Mastery or Originality? Do both.

In the book The Opposable Mind, Winning through Integrative Thinking by Roger Martin. There is a section on Mastery which is counting on one's skill and experience to attain a certain level of competence to complete a certain task. And Originality which is about creativity and creative thinking. Both can be nurtured through the grinds of failing forward and experimentation. The more we try, the more we fail and also succeed.

Martin argued that the way to go is to have both Mastery and Originality combined in order to create breakthroughs solutions. What a revelation! Let’s apply this on branding.

Brand managers are always faced with the constant need to seek new ways to position their products to continuously maintain relevance to consumers and stand out from the crowd. These managers probably have the qualifications and experience to do so. Commissioning rigorous market research and sifting through these data and charts to make the most informed decision. If anything goes wrong, there is the research report to fall back on. It’s safe.

On the other hand, branding may dive straight to Originality. Creativity that stems mostly from  intuition.  Such creative elements are then mostly left to the creative folks.

Notice the problem? Products fail to take off because of either extreme inclinations.

What results is a polarisation of either overly rationalisation or abstract. Are we able to combine the two? I sure hope so. A new breed of MBA courses that include design thinking modules are already in place. Hopefully to produce design thinkers who are capable of tapping into analystics and creative thinking at the same time. 

What about you and me? Time to start?

Please leave your comments, if any.

Our obsession with being remarkable

In a recent event I volunteered at Ngee Ann Secondary School, it involves making lanterns by students and elderly. In total, 800 over lanterns were made to break the Singapore Book of Records. Overall, it's good fun for the 100 odd elderly who enjoyed themselves on a rainy Friday morning.

Today, records are continuously being made and broken. It lies in being 'the most' in something. We have an obsession with that notion of remarkability. We celebrate, honor and applaud those who attained it. Till someone better knocks them off their record.

Can someone build a taller sky scraper? Or a bigger Ferris Wheel?

Brands today are having a hard time standing out. Why? Too many brands say the same thing or nothing at all. Hence, tribes switch brands because they have a hard time deciphering what is the real difference.

There is hope for brands who seek otherwise. They are the outliers who define new meanings for consumers. Nintendo Wii do not challenge Xbox and Playstation for better graphics and fingers-only gaming. Wii takes on movement gaming and became remarkable. Today, Wii has more game titles than PS3 even though they are a later entrant. Wii can be argued to be the best in experiential gaming.

In the art of being remarkable, here are some of my thoughts.

1) Recognize that you need to be remarkable to win.
2) Winning everyone over is not going to work. Winning over those that matters to your brand matters more.
3) Innovation is a culture, more than a mission.
4) You do not need to be a million dollar company to become remarkable. Being remarkable can make you worth millions.
5) Think what can you give first rather than what you can receive. Service attitude counts. Think Zappos.

Please leave your comments, if any.

The meanings behind

Saturday was another COPE Saturation visitation to Toa Payoh households and dropping leaflets door-to-door. We are informing the elderly of an up-coming CNY activity. Saturations are labour intensive and time consuming. It involves patience and leg power (not every floor has a lift stop). We want to inform all elderly living across 12 HDB blocks.

Saturations also allow me to observe many gates and doors of HDB households. Yesterday brought me to the doorsteps of about 210 households. From the months of Saturations I have done, a total count of about 1500. None really stood out in their designs but I made some interesting observations.

Each of these gates represent a variety of different design patterns, materials and shapes. What draws me to them are the different modifications that majority of owners made to their doors and gates. For example, one would attach plastic panels at the bottom third of their gate to keep dirt out. Another would use a mesh to keep the pet dog from getting too adventurous. Another plastered the entire gate with clear plastic panels to keep flyer distributors like me out.

What I found was that each of these owners have attached different personal meaning(s) to their gates. The variations are rather astonishing. Their chosen and after sale modifications reflected their own taste, culture, religion and personal messages.

As a consultant, who is advising my clients on their brands and products, this is the exact perspective of attaching meanings to products which I would like my clients to position their offerings. A milk brand should not be just claiming it has high calcium and low fat (like everyone else). Perhaps a graceful way of aging?

The challenge I pose to gates and door manufacturers, does your design brief specifies 'salient' constraints like corrosion-free, stainless steel and 5 years warranty? Or are you looking at meanings that represent culture, family security, comfort and longevity etc? If it is the latter, you will have designed them quite differently. Also, be able to innovate new designs that differentiate yourself from competitors.

Please leave your comments, if any.

What makes me come back for more?

Repeat visits to your regular salon, restaurant and telco tells you that they are doing something right. You are loyal to them. You are part of their tribe, so they think. Are you?

Lets take the scissors test.

A) Hair Salon A cuts your hair without busting a hole in your pocket. It is your regular.

B) Hair Salon B serves you tea and then cuts your hair, and charges you a little extra. You tried them once, and had nothing to rave. You did not return since.

C) Hair Salon C remembers their customers' name and takes a picture of them when they are done, so that they remember their hair color and style. They charge a premium for it. Their customers swear by the entire experience. C encourages customers to blog, tweet and talk about their new hairdo and experience. You heard about it from their regulars, but have never tried their service before.

Hair Salon C ensures that their customers are deeply engaged to the brand experience first. Brand engagement is hard to quantify, especially with emotional engagement, but it is entirely possible. There are metrics which measure the degree of customer-brand engagement. In the qualitative department, visual metaphorical interview techniques are powerful tools that probe into the subconscious mind.

Unfortunately, many service providers are deeply concerned more about getting new customers, and not worry too much about their current tribe. When is the last time you were pleasantly surprised by your own favourites? In the coming months, IDA Singapore will remove the contractual lock-ins from telcos. Consumers are going to be faced with 'What makes me come back for more?'. What will be your answer?

Please leave your comments, if any. Thank you Enrico for your editorial inputs.

Overlooked brand touchpoints

Brand touchpoints are the spoke persons for your brand. They are like the models on a catwalk that show off what you stand for as a brand or designer. You are at the back stage feeling nervous. You should be.

Consumer tribes are increasingly nit picky about what they see and experience from brands. Every single piece of news, blog, ads, voice and presentation you gave, they scrutinize and comment. Lets take an example of something functional which brands overlooked.

'Functional' touch points like ticket stubs or airline tickets get you past that door and to your seats. There is usually little innovation or attention being paid to them. Here is an attempt to change an airline boarding pass to an experience. Do airline passengers keep their boarding passes? Yes, if they want to retain fond memories of that flight or journey. Certain airlines gives discount to tourists if they keep their stubs, ugly stubs.

The good news is, they take note if you do something remarkable about these touch points. The bad news is, being remarkable takes more than merely good design. Its about designing experiences.

Image taken from Tyler N Thompson website.

Please leave your comments, if any.

Are you tune in or tune out?

One of the senses that switches on most of the day are our ears. Its probably the first to be awakened. Occassionally, we all got woken up in the middle of the night by loud noises. Listening is second nature but active listening is not. Hear me.

Active Listening is an asset today. Everyone wants to speak, tweet, update status, make noise but alot less people wants to actively listen in. By Active Listening I mean to absorb and empathize. As an experiment, lets do a recap of the conversations you had today. How many conversations can you re-tell, not recall? Your memory is your testament of active listening. We tune out when we stop active listening.

The price to pay for tuning out often can be hefty. First to collaspe are relationships. Marriages break up, partners going seperate ways, board members share heated exchanges. Most of it point towards the inability to listen and solve problems by either parties which became indifference.

Tribes today wants to talk and be actively listened to. Brands need to understand that your tribes want to be engaged in a conversation. Retweets were invented because its a response after active listening. Its a 'we hear you and now listen again' to someone else.

Companies really need to start tuning in. Activate their active listening and deploy resources to engage tribes in a conversation. By that, I mean to empathize where they are coming from and respond professionally. A 'we hear you' response to 18% of your customers could be more important than the same 18% who complains about your pricing.

Active Listening = Absorb + Empathy. It could save your next relationship, professional or personal.

Please leave your comments, if any.

Design in branding

It takes more than good design to deliver a great brand. Branding has a whole spectrum of stuff like staff training (internal brand alignment), store experiences (brand experience), choice of communication medium (where tribes are listening), crafting the messages (brand story) etc. Tribes buy into the entire brand story, not just the cover of the book. It is important to realize that design can evolve but the essence of the brand should remain engaging and relevant.

It is so easy for us to get mesmerized by great designs and the rest of branding gets lost in the glitz. Why? It is far easier to sell what we can see and touch. Humans (and clients) are after all visual driven.

Here are two interesting products I came across which has elements of design for branding.

Fixa sells tools for the kitchen. Its brand name talks about getting things done while its packaging shows you the result. Fixa communicates that it 'fixes' food into their end state (ready ingredients). All that in its brand and packaging without hard selling. To the Nordic folks who created this, clever!

Ecolean is a Swedish company that designs and manufactures eco-packaging. Designed to be light and thin, when flattened, the packaging weighs less than 14g each. It is also metaphorically shaped like a pitcher, complete with handle and spout. Ecolean allowed their clients to brand themselves with eco friendliness. What a story to tell the others. Chinese FMCG brands are lapping these up rather quickly.

Bottle designs are a great way to be creative about branding. We can all recognize Absolut Vodka tribes with their empty bottles around them as badges of fun and wild parties. Here is a concept of Samurai Vodka bottle design.

I reckon you will agree this SAMURAI Vodka packaging looks pretty neat. Will it fly like Absolut with a successful brand? Maybe. Only if it has worked hard like Absolut to focus on its branding. Absolut has invested a huge amount of time and effort (lots of $$$ too) in brand communications and parties to resonate with the young and hip tribes.

In my opinion, brand consultants are not to be just focusing on design to wow clients. That is akin to decorating a nice bubble; beauty with no substance. Dubai? They must seek to be clever architects that fuse creative design, market research and marketing to deliver branding as a holistic process. Tribes are attracted to complete brand experiences, not simply aesthetics.

Please leave your comments, if any.