… And one more interview! I have more two to post after this. I’m working on the transcribing part of it and pretty soon they will be here. Then it is going to be time to get some conclusions. So far I feel there is fantastic material here and I can’t wait to put everything together to see how it looks like a group. For now, here it is, Will Collin’s (Naked) interview.
Will has described me two different processes he goes through. It mostly depends on whether he is more in a position of advisor, not been involved on the job from the beginning, or if it is a project his been working on from beginning to end.
In the first case, when Will takes the role more of a coacher, he is an outsider looking into some kind of work that his team has developed in order to advise them, suggest ways that they can improve strategy or other ideas they could consider. In this situation, Will first move is to organize things, look at it and see if it makes sense, if it has a logic flow and if it leads to a conclusion.
Once he has tidied everything up, he then allows his self to start to think if it is an interesting insight, if it leads to an interesting idea. It is a totally different set of preoccupations. In this moment it’s more a case of what constitutes an interesting insight or relevant insight in that particular market for that particular brand given the circumstances of the brief. If the first move was more about organizing and looking to the work with more objective eyes, now it is more about intuition relied on experience as to what kind of insights have been proved to be interesting and fertile in the past and therefore what can be seen in this insight that cares some similarities with things that one knows. It is as if the brain would go through a cross matching with one’s past data bank both conscious and unconscious.
So first comes the logic followed by a more instinctive approach.
When involved in a project from the beginning to the conclusion Will’s process is different. He has described me a good case study that I would like to use in order to illustrate it. A former state owned telecom that used to be the national monopoly at its country has recently been struggling with competition after the market got deregulated. The challenge: how could this brand be made relevant at a time when commercially it was loosing significant share.
Having worked in projects for the telecom market gave them a good start point as to a good understanding of that marketing in a global view. Also, having worked for previews clients of that same country contributed for a wider comprehension of that particular country and culture. Those were key things to get to the strategy.
Turning Over Stones:
Will’s process reminded me of a treasure hunt. To use his own analogy, it is like turning over stones such as: the brand stone, the consumer stone, the market stone and the wider culture stone, in order to not only have a greater understanding of each one of those, but also trying to find which one can contribute with more “energy” to the strategy. It can be that the key is one, or a combination of more than one. However it is fundamental to turn over all stones.
- The Brand Stone: what is the brand, what is its situation in the market, how is it seen, how is it communicating, what are its problems and what are its advantages over its competitors?
- The Market Stone: look to what is happening in the world - US, Europe, Asia. What is the context? Where is it heading? Understand how their competitors are talking to the consumers; if they are in a better position find out what is putting them in that position. What are they offering to the consumers? Is there something that your brand can claim that your competitors can’t?
- The Wider Culture Stone: learn about that society, their history, have they been through any kind of transformations?
- The Consumer Stone: listen to the consumer, how do they relate to that brand and how are they placed in that society? How does the cultural situation relate to them and vice versa. When working on the telecom project this was fundamental for the strategy.
They are all equally important and they all have to be considered. They are connected in a sense that you not only have to understand your consumer, but you have to understand him as part of his/hers culture. You have to understand the competition, but having in mind the market set and their relation with the consumers.
For the telecom project the culture turned out to be particularly important and with more energy. Consumer research had shown that there was a sense of emerging transformation in that culture and people were taking pride in these changes. But at the same time they didn’t want to loose their history. In this context this former state telecom was actually being the victim, for the changes in that culture, and that nation were being fused and facilitated by the telecom provider.
This is a way of describing the process after going through it, when you can look back and organize a logic flow. But Will explained to me that in reality things take place in parallel and without sequence. Actually you can formulate theories pretty much early, but you can’t drive into conclusion before you have grounded it. There is a switching point when efforts change from been gaining insights, understanding and changing to gaining justification and support.
The big challenge is not to fall in love with the first idea and try to prove, justify it, rather than keep looking to other great ideas. You have to be able to remain open to new insights for as long as possible, before you start to lock it down. And because of time pressure, the increasing level of demanding from the clients, the pressure for getting results more quickly, one may be tempted to fall in love with the first one. Working with other people is good, because if you are working on your own is quite easy to fall in love with your own work. It takes someone else to point out either deficiencies of what you’ve done or suggest things you haven’t considered. Other people can open you to other influences.
It is important to remain open as long as you can until you reach a certain point where it’s necessary to lock down - but how to know the right moment to lock down? If collectively you reach consensus that is a reasonable indication that you’ve got something good. Also looking back at past experience, other projects that you’ve worked on – gives you the grounds to say if it is really different, moving, forward thinking. It is gut feeling, but informed gut feeling.
Ju.
An amazing (and involving) directory of most of the most interesting sites and apps on the web, with a little description and link for each. And my arent there a lot of them. You’ll never be stuck for an interesting example or indeed stuff to try out