I was recently email some pics of Kulula Airlines livery. I’d describe it as eyeball worthy. Because it’s worth looking at, it’s worth talking about. There is no shortage of in cabin jokes from cabin crew while talking to passengers, but few have the courage to paint their personality on the fuselage like Kalula have. In an era of media proliferation, the trick any startup needs to master is the ability to be talked about. Nice work Kulula.
Junk mail is not named correctly. It should be called Research Mail, Zeitgeist Mail or something much more complementary.
Here’s a list of great things it does:
It’s an entrepreneurs best friend. Startup blog says read your junk mail.
The rock band U2 stood out in the 1980’s for many reasons. One of them was the willingness to shun to excess of the 80’s. Things like Stadium rock, over produced music, expensive film clips and overdressing. U2 had something to say, rather than something to see.
It all changed at the birth of Zoo TV with the Achtung Baby album which was a brilliant parody of the impact television had had on music politics and consumerism…. Sadly U2 have become the parody they first exposed.
Here’s some quote from Bono himself:
‘Sometime the best way to expose the lies is to live them yourself’
‘All I’ve got is a red guitar, 2 chords and the truth’
It seems his memory has failed him as their latest 360 tour includes 390 tonnes of stage production equipment, 200 tonnes of amplifiers, 248 shipping containers filled with the staging systems and requires 6 Boeing 747 freighters to transport it. They claim the band is buying carbon offsets, but the real kicker is that Bono then has the audacity to ask people to car pool to “cut down on carbon emissions”.
The whole thing just feels very wrong. It’s not the U2 I knew and loved. In many ways the stage is making up for the lack of good songs (They haven’t had a top 10 in America since 2004). Certainly, they’re DNA has changed and its reflected in their record sales which have been reduced. I preferred it when they’re stage shows were simpler, and their music better.
The lesson for startups is this:
The things that made us successful, are probably the same things that will keep us there.
Iterating in business is an art form. It’s how we grow and find a path to establish the features that matter. It’s not about more, it’s about finding what works, which means that as we morph and change, certain features must be sacrificed, left or or purposely cut off. Nature exemplifies this. Nature takes time to roll out new features, and is well prepared to sacrifice old ones which no longer pay their way. Nature takes years to develop the perfect mix, but is in a constant state of evolution.
The coffee market has been one of the most interesting category evolutions we’ve seen in the past decade or so. Especially given the drink has been around thousands of years. What’s most interesting is that it was a commodity market at brand and retail level for the largest part of the past 60 years. Granules in a tin which one mixes with boiling hot water. Large brands then competed on price with occasional soapie style advertising.
Enter coffee culture and in 15 short years everything has changed. Coffee isn’t coffee anymore. Coffee is latte, coffee is short machiato, coffee is espresso, coffee is arabica versus robusta. But it evolved slowly, and the latest trend in coffee drenched Melbourne is cold dripped coffee. The point for startups is simple: we can’t go from Nescafe blend 43 straight to cold drip coffee. We have to take people on a journey with us, chapter by chapter. Shown below is another photo essay of a coffee haunt on little Collins Street Melbourne called Sensory Lab.
The question for entrepreneurs is what industry can we invent a journey to take people on?
The internet has been a boon for entrepreneurs. The commerce said entrepreneurs have created has been one of connection, more than revenue with social media networks being the greatest love child of the internet age. The overwhelming majority of them are free to use, which has resulted in a dramatic power shift in the industrial media landscape. More succinctly social media is very quickly stealing eyeballs from traditional media.
While startups are busy creating the new forums which people connect and entertain themselves on, advertising and media agencies are scrambling to stake their claim on new media. It’s shaping up to be the demarcation dispute of the decade. Both parties believe that social media is rightfully theirs:
Media Agencies claim it is ‘Media’ and so their clients should engage them strategically.
Advertising Agencies claim it is ‘content driven’ and so their cleints should engage them straetgically.
What’s clear is that is isn’t about to go away and it will continue attract larger percentages of the marketing budget as time progresses. And just in case your wondering what I think about social media and who rightfully owns it, my viewpoint is very clear and is given below:
Just like any emerging technology or industry, no one rightfully owns it. It’s up for grabs. The companies (new or existing) who move into the space the quickest and add the most value will take home the trophy.
Gus Johnston was walking past his local bakery in the Melbourne suburb of Elsternwick – Franks. It’s a 40 year old local business. He told me about a great little piece of marketing which inspired the title of this blog post.
On the bakery door, hand written was a little sign with the the words Opening Hours. Under it was: 8am until sold out.
It’s nice story which is perfect for what they do. Better hurry.
I once worked in a consumer goods company which went from Individual offices to open plan.
I now work in an advertising agency where we have moved from individual offices to open desks.
What happened at these two firms is interesting. The first office (consumer goods marketing) sent out a mass email banning iPods (and any other brand of personal music device – this is seriously what the email said). Claiming that the idea of open plan was to encourage open communications, and it was rude to listen to music while working. That we couldn’t do our jobs while listening to music as it was distracting. While at the same time the directors had offices with doors.
The second office (advertising) did something much different. Firstly, all the directors have the same size desk and space as every employee. On our first day in the new office we all had a gift on our desk wrapped beautifully with a ribbon. Inside the pack was free coffee vouchers (for the cafe across the road) and a brand new iPod nano. And it had a note which said the following:
“The iPod nano – this is good for a few things. Moving to open will at times be challenging. If you feel it is getting on top of you, then feel free to bung in your iPod and listen to your favourite tunes. We’re also into the idea that we can all play part in creating our new vibe. So we’ll be asking you to supply the music each day. We’ll place a sign at the reception that says “Today’s music thanks to Ant Shannon.” Please make your playlist and get it on the dock. The iPods you’ve received also take video – get in the habit of recording the stuff you like or think about. Keep it, play it, share it.”
A massive difference in attitude, culture and resulting creative output. The culture we create in our startup or any business is a result of what we do, and we can change it at any time with a bit of effort and humanity.