There was apparently a closing session at ad:tech this week in New York called “30 Great Ideas in 60 Minutes”. Most of the following comes straight from the ad:tech blog, so go there if you want more, but I thought I’d excerpt some of it here as it’s thought-provoking stuff:
Maria Mandel — Ogilvy Interactive
1. We’re moving to all on demand. Consumers want it when they want it.
2. Entertainment. We need more creative advertising to connect to consumers.
3. Community: help consumers build community and then connect your brands to themRuss Novy — Webshots
He feels bad when he orders from a site, is asked for a special promotional code, and doesn’t have one. Why does it be that way? His company gives a surprise 10% off to shoppers and finds that they tend to go back during a session and spend more money when they get the surprise.
Jeff Einstein
Embrace your ignorance. Ignorance, he said. “is the greatest motivational force in the universe, and the most plentiful resource on the planet.”
He said he’d been selling his own ignorance for years, and that every night he goes to sleep a little more ignorant than when he woke up. Nobody is driving up the price of ignorance, and it is tragically undervalued.
I’m with Mandel in that companies need to help consumers build community, and only then connect your brands to them. Way too many supposedly consumer-centric technology firm try to do it in reverse order, and it just doesn’t work.
I also agree totally with Novel’s comment. It really bugs me when I’m buying something online and I see those ubquitous “Enter Promotional Code Here” boxes. Why rub my face it? Far better would be to give me a nominal discount, as Novel suggests. That would feel far less exclusive and clubby than the current approach.
Finally, Jeff Einstein’s talking straight to me in telling people to embrace their ignorance. The sentence “ I don’t know” is one of the most powerful in the universe, and it is used far too seldom. Rather than embracing your ignorance and asking that people help you eliminate (or at least ameliorate) it, most people are petrified that anyone will even get so much as a whiff of ignorance from you. Dead wrong, as Einstein points out.
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