Suppose there are two salesman approaching you and selling new mobile phone. The way they approached as the following

Sales A : Hi, I have new mobile phone. This is 6 screen inch display. This is has the new processor made by the most advanced technology. The audio is cristal clear. People love it. You have to own this. Come buy!

Sales B: Hi, do you know that we spend almost 2 hours commuting in NYC. You know riding train is somehow can get you boring. I think the best way to spend is to watch movie, or even read the book. And I think it will be awesome if I can enjoy with good audio. I think this phone has it. Wanna take a look?

Can you spot the difference? Which one is you prefer?

I randomly asked 5 friends.  The result was: 1) They loved sales B   2) surprisingly they mostly faced typical sales A in the market.

The idea of persuasive thinking comes up especially in current competitive market. The best way to develop persuasive thinking is using Why-How-What approach. This idea was brought by Simon Sinek in his TED talk

Key Takeaways:

Always start with Why:

Why represents the philosophy or logical reason why this product existed. Why people need that on the very first place and the idea behind it. When Steve Jobs presented his first Iphone, he stated very clearly at the beginning the reason why Apple existed. So people can get buy into their product

Then telling How

How represents the mechanism “how they fulfilled this idea”. For example in case of Steve Jobs, he explained the technology behind Apple laboratory. How Apple really take care their product

Finally tell What

Tell them what exactly you’re trying to persuade. It can be product. It can be service. It also can be idea you are trying to sell to your customers.

Afterall it sounds simple but mostly big corporation always tempted to use reverse approach. They keep telling on WHAT-HOW- and WHY. Exactly like the case of Sales A above.

Now my question is : do you even bother to buy it?

Before explaining how to create design thinking, it will be very important to understand what is design thinking first. The simple way is when you do design thinking you always look up at the user first. How are they going to use it, what kind of experience they will have, and whether it can help to solve problem. Or in other way the approach is inside-out, rather that outside-in.

When Gillette India decided to penetrate Indian market they realized that India has unique market. Gillette market share in India is so stagnant. Then they decided to do couple of research. So instead of pushing their Mach 3 (Gillette’s worldwide product champion) to Indian market, they make new product called Gillette Guard, based on customer request. This is indeed involving tremendous design thinking and research. As the result, Gillette is back to the wheel again.

Here’s steps you can use to make design thinking:

1. Be on User’s Feet Or in other word feel and emphatize what your user feel. Feel the pain.  Put yourself as them not as an outsider. For example when you are trying to launch new product, start asking what if I were them. “is it going to be expensive or not”, “is it going to be needed or not.”
2. List down the Problems. It’s very important to define what exactly the problem is. It sounds simple but it requires tremendous process. The best way to define the problem is by doing in depth-observance toward particular issue.In case of Gillette India, they have done a lot of customer research and they realized the problem of their Mach 3 is that the customers do not require any complicated technology in razor (like what Mach 3 has). What’s more important for them is the price and less complicated design. Indian guy also loves to hang their razor in their bathroom—which apparently Mach 3 doesn’t have such a hole to hang it.
3. Idea Generation. The next step is generating idea based on the problems. This is a place where you have to brainstorm with the team. Try to simulate any solutions that answers the problem.
4. Make Prototype. After having solutions, you have to translate it into sort of prototype product/service. It’s okay to try and error. This indeed required a lot of energy, time and money.Back to Gillette India case, what they did is they’re prototyping new product based on customer’s problem. They made a prototype product that basically
   1. Having less blade (from 3 to 1)
   2. Having hanging hole to hang the razor
   3. Because of less blade means lower production cost—thus lower price

   They came up with new prototype product called known today in India  as Gillette Guard

5. Test and Gather Feedback.After prototyping let’s test it out. The best way is to gather feedback from sets of customers. You can do such as one on one interview and ask their feedback on your type. Don’t forget to take a note on their feedback

   Making design thinking is indeed required such a long process. But the key is focus on the users first. Other company that successfully implement design thinking is IBM Smart City. You can check it out on below Youtube

Further on my analysis on Gillette India can be seen on this Case Study Gillete India

Super Bowl. As you may aware it’s one of the biggest sport event in United States. And what follows them is company for doing their commercial Ads. According to an article in CNN a 30 spot Ads in Super Bowl cost is 4.5 million dollars. Is it worth of the investment?

Reason #1: Your Product May Not Relevant 

Although there are 111 Million viewers during the game, does these 111 million will buy your product upon watching your Ads? Does these 111 Million relevant with your brand? Probably not. As a result it may become just ‘Spray and Pray’. If you notice (well it’s good if you are) in this year, there is Quicken Loans which basically an application to help you to manage your loan. Does this product relevant? Of course not.

Who want to discuss about the Loan when you watch a game?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlRm6Y5iVfw

Reason#2: It’s big amount of money. What about ROI?

Let’s make simple Math calculation on Wix.com Ads in this year

• There are 111 million viewers, just assume in normal condition 1% will people will do action, perhaps visiting website.  So it’s going to be around 1 million will go to Wix website.
• Then out of these 1 million people, 1% will finally subscribes on Wix Premium. So total 10,000 new customers is acquired
• Subscription fee is 150 USD  per person, if we multiplied  by 10,000 new customers, the revenue will 1,500,000 USD

So do you think the result is good enough to justify 4,5 million investment?

Reason #3: It May Not Relevance With Your Target’s Buying Behavior

What’s matter in product marketing is target’s buying behavior. I give you example. What exactly you do when you want buy a car? First thing first you are going to research in internet, Look at the design, look at the tires, call you friend perhaps asking their recommendation.

Now are you going to buy car because of super cool Ads? Of course not. Do you imagine that people come to car dealer “hey I want your buy car because of your ads in Super Bowl was cool,  I wanna buy”.

Reason #4: People hardly remember, competition is fierce out there.

Imagine there are bunch of advertiser putting some ads in 30 seconds, same model, same concept. People won’t get remember anyway. Related to car advertiser,  in this year Super Bowl there are plenty of car manufacturers, for example KIA, Toyota, Mini you name it. Do you think one is standout to another? Well I bet you are not.

Reason #5: Shifting the Essence of Ads: Sales Conversion

We all knew that in the end of the day the ultimate goal of this Ads is Selling-point. While mostly company are focusing on the creativity of Ads, it’s hardy to convert it to selling. An article in Business Insider saying that most of the company forgot the second A in AIDA  (Attention Interest Decision Action) . They may grab attention but people won’t buy. In 1984 Wendy’s  put Super Bowl, “Where’s The Beef”. Although people love the ads in the end Wendy’s sales revenue is not picking up after the ads. What missing was the sales action.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dnUs2AqWvs

Conclusion: Although, we know Super Bowl ads is big money the result is still questionable. There is also some good results of Ads from Super Bowl. For example Old Spice Ads which in end drive conversation and sales. But you know what the case of Old Spice it’s just one in million. Old Spice also topped their Super Bowl ads with tremendous marketing activities after the game show. This is exactly what other company must do.

Lesson Learnt from Digital Marketing Expert with The Most Fabulous Hair that I’ve Ever Seen

People are crazy about digital marketing. I remember when I was working,  my boss was sort of obsessed with digital marketing. He was spending billion dollars to pay so called ‘famous digital marketing agency’ in my country just to manage our Twitter and Facebook page. There is also significant growth in academic perspective. From what I observed almost every reputable college put Digital Marketing as their curriculum. But we forgot, the most fundamental thing: what actually is digital marketing?

I asked my relatives about how do you define digital marketing and everyone have their answers

1. My sister said digital marketing is how you can get as many as followers as possible, how you can get how many likes, and how many post/tweet you generated.
2. My colleague who served as Digital Marketing Manager is his company told me that he’s basically doing activities on how to leverage digital platform to engage with their customers and generate revenue.
3. My Parent said digital marketing is how She can buy something at very minimum price

See everyone have their own versions!

Nothing’s wrong with all above the answer. But what we can drew from above definition digital marketing is complicated. It’s not like Math, Grammar or Chemistry who has the exact correct answers.

For me, Digital marketing is ART.

Just like pieces of art, it requires mastery and intuition. It takes time to nail it and yeah, it’s expensive.  It let people have different interpretation and meaning. Imagine when you look at famous Davinci’s Mona Lisa painting, you may think that she was smiling but actually other  people  believe she was sad.

Same thing on digital marketing just because you believe it’s right doesn’t mean it’s always right

For example, in 2012 McD launched campaign #McDStories and paid million dollar to get Promoted Tweet. What company expect is that people will share good story about their products and or service. But it turns out backlash. In fact, people shared the horrible thing when they ate McD.

From above McD case, we can see who expect that million dollar of investment turns out to be wasted?

Anyway, I will be taking Digital Marketing course this Spring at NYU. Something that I have been waiting for. I hope that I can get the most out of it.

I’ll keep you posted.