Stop pursuing your goals. In his book, »Obliquity«, by John Kay presents an idea that flies in the face of corporate practice and process thinking. Kay claims that goals are best achieved not directly, but indirectly. And this is relevant not only in business, but in all areas of life.

The most profitable companies are not the most aggressive profit-chasers. The wealthiest men and women are not the most materialistic. And the happiest people do not pursue happiness in itself. The goals are mostly reached as a spin off from something else: meaning.

Kay leans toward six creative attitudes towards problem solving and life in general.

”Muddling through”. By this he stresses the importance of approaching a dilemma in a non-rational, intuitive way but at the same time according to some kind of plan. Hm… this sound familiar… Ah, yes! In my book, »Let’s get gorgeous«, I wrote something like this: Fix your eyes to the top (a higher purpose) and follow your instincts like a curious fool. In a zig-zag way. Like a child wandering about, devoted and wide-eyed, disrespectful, foolhardy and reinvestigative.

Pluralism. In the business world people tend to think that there is only one solution to a problem. This is wrong, there are more than one answer to a problem.

Interaction. The outcome has more to do with the question ?Why?” than ”What?”. Problem is, in a process-obsessed world the former is much harder to find an answer to than the latter. You can read my more about it here.

Incompleteness. We like to think that we know enough about the nature of our problem. But we rarely do.

Abstraction. Models are always imperfect descriptions of reality. And should therefore be handled with suspicion.

Complexity. The world is far too complex to understand and manage.

Well, what can I say? Kay is one of the few economist who understand the creative mind.

En man satt på en trottoar i New York. Framför sig hade han en låda med några mynt och bredvid den fanns en skylt med de handtextade orden »I’m blind«.

En copywriter stannade upp och började prata med mannen. Han sade: »Jag har sett dig sitta här dag ut och dag in, men aldrig med mer än kaffepengar i lådan. Det måste vara tufft för dig.«

Mannen nickade och svarade: »Det har varit tufft. Folk skänker inte lika mycket som förr.«

Copywritern: »Jag tror att jag kan hjälpa dig. Får jag skriva några ord på din skylt?«

»Visst«, sa den blinde, som antagligen tänkte att han inte hade något att förlora.

Copywritern klottrade dit några ord och lämnade mannen.

Några veckor senare stannade han åter till vid den blinde mannen och frågade: »Nå, hur har affärerna gått sedan sist?«

Den blinde: »Fantastiskt! Men säg mig, vad skrev du egentligen på skylten?«

Copywritern: »It’s spring. And I’m blind.«

Den här historien visar skillnaden mellan en vanlig skribent och en copywriter. Den förste skriver, den andre får saker att hända.

Vill du också kunna skriva så att folk stannar upp, byter tankebana, bli intresserade, ändrar åsikt och beslutar sig för att lägga pengar på något som de hade tänkt använda till något helt annat?

Då rekommenderar jag min nya kurs Professionell Copywriter. Efter drygt tjugofem års daglig träning på att skriva kort, långt, roligt, spännande, lättsamt eller seriöst om allt från köttbullar till finansiella tjänster, är det dags för mig att dela med mig av mina erfarenheter.

Det rör sig om en distanskurs över tio veckor i Batteris regi. Den hjälper dig att utveckla din förmåga att skriva säljande texter och föra ut ett budskap genom flera olika medieplattformar – som tv, radio, print, digitala medier, direktreklam, butiker, pr, säljbrev, kund- och medlemstidningar – samt att forma dynamiska varumärkesmanifest.

Kursen innehåller fyra moment. (Med reservation för smärre ändringar.)
1. Att tänka på innan du skriver (4 brev)
2. Lär dig konsten att förföra (4 brev)
3. Konsten att fängsla dina läsare (19 brev)
4. Bli mer kreativ (3 brev)

Vi startar med ett halvdagsseminarium 18 februari (första kursbrevet 21 februari). I kursen ingår också fem större uppgifter som vi diskuterar både gemensamt och individuellt i vårt virtuella klassrum. Var beredd på att behöva lägga ner cirka 10-12 timmar per vecka. Anmäler du dig innan den sista januari får du dessutom min senaste bok Den mentala orgasmen utan extra kostnad.

Kursen kostar 17.975 kronor (exklusive moms). Anmäl dig här.

Anmäl dig till min nya distanskurs i copywriting så får du veta mer.

Professionell Copywriter är en distanskurs över tio veckor i Batteris regi. Vill du vässa ditt skrivande och tänkande tycker jag du ska hänga på. Efter drygt tjugofem års daglig träning av att skriva kort, långt, roligt, spännande, lättsamt eller seriöst om allt från köttbullar till finansiella tjänster känner jag att det är dags att dela med mig av mina erfarenheter.

Kursens syftar till att utveckla din förmåga att föra ut ett budskap genom flera olika medieplattformar, som tv, radio, print, digitala medier, direktreklam, butiker, pr, säljbrev, kund- och medlemstidningar, samt att forma dynamiska varumärkesmanifest.

Kursen innehåller fyra moment. (Med reservation för smärre ändringar.)

1. Att tänka på innan du skriver (4 brev)

2. Lär dig konsten att förföra (4 brev)

3. Konsten att fängsla dina läsare (19 brev)

4. Bli mer kreativ (3 brev)

Vi startar med ett halvdagsseminarium 18 februari (första kursbrevet 21 februari). I kursen ingår också fem större uppgifter som vi diskuterar både gemensamt och individuellt i vårt virtuella klassrum. Anmäler du dig innan den sista januari får du min senaste bok Den mentala orgasmen utan extra kostnad.

Recently I posted an article about brutal creative directors. My advice was to get your book out there as fast as you can. Now, if I may, a few words on what I think makes a good creative director.

I once read that a coach’s main job is to love his players. I think the same holds true for creative directors. Advertising is so hard. There is so much rejection, so much brutality, so many late nights. To be able to motivate people in such a business, you have to love them and they have to know it. Not everyone feels this way. A famous CD once confided to me, “You need to have people fear you.” I disagree. Life is short and this is just advertising, people. If this means I’ll always produce less stellar work than a much-feared-CD, I’m okay with that. We all have our priorities. Those are mine.

Good creative directors need to get to know their people. I’ve heard of CDs who dig a moat around their office and meet only with the senior creatives; never with anyone lower down the food chain. This, too, I think is probably the wrong way to go about it. You need to know and love the people who are manning your trenches. You need to know their names, you need to know what they’re working on, you need to know when they do something great so you can lean into their offices and say, “Dude, that was great.” Soldiers do not charge machine-gun nests for generals they do not love.

Good CDs not only improve your work, they improve you. Someone once told me that a great creative director is a “career accelerator.” These are bosses who leave your career in better shape than they found it. That requires someone who is not completely wrapped up in either themselves or the pressures of doing good work. They manage to keep an eye on the lives and the souls of the people who are working for them.

This takes me to a concept I’ve heard described as the “servant leader.”  Writer James Kouzes wrote that such leaders “do not place themselves at the center; they place others there. They do not seek the attention of people; they give it to others. They do not focus on satisfying their own aims and desires [but on] the needs and interests of their people. They know that serving others is the most rewarding of all leadership tasks.”

Wow. Sounds a little altruistic put like that, but then I think of a guy like Mike Hughes at The Martin Agency and I realize, hey, he’s right. Here’s a guy who has been quietly building one of the best agencies anywhere and doing it by serving his people, serving his agency, doing it without an ego, and without beating on or intimidating the folks who work there.

Perhaps another day we can talk about all the other things it takes to be a good creative director,  one of which of course is being a good creative. But for my money the most important thing is being a good person – Honest. Level-headed. Friendly. Approachable. And humble.

UPDATE: Since the first issue of this essay on a different website: Mike Hughes, my old boss at The Martin Agency, kindly wrote to me to tell me he agreed with the sentiments in this essay, with one exception: that a good CD has to have been a good creative. He gave several examples, one of which was Bill Bernbach. Mike told me, “They are totally different skill sets.” I think he is correct. I amend my remarks. Thanks, Mike.

FOOTNOTE: There’s a great article on what it takes to be a good creative director posted by the Denver Egoist which you’ll find here.

Luke Sullivan ia a nationally acclaimed copywriter with a 30-year track record, Luke Sullivan is Senior VP/Managing Group Creative Director at GSD&M, a self-described “ad geek” and the author of the best-selling book, Hey Whipple, Squeeze This: A Guide to Creating Great Advertising. Luke’s experience includes 10 years at Fallon and five at The Martin Agency, with work for Miller Lite, United Airlines, Toyota, Black & Decker, BMW, Porsche and AT&T. He has more than twenty medals to his credit in the prestigious One Show and has served as judge for many creative award shows. Check out Luke’s blog: Hey Whipple.

Digital stuff has been bugging me as long as I can remember.
But I’ve always felt ashamed to admit it.
Imagine my relief when I found a link on Twitter from Brandoholic about Steve Wozniak talking openly about his frustration with tech, and his hesitations about a tech-dominated society.

Here’s an excerpt from an article by Mark Millan on CNN.com:

Wozniak said the biggest obstacle with the growing prevalence of technology is that our personal devices are unreliable.

»Little things that work one day; they don’t work the next day,» he said enthusiastically, waving his hands. »I think it’s much harder today than ever before to basically know that something you have … is going to work tomorrow.«

Reciting an all-too-common living-room frustration, Wozniak told a story about the countless hours he spent trying to troubleshoot his media player, called Slingbox.

»There is no solution,« Wozniak said of tech troubles. »Everything has a computer in it nowadays; everything with a computer is going to fail. The solution is: kill the people who invented these things,« he said with a smile.

Thank God. I mean, thank Woz.

My wife is Chinese, her religion is Taoist.
In Taoism, clairvoyance is accepted as quite a normal thing.
But I’m from East London.
So I was brought up to believe it’s mumbo jumbo.
In fact, anything that didn’t obey conventional, ordinary working-class English standards was just superstition.
When we started going out together, Cathy asked me if I’d like to see a clairvoyant she uses.
All of my ingrained prejudices kicked in straight away.
My instinctive reaction was “No way!”
But I find continued ignorance lies in reacting.
And knowledge lies in experimenting.
I suspected clairvoyance was just nonsense for gullible people.
Like horoscopes.
But, even if it was, I’d know more about it if I actually gave it a try.
At least then I could reject it from a position of knowledge.
So I went along with Cathy one evening.
It wasn’t what I was expecting.
It wasn’t beanbags, and incense, and whale music.
It was a sweet little old lady called Nancy, who lived in Uxbridge.
We sat down, had a cup of tea, and started to talk.
She said to me “I’m getting someone from the other side. A policeman with a little baby on his knee. Do the names John, and James, and Amelia mean anything to you?”
I didn’t quite know what to say.
My dad had been a policeman all his life.
Maybe Cathy knew that and she could have mentioned it to Nancy.
But my dad had always been called Jack by everyone that knew him.
No one, except his family, knew his real first names were John James.
And there was something else.
When my sister became pregnant her appendix burst.
The baby was born prematurely and lived just ten days.
It was a little girl called Amelia.
No one outside my immediate family knew that.
I didn’t know what to say.
I had been expecting a charlatan.
Someone who would say, “You are going on a long trip some time in the future.”
Meaningless platitudes that could be twisted to fit any situation.
But this was different, this was pinpoint accuracy.
I find the best position to take in these circumstances is to be agnostic.
Don’t be an evangelist or an atheist.
Just suspend judgement, and see where things lead.
On a later visit, Nancy said to me, “I see you’re going to get the Holsten Pils account next month.”
Afterwards, I said to Cathy “She’s getting confused. We’ll get Truman Bitter and David Abbott will get Holsten Pils.”
Next month, while we were on holiday, I got a message from the agency.
“They just gave us the Holsten Pils account, without a pitch.”
I thought clairvoyance was supposed to be just vague predictions that could apply to anyone.
I wasn’t expecting names and dates.
A year or so later, Nancy told us we’d have two children, a girl when Cathy was 37 and a boy when she was 39.
I was upset, I didn’t want to wait that long, so I ignored it.
We tried for years but nothing happened.
Then, when Cathy was 37 she got pregnant.
But she had a miscarriage.
I was furious.
I said, “So much for clairvoyants.”
But Cathy got pregnant again.
And our daughter was born two weeks before Cathy was 38, and our son was born two weeks before Cathy was 40.
So where does that leave us as far as a view on clairvoyance goes?
Well, the mind decides on a position, then makes the facts fit.
So, if you want to find a way to believe, you will.
And, if you want to find a way to rubbish it, you will.
Me, I think it’s like anything else, there are good ones and bad ones.
Good and bad mechanics, acupuncturists, plumbers, lawyers, florists.
Why should clairvoyants be any different?
And as for superstition.
We know that £18.3 billion was spent last year on all forms of advertising and marketing.
We know 4% was remembered positively.
We know 7% was remembered negatively.
We know 89% wasn’t noticed or remembered.
Which means marketing and advertising experts spent around £16 billion on advertising that didn’t work.
In the belief, the hope, that somehow it would.
What’s that if it isn’t superstition?
Wouldn’t it make more sense to treat what we do the same way?
Keep an open mind.
Accept there is good and bad in everything.
In fact, we can go further.
We know from the facts we’re given that, in advertising as in everything else, roughly 90% doesn’t work.
So let’s make sure we only deal with the 10% that does.
Let’s deal in facts, not superstition.

Dave Trott was born in Barking in East London.
He got a degree in advertising from Pratt Institute in New York.
Trained mainly at Carl Ally on Madison Avenue.
Then came back to London in 1970 and got a job at BMP.
In 1980 he left BMP to start Gold Greenlees Trott.
Campaign voted GGT “Agency Of The Year” and New York’s Advertising Age voted it “Most Creative Agency In The World”.
Dave currently works at CST Advertising.
He’s proudest of the work he’s done on Anti Third World Debt advertising, with people like Gordon Smith and Paul Arden.
More of his thoughts on Dave’s blog.

This morning I came close to being run over by a crazy woman, running like a Kenyan on speed, with her eyes glued to her iPhone.
She was soon followed by a bunch of other maniacs, including a bloke in a wheel-chair, all running and stumbling, with their eyes wide open.
What’s this all about?, I asked myself.
I discovered that there are a lot of buzz about it in the papers and social media.
And that a couple of friends of mine were the brains behind the event.
So I called their agency, Jung von Matt in Stockholm, and asked what the hell they were up to.
”Oh, that’s our new campaign for the MINI Countryman.”

Here’s the deal.
The MINI is all about engagement. Let’s motor. Let’s have fun!
To succesfully launch the MINI Countryman the company wanted the agency to present it to the swedish public in a truly engaging way, as a part of the international Getaway concept.
People has to get involved in the brand’s core message.
All marketing has to mirror the bond between the driver and the brand.
So they created a live, social gps-game, ”Getaway Stockholm 2010”.
Probably the world’s first of its kind.
Neither Playstation or Sega, have even come close before.

The game is set within the Stockholm city limits, where the virtual MINI Countryman is released.
You’re supposed to find the MINI.
To play you need to download the new iPhone app.
If you get within 50 meters of the car, you’re able to catch it with your iPhone.
Just press the ”take the car-button”, and it’s your’s.

Now you need to escape.
And now’s the time when the real stress begins, when another player comes in your proximity of 5o meters, the bastard can steal the car from you.
If this happens, you’ll have to wait a minute before you can start chasing the son-of-a-bitch that stole what you rightfully have earned.
If you can recapture the car and keep the distance from all the others until the gaming week is ended, you win a real MINI Countryman.

Wow.

This is a brilliant idea.
The goal was to have 5000 people downloading the app.
Over 80 percent did this before the campaign even started!
Not only does the campaign cover many different media platforms,
like pr, social media, live gps-gaming, mobile, it’s also not an ad.
It’s a real event.
Which you can participate in.
The best part: it’s fun!
It lets you be a kid again.
And, come to think of it, isn’t it what we are all longing for?

I like writing manifestos. I do this for a couple of reasons. First, it depicts the brand core as something you can relate to, preferably a drama of some sort. Second, a manifesto is the backbone of the brand, a plot that gives people a clear sense of meaning and direction. Third, it’s an arcehtypal ad. A mother-ad. An ad which all future ads will emanate from. An ad that is made to inspire people to create new ideas and executions, externally as well as internally.

About a year ago I wrote a manifesto together with the guys at Whitelines, a paper company specialised in writing paper, which is built around the promise of supporting your ideas. It immediately inspired the company to launch a limited edition, wonderfully illustrated by Anton Grandert (see above).

Here it goes:

Don’t just do it.
You entered this world as a creative genius.
Curious. Playful. Somewhat obstinate.
But over the years society shaped you into an obedient, well-mannered citizen.
Your questions became nicer, the decisions safer, and the answers more certain.
We’re here to reverse the trip.
We want to uncage your imagination. And dare we say, make every single person on this planet one percent more creative.
Does this sound a bit naive? If not a little overambitious?
We agree. Our vision is easy to criticise, ridicule and whisk off.
But we feel it’s a small price to pay in order to encourage your independency and nurture your brainchildren.
It’s not an easy task. It’s a never-ending battle.
Because the world is full to the brim of faceless bureaucrats and greedy bullyboys, waiting to kill your ideas with just a flick of the wrist.
So whatever you do, don’t just do it.
Put your heart and soul into it.
Love it.
Hate it.
Turn it up-side-down.
Turn it inside-out.
Bend it.
Brake it.
Shake it.
Torture it.
Blow it up.
Whatever you do, don’t just do it.
Push it forward.

Här kommer lite mer om kundvård och försäljning. Vissa tycks ha förmågan att övertyga folk från födseln, andra kommer inte inte i närheten, hur mycket de än anstränger sig. Det får mig att tänka på en bekant till mig som var nyskild och hade just flyttat över halva amerikanska kontintenten för att få en ny start i livet. Snart upptäckte hon att pengarna började sina, så hon gav sig ut på stadens gator för att söka sig ett jobb.

Plötsligt stannade hon framför en butik som sålde ekologiska kosmetik-produkter. Den här butiken tillhörde en större kedja och i fönstret kunde hon läsa att butiken sökte personal. Hon öppnade dörren och gick in.

När hon steg ut på gatan igen var hon anställd som trainee. Trots att hon inte hade någon direkt erfarenhet av försäljning visade det sig snart att hon var en rackare på att kränga varorna i den lilla butiken. Hon avancerade snabbt till butikens bästa säljare. Kort därefter var hon den vassaste försäljaren bland kedjans butiker i stan. Ryktet spred sig och alla undrade vad den rödhåriga tjejen från Sverige visste som ingen annan visste. Och snart höll hon föredrag och säljkurser för kedjans alla säljare i regionen.

Vilken var hennes hemlighet?

Hon har berättat för mig att hon omedelbart bestämde sig för att inte fejka något i sitt bemötande gentemot kunderna. Det var en bra strategi eftersom hon gillade produkterna som såldes i butiken och hon var intresserad att lära känna främmande människor. Så det föll sig naturligt för henne att alltid fråga mer än att prata själv. Ibland kunde hon till och med avråda från köp, om hon kände att det var fel för kunden. Kort sagt: hon bemötte alla som hon själv ville bli bemött. End of story.

Now that the book is in the printing press, I can point out that the story has marched on in the same erratic style that it had begun. New problems have occurred. New improvements have been made, and new members have joined the team. There is a long way to go and new chapters will, surely, have to be written, but one thing is for certain. It is going steadily forward.

Maybe the crazy idea about the sparkling vodka, isn’t so crazy after all?

Interested in following their quest, go to the blog What’s sparkling? Want to read the book? Order here.

Let’s imagine that you are at a cocktail party. A new guest walks into the room. Heads turn. The conversation twists in a new direction. Everybody talks about the new guest and suddenly nothing is as it was a moment ago. Now there are new conditions. The new guest has taken the initiative from someone else. On the surface nothing much has happened, but below the surface everything had been affected in some way, and things have started to adapt to the new premises.

It is an entrance that many would like to make but few carry it off. How do you make an entrance into a market that is worth hundreds of billions of dollars? Without actually having a hundred billion in your pocket?

According to the theory you should have visible characteristic that breaks the pattern and is easily recognisable. You should also be sufficiently exciting and provide some meaning, so people can be bothered to change their thoughts and the topic of conversation. Besides you must give more than you take (the fundamental law of life) and be generally quite pleasant. For as we all know, there are very few people that find it pleasurable to hang out with a boor. [...]

The fact is, a revolutionary concept means that the vodka industry gains a new category, where the Camitz brand can benefit from its first-mover-advantage and automatically become the market leader. The news value is also the brands most important marketing strategy. It signifies the rough direction for the first years work, which suggests agreat deal of PR and word of mouth communication. Ultimately the idea is that the attention of the sparkling vodka will spread to the still vodka variant. And thanks to its sparkling sibling the still variant has grown into vodka of the finest quality. The vodka is only launched in specifically chosen, exclusive restaurants and bars. That is the thought and that is what presumably will happen. But this kind of loses the point of the whole story.

The point – that runs like a concurrent theme through this story – is that all this has been created through intuitive power, not through structured thinking. And so, when it is time for the summary, everything appears to have been extremely well-planned and thought out.

The explanation after the event generally tends to be carried out by the over-rational Spock-people, not by the honest Gump-people. Everyone seems to have acted so wisely and controlled with common sense in a know-all way.Reality is rarely so simple. The question is how often are successful stories so well-planned as they appear? At the same time nobody wants to say that everything that has happened in this story has been controlled by feelings alone. The strategic thinking has actually been close at hand for a huge part of the process, in collaboration with the creative work.

Everything was set in motion, of course, through pure coincidental circumstances. Peter got the idea into his head to pour vodka into his soda stream. Then came the problems one after another. The first impression of the vodka was that it tasted just fine, probably due to the charm of novelty. Then came the realisation that it didn’t taste good at all as the carbonation exposed the quality of the vodka. After that there was gradual improvement, until one day they had a palatable vodka to rank among the best in the world. And the reason was quite simple.

They had to.

Otherwise the vodka would not have taken to the carbonisation, and they wouldn’t have been able to bottle and distribute it in an acceptable way. And regarding the still variant, it wasn’t even on the cards from the off, it only became reality when they had found their vodka of quality. The plan is still on, but as we are searching for some kind of moral, one question remains. Must thought always come before action? Or can the heart leads us in the right direction? Do you dismiss an excellent strategy just because the idea came first?

No, of course you don’t.

How is it then that so many persist in allowing the strategic to precede the creative? Why not let them switch back and forth, stimulating each other? It is, of course, how life works in general. The first ones that hinted in this direction were the gentlemen who have just been given a load of shit: Al Ries and Jack Trout. Sixteen years ago they wrote the excellent book Bottom-Up Marketing. The book’s message was both audacious and clear.

Turn the process around! Let the tactics dictate the strategy. Find a competitive idea and build a strategy around it. Mattias and Peter almost did just that. Their method still feels wrong if you compare it with the methods of the majority. And how one acts and how one thinks is something that finally brings us to the fundamental values of Camitz & Lindberger.

Read the next chapter »The Camitz Manifesto« on The Brand-Man, september 17.

(Continued from »Hate me, but don’t ignore me.«)

We don’t want to look upon the consumer as a passive idiot. On the contrary, she is an intelligent and well-informed person who trusts the judgement of her friends more than commercials. The heyday of the adjective is over, and with it a huge part of positioning thinking died.

Positioning was a marketing philosophy that was founded by Al Ries and Jack Trout, which revolutionised the business world in the seventies. Nowadays, we look upon it with mixed feelings. On one hand, there is something that is timeless, namely, the approach to how people handle information and communication. In short, it deals with the fact that attention is a commodity in short supply and you have to create it by being original and meaningful.

On the other hand, it is clear that Ries and Trout were pioneers of their age. Their vision of brands today is hopelessly obsolete. Their thinking was formed during the time when you lived life by the principal that “the product was the hero.” The brand was essentially tantamount to the product, which in turn existed thanks to the umbilical cord to the category.

There was a time when one could tie an adjective – cheapest, best, fastest – to a product. And it worked a treat until the goods became altogether too similar and the adjectives ran out.

The positioning couldn’t keep pace with the development. Suddenly their image of the brand became rooted in the product and category, they became purely cosmetic in comparison with how we see the brands today. And those that insisted on sticking with the positioning were forced to work with an altogether more dubious message and unrealistic matrixes.

The market has developed and increased in complexity with more knowledgeable and sophisticated consumers. Nowadays the emphasis is not on adjectives, but more on questions of interpersonal and popular culture. The most attractive product on the market, therefore, becomes the one that is best in touch with the consumers’ needs and dreams, and the one that can meet them. Not by seeing her where she is now, but by anticipating where she is heading, and meeting her along the way.

Positioning faces two giant problems.

The first is the brand’s ability of extension. Currently, the brands should be defined so that they have the power to extend from the product categories and blossom into to so-called life brands. Or vice versa, categories lose their significance. In which category for example does Marlboro belong to? In the cigarette category, or the clothing category? In which category does Virgin belong to?

The second concerns position. How clever and up-to-date is it to lock an idea into an inflexible point on a graph paper, when the world is changing at an ever-increasing pace, and when most products and brands are deceptively similar to each other when it comes to presentation ?

Don’t think position. Think direction.

Aposition is a distinct and inflexible point. A direction is also distinct, while at the same time is alive and changeable. No spiralling essence should be reduced to a single point. A position is right, but it runs the risk of end up wrong. A direction is both true and easy to follow. A position leans towards an adjective, a direction towards a verb. It means that the statement is set against action. And what we see is the marketing strategy’s development from adjective to verb.

The difference is huge: saying that you are funny is not the same thing as actually being funny. Everyone can say it, but it is the one that proves the fact that wins in the end. When tactics are given a larger strategic role, the strategy has to be more intentional to its character, not so definite, but more pointing to a purpose and meaning.

Aposition is often based on an objectified reality, but is at the same time consciously incomplete. It conveys a host of benefits: it becomes mysterious, interesting and tempting. It’s intuitive and open. It is creative, interpretive, inquiring, constantly trying, and uninterruptedly curious. But it is still focused in a forward direction.

The position has lost its strategic significance and has become tactical. It requires an exposure that unfortunately soon becomes obsolete. A direction is equally as distinct but at the same time it is a more flexible strategy that can be constantly reconstructed and moulded in a new, original way. Positioning thinking reminds us of IQ. The direction for the thinking leans towards QI, which is Chinese for vitality.

Market dynamics currently demand more than what positioning can deliver. It is no longer about the ability to argue, as it is hopelessly out-of-date. It is now all about creating equally beneficial relations through interpreting and meeting the consumer’s needs. Take Coke for example. It may be a part of the beverage market and specifically in the cola category, but what does it say in the contract with the consumer?

The real thing.
It is neither a product, nor a category.
It is an idea.
A lifestyle. An American icon.

The tactic for Camitz communication is simple. It is not about boasting, it is about being. It does not involve being smart, it involves being genuine. Positioning Camitz Sparkling as per the classic model diminish the products vitality. The brand stands for much more than just a position; it is a story, a succession of destinies, a host of characteristics coupled with wild dreams, it is a flow of ideas and creations that hopefully will never cease.

It is a story of curiosity and craziness.

Read the next chapter »The curious fool« on The Brand-Man, september 13.

Subservient chicken is probably one of the most widespread viral videos ever. How can I top that?, I’ve asked myself over and over again. Now here’s an ad that easily outperforms the famous Burger King-ad and makes the rest of us look pretty stupid. It’s the new ad for Tipp-Ex made by the french agency Buzzman. The ad underscores the brand promise – to erase something and replace it with something better – in a mind-boggling way.

If you haven’t seen it yet, have a look. I bet you’ll be surprised. (Thanks to artist Mikael Pauli for the tip.) Here are the credits:

Agency: Buzzman, France, Client: Tipp-Ex. Creative Director: Georges Mohammed-Cherif. General Manager: Thomas Granger. Copywriter: Tristan Daltroff. Art Director: Louis Audard. Project Manager: Bastien Chanot. Project Manager: Antoine Ferrari. TV Producer: Elodie Jonquille. Digital Production Manager: Melanie Rohat-Meheust. Community Manager: Xavier Le Boullenger. Community Manager: Nicolas Mirguet. Film Production: Eleganz. Film Producer: Willy Morence. Director: Olivier Bennoun. Web Production: Grouek

(Continued from Spock vs. Gump.)

We usually call rational marketable qualities USP, the unique selling proposition. And the brand’s emotional qualities we know as ESP, the emotional selling proposition. But the contextual, cultural connection is still unknown to many, so let us provisionally call it ASP, the affinity selling proposition. It is understandably the group, social network, culture and background that determine how a lot of things are interpreted.

If you have your head screwed on, you will notice that the brand goes through an evolutionary change. First comes USP, then ESP, and after that ASP. The USP is generally regarded as dead. The ESP is familiar and has been for a while, whereas the ASP is still largely unknown to many, but it is definitely something that we must give great consideration to in the future.

Can it be true that many have become stuck in the brand’s first stage of development, despite indications that many should be on the edge of the second and third stages? Is it possible that many still persist in describing and presenting their brand from a one-sided product perspective, despite the fact that most consumers seek emotional gratification from the brand with support from their tribal brotherhood?

In which case, the consequences would be disastrous: The brands’ descriptions are too narrow. They are objectified and reduced. They are not able to reach out and touch the consumers. Their patter falls on deaf ears and they die from a lack of relevance. Communication is too expensive. Profitability decreases. Many have started to complain that advertising doesn’t pay.

What many brands need is an integrated comprehensive view which doesn’t exclude any of the three dimensions.

As far as Camitz Sparkling is concerned, they are lucky enough to be blessed with all three spheres. The vodka’s tangible qualities, such as the carbonation, the bottling, the cork and the bar-dispenser, are a world’s first. The emotional benefits are evident for all to see: the visual impression, the sound of the hissing bubbles and the spontaneous effect contribute to a trump card that is exceptionally difficult to copy.

As for the cultural aspects, such as those moulded by the principal characters in the story, their fight and their network is naturally their own with a personal touch. But the creating and building of a strong brand requires much more. The three dimensions are, despite everything, just an expression for something else.

At the base there must be a good story to tell. A brand story.

You have just read the Camitz story. If you haven’t already noticed, let me refresh your memory, it is a typical David and Goliath tale – about the rebel who took on the huge establishment.

So, how does your story run?

Read the next chapter, »I’m Dirty Harry. Who are you?«, here.

What does it take to be a leader? What is the one, single quality that
separates the mediocre, self-declared leaders from the true leaders, such as Winston Churchill, Mahatma Gandhi, John F. Kennedy, Steve Jobs and Ingvar Kamprad –  people who actually changed things?
Inspiration.
Now, what is the true source of inspiration? Where does it come from?
Smart people?
Not necessarily.
Does it emanate from risk-aware cultures?
Not very likely.
Does it come from the nice and humble?
Nope.
Does it come from the safe and sound?
No way.

Inspiration always comes from the bold and the daring. Why? Because they dream of things that others find impossible, wrong or downright silly.
They are fearless of being depicted as failures, of being ridiculed, of being rejected, of being embarrassed, or being played for a fool.
There are four questions that are essential for success as a leader whether you operate in a corporation, or in a political party, or in media.
What are you doing?
How are you doing it?
Who are you?
And why are you doing this?
Take a look at the picture above.
97% of the world’s population gravitate towards the question on top.
Is this because it’s the wisest thing to do?
No, truth is it’s because this is the easiest question to answer – whereas
successful leaders are more attracted to the questions at the bottom.
The reason for this is quite simple.
We live in a world where the majority tend to like things that they can see, grip, grasp and drop on their feet, while true leaders are attracted to the opposite.
They seem to like things that are more abstract.
Stuff that’s meaningful.
Questions that are much, much harder to answer.
It’s like the popular iceberg metaphor.
Most people can only picture the tip and fail to see the whole picture.
And that’s probably why so few of us become succesful leaders.

So how do you answer these four questions?

The first question »What?« is purely descriptive.
As in »I’m selling cell-phones«, or »I’m in computers«.
»How?« Is about creativity: how can you make a difference?
The answer could be »Think different«, or »a really beautiful product design«.
»Who?« is a question of identity.
By this I refer to cultural and psycho-social mirroring.
Because it’s far more important who’s selling than what’s being sold.
Now it’s getting really interesting. How do you relate to this:
»I’m a former hippie from California and I rage against big corporations that enslaves individuals. This is my quest and I hope you sympathize«.
This statement reveals a personal, heroic story.
As in all biographies the story should be woven around a few dichotomies:
Love vs. hate. Fear vs. bravery. Good vs. bad.
The trick is to know what you stand for and know what you oppose.
If you fail this, no one will be able to identify with you or your cause.

And by »Why?« I touch on intention and aspiration.
The purpose of this question is to know, deep down, why you’re doing whatever you’re doing.
Sometimes it’s called »a mission statement«.
But this is an expression that has been watered down for ages, so let’s drop it.
Instead, I prefer to talk about meaning, or purpose.
Meaning always outperforms information, like emotion trumps rationality.
When your quest is based on a bold aspiration, it will make hearts pound faster.
People will be moved.
People will start to act and participate in your misson.
Here’s a formula to keep in mind:
Somebody (you) should want something really, really bad.
Unfortunately, something (an evil force) keeps standing in your way.
How should you go about it (the creative challenge)?
Make sure this struggle goes on forever.
How do you recognize a meaningful quest? Here’s an example:
»I will always fight stupid conventions, wherever it rears its ugly head…
Just bring it on!«

You know what I’m talking about, and whom I’m refering to.
I’m talking about Apple, of course. And Steve Jobs.
They don’t sell their stuff because it’s innovative or of excellent quality.
These are by-products of a lifelong, meaningful quest.
They sell because they have the urge to challenge the stale and the stupid.
And this make them living heroes.

A really smart guy I know wrote in his blog the other day about the endless question of what makes us most happy: money or meaning.
Most people think that rich people are driven by money, and that this is the reason why they’ve become rich.
Not true.
If you read the book »Obliquity. Why our goals are best achieved indirectly«, by the british economist John Kay, you’ll see that many of the best performing businesses were built by people who didn’t strive for money, but for meaning.
Kay shows that companies like Boeing, Ford and Microsoft were driven by goals other than profit, and that money often is a by-product of much bigger and stronger incentives.
The need to achieve.
To change.
To become at ease with oneself.
Or to leave a mark on the world.
That’s why they ended up making fortunes.
Ironic, isn’t it?

Marina Schiptjenko, kvinnan med många strängar på sin lyra, har tillsammans med sin gamla skejtarkompis, Eddie Bengtsson blåst liv i kultbandet Page och det nya albumet »Nu«, det nionde i ordningen. Marina kommer från band som Vacuum och BWO. Och Eddie har ett förflutet med band som Sista mannen på jorden och S.P.O.C.K.

Page är ett stilbildande band som startade redan 1980 – en tid då de var tvungna att skruva fram musiken på enkla monosyntar som bara kunde producera en ton i taget.

Musiken är befriande avskalad och enkel, med rappa refränger som flätar samman åttiotal med tiotal. Musiken blippar och bloppar sig fram med ett grymt sväng. Vi pratar om syntpop av bästa märke vars texter rör sig runt deras liv här och nu (inte bara då). Och texterna spinns mest runt ämnet relationer.

Jag må vara en smula partisk, men i mitt tycke är det här ett perfekt sommaralbum. Då och då när jag lyssnar flyter jag tillbaks till en bekymmerslös tid då man gick i blekta, lappade jeans och kanelbrun solbränna, för att i nästa sekund kastas tillbaks till nuets betydligt mer komplicerade tillvaro.

Plattan fjäskar inte. Den bär drag av inopportun minimalism och inleds med en handfull snärtiga spår. Men det är när jag kommer till »Tätt inpå«, Ett S.O.S.« (låten därpå kommer in lite fel) och »Allt eller inget« som jag går i gång på allvar. Det är då musiken varvas upp några snäpp, det är då jag glömmer deadlines och andra måsten och bara vill dansa. När det hela avslutas med en tolkning av Liquidos »Narcotics« – här med titeln »Min drog« – ja då blir jag extatisk. Vilken avslutning.

Tack Page! Sommaren är räddad. Nästa spelning på Arvikafestivalen 15-17 juli.