Bureau West

We’re frequently called upon to come up with creative ideas, whether in focus groups or in workshops with clients.  In these types of brainstorming sessions, we need to separate the process into two separate parts: first, generating lots of ideas, including crazy ones; and then, narrowing down those ideas based on reality.  We do that, because people tend to censor themselves and don’t even mention ideas they don’t think are feasible.  But one person’s wild idea might spark another person to think of a variation on the idea that could actually work!

We use a variety of techniques to get people to turn off their internal censors and come up with great ideas.  I thought I knew them all, until I read “Stir It Up! Recipes for Robust Insights & Red Hot Ideas” by my fellow researcher Laurie Tema-Lyn.  The book is full of great techniques.  Here is one of the techniques in the book that Laurie has allowed me to share with you:

Get Fired!

Sometimes it’s really hard to get a team to be speculative and creative.  Perhaps this kind of activity is very different from the way they typically work, or their industry is extremely conservative, so that lateral thinking exercises are a struggle.  Here’s one that always seems to break through the resistance. It requires a little “drama” to pull off, and you, the facilitator, have to believe in your heart that you will get good results. You can use this with client or consumer teams on any task for which you are seeking ideas.

How to Do It:

“Now I want to give you permission to come up with some really novel… (solutions, or whatever you are working toward). For the next few minutes I’d like you to give me all those wild and crazy ideas that you never thought you could say out loud.  They are the ‘get fired’ ideas or the notions that are ‘illegal, immoral or fattening’ (that usually gets a laugh!) The only caveat is that there has to be something in the idea that if it could be implemented, really would help (solve the problem…etc.)

Let’s get these ideas up quickly, without censoring.  No one outside this room ever has to know about these ideas.”

Keep the pace up with your energy and movement. Try to get at least one ‘Get Fired’ idea from each person. If the team is reticent, model an idea just to get them started. After a few minutes, call a ‘Stop!’ and go to the next phase.

“Great, and now let’s take these ideas and see where they might lead.  I’d like each of you to select any one idea that you like and write it on your own pads, even if you can’t imagine how you might implement it. Then huddle with a partner and talk through what you have, tossing ideas back and forth like ping-pong. See if you can come up with at least one idea that came from the ‘Get Fired’, that is more feasible.”

Listen in as people are talking and give them a couple of minutes to start making connections, then capture those “next generation” ideas on flip charts.

Tip: Before you leave this activity, you just might want to tear up the ‘Get Fired’ list and not put them in the final meeting notes.  I’ve worked with some pharmaceutical and financial clients who were very uncomfortable if these raw notes were ever disseminated outside the room.

Notice how the exercise has two parts: first, generating wild ideas, and second, tossing ideas back and forth with a partner.  That’s a great way to get a wild idea to develop into a feasible one.

Do you need to come up with creative ideas?  Just give me a call at 818-752-7210 or email info at bureauwest.com.

Source: “Stir It Up! Recipes for Robust Insights & Red Hot Ideas,”Laurie Tema-Lyn, Practical Imagination Enterprises

Mary Meeker’s respected Internet Trends report was delivered last week.  One area of focus was mobile internet usage on smartphones.  Mobile internet users worldwide increased 24% from 2013 to 2014, to a total of 2.1 billion users.  And Americans are spending almost 3 hours a day on their smartphones!

With those numbers, companies are looking for the most effective ways to advertise on mobile devices.  They should avoid the temptation to copy their TV ads on mobile platforms.  For effective mobile advertising, consider the following guidelines:

• Use native ad formats, such as Facebook’s suggested posts or Twitter’s promoted tweets.

• Ads should be short and simple. Take the context into account: mobile users are looking at a smaller screen and will scroll past your ad if they don’t immediately understand the ad’s message.

• Use portrait orientation for video. Most users won’t bother to rotate their phones to view video in landscape orientation.

• Don’t “overproduce” video ads. When an ad is viewed on a mobile device, a slick ad looks very different than the surrounding content and is more likely to be ignored.  Simpler, more direct ads are perceived as more authentic.

Want to figure out the best way to connect to your customers?  Call me at 818-752-7210 or email info at bureauwest.com.

Sources: “Internet Trends 2015,” KPCB, May 27, 2015; “Apple’s ‘1984’ TV Commercial Holds Lessons For Today’s Mobile Video Ads,” AdExchanger, June 1, 2015; “5 Mobile Advertising Best Practices,” iMedia Connection, March 10, 2015; “6 Creative Best Practices for Mobile Page Post Ads,” Business 2 Community, May 27, 2015

“Customer experience” seems to be a term we’re hearing about more and more lately.  One could be justified in thinking that it’s just a new buzzword for something successful companies have been doing all along: hasn’t it always been important to ensure that customers have a positive experience?

Of course, positive customer experiences have always been important.  But they’re more important than ever nowadays, when social media can amplify every single customer’s positive (and negative) experience.  Peter Shankman has recently written a great book on this topic: Zombie Loyalists: Using Great Service to Create Rabid Fans.  He explains how one customer’s good or bad experience can have a disproportionate impact on a company’s profits.

How can companies make sure their customers are tweeting (and Facebooking and Instagramming) about how much they love them and NOT rants about bad experiences?

It has to start at the top and include the whole company.  All the company’s departments need to work together to ensure great customer experience.  Some companies make the mistake of measuring customer satisfaction at key “touch points,” but miss the customer’s overall experience.  For example, my bank surveys me after I have an interaction with their customer service reps, and I’m usually highly satisfied.  But they don’t realize they’re on the verge of losing me because I’m irritated by their ATM fees.  Consider conducting focus groups and ethnographic research with customers to get the full picture.

Make sure your employees are happy.  Happy employees are more likely to go out of their way to make customers happy.  Especially if you give them permission to do so.  Give them leeway to use their judgement to make sure a customer is happy rather than tying their hands with endless rules and processes (Ritz-Carlton is famous for this: every Ritz-Carlton employee is empowered to fix a customer’s problem, even if it costs money).  And get your employees on-board to think of creative ways to delight your customers.  Shankman points out that we are conditioned to expect mediocre customer service.  A good experience is worth sharing with our networks.  For example, the contracting company that presents its customers with a photo album of the renovation after it’s completed – before, after and during.  It’s a small investment that pays off many times over.

Consider conducting internal workshops with management and employees to figure out ways to improve the customer experience and to come up with creative ways to delight them.

Want to find ways to improve customer experience at your company?  We would be glad to help!  Just give me a call at 818-752-7210 or email info at bureauwest.com.

Sources: “Zombie Loyalists: Using Great Service to Create Rabid Fans,” Peter Shankman, 2015; “The Truth About Customer Experience,” Harvard Business Review, September, 2013; Bureau West research

For several years now, I’ve been talking about how behavioral economics provides a perspective that can help companies better understand their customers.  I just came across two great examples that show how companies used behavioral economics principles to increase their profits:

Example #1: A newspaper had increased the cost of its subscriptions and they were getting calls from readers who wanted to cancel.  They retrained their call center employees to use behavioral economics techniques and were able to triple their retention rate.  In a typical call, where the subscriber said they weren’t utilizing the subscription and didn’t have time because they have kids, the call center rep would say:

“There are many people like you – who are very busy and have kids to take care of – use our offers on the ‘Times Plus’ to save money on cinema tickets or meals out and some exclusive events that we run and I wouldn’t want you to miss out on that if you canceled today.”

The above approach uses two behavioral economics mechanisms.  Social norming – “there are many people like you” – people tend to want to do what most people are doing.  It’s a mental shortcut: rather than having to evaluate the pros and cons of every action we take, it’s easier (and usually safe) to just do what most people are doing.  And the second mechanism is loss aversion – “I wouldn’t want you to miss out on…”  The pain of losing is greater than the pleasure of gaining, so people hesitate to give up an existing benefit.

Example #2: An auto insurance company found it could raise rates and increase profits by conducting online research where they showed participants quotes for ten different insurance companies and asked them to select they one they would buy.  They varied the quotes and found that where their price was in relation to the other quotes was more important than the price itself.  Based on the findings, they were able to calculate the price that would provide them with the maximum profit.

Most companies can benefit from the above two approaches: find out what your customers think “most people do” in your category.  Discover what people worry they might lose by not using your product.  And conduct a pricing exercise like in the example above to find your optimal price points.

We would be glad to help glean these insights from your customers and prospects.  Just give me a call at 818-752-7210 or email info at bureauwest.com.

Sources: “The Maddest Men of All,” Freakonomics Radio Podcast, 2/26/15; “Beyond Academia: How Psychology Has Been Adopted in Advertising and Communications,” The Behavioral Economics Guide 2014; “The Power of Rank: Behavioural Insights into Product Pricing,” The Behavioral Economics Guide 2014; Bureau West research