Leo Burnett - Cultural Fuel

A cool initiative from VW around fun theory. “…the thought that something as simple as fun is the easiest way to get people to change their behavior for the better.”

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Here comes a great product idea. Obviously based on people’s observed behavior
Thanks for sharing Imke!

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I’ve seen a lot of young men wearing bags these days. And I’ve been told men’s bags are finally popular. Well, I seem to have missed a fashion trend. Once again.

Men used to wear bags in the 80s, too. But then, their bags were handbags which tended to be smaller and the clip was around men’s wrists.

Women and men were more equal in the 80s, at least as far as bag size is concerned: women’s bags tended to be smaller, too. While men wore it as practical extension of their pant pockets, women used it as decoration, going well with the teased out hair and generally they were made to be worn rather than carried.

Today this is different. Women’s bags have gotten bigger. Maybe it’s just that there is more stuff to carry, including all the new electronic gizmos women now tend to carry around.

Here’s a tongue-in-cheek interpretation of these gender-specific changes in wearing a bag:

1) Female Empowerment: Today’s women not only have the ability to easily carry everything with them wherever they go. They tend to do so by carrying the bags in their elbows, which makes them look like they are flexing their muscles, a true visual cue for men that they are emancipated and powerful (see photo above).

2) Masculinity shift: Men, put under pressure by emancipated women, now have to take a step forward, or actually backward to cowboy times: their bags look like gun holsters – just to avoid being emasculated …

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Today, the Wall Street Journal reports about the latest efforts of the marketers to tailor ads to specific consumers in the store. The approach is mostly that the marketers install new digital screens that are appearing next to cash registers and in store aisles. Because cameras are embedded in many of these digital screens displaying the ads, marketers are hoping to serve up ads based on the consumer’s appearance. In detail WSJ describes two cases of Dunkin’ Donuts in USA and of Procter & Gamble in Germany:

Dunkin’ Donuts is among the first marketers in the U.S. to begin testing the technologies, at two locations in Buffalo, N.Y. People ordering a coffee in the morning can see ads at the cash register promoting the chain’s hash browns or breakfast sandwiches. At the pick-up counter, customers see ads prompting them to return for a coffee break in the afternoon and try an oven-toasted pizza.

In a separate test, Procter & Gamble is placing radio-frequency identification tags on products at a Metro Extra retail store in Germany so that when a customer pulls the product off the shelf, a digital screen at eye level changes its message. When a consumer picks out a shampoo for a particular type of hair, for instance, the screen recommends the most appropriate conditioner or other hair products, says John Paulson, president of G2 Interactive, a digital-marketing arm of WPP Group’s G2 Network.

Furthermore they write that all of these “instore targeted advertising” options are still in their infancy and much research still needs to be done to evaluate the best types of ads to display and the way consumers respond to messages.

“I’m a skeptic on technology in the shopping environment,” says Andy Murray, chief executive of Saatchi & Saatchi X, the Publicis Groupe agency that focuses on in-store marketing. “Screens need to be useful to get people to pay attention, and if stores are just using them to sell products, shoppers won’t be receptive,” he says.

Press article WSJ August 21, 2008

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One of the core differences of Leo Burnett’s HumanKind approach is that we should observe human behavior rather than just inferring knowledge by asking people things. This way, a brand can create acts that play into and enable people better than pure ads that bombard them with irrelavtn messages.

Experience Planning has used this type of insight generation for a long time, but now that we’ve mixed methodologies with traditional methods, I asked myself, who outside of advertising or marketing or academia already observes human behavior in their daily line of work?

It’s pretty obvious: it’s comedians. Like no other group do they make their living of being able to spot trends, behavior, knacks, idiosyncrasies people or groups and serve them up as “funny insights.”

In a way, the better and uncommon the insight, the louder the audience’s applause. It is a very human thing to be able laugh at some fundamental truths being unearthed in front of you. You see youself, and groups around mirrored before you, which can be an inspiring act. As planners, this is what we should aim for. We shouldn’t necessarily make creatives laugh (they are used to making the jokes themselves), but whether we are planners or creatives, we should aim to inspire others in that way.

Here is one of my favorite comedian insights, in this case about men and women fighting (warning: liberal use of expletives!)

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