The Art of Manufacturing Feelings

Tapping Creativity: The New Model For Advertising

Fostering an online environment that rallies the creative type is gaining momentum. Online creative competitions don't exactly have large creative shops worried but maybe they should. I wonder how the post digital traditional agency is being challenged by these services that connect clients with a pool of motivated creative talent. A lot of agencies would laugh at the idea, but there's something to be said about tapping the talent of hungry creatives and brand enthusiasts.

Since Doritos asked its consumers to create a TV ad that aired during the super bowl, companies have been jumping on the bandwagon asking their consumers to create content. Most of it has resulted in an enormous pile of b-rated advertising. It's yielded a lot of work that is either off brief or amateurishly executed, but I recently came across a site that has polished its process and just may have a shot at creating the kind of content that matters. Design 21 is a social design network that uses its website to host a variety of competitions. It enables designers, art directors, copy writers and creative thinkers to select projects and submit work. It's organized well and I'm most impressed with the briefs (here's one for FSC) and amount of planning to set up these projects. They also have an interactive forum enabling participants to vote on designs and view the winners and finalists. The ideas and creative work certainly spans a wide range of talent and experience, but a lot of it has been surprisingly impressive.

I think their model is a lucrative idea for a few reasons. First off they take advantage of the accessibility of tools like Final Cut Pro and Adobe Creative Suite. These products are making it easier for motivated individuals to create high quality deliverables with relative ease. More importantly, it harnesses the creative ideas of product enthusiasts and key influencers. These are the people who are dedicated to a product and stand at the epicenter of the brand and they have the best chance of describing it well to others. Or maybe you're of the persuasion that brands will start marketing themselves....

Waassuuuuup!

Things exist that are greater than brand; this is an example of one of them.

Comedy, culture, human interaction; they all get associated with brands because writers use comical copy to embed their client's products into our culture. I think this short might be an example of something that is greater than the brand it was conceived from.

When this spot first came out "Wazzup" was my new favorite buzzword. It became my default phone answer for the 3 months following its release and I still start emails with it. Sequels are usually annoying but this one has been timed well and I love that it's genuinely transcended brand and product.

Influx Ideas Conference 2007

Yesterday Ed Cotton of InfluxInsights hosted The Influx Ideas 2007 Conference. The conference was an opportunity for great minds to converge and discuss the future of branding. There were a few interesting themes that provided insight into how branding is evolving.

- Branding will become more responsible for delivering an emotional experience. "Panasonic embraced an effort to use their technology to create the first battery operated airplane. Communities became passionate about the project and the resulting PR had a tremendous impact on the brand."

- Brands will be expected to provide an all encompassing experience. "Burger King has recently created 3 Xbox games that allows kinds to be entertained while interacting with their brand."

- Brands will be required to deliver genuine value based on what their brand promises. Consumers will seek meaning in what a brand claims. "The Chysler building is a great example of a car company who created an architectural icon that uses their building design to represent the aesthetic of the car."

- Brands must provide transparent sustainability solutions by fundamentally changing practices that are counter intuitive to the green movement. "Those who survive must provide a transparent solution that reveals a commitment to environmental and social responsibility."

- Customization will allow brands to connect with their consumers. An open source approach is important; embracing a consumer's individuality, creativity and ability to innovate makes the consumer feel like the brand is more a part of who they are.

- Brands will be required to communicate with their consumers not just provide communications to them.

We had the opportunity to hear from Jonah Bloom from Ad Age, Scott Wyatt from NBBJ Architects, Sarah Rich from worldchanging.org, Christian Simm from Swiss Next, Kent Nicholas from Ask A Ninja and Gregory Kennedy from Millions of Us. Here's what they had to say:

Eric Ryan - Method

Great speech from the Account Planners conference this year down in San Diego. His company produces house hold products, but he approached the market from a new angle. Method products are certainly design savvy; they're meant to function well and be aesthetically pleasing. His cleaners are about living healthier, something not normal grocery store cleaners don't care much about. On the most simple level, he's moved in on large companies by eating the market share of players who don't innovate. It's a great case study for doing market research and innovating.

http://www.aaaa.org/EWEB/upload/webcasts/ap_07/ryan.html

AAAA 2007

I've been at the Planners Conference in San Diego for the past 3 days and had the opportunity to listen to some interesting and smart people. The goal was to share ideas and become a better account planner.

The seminar kicked off with a speech by Sir Ken Robinson, an enthusiastic and funny, motivational speaker. His expertise is revolutionizing the way we educate and he spoke quite eloquently about unlocking creativity. He is the author of Out of Our Minds: Learning to Be Creative. He mentioned case studies like the branding of tap water to fundraise and made comments like "it's not how intelligent you are, but rather how you are intelligent." His ending quote was "our problem isn't that we aim too high and fail, but that we aim to low and succeed."

Adam Morgan of Eatbigfish spoke about realizing opportunities and being innovative. He offered inspirational advice like Kissing the Shadow - creating an opportunity from a disadvantage, and others like being Gorilla Blind, and how to beat the Duncker Cradle Task. He expressed the tremendous value he sees in looking at micro targets to determine future needs, like for example designing products for the mainstream by looking at products needed by the disabled.

Brandon Geary of Avenue Q Razorfish spoke about how we can use web 2.0 to observing better and capitalize on consumer information that is posted on sites like Flickr, Wefeelfine and others who are the 'online entrenched.' He talked about aspirational profiling and searching out pent-up demand.

Scott Lucas of Dosage talked about why people become engaged and what to do to engage them. He referenced the "7-up" documentary and focused on the characteristics that engage, like: Scandal, coopertive communities, rituals and listed about 32 different ways people become engaged.

Ed Cotton & Aki Spicer spoke passionately about Blogging, why it's so important and how to do it successfully. They expressed the importance of using blogs to"harvesting our collective intelligence" and "helping keep us curious." It was inspirational because they showed the essence of being a planner requires soaking information in, sharing information with others in an effort to engage other and figure things out.