The Sebastian

Marketing gurus have been talking about why and how you should tell a story (wow! look at all those trackbacks) to your customers. Having a single, simple and solid small message that you repeat and repeat and repeat and repeat and repeat is so ‘90s (I wonder... Did you remember more the word "repeat" or the word "message"? please comment!)

Instead, if you have the big bucks to spend on a massive advertisement campaign or, even better, if you are clever enough to figure out how to do it on a shoestring (hint: web, e-mails, blogs, rss, …), you should definitively be telling a much more complex story.

Your story should have different chapters and also a common kernel to them. That surely will be the bold message and style, but it can also be something as simple as sharing the same actors (think Geico advertisements --that is, including the caveman).

It is not enough anymore to just get your customers to just remember your message. You surely want them to remember it, but you also want them to talk about it with their friends, to e-mail the link to your ad video on your web to the friends, to upload your ad to youtube, to subscribe to an rss-feed for your ads and new products, to post comments, to interact with you, to chat with your specialist, to design your next ad… and all this simply because it is funny, because they can, because you have shown them respect, because its worth talking about it and because they use and love your products.



What…? Family-Guy-Marketing?

Ever watched Family Guy? I love it. I know maybe some people find it offensive, and I am not recommending that you use that same exact style to market your business. However, I think you should understand and use their techniques and methodology.

Each episode (your chapters) gets a different blend of their favorite techniques, but also shares a common skeleton (intro, develop several stories, link them, wrap them up, be funny and leave you wanting some more) and a sense of belonging to the same core story.

They play with time, develop multiple stories, play with reality and dreams, with nature, with roles and with so many other techniques and ideas that you can reuse. Think pricesless.com. Now Think BMW. Shaken, not stirred... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaken,_not_stirred.

They have figured out a format that is both funny and efficient in keeping their fans coming back. And so have many other series, cartoons, movies, books and succesful ad agencies.

I say you can leverage on all that knowledge and experience they have. For example, maybe hire a creative writer from a tv series, instead of one from the old-style advertising agency.

The two Scandinavian entrepreneurs which founded Skype a few years ago launched today their new global broadband television service, named joost.

Click here to read it from Reuters. Here are some screenshots from the joost website:

You can go and register to try their beta version for free (it only takes a few minutes), however they will be the ones picking who gets to try the service. I just registered, and can't wait to get to try it (it's snowing in Austin, TX today and so I'm trapped inside all day long!). Once you get invited, you will get tokens to invite other people to try their beta version for free (remember gmail?). From the pics, it seems like this will be a much more exciting television, where you can interact with the community watching the same programs via chat and IM, etc (remember my post about my TV becoming obsolete?). What about interactive audience and games? what if you could add pics, webcams, voice, ... so many alternatives!

Oh... and, did I mention advertisers will probably have, finally, a firm measurement of how effective their ads are? who is watching them? who is clicking them? who is not? once they click, do they buy? do they come back? hmm ... Genious! Traditional TV channels must be so afraid right now.

I'm just back from some excellent vacation time. As usual, I went to visit my family and friends in Buenos Aires for Christmas and New Year. Holidays season is perfect for this because we all have more time off, and also because it happens to be summer over there!

Needless to say, this time of the year is always very refreshing and revealing for me. I always come back full of energy and new ideas. Somehow, the distance from the day-to-day routine and responsibilities lets me [mostly involuntarily] set and analyze my goals, ideas and problems alike from another perspective, from another camera.

So here goes a list with my top 10 camera-changing strategies and exercises:

1. Go on vacations!

   
   

2. Change planes. No, not the flying ones. I meant the mathematical ones. Analyze the project from a different plane. Pick two variables and forget the rest. Then pick another two variables and repeat until you have a good understanding of all the different planes. The n-dimensional shape will become clearer as your brain blends all those planes, and you migh discover hidden places and shapes (combinations) you might not have thought about before.

   
   

3. Change time. Imagine, for a second, you only have half the time to implement your idea or finalize your project. Then imagine just the opposite, that you have double the time. By temporarily eliminating the time constraint, this will help you concentrate and get first the big picture, then the details at the same time on your mind. If a factor of two doesn't work well, try a bigger one.

   
   

4. Repeat 3. with other constraints (resources, budget, etc).

   
   

5. Explain your idea to a kid or teenager. Then write down the story. You will probably end up with either an executive summary, or an excellent marketing collateral.

   
   

6. Change roles. If you are the entrepreneur, imagine you are the customer. Then imagine you are the partner, the supplier, the investor, the consumer, the engineer, the marketer, the ... You will discover that each individual will see different n-dimensional representation of the problem or idea. Extra-ball: practice the other 9 ways for each role!

   
   

7. Change the problem. Try thinking about a bigger idea that encapsulates the original one. Then do the opposite, break down the idea or problem into a combination of smaller ones. Extra-ball: you are smart enough to discover it on your own!

   
   

8. Change the rules. Imagine a different market, a different objective, different players, different technology. For example, if you are trying to build a very profitable business, imagine your idea or problem on a non-for-profit environment. You will discover you can borrow some of those new ideas to contribute back in your original world.

   
   

9. Tell a few friends about your idea or problem. Ask them to concentrate, listen to you, ask any necessary questions and try to remember it. Then ask them, a few days later, to repeat it back to you. If there is no clear intersection between the different stories, that probably means the story isn't clear to you either. The differences will help you realize where you are failing. The solution: go through the other 9 points, then repeat this one until the intersection is significant.

   
   

10. Be a kid. Ask why. Then ask why again. You will be surprised to know how many people get it wrong. Most of the times, there is a bigger agenda behind it, a bigger why and a bigger reason. If you are not there yet, try to guess it. Once you get it, that's the real problem or idea you wanna think about. Imagine. Go a few years back in time and see the problem or idea as something you might do in the future. Think how would you prepare yourselve (and the world) for it. Then go forward in time and see it as something you did and how the world changed because of it. Then match the expectations from a past view with the results that would make you happy from the future view. Re-set your goals and repeat.