This morning’s employment report shows a healthy increase of 235,000 total (nonfarm) jobs last month—pretty much across the board, in all major categories except for retail services. The manufacturing sector alone gained 28,000 jobs—a stronger showing than we’ve seen in a long time. But we shouldn’t break out the champagne over one month’s worth of […]
Several weeks ago on Branding Strategy Insider, we discussed an emerging trend called frictionless retail. And while retail brands have unique challenges to solve as they move into the future, all brands can apply the idea of frictionless to some, if not many components of their brand experience.
Business is the common denominator that unites brands. And at the center of business is customer transactions – without customers, there is no business, there is no brand. Radiating outward from the transaction is a multitude of interactions and touchpoints required to sustain transactions and nurture existing customers. But every touchpoint created by a brand requires a commitment of time and attention from customers they would have likely spent elsewhere.
Most friction slows customers down, and makes it more difficult or time-consuming to get what they want, which in turns decreases motivation. If a website asks visitors to register for a webinar and requires a customer to fill out 20 form fields of information to attend, they will not likely get many registrations. But if they only require 4 fields, they reduce friction. When Disney introduced its wearable Magic Kingdom wristband, it lowered friction around the hassle of hotel keys, park tickets, and payment systems.
Airlines are a great example of an industry that typically has high friction. Consumers wonder things like “Why is it so hard to change a flight?”. Their expectation has been set by the modern world of frictionless everything: Uber, InstaCart, AirBnB, Hotel Tonight. They don’t understand that older, complex airline information systems aren’t as flexible as the born-in-the-cloud apps they use on their mobile devices.
Southwest Airlines has done particularly well in minimizing common industry friction points (like checked bag fees or simplified reservation changes they call “TransFAREncy”). These actions allow the brand to almost empathize with customer frustrations. When they unveiled their new “Heart” brand in 2014, Southwest CMO Kevin Krone said, “The heart is our identity—the Heart of our Southwest employees enhances the customer experience. It’s the finishing touch that makes the Southwest brand unique, demonstrating that Southwest cares about each customer.” Instead of pursuing incremental transactions with customers, they went for a more passionate pivot, and showed their customers the love.
In his new book, Friction, Jeff Rosenblum says, “Passion brands actively remove friction from customers’ lives. Fighting friction eliminates the obstacles that prevent customers from doing what they want to do. Removing friction empowers customers and improves their lives one small step at a time.” Today every marketer should seek to eliminate the friction weakening their offer and value. Here are four ways you can help make that a reality for your brand.
1. Create An Experience Map: To orchestrate touchpoints over time and space, you must first know where the touch points are and what is happening to the customer when they are there. Because an experience map is a catalyst for other planning activities, this exercise will help brands understand what friction is necessary.
2. Automate What You Can: Tom Goodwin once remarked it would be great for hotels to scrap the idea of the front desk and move check-in, registration and security to guests’ mobile devices. We may still be decades away from automation at that level, but that’s the right idea. Think about anything and everything your customer must do to interact with the brand, and find ways to automate the work required. Mobile apps should always find ways to access help or support from within the app, and the call center should have information about the customer before they say hello.
3. Get Predictive: Mining available data and using statistical analysis to make predictions allows the brand to be more anticipatory. It also shows good data stewardship on the part of the brand by taking the time to identify personally relevant patterns and trends.
4. Learn By Social: Social listening can help brands identify customer frustrations and points of friction. It can also create meaningful dialogue with customers who may offer their take on how the brand experience can be proved.
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Watch how the various features of the new LG G6 can enrich your life in Heats first work for the smartphone maker. Live a smarter, better, and more enjoyable life with the LG G6 that actually fits in your hand.
The TV Commercial Ad titled G6 was done by Heat San Francisco advertising agency for product: LG G6
Three :15 spots compliment the campaign (below) “Meatball” “Milk” and “Astronaut” each focusing on different features of the device.
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CREATIVE CREDITS:
Advertising Agency: Heat, New York, Usa
Chief Creative Officer: Steve Stone
Chief Executive Officer: John Elder
President: Mike Barrett
Ecd / Head of Creative: Evan Slater
Creative Director: Jb Byrne, Elaine Cox
Senior Writer: Jon Korn
Art Director: Justin Hargraves
Head of Integrated Production: Joyce Chen
Senior Producer: Andy Rosenthal
Associate Producer: Mackenzie Huff
Group Account Director: Matt Huntington
Account Director: Elaine Feinstein
Assistant Account Executive: Paris Clark
Senior Strategist: Apo Bordin
Director of Business Affairs: Jenn Kennedy
Production Company: Gentleman Scholar
Directors: William Campbell, Will Johnson
Head of Production: Rachel Kaminek
Line Producer: Richard Kaylor
Dp: Rebecca Baehler
Design & Animation: Gentleman Scholar
Creative Directors: William Campbell, Will Johnson, Chace Hartman
Associate Creative Director: Jp Rooney
Senior Producer: Sue Yee Hubbard
Producer: Gregory Behrens
2d Animation & Design: Dennis Go
Designer: Trish Janovic, Christina Barna, Mike Tavarez, Chris Finn
Assistant Editor: Steven San Miguel
Producer: Tim Kirkpatrick
New work from Y&R New York for AZEK Building Products, a leader in the development of premium, low maintenance exterior building products. AZEK’s first-ever TV spots, showcasing their decking and railing products, will appear nationally on stations including HGTV, DIY and Food Network.
In the spots, the natural beauty of the decking takes center stage. Employing the use of numbers over the spots and people moving in and out of frame demonstrates variety and versatility, without removing focus from the product.
“We are growing across many of our categories and well known among the trade, but have been challenged with low brand awareness among homeowners,” said Julia Fitzgerald, Chief Marketing Officer at AZEK. “We partnered with Y&R to take us to the next level. We want to be the first choice among homeowners who want to spend more time enjoying their home and less time maintaining it.”
CREATIVE CREDITS:
CPG, AZEK Building Products
Chief Marketing Officer – Julia Fitzgerald
Brand Manager – Christopher Czachor
Y&R NYC
Chief Creative Officer – Leslie Sims
SVP, Executive Director Integrated Media – Jennifer Kohl
Executive Creative Director – Richard Butt
Creative Director, Copywriter – Josh Schildkraut
Creative Director, Art Director – Miranda Dean
Content Producer – Taylor Schomann
Art Director – Mitch Goldstein
Music Producer – Deb Oh
Account Supervisor – Susan Min
Account Manager – Basem Ebied
Integrated Media Director – Theresa Ferrugio
Integrated Media Planner – Kelsey Roche
Senior Brand Strategist – Paul-Claude Vary-Kinney
Production Company – Concrete & Clay
Director – Dewey Nicks
Executive Producer – Mike Brady
Executive Producer – Carrie McLaren
Head of Production – Barrett Schultz
Line Producer – Leora Glass
Content Production Company – On The Day Productions
Photography – Dewey Nicks
Editorial Company – The Paint Shop
Editor(s) – Ian McGee
Post production Company – The Paint Shop LA
Engineering – Marc Healy
Audio – Edit Studio (Y&R NYC)
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Photographer Angélica Dass captures some of humanity’s truest colors through her portrait project Humanae, a catalogue of human skin color displayed as a simple, captivating collage of Pantone portraits that reflects the deepest shades of brown and black, to the lighter tones of white, pink and everything in between. For Dass, Humanae is more than an expansive exhibit, but a thought-provoking educational tool meant to prompt a dialogue on how we see each other and the boundaries we set around race, ethnicity and identity.
At the time of her TED Talk in early 2016, Dass had traveled to 13 countries and photographed more than 3,000 people. Since her talk almost a year ago, she continues to share her work with the world as it travels the globe and continues to spark those necessary conversations.
Where in the world has Humanae been? Scroll to find out some of the places it’s popped up.
Humanae was part of the Daelim Museum’s “Color Your Life,” which visually examined how the functions of color and space can re-illuminate the hidden aesthetics of everyday life. The exhibition was divided into five sections: Color is everywhere, Color meets material (glass, leather, fabric, metal), Color challenges design, Color completes furniture and Color paints space — with Dass’ photo project cast in Color is everywhere.
For this public installation, Dass collaborated with the Bilbao City Council and made an open call for citizens volunteers and neighbors of the port city to be featured in her photo series. The selected images formed a mosaic of local faces — six large cubes lining a pedestrian zone of the Uribitarte Promenade between the Pio Baroja station and the Zubizuri Bridge — that were revealed on March 21, 2016, the International Day against Racial Discrimination.
The showing of Humanae at the Urban Photography Festival lined the plazas, streets and squares of the Lagunillas district for two weeks. Dass worked in the area for a time before the exhibit was shown, to add individuals as young as eight months and old as 80 to her growing chromatic collection.
Every two years — for the past 20 years — the Thessaloniki Museum of Photography organizes an International Photography Festival, also known as the PhotoBiennale. The museum partners with Urban Layers, an European public photography project co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union that travels between art festivals throughout the continent, including UPHO Urban Photo Festival. Humanae was featured in Urban Layers’ 2016 theme, Identity Flows, a concept that sought to capture what identity means through a “photographic crossroad of cultures at a crucial moment in the European Union’s course,” following the UK’s historic exit from the EU.
At the Leonardo da Vinci Museum of Science and Technology, Humanae was displayed in the genetics section. “Scientists want the same thing as I do, to show people that we are all the same race. There are things in our DNA which make us unique but in the end the things that construct us are the same. So these are two sides of the same idea,” Dass explained to 52-Insights. “I have my way, making photos and talking about my family, and the scientists are doing it in their own way, sometimes using my work to show visually what they are proving with science.
Humanae made an appearance in “Visualizing the Invisible,” an art exhibition shown in conjunction with Data for Life 2016 — Indonesia’s largest international conference on the influential power of big data and technology. The theme of the exhibit focused on humanity’s relationship with numerical information, exploring the many roles art and other visual mediums can play in representing statistical data.
A larger-than-life display of Humanae was featured at Habitat III, the UN Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development. The cube, 12 x 12 meters (~39 x 39 feet), displayed enlarged versions of her photographs, with each of the 64 portraits averaging around 3 meters (~10 feet). According to the UN website, the conference convened “to reinvigorate the global commitment to sustainable urbanization, to focus on the implementation of a ‘New Urban Agenda.’”
The Museon description for Humanae: “On this cube you see different portraits of people from many places around the world, including of course The Hague … But, the question is: Do you see who’s from here and who is not? That’s impossible based on physical appearance alone. Everybody has unique characteristics. We usually use the white, black, red or yellow colors to classify people, however, the images show that these color labels don’t exist and, in fact, seem pretty absurd.”
Dass was chosen as one of the 36 other cultural leaders (alongside TED Prize winners Sarah Parcak and Jamie Oliver) at the Davos World Economic Forum Annual Meeting “to speak truth to power and inspire more responsive and responsible leadership.” The large-scale outdoor installation greeted conference attendees at Promenade Entrance heading toward the Congress Centre.
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While no longer fashionable in the popular discourse, trade has been a key engine of prosperity. Relations across the Atlantic have been solid and deep but recent recommendations from the White House risk souring that economic friendship. Admittedly, TTIP has never been really popular on both sides of the Atlantic, and the Trump Administration might […]
In this exclusive Q&A, Dos Equis VP of Marketing Andrew Katz explains why the brand introduced a new “Most Interesting Man” and how the iconic campaign has evolved.
This is not your typical campaign. It’s an artist-driven platform that partners award-winning Mexican director Rodrigo Garcia Saiz, and Albertan conceptual photographer Justin Poulsen.
The inspiration is from a contemporary art exhibition of the same title, curated by Banff Centre’s Walter Phillips Gallery curator, Peta Rake. The campaign aims to illicit a range of emotions (intrigue, amazement, curiosity, magic…) and articulates experiences are so perception-changing that one cannot unthink them.
PRESS: Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, the renowned postsecondary arts training institution in Alberta, Canada, has launched its first consumer focused creative campaign since unveiling a new brand identity and strategic plan in 2016. Titled Things You Can’t Unthink, the artist-driven platform articulates the unique experience of artists as part of Banff Centre’s immersive training programs. The experiences are so perception-changing that one cannot unthink them.
“Banff Centre programs offer unparalleled learning opportunities where artists are given the opportunity expand their practice and create work under the guidance of world class faculty. Like all artistic expression, these works alter perspectives, provoke conversations, and provide experiences that people remember forever,” says Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity President and CEO, Janice Price. “Just like Banff Centre, the Things You Can’t Unthink campaign is a bit groundbreaking and always curious. It stays with you.”
Developed in partnership with creative agency Cossette, Award-winning Mexican director Rodrigo Garcia Saiz, and Albertan conceptual photographer Justin Poulsen, Things You Can’t Unthink uses artist content to create a surreal world of fascinating moments through video, print, and digital executions. The campaign title is born out of a contemporary art exhibition of the same title, curated by Banff Centre’s Walter Phillips Gallery curator, Peta Rake.
The campaign consists of one launch film and three print pieces, which aim to illicit a range of emotions from intrigue to amazement, to replicate the unforgettable experience Banff Centre offers.
“Banff Centre’s artist-driven experience is what gave birth to the Things You Can’t Unthink platform. Regardless of whether the work makes you feel love, intrigue, curiosity, or magic, you’ll experience something you can’t unthink. That is the beauty of this execution,” says Jason Chaney, Chief Strategy Officer at Cossette.
“Things You Can’t Unthink is an articulation of what Banff Centre stands for and accomplishes year round through its programs,” adds Carlos Moreno, Chief Creative Officer at Cossette.
The spot will run for four weeks on TV and in cinema. Print and out-of-home ads will be in the marketplace into May.
CREATIVE CREDITS:
Ad Agency: Cossette, Canada
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*reSET is the only Connecticut organization to receive the U.S. Small Business Administration for the Growth Accelerator Competition Award, announced by President Obama on August 4th, 2015.
