I’m currently on a research project set across three cities in India. Over dinner with my client Abhijit in Delhi, we got to talking about the interesting dynamics of cell phone adoption in this massive country. The biggest player here is Nokia, who just “got it right” according to Abhijit. I pushed for a reason why and he rattled off a number of smart moves… terrific advertising, a stellar product, and early entry into the market. But what caught my attention was an anecdotal story of how Nokia connected with the working class. Abhijit said a key move was when Nokia won the allegiance of truck drivers (who, believe me, are everywhere in this country!). As Nokia was looking for new and innovative ways to improve their hardware, they stumbled across a deceptively small insight: truck drivers get out of their trucks a dozen or more times in the course of a long night on the road… and it can be really, really dark (you know… that thing that happens when the sun goes down). The answer? Add a little flashlight to the phone. Bingo! Instead of looking for some earth-shaking, never-before-seen feature on the bleeding edge of technology, Nokia went old school and added a light bulb. And just yesterday on my flight from Delhi to Mumbai, the Economic Times of India published the results of its Brand Equity Most Trusted Brands survey. The top brand for 2009 and now two years running? The guys with the light bulbs sparking up — in more ways than one.

I am totally inspired by the groundbreaking force-to-be-reckoned-with of social media it what is proving to be pivotal in the historic events in Iran this week.

It has catapulted a technology that I was previously entirely cynical about into the realms of the truly revolutionary with average Iranian citizens able to get their personal experiences out to the world despite media blackouts and internet censorship with simple micro-blogging.

Hooray for a media coming of age and finding it’s worth. I am brimming with ideas to incorporate Twitter methodologies into our work!

As we talked about the other day with my United Airlines experience, brand consistency often comes down to an individual’s delivery. With all people-facing brands we are at the whim of the brand representative. Thinking about it from their point of view for a second, they have to be incentivized to deliver that brand experience consistently.  If we imagine the most successful service brands in the airline industry, Jet Blue and Southwest come to mind in the US and maybe Virgin and Singapore on an international scale.  What gives those people greater pride in delivering a unique and consistent experience that elevates their brands?

Ponder that for a while and then overlay yesterday’s news from London where British Airways announced they were asking their staff to work for free for a month to help get them out of the financial hole they’re in due to the economic crisis. In truth, their voluntary pay reduction would be amortized over a 6 month period, but which ever way you cut it, the airline is asking its staff to deliver the brand for a lower incentive.  The CEO, Willie Walsh, is clearly behind the initiative as he was first in line to volunteer to work for free for a month.  As he’s on £735K a year, critics say he can afford to lose £61K for a month.

In my mind, this could  galvanize a “circling of the wagons mentality” and a determination to survive, which could result in a push for even higher levels of customer service. This would happen if the staff felt an affinity for what BA stands for beyond just their pay packet. I’m not sure if this is true.

A more likely result is a disaffected and pissed off workforce who lack the incentive to deliver the BA brand consistently in the air. This has massive implications for the BA brand, which has been determined to differentiate based on a a “full service” promise vs. low cost, no frills competitors. What looks like a short term cost cutting policy could result in longer term detrimental damage to their brand.

What do you think? Would you be prepared to work for your company for less money to help it out of a financial hole?

Note to Egg Strategy employees reading this post - this is not a cheap attempt at testing the waters for a “BA style” wage cut. We just hired more people, remember!

Last week I was traveling back from a 2 day ideation session. The session had involved a lot of work and some particularly long days + nights, so I was delighted to see my request to use my upgrade certificates confirmed when I checked in at 4.30am in St. Louis for my return leg on United. I’m extremely loyal to United, which is about 95% due to the fact that I’ve been a member of their Mileage Plus program for the past 7 years and get preferential treatment as a result. I am, however, not committed to United.  If another carrier flying the routes I travel most often, offered me the same status to switch and matched my accumulated miles - I’d be there in a second (at least for a decent trial period).  Yep, that’s a pretty big ask, but I do spend a lot of money on flights.

However, this United flight was a bit different. The pilot made all his pre-flight announcements from the front of the plane rather than in the cockpit, so I immediately connected the brand with someone beyond the flight attendants - sort of like meeting the bank manager rather than a teller (sorry flight attendants). Then about an hour before landing, the flight attendant brought me a card that was a personal note from the pilot.  “Dear Mr. Band”, it said, “It’s my pleasure to fly you to Vancouver”.  OK, so not exactly going way above and beyond - but certainly a small unexpected touch that made me reconsider my relationship with United a little bit and perhaps put my brand promiscuity on the back burner. Reminded me it doesn’t take much to shape brand relationships, even ones that are years old.  When I told my wife about this, she asked me if the captain had added his hotel room number and a winking smiley.  Thankfully no.  Stretching the brand to the overly friendly skies would have been a bit much.

In recent months we’ve seen a few mis-steps by major brands.  KFC’s free sandwich problems, aka the Oprah Tsunami, the Dr Pepper and Guns and Roses debacle and last year the Burger King employee taking a bath in the restaurant kitchen sink didn’t exactly endear people to that brand.

This video of a McDonald’s in Australia does take the cake though.  How bad is this?

Reminds us of a few truths:

1. Every single touchpoint with your brand creates an impression.  Good, bad or ugly.

2. The internet has an awesome power to convey dramatic ideas to many people over a very short space of time.

3. Don’t go to McDonald’s in Adelaide after 3am on a Saturday

Just planning an ideation session today and always get inspired by smashing two disconnected things together. Here’s my favorite smash up of late - All-Black Winnie The Pooh. Not sure where the apple on the head comes from…maybe they’re even throwing in a William Tell reference. But clearly that’s not the main thing here. Design by Hiroshi Fujiwara.

My friend Vaughan (The Real Gent) visited an Alcoholic Architecture installation recently - what’s that?.. I hear all 6 of our loyal readers yell in unison. Essentially a bar designed and set up to feel like you are inside your actual drink…in this case a delicious Gin and Tonic. The air in the bar is infused with booze, so you are literally inhaling your drink. Patrons have to don protective CSI style crime scene suits to prevent the alcohol seeping into their hair and clothes, but apparently it does go through the pores of the skin and in through your eyeballs. You can buy real Gin and Tonics to drink in the regular fashion, if required. £5 buys you 45 minutes of breathable cocktails - equivalent to drinking one G&T or if you hid in the bathroom for a few hours , I suppose you could get quite hammered.

If “inhalable brands” are the way of the future, at least this seems more satisfying than Le Whif.

Back in the dark depths of January we blogged about the interesting new campaign from Queensland Tourism, which advertised the best job in the world - caretaker of a tropical island for six months, with job responsibilities including: scuba diving and blogging. This week, the campaign got another boost in the news. First - the lucky guy (I wanted to use stronger language, but this is a family blog) who was hired for the job was announced.  Ben Southall.  Remember that name the next time you’re having a bad day.

Second, the campaign won Best of Show at the One Show in New York this week and I can see it cropping up in the other award shows this season too. While it’s a great creative leap and lovely idea, I was most impressed with it’s effectiveness too. The campaign cost $1 million to produce and run and has generated $150 million in global PR coverage for the islands of the Great Barrier Reef. The announcement of the winner was carried live by 70 news organizations around the world, allowing millions of people to immediately feel sorrier about their lot in life. Well done to all involved (apart from Ben Southall).

I heard about Le Whif on the radio recently and then saw it picked up by coolhunting earlier this month.  What sounds like a really cool innovation, feels like a shocking tease, which would ultimately be a wholly unsatisfactory experience. In essence, Le Whif is a “chocolate inhaler” (but’ I’m a chocolate inhaler, I hear you say…), which shoots micro fine chocolate molecules into your mouth to give you the sensation/flavor of eating chocolate without the calories of actually doing so. These molecules are small enough to prevent choking, which is nice.

According to its inventors, Le Whif is based on the idea that we’re eating smaller and smaller quantities at shorter and shorter intervals and this is the natural extension of that…food that you can breathe in, rather than chew and savor. First, I think the founding insight is flawed…we’re not eating smaller quantities, our portions are too big, so this doesn’t fit with the trend, but runs counter to it (which in this case is OK). However, where it misses the mark most, is that when you reduce portion size, you must increase intensity of experience to replace the volume loss. Le Whif cuts the enjoyment both ways, so what you’re left with is just chocolate air.  I’d guess that after one toot on Le Whif, you’d be gagging for a big ol bar of chocolate, the ultimate tease.

We often work in the world of packaging, looking for inspiration to create something new and dramatic. This is my favorite recent example of something truly breakthrough. This packaging is designed by Naoto Fukasawa, a Japanese designer known for the simplicity of his work. Inspired by the basic maxim: “making people happy through industrial design”, Fukasawa is known for designing to the “essence” of the object in question. Everything non-essential is stripped away. Here’s a nice bit in the NYT Magazine about him if you want to read more.

Back in the 70s BMW commissioned some of the hottest artists of the day (Warhol, Lichtenstein, Rauschenberg etc) to paint a range of their cars. Check them all out here. These cars are going on display again at Grand Central Station in New York, for a couple of weeks only (the installation closes on April 6th).  While Warhol may have elevated everyday brands with his work (Campbell’s Soup Can etc), it seems more appropriate that a brand like BMW is re-imaged in this way. Actually using the cars as part of the art rather than portraying them on canvas, makes a difference, but I think it’s the fact that BMW were collaborating with this creation that elevates their part in the show. Campbell’s Soup didn’t ask Warhol to paint their cans. I wonder what would be a decent equivalent today (apart from Apple).

Honesty is always a powerful force in any aspect of brand communications, which is why I like Fat Pig chocolate, which I found at a great packaging site called Lovely Package. Thanks Alison and Dave for pointing me there. The Fat Pig stuff reminded me of the Dudley Moore comedy, Crazy People and the notion that only lunatics would write “honest copy” and that this would be a huge revelation on Madison Avenue. Clients and customers would love it too.

The best advertising is honest. If it isn’t, the first time you try a brand and it doesn’t live up to the promise of the ads, you despise it twice. First for being a poor product and second for lying to you. Honesty in advertising can also come from a consumer insight so poignant and true, that it’s unavoidable.  Like this…another favorite: