Robert Pattinson was hit by a cab last week, whilst trying to get away from a mob of teenage girls. Thanks to his breakout role in Twilight, R-Patz (as they’re calling him) is struggling to come to terms with his newfound megastardom.
That’s the thing about “Hollywood fame” – no matter how hard you try, it changes you.
There’s a point where you go from ‘next big thing’ to ‘king of the world’.
The key is to remember how you got started, and make sure that you reconnect with the people who put you there in the first place.
Brands face the same challenge.
Early adopters become passionate advocates and drive the brand growth.
The brand gets bigger and bigger, until suddenly it’s so mainstream that its original enthusiasts drop off the radar.
This is great news for us in experiential marketing, since it’s the face-to-face, hands-on approach that allows brands to get back in touch with the people who helped them breakthrough in the first place.
Tom Cruise knows this, which is why he’s happy spending two hours on the red carpet at every premiere.
McDonald’s have a great hiring policy.
They figure that employment history and previous experience is irrelevant, since they can cover off pretty much everything with comprehensive induction and training.
So instead, they hire the smile. The way they see it, it’s much harder to teach someone to be warm, friendly and approachable than it is to say, fry fries.
OK, so that’s fine for McDonalds you say but what about other lines of work?
I think the same rule applies. Sure, we all play the game and update our CVs diligently.
But these days, no-one applies for a job that they think they won’t be able to do, since they’ll be caught out within a couple of days.
So why put so much effort into looking at the past?
What you did yesterday is nowhere near as relevant or exciting as what you’re going to do tomorrow.
So focus on what comes next, rather than what you did before.
Adweek released a poll conducted on LinkedIn in which 4,148 respondents answered the question, "Of the ads you see in a typical day, how many engage your attention?"
One out of four answered "None of them," and two out of three "A small minority."
This may be a controversial opinion, but I firmly believe that information should only ever be shared on a need-to-know basis.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for openness and transparency.
But there’s a point where TMI (apparently that’s what the kids say for ‘too much information) infects our daily lives.
I’m not suggesting we harbour secrets from one another, but there’s a danger that we tell everyone everything in order to absolve ourselves from any responsibility.
It’s a little like the warnings on hot apple pies or Champagne corks.
They pass the buck of responsibility onto the recipient of the information.
In a business sense, the more we tell other people about the challenge we face, the more it seems like it’s no longer our problem to solve.
Try to think about what people need to know, rather than assuming that information overload is best.
Today I witnessed first-hand one way the recession might be good for customer service--which is to say the customer experience. It started with an unfortunate encounter between a cup of coffee and my favorite Maria Cornejo dress, which happens to be ("to have been"?) pale beige.
Against all prejudices I found myself at Bloomingdale's, a place I would usually avoid because I associate department stores with bad customer service... being agressively pursued by eager perfume proferers... then alternately ignored and insulted by the people I need to help me find the right size, or the restroom, or (this one is laughable) something I need in a hurry.
I was happily surprised by an outstanding customer experience. Right there on the 3rd floor of Bloomingdale's, I met an amazingly nice woman who recommended a perfect dress on sale and hunted it down in the right size. When I explained the coffee snafu, she helpfully cut off tags and clipped temporary stitching so I could pay and then wear my new dress out of the store. And she gave me directions to a dry cleaner in the neighborhood, where I hope my old dress will make a full recovery.
Could this great customer experience have been enabled by the recession--precisely because, in these recessionary days, the retail setting is by definition less about giant crowds and mind-numbing consumption and more about considerate staff interacting with customers they have time to look in the eye?
Of course retailers love crowds and outsize consumption, but I think this moment gives them a chance to invest in improving their customer experience in ways that bode well for the long term. A few years ago, when we were still in boom times, Seth Godin and others warned that exhuberant success was leading to customer service failures. Today's opportunity might just be a silver lining for this downturn.
Jack Morton was featured along with our client Hyundai in today's Media Decoder blog in the New York Times. The blog is written by the Times' advertising reporter Stuart Elliott.
Take a look and find out more about Hyundai's summer 'Gas Lock' promotion and the five kick-off events that we will be producing this summer!
Charles VI of France, known to his friends as Charles the Mad, suffered from the bizarre delusion that he was made of glass.
So strong was his conviction that he even had iron bars sewn into his clothing, believing that this would prevent him from shattering if he was to fall.
Although he made these efforts to remedy his situation, and probably slowed himself down no end, the problem never went away because it was all in his head.
It’s so easy to confuse what’s going on in our head with reality; we do it all the time.
“I shouldn’t phone them, I’d just be disturbing them.”
“I can’t ask her out, she wouldn’t be interested.”
“I know I’m entitled to that discount, but I bet they won’t give it to me.”
So fearing the worst, we fail to do the things we should.
It doesn’t matter how in-depth these internal dialogues are, they’ll always remain internal.
If you really want to know what’s going on, you have to be prepared to make the first move.
You’d be amazed at the results if you just get out of your own way.