Going Small

There is this thing called the Ringelmann Effect. Stay with me on this. Maximilien Ringelmann, a French agricultural engineer did an experiment where he asked people to perform a simple task: Pull on a rope. What he learned was that when there is only one person pulling, they give 100% of their effort. The more people you add to the rope the more the effort goes down.

Jeff Bezo’s has a saying, “Any team that can’t be fed by two pizza’s is too large.”. The bigger the team, the more complexity, miscommunication and bureaucracy. The less effort.

There is a trend happening in the branding and design world. Large client companies are divesting themselves of their big agency relationships and hiring much smaller agencies. Like 2-10 people small. I know because I did it myself at Pepsico. And the big agencies are freaking out.

The reason is that the big clients have finally figured out that when you have a tiny agency team pulling on your project rope, they pull really, really hard. They deliver above and beyond.

So as you think about how to handle your next project, consider going small.

Less Is More

In the hallway that leads up to the statue of David by Michelangelo in Florence, there is a row of unfinished sculptures of people. They're called “The Prisoners” because they are half-trapped in marble - they were left in the process of being freed by the sculptor.

I spent the last week cleaning out my father-in-law’s house, as he prepares to move into a retirement community. He needed help shedding stuff. The good news is that he was ready to let go of it. It wasn’t a battle like you see on the show “Hoarders”.

In the process of drastically editing down his possessions, we could see a lightness come back into him. An excitement for new possibilities and beginnings even at this late stage of life. By getting rid of things he was rediscovering something that had been trapped in all the stuff, himself. 

Branding and design are processes of subtraction. You shed all that is unnecessary to express the kernel of the idea. You find the essence. 

By shedding things, we carve a space for new experiences. We free the prisoner. In less, we can find more.

Pick A Lane

I met with a woman last week who just patented an invention. It’s incredibly simple. It's the kind of invention that you look at and say “of course!”.

The invention has implications for food and beverage, entertainment, travel, spectator sports, quick service restaurants, for CPG. The list goes on and on. 

She landed a meeting to pitch it to the largest beverage brand in the world. Let’s call them Big Red. She laid out the 50 ways they could use it. They loved it. They said “of course!”. So it was a shock when the meeting resulted in zip. Nada.

The reason wasn’t that it’s a stupid invention. It’s brilliant. The reason Big Red passed was because they were presented with too many options. No one knew where to start. Even Big Red, who has more resources than God.

She learned the hard way that "less is more". Next time she will pick a lane. One consumer, one occasion, one fulfilled need. The next client will know exactly how to put their feet in the starting blocks. They will see a simple picture of what winning looks like. And how to start. 

photo credit: {Robyn} @flickr.com

The Un-Sexy Solution

If you ever want evidence why our species has survived so long, Google Images for the phrase "There, I fixed it." You'll find thousands of pictures of hilarious solutions to some of life's challenges. And a lot of duct tape.

Those pictures always reminds me of my days at Gap. I was amazed when I realized that the $16B goliath ran entirely on Excel spreadsheets being emailed around the globe. Unsexy, but it got the job done.

The tech explosion has introduced myriad apps, sites and hardware that are really sexy - with more features than you could explore in a lifetime. You can get lost in the sea of functionality, interfaces and connectedness. Last week I saw a cutting board that has wifi. Really.

But, sometimes the best solution isn't the sexiest. Sometimes sexy can distract you from actually getting the job done. Sometimes a scuffed shoe doesn't need a rechargeable handheld oscillating brush with a touchscreen. Sometimes it just needs some spit and a rub on the back of your pant leg.

The Road To Innovation Is Short

Faster Pussycat

The pace of business today is brutally fast. To compete, it is critical that companies embrace innovation as a core competency. They must engage in it constantly - iterative design, research and development flowing through a never-ending pipeline.

12 Degrees of Separation

In the pre-Industrial Age, the distance between the maker and the product was very short - maybe literally an arms length away. The maker also had a direct line to the person who was going to use it. In fact, they probably lived in the same town. 

But since then, with larger companies, the concept and the final product can be more than a dozen functional divisions removed from each other, all in the same company. Strategy, finance, consumer insights, trend, product development, merchandising, marketing, sourcing, manufacturing, distribution, retail, the list goes on. 

Game of Telephone

For companies, innovation and product development can be like the game of telephone. There are so many people and phases in the process that the original idea gets lost in the chain of communication by the final stage.

Small = Agile

So, how do large companies win in innovation? By mimicking what small companies do. Small equals agile. Smaller companies have shorter chains of command, short decision making matrices. They have shorter timelines. They have limited resources, so they are highly motivated to be efficient. Stakeholders have greater autonomy, so if they want to do something, they just can go ahead and do it. They don’t have to get 15 stakeholders, 5 divisions, and 3 VPs to agree first.

Distance is Death

The problem is distance. Distance leads to crumby innovation. This pertains to physical distance as well as lengths of time. They both lead to the dumbing down of ideas by degrees.

The traditional innovation approach is to gestate an idea in an R&D group, then hand it off to a Product Development team, who in turns hands off to Sourcing and then a Manufacturing group, etc.

As an innovative concept creeps down the road from one functional department to the next, little by little, the purity of an idea is chipped away. Sacrifices are made for materials, cost, factory efficiency, shipping, retail realities. At times the “innovation” that reaches market has little resemblance to the original concept - if it makes it there at all.

To preserve an innovative concept, the distance between the idea and the final manifestation of it has to be as short as possible.

New innovation approaches call for cross-functional teams to be present throughout the entire process. Multiple stages of review and approval can be condensed and happen simultaneously. This constant representation of disciplines in the pipeline insures that the concept remains pristine and that any divergence is immediately apparent to all stakeholders. This increased transparency has been proven to drastically reduce innovation mortality rates.

Idea Sex

Cross-functional teams can also be great for innovation concept generation. An example of this happened at 3M. Cross-functional teams were reorganized to share physical offices and departments. One day, the adhesive product development team, let’s call them “the glue guys”, was looking to develop a stronger glue. In the formulation process they mistakenly developed a glue that was weaker than the original and could be removed very easily.

It just so happened that the glue guys where working in the same room as the “notepad guys”. The notepad guys were looking for new ways to pin up notes on a board. And the glue guys had this new glue that was removeable. But it was just sticky enough to put a note up on the wall. It was because these two groups were shacked up with each other that the Post-it Note was born.

Fittingly, the Post-It Note has since become the go-to tool for innovation brainstorming sessions around the globe.

Start With Why, Not How

Historically, innovation started with what the factory can do. Some new technological invention would happen in machining. Then you would figure out what products you could make with it. It would start with: “we can make this” – “now, what can we do with it”. Pringles came from tennis ball cylinder packaging in just this way.

New theories and processes for innovation are more “needs driven”. They start with a problem that needs a solution and then precipitate the development of machining or technology to bring it into existence. You start with the problem and end with how-to-make it.

Gantt vs. Slinky

There are different ways to get to a given result. Some are linear, some not. Let’s say you are mapping out an innovation project. Start by imagining the project as a Gantt chart. Imagine a linear progression of a project from start to finish encompassing all the sequential stages. The steps are laid out in overlapping progress bars in two-dimensional space.

Now visualize the innovation project as a Slinky. Imagine a project’s progression seen on its side as a curly-que, more circular in structure, continuously overlapping itself. Does it veer up or down? In three-dimensional space, the “end” result may not be in the linear direction out to the right it - might in fact be above or below. Or even behind.

Insight + Context = Innovation

The principles of Design Thinking are also being brought to bear on innovation. Design Thinking employs empathy for the context of the problem. It leverages creativity in the development of insights and concepts, analyzing various solutions and then applies them to the problem.

By using observational techniques, Design Thinking can uncover problems and issues as well as opportunities that are not immediately apparent. This kind of approach to innovation encourages us to believe in possibility and to think in the abstract. It succeeds with a less linear and more iterative approach.

The New Thing

The market is constantly being saturated with re-makes, re-hashes and sequels to established products and services. In order to break through the noise, truly innovative solutions are necessary. Adopting a new approach to how you shepherd your ideas through the product development pipeline will help retain the integrity of your concepts. It will insure that you hit the market with true disruptive force.

Remember, we put a man on the moon before we put wheels on luggage. Innovation is not always linear. But the road to it is short.

Image credit: Christian Heilmann @ flickr.com

It's All About You

I met with a prospective client recently. She’s a Harvard educated powerhouse, an accomplished musician and recording artist, has a wellness brand and is exploring starting a museum - from scratch.

In our meeting she shared the personal motivation and meaning behind her music, her wellness practice, her museum idea. She shared how they were all integral to one another, synaptically connected. Her musical/creative/wellness/education narrative was important to capture in branding them!

While capturing her philosophy does fit into the equation, I am encouraging her to shift her focus. The motivations of the customers for each of these businesses are quite different. One wants to buy a song. Another wants to de-stress with body work. Another wants to take the kids someplace that will fascinate them for an afternoon.

Your brand narrative needs to capture your passions, but what's key is how you will fulfill your customers desires. Great brands weave the two seamlessly together in a motivating and emotionally evocative way.

photo credit: flickr: rafa_luque

You Are A Package

I’ve done a lot of work in consumer packaged goods. The biggest challenge is getting consumers to choose your product from all the others on the shelf. Recently, in working with entrepreneurs and mid-sized businesses I have noticed how many of the guiding principles of CPG translate directly to their branding challenges. Here are three:

Shelf Pop: When you are on display, as an individual or business, you have to know what your competition looks like. What shape are they? What colors do they use? Iconography or photography? Bottle or box? You need to differentiate yourself in a way that makes you jump off the shelf when a purchase decision is being made.

Communication Hierarchy: At most, you get 3 levels of communication. Brand, variant and flavor. You have to make hard choices about what you want your customer to know. What motivates them? A functional or an emotional benefit? Are you going to make them look sexier? Make them smarter? Define what your label says. 

Shopper Journey: How do customers shop for you? Impulse buy at checkout? Always right next to the sunglasses? Are you with your competition or are you charting new territory in a different aisle to stand out? Create an intuitive path to help people find you.

These days, the physical and digital worlds are packed with brands to choose from. Your goal is getting picked. Becoming someones favorite. How will you make it from the shelf to the cart?

Big Brand Punch: Personal Branding & Brand Personality

We hear it all the time.

 “I’m working on developing my personal brand”.

Why are people striving to become more like brands, when corporate brands are desperately looking to humanize themselves. Aren’t these divergent movements?

It‘s about survival.

It used to be a business was a specialist worker, a butcher, a cobbler, a carpenter, a cook. With the industrial revolution, businesses scaled and became companies: Woolworths, Macy's, Proctor & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, Ford. 

Many companies have emotional equities that grew out of the personality of an original founder. The result of this is an unshakable authenticity. For example, Colonel Sanders of KFC, Martha Stewart or Ralph Lauren.

Brands that don't have visible founders strive to invent brand personalities and archetypes through characters, celebrities or humor like the Marlboro Man, GIECO’s gecko, Tony the Tiger, Ronald McDonald or Michael Jordan for Nike.

Why do they do it?

Brand authenticity is very hard to accomplish without “a face” associated with it. Someone to believe and to believe in. Not having a face creates mistrust. In fact, for most people, the term "faceless corporation" is associated with greed, resource pillage and disregard for human needs and dignity in the pursuit of profit. Think BP, IBM, Citibank, Exxon, Comcast, Merrill Lynch. While brands with faces; Virgin, Apple and Tesla, create a sense of ease, familiarity and foster a deeper level of trust.

When it comes right down to it, people trust and identify with brands with human characteristics. It’s what we do as humans. We anthropomorphize things. What is the value in bestowing human characteristics on a non-human entity? Simple. Studies have found that brands that adhere to brand personality archetypes are twice as successful than those that do not. [Boom, drops the mic.]

So how do companies define a personality?

Science. Corporations and brand strategy agencies use consumer insight research, macro and micro socio-economic trend, focus groups and behavioral audits to uncover the human characteristics a brand possesses. "If X-brand walked into a party, What gender are they? What age? What are they wearing? What are they drinking? Talking about?” “If X-brand was an animal what kind of animal would it be?" Brand strategists have been sharpening these exploratory research techniques for decades and know exactly how to dig into our psyches. I know, I’ve been in the focus group labs where it happens. 

Big branding gloves.

Brands also utilize a variety of strategic brand positioning tools. The most common being a “brand pyramid”, where the aspects of a brand are mapped in a pyramid shape. The bottom layers establish the functional attributes and benefits. The upper layers clarify the emotional benefits, brand personality and brand essence, the singular fundamental idea that captures what is at a brands emotional core.

Additional strategic brand foundation tools include mission and vision statements, brand values, positioning statements, aspirational consumer target maps – the list goes on. This work can fill volumes. The purpose of this strategic foundation is to assure the consistency and efficacy of brand equities, messaging, advertising, packaging, visual design – essentially every brand touch point. They also set in stone the ethos of what a brand stands for, who it’s customers are, what it delivers, what problem it is solving.

Focused brand strategies and finely tuned brand personalities resonate with consumers. Brand loyalty and affinity are achieved by making the brand feel like an old friend. This is where brand evangelists are made. If you do it right, it can be very lucrative. Just ask Apple. Nike. Rolex. BMW. Some consumers even associate their own personal identities with brands living in that rarified air.

The game changer.

There was a time when workers used to be defined by their jobs and brand affiliations. It used to be: he’s an IBM man, she’s a P&G gal, those are Met Life guys.

With the changes brought about by the internet and the dawn of the global economy, millions have been swept out of employment with corporations and set adrift. They no longer have a workplace, external brands, geography or affiliations to help them anchor their identity. The only hope of survival is self-employment in a new digital world with no roadmap, no borders and no limits. We are becoming a nation of free agents.

But while it has erased so much security, the internet has also leveled the business playing field. Now an individual can have all the media reach, technological capability and infrastructure any large company.  

Fighting above your weigh class.

Reclaiming Americas Soul: Our Social/Industrial rEvolution

I was listening to a TEDx talk by a trend consultant friend recently and she mentioned how she thought that our consumption model is broken and that America is missing its soul. I think she’s right. But, how did that happen? Where are we headed now and what does it mean for the brand landscape?

America came into its own during the Industrial Revolution. Our factories, workers, products and standard of living was the envy of much of the world. Other countries wanted to be us once. Whether they really want to admit that now or not.

We lived the Industrial Model. 

But, over time our desire to own more and more things in order to attain our ever-inflating image of prosperity, drove us to need products to be less expensive. Less expensive because Americans middle-class wages have stagnated for the last 30 years, as former Labor Secretary Robert Reich pointed out in his eye-opening video “The Truth About the Economy”. Sadly, our wages have not kept pace with our appetite to own more things.

So, we out-sourced our production overseas. But the price we paid was dear. Entire industries in the US crumbled. Furniture making, textiles, steel production, automobiles, electronics, the list goes on and on. Physically and culturally it decimated our heartland. Look no farther than Detroit, but we all know the list is much longer.

We began to discover that not making things hollows out your soul. 

We’ve become a nation of middle-men and service providers. In fact, 86% of jobs in America are in services and 14% are in goods production and manufacturing. But there are huge numbers of our population who don’t have the skill sets or the desire to become white-collar workers. So the collective pride of the worker begins to die along with their cities.

The white collar workers find their work rooted in technology. Entire industries are living in the digital domain. Employees, initially enthralled by the computer and its magic have become surrounded, ruled and overwhelmed by the technology they once coveted. 

At the same time, big box stores became the norm and Mom & Pop businesses disappeared from Main Street. Every town in America looking like every other town - the same collection of retailers, only with different weather.

But there is a renaissance happening. 

People have begun to want to create something they can touch. Something you can’t send in an email. There is a new makers movement, a movement of people wanting to get back in touch with making actual things. Reviving dying trades, artisan skills, mills and factories. There are printers, wood workers, bicycle makers, textile designers and manufacturers, blacksmiths, craft brewers and jewelers.

People driven by a need to create. Their souls are fed by it. To produce and distribute goods bound by an ethos of sustainability, craftsmanship and local trade. Market places, pop-up stores and curated websites (digital, I know) are springing up with a decidedly anti-chain, pro-Mom & Pop, pro-local personality bent. Consumers want a human face and a name to go along with a product. For it to come from a place that they know how to find on a map. And most importantly, todays consumer wants these products. They value a true story.

Witness the Social/Industrial rEvolution being born. 

Big brands are desperately trying to find a voice for themselves that is credible in this new model. Trying to use social media and acquisitions to make themselves appear much smaller, with a human face and a genuine narrative. Take Clorox’s purchase of Burt’s Bees for example. But for the most part the consumer public is seeing through the facade. The only way to sound local is to be local. The way to appear small is to be small. The way to be hand-crafted is to get your hands dirty. 

This new model is built on quality over quantity, knowing where its materials came from, knowing where it was made, knowing a little about the person who made it. With all the digital connectivity we have at our disposal, what we have come to miss most of all, and want to get back is connection. 

Physical and emotional connection is the heart of the Social/Industrial rEvolution.

This rEvolution is about being true. Brands that embrace this evolution and live by its ethos will win a place of honor in consumers lives. Because we want to feel we are once again makers, doers and creators. We want to truly own our success. We want to play a part in reclaiming Americas soul.

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ADDENDUM: On the flip side of this coin we have the "4th Industrial Revolution" which is the digital evolution of our society and economy. Thanks to John Hawthorne, for sharing this article that comes at our societal evolution from a different perspective.

Image Credit:  Anna Zoromski/Miles @ flickr.com