DennisDemori.com

Apple Store in NYC

One of the things that’s really sunk in in my first few months as a Planner is that the answers you get aren’t that important if you’re not already asking the right questions.

So here’s a question to keep in mind:

Do you have a product or service people will wait in line for? If not, why? What can we do, as Planners, to change behavior and give people a reason to give us some of their precious time?

I got the idea for this post this past weekend when I decided to try Kogi BBQ. Kogi is notorious for long lines; I’ve heard of people waiting as long as two hours for their food!!

Great food, bad pic

Anyway, the following video gives us two main reasons people wait in line:

1) People over-estimate the value of something when it’s free

2) People want to be 1st to see or do something that’s is considered cool

Well, Kogi and lots of other products aren’t free, but the second reason is a little more relevant.

Going a step further, I think one of the main reasons people will wait in line when they don’t really have to is for the story (of course, herd mentality and fanboy-ism can also be at play). And a story is greater than any product or service because it can last way beyond the point of sale.

In a product life cycle, the purchase is a short, fleeting moment. The anticipation, the excitement and everything else leading up to that moment are what create lasting memories for people. So much so that I’m still talking about a lunch I had at Kogi two days ago and not the breakfast I had at home this morning.

You can see lines like this just about any day at In-N-Out Burger, as well as in midtown NYC at Shake Shack, but the real challenge isn’t what happens when people form a line for you — it’s what they do when the line is gone.

Further reading/viewing:

Apple’s iPhone 4 Hits Stores Thursday

Crowds Queue Up Around U.S. For iPhone 4

How Long Would You Wait In Line for Food?

The Psychology of Waiting Lines

What I’m Reading: The Culting of Brands

I watched a funny, fast-paced presentation from Ogilvy Planner Rory Sutherland today. From the TED site:

Advertising adds value to a product by changing our perception, rather than the product itself. Rory Sutherland makes the daring assertion that a change in perceived value can be just as satisfying as what we consider “real” value — and his conclusion has interesting consequences for how we look at life.

The best part is if you jump to about 12:30 of the video, where he talks about the “repositioning” of Diamond Shreddies.

He ends his talk with a nice quote, “Poetry is when you make new things familiar and familiar things new,” which is a nice way of summing of what we do in the Ad industry.

On a side note, I just finished reading the marketing classic “Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind (How To Be Seen And Heard in the Overcrowded Marketplace),” by Al Ries and Jack Trout. It’s somewhat outdated at this point (it was written about 20 years ago), but I think it has some good points on things like Line Extensions and Brand Naming. Personally, I would recommend one of their other books, “The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing” instead.

Some random thoughts about the new Skittles.com and how this is significant for brands.

I know the new Skittles.com isn’t original(Modernista has worked with this idea before)-BUT I think it shows brands need to exist ACROSS web – not just one site.

Brands have traditionally built their web sites like their brick & mortar locations-one central location for its customers. In the medium offered by the internet, and web 2.0, however, the Skittles site got me to thinking that the current method 99.9% of brands use isn’t an optimal use of the web.

The new web model doesn’t need a singular web presence.

The web is intangible, and because of the abstract nature of the web, maybe we’re going to see more brands go the Skittles route. If the definition of a brand is the psychological/emotional perception that people have BEYOND your company or product, then maybe companies need to focus more on what that brand means OUTSIDE their walls, because that’s where the true discussion of a brand’s identity lies.

The thing with the internet is that there really aren’t any walls, though. For the most part, information can flow freely. Many marketers have pointed this out before – brands need to join the discussions that consumers are having about them – so it only makes sense to me that the new Skittles site spread across Twitter, Wikipedia, Facebook, etc. is a manifestation of that idea.

Thoughts?

I was just watching the recent TED Talk by Twitter co-founder Evan Williams. In the video he talks about how the explosive growth of Twitter has mainly come from unexpected uses by the Twitter community.

This reminds me of the Pabst Blue Ribbon story. PBR has always been a low-key, blue-collar brand. Back in the 1970′s, it was really popular, but with the explosive growth of huge brands like Budweiser and the birth of the microbrew industry, it lost a lot of its appeal.

As Douglas Atkin pointed out in “The Culting of Brands,” by the middle of 2002 the company was experiencing a completely unplanned turnaround:

“Pabst Blue Ribbon had miraculously become the fastest growing brand of all domestic beers, achieving double digit growth within a declining industry.

What happened to spark such a turnaround? A thriving community had adopted PBR as a brand that espoused their ideals. They liked how they had never seen advertisements for it, and that it was a throwback to America’s heartland and blue-collar ideals. It was a beer that wasn’t about image.

Ironically, this embrace quickly gave PBR an image. Impressively, PBR’s marketing team has resisted the temptation to jump on the hipster bandwagon and try to market to this cynical demographic. They realize that they are popular because they haven’t been trying to woo anyone. PBR wisely realizes that it needs to completely let go if they want to continue to enjoy their resurrection within the hispter community.”

Brands exist for the benefit of people. There’s really no other way to look at it. I think that today brands need to be malleable – people need to have the ability to mold them as they see fit. By doing so, people feel a sense of ownership for a brand, and therefore become more loyal.

Just look at Wikipedia. Most people didn’t think it would work, and what most of us underestimated is that users would be so committed to building the brand. All Wikipedia had to do was provide the skeleton – its users would do the job of fleshing it out.

Anyway, here’s Evan Williams at TED. It’s a short video – only about 8 minutes.

via sciondriver

Interesting study from San Francisco State University says that,
“An experience may generate positive memories that outlast the allure of a new material possession. That’s in part because the initial joy of acquiring a new object, such as a new car, fades over time as people become accustomed to seeing it every day, experts said. Experiences, on the other hand, continue to provide happiness through memories long after the event occurred.”

What does this mean for brands? Although I believe the word “experience” is being tossed around a lot these days in strategy sessions, I think this study is further proof that brands can expand beyond products attributes to engage their consumers.

“What’s the brand’s highest calling?” is something we had discussed in the first couple weeks at MAS. It’s the difference between Pepsi being about soda and Pepsi being a brand that “refreshes everything.”

Article via current.com

Some pics of the recent ads around Miami from the Refresh Everything campaign:

Banner on Miami Herald building

From a design perspective, I like the ads and the website. They’re simple and eye-catching, although I don’t think they’re very original (placing the round logo in place of the “O”).

Let’s dig a little deeper: The website is great, and takes a simple idea (people can post videos on the Pepsi YouTube Channel and address them to the President — best ones will be shown on the Pepsi website) to get people involved and create buzz. The reaction seems to be mixed, however, and Pepsi is treading a thin line by giving the site and the ads a political feel. There’s some positive feedback from “The New Advertising” blog that touches on Pepsi’s desire to target the Optimistic Millennials, where it says,

“They’re the generation that, whenever we do research with them, expresses an enormous longing for the optimism of the sixties.They envy the generation’s protest, music, dress, sexual mores and so much more. They believe they missed a critical period in relatively recent history.”

In the meantime, 24ahead.com points out that the numbers don’t look good (the number of videos being viewed is really low), while other right-wing blogs are calling for an outright boycott of all Pepsi products.

Here’s the recent Pepsi New Year’s Eve video that launched the campaign.

What do you think?

UPDATE – FEB. 1st

Here’s “Refresh Anthem” which aired during the Super Bowl:

I like this new Microsoft commercial. It’s hip–which is really pushing the envelope for Microsoft, but I think it’s an important step for them to reframe their brand. It almost feels like a soft drink ad, and that’s the key word: feel.

I was watching “American Originals: Budweiser” on CNBC tonight, and one of the most interesting things they pointed out was that Anheuser-Busch was unable to produce beer for about 14 years during Prohibition. They survived by diversifying and producing other products, including ice cream, ginger ale and refrigerated cabinets.

What would happen if other companies were unable to produce their flagship product?

What if Starbucks couldn’t sell coffee?

What if Harley-Davidson couldn’t sell motorcycles?

How would these and other similar companies survive?

Apple was originally known for the Mac. It revolutionized the idea of a personal computer, however, nowadays, when consumers think of Apple, they don’t just think of Macs—they think of itunes, ipods, and iphones. They’ve not only dramatically changed the computer industry, they’ve also become brand leaders in music distribution and cell phones.

They didn’t invent these things; they took something familiar and made some distinct changes to make them into something new. These innovations helped them cross the chasm of early adopters into the mainstream market.

Why do so many companies put their eggs into one basket?