head to head contest

The NBA had Magic and Bird in the 80's, a rivalry which took a declining category and made it more popular than any other sport.

More recently Kanye West and 50 cent went head tot head, releasing albums on the same day and creating a great buzz + great first week sales for their albums.

Ali had Frazier.

Death Row Records had Bad Boy Records.

But where are the great rivalries with consumer goods? 

For all the talk of evangelist brand loyalty, iconic brands, it seems that there is not much going on in terms of rivalry.  Yet this is a staple ingridient for loyal fans to grow. 

Sure Apple and Microsoft had some run ins, Burgerking and McDonalds, but in all the categories you can think, how many geniune rivalries are there that get people buzzing ?

The definition of rivalry is the following: the act of rivaling, a state of being a rival; a competition. Competing for the same finite goal.

So before one can examine why there are no great rivalries, lets answer the question:

what does make for a rivalry, or a great rivalry at that:

A shared history:

If two enteties have a history whit each other, this is great basis for a rivalry. one was started as a antidote to the other, or they came from same backrounds but took different routes to the same goal.

The quality of the output/product. 

For a rivalry to start the opposites have to be equaly good.

Proximity:

You can not hate what u can not see. The two enteties have to be close enough to each other for followers to identify one as pro and the other as contra. they also have to aspire to deliver the same emotional connection/pay-off for either set of supporters (the lakers and celtics both went for the same title for instance).

Head to Head:

This is basically a must. Without this rivalries will not happen. One of the great rivalries of recent years: the redsox and the yankees became that in part because they played each other more than 50 times in a couple of years.

Competitevness:

You both gotta be chasing the number one spot or else people will tune out. 

Black Swan:

Something out of the ordianary has to occur that links the two together and creates diverse emotional responses/camps. Think of an all out brawl between two Baseball teams.

Taking this all in to account several problems can be spotted.

First of the chasing of the same finite goal. Most products, aspire to have a long life. there is no rush to get to the finish line. so if there is no time clock, why bother tuning in now. as a consumer, you perhaps subconciously feel that there is no urge to act now, as there is most likely always tomorrow.  And most brand claim victory anyway by moving the goal post. Just think of all the metrics  to justify some kind of leadership... 

Competiveness: Most products are just not good enough.

Head to Head:

Separate launches, commercials that run at different times. there is this sense that brands do anything to avoid each other. only when they can't avoid it, like on a shelve is there a head to head. mostly dissapointingly bland.

Black Swan:

Ipod was a black swan. Microsoft and Sony were sleeping, chance missed. 

" We try harder" strategy and campaing was a Black Swan at the time; prompting Avis and Hertz to go head to head with great products and ads.

All in all it seems that the great loyalty, passed on from generation to generation, is not being achieved by most brands (even though they like to believe that they do achieve it), because they prefer to operate in a vacuum, declaring themself victorious by default. yet the same loyalty can be achieved if they were to become open to their enviroment, allowing for context to select their opponents, and followers.

A friend of mine used to say: put a $100, - on it and you got yourself a game and fans, no matter what. while this is true, there are alot of ways yet for brands to create followings/emotions that in the end benefit not just the brands, but the categories, and consumers...

I'll bet that it won't happen any time soon though...but at least this is a good exercise for a creative session with clients and agencies

 

what if..there was a new type of photo album?

picture courtesy memorylanemedia

"She sent out for one of those short, plump little cakes called petites madeleines, which look as though they had been moulded in the fluted scallop of a pilgrim's shell. And soon, mechanically, weary after a dull day with the prospect of a depressing morrow, I raised to my lips a spoonful of the tea in which I had soaked a morsel of the cake. No sooner had the warm liquid, and the crumbs with it, touched my palate than a shudder ran through my whole body, and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary changes that were taking place…at once the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory…”

Perhaps some one can help me with this, because I have been thinking about storytelling,

mem(e)ories and... photo albums;

More and more I (and a lot of people are) am creating memories via not only photo's, but blog posts, text messages, emails etc..

But if I wanna share and file it all, and my mum wants to have her friends look at all the memories, there is no one album that fulfills this need of mine.

There is virtual sharing, blogging and filing, but it lacks the physicality of being able to sit next to a person and leading them past memory lane, adding those little details/stories that are triggered as you relive memories and pass them on to loved ones...

So.....what if there was a hybrid : A Memory album

Basically an album/book/ where I could place (upload to) all my text messages, photo's (digital and prints), mails, posts (and all the feedback, which is a great part of the fun of sharing), twitter entries, postcards, e-cards etc... so I can tell grandkids (lord willin') about the memories they hold for me?

Maybe because I work at a publishing company that I just love the feeling of a book or a magazine placed in my hands.....Maybe I have just not searched very well yet and this type of album is in production already...

Anyways...I can't find it yet....so does anybody have alternatives, or feedback for me?

what if...we collectively expressed our individuality

image courtesy http://www.exactitudes.com/

This post is most def not rocket science but the following hit me:

Why is there not a growth in collective blogs? Doing some basic research (?) shows that blogs are basically social clusters.

Example: Musings of an opinionated sod, is connected to punk planning, to fredrik sarnblad, to

in my atmosphere, to she sees red, to the kevin bacon (egg, beans and chips) of planning russell davies.

Besides the personalized templates, twitters, delicious and last fm thingies and some egotripping, why not all join in on one blog?

It seems to me that the most fun is bouncing ideas of one another and replying on comments.

Yes there is such a thing as a blog roll, and there is facebook and the like, but still...

Perhaps I am just to lazy, but what if everybody just got the same space and posted??

if you like the idea and have a decent name...please post a comment... If you have objections, please tell me those also..

what if...you could create a classic?

So Lil' Wayne has been planning the release of his latest album. As far as hip hop goes, it is one of the most anticipated albums of the year. However there has been a lot of talk on blogs regarding the album and the artist . It's one thing to call yourself the best rapper alive, but the knock on Wayne is that he has not yet produced a classic. That ready to die, reasonable doubt non-disputed, across the board, certified classic type album. Tha CarterIII is suppose to be thát one.

How to achieve such an album? Well there is off course no mathematical formula; it depends on talent, zeitgeist, reviews, sales, etc... stuff that Wayne has and in getting... but still...

Wayne has been doing what every musician has been doing; going in the studio and recording material to the best of his ability. Putting some of it free online, some of it on mixtapes and holding some of it back for the album. All the while having very little control over the process of making a classic. He just controls the process of making an album. Nothing more.

But what if he flipped the process? What if he released control of making an album in order to gain more control over making a classic??

See.. Wayne is a southern rapper (he is from New Orleans, Louisiana), so his style will always have strong southern influences.

Enter Scarface. Undisputed O.G., with kilo's of street cred (enough so, to ruin Lil'Flip career when he would not vouch for Flips credentials in a beef with T.I), musical success and more importantly classic material to his name. Not to mention the guy has a good ear (he was the one who signed Ludacris to def Jam South). Scarface should executive produce Wayne's album.

On three conditions which would have to be told at a live press conference:

1) the album will only be released if 'Face approves;

2) if it drops he has to back it with his full reputation;

3) it has to be released by a certain date.

What would this accomplish? Firstly the album will get a huge boost in quality. Scarface has a lot riding on it, he is the king of the south with a undisputed reputation, as does Wayne (imaging not dropping the album, because 'face says it's not good enough). So the A game will be brought to the table.

Secondly it will eliminate meaningless marketing expenses, which can go into the recording budget. Hip hop will listen when these two state their intentions, and the buzz will be big enough come the last couple of weeks before release (it's like a time relaease capsule).

Thirdly it wil set the bar higher for the rest of the indusrty. Hip Hop is dying (if not commercialy, then certainly creatively). Self imposed control via (still highly relevant) powers that be, will separate the platinum from the bronze. Still no garantuee for a classic. But definite steps towards it? Yes indeed..

It would also be an interesting model for much of business:

What if undisputed reputations were attached to projects?

What if Jobs executive produced products with public right to veto?

What if the Nakeds, Cynics, W+K's, KesselsKramers, CP+B's of the world refused to release their campaigns if the products were not up to par? Would that force companies to better themselves? Or would the hacks just take over??

What if...is as far as it will most likely go, because Lil'Wayne will do his thing, Scarface and Jobs are not that altruistic (but perhaps enough of an egomaniac), business will be as usual, the consumer has bills to pay/other worries and the above thinking has a lot of flaws in it..

Stat quo is popular for a reason...but still I am left wondering.......what if?

Strawberries in January: part 2 hidden in plain site

The Japanese tea ceremony cha-no-yu is an ancient tradition; it's most famous practicioner went by the name Sen no Rikyu.

Amongst many things he became emporer Hideyoshi's favorite tea master, and part adviser on matters of politics and culture.

On a certain day emporer Hideyoshi decided to pay Sen no Rikyu a visit at his house. This news came to the tea master. On the eve of the emporers visit Sen yo Rikyu noticed something; it had started to snow.

Quickly the tea master grabbed all his pillows and placed them on top of the stepstones in his front garden; thus covering them from the snow.

The next day he got up very early and removed the pillows, forming a simple, natural and beautifully clear path for the emporer to take from the gate to the tea masters house. The emporer could not help but smile and appriciate the beauty of nature.

More and more I have come to believe that the coming years will be a time of interaction-design led marketing, with the primary task of making the known/local/mundane/obvious, unknown/exiting/re-valueable, and put back in to the right context for consumers and people in general.

Various books, blogs, thoughts, causes (such as the ecology, economy, human population and health) lead me to this thinking.

So in a series of posts, called Strawberries in January, I will try to explain my views, the origins of them, possible applications for people and also catalogue the thinking of others who do and think along these lines.

A lot of this may be known already to those who read it, so feel free to correct and add something to the posts as they are posted, that will assist and help me in my thinking and writing.

Strawberries in January: part 1

Ichi-go Ichi- e

Transformation Design Library: Slate magazine

image courtesy Time magazine

transformation design is a human-centered, interdisciplinary process that seeks to create desirable and sustainable changes in behavior and form – of individuals, systems and organizations – often for socially progressive ends.

Mr Maschmeyer, over at his new blog has been trying to get an example library started.

So here is an example that I would like to add to the list: Slate's list of the 60 most generous.

The List came about, when in 1996 Ted Turner wondered about the influence the Forbers Richest List had on corporate America. "What if we could make charity as sexy as the Forbes list ?" (in a nutshell) was his idea.

Slate Magazine took up the challenge to find out. with some success. Althought I will admit that their is no evidence that is 100% waterproof.

"Whether by coincidence or not, philanthropy has blossomed since Slate's list was created. In 1996 the top donor gave away $100 million, or $121 million in 2005 dollars. But last year's top donor, Cordelia Scaife May, gave away $404 million, and the list (with 63 donors, counting ties) totaled $4.3 billion". (read the rest of a great article here)

So in the grand tradition of Michelline Guide, Guiness Book of Records, Slate has managed to create (lasting) change in the behaviour of the über-wealthy of America, kinda, sorta.

I guess greed is good, just depends what you lust for...

Salute Slate..