Feed: Experience Manifesto - AggScore: 50.3

Saw this when I was traveling in Poland and forgot to post it, but I really think that they've hit 

Amazon Frustration-Free Packaging, a multi-year initiative designed to alleviate "wrap rage," features recyclable boxes that are easy to open and free of excess materials such as hard plastic clamshell cases, plastic bindings, and wire ties. The product itself is exactly the same—we’ve just streamlined the packaging.

Amazon Frustration-Free Packaging Letter.

I've ben following the Motrin issue tonight and for me, I'm thinking that maybe it's gotten just a little blown out of proportion. In case you don't know what I'm talking about, go to Motrin.com and watch the video there. It's about "babywearing" and talks about how babywearing seems to be in fashion, but it's painful, etc. Seems to be a little tongue-in-cheek and, as a dad who did a lot of babywearing (I have great memories of Sydney on my back, while we x-country skied into down during a blizzard here in Montclair a few years back), it didn't really offend me.

But, apparently, it offended a lot of moms and they've been pretty vocal about it. What's interesting is the number of complaints I've read on twitter about how the agency isn't open on weekends and that no one has been monitoring the situation 24/7. For example, Twitter / carriekerpen said Their agency is totally NOT working on the weekend and she wasn't the only one poking at the agency, Taxi NY. Although, I'm not 100% sure she was really upset about the whole thing, judging by some of her other comments. Joyce Schwarz, writing about the controversy at Hollywood2020: Hollywood2020.net Blogger Reaches Motrin Ad Agency Rep: Agency Appeared to Knew NOTHING about TWITTER OUTRAGE writes about how hard it was to reach someone at the agency and, when she did, they didn't know anything about what was happening.

So I started to think about this and what the proper response should be. At what point should a company be responding to someone complaining about something. How many people need to complain before a response is needed? 1? 10? 100? And really, is it necessary to react to every single complaint immediately? Is it really appropriate for companies to make sure they're employees are available 24/7 to handle it every time someone says they don't like something the company did? I know that there's always someone complaining about what you do, so can you really handle all of those complaints? As I was writing about this, even my wife asked Don't people have better things to do? I admit that I get frustrated when I don't hear back from a company in a day or two, but I do give them some time to respond. And this is when I reach out to the company directly, not just blog or twitter it and expect someone to find it.

And what should the proper response be? Does anyone else find it just a little ironic that people are using Twitter to ask for the ad to be pulled because they find it offensive? Um, isn't that called censorship? At what point does a company need to remove their ad when people don't like it? Haven't there been other times when people have complained about how quickly companies have pulled ads because someone found it offensive?

I don't really have any answers here, just asking the questions. Maybe Motrin will (and should) apologize for upsetting people. Maybe the ad will disappear and they'll invite some of the people who complained to be part of a new committee to avoid such issues in the future. But, we'll still be trying to answer the question about how and how quickly a company needs to respond when people have a complaint.

Link: (3+) motrin - Twitter Search.

Link: #motrinmoms - Twitter Search.

Disney and Verizon bill it as a way to enhance the "theme park experience," enabling parkgoers to use their mobile phones for tasks such as saving a spot in line at a popular ride and zeroing in on where Cinderella can be found signing autographs.

But the service has broad -- and potentially controversial -- implications for marketers and consumers as each attempts to balance the need for information with privacy. The new service has echoes of the futuristic film "Minority Report," in which Tom Cruise's character is inundated with personalized ad messages as he passes interactive billboards in a mall.

On the face of it, the application appears innocuous enough: Visitors to Disneyland or Walt Disney World would be able to download an application to their mobile phones to make trip plans, including booking hotel rooms and creating a checklist of attractions and shows to see. Once they arrive, they'll be able to use their phones to check wait times at Space Mountain or find the nearest pizza.

"What we're doing is putting tools in the hands of our customers to better personalize their experience," said Scott Trowbridge, vice president of creative research and development for Walt Disney Imagineering.

Link: Disney, Verizon to turn the cellphone into a theme-park visitor's tool - Los Angeles Times.

Japanese office worker Satoshi Tada pays for shopping, wins free food and gets store discounts all by waving his cellphone. "I use it pretty much every day," the 25-year-old said. "You can charge money on it right there if needed, and you don't have to run around trying to find an ATM. You can even get points because it's linked to credit cards."

The world's top firms such as Visa Inc and Nokia are still mostly testing phone use for payments, but in Japan, more than 50 million, or about half of all cellphone users, already carry phones capable of serving as wallets.

Japan has pioneered not just the technology but also the business models that will pave the way for wallet phones to become a standard payment method in the future. Some 700 million people worldwide are expected to own such phones by 2013.

Link: Cellphone shopping makes wallets redundant in Japan - USATODAY.com.

Ready to rumble over the last Craftsman drill? Take off the gloves; it will make it a lot easier to dial up your purchases.

Sears just announced Sears2go.com, a website that allows shoppers to call up purchases via any web-enabled cell phone. Pick from tools, toys, electronics, clothes or other categories, make your purchase, and then choose whether you want in-store pickup or home delivery.

Overall, there aren’t too many categories, but that should make the shopping experience less annoying. Sometimes all of that scrolling is worse than waiting in line. The site also has a search feature if you just want to cut to the chase.

If you want to brave the store’s parking lot and other areas, the site will actually send you a text to alert you when your purchase is ready. That should mean that you won’t be standing around waiting.

Link: Cell Phones: Sears Wants You to Shop Via Phone.

Sorry that it's been so quiet lately. I've been on the road in Poland since the 1st, getting ready to a program launch last week. It's been a city a day doing the installation, with up to an eight hour drive between locations. Days are starting at 7 AM and ending late -- last night was after 2 AM. Of course, that's because I went out in Wrocław and finally saw a little bit of at least one city! I feel like I'm remaking If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium except for being in Poland! I'll be able to talk more about what I'm doing next week and I've been keeping a little travelogue going of the journey. It's been a little like being on a rock & roll tour, without the rock & roll. 6 of us on a bus, watching video's, eating junk food (not that that's anything new for me) and driving though the night to get to the next city. So far we've been to:

To kick-off Bathroom Blogfest week, I got this in the mail today from Thrilllist. As I said, I wasn't as aware of the need for clean, secure bathrooms until I had a daughter and realized wow crappy (pun intended!) most bathrooms were. Sometimes at nice places too! So, having a list available where you can find clean bathrooms and how to actually get into them, is pretty cool! They have a pretty comprehensive listing and I really do like the notes and ability to comment on the locations, just in case the quality of the location has dropped! I might even do some testing of their locations this week if I have the time!

Every NY block's replete with restaurants where you can discover delicious foreign cuisine -- which you'll briefly savor before urgently needing to expel it from your body. Dropping the knowledge you need, SitOrSquat.com.

A disturbingly comprehensive, user-generated GMap/ratings system for public and semi-public crappers, Sit's the work of a husband-wife team who've apparently moved way past peeing with the door open. Simply click the blue icons to get venue name (from Fiddlesticks to the Forbes Building to Crate & Barrel) and a descrip including ingress strategies ("Just stroll past the doorman and you're in", "2nd floor past kids' books"), plus ratings, photos, and features, e.g., "Seat Covers", "Condom Vending Machine", and "Attendant" -- a.k.a., Mint Vending Machine, but don't tell him that. Anyone can submit a stall, but you must profile up to rate others' posts and add specific ass depots to your favorites list. So you'd, uh, better create that profile.

Link: Thrillist : SitOrSquat

Link: SitOrSquat.com.

Link: Welcome to Bathroom Blogfest.

During my presentations, I talk about how the importance of clean bathrooms increased dramatically when Sydney was born. And maybe two years ago, Link: C.B. Whittemore, Stephanie Weaver and Susan Abbott started the Bathroom Blogfest to share thoughts on the importance of clean bathrooms in the overall experience. Too many companies think that the experience ends when you start to walk down that hallway to the bathroom. It's also amazing how many companies don't really provide a good bathroom experience for their employees either. It's the little things people!

So add your thoughts to the blogfest. Tell them about your favorite or least favorite bathrooms and how they've impacted your overall experience!

A blogfest to celebrate the customer experience. For 2008, The Bathroom Blogfest is about Cleaning Up Forgotten Spaces All Around Us.

Join 20 women bloggers who have committed to the Bathroom Blogfest '08 taking place next week.

Post to your Blog, Flickr, Twitter, go mobile or suggest a new social media platform with material relating to this Blogfest, during the event timeframe. Include the event logo, and use #ladiesrooms08.

Rules: you must publish at least one post about bathrooms and/or forgotten spaces during the Blogfest timeframe. Add the tag above and the logo, too.

To benefit all those partiicpating with link love, each post should include - with the event logo - a list of those participating.

Consider a google alert and commenting on the amazing range of customer experience observations that Bathroom Blogfest '08 - Cleaning Up Forgotten Spaces Around Us is guaranteed to generate!

Add your voice to this terrific event. Let everyone you know about it and invite them to consider the customer experience and all of those forgotten spaces that need cleaning up, including the bathrooms.

Any questions, let me know.

Thanks and Happy Bathroom Blogfest 2008!
Stephanie, Susan and CB

Link: Welcome to Bathroom Blogfest.

Link: Facebook | The 2008 Bathroom Blogfest - Cleaning Up Forgotten Spaces All Around Us.

I thought that I posted this a while back, but can't find it now. Was looking for something else and came across it again on youtube and it still made me laugh!

Saw this on AgencySpy and just had to share it here. Make sure you watch to the end!

http://view.break.com/592038 - Watch more free videos

Link: Terry Tate is Our Friggin' Hero - mediabistro.com: AgencySpy.

A few weeks ago, Clilly had the chance to bring AudienceGames to Royal Albert Hall for the Orange RockCorps concert. We played opening act to Busta Rhymes, the Guillemots, John Legend, Feeder and others. Overall, it was a pretty cool gig for us.

What BEL wanted to achieve, aside from creating a fun environment, was to see if the technology compelled people to play, which it did, said Castiglia. "So that was a real win on our part. And it was nice to see that even in such a large environment, the technology still resonated because the screen allowed everybody to feel like they were a part of the experience," she said.

Jodie Fisher, account director at M&C Saatchi, which worked on the project on behalf of Orange, emphasized the carrier's new brand vision launched earlier this year in several markets, "Together we can do more." The positioning was "born from the insight that people can achieve more working together than they can on their own," said Fisher.

The agency was challenged to make the brand live and breathe through sponsorship, to underscore to Orange customers what the brand represents. "Sponsorship is a good way to bring the brand vision to life, because it often involves experiences where people come together and can actually provide a real proof point for that vision. The human joystick exemplifies what 'Together we can do more' stands for," Fisher said.

Link: Orange Involves Concertgoers.

Just came across this new blog, The Ad Contrarian, and I'm really enjoying it a lot. It's written by Bob Hoffman, CEO of Hoffman/Lewis advertising in San Francisco and St. Louis. This particular post is part of a 5 part series called The Crisis Of Advertising. I've posted some highlights here, but go to the links below and make sure you read the whole series. Sorry for the problems with links, but there seems to be a problem with the TypePad QuickPost system. Once it gets fixed, I'll update the links.

So here are some random thoughts about how the agency business needs to change, how you as an agency or you as an individual might want to think about what's next.

Contrary to all the nonsense you read, advertising is not dead. You can't swing a dead account planner without hitting an ad. It's everywhere -- urinals, grocery check-out separators, dry cleaning bags. Advertising is thriving, but ad agencies aren't.

There just isn't enough value anymore in big, slow, expensive ad agencies. Smart, industrious clients can cobble together small groups to get the work done at lesser cost and with superior creativity. They just don't know it yet.

The most important client-side marketing job currently does not exist: Someone to coordinate the activities of a variety of small, nimble marketing and advertising resource providers.

The idea that global agencies can provide global marketing solutions is an idiotic fraud that anyone with the intelligence of a gnat can see through. You can't find a single agency to get done everything you need done in Houston, how the hell are they supposed to do it worldwide? That global agencies even exist is a testament to the laziness of global marketers.

There will always be a place for BDAs because there will always be BDCs.

There will also be a place for regional, independent agencies because there will always be entrepreneurs and regional advertisers.

The middle, however, will continue to collapse. This will create big failures and enormous opportunities.

The web has turned us all into liars. We pretend the web has opened up huge new advertising opportunities when we secretly know that it has mostly been a dismal failure as an advertising medium. We cling to the few big successes and argue from the extreme. We pretend we know how to "do it all", but we don't. We pretend to be "media neutral" but secretly are either broadcast-centric, print-centric or web-centric.

The strategic part of what agencies do is going to disappear. Smart clients have no confidence in account planning. Those who haven't yet, will soon take strategy away from agencies and place it in-house or in the hands of consultants.

All their baloney notwithstanding, the huge media buying conglomerates have commoditized media buying and it is becoming a price war.

The one and only leverageable asset agencies will be left with will be creativity. The definition of creativity has evolved into more than just making ads, and it will continue to evolve.

Agencies will try to create relationships with creative resources outside the industry (directors, writers, performers) and, as always, this will fail. You will need your own outstanding creative resources.

Some strategies to think about:

Specialize: Go against the grain. Every agency is trying to convince clients that they can do it all. Instead, be an agency that does only one thing really well. Specialize in retail, or become expert in marketing to Mid-Westerners, or only work on luxury brands, or only do creative work. Find something you can be famous for.

Get small and do it yourself: The economics of the ad industry are going to hell. It's hard to make money. Soon big agencies may realize they can be more profitable by outsourcing to smaller, nimbler entities. Become a small, nimble entity (SNE?) Have your own clients and do contract work for BDA's.

Confederate: Form a confederated brand with other small, nimble entities. One does strategy. One does creative. One does media planning. One does promotions. You are independent, but you work cooperatively. You provide clients with a single service or a suite of services.

Something completely different: This is the most likely answer. The next model for the ad business is likely to be something we haven't even thought of.

Link: The Ad Contrarian: The Crisis Of Advertising, Part 5: What To Do.