Leo Burnett - Cultural Fuel

Splitscreen: A Love Story from JW Griffiths on Vimeo.

Shot entirely on the Nokia N8 mobile phone. Winner of the Nokia Shorts competition 2011.

Director: JW Griffiths

Producer: Kurban Kassam

Director of Photography: Christopher Moon

Editor: Marianne Kuopanportti

Sound Design: Mauricio d’Orey

Music composed by: Lennert Busch

(via)

“What if everyone was given free access to the sum of all human knowledge?” … This and the fact the world needs a source of free knowledge for the information age that is free of commercial interest is reason enough for Leo Burnett Germany to propose Wikipedia as the first digital, first global and youngest UNESCO’s Cultural World Heritage.

Sign the petition clicking on this link: Sign petition.

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I recently had the pleasure of being a panelist at Kellstadt Marketing Group’s 2011 symposium: Click: Emerging Media and the Empowered Consumer. My panel covered Business Intelligence, and how managers can get CRM working in their enterprise. One of the questions the audience put forward was about how to start, and what to expect as you start to bring actionable data in.

In our discussion we compared the stages of the enterprise to the evolution of a new country or civilization - where some brave souls have to enter the wild frontier, and establish outposts to grow from. As cities develop and expand, the industry and economy evolve into new and more powerful forms, eventually becoming information-based.

The first stage is The Frontier - a scary wilderness where the enterprise functions without any structured data at all.  Some businesses have huge areas of activity that don’t collect or manage any data at all. Up until recently, many consumer packaged goods manufacturers were in this phase.  Just like the frontiers of old, this creates vast unknown areas, brimming with opportunity and ready for exploration. And it only takes one brave soul (or a group of them) to get to the next step.

Colonization - the stage where companies start to use data to make suggestions to users, or personalize experiences.  Companies in this stage are testing the waters, so just like the first colonies, there are only a few outposts - not a real support network. They are looking to provide a solid case before investing any real infrastructure money. That said, if you’re in this situation, then make sure that your operation is properly set up to prove ROI, because your ’supply ships’ will stop coming if you can’t prove that using data is a winning proposition. Many services companies get caught in this phase, with their management waiting to see proof that it makes sense to invest in anything more than a basic customer database. Once a case is made and accepted by management, then expansion into the next phase is possible.

Industrial Revolution - the stage where things start getting automated at scale. More and more of the company becomes dedicated to getting customer personal and behavioral data pulled into the stream, and infrastructure gets built on a massive scale to expand the reach of data both in the company and out to users. Some banks are good examples of this kind of enterprise - with each product group in the company depending on their customer data to excel, but tending to work in silos, without a centralized view of the customer. Just like in the actual industrial revolution, there are stories of both winners and losers. Some companies will not adjust fast enough. Some areas of the company will hang onto ‘how things were done in the past’.  Winners get to move to the next step, which is also a revolution.

Information Revolution - this is where data becomes so central to how the business operates, that the company can say that information drives the business forward.  In this economy, if you’re out of the data stream, you’re out of the picture. Due to technology advances in handling large structured and unstructured data sets, massive amounts of internal and external data get joined together to predict behavior, needs and barriers. Models are built to ensure correct customer handling, even with imperfect data, and the enterprise continues to search for what new metadata could be added to make better decisions and offers. Things change quickly in this economy (five years ago who would have predicted that social media would need to be tracked in consumer databases?), and companies like Amazon and Netflix are good examples of leaders that know that continual reinvention and innovation is crucial in order to stay ahead.

With this path to sophistication in mind, we can recommend some steps to get you from where you are to the next level in these Evolutionary Stages:

1. Know where you are. You have to be honest about ‘Where you stand Evolutionarily’.  And there are likely to be multiple, conflicting opinions in the company about how data is used. Talk to stakeholders, and avoid proclamations too early in the process. It will take time and persistence to develop a clear picture that everyone can accept.

2. Start at the top. Does your CEO know where the company stands? Does he or she agree that data can help the company evolve?  Educate through examples - showing how adding data into company operations can avoid costly mistakes, angry customers, and ineffective campaigns.

3. Make the case to evolve. Investment in infrastructure and process change must be earned. If tests and pilots are not planned to give evidence of ROI, then all the logic in the world won’t convince management to take action on data, so keep the end in mind when agreeing to how experiments will be structured, run, and measured.

4. Think big, but start small. Develop a vision of how your company could be operating if you had perfect knowledge of your consumer, and use this to guide an long-range plan. But since you know you can’t get there overnight, keep the steps in the plan small and manageable. Many successful companies value failures for what you can learn, but it’s also true that a CEO’s favorite ‘learning’ project is small, fails quickly, and delivers information that lasts.

So, are you an Information Revolution company? How are you planning to get there (or stay there)?

Bonin Bough, global director of social media and digital at PepsiCo, has a healthy attitude towards the role of social media. An attitude we’d like to see more of. Social Media is no magic bullet.

The fact that digital and social cannot rehabilitate brands or that they cannot be magic bullets seems very obvious.

Yet, these questions get asked, or at least you get the feeling that that is the expectation brands have after they finally nilly-willy accept that they need a digital strategy of some sort. This behavior makes one wonder if digital is now only seen as a lifeline for failing brand marketing. It can’t be. And indeed, if you cannot have real conversations about what your brand is strategically, what purpose it serves in the minds of people, and if you don’t work hard as an organization to remove internal barriers to allow your brand to take a fundamental stance in how it makes a qualitative difference in people’s lives, you will just end up using social media and digital channels in that very tactical way.

Thanks Bonin for saying how it is.

What is that really motivate us? Money? Well in some cases yes, but according to recent studies the answer is … well check out the video, it is really interesting (and surprising) and the conclusion is awesome: We are not horses expecting for a reward for our work, we are people!

By the way, this video is nominated for the Webbys in the animation category.

Leo Burnett Worldwide CCO Mark Tutssel sent us this inspiring video today. Jay Denhart also blogged about this from a semantic point of view here a few weeks ago, but I felt like talking about its relevance to the study of human behavior and brand management.

In this TED talk, research Deb Roy talks about an amazing project in which he recorded every word and image in his house, as his newborn son grew to learn how to talk and walk. Every bit of human behavior recorded, tracked. He has also found ways of visualizing this data in interesting new ways, unveiling patterns that may not have been apparent before.

Taking this approach the connected mass media world, he has used the tools available to him to show how people, mass media, content and contexts can be interlinked in 3D models, so that we can observe human behavior in the form of new social and interaction structures.

As a creative agency that has declared people and their behavior as the starting point of all our work (and with it behavioral planning), the sheer amount of MIT Media Lab computing power, long-term research vision and prowess to study human behavior makes me drool in envy. But also, as we move away from the brand era of mass media messaging to the people era of connected experiences, the work of Deb Roy reconfirms that continuous and deep study of human behavior - and the endeavor to create tools that help us understand it - is a worthwhile cause. Simply finding out about people’s attitudes and values, and inferring their preferences, just doesn’t cut it anymore. Rather, not only does behavioral planning unveil new patterns and types of insights that we wouldn’t have seen before, it also inspires us in ways to help brands make a qualitative difference in people’s lives that the tools of the TV and Brand era could never have.

While unfathomably complex to unravel and to look at, behavioral insights are much more substantive than traditional “consumer” insights, as they do not express an inferred interpretation about what people think or say about a brand (and how we then may be able to manipulate their perception) but rather, behavioral insights are building blocks to people’s journey through different product categories that paint a much more complete picture of how they actually live, and what they actually do. In other words, finding out what people say or think isn’t nearly as interesting or inspiring as what they do. Not only because those two things are rarely the same, but, more importantly, because today brand management and creating brand engagement isn’t so much about saying something to people but doing something with or for people along their whole customer life cycle. Observing behavior and understanding the drivers of behavior (as beautifully visualized by Deb Roy) therefore leads to not only to a completely different way of creating communications, but also to more purposeful interactions and experiences that allow brands to play a meaningful role in people’s lives.

To most technology buffs, Ray Kurzweil is a household name. He’s made a name for himself predicting technological paradigm shifts fairly accurately and has written many books on the future that not all of hope will happen as he describes.

Apparently he has written a new book that he just plugged on the Colbert report. It seems like a recycled version of one of his last ones, but still, the vision he paints is quite logical and scary at the same time.

Luckily, history isn’t always logical, but still the examples he brings in a worth checking out and not really far-fetched when you look at human behavior. Also, Stephen Colbert’s interview style is always a treat.

Living in our always-on connected lives we sometimes forget how powerful it can be to make a connection with our neighbors.  We exist day-to-day making constant virtual connections with people from all around the world.  But some of the most powerful Social Media we can interact with centers around our neighbors and local communities, like when a New Orleans artist named Candy decided to find out what aspirations were hidden in the people on her block.

It was an abandoned house in her neighborhood that inspired Candy Chang to get the community talking. She turned the side of the building into a giant chalkboard where pedestrians can complete the phrase: “Before I Die I Want To…”

On her website, Chang says that the project “transforms neglected spaces into constructive ones where we can learn the hopes and aspirations of the people around us”.

Chang has continued to check back since the launch of the project, and take more pictures of the messages added to the chalkboard over time (check out her website for more stories and pictures).

The statements range from “learn French”, to “beat some sense into you”, to “understand” and “be OK with not understanding”.  Looking at the handwritten answers to her simple question forms a fascinating picture of what is important to the people in her neighborhood.

It’s wonderful to see a project that is both personally- and community-focused, where the idea is all about getting everyone to participate together as a group, but doing so by sharing something as personal as a life objective.

I find that sometimes when marketers ask for participation, the activity ignores the fact that the person is both an individual and a member of a community (or many communities).  If you want to design powerful sharing opportunities that truly move people to action, you have to consider a few questions:

1. Why should I care? Is the activity something that benefits, enlightens or helps the person doing it?  And the purpose has to be clear here, because unless it connects with something pretty important, people won’t feel moved to take action.  Remember, the chalkboards premise is “Before I Die”, not “Before Something Unimportant Happens”.

2. Do you care? Ultimately I want to feel that the idea comes from an honest place, and that I can believe that you really want my participation (not just to sell me something).  The artist showed that she really wanted the feedback by the design, scale and commitment she showed to the project.  Can you do that?

4. Have you done your homework? Have you given me a way to participate and offer me the tools I would need to contribute in the best possible way?  She didn’t assume that every walks around with a marker. Her choice of location, site, and materials all point to a considered effort to gain a community response.

5. Will my participation make my world better? Finding new ways for people to mail in boxtops doesn’t inspire action or esteem, and shows that you’re after the individuals attention, not a member of a community.  Find ways to show your dedication to changing the world by eliminating eyesores in my community, cleaning up garbage, making people treat each other better, or spreading moments of joy.

What would you write on the wall?  What’s important to you?

Via Creative Review

Pretty interesting video on human behavior regarding our tendency to act in conform ways. Human Behavior is so much more interesting than simple attitudes. Always blows my mind.

In this TED video, Deb Roy talks about how by taping almost everything that is said or done in his his house, he assembled a rich dataset that captured (among other things) deep insight into how/when his son learned words.

Of course, this kind of research can start people thinking that “I don’t want to record everything in my life!” but I think the implications more far-reaching than privacy concerns alone.

More than anything, I’m fascinated about the possibilities of video and audio data mining in order to study human behavior.  The sheer volume of data available through continuous capture lends itself to using regression and other modeling tools to identify patterns that are too subtle for mere observation to pick up on.

1. His presentation shows what is possible in terms of re-creating the real world using very flat-looking tools like overheard video recorders.  It creates new possibilities in terms of monitoring behavior through  truly non-obtrusive means - increasing the validity of the results.  Naturally, I don’t imagine this to be fool proof, as some people might never really ‘get used’ to being taped constantly.

2. The idea of creating a permanent memory bank can be considered to be a family service - allowing families that live great distances from their younger generations to peek into developments (especially major life moments) from afar.

3.  I like the fact that he spent time talking about context for learning.  It is amazing to see the possibility to model both by location and ‘actor’ - i.e., knowing which combinations of people, situations and places encoded new information in his child’s development.

4. Naturally, as a marketer I’m fascinated to understand how conversations can be triggered by interaction with content, whether online or on TV, and being able to analyse how these different media interact with a family has my mouth watering.

Enjoy.

Via TED