11th Screen

I just got back from a much needed weeklong vacation with my wife, without our kids.  It was as we all want vacations to be – quiet, peaceful, relaxing, not driven by time or schedules, and without work.  I came across a few things that I wanted to blog about while I was out there, but I resisted and stayed unplugged (pretty much).    

There were many moments for us that defined our experience, the overwhelming majority of which were positive.  This was the first time we’d been to the east coast of Florida – from St. Augustine to West Palm Beach to Ft. Lauderdale, the beaches were awesome, the towns were all nice, each with a different personality, and by and large, the people were accommodating and friendly.  But unfortunately, the one moment that was the recurring thorn in our side was brought to us by Hertz.

This is certainly not the forum to go into everything that made that experience bad, but suffice it to say, they really didn’t seem to care about us, two kidless adults, eager to enjoy a relaxing vacation together.  And whether they liked it or not, they were part of our experience.  From this point on though, they will no longer be part of any Cearley-vacation experience. 

See, the thing about companies in the travel and leisure industry is that they actually play a part in people’s well-being.  Some companies understand this to the point of creating mission and culture around it.  Their purpose, and everything they do, is to make life easier for travelers.  But on the other hand, there are some companies who seem to feel content as just another part in the commodity game, and could care less about making things easier.  Hertz, unfortunately, came across this way.

Nevermind the hours that my wife and I spent on the phone or in front of actual people (at least 10) without a single answer or commitment of ownership, the attitude, above anything else, was extremely disappointing.  We repeatedly got an “it’s not my problem” attitude rather than a “what can I do to make your Hertz experience better” attitude.  An “I’m sorry” attitude would have even worked, but that was nowhere to be found.  I even asked one of their employees, “so, it doesn’t matter what we feel or think about this fiasco?” And he said, “no, not really.  There’s nothing I can do.”

I know companies are big and they have business to attend to, but just as I advise every one of our clients – if you don’t show people that you care, in turn, they won’t care.  And if the whole point to any money-making business is to build loyalty, not caring is a heavy weight that can lead to a slow death. 

Everyone is connected now.  Consumers to brands.  Consumers to consumers.  Words spread.  Service (or lack thereof) is amplified.  This hyper-connected world requires a higher level of consistency in philosophy, particularly as it relates to service.  Many companies, Hertz included, have many different channels that they monitor and field comments and complaints.  These different channels, regardless of the size of the company, are entry points into brand experiences.  These are all opportunities to let that philosophy shine and in the case where that philosophy is not best-in-class-service-oriented, it comes through in everything (and everyone).  What does your brand experience say about your philosophy?

I think this is such an important lesson, certainly for us in the business of providing services.  Is your brand experience and philosophy lined up?  Does your brand embody and foster an “it’s not my problem” attitude or an “I’m going to do whatever it takes (even within reason)” attitude?  Does your organization breathe this?  Are the “faces” of your brand restricted or empowered to serve customers? 

To me it all adds up to being the difference between just another place I can buy a commodity and the place I can trust with my well-being.  On the one week of the year that I can step out of my house and have a vacation.  It’s an important experience.

I’m late to this in Internet time, but I just stumbled upon it and thought it was a great example of the 11th Screen – merging the offline with the online, the physical world with the digital world.

The whole concept here for Billboard Magazine was to show what music is made of, in the form of getting down to influencers on specific musicians.  For instance, you can see that Eminem is “made up of” Ice T, Run DMC, LL Cool Jay and Vanilla Ice.  Each musician is a mosaic of these influencer musicians.  Pretty cool.

Then, any individual can walk up to this screen, turn the dials to correspond with their particular “influencers,”  and see what they’re made of.  Then, they can instantly save a photo of themselves to Flickr, which is a nice use of a social component.

The only downfall that I see is that it is single-user.  This could keep many people immersed at the same time.  I also don’t see any tie-in back to the magazine, which in the end, should be the goal – get something out of bringing this experience to the masses from Billboard Magazine.

That said, I think it’s a great example of taking a physical object (fabricated unit with dials on it) and digital components (like a screen and camera) and creating an immersive experience out of it.  Then, being able to share it with a social community like Flickr.  This, of course, racked up many awards last year (Clio and a Cannes Grand Prix).  Nice work, AlmapBBDO.

Side note thought – I was at the Hard Rock in Las Vegas earlier this year and interacted with their Rock Wall and the other technology in their store and they could really learn from this.  While all of the Hard Rock’s technology and experiences are cool and certainly immersive, they aren’t personal and they don’t extend beyond the store.  Here, in this example, you can see how easy it is to a) make it personal and b) extend it beyond the physical location.  In my mind, both of these elements really separate good from great, shallow from deep and meaningful experiences.

What do you guys think?  Would love to hear your thoughts.  Shout back if you’re so inclined.

I recently travelled to/from Detroit and saw various IOOH experiences in both airports (Detroit & DFW).  I’m always trying to catch standby on earlier flights out of Detroit so I have yet to stop and capture those IOOH experiences.  I’ve seen two different ones there and every time I’ve gone by each of them (since last October), no one is interacting with them.  I keep telling myself that next time I’m here, I’m going to capture them.  Next time.

When I got back to Dallas, I passed these touchscreen experiences in the baggage claim area.  I’ve passed these thousands of times and just like Detroit, I haven’t ever seen anyone interact with them.  So I decided this night, I would give them a run and see what they had to offer.

Some good, some bad.  Let’s break it down.

Purpose – clearly, the purpose is to help travelers find “things to do” in the DFW area – Accomodations, Dining, Transportation, Shopping, and City Attractions.  I think this is a good idea, but I wish each category had more content.  From the standpoint of accomplishing its purpose, I’d say it halfway did because it shows me things to do, but it doesn’t show me everything I can do.  It suffers from a lack of deep content.

Drama – well, as you can see by the entire, wall-length unit, there’s no missing the fact that this is the place to find information about the area.  The screens within the unit get lost, but I do like the fact that there is a big, static map.  That, in and of itself, could attract visitors, then they’d see the touchscreen.  Once they see that, even though it’s up in the top corner, there’s a blinking red call-to-action enticing (doesn’t it scream enticing) people to “Select a Category.”

Usability – this is a web-based experience and the paths throughout the experience were linear.  There is only one way to go until you dead-end and even then, you only have a few options (Learn More, Print, etc..).  It’s simple.  This type of experience is good for the everyday visitor/user.  If anyone ever interacted with this thing, I have to believe they could navigate where they wanted to go pretty easily.

Interactivity – this was touch-based only (single-touch) and was very responsive.  Once I got into the experience, I wish everything (like the map) was “clickable” but for the most part, this reacted exactly as I would expect.

Information – this is where I feel the experience really fell down.  If this is to enable visitors to find the things to do in DF, it doesn’t completely deliver.  It certainly doesn’t deliver on the best things to do in DFW (which would be a great category).  As you can see, the first hotel area that I selected didn’t have any listings.  This isn’t right.  I’m not completely familiar with airport/city partnerships, but the DFW metropolitan area has multiple websites from which to pull the information for this experience – any of them would make this experience richer than it is.  The one nice surprise was on one of the “Transportation” printouts.  Using this kiosk, I am able to redeem the printout for $2.00 off on my return trip.  In theory, this is a good way to get repeat service, but they are missing a huge opportunity for business by not advertising this deal in this experience.  I wouldn’t have known that I could get this discount if I didn’t randomly select this particular path.  (It would also be a great way to get people to interact with the entire experience – other companies could offer the same thing.)

Personalization – this discount ticket was the extent of personalization in this experience.  It’s a step in the right direction, but as a user, if I don’t know that this offer is waiting for me, I’m likely not going to ever see it.

As a bonus, I stopped by a kiosk at the end of the “Welcome to DFW” unit to see what it had to offer, and as you can see, it’s different content.  I question whether or not they need to be different or if they could just be lumped into the same experience.  From an experience standpoint, it could easily be integrated and not hamper the current experience.

All told, interactive touchscreens with this sort of information in airports are a great idea.  But the execution here is lacking on a number of fronts.  Pull me to it, attract me, give me an impression of the city by this experience, and make me want to find out this sort of information through this channel vs. something like my mobile phone.  Yes?

No sooner do I write about the importance of brand’s speaking in a distinctive, clear, concise, and complete voice does Old Spice hit us with a continuation of their latest (great) campaign.  I’m not going to talk much about the campaign as I’m sure you’ve seen the personalized video responses that I’m talking about.  If you haven’t seen the YouTube videos, surely you’ve seen the commercials – the ones with the shirtless guy doing things like riding backwards on a horse on a beach.  I don’t want to break the campaign down.  It’s great.  I will say this, though -

They’ve clearly found their voice.  This character enables them to have a certain attitude.  Through the attitude comes the voice.  They can then take this into other channels and utilize the voice in the best way according to the channel.  If you listen to any one of these personalized responses, the words are different, but the voice is the same.  And it is a perfect use of this medium and this channel.

It’s fascinating to read about the production of these videos.  A team from W&K were basically sitting in room all day monitoring social media sites for questions, writing responses, filming them, and then loading and posting them up in as real time as they could.  The teamwork within the agency is remarkable, but isn’t surprising.

But probably the most fascinating aspect of this whole “hit” has been the “partnership” that the Old Spice brand team and W&K share.  There is a level a trust there that enables the brand to say, “yes, we are going to go out on a limb and do this and trust our agency to represent us in this space as we would represent ourselves.”  This right here – this level of trust – is what we strive for everyday with our clients, as any agency should.  It makes partners and great work.  It loosens the strings, so to speak.  And allows things like this to happen.  It’s brilliant.

Yesterday, Bob Sheppard – the longtime, great NY Yankees announcer – passed away and left behind a huge void for Yankees, baseball, and sports fans alike.  As someone who’s gone to many Yankees games and heard his voice, the man was awesome.  And anyone who was involved with sports and baseball over the past half century would probably say that there’s no one better.  He was even called the “Voice of God” (by one of my personal favorites, Reggie Jackson).  His voice was that distinctive.  His presence was that profound.

I heard a soundbite from him this morning talking about his viewpoint on announcing.  He basically said that today’s announcers are loud and flamboyant, but his own view on announcing has never changed – he’s approached it in simple terms from the time he started:  he aimed to always be, “clear, concise, and correct.”

Even though this isn’t an announcement from one of his games, you can hear him in action – clear, concise, and correct.

Distinctive, right?  And timeless.

Does your brand or the brand(s) you represent have a distinctive voice?  For that matter, do you?  Do people know who you are and what you represent when they “hear” you?  Is your voice clear, concise, and correct?

This can be a challenge for brands, even established brands who have been around a long time.  As I said at Kioskcom, the most successful brands at utilizing various channels, particularly the 11th screen (IOOH), are those who not only understand their audience, they understand their brand.  They know their voice.  They are distinctive in the marketplace, so they can use whatever channel needed to tell their story in the most effective way.

Social media adds a unique element into this mix.  The very nature of it allows for other voices to be heard in concert with the brand’s, and in the case of launch (or re-launch) brands who are in the process of defining their “official voice,” it can either help inform and define or hinder and prolong definition.  When undefined, it can surface a distinctive voice or it can muddy the waters.  And no matter how flamboyant or loud you are, I don’t believe you (or your brand) can sustain.

In the end, if you approach your brand like Bob Sheppard approached announcing – with the intention of always being clear, concise, and correct – you might have a great shot of being a distinctive voice in the marketplace and one with a profound presence.  And that, my friends, is timeless, and something that can be sustained.

As I said in my last post, I’m on a hunt to find brands (and examples) who create “complete” experiences, specifically by merging the offline with the online (or vice versa).  I believe technology is an ideal way to do this, but not always required.  Brands can find many ways to utilize what they’re doing “offline”, in the real world, and drive consumers deeper into the brand experience “online”, in the digital world.  And I’m talking about more than putting a URL on packaging.

I found an unlikely brand doing something interesting when we decided to make tacos for dinner.  Introducing Old El Paso and their “El TacoDor Game!” – found on their taco shell box and billed as the “Family Taco Dinnertime Game!”

For this experience (and others like it that come after), I’m going to modify my scorecard that I usually use for IOOH.  As with that scorecard, I think it’s important to have a guide when looking at these experiences – something that will help focus my thoughts on what I feel is important.

Experience – What’s the brand experience?  Is it offline to online or vice versa?  Consumers are driven from the box of Old El Paso taco shells (offline) to the El TacoDor website (online) where they can read the rules to the game, download scorecards, upload content via video/photo submissions, and even share content with their own Facebook communities.  The site is actually rich with content and things to do.

Purpose - What’s the purpose of this experience?  Old El Paso created this game so that families could engage with each other over dinner.  I really like the idea of getting families involved with each other, via game or not, over a meal.  In my family, meal-time and eating together is important.  We don’t have the TV on, we rarely have music on – it’s just time where we can talk and focus on each other.  Old El Paso’s type of engagement here is good.  The game doesn’t require a lot and as you can see by some of the challenges, it looks to provide some fun times.

Visibility – Similar to “Drama”, here it’s important to understand how visible the call-to-action is that drives people from one channel to the other.  In this case, the call-to-action is to play the game, which is found on the box.  I’m no expert in packaging, but I have to say, I almost missed it.  Just like anything, design plays an important role in how prominent something is.  In this case, the call-to-action is up against an orange background and just fades into the packaging on the box.  I don’t feel like it’s special enough.  It doesn’t scream, “hey, I’ve got something fun for you guys to do around your dinner table!”  The elements are there, it just doesn’t reach out and grab me.

Entry Points – How many “offline” entry points does the consumer have?  And how many “online” entry points does the consumer have?  How consistent with each other are they?  Do they all drive to the same destination?  I should start this by saying that the sweepstakes (for $5,000) tied to this game has officially ended (as of March 31, 2010), so I don’t know how much they want to promote this game via their packaging now.  That said, the “game” never ends so I was disappointed to see the game only advertised on the box of taco shells.  None of the other Old El Paso products mentioned the game at all.  Clearly, they went to all this trouble to create this type of engagement online – it’s just a shame that they only used one product to drive people to the game (if in fact, this was the case prior to the sweepstakes ending).  Online, I didn’t find many encouraging clues driving to the game either.  The Old El Paso Home page doesn’t mention it at all.  The Old El Paso Facebook page doesn’t mention it at all.  And the Old El Paso Twitter page doesn’t mention it, either.  The only other branded online driver I could find is the El TacoDor’s YouTube channel, upon which there are only 2 videos (both from 2009 – one with 2,600+ views and the other with 8,600+ views).  What gives?  There are various 3rd party sites out there that mention the game, but I think the brand is doing a huge disservice to themselves by not utilizing their own branded channels to drive people to this game.

Content – I think there are two parts to this: 1) What type of content sets up the engagement? and 2) What type of content, if any, is generated by the consumers?  Here, Old El Paso does a great job of setting up the game, giving users all the tools they need to start and complete the game.  It’s real user-friendly.  As a little bonus, they even have a web-based game for people who just want to poke around.  It’s a silly game, but I played it, and as a result, stayed engaged with the brand a little bit longer.

While there was content created by the consumers on the site, I didn’t see very much of it.  There wasn’t any real, visible engagement on behalf of the brand on any of the channels – .com, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.  It all begs the question – is this something that people are motivated enough to do?  Speaking from personal experience, no matter how good the idea is, if it’s not going to engage people to the point of spreading the word and/or coming back repeatedly and/or getting other people to see and play it, it probably shouldn’t be done.  I think this is a real clever idea, but as a marketer and as a consumer, when I see so little content and engagement on the primary channels, I don’t feel like anyone’s watching.  And when no one’s watching, I’m not going to play.

Extensions – How deep does this experience go?  It’s bringing people from the offline world into the online world, now where all can they go?  Here, I thought Old El Paso did a great job of giving the consumers the ability to extend this into their own social networks, specifically Facebook (which certainly helps the game spread virally).

They even give users the ability to make their own Certificate of Awesomeness, print it out, and hang it on the fridge, which is a less direct extension, but one nonetheless.  I think this is a great touch to this whole experience.

There’s an element to this experience that I feel needs to be mentioned, as with any other game – I’m just not sure it goes along with all experiences like this that I’ll be finding and talking about – and that’s the aspect of incentives or rewards.  Games can bring people together and enable deeper experiences with brands, but consumers will only do so much for “free.”  There has to be some sort of incentive or reward to keep them engaged over a long period of time and coming back for more.  Here, there was a sweepstakes tied to the game, but that’s the only reward I could find.  Once the sweepstakes is over, what’s my incentive for coming back and interacting with Old El Paso?  Why do I have to buy this brand?  Now that I have all of the game elements, I can buy the generic products for the cheaper price.  Old El Paso doesn’t want that.  Simple coupons for consumers who reach a certain level of points (can be low-level) would not only give consumers something to play for, it would send them back into the store to buy more product.  This is a key element that is missing from this entire experience.

All in all, though, I was really delighted with this experience.  It was a smart idea, deep in experience, but didn’t seem to have the support commiserate with what is needed in this type of engagement.  I’d love to talk to someone on the brand about the success (or failure) of this experience.  With a couple of tweaks, I really feel like this could be a sticky engagement.  What do you think?

Have you seen anything like this?  Great idea – one that merges the offline with the online – but little engagement?  If so, I’d love to hear from you!

Build-A-Bear does it again.  I know these guys aren’t the only ones doing an effective job of communicating with their customers, regardless of channel (or “screen”), but, it’s worth pointing out, not only when (and how) they use those different channels – the end goal can’t be overlooked amidst the channel tactics:  developing meaningful relationships with their customers.  They seem to be honed in on what they’re trying to do with their customers vs. what they’re trying to do with their brand.  Big distinction and something that I think a lot of brands can learn from.  I think, generally speaking, brands get the concept and even strive for this more often than not.  It’s about actually doing, making decisions based on what is best for the customer vs. what is best for the brand.  They do go hand in hand but in order to do what’s best for the customer, I believe brands have to have a solid understanding of their story, their promise, their value to the customers (even world) – this frees them from doing things just for the sake of doing things.  In this position, brands are purposeful and everything they do has meaning.  It moves the needle.

So, it was of no surprise when my daughter received a special “gift” in the mail yesterday from Build-A-Bear.

This is right on so many levels.

1.  Recognition – by simply saying “Happy Birthday”, BAB is saying, “you’re important to us and we’re thinking about you.”  They’ve got this system down so right now, we’re technically important to a computer, but I guarantee you, as soon as we walk in the store with this, we’re going to get showered with the most welcoming and genuine “Happy Birthdays” outside of our family.  And to have hooks in place, behind the scenes, to communicate with customers at appropriate times (like birthdays) is just another smart, meaningful, easy way to communicate and build the relationship.

2. Reward – it’s small (only $5.00), but it drives us into the store.  Knowing my wife, our daughter will get an accessory with this gift instead of a bear, but in the end, that doesn’t matter as much as the complete impact that this one touch point will have on us.  The card is only part of this touch point.  The action that we take as a result of getting the card is the other part of the touch point.  It’s not without challenge getting customers to do what you want them to do.  Reward, even a small one, is a great way to entice them and move them along the relationship path.

3. Relationship – it’s an idealistic way of looking at the world of marketing and communications, but I think there’s 1 easy question for brands to always ask that will steer them in the right direction – “is this going to positively impact our relationship with our customers?”  It’s certainly complicated in the world of ROI and KPI’s and budgets and the ever-evolving media landscape, but does it have to be?  Build-A-Bear is in the relationship business, literally, and this is probably a huge factor in driving decisions like this.

In addition, they’re also making a concerted effort to drive us even deeper than in store.  They’re complimenting the offline experience (card to store) with an even richer online experience (Build-A-Bearville).

This right here is something that I want to focus more on in this forum as we go into the 2^nd half of the year – the offline to the online and vice versa.  The true power that I see with OOH, interactive out-of-home specifically, is how it can be an even greater bridge between the offline and the online.  I’ve talked a lot about enabling technologies that allow people to take something offline and have an online experience, thus experiencing the brand on a deeper level.  There are many ways for brands to do this and using the “OOH” channel is one of them.  Many brands are doing this.  I’m on a hunt for those brands.

But for now, thank you Build-A-Bear for being one of these brands, and on a personal level, this relationship is becoming meaningful, not only with me, but with my daughter, and we’re starting to become loyal.  Which is the whole point. :)

We’re at a good halfway point in the year, so I think it’s an opportune time to look back on the first 6 months of this blog and reflect.

All in all, I think I’ve done a fairly good job of finding a relevant and clear point of view.  It’s evolved from something narrow when I started to a bit broader now.  Most everything has been grounded in OOH – I just look at things with more experience and exposure as time has gone (and goes) on.  I’m also surrounded by different people in my everyday life who have impacted my thinking.  So, naturally, my point of view will evolve.  I just don’t want it to slow me down and/or turn into something crazy and incomprehensible.

I need to write more.  I’m averaging about 10 posts a month.  I feel like I need to double that so I’m providing a steady source of information.  I’ve asked a couple of my work colleagues, all of whom are very bright and have an opinion and aren’t shy to voice it, to provide guest posts on as regular basis as they can.  So, hopefully, you’ll not only get more content, but you’ll get more (and different) perspective.  If any of you want to provide a guest post, just let me know.  I’m open to it.

I haven’t found the secret sauce of doing conferences.  Blogging, tweeting, meeting people, and just plain going to the conference is a lot of work and certainly requires some juggling.  I’ve provided a decent mix of “live streaming” + my perspective.  I feel like I need to focus on getting in front of some of “names” there and interview them (or something.)  I can see how that would be valuable.  So, any of you names at these conferences, take this as my initial request :)

Other than that, I’m pretty happy with everything.  It’s still very new and the test is really going to be sustaining over time.  I’m committed to continue learning and doing and writing.  I expect big things and as a result, everyone reading this will experience that with me.

I’ve met some really great people through this avenue and that, more than anything, is the thing I’m most proud of.  This blog allows for these words to live on until some Y2K catastrophe, but I hope to keep those relationships for much longer.

I thought it would be a fun exercise to share some of my favorite posts.  I’ve enjoyed reading back over everything and for those who are new to this blog, it might help you navigate through some of my thinking up to now.  To those of you who are not new to this blog and my regular readers (again, thank you guys for regular readership!!), I’d love to hear some of your favorite posts.  So here they are, broken down by month (I picked a favorite per month):

January – The 11th Screen Puzzle – this was my 3rd post and really where I felt like I was able to really give everyone a sense of where I’m coming from and what to expect from this blog.

February – Keep It Simple Stupid – here, I showed a few examples of “simple” and effective Interactive Out of Home (IOOH) and an example of not so simple and not so effective.  To me, there are many different kinds of enabling technologies that make OOH solutions “interactive.”  These technologies are vital, not only for the industry, but for the future of marketing.  On one hand, these technologies allow us to merge the offline with the online and on another hand, they allow brands to make “complete” experiences.

March – Facebook + QR Codes + A Good Idea? – a little snarky here, but this was on the heels of doing a big QR code initiative for one of our clients and all I was reading was how Facebook was going to save QR codes.  That’s right, I said “save” because here in the US, I think they might have died before they were even born.  I personally think there’s value to QR codes, if used the right way + proper eduction, but how many of you have used QR codes and like it?  I just don’t know that we, as consumers of information through technology, need this particular technology.  Point is – is Facebook going to save them?  I don’t think so.

April – Why Business Cards and Video are the Same to Me – one of the un-IOOH-related posts, but something that allowed me to provide my perspective on more of what I do everyday.

May – Are You an Expert Learner? – I am of the mindset that if you aren’t learning, you’re wasting your time.  I don’t particularly care for know-it-alls, but I really like learn-it-alls.

June – Kinect (and others) – “DOOH” Killers? – the launch of Microsoft’s Kinect should really open eyes on what can be done sooner rather than later with human computer interaction.  It is particularly compelling for anyone in the “DOOH” (if you’ve read this blog, you know how I feel about that moniker) industry.

And here we are in July.  Many more to come.

Happy Friday, everyone.  I just wanted to send a big THANK YOU for stopping by and reading.  Whether it’s your first time or you’re a regular reader, I really appreciate it.  As we move into the second half of the year, please let me know what you’d like to hear more about, and of course, if you see anything here that catches your eye, I’d love to know your thoughts!  (Don’t be shy about what you think could make this better, either.)  Everyone be safe this holiday weekend!