Friday 30 April 2010

Of Customer Service, Ducks and Brand

Brand is one of those things, which if you get right is an enduring asset for the organisation and a dependable schema for the customer to consolidate their views of your product/organisation.
All the marketing best practice principles aside, if your brand manages to be emotionally charged as well, you have a winner. I am passionate about brands and just like everyone, have a few clear favorites. I do however love to analyse that little bit further, what makes a particular brand 'tick', what was the evolution of the thought process that the creative teams (at the associated Ad Agency) exercised, what might be the size of the target market who may experience the same affective association with the brand as I do...It's a stimulating intellectual workout.

Endless Fascination with Ducks
Having very lovingly observed and enjoyed the advertising work engaged by my phone company, I wanted to let them know of my appreciation. I also wanted a reward out of it. So (in a very British tradition) decided to write them a letter.

My Letter to the phone company (referred to as Telecom Provider X*)
Dear lovely people at Telecom Provider X,
just the other day, I realised that I have been a loyal Pay-monthly customer for a very long time. I thought I'll take this chance to commend you guys for your stellar customer service. Performance aspects aside, your service alone prompted my additional subscription to your Broadband. I also like all the branding stuff that's going on at Telecom Provider X. Especially those Adverts where you promise the customers 'treats'. You know, the one where all these bright, yellow, plastic ducks complete an arduous journey and arrive at a tranquil lake where people dip in and fish them out? Some of these ducks are fancy iPods and other delights. Now, I am not saying I want an iPhone for being so loyal to you and paying all my bills on time but don't I deserve some treats? Do you think I could be sent some promotional ducks?
My heart is set on them.
I am also willing to settle on a shiny new iPod Touch (as I currently lead a miserable life with my 8GB iPhone which is insufficient for my music) and may allow you to engrave it with 'From Telecom Provider X with Love'.

The good people at Telecom Provider X replied:
Good Morning Anupriya,
Thanks for getting in touch about promotional ducks. Anupriya, I'd like to inform you that these promotional ducks which you've seen in the advertisements are being promoted as surprises for Prepay customers. However, I've personally checked your account and can see that you're a loyal customer with us for a long time now so I've gone ahead and added a subscription discount of £10 for 3 months to your account. It will be effective from [dd/mm/yy]. I hope this'll bring a smile on your face.

Guess what, it most certainly did!
They really should have sent me some ducks as well though.

*The Telecommunications provider has been anonymised for obvious reasons.

Thursday 22 April 2010

Crave Creativity? Live abroad.

We all know what a liberating experience being in a foreign country can be. Apparently it can also be a potent creative trigger. There are plenty of artists/thinkers who jump to my mind as brilliant examples of this postulate. Munch's Frieze of Life was conceptualised and executed while he was in Berlin. Nietzsche wandered through Genoa, Nice, St. Moritz and Turin between 1879-1889, writing Daybreak, portions of The Gay Science amongst other writings. Samuel Beckett spent many of his writing years away from Ireland - in London & Germany. Kafka's on and off love affair with Bavaria....the list goes on.

What is it about a foreign land that acts as a Muse?
Research cited in a prominent Social Psychology journal may have an answer. William Maddux (INSEAD) and Adam Galinsky (Northwestern) conducted 5 different studies using a variety of methods to establish a link between time spent living abroad (this explicitly excludes time just travelling abroad) and creativity. The authors start by giving a succinct overview of the personality and contextual variables associated with creativity. These alone make for quite an interesting reading and would be a handy starting point for anyone wishing to explore this area of research. Meta-analytical studies have reported creative persons possessing above-average intelligence, tolerance of ambiguous information, higher levels of energy, self-confidence, intrinsic motivation, ambition, open attitude towards risk and cognitive flexibility (MacKinnon, 1978). It should be pointed out though that the ‘profile’ of a creative person varies with the Industry or professional domain. Creative artists are very different to creative scientists, for example.
The chief components of the authors’ hypothesis explain the rationale behind this study:
  • Firstly, (and understandably) living abroad allows people access to a larger number of novel ideas and concepts, which is believed to act as precursors for a creative exercise.
  • Secondly, the authors postulate that living abroad gives people access to different perspectives of approaching problems.
  • Finally, experiences in alien cultures are indicators of ‘psychological openness’ to novel ideas and result in a marvellous cognitive expansion of the subject’s creative repertoire.

The researchers used a number of different studies to investigate their hypothesis. These included the famous Duncker candle problem (you can read about it here), a task measuring creative one-to-one negotiation skills, a test of convergent thinking (where word association was used), and a creative generation task that requires the participants to draw an alien creature (where you imagine stumbling onto a very different Planet in a Galaxy far, far away and encounter an alien). The results indicated a consistent and robust link between the creativity measures employed and the time that subjects had spent living abroad. Although, I am personally not too convinced by the usage of the Duncker problem as it has been so widely used in undergraduate Psychology classes as well as in ice-breaker sessions across the business world that it hardly comes across as a valid measure of creativity.

The most powerful construct that the authors do explain in this study as being the mechanism beneath the creativity-living abroad link is adaptation. They say, “Because culture is such a pervasive force, impacting and shaping every aspect of one’s life, adapting oneself to a new culture—learning how to behave and think in different way—may make individuals chronically aware of multiple perspectives and approaches when dealing with mundane and novel situations and, thus, may be associated with increased creativity.”

In view of the above, the diversity intention behind those equal opportunity questionnaires makes solid business sense. I think the Corporate world is already onto this. Perhaps it’s time for the recruitment consultants to reformat candidate CVs in terms of Countries visited and lived in! Whether or not the Duncker Candle task makes it to the assessment centres is of course another issue.


References:
Maddux, W, Galinsky, A, Cultural Borders and Mental Barriers: The Relationship Between Living Abroad and Creativity (2009), Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 96, 1047–1061. http://psycnet.apa.org/?fa=main.doiLanding&doi=10.1037/a0014861

Tuesday 13 April 2010

The Crispy Tale


The crinkle, the rustle, the annoying tussle with Crisp packaging is something we all can absolutely do without. Packaging scientists should be concentrating on ridding humankind of this menace. Why else would you get a degree in Packaging Science? Well, I guess when you were growing up, you could have looked at an M&M bag and thought, "This is it. This bright yellow bag has brought happiness to me. I must dedicate my life to this bag and all that goes into fashioning it."

This is not implausible. Not at all.

There was a time when I wanted to channel my life into sorting the mess that our wired lives have resulted in. The plan was to fabricate a device which would wirelessly charge phones, iPods and cameras. Damn the guys who have just come up with a physical avataar of my concept. Well done though.

But I digress.

Given the years of torment, I have endured with inconsiderate people wrestling with the noisy, foiled demon, I wish I could have patented the idea of 'silent crisp packets' when it first occured to me. No one has done it yet, but I'm sure the snack Industry is at work. Before we know it, we may just be eating out of a serenely quiet flannel bag with crispy, savoury delights.

Thursday 8 April 2010

Analyse This

Everyone knows and appreciates the aggressive drop in price of Data Storage per GB per year. Everyone is frankly very thankful for said phenomenon. Does anyone though, stop and visualise this brilliance of Technology? Moreover, has anyone saved these relics from the past to drill home this privilege? This is where I come in. In the picture alongside appear the Dramatis personæ who were preserved just for this moment. Count your blessings. Also, enjoy and reminisce.
Evolution of my storage expenditure can be traced in the following stats.


Year 2003 (India) 1.44 MB Phillips/Iomega/Samsung/Sony/Amkette Floppy Discs (Bottom right)
Price : 15 Rs. per piece or 150 Rs. for a pack of 10 Diskettes. (Equivalent to 20p and £2 respectively.)

Year 2004 (U.K.)
100MB Zip Disc (Bottom left)
Price: £6-£8

Year 2007 (U.K.)
4GB Flash Disc (Top)
Price: £10

Now (U.K.)
The absolute clinchers are my Lacie Porsche 500GB at around £85 and Seagate 1TB at £64!

I think this is a fabulous world we live in.