Incito MentisA blog by Syed Abdul Karim

Seriously! If you are reading this then somewhere something inside of you made you question ‘what if this is true!’ Most of you are feeling very skeptical I am sure, but the curious ones amongst you wanted to find out more. Well I have good news…your curiosity is about to be rewarded! This is for real.

The all new Lamborghini Aventador was launched at the Geneva Motor Show last month. OK! So what? Except for those extreme car enthusiasts most of us did not hear about it and will not hear about it unless you see it in a movie or something. More importantly most of us will not be driving one of these unless we are the chosen one! So why should we care? Well the official film has just been released and it has blown me away! WOW! is the word. I have to say this is one of the most awesome car commercials I have ever seen. But then I say this about every Lamborghini commercial.

Why is this such a big deal? Simply because of the fact that this car is a 700hp V12 beast with the highest power to weight ratio compared to any car in it’s class. Which is really a big deal! (By the way I learnt that fact after seeing the film). So what then! Why did this video excite me more than the rational information about the car itself. Well they say a picture is worth more than a thousand words and this video really captures the sheer performance, power and handling of this raging bull in a way that is simply superb! It evokes emotion with every frame!

Trying to decode my own reaction and what you are about to experience in a bit I remembered a concept I had read about in Buyology by Martin Lindstorm. The concept of “mirror neurons”. The idea being that when we see something like an action, our mind replicates and exhibits the same energy and activity of someone who is actually experiencing the act. So for these next three minutes because of the way our mind works, we feel like that driver who is smoothly drifting and cruising through earthquakes and armageddon! So when I said drive the new Lamborghini Aventador NOW I really meant it. At least in your mind! So without any further delay I proudly present to you an experience in the Lamborghini Aventador – the newest bull from Italy. Check it out!

YouTube Video Link

Hyundai adds a little extra to an already novel marketing tool – 3D Projection Mapping. The power to transform a landscape and immerse the viewer into an alternate reality is what’s driving the WOW! factor in these executions. With the evolution of projection technology, becoming both high definition and cost effective at the same time, combined with a growing expertise of 3D talent the frequency of these executions worldwide is increasing at a rapid pace. Executions can be seen everywhere for anything from promoting movies like Tron and Iron Man 2 to events celebrating new year’s eve to some simply promoting a tourist location. Of course, of all the players in the game brands are right on top with some great work done for Samsung, Vodafone, Red Bull and Hot Wheels to name a few.

This time however for Hyundai the team behind the event in Malaysia has added a little twist. Instead of doing what everybody else is doing. They have managed to create a true to the brand immersive experience by actually putting the car at the center of the stage. The result is a fascinating journey that to my mind is a step above the rest. It rightly delivers on the brand promise of “New Possibilities” – imagine a car driving on the wall! Check out the video below and see for yourself!

YouTube Video Link

Long time ago in a land far, far away Shoaib Qureshy, the man who introduced me to the world of Strategic Planning asked “What is the core purpose of our business?” Why do clients come to us? Is it because they want a TV ad? A poster? Or a campaign? The answer was IDEAS! They come to us because they want creative solutions to their business problems. If we don’t come up with ideas that deliver results then we have failed. It’s not about mega-productions or great art direction. It’s about creativity that moves people.

Creativity and ideas are very subjective topics. They are similar to a word we use so much in our industry – insight. Everyone has a different interpretation of it. Everyone talks about it but very few get it right when it comes to putting it into practice. I think both an insight and an idea require skillful craftsmanship. I guess it works like that for every industry. Watchmaking for example is a fine art of craftsmanship. Take Vacheron Costantin’s Tour de l’Ile. Known to be one of the most complicated watches ever made and only seven of them were produced. Each watch is made up of 834-parts and took more than 10,000 man-hours to be completed. It costs about $1.5 million. Of course the price is not only for craftsmanship – it has an 18-carat silver gold dial with an alligator leather hand-sewn band and a pink gold buckle.

The point being that in every line of work skill and craftsmanship are key. Creativity in advertising and marketing is no different.

So what is the point of this post? Well being in the advertising business I may not be responsible for coming up with the biggest and best ideas in the world but I am certainly witness to some of the finest. As a brand strategist I find ideas of all kinds very exciting. In this series of posts I would like to talk about different types of ideas. Obviously there is no formula to ideas but there is certainly a structure that one can learn form. Based on my observation of creative work here is an attempt to break down ideas and look at some structures that have made it big.

This post builds up on an earlier one I did for the Interplay Blog. It talked about coming up with big ideas in general. You can read it here if you like. Now I am taking the discussion further.

One theme of big ideas I have noticed are event ideas. When hunting for big ideas it is interesting to explore the dynamic of an event. The power of an event is exponential. Events provide a great opportunity to build hype and anticipation. One can either lead-up to something big or simply unleash with a bang and then amplify the experience post-event, which in the world of today means coming up with compelling content that spreads like a virus.

So what are some big event ideas! Surprisingly there are not too many of them, but whatever is out there is superb! I think it is one structure that is rather underused and it is route with a lot of potential. Here I am going to share two such ideas. The first one is T-Mobile “Rain of Flowers” and it’s beautiful. For a brand that promises ‘Life is for sharing’ a rain of flowers is the perfect event idea that creates a moment which everyone would love to experience and share. Check it out!

T-Mobile Rain of Flowers (2 Min) from Rosen Regen on Vimeo.

The second big event idea is a staged robbery! That’s right. Audi for the launch of it’s A3 decided to create an interactive spy movie that kicks off with a real-life robbery and then gets the audience to become private investigators on the hunt to find the new Audi A3. It’s a brilliant example of using the event dynamic to engage a target audience and then turn it into a full blown social media campaign. Here is the Audi – Art of Heist Case Video!

These are just two examples. Have you heard of a Big Event Idea? If so, please share. I would love to hear of more big ideas centered around events.

Remember the game, “Passing the Pillow” an object that holds a very near and dear utility becomes an object of fun and play. That is what’s happening to the world of advertising. From something that conveys a message (mostly unsolicited I dare say!) to something that is all about play, participation and like the game “Passing the Pillow”.

As Chuck Brymer, our global CEO puts it, we are now entering the post-consumer world. A world which is changing and transforming at a pace unlike anything we have experienced before. Advertising as we know it is DEAD. Perhaps not so in the cradle of civilization where I happen to be at the moment, but it is only a matter of time!

So what’s the big deal? Nothing much, besides the fact that Facebook has set it’s sight on 1 billion users, Apple is selling one iPad every 26 seconds and the world is going crazy on Twitter with a new tweet per second record of 3085 during the NBA Finals, and this should change as the FIFA 2010 World Cup enters the Round of 16. Oh did somebody say people don’t watch ads any more, they don’t! But Nike hijacked the World Cup with a 3-minute video “Write the Future“ which by the way never aired but broke the record for the biggest audience in the first week of a campaign with 7.8 million views. Are you sure people don’t watch ads any more? Thanks to Nike’s Facebook fans who happen to have participated, played and passed it on to millions of their friends. The era of messages is long gone. It is all about content where everyone is connected to everyone else within six degrees, which means you, my dear reader, are connected to me in no more than six steps!

What’s my point! Our business has been redefined. I would be getting a little carried away if I were to say that we are now in the movie business. But we are definitely a lot closer to that now. Why? If we are to mean anything to the digitally connected swarms then we have to create “ShareValue”, which means the content has to be worthy of generating word of mouse, not just word of mouth!

How do we go about doing so? Well we have to move from traditional definitions of creativity to what is known as “Social Creativity” (as we say at DDB).  If  the work that we do is not something that our audience would like to play with, participate in and pass on to their friends then we have failed at Social Creativity.

There is a lot to more this. A brief explanation does not do justice to the concept. For now I guess a simple illustration shall suffice. One brand which seems to get it and repeatedly so is Toyota. From the way they managed the crisis by participating in a continuous dialogue with their customers using all forms of social media to the way they are creating entertaining content with definite “ShareValue”. I believe they are doing a splendid job. Check this video out and you will see what I mean! Feel free to play and pass on

We are talking about a Lamborghini here. Does it need a pitch? Who does not want to own a Lamborghini? Those who can afford an Enzo or those who already own the last two I guess! Why would you need to make a TV ad for a Lamborghini? Probably the same reason why I am writing this blog. Do something so great and awesome that people end up talking about it. Probably that’s why.

I have seen a lot of TV Commercials. The memorable ones usually make a good thing really great. This is one of them. What makes it great? The key insight. If I were to imagine the brief for this ad I believe the insight would have read something like this – “What makes something great depends on what it is being compared to”. It is all about the ‘power of the relative’. You put something in a different context and suddenly it looks different. I have seen a number of behavioral economists talk about this concept. Allow me to illustrate:

You want a buy a pen that costs $20. You learn there is a place 30 minutes away that is selling the same pen for $10. What do you do? Most people would go for the $10 pen. Similarly there is a suit that you like and it costs $1000. Again you learn that about 30 minutes away another branch of the same store sells the suit for $990. What do you do? Like most rational people you would go for the $1000 suit. This is the power of context. The same $10 would be saved for the same effort of driving 30 minutes away but because of the difference in context a completely different decision is made.

This is what the creative team has done here. They have used this power of context to their advantage. It’s not about comparing a Lamborghini to a Ferrari or a Porsche. No sir! It is about comparing the opportunity to own a Lamborghini to something rarer than giving birth to a Nobel Prize winner or being able to successfully climb Mount Everest!

And therefore as a result, they have managed to make something hot even hotter. This is the power of context. An extremely valuable tool for great advertising I think.