Tom Fishburne: this one time at Brand Camp

game changing innovation

I'm gearing up to speak at SXSW in Austin on Friday, so my mind is racing. My talk is called "Drawing Board: Innovation Lessons from Cartooning". I'm sharing the many ways that cartoonists come up with ideas and find ways to break through the clutter. I think these lessons can apply to any form of innovation. 

Last week, I met a semi-retired cartoonist who once had his cartoon strip in 150 newspapers. I told him that I dreamed of someday cartooning full-time. He replied, "Are you kidding? How the hell could you do that nowadays?" I told him I certainly wouldn't bank on the traditional route of newspaper syndicates. 

Cartoonist Hugh Macleod gives this advice: "Your plan for getting your work out there has to be as original as the actual work, perhaps even more so. The work has to create a totally new market. There’s no point trying to do the same thing as 250,000 other young hopefuls, waiting for a miracle. All existing business models are wrong. Find a new one." 

Hugh blazed a new trail where he gives his cartoons away for free but makes his living selling original art made possible because he gives his cartoons away for free. Illustrator Marc Johns is finding success here too. 

Even legendary Matt Groening got his start by finding a new business model. Long before he created the Simpson's, he created a provocative series called Life in Hell, which he sold in the book corner of a record store where he worked. The material was too edgy to go the traditional newspaper syndicate route next to Dagwood Bumstead. So, Matt went after alternative papers. No broad syndication options existed for alternative papers, so Matt started one. Today, Matt's company, Acme Features Syndicate, syndicates Life in Hell in over 250 weekly alternative papers. 

Cartoonists have to find new ways to go to market by necessity, but it's important to question your go-to-market approach for any form of innovation. Most new products every year are launched the same well-worn way as everything else. New products land on the same over-crowded shelves "trying to do the same thing as 250,000 other young hopefuls, waiting for a miracle". 

In 2002, I interviewed Richard Tait, co-founder of Cranium, one of the the fastest selling board games in history. I asked Richard what led to their success. He told me, "Starbucks". Every other board game maker followed the traditional path of game expos and mass channels. Richard and Whit Alexander didn't know a thing about board games when then started, so they missed the traditional retail buying windows. Running out of options, they naively pitched Howard Schultz about selling their game in their cafes, which had only had coffee merchandise before then.  

This nontraditional launch gave Cranium an edge over every other game launched that year the traditional way. Sure, the game itself had to be brilliant to be successful. But, finding a completely new path to market was just as important to their success. 

Businesses often treat their latest innovations like commodities the moment the product is out the door. They bring them to market the same-old tried-and-true way. They resort to the same price discount strategies to drive trial. They forget that being innovative doesn't stop once the product ships.

If we don't want our brands to become commodities, we shouldn't treat our brands like commodities.

the ivory tower

Last week I traveled to snowy Toronto with a sales director. Over two days, we saw more than 30 Canadian stores and talked with dozens of consumers, retail buyers, store managers, and shelf stockers. It reminded me that I need to get out of the office a lot more often. 

It’s easy to think of marketing as what happens in the head office: the PowerPoint presentations, the slick ad boards, the debates in meetings. But brand meaning is created by consumers, not by marketers. Consumers interact with brands in the midst of their busy, chaotic lives, not in the artificial, carefully scripted way we imagine in brand onions and positioning statements. 

It doesn’t matter how our brand resonates in a 30-slide PowerPoint deck with crisp graphics. It matters how it resonates in a crowded shelf of a dimly lit pharmacy to a time-pressed mother of four. 

I remember something I learned as an intern on Cheerios from Ann Simonds who headed up our cereal business at the time. She told our New York based creative director, “I don’t care how you think Cheerios plays in Soho. I care how it plays in Peoria”. And she got the creative team on a plane. 

It’s easy in business to get trapped in the ivory tower, detached from the actual consumers who buy our products. But you’ll learn a lot more away from your desk than at it. No matter how much Nielsen data you have.

the art of package design

Working at method has taught me that package design is the single most important part of your marketing plan. Founder Eric Ryan likes to say that he views cutting steel as a marketing expense. Once a consumer told me that he buys method because the package design makes him want to lick the bottles.

Remarkable design, whether in the store or in the consumer’s hand, makes every other aspect of marketing possible. Zero advertising on a remarkable product trumps heavy advertising on a mediocre product.

Remarkable design implies that it’s fundamentally different from what is already on the shelf. That’s what makes it worthy of remark. It is that fundamental difference that allows a brand to break through the clutter.

Yet there is reluctance to be different. In every design project I’ve witnessed, there has been a headwind that pressures the project to what has been done before. When that headwind blows from client to agency, it’s particularly hard to resist. Sometimes this headwind is created by the conventional rules of the category. Sometimes it’s a fear of alienating consumers. But the headwind, if not countered, restrains design to the path of least resistance.

The result is that the vast majority of products launched every year are not that different from what’s been launched before.

Seth Godin recently critiqued the package design of an African chocolate brand called Madecasse. Madecasse has a remarkable story (it’s the only imported chocolate brand made in Africa with local beans), but the package design looks no different than the myriad of high-end chocolate brands already on the market. The brand’s non-remarkable packaging actually camouflages the brand’s remarkable story.

The best cure I’ve found is to be stimulated by package design that tries something different. Dennis Thompson at Thompson Design Group sends out emails to all current and former clients several times a week with examples of provocative design he stumbles across.

If you don’t know Dennis, read The Dieline. Have everyone on your team (no matter what role they play) discuss those examples regularly. Instead of benchmarking off of what’s been done before, try to be inspired by package design that dares to be different.

influencer stalking

I doubt there's a marketing plan in the world nowadays without some form of influencer marketing focus.  Reaching influencers is part of every agency pitch. With mainstream media becoming less effective over time and widespread recognition that influencers play a big role in buying decisions, the influencer hunt is on.

The challenge is how to do it right.  How do you identify who is really an influencer?  How do you reach them?  And with everyone else targeting influencers, how do you break through the clutter?

Many brands apply the same heavy-handed approach to influencer marketing that they do with mainstream marketing.  They shout.  

Somehow I ended up on agency influencer lists this last year, and I now receive dozens of emails a week, asking me to write about some piece of news or another. Aside from the fact that these emails are unsolicited, they are usually badly targeted, often lacking any news that is even moderately relevant to what I cover.  The other problem is that they usually arrive in an impersonal press release format with "for immediate release" marked at the top. One recent note was addressed to "Dear <first name> <last name>" because their email mail merge didn't work.

It's a common pitfall to assume that influencer marketing is just the same old marketing, only targeted more finely. If whatever you're trying to share is mediocre from the start, it's simply not going to spread, no matter how loudly you shout it or how many people you put on your shouting list. It doesn't matter if they're influential or not.

One of my favorite (albeit 5-year old) examples of a bootstrapped influencer marketing program is the Stormhoek winery 100 Blogging Dinners in 100 Days, developed by Hugh MacLeod. The winery credits this event for doubling their sales in 12 months. They sent out a free pre-release bottle of wine to any blogger who was interested (with no obligation to write about it), along with a great manifesto about wine and blogging.  It didn't shout.  It started an intriguing conversation and talked to bloggers as people, not as press contacts or direct marketing targets.  

I like this quote from Hugh after the event: "Blogging as a marketing tool is easier when you think of it as a chemical catalyst, not as a hammer and nail."  I think that "chemical catalyst" is a good description of influencer marketing in general too.

communication etiquette

I was struck by a recent Joel Spolsky column in Inc. magazine on dysfunctional communication in growing companies.

“What used to work with three people in a garage all talking to one another about everything just doesn’t work when your head count reaches 10 or 20 people. Everybody who doesn’t need to be in that meeting is killing productivity.”

Joel goes further by describing Brook’s Law: “Adding people to a late project tends to make it run later still.”

This counter-intuitive observation highlights a serious business problem: well-intended over-communication. Each additional person needed to keep in the loop exponentially slows down progress.

I’ve struggled with this exact dilemma. Three years ago, I arrived in the UK to help launch the method brand there. At the start, there were three: a sales guy, a supply chain guy, and me. We all knew everything about the business and could practically finish each others’ sentences. Here we are in our first day in the office (we didn’t have a printer yet, hence the sideways laptop).

As we grew the team to 10 people and needed to coordinate more with the home office in the US, the lines of communication were stressed. We could no longer have everyone involved in every decision. But, those who weren’t involved felt excluded. We were damned if we did, and damned if we didn’t.

We ultimately realized that democracy in the workplace doesn’t scale. Not everyone can have a voice on every decision. To even try to accommodate everyone results in peace treaties. They slow you down and ultimately sand the edges of what you’re trying to create.

Joel recommends addressing this problem head on: “as the boss, you need to design ways to reduce communications paths.”

This sounds harsh, because it runs counter to etiquette. We intrinsically feel that we need to communicate more to have a healthy office culture. To restrict communication feels impersonal.

Yet, there’s a fine line between etiquette and habit. The accepted code of behavior can actually be what is slowing you down. As you evolve, it’s good to question all of your conventions and decide whether you’re still well-served by what served you before.

Even J&J periodically questions their famous “credo”. CEO James Burke once instructed his executives to either recommit to the company credo or “tear it off the wall”.

It's a good discipline to continually challenge ourselves what etiquette is making us more successful and what should be torn off the wall.

the career trapeze

My mentor Jim Lawrence inspired this cartoon with an insight he shared recently that a career is more like riding a trapeze than climbing a ladder. Most careers are not rung-by-rung linear paths. Instead, they involve a series of flying leaps, not knowing whether those leaps will take you up, down, or sideways. Or if you'll miss the trapeze altogether. Or if there's even a net. 

It takes courage to take each leap. And patience when you're not headed the direction you'd like. 

When I started at General Mills after business school, there was too much focus on the career ladder and your place on it. Promotions were awarded based on seniority. The best performer in your class was always in line behind the worst performer in the class ahead. No matter your past experience, you started at the bottom and climbed. It was a great place to learn. It was also a source of frustration whenever the career ladder slowed (which inspired this cartoon in 2003).

Thinking about your career in purely a linear way focuses you on all the wrong things and blinds you to the actual experiences along the way. Worst of all, it can make you risk-adverse. 

One of the entrepreneurs I admire most is David Hieatt, who founded the Welsh clothing company howies, sold it to Timberland, and made the hard decision to leave this last October: 

"From this day forward howies will begin to appear in my rear-view mirror. At the same time I will be sitting in my shed with Sonny (my dog) working away on the future. Keeping me company will be the knowledge that Patagonia was not Yvon’s first company, Esprit was not Doug’s first company, and Steve Jobs got sacked from Apple. For me those are good role models to have in the shed with you." 

David started a blog a few weeks ago to chronicle his soul-searching as he takes this next leap of faith. I find his journey incredibly inspiring. 

"It’s called a leap of faith for a good reason. It’s a risk. And the outcome is far from certain. And that is why we tend to put off these life-changing decisions. Say ‘what the hell’ and jump. And hope you can build some wings on the way down."

the six types of ideas

Missy Carvin emailed me this week asking if I had any cartoons about Zombie ideas, "those terrible ideas that exist within an organization that never, ever die, just resurface every few years". 

It struck me that there are different types of ideas in organizations. Most time is spent chasing the elusive "Eureka" moment, where the clouds part and an idea appears fully formed. Ideations are staged to encourage this type of idea. Yet, not only are these "Eureka" moments few and far between, they don't appear in an orderly fashion, just because 90 minutes are scheduled in a room with beanbag chairs. 

The vast majority of ideas in an organization fall in between these two extremes, the Eurekas and the Zombies. The real innovation challenge is guiding ideas to a progressively better place. 

Last week, a method scientist named Kaj held up a prototype with the word "FAIL" written in Sharpie on the front of it. He said, "I'm glad this idea was a complete failure. Because this idea failed, we were forced to change course entirely and come up with this other idea instead." And then he pointed to the new product we were in the midst of launching. 

I think the art of managing ideas is less about generating new ideas than in managing the ideas already in your organization. Less Zombie, more Phoenix.

As David Kelley at IDEO famously says, you have to "fail faster to succeed sooner." 

the critical path

I'm gearing up to talk at SXSW in Austin in March.  My topic is titled "Drawing Board: Innovation Lessons from Cartooning" and it's loosely based on a few talks I gave last year about cartooning as a metaphor for innovation.  Both activities involve coming up with ideas and bringing them to life.

As I prepare for the talk, I've been thinking a lot about why so many new products are mediocre and uninspiring.  I don't think they result from a shortage of ideas.  Instead, I think that the blame falls on the innovation process itself.  Far more important than the Eureka moment in the Ideation is what happens back in the office long after the flip charts and markers are put away. The magic is in the process. Great ideas are either watered down or made stronger depending on how they are brought to life.  

The Critical Path is a project management process coined by DuPont in the 50s.  It boils down a project into the few key steps that dictates how long a project will take.  Far too often, the Critical Path gets bogged down by inconsequential stuff.  Too much emphasis gets placed on upfront navel gazing and not enough on actual development.  

The result is that the edges get sanded in development and the ideas (however well brainstormed) become less and less remarkable.  This is ironic because ideas theoretically should become stronger by the diversity of thought that goes into them.

The best rule of thumb is to get to development quickly and start building prototypes. Prototypes are the best way to communicate ideas, dispel naysayers, rally the troops, predict flaws, and spark improvements. 

We should spend less time word smithing and more time building.

definition of insanity

I’ve always liked the Albert Einstein quote, "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." 

I recently started following the witting observations of @MeetingBoy ("Say or do something stupid in a meeting and I'll tweet it").  He's putting out a 2010 MeetingBoy calendar in the next week or so and asked if I'd create a cartoon to illustrate one of his tweets. So, this cartoon is based on one that I liked the most: “Definition of insanity: holding the same meeting with the same people every week and expecting different results.” 

Last year I heard Seth Godin speak in London. After his talk, someone in the audience asked Seth how he found enough hours in the day to be so prolific. Seth answered that he never had to go to meetings. This gave him an extra four hours a day than those in the audience who did. 

A month later, Seth wrote a great post called, "Getting serious about your meeting problem."  He squarely addresses the dysfunctional meeting habits that most businesses have and offers a few suggestions to break the cycle of meeting insanity, including these nuggets:

"Understand that all problems are not the same. So why are your meetings? Does every issue deserve an hour? Why is there a default length?

Require preparation. Give people things to read or do before the meeting, and if they don't, kick them out.

Remove all the chairs from the conference room. I'm serious."

First thing this week, I'm going to question all of the recurring meetings on my calendar, see which ones I can overhaul and which ones I can remove entirely.  Probably the best new year's work resolution I can make.

the six types of twitter users

This cartoon sprung fully formed from a great post from Guy Kawasaki. I always learn something from Guy's blog, so it's a tribute of sorts to put together a cartoon entirely inspired by one of his posts. 

Twitter can be overwhelming at first, like drinking through a firehouse. It definitely helps to understand the different archetypes there. Seek out the Mavens and Mensches. 

But, more importantly, consider the type of Twitter user you want to be. Evolve beyond simple lifestreaming. Become a Maven or Mensch yourself. This is particularly essential for Brands. Tone down the overt selling, and inspire consumers by offering them something of real value. 

Guy has a useful Twitter 101 primer.