CrapHammer

Digital Storytelling

I concur that this is a wonderful example of digital storytelling by a brand.  I enjoyed the flow, pace, and the fact that it treated me as a person.  Funny how many sites forget the last part.

http://www.truthaboutsmart.co.uk/

Pros:

• Great use of the medium.  I love the opening while it's loading the flash.  One of the best wait screens ever.
• The interactive parts were integral to the experience and I found it sort of fun.  Something I didn't expect from a selling-a-car website
• Simple and consistent progression of the story, allowing me to dig deeper should I so choose.

Cons:

• I could have done without is the flying cursors of previous visitors.  It looks like a "cool gadget" that someone wanted to try but it really doesn't play into the experience at all.  Sort of distracts from it.
• I'll save you from my "yet another micro-site" rant and just leave it at that.
• It would be nice to see some elements I could have used to spread the word about this campaign.  A short youtube video teaser?  A small interactive guess the right answer widget?

P.S.  Let it sit idle for a minute.  LOL.  Nice.

Many thanks to swissmiss for this find.

The Role of Serious Play in the Boardroom

I recently penned an article on my consulting blog that I thought might be of interest to readers here.

I remember my first real experimentation with play to solve a serious business problem and it occurred way back in 2001.  I was a Senior Strategist with ICE and we were working on the second largest e-commerce initiative in Canada for a packaged travel company (packaged vacations).  We had recently wrapped up a 2 months planning phase that culminated in a dangerously heavy set of bound documentation.

continue reading

I look at one of the first times I used a "Serious Play" exercise in a boardroom with "suits" and how it led to a major insight on the project.

AppleTV: Be Wary...

WARNING:  Geeks everywhere should be very wary before embarking on the path of Apple TV.  Normal people should avoid like the plague.

Everything was roses until a movie downloaded and would not play.  It refused to authorize.  I called Apple support but was informed that my 90 days of complementary support had passed.  If I wanted to speak to someone I would have to buy a $60 extended applecare warranty.  Frustrating, but hey.  I shelled out the cash. My apple tv was worth it, no?

Cut to the chase, tech support had me reset my device to factory defaults. This is after spending a total of 15 hours and 4 days downloading this movie 4 times.  But no worries.  This would fix it and while it would wipe the hard drive, I was informed that I would be able to download anything I had "rented" but not played yet.

Not the case. Anything but.

Reality is that if you have a problem with something you've purchased, you have to visit the iTunes store support website and fill out a service request form at which point you will be emailed back within 48 hours.

But wait, I paid for phone service.  Yup.  But this doesn't cover anything touching the iTunes store.  And everything you buy or rent on your apple TV comes from guess where?  Yup.  The iTunes store.  So I paid $60 to end up in an email scenario and all my rented (and paid for) movies gone.

(NOTE: If you are VERY lucky and get the Canadian Call Centre, they seem to have god-like powers and will contact iTunes on your behalf. Austin: nope. India: nope.)  My last call, however, ended me at the US call centre.  Which it turns out is bad news but also where the majority of calls go.

Here's the best part.  They still weren't sure if my movies would play assuming the iTunes store agrees to allow me to re-download them.  They want me to wait 2 days for the iTunes store to respond and then call them back if it doesn't play this time.

Let's look at the process.

• DRM is nasty in even the best scenario.
• If it fails, you have to re-download (2-4 hours for an HD movie and pray this time it will work)
• Email is fine if you bought an album and it won't play.
• Email sucks tiddle shit when you are waiting to watch a movie.

Imagine having your friends gathered to watch a geeky HD movie.  And you can't.  Furthermore, you have to wait 48 hours for a response from the iTunes store.

TAKEAWAY:

Avoid AppleTV.  Great idea, but a SNAFU from start to finish when it comes to service and support.  A product way in advance of it's time and way in advance of Apple's ability to adequately support at this time.

NOTE:  If you push and pull your way through 2 separate escalations, you can achieve a level 2 support technician who can contact someone from the iTunes store.  But it took me an hour on the phone (fourth call), refusing a free shuffle and then demanding escalation four times.  The path is: general AppleTV call centre, then Level 1 Product Specialist, then Level 2 Customer Care or some such named group (who can actually do something.)

Image Source: Midnight-digital

UPDATE:  Wait a minute.  The iTunes store got back to me in only 24 hours.  But wait.  They reset my account, disabling my AppleTV AND gave me next steps for re-downloading on my computer using iTunes.  But I didn't buy it on my computer.  I bought it on Apple TV.   There is no "Authorize Computer" button on my Apple TV.  Gah!!!

Dear Sean ,

I understand you were requesting assistance by phone to resolve the movie rental error you received. I'm sorry, but the iTunes Store normally doesn't provide assistance by telephone. I'm happy to answer any questions you may have via email and I will do my best to resolve this issue for you.

I apologize that you received an error message 5103 when trying to download the movies you rented. New copies of the movies you described have already been posted to your account. You should be able to resolve it by following these steps:

1) Quit iTunes.

2) Follow the instructions in the "Remove the SC Info folder" section of this article:
http://www.info.apple.com/kbnum/n306424

3) After removing the SC Info folder, reopen iTunes.

4) Choose Check for Purchases from the Store menu.

5) If prompted, enter your account name and password, then click the Check button.

6) After the movies finishes downloading, choose Authorize Computer from the Store menu.

7) Enter your account name and password, then click the Authorize button.

You should now be able to play the movies you rented.

To make sure these steps would resolve your issue, I reset the number of authorized computers for your iTunes Store account to zero. Therefore, if you use other computers to play the items you purchase or rent with this account, you may be prompted to reauthorize those computers to play the items.

If you follow these steps and still receive error messages when trying to download the movies you rent, please reply to let me know. I will be happy to provide additional assistance.

I hope the information was helpful and that you continue to enjoy the iTunes Store.
Movies, TV Shows, iTunes U, Music, iPod Games, Music Videos, Audiobooks, Pixar Short Films, and Podcasts all available at the iTunes Store.

Sincerely,

Morgana
iTunes Store Customer Support
 

Can't buy me love.

I've been thinking about loyalty and loyalty programs of late due to some conversations I've been having.

David Armano called this a "must watch video for marketers" and he was right.  It's a presentation by Brandon Schauer and David Verba from Adaptive Path about their new book titled "Subject to Change:".  The video is long:  An hour, basically.

I don't expect many of us to find the time to watch it.  So let me break down some of my takeaways from the last twenty minutes that were specifically addressed to loyalty programs.

• Over 75% of all customers have at least one loyalty card
• CMO of Orbitz said "If you want loyalty, get a dog."
• Loyalty has to be earned with great experiences across channels
  • Delight, anticipate needs, and provide pleasant surprises
  • Experience never lines up with how organization is built to deliver.  So it requires work.
• Peak-end rule applies
  • Basically, it's those high ("wow moments") we take a customer to that are remembered over consistency of delivery
• Critical that we have a better strategy and operational excellence at managing touch points
  • Draw from un-met needs
  • Create repeatable processes
  • Create spikes ("wow moments") at multiple points along a customer lifecycle

Brandon and David summarize their entire approach pretty early on by saying that the "Experience is the Product."  It think this is worth repeating.

"The Experience is the Product."

Shouldn't this apply to loyalty programs as well?

I'm assuming most people would agree that improving the experience and providing moments of surprise and delight would do more to engender loyalty than any card based incentive program. But this is a daunting task to implement.  A process that will impact disparate systems, groups, divisions and partners.  Something that requires a rethinking of the business from the perspective of the customer experience (inward facing) and not as it is currently structured and built to deliver (outward facing).

It is much easier to design a loyalty program around cash-back and redeemable rewards that are dangled in front of customers with the hope of influencing the desired behavior - ie: continued sales/consumption. But are the rewards used the REWARDS that really matter?  What we've learned in social networking circles is that there are many types of REWARDS that influence people to participate - status, ego, social status, good will, fulfilling experience, and more.

And so, in constructing a loyalty program I would hope to question what REWARDS are of true value to the customers/audience?

I believe quite strongly that people want more than cash rewards. Sure, I'd love a free airline ticket.  Who wouldn't. But I laugh every time I compute how much I have to purchase to get a free $500 flight somewhere.  On one of my cards, I have to purchase over $30,000 to get a $500 ticket.  I'm much more likely to wash things through this card that generate no or limited interest (business expenses) and game the system for the flight.

Shouldn't our loyalty program be a cornerstone of our evangelist program?  And by so doing, be a part of influencing and REWARDING our customers for being our customers?

Amex was running a campaign where semi-famous people were featured on ads with their dreams and desires around money and life spelled out (click on the above image to see the full size version).  Bingo.  Brilliant.  I imagine this applied to everyday card members and I get shivers.

I look forward to your thoughts.

And for anyone like Tim who came for the music.  Here ya go.

Image Source:  http://www.abouttheimage.com/

Planners doing the design tango

     image source: STAYFLY!

I believe that as planners we can learn a lot from design thinking.

1. We are both problem solvers.

As planners we spend all our time working on things "in secret" and as a result we tend to not share our tools and we certainly don't share our findings.  Imagine my surprise some months back to realize that there is another group focused on how to better identify people's real needs and to innovate based on these findings.

User Experience designers are many steps ahead on some fronts and willing to share both their tools and their findings.  I want to repeat this last part.  They are willing to share both their tools and their findings.  I witnessed this in presentation after presentation in San Francisco.

I would hazard to say that David Armano thinks of himself as a designer.   He recently had a client who was interested in micro-formats.  Imagine this was your client and this is your first meeting with them.  As a planner, how might you position it?  How would you research it?  I hazard to guess you would be hard pressed to put together a more powerful and insightful presentation than this one:  Micro-Interactions presentation. 

The planner in me would KILL to see what David presents at a later stage to this client when it is now specific to their audience, the research done and the objectives at hand.  (So everyone remember to keep knives away from me during the next karaoke session.)

2. Customer "in the center" just makes sense.

A focus group is anything but involving the user.  It's akin to putting rats in cages.  Something quite sick and that society doesn't trust in anything but quantitative settings.  And yet, focus groups are anything but quantitative. They are the worst of many worlds.

At the Adaptive Path MX conference in San Francisco the conversations were generally around how to drive innovation and positive impact for the business. Every model and every solution hinged on one thing:  the customer in the centre. 

A message that people in marketing have been hearing for some time now.  I think people want to put customers in the centre but are struggling with how to do so.  Something design has been focusing on for quite some time.

3. The power of surprise and innovation

Both the greatest and the simplest single thing to come out of MX San Fran (for me) was a tiny little model for defining the types of research used on a project.

• Explicit:  What someone is willing (and able) to tell us.  What they say.
• Tacit:  What they won't say, but we can infer.
• Latent:  What they don't know and can't say.

Certainly not rocket science.  But when I look at the majority of research I've witnessed being done in marketing, it is both self-reported (surveys, focus groups, interviews) and definitely explicit in nature.  We tend to maintain a very tertiary focus on lurking, behavioral monitoring or any other activities pertinent to tacit observation.  Inference is generally left to what we can glean from explicit task data.

My favorite, however, was latent.  Something you can't ask because they truly can't tell you.

So what good is Latent as a category if a person doesn't know it, can't say it and we can't infer it?!  Great question.  This category refers to where a person can only respond after "seeing" something.  It can be a prototype, a story or even a re-enactment.  It is where the light dawns and they can then have a reaction or response to the idea being tested.  The need is suddenly realized.

We use re-enactments all the time with clients.  But using it in research and ideation is where its real power lies.

If the idea behind the iPhone had been focus grouped to see if people needed a single, touchscreen device, I'm sure it would have been lukewarm at best.  But take that same concept and put a prototype of it into people's hands and watch the amazement and wonder appear and the realization that suddenly so much is at their fingertips that wasn't even a concern before.

If we are working to surprise, delight and innovate, one would be well advised to take a lesson from the design sectors and use all three research categories on your projects.

Wrapping it all up...

So why isn't everyone embracing user-centred design principles?  I think part of the problem is that focusing on the user and the experience first forces us to define the problem differently,  often in a way that breaks down silos.  Sort of the point but the challenge lies in how quickly it can take us away from our areas of expertise and right into someone else's sandbox.

The toad, who is all for a shift to user-centred design principles, presents a sage argument for why agencies should tread carefully before embracing all things "user experience."

"So we can suggest changes in store design to our clients. But if they already have a store design agency, they’re not going to care what we think. Or want to pay us for it."
   - Alan, the tangerine toad

I am learning an unbelievable amount from design thinking.  It has changed the way I approach research and how I am struggling to combine participatory elements into almost everything I do.  And agency, or no agency behind me, I'm proceeding forward.  Watch for more.