Turn the boring task into a game and people will gladly do it! - Nestlé Contrex water shines

I found this fabulous case study on the Uk based agency The Lounge Group´s blog: http://www.theloungegroup.com/contrexperience-%e2%80%93-french-mineral-water-brands-on-top/

"The new video for the Nestle Water’s global brand Contrex grabbed our attention this week after it successfully topped the Global Arts Chart, which until a month ago was occupied by Evian’s record-breaking Roller Babies’ 26-month stay.

Paris based Advertising agency Marcel created the video for Nestlé with the strapline ‘Slimming doesn’t have to be boring. Contrex, my slimming partner’. Set  on the streets of Paris, the advert shows us a row of pink exercise bikes lined up facing a building. As intrigue builds, users stop and pedal the bikes soon noticing that their cycling efforts are generating pink streams of light which go on to form the neon outline of a male stripper. The neon giant strips off revealing more and more as the women pedal excitedly, holding their attention and showing them how easy it is to burn 2000 calories.

Voices amongst the buzz generated by the clip question the video’s authenticity as a brand experience. And rightly so. The filming is overly slick, the women appear to be acting and one eagle eyed viewer noted that despite the numerous shots of Paris, the building is actually located in Prague.

The premise of the experience is fun and very on brand, but does the staging take away from the desired outcome? I think it is safe to say here at the Lounge we prefer real brand experiences and authentic content!"

Other similar projects on http://www.thefuntheory.com/

If you want people to save and think of the future, you need to shut up their emotional brain and activate their thinking brain

In a study by psychology professor Dan Ariely, people who had read the ten commands from the Bible before doing a test where they had the chance to cheat to get a better result, did not cheat at all, while others who had not read the commands from the Bible did.

This indicates that if you want someone to change behaviour, you could dig up their conscience and their inner moral voice, for them to convince themselves to take action.

I believe there is no such thing as “free will”, rather different voices in a person´s head, and depending on which parts you trigger, you can get different results.

When using market research you can ask questions in a survey and hear the respondents tell you this or that, but the challenge for advertisers is that most of us have contradictory wants, because we want it all! We want to stay fit, but we also want a double choc McFlurry! We want to save our liver, but we also want to have a couple of Coopers with friends. We want one thing NOW and another LATER, and many times these two wants crash...  

A good strategic planner reads between the quant study lines, understanding the complexity and struggle of being human. To get people to change their behaviour, you need to consider the whole picture.

When studying brains fighting the “reward NOW” or “reward LATER” battle, neurobiologists have found that the thinking, rational brain is an expert in telling people they can´t have it... The older, more emotional brain is impulsive and wants to have fun immediately, but the part of our brain developed later in human history, is the “parent” telling the heart to delay gratification, saying: “Hold on a second!!”

Let´s say a person has a choice between for example “buy new shoes today” or “save my cash for later”, a marketer of shoes should wake up her “you are worth it” voices by evoking the emotional part of the brain, make it stronger and louder than the “parent” brain. But if you want people to delay, you have to shut up the impulsive part of people´s brain by waking up their smart and long term thinking part. “Delay” is a behavioural change, but not an action – what you do is to STOP another more impulsive action.

Apparently some of us are naturals in waiting, while others are spontaneous by nature. A government that wants to stop people from over spending, has to find ways to make the “live today” crowd to activate their rational brain. It´s hard, since they have the craving and will refuse to simply be told. Just look at the reactions of the Greek population when the politicians tried to stop the crazy spending... You need to find out what their inner voice is saying, and make people convince themselves, to make them replace their emotional reaction with a rational thought.

When reading the ten commands before doing a test you are activating thoughts. The moral compass will consider other people, and the guilt they may feel later on, and you suppress the temptation to cheat. The power lies in that you are not telling people “stop cheating” but rather awakening “I am better than that”.

Reading tips: Emotionomics by Dan Hill and Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely. Also check: http://www.neurosciencemarketing.com/blog/ 

The study of delayed gratification was presented in Newsweek on Nov 7, 2011

Big ideas are NOT born in workshops - this is why

If you want to get good ideas out of a bunch of people, make sure they all get to sit and ponder in a corner before gathering for a brain storm or workshop, according to this interesting article Jena McGregor.

 

"Evidence has long shown that getting a group of people to think individually about solutions, and then combining their ideas, can be more productive than getting them to think as a group. Some people are afraid of introducing radical ideas in front of a group and don’t speak up; in other cases, the group is either too small or too big to be effective.

But according to a recently published study, the real problem may be that participants’ get stuck on each others’ ideas. On Monday, the British Psychological Society highlighted a recent study by Nicholas Kohn and Steven Smith, two researchers at the University of Texas at Arlington and Texas A&M University. They asked undergraduate students to contribute ideas for improving Texas A&M, both individually and in collective groups. They shared the ideas on a computer, either in small chat groups or alone, but combined together after the fact. As expected, the “nominal” groups, or those made up of individual ideas that were later pulled together, outperformed the real chat groups, both with the number of ideas and the diversity of them.

Kohn and Smith believed the cause might be due to “cognitive fixation,” or the concept that, when exposed to group members’ ideas, people focused on those and blocked other types of ideas from taking hold. They experimented with this by manipulating the number of ideas participants saw in their chat windows, with some getting a few cues and others getting more. Their hypothesis was right: When exposed to many cues, the undergrads offered up less creative, diverse ideas. The numbers improved when the students were given a five-minute break during the exercise."

I´ve seen this happen in focus groups lots of times. A bunch of strangers sit down to discuss a topic, and at the end when you want to film them individually,they say the same thing! They use the same words, phrases, tone of voice. It´s like the group has come up with a united front and nobody can say something unique or honest anymore. Or... perhaps it´s still honest, maybe they have all convinced each other. Hypnotised each other into being like little North Korean children dancing for the leader in unizon.

Ideas get lost on the way. I´ve many times said something in a meeting without getting any response, to five minute later hear the boss say the exact same thing after which everyone go "yeah, wow, awesome". It´s not about the winning idea, it´s about the idea that wins. Different things. An idea can win because of the person who had it, of when it´s raised in the meeting, of whether people have eaten or not - and so on...

Leaders who look for really mindblowing big ideas know this. Reachers looking for truly behavioural changing insights know this. And we act on it too.

Ipad + toys = play mat - SO COOL

Digital is not just digital anymore. The real world and the one in our favourite "tech pets" are meeting. Tangible meets intangible.

Here is one lovely example:

Disney AppMATes: The iPad becomes an interactive play mat when paired with this line of sensor-enabled toys and related apps. Disney has just released the first AppMATe, a Cars-themed app equipped with races, games, and scenic roads for aimless discovery. While the app itself is free, the miniature toy cars required for play cost $20 per two-pack. The iPad recognizes each distinct car as a player “drives” it along the screen, triggering unique narratives and unlocking new features for each character. As far as driving apps go, it’s certainly more fun than those available to grown-ups, and it’s not hard to imagine a multitude of other Disney-themed versions. 

News found at trendcentral.comhttp://www.trendcentral.com/

Human beings are made to sense - not just to see. We can hear, smell, taste and feel and we are meant to. Our hearts pick up information just as our brains do, and when we are left to interpret the world simply through what we see and to some extent hear, we are missing out on something.

When people speak about information overload, I think it is more about information "over scewed". Our subconscious is not getting the data it needs to understand the world, when it´s simply fed with pictures and words. If you really want to build a bond with your market, step out of the computer, ipad, iphone - and touch them as feeling human beings. A digital strategy is fine, as long as it´s matched with an off-line one. You will be rewarded...

I love how the famous digital game Angry Birds is brought to life by T-mobile.

What does the colour of your car say about you? Next trend: eharmony for the car market?

Did you know that your personality makes you choose a certain colour of your car? Or is it the other way around... Hmm. I recently found some interesting data on how you can tell a person´s personality by checking the colour of their car.

According to research from Pantene Color Insitute, CNW Marketing Research and a NZ crash study:

Those who drive black cars are known to be aggressive, and sometimes even dangerous. They like to be seen as super competent drivers and see their car as an extension of their wilder side and assumed great driving abilities. Unfortunately, the driving skills of those operating black vehicles do not always measure up to their supposedly superior abilities.

Those who drive silver automobiles can come across as the cool, calm, James Bond types, but they may appear aloof as well. For reasons unknown, they too are seen as drivers who are dangerous, although not so much as the drivers of black cars.

For some reason yellow has been known in the past as a colour of cowardliness. In car drivers this would be a rare tendency. Most who purposely buy a yellow car are not the cowardly type, they are usually idealistic and may just like the novelty of such a bright sunshine colour; they are normally quite happy with themselves.

How about blue? Blue car drivers will tend to exhibit traits of strength and be a person who is steadfast and loyal. Blue is known as a calming type of colour, and their drivers are the more cautious types who think issues over more before proceeding.

Green is a popular choice nowadays. There are many beautiful variations of greens, from the metallic teals to the emeralds, and all the way to the virtually fluorescents. Drivers of green automobiles may be thought of as individuals that are concerned about the environment but can this colour can also give the impression that a driver may be envious and jealous. While it may be rare there are some that find the color green associated with hysterical types.

White and cream coloured cars show personalities who lean toward purity, cleanliness and innocence. There are drivers of white vehicles that are status seeking, extrovert drivers as well. These car drivers have traits of self-control and independence. They are normally safe drivers.

Red, especially the candy apple reds, really dress up a vehicle. Those colours exhibit energy, zest for life, activity and vitality. In the past red has been seen as a colour for romance, also for devilishness.

The softer side of red is pink. Usually exhibits personality traits of affection, warmth and gentleness. Pink has a psychological tendency to make one less aggressive.

Gray cars indicate coolness, calm and conservative personality traits. They will only rarely bring out strong emotion. Drivers of gray cars like their work and are dedicated to it.

Is this relevant or just quirky? Are people REALLY spending their hard earned dollars on a car of a certain colour just because they are “innocent” or “active”? Should marketers of cars even bother? Is a strategic planner who brings up the issue of colours insane? Lol.

I think all of this is evidence of cars (or shoes, boats or other things we buy to show off) not being a choice of the brain but one of the heart. Fuel-efficiency, size of the engine or other rational, practical traits of a car are of course of importance – but I am a true believer of that people buy brands to build identity. To tell others who they are. To send the world a signal. “This is ME and I belong to THIS tribe”.

Which means car makers need to have deep understanding of themselves before building their brand strategy. When you know what your brand will bring out in people, you know what kind of people who will see you as a perfect match, who will find that your car feels so comfortable and “right”. Like eharmony for cars and car buyers; the online dating site uses personality tests to find The One - perhaps cars should do the same...

Colour is just one of many factors, and I don´t suggest car marketing managers should go to their boss and say “Hey, let´s only make silver coloured cars!”, but don´t laugh or call the research flippant. This is more important than you think.

The beautiful grass car in the picture is a marketing stunt to celebrate Sony’s commitment to offsetting carbon emissions caused by their corporate travel, they created a living breathing grass car and parked it around various public locations in Sydney, Australia. http://howwemove.blogspot.com/2011/07/i-love-ads-but-i-also-have-this-secret.html

Thanks to CarInsurance.com (your online source of auto insurance, you can get a free quote then proceed all the way through purchasing and printing your policy at the convenience of your desk.) for info. :)

This is why you fail in love (or branding)

Hey, It is Friday, and a very special one. It is 11-11-11 day!! Not sure what it would mean but it sure sounds like it is a "fresh start day", right?

This is why I today skip writing about trends, advertising, branding, marketing or PR, and instead give you some love advice from my charity. Enjoy, spread the word, click "Like" :)

Love this idea: Work out and cinema in one! What health brand will do this first?

Cycle-In Cinema: Take a drive-in movie theatre, replace the cars with bikes, and you have UK educational nonprofit Magnificent Revolution’s Cycle-In Cinema. Attendees simply ride to a screening, hook their wheels up to the on-site generators and start pedaling. All of the electricity needed to project the film comes from the kinetic power created by the riders. To ensure that the noise of pedaling doesn’t interfere with movie dialogue, the audio is disseminated through a wireless transmitter and can be played via a mobile phone or FM radio. Overall, this does seem like a far more entertaining way to marry fitness and content than watching whatever’s on the tube at the gym. (trend spotted by trendcentral.com)

I love new innovations like this. Take a concept - movies - that normally includes naughty treats and guilt, and turn it around to become a way to make exercise more fun. Why has nobody thought about this before?

Another brilliant new campaign is Subways´ "Keep up the good work". Solid strategy and insights on how it feels to be a human being today, getting drawn in all sorts of tempting directions by fast-food chains, chocolate sales, cozy bars... Instead of saying "our sandwiches are healthy, fatfree or have x calories", the headline "Keep up the good work". It puts the light on the consumer, instead of the product. It rewards, instead of adding a "must". It signals joy instead of burdens.

Most campaigns about health are judgmental, aren´t they? There seems to be a lack of understanding of why people choose to eat rubbish food and drink wine. I believe people who work with health - personal trainers, nutritionists or cancer doctors - are so into their own fitness they have forgot how it is to be normal. To them it´s gross to eat chocolate almonds as a replacement for dinner. To them it´s awful to be hungover on a Wednesday morning, not being up to CARPE DIEM. It´s a little black and white... 

Most people do a little of both. Some mornings you go for a jog and feel like entering City to Surf. Some days you pig out and all those fat free products stare you in the face, judging you. 

I believe the wrong people market most health products. The people starting a weight loss program are not the once who needs it. Those paying for an anti-drug advertising or marketing campaign are not the users. Girls working in botox salons are most times 22 and think they are immune against wrinkles. 

They will never understand. 

When you wish to change a behaviour as complex as addictions - mental or physical - you have to step out of your own logic. Into theirs. Into what they don´t even know about themselves. That´s where you find the eureka moment that will lead to a campaign that touches the heart.