A couple of years ago, Tom Wujec gave a TED talk about “The Marshmallow Challenge”. Teams are given 20 minutes to build the tallest structure possible that can support a marshmallow using only uncooked spaghetti, tape and string. Surprisingly, kindergartners consistently outperform MBA graduates in this challenge.
The kindergartners began building immediately. They adjusted what failed and capitalized on what worked. Working iteratively, their innovative results were a success because they spent less time thinking and more time doing. The MBA grads spent too much time planning. By the time they began construction they had no practical experience and their structures suffered.
Similarly, when tasking agencies to develop concepts, the client’s approach is to identify the single best solution before pulling the trigger on a given project. And in this business, it is only natural for clients to want more ideas, faster and for less money. More often, the turnaround for concepts is now days, not weeks. This leaves agencies little time to think. There is no time for strategy development, thorough research or well-planned mock-ups. This, coupled with the client’s urgency to get to the big idea, generates conflict.
How can we present the very best concept to our clients without time... Read more
Tags: advertising, creative, creative concepting, proof of concept, rapid prototyping
Posted in Creative Best Practices, Opinions | 1 Comment »
The struggle between deadlines and creative started the day marketing and advertising was conceived. Unfortunately one side seems to always win. So it's how we handle these unavoidable pressures that differentiates the great from the weak. The truly great creatives have figured out a way to turn that tight deadline into a positive situation--they revel in it.
How? First let's talk about those dreamy, mythical deadlines that are weeks or even months away. Besides the natural tendency to procrastinate, the tendency to over analyze becomes the greater issue. The more time you have, the more you second guess what you're doing or the less willing you are to commit to a direction until you feel it is the ultimate solution. Or something could be great at first, but because you have all the time in the world you don't know when to say when. You keep building up and tearing down until you're left with something average or safe, not realizing that brilliance was staring you in the face days ago.
When you have a tight deadline, you're forced to immediately focus on the ask and quickly come up with an efficient game plan. Once the essence of the brief is understood,... Read more
Tags: advertising, creative, digital, inspiration, marketing
Posted in Creative Best Practices, Opinions | 2 Comments »
This is part 2 of a limited series on why buyer choice modeling is the new view B2B Business must adopt to improve revenue performance and develop long lasting relationships with buyers.
Growth is getting harder and harder to come by. With this comes the realization that some of the embedded thinking about how to reach and market to buyers are not working well. In part 1 of this series we looked at how the funnel is facing a slow death and the limitations of so called funnel thinking. We are entering a new era of the buyer. Buyer behaviors are shifting yet we know only a fraction about this shift. One emerging insight is that of buyer choice. Simply stated, buyers are making multiple choices prior to as well as well after buying decisions.
Buyers Have Many Options. The floodgates have opened on channels, social media, old media, the Internet, and countless other ways to interact, explore, retrieve, and digest information in this new era of the buyer. With countless options available, buyers are making choices on where to start their exploring.
The Buyer At The Center Of Strategy, Marketing, And Sales. ... Read more
Tags: business buyergraphics, Buyer, buyer behavior, buyer choice, buyer choice modeling, buyer experience, buyer insight, buyer modeling, buyer orbit, buyer persona, buyer persona marketing, buyer personas, buyer strategy, buyergraphics, buyerology, content marketing, creative, Digital Marketing, mobile marketing, predictive buyer modeling, Tony Zambito
Posted in Creative Best Practices, Emerging Platforms, Opinions, Search, Social Media, Targeting, Websites | No Comments »
If there is one word to describe me, it’s obsessive. Give me a lemon; I will make lemonade, lemon cookies, and lemon cake! So when a friend told me about Pinterest, I immediately became consumed. The plethora of visual stimuli became a realization of all things I love. If you have not discovered the amusingness of Pinterest, I highly suggest you browse.
Pinterest is a social media community to share collections of things you love. It has become a mix of Twitter, Facebook, and blog sites with its ability to follow fellow Pinterest owners, its connect ability, and the capacity to share what you like with others. What makes Pinterest different than Facebook and Twitter is that it is all via visual dialogue. There aren’t any personal pictures of you and your friends, or a written update of what you did today, but rather organized pictures using a scrapbook approach.
For those crafty individuals, Pinterest is THE place. All of the DIY craft ideas and recipes options, just to name a few, makes sharing ideas easy. It is like creating one big scrapbook and having the ability to share your interests with others. Pinterest is a way of feeding off other’s ideas,... Read more
Tags: advertising, creative, Digital Marketing, online advertising, pinterest, Social Media, social media marketing, technology, trends
Posted in Social Media, Websites | 2 Comments »
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