• On Fundamental Value

    Posted on January 31st, 2011 by and currently 3 commenting.

    I have the privilege of answering the Brains on Fire phone from time to time, and I’ve learned a great deal simply by talking to other people about their businesses and explaining ours.

    Every once-in-a-while, I’ll receive a call from someone who wants to retain our services for a product that is, shall we say, less than unique or useful in the marketplace. After kindly explaining that we wouldn’t be a good fit, I often think, “It’s going to take a whole lotta marketing to launch that ship.”

    And when those people secure an agency, it does. As explained by designer Frank Chimero (1),

    The more mundane the product or service, the funnier the ad. Food that tastes like cardboard, beer that tastes like water,deodorant that smells like old man. See? You’re probably saying “Haha, remember Old Spice?” and that was 6 months ago. That’s not enthusiasm.

    If you want to make things people are enthusiastic about, you must start with a message or content people can be excited about. Sincerely. Enthusiasm isn’t some sort of icing you can smear on top of anything. Do that, and it’s hype. Hype at its best is embraced and then quickly forgotten. At its worst, it’s loathed.

    One has to start with good stuff, whether that be a great message, a great product, or a great idea.

    To take Mr. Chimero’s point one step further, we believe that “a great message, a great product, or a great idea” has to arise out of fundamental need, thus giving the message, product or idea raw fundamental value. Again, there is another mind who can articulate this concept far better than I can. Here is a wonderful quote from Dave Allen at North (2):

    If we look at anthropology and understand that technology simply shortens the distance between us, then it’s not a huge leap to the understanding that learning how to market in digital is wrongheaded. We might ask ourselves, before embarking on a digital marketing effort – what is the human need? What problem does our digital application/software/experience actually solve? …

    Take a technological device that’s been around a long time: the camera. It fulfills the human need for remembering events and good times by capturing them on film and letting people share these captured emotional moments with others. The camera fulfills our need for nostalgia, memory and sharing. As cameras became digital they obviously included different capabilities, many include the ability to shoot video, yet they retained their familiarity. If there was a learning curve it was simple and the designers and manufacturers never did away with the human need, arguably they enhanced it.

    Food for thought this week: Great things are built on great foundations.

    • (1) – You can read Frank Chimero’s article, “A Little Bit About Enthusiasm and Hype,” here. (Thank you to Justin Gammon for sharing this article with me)
    • (2) – You can read Dave Allen’s article, “This is Water – A Talk About Companies and Digital Disruption,” here.