10 Ways To Create Stuff That People Talk About – with Bertrand Cesvet
on Jul 27, 2009 - 7:00 AM PSTOne of my goals with Mixergy is to help you build a business that’s as talked about as Cirque du Soleil, Red Bull and adidas.
To do that, I invited Bertrand Cesvet, whose firm helped all three of those companies build remarkable experiences.
In this program, you’ll get specific techniques for adding “conversational capital” to your work.
The FULL program
Video excerpts
About Bertrand Cesvet
Bertrand Cesvet is the author of Conversational Capital, and Chairman and Chief Strategist of SID LEE, a leading provider of experiential design and creative services. Over the past 10 years, he has helped transform a small, but promising creative shop into a leading purveyor of experiential design and communication services for breakthrough brands.
10 Engines Of Conversational Capital
#1 Initiation
How this works: Put people a little off balance, and then reward them for their discomfort.
Real world examples: Great restaurants sometimes initiate you by forcing you to wait in long lines before you can enjoy them. Ikea initiates its customers by forcing them to unpack and assemble their furniture before they can use it.
#2 Ritual
How this works: Make experiencing your product into a ritual and it will become memorable and worthy of conversation.
Real world examples: Tiffany makes engagement ring shopping into a ritual by bringing out Champagne and chocolate. At Pat’s Cheese Steaks in Philadelphia, you have to order your food correctly or be sent to the back of the line.
#3 Over-delivery
How this works: Think of the most memorable experiences in your life. Weren’t they the times when you got more than you expected? Didn’t it make you want to tell others about your experience?
Real world examples: Volvo doesn’t just give its owners a little extra safety. They add more safety features than most drivers could keep track of, so they’re remarkable. Corona is the one beer that’s served with a little something extra: a wedge of lime.
#4 Exclusive Product Offerings
How this works: Since no two people look exactly alike, no two experiences should be exactly the same.
Real world examples: Harley Davidson’s motorcycles are highly customizable. Toyota’s Scion has more than 40 different after-market accessories to help its drivers individualize their ride.
#5 Myths
How this works: By rooting your business in a story that says what it stands for, you help shape what your customers feel when they interact with it.
Real world examples: The story of how creative and innovative Apple’s founders were when they launched their company helps shape the way users think of their Macs today. Innocent Drinks’ founders tell a story about how their customers demanded they quit their proper jobs to grow their new company.
#6 Relevant Sensory Oddity
How this works: By surprising a consumer’s senses in a way that’s relevant to the product experience, companies create experiences that are worth talking bout.
Real world examples: Rolex watches became sought-after partially because they were bigger than other watches. Abercrombie & Fitch stands out by creating stores that are darker and louder than the competition.
#7 Icons
How this works: By creating products that become symbols, companies can evoke powerful feelings in their customers.
Real world examples: Red Bull’s cans are iconic because of the energy the company stands for and the way its cans look. The Volkswagen Beetle’s unusual shape helps it stand out.
#8 Tribalism
How this works: Just as a virus can spread rapidly among people who share the same space, a message can spread faster among a group that shares the same headspace.
Real world examples: I’ll give you just one because it’s so unexpected and clever. It’s hard to imagine how a show like Cirque du Soleil would create a sense of tribalism, but they do it by creating an environment specifically so its audience can to mingle before each performance.
#9 Endorsement
How this works: Bertrand talked about an endorsement that comes when credible members of the tribe stand behind the brand. (Versus the kind that comes from big name celebrities.)
Real world examples: Social media celebrities, AJ & Gary Vaynerchuk are building an online fan-base for Gillette. Ryan Holmes told us how having internet entrepreneur Steve Case as a customer helps his product, HootSuite, get credibility with the tech set.
#10 Continuity
How this works: Brands need to create consistent stories where there is no disconnect between how a product is designed, marketed and perceived.
Real world examples: Red Bull communicates its fun, rebellious, outlaw brand by going beyond traditional media and staging events that are true to its message. Innocent Drinks stays true to its promise of taking care of its customers by using 100% recycled plastic bottles which help take care of its customers’ environment.
Full program includes
- Learn how YOU can use the 10 engines of conversational capitalism to get people talking about YOUR business.
- Hear more examples than I listed above so you can understand and USE these ideas to get more people talking about YOUR company.
- See how you can create a brand that people will gravitate to.
Suggested comments
- The video was a little bad in this video because Bertrand was in France and we had a poor connection. Did it distract from the ideas?
- I want to keep the ideas on the site useful for companies that are younger and smaller than Red Bull. Do you think you can use them if you’re running a startup?
- What are some brands you can’t stop talking about? I’d like to see how many of these ideas they use.
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July 27th, 2009 at 10:00 am
Another super interview; helpful, interesting and filled with useful insight!!
Production notes: sound was mediocre at best with skipping at times but I understand that's par for the course sometimes with recording video chats. Also, if a subject appears overly dark, you might want to suggest before the start that they add add a key light – a simple natural light source like a window can do wonders to make the subject appear clearly and naturally, which can really add to the viewing experience, (surprisingly enough). Maybe even send them a checklist ahead of time so they're thinking along those lines before you call them up.
This guy was fantastic – he really had some great advice and input that correlates to real world experience. I'll take that kind of content any day versus people that have ideas that don't parlay into real world tactics.
My favorite takeaways:
1. His comment about the need to bring out “The Humanity of an Endeavor” and to make it real.
2. The idea that he's not pushing hard and fast recipes, but rather starting points from which to add your own voice and creativity, and it's in that unique approach that you can stand out from the clutter and sameness that permeates our world.
Another great interview Andrew!
Cheers,
Michael
July 27th, 2009 at 11:39 am
You're right about the lighting. I even thought about just using the audio
since the video came out so dark.
I usually spend time before the interview going over the sound and lighting,
but I think you're right about sending out a checklist.
I'll put one together. Thanks for the suggestion.
July 27th, 2009 at 2:36 pm
Waited all week for this interview… Great insight from both of you! Thank you.
July 27th, 2009 at 2:49 pm
Hi Andrew,
Rosie B here…
1. Please change it'll to it will in the phrase under #2 “and it’ll become memorable.”
That's the only thing I would change.
Good job!
July 27th, 2009 at 4:31 pm
I'm a big fan of his work.
July 27th, 2009 at 4:33 pm
Done. Thanks Rosie!
July 27th, 2009 at 5:39 pm
Good interview, but have to disagree with the Ikea example. People shop at Ikea because its cheap and the shopping experience is great. You get to take a walking tour of the entire warehouse before deciding on your final purchases. Building your own furniture is a pain and offers no additional consumer experience with Ikea furniture (if anything it detracts from it). The reason we build our own Ikea furniture is because it keeps costs down so we can purchase at a discounted price.
Other than that, great points and great discussion.
July 27th, 2009 at 7:25 pm
This is another great interview, thanks Andrew and Bertrand.
It reminded me of some of the first marketing books I used to read about guerrilla marketing. When you start talking about a pretty diverse range of tools, it's great for firing up the inspiration and coming up with new ideas.
I'd suggest a cautionary approach to applying some of these techniques without careful planning if you're a start-up with minimal marketing experience though.
Their success is in the details and their execution is always far more complex than you will read in any marketing book, however good.
Creating “iconic” products for example, is often a red herring that marketing companies will talk about to get clients excited. (no offence intended Bertrand)
Who doesn't like the idea of making something iconic??
But Iconic status is something that is awarded in retrospect. It's not something you can design. At best you can design something where form follows function and make sure that the people around you are brave enough to let you launch it, even though it looks or acts a little different than the competition who are all playing safe.
Many of the iconic examples mentioned weren't designed to be what we think of iconic at all, they were designed as cheap work horses. And their function did it's job well, so they stayed around long enough for marketers to layer on some of those stories, building the legend and the myth.
The beetle (designed as a super cheap car for the masses) was given character by the Herbie film. The mini (again designed as a cheap car for low paid government workers) was a slow and frightening vehicle only slightly bigger than a go-cart, but the souped up versions used in the film the Italian job, made it look sexy.
The modern equivalents of these “iconic” cars have no resemblance to the purpose or reality of the originals. The new 'mini' is really a mid-sized car by European scales.
Also, with initiation, making people wait in line, making retail stores that people can't see into, these things have to be done in the context of a much wider and carefully thought out strategy. You have to create extreme demand BEFORE employing these strategies.
The Abercrombie and Fitch store that breaks all the rules of being able to see what's inside, does so within the context of a multi-million pound wider marketing strategy. Most start-up's attempting to copy the technique in isolation would most likely fall flat on their face doing something like that, because as Paco Underhill or Herb from the previous interview would probably tell you, most people, most of the time are scared to death to enter a shop they can't see into.
My point isn't to say these things don't work, just point out, they work as part of a complex system, so be aware of the whole. Ikea certainly uses a lot of these techniques, but I am dubious that they decided to create flat pack furniture *because* of the Initiation theory.
They did it, because it's an entirely more cost effective way to manufacture, ship, store and allow you to self deliver furniture, the costs of which are so incredibly cheaper than traditional or just-in-time methods, it allowed them to offer frequently changing, modern furniture to the masses.
I would say, having to screw it together yourself is a negative side-effect of those other benefits, not the reason they chose that model. Who likes making their own furniture? Not me. But I like all the other benefits that being flat pack brings. (cheap, modern, instant purchase) so I put up with the DIY.
Another brand mentioned in the interview – Red Bull are learning a valuable lesson in the UK about the whole experience issue. They have created some innovative and fun experiences that they appear to own. Making wacky vehicles and racing down hills, making flying machines and jumping off piers but they also used to align themselves with many of the adrenalin sports. Surfing, snowboarding and wakeboarding etc.
In the last couple of years though, because they didn't own many of these surfing / skating events the bigger fish have come along and simply out-spent them, pinching all their event sponsorship. Coca cola released their own red bull imitation and almost overnight outspent red bull and “owned” all these events.
So, the lesson is, if you're going to align yourself with an event – invent it and own it! The public very quickly forget who sponsors what, unless you own it, forever.
Coke BTW have always used events as the cornerstone of their marketing strategy just like red bull have. Coke don't just look at creating events, they want to OWN events like Christmas and ball games and holidays. Events are fun times and they want you to associate them with fun times.
Red Bull also have an interesting policy of focusing their marketing not on their own website, but instead using that money to get themselves talked about on OTHER peoples websites. (A similar principle to what Hugh Mccloud did by giving bloggers and techie meet-ups the free wine he was marketing)
And if I was really being honest, I'd say red bulls real 'experience' and the thing that created it's iconic status, isn't it's cans or it's events, it's the product itself, which is designed specifically for young people who don't like to drink alcohol or take drugs but want to experience some form of 'high' when they are out clubbing or socializing. Everything else, is built on top of that.
Having said all that, it's well worth watching the whole thing and trying to work out just how all these things can be applied to your own business. That's exactly what I'm doing, which is why I think it deserves a critical, rather than superficial look.
Despite the rapid increase in 'social this, that and the other' in the last few years, I think the actual number and instances of respectful, intelligent debate, for the purpose of learning has dropped through the floor online.
What I love best about mixergy and some of the great experts on here, is, after all the debating is done, even if it's done privately by email, I can often take away solid actionable steps and apply them. And quickly get more customers as a result.
Thanks again Andrew / Bertrand. Love to hear your thoughts.
July 27th, 2009 at 9:54 pm
Andrew,
I just wanted to thank you for interviewing all of these great people and making this available for us on the Internet. I just wish I came across your site before recently. Keep up the great work.
-Samir
July 27th, 2009 at 10:03 pm
An interesting interview with plenty of applicable stuff. Need to do more of these things myself. Myths, initiation, endorsements and tribalism jump out at me as being immediately applicable to my particular business. Most of them are areas we can improve without even spending any money. I just need to set aside some time to make some changes so I can't even use cost as an excuse for not getting to work on these : Damn you, endless to do list.
Not quite sure why Bertrand was sitting in a darkened room/bat cave.
July 28th, 2009 at 12:25 pm
Does anyone know how many invites you were able to send out if you were someone using gmail?
I'd like to know because I'm thinking for when I launch my site we will only let people join by invite and we might even limit how many people are allowed to send invites too. This way we make a sort of initiation the way Gmail and facebook did.
August 2nd, 2009 at 7:27 am
This was a great program. I have been visiting this site for about it month and find the articles very informative and rewarding. After 9 years of running a house painting company (I started when I was 18), I started http://www.PainterStaffing.com. We are rapidly growing and working to solve one of the most pressing issues today-putting people back to work & connecting the right person with the job. As a painting contractor I was hard pressed to find the right people for the job. This changes it.
I am looking to speak with someone who has published an article on this site for advice on developing my company&idea. Im an entreprenuer at heart and have found something that kickstarted all of that energy that we experience as entreprenuers. Direct 630-534-4838
August 18th, 2009 at 8:41 am
Thank you Andrew and Bertrand. Great lessons that can be applied to any business. I feel fortunate to have the valuable tools you spoke of at my disposal. Thank you kindly for your time information and efforts.
Todd
August 25th, 2009 at 3:38 pm
Just came across this site a few days ago and this is the first interview I've listened to.
The only thing I didn't like was that it seemed you cut off/interrupted Cesvet's answers a few times. I don't mind the guided interview, but it comes off as rude to me. Others might not mind and I can live with it, but I'd rather the person get a chance to finish what they were going to say.
I definitely found the information helpful.
September 29th, 2009 at 9:15 am
Great article! I like the examples used for each to back up your points.
September 29th, 2009 at 4:15 pm
Great article! I like the examples used for each to back up your points.