There’s something about brands that know how to have fun. I reckon the Toyota Prius fits in this category. Their recent advertisement asking the crowd to work out the plural version of the word Prius is very catchy. (I’m a long time jingle lover). It’s also a cool way to build some anticipation and awareness of the new range
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUor4gdFoyg]
Is your brand having fun?
I was asked if I thought social media was dead, my response was that it never really was. To me it’s just the next evolution of the human language. At first we had pointing at things and our body language to communicate. Then we had pictographs on cave walls, which evolved into the spoken word. After which the written word and the printing press arrived…..
Social media is just the wider dissemination of human communications facilitated by new technology – just like books once were a new technology. I wonder if they had some buzz word for the common book when it arrived? The fact that the tools were new and shinny prompted us to name them, put them in a definable category, when all it was (is?) was the evolution of humans talking and sharing ideas.
Is social media dead? I’m not sure, what I am sure of is that humans are social creatures and there is nothing more we enjoy than socialising in any way we can.
The myriad of tablet and smart phone launches recently seems like a race of one upsmanship which inevitably leads to total confusion. Occasionally something really stands out. In the sea of features, occasionally one product makes you stop and take notice. On this occasion it is because it does less. I like to call it one downsmanship.
Introducing John’s Phone.
It makes and takes calls. That’s it. It’s so simple Alexander Graham Bell would know how to use it. It does have a quirky ‘analogue’ way of storing numbers, sending messages and playing games which you’ll see in the photo essay below. To me that adds some charm and talkability. At $110 it’s not exactly cheap – but it can be bought outside of contract. As entrepreneurs the question we should be asking ourselves is this:
“How can we do less, to stand out more?”
I happened upon a great quote today from revered Ad Man Leo Burnett which is probably more appropriate for entrepreneurs than advertisers:
“Steep yourself in your subject, work like hell, and above all, love honor and obey your hunches.”
Hunches matter. In startup land we are not in the business of research or satisfying a majority. Rather, we are in the business of sensing a shift and inspiring a minority.
People so often begin their adult life (teenage?) chasing financial wealth without even thinking about it. They believe the benefits of money automatically outweigh the costs of its accumulation. That there is no downside, and that all problems in a world of endless cash flow can be bought out.
It is certain that too much money is a better problem than not enough money. But the overriding misconceptions of wealth are simple:
We only ever have 24 hours a day.
We can only ever eat 3 meals a day.
We can only sleep in 1 bed each night.
No amount of money can change these things, or improve the relationships with those around us. It’s worth remembering this in 2011 before we embark upon a new program of attempting to garner things we might not actually want.
Have a great year, Steve.
1. Technology is easy – getting customers to pay you is outrageously difficult.
When was the last time you heard about a web startup failing because the product didn’t work? Almost never. With the greatest respect to all the hackers and engineers out there coding away, making a product do what you want is simply a function of time. Spend enough development time on it, and you can write code to do almost anything you want. Getting a customer to pay you some money for that feature you just added? That’s an entirely different proposition. The vast majority of web startups fail because they don’t find enough customers, at the right price and in enough time before they run out of cash. If we spend as much time on marketing your startup as you do on writing and shipping your code, and we just might beat the odds.
2. Customers can always choose to do nothing
When pitching a prospect we are generally trying to convince them to do one of two things:
(i) Leave a competitor and join you
(ii) Stop doing nothing about their pain problem and join you
Who knew that getting them to leave a competitor was often easier than getting them to stop doing nothing? At least if they are using a competitor they recognise that they have a problem that needs solving! The truth is, many prospects are indecisive, stagnant, glacial, apathetic, unwilling, and unmotivated. Demonstrating your product and then asking for the sale is just as likely to be met with a yawn and a scratch of the arse as it is with a chequebook. If you understand how difficult the process is, then there is a good chance you will approach it with the right amount of preparation and effort.
3. Financial models are fantasy
Their is one good reason to construct a financial model prior to having any real customer data. Do it to prove to yourself that the fundamentals of your model will produce a profitable business over time. Think of it as a sanity check. Once you are happy that the model works in theory, throw the spreadsheet away. Never look at it again, and for christ sake don’t go out and try and raise investment funds off the back of it (guilty as charged!). Just launch your product and get as much real live data as you can. Months later you can giggle about how wrong your projections were, but at least you won’t be making life altering decisions based on nonsense.
4. There is no replacement for quality user testing
User testing pays for itself many times over. This doesn’t mean getting your mates over to play with your creation in return for a 6 pack. It means getting real life customers/strangers to use your product while you watch. True story. Our startup is an online event registration solution that allows customers to sell tickets and accept registrations for any sized event. Three months after launch, we sat and watched via web cam while a Canadian tester spent 15 MINUTES just trying to create an account. In one of our releases, we had cannily decided not to display a “register button” to anyone using Internet Explorer. No-one using this browser could get in and use our product, and it had been that way for over a week. He eventually managed to get in, but man was he pissed!
What else do you wish you had known before you did your own web startup?
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Some more brilliance from George Carlin. For marketers and entrepreneurs alike it’s a great reminder of the value of language and how that can be used to create a benefit perception in peoples minds. Although, I’d recommend the picture we create is one of authenticity. Enjoy!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvhsJyecpLc]