A Smell That Will Make You Money

Last week I was cooking a recipe that called for coconut oil. When I opened the jar I was immediately transported to being 16 years old on a beach in Michigan putting on suntan lotion. I almost got smell memory whiplash.

Smells are processed by the amygdala, the part of the brain responsible for memory functions and processing emotions. Scientists have proven you are 100 times more likely to remember something that you smell than something that you see, hear or touch.

Now brands are increasingly putting the power of scent to work.

In Orlando, a company recently projected "waffle cone" smell adjacent to an ice cream parlor, driving a 50% sales increase. REI used the smell of “campfire and pine” and guess who started selling more backpacks? Don’t even get me started about what Cinnabon does. You know what they do.

Do you have a service or product that you can enhance with a scent? If you do, you might be closer to smelling success.

A Close Shave

The viral video from Dollar Shave Club came out 5 years ago, so I’ve known I’ve been getting ripped off for a while. I just never did anything about it. 

Gillette had me hypnotized into thinking that ever-increasing blade counts and handles with more foils than a Lamborghini translated to a shave only their product could achieve. Call me a slow learner, but I didn’t realize the extent of my stupor until Saturday.

That's when I walked into CVS to get cartridges for my aging Trac II razor. $32.99 for ten cartridges. No handle mind you, just bits of plastic with two blades at $3.29 each. I felt violated. My brand loyalty and my perception of quality got nicked by reality and I needed a styptic pencil.

A few days later, my new steel safety razor and 100 single-edge blades (at 5 cents each) arrived from Amazon. Wouldn’t you know it, with a little practice the shave I got from a 5 cent razor was just as close - and as a bonus, the luxurious feeling of the weighty steel handle was intensely satisfying.

Don’t get me wrong, I value quality, design, performance and technology. When you deliver them to me consistently I am the most devoted of brand evangelists. But when a brand begins to take advantage of that devotion, delivering the same results at a 6400% premium and are banking that I won’t notice (and I didn’t), let’s say I felt double razor burned.

How are you honestly earning your customers and clients devotion?

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?

This Is Why You Need A Drone

During our town’s 4th of July fireworks I noticed something new. Little red lights up in the sky over the crowd. Aliens watching the festivities? Nope. Drones. Filming the fireworks from just outside the explosions.

High in the upper canopy of the Amazon, hovering above an active volcano, helping search and rescue teams, drones are giving us a new perspective. Perspectives we couldn’t get without their help.

Companies trying to create brand strategies internally are hampered by the same thing: a lack of perspective. They’re just too close. Strategic accuracy requires an aerial view to understand not only what the brand is about, but its competitive landscape and its customers. 

Company insiders can create blindspots. CEO’s and CMO’s have strong ideas about what their company is or is not. Only an outsider has the independence to evaluate, recommend re-thinking, or even setting aside these preconceptions.

Branding agencies are like drones. They can give you that birds-eye perspective you simply cannot have no matter how high up you are in a company. Would your company benefit from seeing the fireworks from a different perspective?

photo:  NANO CALVO/CORBIS

The Prince Needs A Logo

Last month I got an email from a guy starting a furniture importing business. He needed a logo and pamphlet for his first trade show. Our phone connection was terrible, but he agreed without hesitation to my estimate of what it would cost.

He sent me a detailed project brief. I sent him a proposal. He accepted it no questions asked. I thought this was a little odd, but I told myself everyone deserves an easy client once in a while. Don’t they?

He wanted to pay the 50% deposit immediately by credit card. He was in a hurry. Too big of a hurry. I sent him the invoice. Then I got the email. It said: “I am going to pay you immediately, but I need a favor.”

That’s when I knew I was getting scammed. They want to pay you extra, then ask you to send the extra funds to another contractor for them. Then they dispute the credit card charge, and you’re out the money you relayed. 

So I emailed a reply asking if by chance he was also a Nigerian prince. He never wrote back.

I keep telling myself I should have see it earlier. No clients are that easy. No clients ask no questions. But I mean, who scams design agencies? Who sets up a grift by asking for a logo and a pamphlet? A prince does apparently.

photo source: www.thetechbreak.com

All The Feels

Recently, I worked with a client who specializes in shipping stuff to and from Latin America. Experts in Third Party Logistics. Their competition’s websites are full of online calculators for weights, fees, dates, lists of countries. Lots of data. My client’s website is not. Their website talks about things like how it feels when your boss congratulates you for hitting that impossible shipping deadline. 

In the book “Brand Immortality: How Brands Can Live Long and Prosper”, the authors analyzed 1400 case studies of advertising campaigns. They found that campaigns with purely emotional content almost doubled the performance of ads with only rational content. 31% vs. 16%. We act on what we feel. Not what we think.

When you speak to someone’s emotional center rather than their logical mind you solicit a response that is stronger, deeper, longer-lasting and primal.

That’s why I always counsel my clients on how critical it is to know their customers motivation. Not only what functional problem they want solved, but how they want to feel when that happens. 

Because the feeling is what they are seeking. Security, joy, safety, recognition. If you can describe and deliver the feeling, the mind will follow.

photo credit: Alk3r@flickr.com

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

Just Keep Swimming

I was scuba diving in St. Croix a couple of weeks ago. Lionfish are an invasive species in the Caribbean and they are eating all the other fish - absolutely decimating reef populations. They’re evil. So whenever you go diving these days you take a speargun. Because while you’re out having diving fun, you are also always hunting lionfish. 

When you spear a lionfish, sharks, who can smell a single drop of blood in an olympic-sized pool pick up the electric impulses and soon show up hoping for a free meal. So you have to keep your eyes open. Because when sharks arrive after hearing a dinner bell, they are let’s just say, frisky.

The athletic marketplace is looking a lot like a reef these days. With the imminent demise of traditional sporting goods retailer Sports Authority, there is blood in the water. Athleisure brands like Under Armour, REI, Athleta and Sweaty Betty are circling, taking advantage of the opportunity and snapping up new customers as lifestyles and tastes change.

It’s survival of the fittest. Design and strategic branding are powerful assets for customer acquisition, but so is just paying attention when someone else is getting speared.

photo credit: lionfish: keywestaquarium.com

Under Your Skin

My wife Beth has some tattoos, a few different styles, added at different times, and scattered about. One cluster she wasn't happy with anymore. She decided to join them together into a single design that was unified and had continuity. 

In the tattoo world, they call this a “cover-up”. But obviously you can’t just start over with a clean slate. You have to incorporate the old designs into the new one in order to hide them.

It’s complicated, expensive and it takes far longer to do than the original. Meaning even more time under the needle. Ouch.

I’ve been working with a entrepreneur who realized the brand presence they have is a bit of a mess. They had developed it piecemeal, designing new elements as they were needed. But as it became larger, the brand became scattered.

As we worked to clarify his brand strategy and create an cohesive design system, it struck me that branding is a lot like tattooing. It’s far better to think it through and make the investment than to cobble it together bit by bit. 

Because doing a brand cover-up hurts.

A Better Mousetrap

My next door neighbor has mice. It was a cold winter here in the Northeast and I guess their basement was a little more cozy than the woodpile outside. Their cat, historically a great mouser, has been slacking. It's not healthy to have mice around when you have kids, so they had to set some traps.

Peanut butter is the ticket with mice. The trick is to put the trap out without setting it and let them get used to eating from it. Then one day you set it. 

Brands do the same thing with us. Nestle is doing it with their chocolate. We like Nestle's chocolate. We've gotten used to eating it.

So when Nestle announced that they’re going to cut the sugar in their chocolate, they set the trap.

We all know eating less sugar is a good idea. We’ve been packing away a little too much of it for the last few decades. So Nestle is betting that if we know there is less sugar in their chocolate, we will feel better about buying and eating more of it.

Some of us may be smarter, or have more willpower than that. But this mouse likes the cozy warmth of the idea of more chocolate. More chocolate is always better. Snap.

Let's Co-Everything

From co-working to bike-sharing to millennials co-habitating with their parents, it looks like owning something yourself is just getting too hard.

Going it alone in retail is hard, too. Just ask American Apparel. One of the fastest growing US companies only a decade ago, they are now closing their doors. They hadn’t made a profit since 2009.

The cost and risk of opening a retail presence has always been a significant barrier for brands just getting started. You used to have to go it alone. But now you don’t have to. 

There is a co-retailing startup called Bulletin. It helps smaller brands merchandise their products without having to have a brick and mortar store of their own. They divide up a single retail location into smaller sections, from a shelf to half a store, that you can rent month-to-month. It’s brilliant and is smashing the barrier to entry into physical retail.

The new co-economy is giving rise to this kind of innovation every day. Is there a barrier to entry that is standing in the way of you growing your business or creative practice? Take a step back and ask, “How can I co-it?”

photo credit: Sebastien Wiertz @flickr.com

Brandbot Voice

Danger Will Robinson. Those were the first robot words I remember hearing. Robbie the Robot on "Lost In Space" with his dryer vent tube arms flailing was a voice you could trust. Always watching out for Will.

I got a text the other day from someone who said they met me on Tinder and wanted to chat. Except that I’m not on Tinder. So that was the first giveaway that she was a chat 'bot. The second was that she wanted my credit card number so she could verify my age. Ummm, no.

Our first painful brand 'bot interactions were likely with voice recognition on customer service phone trees. But everyday the chances increase that when we are interacting with a company online, we are actually talking with a chat 'bot. This presents brands with a new and significant opportunity.

A powerful new touchpoint for reflecting brand personality is appearing. Not only does talking to a ‘bot need to feel “normal” but ideally you want to design a conversational brand voice that aligns with your brand’s positioning. And unlike my Tinder friend, it needs to be one you can trust. 

photo credit: Scott Beale @ laughing squid, http://www.laughingsquid.com

Open Doors

Just out of college I had a job painting the front doors of 400 apartments in a huge complex. You have to have the door open to paint it, so I got to peer inside 400 families lives. From the outside, all those apartments looked cookie-cutter-same. But when you looked inside they were…

In branding and design you have to understand what people do in order to fulfill their desires. The challenge is getting the truth. What people say they do and what they actually do is often very different. That’s why direct observation is the best way to uncover a consumer need. Seeing is always more accurate than hearing.

Today, people are photographing and posting every waking moment online, essentially opening their apartment doors for anyone to peer in. The Selfie Era. Some call it narcissistic folly. But those of us who leverage consumer insights for a living are having a field day.

photo credit: Hernán Piñera @ flickr.com

A Happy Ending

I like the way these jeans fit. So I decided to order another pair online. Same brand, same fit, waist, length, copied right off of the label. So when the order came… whoa, I was in for a big loose baggy surprise! Does this story sound familiar?

What are these, “Mom jeans” for men? How could it be that a giant in denim, one with 50 years of experience in making jeans was so off the mark? I couldn’t help but see it as a concrete illustration of the market share shrinkage this brand has been experiencing in recent years. 

By focusing on winning back it’s customers through advertising, social media, email promotional campaigns and a parade of celebrity spokespeople, they took their eye off the ball. They forgot about the product.

All truly iconic brands deliver one thing: a consistent product experience. Without that, any other investment you make in winning customers is wasted. Get the product right. Give the story a happy ending.

photo credit: Robert Sheie @ Flickr.com

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

Make Your Mark

Long before I entered the design and branding arena, I was a painter. I worked on a large scale, usually about 5' x 6'. I’d sit in my studio and contemplate the expanse of white canvas in front of me. What do I do first? What if I blow it? It could be paralyzing.

Over time I discovered the key to unlock this limbo. You just make a mark. Any mark. You just have to disrupt the white of the canvas. Because after you've made that first mark, you have something to react to. To build upon.

So often we want to create something new. Something out of nothing. Like a business, or a brand, or a blog. But we are paralyzed. The answer is the one I found painting. Make a mark. It doesn't matter if it sucks. Because you're going to keep making marks and over time those first marks will be replaced with something better. Something approaching your vision. 

I can't tell you that starting isn't the hardest part. It is. But you just have to make one mark and then the journey of creation begins.

photo credit: Anders Lejczak @ Flickr

Out Of Your Comfort Zone

Yoga hurts. That’s what my wife’s t-shirt says anyway. It’s funny because if you’ve done yoga, you know it’s true. What yoga does is make you hold a pose that hurts a little, feels good a little and puts you right on the edge of your comfort zone. 

The goal is to maintain a feeling of peace when you are in the middle of doing something hard. It’s a great analogy for business. Our professional work can be trying. Learning to maintain a sense of balance and calm in the storm is what we all strive for.

However, just outside our comfort zone is where we grow, where we learn, where new things happen and new opportunities appear.

To grow, you have to let go of worrying what people think of you. Let go of perfectionism. Let go of that ego a little. Don’t try so hard to fit in. Because winning in business is about standing out. 

It’s about moving out of your comfort zone.

What Makes You, You?

We are inundated with marketing speak. Jargon like “360º campaigns”, “to the next level”, “world class” and “surprise and delight”. We all use them sometimes. The danger is becoming a business ‘bot, or worse - you may be missing the opportunity to make a human connection with your audience.

I was chatting with an entrepreneur who is having trouble crafting her brand message. She is an avid horse-back rider and was wondering if she should leverage the phrase “unbridled passion” in her communications. Her friends were saying “Don’t do it, people will think you have an equestrian business!”

I encouraged her to embrace it. Her love of horses is what makes her human. It lets us into her soul a little. She approaches her consultancy with the same energy and love that she does her horses. It’s a great story, it’s her narrative and it’s authentic.

What is it that makes you human? Are you bearing your soul a little in your work and in your brand? Tell your story and embrace your narrative. It’s what makes you, you.

And it’s your customer’s way in.

The Moment Brands Dream Of

A few weeks ago, I attended the Virtual Reality Summit in NYC. I was struck, not with how advanced the technology is - but rather with how no one really knows what to do with it.

There is a saying in Silicon Valley, “It’s a technology looking for a problem.” They don’t really know how to use it, or what to use it for. They just know that when someone puts on a VR headset, they don’t want to take it off. And when they do take it off, they all say the same thing, “Wow.” 

I’m reminded of a day eons ago when I took a box-shaped Apple mouse in my hand and clicked around in Mac Paint for the first time. At that moment, I knew I was witnessing a watershed moment in art, design and communication. I knew everything was about to change. This is where we are with VR. It will be huge. For entertainment, education, medicine, design, science, communication, all of it.

This is the kind of moment brands dream of. The opportunity exists for brands to design immersive sensory worlds and architect experiences of unimaginable scope. But amazingly, brands are sitting on the sidelines. They need to get in there and start imagining, experimenting, and pushing pixels around. Because everything is about to change.