I'm Watching You

Over a period of 6 years, the photographer John Thackwray photographed the bedrooms of 1200 millennials from around the world. The range of physical environments, materials, colors and collections is absolutely fascinating.

In business and design we often develop a products by thinking about our customer target and then creating something we think they will want. But often we land far off the mark and wonder what went wrong.

What went wrong lies in the difference between thinking and observing.

Successful marketing relies on an intimate knowledge of your customer. You can’t learn what you want to know by asking them, because what they say they want and what they end up buying is often very different. Just ask someone who runs focus groups.

You have to observe them.

After looking at the bedroom photograph of just one of these millennials, I guarantee you could design a product experience that would delight them. 

I am sure you have thought long and hard about your customer but have you really observed them?

Video Is The New Black

When I was 11, I filmed an epic disaster movie in my basement on a Super 8mm camera. It was called “Ball!”, and told the story of a Godzilla-sized Nerf basketball that destroyed an entire town, which consisted of my slot car race track, HO gauge train set and a lot of plastic army men. I used a lot of lighter fluid. Let’s just say it’s a good thing there weren’t smoke detectors in those days.

At the time, my friends and I were drawing lots of robots and war scenes on paper and sharing them with each other. Needless to say the screening of “Ball!” for my buds put me in a class of my own in the storytelling department. Because my story was moving.

It's estimated that 80% of all content consumed on the web will be video by 2020. Gulp. Facebook, YouTube, Snapchat, Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, Instagram and their mother are now starting to stream original programming. Not happy with being merely platforms, they are jumping into being content creators.

Video is the new black. The nice-to-have is now a requirement to remain competitive. For the entrepreneur, brand owner or creative professional the important question is: Are you moving yet?

photo credit: Philip VanDusen

A Hamster Wheel In The Forest

Scientists recently did an experiment. What would happen if you put a hamster wheel out in the forest? No food. No red button to press to get a treat. Just the wheel, an open door and a motion activated cam.

Mice, rats, shrews, voles, lots of little guys who were obviously not getting enough exercise showed up. They ran. They came back again and again. It turns out hamster wheels aren’t just for the incarcerated. When the scientists took it away, they all kept showing up wondering why the gym had closed.

If you take a proven concept and place it in a new context, you may find out things about your audience that you didn’t know. What actually motivates them. What they are really thinking. Why they are responding the way they do.

Contextual awareness is the next major hurdle in marketing. The goal is being aware of your customers changes in location, behavior, interests and needs at any given moment, as those moments change. Do you truly understand what makes your customers tick?

photo credit: Philip Roberts @flickr.com

Dying on the Vine: Don't Build Your Brand On Borrowed Land

What are the stars of Vine saying to themselves these days? 

Don’t build your brand on borrowed land. 

Twitter announced recently that they will be shutting down Vine, the 6 second video sharing platform “indefinitely”. But what becomes of the stars that Vine made? Well, some of them have gotten internet-famous enough to have parlayed their multiple 6-seconds of fame into work in independent film, cable, TV, advertising, or are taking on longer-form projects than Vine allowed. Apparently, millennials, just like Bumbles, bounce. (Sorry for the pre-Thanksgiving Rudolph reference…)

But there are scores more not-so-stars who will be hung out to dry. Those with hundreds or thousands of followers cultivated and nurtured over years of posting video content snippets. All them will go poof very soon. 

It’s not like it hasn’t happened before. Think of all the individuals, bands, companies that poured blood and sweat into MySpace internet-eons ago. The volume of content being generated is larger than ever and the pace of change is faster than ever. So when change comes, having your content host and your associated following disappear can be a painful wake-up call. 

Building an email list, a documented following that is independent of any specific platform is the gold standard of content developers, marketers and entrepreneurs. It takes a lot of time, effort and money to get folks to give you their email address. Twitter knows this and is happy to shackle you to it’s platform. It makes gleaning the emails of your Twitter followers all but impossible. 

When Twitter goes belly-up, and it will eventually, all those retweets, hearts and follows won’t mean dookey.

The only thing that will matter are the personal networked connections you have made. The ones where you know each others email addresses. And those you might have, dare I say it, talked to on the phone.

While it’s pretty safe to say that email will be around for while, in cyberspace nothing lasts forever. So when the current circus folds up its tent and drives out of town, you won’t want to find yourself standing around still dressed like a clown.

photo credit: el toro @ flickr.com