And then there's Google+

You can Google just about everything you want to find out in terms of research. You can blog from Blogger, a Google product, have a Gmail account. There's more - Google this, Google that.

And then there's Google+.

You know about it but how many people really use it. I've looked over this a few times and like many just can't get to grips with it. Technically it's brilliant and offers so much choice and integration and maybe that's the problem. Google deals with data and they're brilliant at dealing with it.

Big data helps them provide the brilliant search engine that we all love. The thing that makes the Google search engine so good and so attractive is the fact that it provides quick and easy access to just about everything you could ever want to know and more besides that you probably didn't. This is presented in a brilliantly simple way: A white screen with a Google logo and a search box.

More information than you can learn in one lifetime made irresistibly attractive by simplicity of interaction that the Google search page offers.

Surely Google should look at who, not what, they are designing Google+ for. Humans aren't programs that can be set up to harvest huge amounts of data in one go - this is stressful. Naturally we want to read between the lines and get to the point - we're curious, irrational beings after all. 

For most, great functional design for humans is the simplest way to fix a complex problem so to my mind Google+ could do with a massive simplify button. Get rid of everything that's in the way of close human interaction. Maybe this will help by letting people engage with each other a little easier online.

That was the original idea right?

www.SensationCreative.com

When brand love comes to town.

The effects of consumer behaviour towards brands and vice-versa is astounding. So when brand love comes to town you'd better be ready to understand it and what it means for your business.

The list is endless: People attach themselves to brands for many reasons from necessity to luxury indulgence. What I find incredibly interesting is what happens to the consumers mind when they attach themselves to a brand.

When brands are created specifically to tap in to areas such as mystery, sensuality and intimacy they stand a far greater chance of becoming not just respected but loved. Brands are loved for all types of different reasons and playing a part in people's lives to improve them is common reason to fuel a purchasing decision.

These days brands are also relied on to provide support in other ways; from helping to overcome global problems to helping people overcome tricky or difficult emotional circumstances - even when the specific circumstances seemingly have nothing to do with the brand itself. When a brand is being used in this way to engage with the consumer and successfully creates participation, it's clear that a strong emotional connection between the brand and the consumer exists.

This is all beyond the obvious 'on-the-tin' benefits and this is where brands are winning the hearts of the consumer as they get closer than ever to our lives and create emotional connections.

Indeed, emotional connections to brands can be so powerful that the only thing in common with a consumer-brand relationship could be that of the brand simply linking a set of relevant circumstances with the consumer for one particular moment in time.  The desired effect could be equally as simple; to create an enabler for the consumer to interact or deal with a situation in an easier way than they might otherwise have had the opportunity or thought to do so.

In many cases the result often ensures a means to end an internal emotionally based conflict, providing closure, streamlining and simplifying the consumer's life at the same time. These actions are beyond the boundaries of where a brand traditionally sits and offer a set of new, holistically structured, emotionally motivated rewards.

Looking at social media is a good example: Social media provides an accessible platform for brands and consumers to hook up and when this takes place an irresistible opportunity often arises for brands and consumers. In situations like this, brand love comes to town.

For the brand it's win, win. It creates a platform in the mind for the 'feel good factor' to thrive in and the chance of creating a stronger emotional bond with the consumer. For the consumer it's an enabler of participation in what can often be seen as 'the bigger picture'. It rewards consumers by enabling them to position themselves in a caring or responsible way with minimal effort, low risk and a perception of higher social standing.

This is good for consumer-brand relations because it gives the brand increased recognition within existing and potential markets. Crucially, for the consumer it provides a voice and opportunity for recognition on an even playing field and, at the same time creates an environment to help the consumer 'feel better' by rewarding her with warmth and empathy which of course are strongly linked to love.

Understanding this comes with a great deal of responsibility. Ensuring that Sensation Creative practice advertising techniques for our clients that are in line with ethical values is something that is very close to our heart.

As my old primary school teacher once taught me; 'It's nice to be important but it's more important to be nice'.

To my mind, the same can be said for brands.

Find out more at: www.SensationCreative.com 

The next generation needs our help, so let's inspire them.

I get asked lots of questions from students about the creative industry. Most of the time people ask me about design but occasionally I'm asked about other areas. These are from the people that want to be creative but in different areas. Therefore it's very hard for these young people to know how to ask the right questions or seek the right advice about possible careers.

This morning I received just such an email from a young person called Jack. He asked about graphic design. This would be a good area for him to study.

“Potentially as a job I would like to not design graphics but be creative in my own way. I'm sorry but it is hard to explain but an example of what I would like to do is me (be) given a few pictures, a title and text from my employer for a poster and i choose how to lay it out, what colours to use, what font etc.

I was wondering if choosing graphic design in college for me is a good idea and if not what would you advise? A response would be really appreciative.”

The answer about graphics is simple - 'Yes'. But there is much more to think about. I thought by sharing this it might help other people in a similar situation.

I replied:

“Hi Jack,

You know, firstly I wanted to do graphics so I got good at understanding what good graphics look like. Then, when I set up my first business I found out that to be really successful in this this industry you need to understand much more. Much more than they will ever teach you at school or college (your school and future college will not like me for saying this but it's true). Don't get me wrong, your schooling and college teaching is absolutely required to help provide a solid grounding to begin so please work hard in this area.

The creative industry is huge. It's not just about 'being a graphic designer'. These days consumers are faced with an overload of information - adverts are everywhere; TV, mobile, tablet, laptop, high street – you name it.

Try remembering 3 adverts you saw from yesterday. Most people I ask this question with struggle and I've not asked anyone your age before so you might be different. My point is this though; most advertising, which is produced by all different types of people in the creative industry, goes to waste. These days the thing that business that wants the most is the best IDEA.

You mentioned wanting to become successful in your own way. Well one of these ways is to be the person that comes up with ideas for TV / internet adverts and printed media / websites etc. These people are called 'advertising' and 'marketing people' - they create ideas that are in tune with the dreams of the consumer. These people work with designers in addition to other types of creative people and directly with clients.

There are some really good people to listen to on a global level for when you're ready. Perhaps the best person (for me at least) is a guy called Kevin Roberts. He is the World-Wide CEO of a company called Saatchi & Saatchi and he looks after a global creative team of over 5000 people over the world. You can YouTube him and listen to some of the stuff he talks about. I think that if you look in this direction you might find the inspiration and direction you're truly looking for.

I hope this helps you Jack. Good luck and don't ever be afraid to reach for the stars.”

Some people though want to head off in their own direction; coming up with powerful ideas that they have created themselves to help market brands and then combine them with graphic design they are also creating themselves to hopefully produce great advertisements.

www.SensationCreative.com

Table stakes aren't enough.

Bigger, brighter, whiter or faster. These are all table stakes – the minimum requirements. They might let you sit in the mix for a while but playing with table stakes alone is a dangerous long term business strategy. Brands need something more to create meaningful consumer relationships.

It’s not enough to market products at people based on table stakes alone. As we know, ‘yell to sell’ doesn't work and repetition is a turn off; it’s intrusive and borderline offensive which is an insult to our brains – ‘I didn't give a shit the first time around, so why would I care the second, third, forth etcetera’ kind of thing.

I know that sounds harsh but it's just what every consumer is thinking when you start pushing the same tech / products that everyone else pushing. So what are brands to do in the battle for attraction and to win the consumer over?

The pulling power that brands once took for granted has diminished. The supermarket’s own brands have keyed in to table stakes – they do the same stuff but without the premium. Our consumer is wise to this which has led to another problem; it’s killed marketing.

The traditional marketing they teach you at college has been surpassed. Yes, you will need to understand this first to understand what comes next – a bit like a history lesson.

The hype is over.

Just in case you missed it, this happened in the 90's. People don’t believe the majority of marketing hype – it’s all been done. The role of marketing is now about connecting our consumer with a product or service. And don’t worry about having to explain much - she is very savvy and capable of making up her own mind on your idea. The important thing is that she gets it and fast. Complex, long-winded processes aren't going to simplify her life and make it any better.

With brands that struggle to maintain their premium and marketing strategies that lead to intrusive advertising that no one wants, connecting with our consumer is more difficult than ever.

For example: How many ads do you remember from yesterday? Try remembering just three. Having trouble? Of course the reality is that you have in fact been subject to hundreds. And there’s another problem; people have become immune to advertising to the point where they simply switch off.

These days we need to be much more empathetic and creative. We need to inspire movements but we can’t do anything without engaging the consumer first. How do we do this?

Become irresistible.

In a world where virtually nothing is irreplaceable the trick is to become irresistible.

What is needed now are ideas that are able to connect with consumers emotionally. This helps to create purpose inspired movements and drive brand engagement through free will and choice. Understanding consumer engagement is complex and different for each brand. However, the fact is the consumer wants to be in charge, is in charge and has the power to pick and drop at will. We need to recognise and understand this.

Respect.

For a start we need to stop treating consumers as cash machines and start respecting them as humans. Shareholders and business people who are concerned by figures only will no doubt disagree. To them often the point of business in the first place is to create shareholder value. They’ll change there ideas eventually.

It’s important to hand over power to the consumer. I know, people in business like to be in control but we need to shift focus and here’s why.

When a product really connects with a consumer it becomes more than a ‘like’. You’re more likely to hear ‘I love’ that or this.

People that 'love' a brand for example (it could be anything else such as a product, service, place, football team) means that they are more likely to go beyond logical reason in order to pursue it. This is because it reaches beyond rational thoughts digging up irrational feelings associated with love as emotional behaviour.

Kevin Roberts, World Wide CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi calls these brands ‘Lovemarks’. Lovemarks are what Roberts terms as ‘The future beyond brands’. It’s when a brand super evolves to ‘create loyalty not for a reason but loyalty beyond reason’.

Love.

For something to be loved it needs to connect with us as humans.

Only the consumer can own love for a product or service. It can’t be owned by the brand, the business that owns the brand or the person that owns the business. This is why the consumer is in charge. We need to create brands that the consumer loves and for this to happen we need to consider what really connects with them.

So as mentioned previously brands need to forget trying to be irreplaceable and concentrate on becoming irresistible. To achieve this we need to understand consumer emotion.

We need to create purpose inspired ideas that understand the consumer and taps in to her dreams. Brands need to be infused with emotions that create mystery, sensuality and intimacy – what all humans crave. Only then will the consumer want to connect and fully engage with your brand.

Ideas that connect with consumer emotions go way beyond table stakes. They inspire movements and connections. They create long term brand engagement that lead to the ultimate for any brand: Human LOVE.

A Lovemark example.

Apple is a good brand example of a this; they never have sales, people queue up over night in the cold in advance of their product launches.

This isn't the type of behaviour usually associated with humans and technology. The Apple product can't love back so this is a para-social relationship made possible only by an understanding how to connect with humans on an emotional level and this in turn creates the ultra strong consumer-brand relationship or Lovemark.

Anyone can put an idea on some paper. In truth though it takes a lot more to create and execute an idea that is capable of cutting through the overload of information to deliver a meaningful, memorable connection.

This is why ideas are the principal currency today.

In as fewer words as possible, this is what I have learned about consumer brand relationships through the work that Saatchi & Saatchi World-Wide CEO Kevin Roberts has done. It has enabled me to create and position brands very effectively in a multitude of industries.

Sensation Creative have some very interesting brands currently being worked on at the moment which I think are going to change a few rules locally, nationally and (it’s about time!) globally. Look out for these starting in November this year and heading in to what’s looking like being a massive year for Sensation Creative in 2014.

www.SensationCreative.com

Today is a new beginning.

I've just finished the final Saatchi & Saatchi book last night called Loveworks. It's a book full of the best stories of Saatchi & Saatchi's work from around the world.

In the past year I have studied Saatchi & Saatchi intensively. Reading all four of the books that work around Kevin Roberts' idea about 'Lovemarks' and bringing love in to business. Not only has this changed my life, importantly it's changed the lives of my clients bringing them new opportunities and focus.

As I walk though to the next phase in my work I will never forget, for my entire life, the journey of discovery, ideas and love for Kevin Roberts' work and the people at Saatchi & Saatchi for inspiring me with the work they have produced globally since Roberts became their world-wide CEO.

Inspiration often results from a challenge.

Perhaps the biggest challenge of all for Saatchi & Saatchi came when they were presented with 'The Impossible Brief'. The project looked for a solution to the on-going Israeli / Palestinian conflict. Where governments, politicians and celebrities had failed, could the best creative minds on the planet help to resolve 60 years of bloodshed and pain?

Realising the scale of the challenge on such a human level, Saatchi & Saatchi opened up the project to the world's most creative people, not just Saatchi people, and invited them to submit their ideas.

The winning idea eventually came through and a project called 'Blood Relations' started.

It is THE most powerful, humanistic idea I have ever come across and I don't mind admitting that this made me cry tears of joy as my brain struggled to deal with what I was experiencing. 

"Could you hurt someone that has your blood running through their veins?"

If you can't see the video here is the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giH17yZ-dVU

At its very best creative people are able to bring everything together and make the seemingly impossible, possible.

People often ask me what inspires me to do what I do as a 'creative ideas' type of person.

Now you know.

Here's to an inspiring future where love continues to work.

www.SensationCreative.com

Is Apple losing touch?

Apple have long enjoyed a premium for their products which has been greater than their rivals but is Apple still doing it for you or are you being tempted to look elsewhere?

There was a time not long ago when owning an iPhone was ultra desirable, nothing could touch it for style and cool factor.

Much as I love the Apple brand, ten or so months ago I said, 'with the great Steve Jobs gone, Apple will suffer'. And as such they have from a business perspective with in a loss of share value. More worrying news is that other companies are fast catching up and bettering Apple. In fact this has been happening for a while now. The future has more than a hint of uncertainty about it.

Apple has some of the greatest businessmen in the world to help them through this difficult stage in the company's history. So what's going on?



Brands must innovate with ideas that understand humans, not simply see them as a way to create currency.

My take on things will probably seem controversial and maybe lacking in the depth of evidence currently available for the majority of business models. Yet based on this knowledge, incredible structure for new communication models are forming for business which go beyond traditional marketing, beyond brands and beyond rational business thinking. And they're working.

Stating the obvious.

Anyone could have said that with Steve Jobs gone Apple would struggle. However, most, including some of the best businessmen around can't see why. So why is a company that has enjoyed being in such a strong position beginning to slip? And why aren't the businessmen at Apple preventing this? Forget all the business strategy, planning etc...

The reason: They are simply out of ideas.

Tim Cook, CEO of Apple must have one of the hardest jobs in the world. As just about everyone knows - he's the man who has taken over from Steve Jobs left off. 

The main difference between them as far as I see it is Tim Cook is a great businessman, whereas Steve Jobs was a great ideas man. The two cannot survive without each other at the top. In order retain market position a good business strategy is obvious but at the same time, constant innovation is required and this very hard work. 

Is it also possible that Apple could be losing touch?

More than possible - it's a serious reality on the street. Apple will beg to differ but I'm not interested in the spin they are putting on things. I'm interested in what's going on in the street and while there is still a huge and very loyal consumer attached to Apple products the younger generation doesn't seem so convinced. These are people in the teens and twenties and are the future. It's up to Apple to listen to these people if they want to be a part of their lives in the future.

The truth on the street for what I'm hearing are things like: 'Apple aren't as good as they were', 'Samsung are better', 'You can do more with Android'.

As Apple stop bringing their renowned irresistible innovative style to the market, the consumer is actively looking for new ways to retain both the ease of life which technology can provide and also street cred.

If I were Tim Cook I'd be very worried, no doubt he is, however his job dictates that he must communicate a different picture.

What happens next if issues aren't addressed and resolved?

Enter commodification. When a once ultra desirable product becomes common place and acts simply to provide a function. This type of product (or service) becomes a commodity. It has no love attached to it, becomes expected, not respected and is taken for granted.

When a product ends up here you can expect to see a massive loss of premium so lower price points. This leads to a loss of shareholder value, which many money-men consider to be the point of business in the first place.

When a company is out of ideas to create sales, instead of innovating, panic often sets in and the price is cut. From £lots to £nothing can happen very quickly.

Good news for the consumer in the short run.

However, it's very bad news for business if it can't keep up with changes in consumer values and ideals. This is when new ideas are needed more than ever and if you're not innovating and leading with ideas, you're playing catch up which comes with it own sets of rules.

A cheaper iPhone to hit the market?

With the news of a new range of lower priced iPhone beginning to circulate I fear that commodification is happening to Apple right now. This is what really got me worked up to write this blog. Design alone isn't the answer as putting existing technology in to a new box isn't going to fool today's savvy consumer.

To get a clearer picture we need to visit the early days of Apple.

Apple the company was doing well; the Macintosh launched in 1984 was successful. Innovative technology was cool and doing good business - people loved it. But cool and innovation was soon to be lost when Steve Jobs was pushed from Apple in 1985.

Of course their is a lot to read about this but my point is what happened to Apple from here until 1996.

Apple needed ideas and creativity that Jobs offered but the money-men thought they could buy their way in to the market and dictate to the consumer. For a time it seemed to work but Apple forgot about the consumer. Jobs came up with ideas to make the the lives of the consumer better, Apple were now trying to come up with ideas to make money.

The money men armed with all their stats and business plans still failed to grasp that important little point that I often mention: We're human, not machines. The machine is Apple's product and it's not going to be used by another machine, it's going to be used by a human. 


What makes business sense on paper often doesn't make sense in reality.

Why? Because humans are irrational not rational. We think with our hearts first then our minds, we're emotional beings. Neurologist Donald Calne explains this best: "The essential difference between emotion and reason is that emotion leads to action while reason leads to conclusion".

This is what businessmen often miss in their 'great' business plans. Often these plans are based on stats which are based on a system of gathering information that is floored. They're looking to reason for direction and not at what prompted this direction in the first place.
Let me quickly explain:

If you're asked to answer questions by another person, your reaction to their questions, like it or not, is going to be effected by the person asking the questions. So different people asking the same questions to the same person will often lead to variations in answers and therefore results. It's floored. If you want to ask questions and find out when people really think then do this online where there is no other human interaction. You'll get much closer to the truth this way because people are not being effected by or having to deal with emotions as part of the equation.

Back to Apple.

After years of decline, in 1996 following the purchasing of NeXT (a company that Jobs had set up), Steve Jobs found himself back at Apple in an advisory role.

Look what happened.

Jobs brought back with him vision. He brought back innovation. Steve Jobs bought back ideas to Apple. Ideas that not necessarily the board room would like but ideas that the consumer would love.

Up until Steve Jobs' death Apple was booming. Back in 1985 when he left Apple the first time, a period of decline followed.

I think with the lack of a creative leader, an innovator - an ideas man - Apple will suffer again until they find someone else better. This is why businessman Tim Cook has such a difficult task.

An great ideas man.

Steve Jobs was an innovator, a great ideas man. Humans are naturally intrigued and drawn to innovation and ideas as we want to learn. So it almost goes without saying that if a product offers this through its design makeup, it will be more desirable. Jobs managed to infuse Apple products with emotions that humans are intrigued with. This is something that based on Apple's success when he was in charge, came naturally to him.

Indeed, it would appear that if the money-men had understood the value that ideas people had to offer a business relationship better at the time, instead of trying to own it, things may have been very different for Bill Gates.

Conclusion.

Kevin Roberts, CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi says that ideas that are based on emotion are our principle currency.

He's right and this is my point. Steve Jobs has proven this at Apple and I think his absence will continue to prove it until Apple can find a replacement.

Keeping your brand's momentum going.

How do we keep people interested in brands?

Even if you're full of 'E-R' words as Kevin Roberts put it; bigger, brighter, faster, stronger, cleaner, safer and consider your brand to be the 'best', unless you continuously reinvent the advertising around your brand things will slow up for it.

Despite of having bags full of respect, failing to offer new ways of communicating with your customer base is going to mean that they feel left out.

In the participation market that we live in this is like cutting your brand's throat. Eventually we get used to things and take them for granted. In life often people are treated like this and so are brands. Brands like people need to reinvent themselves and find new ways to communicate.

Here's a few ways to help keep up levels of communication with today's savvy consumer:

Brands need to reinvent themselves
and find new was to communicate.

Forget advertising your brand. Instead, tell a story about it.

Humans have always loved story telling. From a brand perspective story telling enables brand communication to become much more human focused.

When telling stories, make sure they're about the people that use the brand not the brand itself. This way you'll not be dictating a message directly, you'll be enabling the consumer do it for you. This supports one of the strongest marketing forms of all - word of month.

Give 'power to the people'.

Build up respect for your brand by providing simple tips and advice. By doing this you create a non-aggressive point of interaction for your brand. (Remember people hate to be advertised to these days - it's an invasion of their space and time!) This will enable people to get close to your brand without having to shout or state 'what it does on the tin' constantly (it works, you're reading this). 

Telling stories and sharing advice about how to use your product so people get the most out of it is a great way of doing this. It works by re-positioning focus and places the consumer at the center. The best brands are all about: Inspiring the consumer to become better by offering a product that does this for them.

Understand what your 'best' ideas are.

Ultimately the consumer will let you know what your best ideas are so consider them in everything you do. After all, your brand is there to make their life better isn't it!

The best ideas these days should be measured by lots of different things but consider these three strong points:

Longevity: Does the idea stand the test of time.

Ambition: How does my idea work to tap in to the dreams of the consumer.

Social impact: What benefits does my idea have socially - is it an idea that will inspire movements towards the greater good.

Find out more about how your brand can tell its story to the world at by talking to Sensation Creative.

www.SensationCreative.com