and participants will pay for), and communities (which participants and partners will pay for). The future is about conferences as live extensions of brands. Brands behaving, if you like.

INTEGRATED. Future conferences and events will be more integrated than ever into campaigns (e.g. sales cycles), conversations, and communities. We will need to get as smart in the B2B and employee engagements spaces as we have traditionally been in the integrated consumer campaign space. That means that the same smart thinking that always has to be applied to consumer experiential…why live over ATL, online?…will have to be applied as rigorously to the role of live experiences within the B2B space. There will no longer be the lazy assumption that a conference will happen. Instead, whether organizer or attendee, you will have to recognize (strategically) and demonstrate (measurably) the value of a conference or event as part of the bigger, ongoing picture.

STRATEGIC. Thinking about the reasons why events happen in 2009 will help us think about the evolution of event towards 2015…so a bunch of stuff that looks the same now will evolve in different directions by 2015. We need to investigate the drivers behind events today to understand the likely reasons for, and shape of, events in 2015.

CUSTOMISED. Live bookmarking. Digital data. Real-time interaction. Active participation. User-generated content. Choose your own adventure. The ability for people to own, influence, and shape their experience is only going to grow. Conferences and events may remain rooted in the live space, responding to human needs, but that doesn’t mean they won’t embrace the latest that technology can offer. They have to.

OFFLINE MEETS ONLINE. Virtual events and conferences have been a topic of conversation for a while. But it’s a dead end. The real point is that as conferences (both online, offline, and hybrid/linked) will be integrated into longer-term, ongoing thinking about campaigns, conversations, and communities. In other words, online and offline will be used (and linked) as appropriate to the strategic need. Right now, conferences happen for a bunch of different reasons, some of those reasons will be better satisfied by virtual activity in the future, some will always need to remain rooted in the live space. It’s about getting smarter and more strategic.

AMPLIFIED. What is certain is that the good stuff that happens in conferences will not get left in the room in the future. Linking in-room participants to remote viewers. Creating events that are experiences by few but witnessed by many. Creating content and conversations that spill out of the live space. Driving PR, pushing things online and above the line. Starting movements, closing campaigns. As conferences and events become more integrated into longer-term, ongoing thinking, what happens in the room will rarely ever stay in the room.

CREATIVE. It’s a cluttered, noisy, fragmented, cynical world we live in. Without some colour and creativity it’s really hard to get noticed. Companies that can find really creative ways to bring their brands and stories to life, staying true to their DNA while responding to human needs, will create the greatest cut through. By 2015, smart conferences will be differentiated by the creativity applied to both content and context, not just good strategic thinking.

Golden rules

I spoke twice at a conference yesterday, with both audiences dominated by people who work in the event industry. Both times my message was the same...the world has changed, traditional mass communications are becoming less and less effective, people want real experiences, events are a great way to give them what they want, so we have to get really serious and smart about what we do

I talked a great deal about the rules and principles that need to drive all good event and experience design. And I talked about the human needs that sit behind them.

In truth, I don't things these human needs are limited to events and experiences; rather they are needs that all marketing, brand, and communications activity should be trying to satisfy...

“Entertain me”

“Immerse me”

“Inspire me”

“Connect me”

“Add value to my life”

“Make me part of something”

"Give me an experience"

I can't think of a single piece of marketing, brand, or communications activity that shouldn't try to put a tick in at least one of those boxes. Can you?