Kiss of Death

So today the New York Times brings a fairly interesting article on how rock bands have been endorsing all sorts of products and engaging in bad taste merchandising partnerships to compensate for record label revenue decline.

Yes, they have been plastering their names everywhere – from Bon Jovi’s cabernet sauvignon and Kiss’s Kasket(an actual coffin adorned with the band's logo and pics of band members), to Kevin Federline’s Nationwide insurance commercial.

It is very true that out-of-control online piracy and the ongoing experimentation of digital music distribution have totally changed the paradigm in the music business; and as a result… musicians do need to adapt not to fall off the revenue cliff. But how much is too much? Some of these partnerships just seem totally out of place and absolutely at odds with the band’s vibe and message…

Any thoughts? Can you think of any thoughtful X kiss of deathish pairings between musicians and products/ commercials/tv shows/movie soundtracks...etc?

Organization Behavior Class

I've just been interviewed about my current job (for the purpose of a Boston University's MBA OB class), and since some of you have been asking me how everything is going at new-job-land... I thought I'd post my answers here.

Tell me about your role/position and background? Position: Business Growth Associate at an ad agency’s innovation business unit. Role: develop new products, brand positioning, channel strategy and brand architecture.

How did you come to this role? What jobs and experiences have led you to your present position? I quit strategy consulting (after 4 years at Deloitte & Touche) after a position bridging bz and brand strategy. I was hired by Nitro Group and just started last Monday.

What do you enjoy most about this role? What do you enjoy least about this role? Enjoy most: fun and challenging tasks; creative, smart and nice people; sexy brands and great clients. Enjoy the least: there is not too much processes in place yet (but that can also be pointed as an opportunity).

What are the five most important requirements of your role? (1) Creativity - from identifying a disruptive way to solve for a business problem, to coming up with effective ways to extract “consumer truths”; (2) openness to look at a problem from different angles and learn from different points of view; (3) ability to work well individually as well as play the midwife of ideas; (4) be a good listener, while also a good communicator.

What talents or strengths do you possess that help you succeed in this role? I am eager to learn and willing to give and get as much as possible.

Think of someone you know who has been extremely successful in this role. What made that person so successful? He has a clear goal in mind – to own his business in the near future. As such, he is constantly observing, judging and learning from everything and everyone around. By staying focused on his goals, he is able to leverage on his passion and motivation, get ahead of the learning curve and deliver great results. He is also able to easily navigate the jungle, after all, everything is seen as an opportunity to grow.

Now think of someone who was unsuccessful in this role. Why wasn’t that person successful? What was missing? I have not yet met this person (I’ve just joined the business a week ago). But I think that lack of passion, curiosity and resilience can blow it for anyone.

What is the environment like in which you work? (e.g., the working atmosphere, the people you work with)? The company is growing fast, and lots of new hires make it a very much collegiate, evolving work environment.

What do you enjoy most about this environment? What do you enjoy least about this environment? Enjoy the most: lots of creativity in the air, and bz strategy on the ground (it feels sort of where Bz Consulting meets Madison Ave). Enjoy the least: we have the Dove chocolate account, so there are chocolates all over the place (and I am a chocoholic on rehab :o)


If you could do it all again, would you choose the same path for yourself? Why? What would you change? I would have jumped into the 2B (brand + bz) space earlier. But it took me a while to figure whether 2B or not 2B...

On The Right Path (check)

I've just accepted a brand strategy position at NITRO GROUP's innovation business arm, a.k.a. Left Blue Sky. No, I have not jumped into chemical engineering, Grandma. I'll be working with new product development, channel strategy and brand analytics. It will likely provide me with the Bz + Brand convergence I've been seeking. Pretty exciting work, people and clients. Pretty excited Silvia.

BTW, it is exciting to write that "The opinions expressed here are my own, and have nothing to do with Nitro".

Gazilion of Brazilians

Today, over one million people went to 6th Ave and 46th St to celebrate the Brazilian 4th of July, a.k.a "Brazilian Day". There were a gazilion of brazilian-americans in the heart of Manhattan drinking beer and caipirinhas (on the streets, like in Brazil!), shopping for Brazilian goods, dancing and singing to the sound of famous Brazilian bands. I almost feel embarrassed to confess that during my seven-winter-long stint in Boston, this was the very first time I took part on such energizing event. Fascinating.

What stroke me, though, was the semi-meager sponsorship set up, mostly overtaken by two Brazilian brands catering to the Brazilian market (e.g., TAM airlines and Brazco). Where were the Brazilian brands catering to Americans who fancy the Brazilian flair (e.g., Havaianas and Brahma)? I am very tempted to think that the informal Brazilianist "connectors" were attending the event... And also, where was the creative guerrilla?

Girl From Uppernema

So yesterday, I officially moved to NYC!
And speaking about moves... my first one was to go bar hopping in the upper west, my new neighborhood. Then? Drink down some shots, get up on stage and sing Girl From Ipanema. Too many shots....and then a snapshot...

This second paragraph is to confess that I didn't remember the lyrics and pathetically made it all up. Besides my struck husby (the snap shooter) and a couple Brazilian friends (the pee-in-the-panters), nobody else noticed though...

Notes:
I can't sing to save my life
The place was NOT a karaoke bar
For everything else, there is mastercard.

Thoreau is calling

After half a day of de-junking, I started thinking about how we, human beings, tend to accumulate an excessive amount of unnecessary stuff throughout our lives. Stuff requires maintenance, sorting, organizing… time that could rather be spent jogging, reading, singing, traveling, thinking, blogging…

It is way easier, though, to simply discard things when we know we can afford them back... So, in a way, it paradoxically takes more money to have less... As Thoreau’s proverb goes: “a man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone."

Keeping things simple, certainly takes discipline and sanity, that's for sure. Seriously, the amount of "stuff" I’ve come across this morning almost drove me insane. “Should I throw this way? Donate it? But what if I need it in the future?”

So today, I’ve decided that for every piece of stuff I bring in, one must go out. I will try to (more often than not) ask myself whether my to-be acquisition will likely create or reduce the clutter around me (ok, shoes do not count!)

Yes, life should be simple. Why do I need 14 (!!!!!) cell phone chargers anyways? “Hummm, maybe I should keep three”, I thought. “One, Silvia, One!”, shouted my Thoreauvian side, before tripping over the charger cords...

My next book ought to be "Walden"

I KEA. Do You?

Yesterday I spent over 6 hours at an IKEA store, one of my favorite retailers of all times. It is never (ever) a dull experience, regardless of the inevitably overwhelming nature of moving in and out...

They manage to wrap us up in a 360-degree retail experience – from their cafeteria to their Smaland, “a place where kids can climb, roll, and watch movies”. Kids get to play, but most importantly, grownups get to play as well. Playing home has never been so cool.

But the main reason why I like them so much is that they have been effectively innovative in every single way. While others zig, they zag! (and not just for the sake of it).

Positioning: "It is not about furnishing your house, but making it a better home". And it is not about furnishings that last 10 years... but about being able to afford changing the look of your home from time to time! Yes, IKEA has convinced shoppers around the globe to purchase furniture meant not to last many years, so that folks keep on replacing them with new IKEA stuff!

Product Line: In order to avoid producing too many product variants (therefore hurting their economy of scale), IKEA has somehow managed to seduce Americans and change their attitude towards flat pack furniture. The one piece wardrobe suddenly gives way to pieces of wood, metal and lots, lots of screws, accompanied by an effectively 100%-visual (no words at all!) guide to help you assemble it yourself. There are all sorts of jokes about IKEA’s bz model, but at the end of the day, people do fall pray to their "assemble, and save".



Service: The customary sales associate model gives way to a customer associate model, in which we are the ones to pick and pack. The experience of locating the aisle and bin where your to-be couch is located is somewhat filled with [good] adrenalin. The thought of whether the couch you cherry picked is available, most often than not, gives room to a It’s-there!-smile (as they absolutely rock on inventory management).


Communications: When it comes to their comms… I believe their ups and downs (ups: “dinning table”, and “Every Day Fabulous”/ down: their way-too-Swedish "IKEA Lamp"), have been definitely outweighed by their viral word-of-mouth. The reason? Their brand strategy is driven by a strong business strategy to ensure they deliver on their brand promise. No wonder Mr. Ingvar Kamprad is the fourth richest man in the world.

And towards the end of my journey, I could not resist but capture the above grandpa taking a nap at one of IKEA’s comfy chairs, while Mrs. Grandma kept on shopping... Maybe he did not KEA too much...

Apple Bite

I just came back from a very intense week of apartment hunting in NYC. I now have enough horror stories to keep my grandchildren entertained. Dealing with brokers is not fun, period, full stop. But if you add "NYC rentals" to the equation, the result is way beyond "not fun"... Rats, roaches, sexual harassment, elevator escape, floods, blisters, bribes, lies, and rock & roll ... You name it. I want a "Survived NYC Apt. Hunting" t-shirt. There gotta be one out there, I bet.

But you know what? I absolutely love NYC and can't wait to have another apple bite; many bites at this delightfully hectic, amazing and tasty caos.

BTW - YES, I am officially moving to NYC! Will soon write about my new job(!!!!), and devote a special chapter to my job hunting stories. Stay tunned! (how silly is that?!!!!!!!!!).

Note: scary to realize that this blog's "silly" label has outgrown "culture", "thoughts" and "brands". ouch.

Campaign for Real Buy-In

Click HERE to watch it.

Yes, it is no news that consumers have caught the reins and jumped up into the driver's seat. Not only has it become extremely challenging to break through the clutter, capture their attention, and make them want to interact with your brand… but also awfully tricky to make them want to go back for more.

The consumer is not only the main participant, but the proprietor of powerful user generated content reflecting their rapidly mutant perceptions. What is cool yesterday, may not be cool today. What is said to be cool, may not be cool at all.

So Dove has efficiently coupled strategy with disruption to capture consumer's attention by positioning itself as the solution to pro-age while everyone has been touting themselves as the solution to anti-age. Clever, disruptive, and strategic? Yes! Sustainable? Not so sure.

The question is whether the concept of “pro-age” has come to stay, or whether it is doomed to become a short lived infatuation story between a disruptive brand promise and “say-one-thing-do-another” type of consumers (consumers who think it is awesome for people to accept their imperfections, but who are not ready to let it go on their gray hair, sagginess, and wrinkles).

I absolutely love the Dove campaign for real beauty, but yesterday I caught myself betraying my Dove loyalty and buying Olay Body Age Defying soap. The reason? I am feeling a bit overweight and in need to take better care of myself; and while I think it is fabulous that people accept who they are, I personally want to fight my weight status quo, and yes, am falling pray to the anti-age, anti-fat promise.

I’d be curious to take a look at Dove’s purchasing funnel, observe and chat with their consumers to see if this perception and behavior of mine are common amongst them.

Assuming it is, maybe Dove should test pushing the concept of “sex appeal and inner beauty” harder than the concept of “accept who you are” to promote its overarching positioning of “real beauty”.

And here I am, playing with mere assumptions again :0)

In any case, I believe one of the major challenges is to be frequently checking the consumer's pulse to understand how they are interacting with your brand across different points in time. After all, successful brands need to ensure its consumers keep on buying [both promise and product].

Divine Creativity

I just drove past this church undergoing renovation and thought their comms was pretty "divine".

Crème de la Crème

This year's AAAA Jay Chiat Planning Awards elected Axe Dry and Rozerem as the Gold winners...and Axe Click as the Grand Prix winner. Congrats Gav! Absolutely inspiring, very finest Crème de la Crème. Can't wait to wear my apron and start cooking myself :0)

Any similarities...a mere coincidence

To me, the most inspiringsome presentations at this year's AAAA account planning conference have been given by former planners who've left the ad space to create their own brand-slash-business strategy consulting firms (Mark Earls from Herd Consulting, Adrian Ho from Zeus Jones, and Stephen Walker from Headmint).

Yes, some dogs and babies are more than just looking out the window wishing upon a star..

Paul McCartney Creating Possibilities

Yesterday was the first day at the AAAA Account Planning Conference ("Creating Possibilities", in San Diego). So far, so awesome. Here are some bits and pieces of interestingness I've come across:

INNOVATION

We need to deliberately and systematically cultivate our sense of innovation. (Rob Schwartz, TBWA)

Make time to think! Never be satisfied. Don’t think about what is, but about what could be. (Carissa Bianchi, TBWA)

Innovation is technical, specialized, and functional. Opportunity is entrepreneurial, to everyone, emotional & functional. (Mark Barden, Eatbigfish)

The prize goes to whoever create and channel change faster. (Rob Schwartz, TBWA)

People want to see people achieving things thought not to be possible. (Carissa Bianchi, TBWA)

Exceeding expectations is not enough. (Adrian Ho, Zeus Jones)

Zeus Jones is in the bz of helping their clients to grow through actions, not through words. (Adrian Ho, Zeus Jones)

INSIGHTS

We should operate on the basis that we are all disabled by modern living (distracted, hard of hearing, confused of thought). Seeing an apparently restricted consumer and catering to them: that’s the future (Mark Barden, Eatbigfish)

Keep your door open and welcome the people who knock at it (Mark Barden, Eatbigfish)

Develop some extra pairs of ears. 1000 is probably a good # (Mark Barden, Eatbigfish)

Maybe what you are offering free is the future of your business (e.g., Wrigley) (Mark Barden, Eatbigfish)

Is the sense of opportunity innate? Or can it be learned?

Kids don’t wear a watch anymore. It just does “one thing” for them (Sir Ken Robinson)

Fight compartmentalization. Share accountability. (Rob White, Zeus Jones)

Great leaders identify and facilitate individual intelligence and creative teams. Great leaders brig about the latent talent within (Sir Ken Robinson)

CREATIVITY

Everybody has profound creativity, but only a few connect with it. We have been brought up to believe that creativity is different from intelligence, but it is not. (Sir Ken Robinson)

Common sense should be the least common of all senses (Carissa Bianchi, TBWA)

You cannot make anyone be creative. What you can do is create the condition for it. (Sir Ken Robinson)

There should be no walls between strategy and creativity. No part of a client’s bz should be out of bounds (Rob White, Zeus Jones)

THE AD INDUSTRY

The ad industry is not going through a transition phase, but a permanent state of change. (Carissa Bianchi, TBWA)

Zeus Jones is not in the ad industry, but in the bz-problem solving industry (Rob White, Zeus Jones)

Main challenge: how to get the youth market, who's genuinely been allergic to ads (Greg Coleman, Yahoo)

It’s not that planning is on a crossroad, advertising is. (Adrian Ho, Zeus Jones)

Planners should use creativity and intuition to imagine a more exciting future. (Adrian Ho, Zeus Jones)

COOL CASES

Ikea’s selling houses (beyond opportunistic)
Branded tap water
Hunger gets what hunger wants(clear, direct, engaging)
The matting game killers (recasting a category promise)
Dirty is good (flipping a category premise)
Visa’s green card

RECURRING THEME

Paul McCartney. Yes, he's been the recurring joke-theme of every single presentation. Why? Not really sure...Maybe a teaser to a coffee break concert yet to come? It would definitely make up for the coffee-less coffee breaks... Wishful thinking? Maybe. As long as it creates possibilities...

Goosebumps or Indifference?

Brahma, one of the most popular beers and well known brands in Brazil is attempting to capture a segment of the US market, by positioning itself as an entrance into the unique and exotic world of Brazilian culture, lifestyle, music and art.

WHO CARES?
While browsing through Brahma’s website (which includes a beautifully executed series of multimedia flash videos), I kept asking myself: how engaging is this exhibition to the American consumer? How much does the US market care to learn about the Brazilian lifestyle anyways? And therefore, how much should Brahma push the Brazilian flair? To Brazilians, there is no doubt that God is Brazilian and the Botequim is the best concept ever created. But apart from Brazilians, who cares?

To Brazilians, the beauty, excitement and majesty of the Brazilian lifestyle is self-evident and a source of national pride. But I wonder if highlighting this aspect of our national identity is something Americans are actually interested in emulating (via drinking Brahma, of course!).

Every nation tends to be appreciative and protective of its own culture. But one thing is to perceive Brazilians as a synonym of flair, creativity and fun, another is being receptive to an outsider’s culture and lifestyle distant to one’s own. While Brazil's had success advertising it’s “spirit” in most European countries, my take is that in the US, Brazilianess hasn’t quite captivated American’s yet. While in Europe, Brazil is viewed as fun, free thinking, extravagant, and full of flair… I venture to guess that in the US, a less honorable stereotype prevails, focused on violence, gratuitous nudity, laziness and poverty.

Given the radically divergent perspectives Americans and Europeans have of Brazil, other Brazilian companies, such as Havaianas, have been compelled to position their brands in a totally different way when entering both the US and the European markets. In Europe, Havaianas is positioned as a taste of Brazil, while in the US, it simply represents fashionable, versatile and colorful.

A NATURAL SPOT IN THE SUN
When Corona decided to position itself as “a taste of Mexico”, Americans had already been fairly familiarized with the Mexican lifestyle (take alone the # of Mexican restaurants and salsa clubs spread across the country). When choosing to interact with a-taste-of-Mexico-type-of-brand, like Corona, or even Taco Bell, it’s not much of a stretch for Americans to understand how these brands can add a bit of a Mexican spice to their lives.




WHO ARE THESE “BRAHMAZILIANS” ANYWAYS?
When it comes to Brazil, however, I believe the US consumer has not yet been enough exposed to the Brazilian culture to want to mingle with it, and accept it as a potential extension of its own. The Brazilian lifestyle is still too distant to Americans (and I am talking about the relatively well-informed & well-traveled, 25-35 American male with a higher than average income). For this reason, I believe the Brahmazilization needs to be spoon-fed, otherwise it may be perceived as pretentious or completely out of context.

At least initially, I think the "Brahmazilian lifestyle" needs to be positioned as an inventive seasoning, not as an entire meal - the Brazilian flair, optimism and inventiveness adding a kick to the already fun American way of life. To get its foot in the US consumer’s door, Brahma should incorporate a “touch” of the Brazilian irreverence to the music, art, hobbies, and sports of the American Brahma drinker, a la Paul Simon playing with Olodum.

But these are only unpretentious thoughts, based on my own understanding of both my native country and the US. For my opinion to be tested, Brahma would need to uncover its target market’s attitudes towards Brazilian culture by observing and interacting with drinkers at bars, restaurants, BBQs, liquor stores, and parties to learn how much they actually know and care about Brazil; how they describe Brazilians; who their favorite Brazilian celebrities are; what they like and dislike about the Brazilian lifestyle and what they’d like to incorporate about Brazil into their own lives.

BTW: Vanity Fair’s September issue actually does a superb job in branding the Brazilian flair by showcasing a 24 page article entitled “Blame it on Brazil”. Absolutely fabulous PR for Brahma and Havaianas...

Cavalcanti and Cingular

Today I was inquired about why I didn’t have my husband’s last name:

-“So, I’ve heard you guys got married. How does it feel being Silvia Thiers?”
- “Married life is awesome! And BTW, I am still Silvia Cavalcanti”
- “Really? Why?”
- “You spend your whole life building your own brand. Why should you change it after marriage?”

That got me thinking about the brand mess post the AT&T and Cingular wedding. After investing $4 billion to unify and promote the Cingular brand, SBC and Bell South turned the name Cingular into one of the best known names in the US. Recently, Cingular’s parents decide to reverse their efforts and drop its name in favor of AT&T’s. AT&T is now the one to “raise the bar” and have “the fewest dropped calls”. How confusing is that?

Yes, fashion-driven brands usually need a brand for today and a brand for tomorrow, as the younger generation tends to rebut brands enjoyed by their past generation. But in Cingular’s case, we are talking about killing a 7 year old reputably hip brand, to resuscitate a vaguely familiar and old fashioned one.

I believe there is no cookie cutter for a happy marriage, nor a silver bullet for branding post merger, but common sense goes a long way.

Getting back to my encounter this morning:

- "But have you at least added 'Thiers' to your name"?
- "No. No brand extensions. Just pure product improvement" :0)

I Don’t Drink Coffee. I Take Tea My Dear

Today I urge to write about “wrong expectations”, and the impact they have on our daily lives. Nothing sets someone up for failure as wrong expectations.

Yesterday morning, I woke up at 6am to jump into the Craigslist haggle-battle after 4 tickets for last night's “The Police” concert. Expectation: grandstand seats for less than U$50 each. Outcome: pretty happy to purchase them for $30(specially considering their face value of U$55 a month ago)

Next, I spent all day long singing one of my favorite songs, “Englishman in New York”, to my husby's despair (I can’t sing to save my life). Expectation: sing “I’m an aaaaaaalien, I’m a legal aaaaaaalien…” along with Sting. Outcome: to my frustration, the music was not played and I left the concert feeling somewhat bummed.

Ok, so today I went for a 2 hour “informational interview” at a very nice ad agency. The first two chats were quite fruitful, but the third one was unexpectedly poor - it took place over the phone, and I off-guardedly got a curvy ball thrown at me: a business case to be digested in 10 min.

Expectation: While I am more than comfy with all sorts of strategy frameworks and the whole consulting dance (that's what I did for a living for 4.5 years!), I've been recently 100% focused on catching up with the ebullition of the advertising space, and had inadvertently left my consulting hat aside. Since I wasn’t quite expecting a case interview from an ad agency... it took me precious minutes to put back on my consulting hat, and start thinking in terms of “category sizing”, “growth potential”, “competition intensity”, “consumer capability”, “point of parity”, “consumer funnel”, bla, bla, bla. Nope, 10 minutes were not enough. Bummer.

Outcome: poor (to my taste).

Lessons learned: (1) expect anything from an informational chat; (2) always have all my hats handy; (3) whenever caught by surprise… ask for some time (why not?) to digest the situation; (4) breath in and out - yes, we need to oxygenate our hippocampus ("the part of the brain believed to be responsible for dealing with new information, whose neurons are highly sensitive to oxygen deprivation"). As a matter of fact, I’m currently doing a postmortem analysis, listening to Sting, and thinking about how absolutely awesome the concert was.

"...Be yourself no matter what they say
I'm an aaaalien I'm a legal aaaaalien
I'm an Englishman in New York..."

Reebok vs. Nike

Click HERE to watch


Reebok aimed at Nike’s aggressive “Just Do It” and invited folks to “Run Easy”

Nike vs. Reebok

Click HERE to watch

Now, Nike strikes back with its super clever “A little less hurt”. Curious to see what’s next...

Flickr or Picasa?

It was more than about time to start uploading my pictures to an online photo storage website. Innevitably, one decision-making leads to another: Flickr or Picasa? After reading and browsing about the two, I finally decided to go with Picasa.

My take was that they are both awesome in their different ways: Picasa offers huge amount of space and a much simpler interface (quite handy for the semi-technology-handicapped, like me); Flickr thrives on the "Web 2.0 community", allowing the creation of virtual groups, photo pools, while making available lots of nice third party tools.

From a positioning stand point, we have: "Picasa: Picture simplicity" and "Flickr: Share your photos. Watch the world"

While I want both (and will be likely using both!), the reason I've favored Picasa is very similar to why I’ve decided not to get a Mazda - it is owned by Ford... While I don't mean to compare Yahoo to Ford, my point is: the parents matter.

Picasa is owned by Google, and Flickr by Yahoo. The impression I have is that Yahoo is buying innovation, not making innovation; while Google is doomed to shape the future of technology (even though it has actually bought Picasa)… I'd actually like to explore this topic in a future post.

btw: my shyly (sillily) manipulated pics from Istanbul are here.

"If You Don't Know How to Swim, Don't Swim"

"If you don't know how to swim, do not swim" - that's what this sign reads, at a beautiful beach in Turkey.

Some people might laugh at it for it being "too obvious"; others might just find it incredibly restraining.

Yes, it restrains one's ability to dare, and fear can be one of the biggest enemies of achievement.

I've recently read about Mark Burnett's book "Jump In!: Even If You Don't Know How to Swim" and highly identified myself with his drive to swim untried waters.

I personally think that the willingness to embrace the unknown (not just for the sake of it), coupled with passion, common sense and hard work can go a long way...

Why not say "If You don't know how to swim, wear a life jacket", or "...take swimming classes"?