Experience Manifesto

More Agencies Opening Their Own Lab

It's been a little over a year since my partners decided to close BEL and focus their efforts in the in-cinema space. I didn't support that decision on any level, as I thought that the Lab concept could've been a valuable player in the advertising industry. Turns out, I was ahead of the curve when I came up with the Lab idea in 2001. More and more agencies are beginning to open their own labs to help both clients and employees get up to speed with all of the tech changes happening today. We said this in the first BEL newsletter:

Founded in 2001 by a group of industry professionals with depth in brand management, technology, marketing and product innovation, BEL has created a nexus of innovation and education that places applied market research in the hands of innovative brand managers. BEL has formed a synergy partnership with two highly esteemed institutions to provide the first applied marketing research consortium. Simply put, BEL allows marketers to create technology and media based approaches that allow their products to better touch the hearts and minds of consumers—and own the intellectual property of the approach. (Emphasis mine)

News today that Media Kitchen & KBP+S opened up the "Test Kitchen" at their offices downtown. Lori Senecal, President & CEO of KBP+S said:

“Today, ideas are truly great only if they’re conceived and deployed fast enough to gain a competitive advantage in the marketplace.”

Back when I first started talking about the idea of a brand experience lab with people like Don Marinelli from the Entertainment Technology Center at CMU and Alan Ellenbogen (we started our discussions at the dog play group in Montclair), I knew that there was a need for people in the brand world to understand how technology was going to impact how we communicated with consumers.

There were several challenges that I saw at the time that were not being addressed:

• Agencies that I knew exploring emerging tech were looking at these emerging technologies through the eyes of what they've previously done. So, back then "futurists" were talking about location based services from an interruptive POV, saying things like "Won't it be great when as you're walking down the street, you can get ads beamed to you from the stores you're passing." But no one I knew actually wanted that.
• Agencies seemed more interested in just jumping on the bandwagon du jour then in actually deeply exploring something. Remember how many branded content, WOM and Second Life agencies started back then?
• Technology companies spoke in their language, not in the clients language, so you usually ended up with lots of cross talk instead of real conversations. They talked about pixel counts and refresh speeds, but they didn't talk about how this technology would help the client. It was almost always a conversation about how cool the technology was. And many times when I met with technology creators, they didn't want to tell you anything or they wanted long NDA's to protect their IP. When I was doing VR work, I used to joke that most of my clients didn't care how VR worked, they just cared about how it worked for them.

Today we're seeing much more strategic thinking about these test environments. And I still think there's great opportunities to explore what's happening OOH and the applied research opportunities that can be developed with university partners.

I'm glad to see this kind of experimentation happening and I'm sure you'll see more agencies following these leads. It was a good idea in 2001 and it's even more important in 2010.

From the 2005 article Ad Age article about the Lab:

Nick Utton described the Lab's work by saying that "it was certainly something that opened our eyes." Which is exactly what Mr. Polinchock is trying to do, as marketers are under increasing pressure to find new ways of creating meaningful interactions with customers. "As we create more and more places to send them messages, they find more and more ways to turn the messages off," Polinchock said. "The need a different set of conversations to occur."

Five years later, I'm still helping to open up client's eyes and helping them try a different set of conversations.

(Click here to download the Ad Age Article about the opening of BEL)

Advertising - Popular Science and Agency Create World of Tomorrow - NYTimes.com.

jez paxman: Interview with David Polinchock

Jez Paxman, writing at jez paxman, has a nice, quick overview of my podcast from The New Storytellers. I'm going to see if I can get Michael Margolis to join me one day on a walking tour of Soho and continue the discussion on the importance of place.

Small businesses tend to be at the beginning and that makes framing a story and a passion easier, larger business have often forgotten what their story is (Emphasis mine).

Stories allow brands to frame barriers in positive ways.

A great story is best told through a face-to-face experience that is why location branding is so important for businesses.

Brands can benefit hugely from translating online experiences, such as being a Facebook fan, into real world community happenings.

Retailers should think of stores as social media spaces. If your store is only a space to buy product then you aren't really offering anything because you can do that lots of places. (Emphasis mine) David tells of a clothing store that wheels its display rails to one side and uses the store space for yoga classes.

jez paxman: Interview with David Polinchock.

Another Reason to Think Oneline™

Yahoo is out with a new study about the internet and WOM and here's the lead stat:

Most WOM is positive, and it still happens the old-fashioned way. Although some advertisers may fear negative WOM, research shows that 66% of brand references in WOM conversations are positive and only 8% are negative.

So where do these conversations take place? Despite the explosion of social media online, 76% of WOM conversations still take place face-to-face (Emphasis mine).

So, if 76% of WOM takes place face-to-face, then why is so much of our social media effort directed online? While putting efforts into creating fan pages and getting people to follow them on Twitter are important things, many brands ignore their physical locations? Remember the chart below that I posted from Paul Mcenany a while back?

If you're not looking at how the conversation is starting at the point of interaction with your brand, you're missing the boat. You can't create good WOM program if your experience isn't worth it. Now, more then ever, brands need to think Oneline.

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Great Question -- Why Don't Brands Create Better Experiences? - Polinchock's Ponderings.

ADDITIONAL READING

Polinchock's Ponderings: Social Media.

Polinchock's Ponderings: Socialization of Place.

Podcast: Brand Experience Design with David Polinchock on 6/22/10 | Get Storied: articles, tips, and resources for the business of storytelling

My podcast with Michael Margolis is up, so click on the link below and enjoy the conversation between Michael & I about what makes a great experience, the socialization of place and how businesses can use experience as a point of differentiation. It was a fun program and I'm looking forward to doing it again in the future.

What exactly makes for a memorable brand experience? And how is technology changing the context for mastering this equation? Join us for the next episode of The New Storytellers, when we’ll talking with David Polinchock, a pioneer in the field of brand experience design and technology application. David has been an innovation catalyst for over two decades, exploring the socialization of place and the narratives dimensions of branding. David is equally passionate about the merging of our “offline” and “online” selves, and the implications this holds for a brand’s continuum of experiences.

Podcast: Brand Experience Design with David Polinchock on 6/22/10 | Get Storied: articles, tips, and resources for the business of storytelling.

The Experience Disconnect

Image source: Andrew Wein

Yesterday, I saw this quote come across from Forrester Customer Experience Forum 2010 Twitter feed. Today, I saw it on Andrew Weir's blog Brand Experience Matters.

This is one of the reasons I take clients on experience walking tours and make sure that they also experience their own brand. Because there's clearly a huge disconnect between what people think about the experience they're delivering and the experience they're actually delivering.

Are you passionate about your brand? Does your brand passion come from the top or is it something that you expect to start at the bottom?

Do you know what experience your consumer is receiving?

Are people receiving the same experience across every touch point?

Do your employees know your experience expectations?

Are your processes set-up for your benefit of your customers? Or are they set-up as obstacles to your customers?

These aren't just nice to know questions any more, they're critical if you want to be a successful business. Consumers have too many choices to tolerate mediocre experiences, not for long anyway.

Everyone's all excited about what social media & word-of-mouth can deliver to brands, but remember, it starts with the experience first. If you're not delivering a compelling, authentic and relevant experience, you can't make anything else happen.

Give me a shout to set-up an experience audit and find out if you're delivering the experience you think you are. Click here to learn more about how I can help you deliver the best experience to your consumer.

Remember what I say about great stories:

People want to tell a great story

People want to hear a great story

People want to participate in a great story

Brand Experience Matters: CEOs take note.

Great Question -- Why Don't Brands Create Better Experiences? - Polinchock's Ponderings.

Is This the Ad Future? Customer Service Wins Titanium in Cannes - Polinchock's Ponderings.

Another Reason to Think Oneline™ - Polinchock's Ponderings.

Download "Are You Telling a Great Story"

Download "The Great Marketing Hunt"

Is This the Ad Future? Customer Service Wins Titanium in Cannes

News out of Cannes last week was that Twelpforce won the Titanium. Adage had this to say about the win:

WHY THEY WON: Top of mind in jurors' minds about Best Buy's Twelpforce was how it changed the client's business and reimagined the customer-service experience (emphasis mine). "The phrase that came up with this piece was that it was a 'business-changing idea,'" said juror Rei Inamoto, CCO of AKQA. Not only is it game-changing, but it changes the business of the client. [Also] one of the things I think about a lot when we do our work is that it should be useful, usable and delightful. This piece hit all those points, especially the last -- it put delight back into customer service."

Added jury president Bob Greenberg: "It's a really big idea that can move the industry forward with how we tie into physical space, retail, channels, associates and service." The simplicity of the idea also contributed to its brilliance.

One of thew things missing from the discussion about this award is that a customer service program took a major award at an advertising show. Has that ever happened before? I'm not sure it has. But to me it shows a huge potential chance in what we consider advertising and I'm not talking about the technology they used.

For years, people like me in the experience space have been talking about the critical role that the consumer experience plays in the marketing of a brand. In todays world, where I can Tweet about my experience while I'm having it, it's perhaps even more critical. Of course, The Experience Economy, written by Pine & Gilmore in 1999 talked about the business importance of experience.

But now we have a straight up, customer service program winning the Titanium award. It didn't start out as an advertising program that morphed into customer service. It's goal was to recreate the customer experience that you could have with Best Buy. Yes, it was used in ad campaigns, but it really seems to be a customer service program at its heart.

Now, the question for me were the jurors really impressed by the customer service program or were they more enamoured by the use of Twitter and the fact that it was done by Crispin? If it's the latter, then nothing really groundbreaking occurred here. A hot agency won an award for using the hot technology of the day.

But, if it's the former, then maybe we could see a break-through here, were customer service is now considered part of the advertising/marketing mix. And brands really need to start listening. A few months back, Paul Mcenany asked a very simple question:

If the people most likely to talk about you are those that have had some sort of experience with you, it baffles me why we spend such a relatively small amount of time and money making that person's experience one worth talking about.

A challenge to programs like this is that while I've always given Best Buy high marks for their online experiences, I'm usually pretty disappointed by my in-store experiences. You can read a classically bad Best Buy experience here and you can read an excerpt from my holiday shopping experience with them this past Christmas.

When brands deliver exceptional service in one channel, I expect that level of service in all channels. And when you don't do that, I'm even more disappointed with my experience.

But with this award for customer service, maybe, just maybe, more brands will start to focus on the experience they deliver. And maybe, brands and agencies will start putting some thoughts into creating a better in-store experience. In our efforts to create better online experiences, we frequently forget about the importance of place.

RealTimeCannes: Wieden wins two more Grand Prix: in Film for Old Spice and in Integrated for Nike Livestrong; CP+B tops Titanium for Best Buy's 'Twelpforce'.

Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival.

Titanium and Integrated Grand Prix Go to Best Buy Twelpforce and Nike Livestrong Campaign - Advertising Age - Special Report: Cannes 2010.

An excerpt from a November, 2009 post about my experiences shopping at Best Buy:

I sent out several Tweets yesterday about our exploration of the Sony Reader and how disappointed we were by our experiences. Our first stop was Best Buy, where we couldn't initially find the display. The helpful associate in the phone department (we also needed a battery for my wife's old Pebble) sent us to the computer department. But, that's not where the Sony Reader is and the 2 people helping us in the computer section weren't even sure if Best Buy carried any ereaders. In fact, one of the guys was positive they didn't carry any. But, we listened to the other person and went over to where he suggested and there was a display of the Sony Reader. But, one of the readers wasn't working and we tried everything we could to get it restarted. When we finally went to get another person to help, he told us that the units were locked in a demo mode and there was nothing we could do.

Best Buy is one of those stores that I usually find to be a good example of a retailer in desperate need of e-tailing their retail. Their web site is full of useful and helpful information. I use it a lot. I like the consumer reviews, I like the depth of information. I find it easy to research products on their site and use it whenever I'm looking for electronics. But going into their stores is usually painful. It's easier now to find the right section thanks to the redesign of the store and the new graphics.

But once you get to the right section, it's really hard in my experience to get any information about the products. I usually look at the product, then head over to the Apple section, go to the Best Buy web site and then continue my research there. The first thing Best Buy should do is at least put computers in each section so I don't have to trek across the store to get to the computer section. But they should also be doing a lot more training. Then, they should require the staff in each section to review the web site for that section and know what people are saying about the products. They shouldn't be allowed on the store floor until they can pass a test about their section.

Read the full post at Are Your Frontline Employees Part of Your SM Strategy? - Polinchock's Ponderings.

Great Question -- Why Don't Brands Create Better Experiences? - Polinchock's Ponderings.

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