DR4WARD

Reinventing the Art of Story Telling - Cannes Lions

Day 5

Tatil Design (Workshop)
The first workshop I attended today was hosted by Frederico Gelli of Tatil Design. The workshop was titled "Designing Naturally." The workshop focused on one of the fastest growing trends this decade, being environmentally aware. Gelli spoke of the influence the environment has had on the projects Tatil takes on. One of the more important taken from the workshop was that "...Nature is the best place to find stimulation and perfect ideas for low impact solutions that maintain high sensorial [sic] impact." Tatil focused it's projects on creating  products that gave consumers a positive outlook on the future, such as products that were eco-friendly. In order to create these products, Tatil evaluated them on a variety of different levels (Optimum, Cycles, and Interdependence) to create the perfect solution for their clients.  They [Tatil] understand that optimizing the environment develops a strong relationship between consumers and clients that want to do good and reduce their carbon footprint.

Crispin Porter + Bogusky (Seminar)
The first seminar I attended today was hosted by Chuck Porter and Joe Pytka of Crispin Porter+Bogusky and Ajaz Ahmed of AQKA. The seminar was titled "All That Really Matters Is The Power of The Story. If You Are Focused on Anything Else - You Are Wasting Your Time and Resources." The main idea of the presentation focused around the core philosophy that technology is NOT the powerhouse behind effective advertising campaigns, in reality, it is the story that drives the campaign. The purpose of communications is to tell a compelling story. Several ideas that drive stories have been - "Ordinary People Who Become Heroes Make Good Stories," "A Little Shock Value Makes a Good Story," and "Practical Jokes Make Good Stories." One specific example that was shown to the audience was a fan favorite during the 2007 Superbowl. Click here for the video. As Pytka went on to say, "There is no learning without emotion," just as there is no brand recognition without efficient communications. And to the dismay of marketers, "No focus group in the history of the world has ever written a good story," as Pytka stated. Although the digital age has increased the means of how we [Advertisers] deliver our messages, it is not only about going digital - it's about telling great stories that'll leave lasting impressions.

Until next time,

Cheers!

Irving Escobar

Nature's Lesson on Design

Day 5, Friday and my last day here at the Cannes Advertising Festival. I started off the day with yet another great workshop. This workshop was called designing naturally and was presented by Frederico Gelli of Tatil Design.

"As design makes its debut in Cannes, this seminar takes advantage of the new ground to discuss the role of simple, clean, intelligent design in the industry. In this context, nature is the best place to find stimulation and perfect ideas for low impact solutions that maintain high sensorial impact. Why not observe how the atmosphere packages the earth, or how the rind of fruits protects their insides, in order to create more clever packaging solutions?"

This workshop was really interesting. Frederico discussed natures strategic design and how it must inspire projects in the future. As designers we have the ability to integrate design and nature. We need to start thinking like nature and create solutions out of the problems.

He discussed natures way of packaging. These are things that i had not thought of, like the way a woman's body packages a baby in the womb, the way a peel protects the fruit of an orange.

As designers we need to take the problems and develop solutions out of them.

Lessons from nature
• Optimum-conserve the most amount of energy.
• Cycles—everything that goes in must come out (waves)
• Interdependence (birds living on other animals)

Federico also showed photography by Peter Menzel
Peter photographed families with all their belongings outside of their houses. Americans, on average have 10,000 items in their homes.

a couple other artists were also discussed.
Justin Gignac , Justin sells garbage in air tight containers.
Brian Jungen , Brian creates art out of everday material, such as white plastic chairs.

The engineering of flowers was then brought up. I never had thought of how complex and important flowers were to our being. Architecture is now becoming heavily based on the principles of flowers. There structure and strength provide a great amount of information on how to build. Using shape, texture and color to ignite all senses and alluse the consumer. An example of this is the design of an apple store on fifth ave.

Attached our my notes from the day. Hope they are informative!!

Download cannes_friday.htm

also...please check out Tap Project

until next time...

Kayla

MARKETING SKEPTICS RESISTANT TO BRAND MESSAGES

The degree of marketing skepticism and resistance to brand messages was highlighted this week when a student asked me in class if the brand examples used in the text book and discussed in class were paid product placements. I think this student has a future in marketing because the thought never occurred to me to sell my lectures in class to a captive student audience. Instead, the brand examples and case studies that I use are to demonstrate a concept or make a point about a company that does a particularly good or bad job at marketing. Where does this level of skepticism and resistance to brand messages come from?

Millennials is the label given to those born between 1982 and 2000.  They have grown up with instant and continuous multi-media communications, entertainment and social networks and are more dependent on technology, their peers and parents than previous generations. Millennials are continuously plugged into their iPods, mobile phones, video games, PC's, televisions, and social networks and multitasking. They consume so much media and entertainment through so many different channels that they receive over 3,000 distinct advertising messages daily.  This bombardment of sales messages and fragmentation of media use make Millennials difficult to reach and highly skeptical of marketers messages.
Image from www.matrixbusinesscoaching.com

This level of skepticism about information and communication is not unique to Millennials as consumers in general have become more suspicious and resistant to marketers messages.  This is a challenge and opportunity to marketers as the traditional brand marketing approach is no longer working.  Instead marketers are turning to new interactive models that give the control to consumers to create and share the marketing message with their peers through word-of-mouth. Brands are using consumer-created content and social networks to create and transmit something that is entertaining or helps to facilitate communication with others and make their lives better or easier. The best marketers understand that consumers do not need brands interrupting their lives and instead must be invited in.  Do you have examples of brands that you have invited in to your lives and shared with others?

I look 4WARD to your feedback.

Keep Digging For Worms!

MULTITASKING ADDICTION A TURNOFF

In the interest of full disclosure I must confess that I am watching TV as I write this blog...or to be more specific the television is on and distracting me from my writing.  My wife is surfing the internet and sharing conversation with me which is also distracting me from my writing.  What should take me 10-15 minutes is now taking over an hour.  Multitasking allows me to do several things at once but ultimately none of them very well.  I am not giving my wife, the television show, or my writing my complete focus.  Instead of increasing my efficiency and productivity my multitasking is actually decreasing the quality of all my activities.

Cognitive research supports that Multitasking hurts learning and affects memory.  Multitasking while driving can even be deadly.  Brains aren't built to multitask and the myth that students who simultaneously text message, talk on the phone, listen to music, watch TV, surf the internet, all while working on their homework somehow have their brains wired differently is false.  The youth may have more practice using their thumbs but their brains are not any better equipped than those of their elders to handle multitasking.   

Image from appraisalnewsonline.typepad.com/appraisal_news_for_real_e/2006/11/ninetyfive_perc.html

I teach college students and work with professional marketers.  Text messaging on cell phones, emailing on PDA's and iPhones, surfing the internet, while simultaneously attending meetings are common with this crowd. In fact, students are so addicted to text messaging that they cannot put their phones down and stop texting even when asked or while spending time with their friends.  In case you think this is unique to students or marketers, sit at a table at any professional conference or corporate meeting and see how many people turn their PC's, PDA's and Cells off and give 100% attention to the speaker or topic at hand. 

Marketers and educators are continuing to address these multitasking media use trends by creating more multitasking solutions and communications. The need for instant and constant communication is an addiction and the excuse that multitasking somehow makes us more efficient or productive is false.  In the end, giving 100% focus to our friends, family, employers or task at hand is the only solution.  I had to pause the television just now to proofread this but if there are too many errors I will blame it on multitasking since my wife is still making conversation.  I will sign-off now so I can focus on our conversation. 

Are we willing to settle for less by not giving our full attention to others and not expecting their full attention in return?  Will there be some backlash when the quality of our learning, work, conversations, and relationship continues to decline? 

I look 4WARD to your feedback.

Keep Digging For Worms!

WELCOME TO THE DR4WARD BLOG

My name is Dr. William J. Ward but you can call me Bill, a.k.a DR4WARD.

I have been "Digging For Worms" and applying my "4Ward philosophy" since I was nine when I started my first business selling night crawlers on Cowan Lake in Rockford, Michigan where I grew up.   My business grew by providing my customers with the best, freshest worms and fishing tips around.

The purpose of this blog is to provide diagnosis and prognosis of concepts such as integrated marketing communications / 360 degree branding and to engage readers in a discussion of their impact on society.  I hope we can help each other understand what these terms really mean. Do these concepts have any impact on your life?