morning musings

this morning, I came across some great learnings.

Bill Bernbach: Greatness of it all

I read this article by Al Ries in the adage.com about what made Bill Bernbach great. I was shocked that it wasn't really his capacity for creativity was what made him great, but his "eye" of seeing truly great ideas. WOW.

Al Ries goes on to say that there are more people who have the capacity for creativity but very few who can recognize ideas. And this is what Bill Bernbach did with admirable skill. The article also says that people really DON'T want to be true to life, they want to show life differently, in a more idealized version.

It only underscores that thing about knowing the consumer better. Knowing the consumer better is not just making FGDs and brushing our hands off and saying, "Yes, i know the consumer", taking what they say in a sterile environment as gospel truth. Pay attention during the FGDs, consumers are sometimes pressured to say what we have conditioned them to say, what they think we want to hear, what they have already seen.

Twitter and etc.

I'm sure we have all heard of twitter by now, and the use of the internet as a medium to impart messages for different types of people. I don't need to repeat the things said by people more intelligent than me. But this struck me as particularly insightful.

I saw Clay Shirky's talk on the internet at TED.com. The most important thing about the internet is that people actually can talk-back to you. It ties in neatly with what the head of Strat Planning in Lowe, Vicky Ortega, said one of those times I was working there--advertising is a conversation between the brand and the consumer.

Before, it used to be that brands talked at the consumer. Without any guarantee if the message was being REALLY understood. Now, we are faced with that awesome thing that consumers can actually tell you what they feel AND influence others to feel the same.

Clay Shirky made an example of the earthquake in China and how China couldn't contain its citizens from tweeting or blogging as it happened. And that in the end of it all, as more stories came out on corruption, China lashed back and closed the portals to twitter (apologies, I forgot the exact terminology for this). It made crystal to me that now, we could not control what people will say about us or our brand. It's a fact that we MUST accept.

Mr. Shirky also made the example of Barrack Obama and how he handled the group of people who did not agree with one of the issues. He did not attempt to shut them down. Mr. Shirky calls it CONVENE and not CONTROL. That's freedom of thought and speech for you.

What's the point?

The point of all this is, that life leads us to different avenues. We must accept and flow with the tide. Life has given us the internet and made it increasingly social. Face-to-face interaction has become very limited but more portals are opened for opportunities to know other people.

Fascinating! It really is up to us on how to use these things to our advantage. Fingers-on-keyboard power!