His life is turned upside down when a young MBA (played by Anna Kendrick) comes in and figures out that by doing the firing online and from one central location, the cost of business can be reduced by 85%. Clooney tries to convince her that this is not as clearcut as Kendrick thinks it is.

The contrast between Clooney and Kendrick serves as a nice backdrop for some practices we all know but sometimes need reminding of*:

Culture vs category Culture leads to better understanding of category

There are many problems in the lives of people, that may not directly relate to our products, but offer a chance to solve problems with tangible solutions.

Kendrick came in and saw one thing from her limited exposure and training. ” If we can cut the cost of flying by doing it via internet, we can make a killing”. Of course she is right.

Cutting cost would have made the fictional company more money. Yet what she had not experienced, was the stuff that happens all around the product they offer (in this case the firing of people).

There are issues that play a big part in the lives of the fired ones that have no relation to getting fired. Yet could have offered her company opportunities to be of bigger additional value to clients and customers than just being cheaper.

Culture (or let me rephrase that large word: an understanding of the wider lives of customers other than their behaviour when interacting with our clients catergory product) can be a fertile place for cash. But it means widening our scope.

There is this story about the public service system in Mexico around the 1950’s. It was notorious for its ineffectiveness. But gradually the productivity went up, without active involvement of the Gov. Nobody could, on the surface find a reason for this change. Turns out it was the aircondtitioning.

The siesta was something very strongly engraved in Mecixan live. Whether they be public servants, bankers, mechanics or farmers. The practice was part of the country.

So when the Mexican governement started installing airconditioning machines in city halls and other places where the servants worked, it had unexpected results.

The siesta was used for killing downtime around the hottest time of day, because it was dangerous to be outside (or that was the orginal practice, which carried over even when not entirely true for civil servants in the 1950’s anymore). Now the temperture was being kept steady at a workable one with the help of airco’s.

Slowly but surely this had an effect on the behaviour of the servants that led them not to take siestas and thus upping productivity.

Imagine if the sellers of the airco had pitched it as a means to up productivity or effectiveness, based on this insight and possible new use of product? Would that have been better than just a device to keep people cool?

I don’t know (all history tells us is, that they were bought on the strenght of other considerations), but if we had to sell airco in this day and age it would be an interesting, appealing and memorable pitch compared to standard pitches of just keeping cool.

People are influenced by all kinds of things: the context of interaction, people we look to/at, folklore, the physical world around us, previous experiences, fears, insecurities, much more… and the category product. Use it all to be of better service and ultimately more profitable.

This concludes this series of posts.

*For arguments sake I leave the morality of working for/with a company that fires people for a living out of the equation. Same goes for the actual movie. No accounting for taste.

Bruce Springsteen

The above clip was the inspiration;

Obama is the side chosen;

Little Steven has love for garage rock.

Nickelback are stuck in the Seatle grunge sound.

When it comes to inspiration I have to admit I am also stuck.

Certain albums, movies, books always seem to offer up deeper insight than the last time I checked them out.

Same goes for the era in advertising called “the creative revolution”. The time of Bernbach, Krone, Lois, Koenig, Callaway, Della Femina, Gossage.

Although the current times offer up a great deal of stimuli, food for thought and are truly interesting times, when in comes to all out-aim for another universe- type inspiration the 60’s are my era.

Perhaps it’s the fact that they were pioneers, troublemakers and the art of advertising was held in higher esteem. Sure it’s a sentimental view, and there was shite back then, but still..

But strip all that away and what get’s me everytime is the power and abundance of the ideas. Some would say that it was also the era of the mass media, and you could buy your way into popular demand.

Perhaps. But mostly thought it is the sheer audacity and freshness (after all these years) that stands out. There is no need to contexualize the work (like say some of the work that was done prior). There is no need to explain the thinking behind it. it speaks for itself.

So here’s to the brave admen and brave clients, to sharp ideas and great execution.

And here’s to hoping that the next decade out shines the 1960’s. It’s about time, don’t you think.

It is this implicitness, the context of the word that these players understood. The reff understood, the crowd understood. Derby = hard play, full of fouls, at breakneck pace. More was allowed, because of the frame it was presented in.

Briefing is one of those words that lately has frustrated me. If say the agency we work with gives feedback about the briefing they received it somehow always revolves around questions of format, channel choice, pay off. It seems that the auto pilot kicks in whenever they hear the word briefing, and it takes them back to when they learned about it in school. Briefing = ……

Words. Context. We often glance over it, but once you get down to the nitty gritty of it, it is powerfull. Especially when the implicit meaning is understood but not articulated. When the illusion of civility is upheld or explicitly removed.

They can grant us room to grow or close our way of thinking down.

Exploring vs Drilling for oil

Immigrant vs illigal Alien

Words dictacte so much of the space we can, allow ourselves to take, and can help us articulate the reasons behind actions not explicitly mentioned, that a dictionary is this marketeers new friend. Perhaps obvious to some, but important enough to me to repeat.

still a nice idea: blank2clothe

2.0 is funny that way. In many ways it strips people down to the core of their being; their inner personality. And that’s where I run into trouble. Not that I don’t have one ( I actually think quite highly of myself, hah), but it’s just words (in my case) that are used to convey who I am and what I believe. The physicality of human interaction is left out.

I feel I am being robbed of instinct. The web stripped me of the ambiguity I thrive on in real life. A certain look you give, a pause you take while speaking, how you walk in to a room, the fact that I am 6″7 or left handed. Gone.

Recently I played some poker online. And I went down in flames. It was clinical, without context and safe. Yet when seated at a table in a real life cash game, I hold my own, being able to fully explore the one element 2.0 is advocating, but I am missing; the human element. Does this expose me lacking fundamental math skills required for this game or exposes me to be a good soft skill player? How do you make such a judgement about a person? Do we start keeping tabs about online and off line feelings towards one another?

Would a nice template, some more pics, tweets, tags, clouds and streams enhance me on the web? Perhaps.. and yes the offline versions of tags and pics etc, are clothing and haircuts, make up etc, so If I do not translate well I should use the tools at hand better (get a make over of sorts), but there is still the loss of that ambiguity of flesh.

So what’s my point: Will the web, like a great poetry translation, ever capture the nunaces of the meaning of people and convey them to full effect, or will it stay what it is now: a part of the picture that is editable to make you more or less than you really are. And if it stays this ways, but keeps gaining importance, where do I, we go from here?