Great Business Week interview here with Randy Komisar about his new book Getting to Plan B. Komisar redefines Plan B for entrepreneurs and new businesses as a refinement of Plan A - a plan that iterates and improves over time with the input of empirical data. Furthermore he states that studies have shown that businesses that inflexibly stick to Plan A are more likely to fail.
You’re walking down a city street, stomach grumbling, looking for some place to eat. You come upon two restaurants next to each other - one is mostly full, one is mostly empty. Which one seems the safer bet?
Our instincts are to think that the one with more people must have the better food, service, or both. Or maybe it’s just a better place to be seen at. If you chose to eat at the crowded establishment, you’re very presence there is marketing to the next passerby an inferred value proposition. This business is in fact extracting a service from you.
The same holds true if you walk around with a Starbucks cup, wear an Ed Hardy t-shirt, or are seen walking into a Barnes & Noble. Your interaction with these brands endorses and markets them.
So why aren’t brands paying us for this valuable service? Or put more practically, why aren’t their products and services appropriately “discounted” to factor in the time that we put in to market them?
This is the premise of #sixweeks, a recently publicized experiment conducted over six weeks in London by digital strategist Paul McCrudden. McCrudden recorded the time he spent interacting with brands. And after six weeks he began invoicing these businesses for the time he spent with these brands at a fee based on his salary, prorated and greatly discounted.
McCrudden’s mission as he puts it is to “challenge the basic assumption that consumers are subservient to brands.”
I get that McCrudden is being a bit dramatic here to make a point. But the truth is that his basic assumption is all wrong. Subservience isn’t part of the equation, but relationships are. And like any relationship both sides give and both take.
We want to be seen shopping at that store or wearing that handbag or drinking that cup of coffee or using that Mac laptop. Our brands define us - who we are, who we want to be. There’s significant value being delivered to the consumer beyond the actual product or service - it’s status, identity, comfort, security ... the list goes on.
And if brands don’t continue to deliver, to listen, to improve, to care - we take our business elsewhere.
McCrudden’s premise only makes a bit of sense if we are giving business to brands that we care nothing about - it assumes the worst on both sides.
Knowing that the wrong response to McCrudden’s efforts would be a PR nightmare, businesses have started to pony up cash, vouchers, or both. I mean, who wants to go on record looking like they don’t value their customers. Even though that isn’t really the point here.
My favorite response is from the eatery Pret a Manger. Founder Julian Metcalfe paid McCrudden’s fee, but also added in the cost of the food, the time he thinks it took for McCrudden to do the paperwork, and “a nominal sum to cover interest”.
In a response dripping with courtesy, Metcalfe writes…
“You are of course, absolutely right. The time spent in my cafes will greatly help the profitability of our company. I have asked our accounts department to issue a cheque today as I see no reason why you should be kept waiting. I’m sorry to have to pay you by cheque as I am aware of the effort and time it will take you to pay this into the bank.”
Architectural visualization artist and Grizzly Bear fan Gabe Askew created this fan video for the song Two Weeks.
Gabe produced it in his free time over four months. With the recession squeezing budgets, he wasn’t able to exercise his creative muscles enough at work. He needed to do something for himself.
It’s a great example of the creativity and innovation that is produced during tough economic times.
It’s also a great example of the metamorphosis that the music industry is undergoing. Chris Anderson discusses this extensively in his new book Free.
This Ad Age video talks about how advertisers are now setting their sights on using video game engines to create real-time interactive spots.
Zoic Studios recently created one of said spots for the release of Kill Zone 2 that was broadcasted on the Sony Playstation Network. Playstation viewers were able to manipulate camera angles, view uncomposited layers, and hear commentary - all rendered in real-time.
Technologically speaking, this is huge. How effective is the execution though? Visually, it doesn’t quite do it for me. And I’d imagine that for an audience that spends a lot of time “living” in these virtual worlds, their reaction was probably the same.
That said, this is an early breakthrough. I definitely think there’s potential in the medium. Especially when you think of this stuff coupled with Microsoft’s Project Natal technology. And that includes non-game consumer products. For instance, imagine being able to “get inside” a car and zoom into the dashboard on your HD TV.
It was interesting to hear Zoic co-founder Loni Peristere talk about the creation process. He believes, and I agree, that soon the platforms for creating these experiences will be more in the hands of storytellers than technologists. The technology will be far enough along that creatives can pull from vast digital libraries.
There’s also sure to be ground-level democratized innovation on this platform as the tools become commonplace.
Great Business Week interview here with Randy Komisar about his new book Getting to Plan B. Komisar redefines Plan B for entrepreneurs and new businesses as a refinement of Plan A - a plan that iterates and improves over time with the input of empirical data. Furthermore he states that studies have shown that businesses that inflexibly stick to Plan A are more likely to fail.