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Top Chef cooks up a texting activated interactive store window
I was on my way to a meeting in the city today and cut through Rockafeller Center which normally avoid because you always have to dodge slow moving, camera toting tourists. On the far side of the plaza I went by the NBC Experience Store and what I saw in the window made me do something I never do walking through the city – stop and take notice of a retail store window. Bravo was using the window to promote the upcoming season of Top Chef that will take place in Las Vegas. In keeping with the Sin City theme they had two slot machines displayed on two large screens with the twist that they actually worked and even gave out prizes up to $5,000 when you spun the reels by sending them a text message. Admittedly a little self conscious of looking like a tourist I took out my iPhone, sent the message and watched the machine spin to life. I have to admit it was fun. In the minute it took me to send the text a few other people stopped to see what I was doing and after I was done they did the same thing. I stood there for about 15 minutes watching a near constant flow of these small crowds gather around new people who would stop and take turns trying the experience. When prizes were awarded the message was a generic ‘we have a winner’ which I thought was smart as it showed people winning without giving away the quality of the prize which was probably marginal but I didn’t win so I don’t know for sure.
It was almost a year to the day since I last wrote about this type of fusion between technology and retail displays with the Ralph Lauren store windows that were outfitted with QR codes to let consumers buy the outfits in the window right from their cell phone from the side walk in front of the store. While Ralph Lauren was focused on selling and this is more of a pure promotion I like the Top Chef execution for two reasons. First from a technical standpoint because it uses the widely adopted SMS texting instead of QR codes that require the download of special reader software. From an experience standpoint I like Top Chef because it has a low engagement barrier since it uses a popular technology that gives people the confidence to interact with the slot machines and that interaction is enough of a spectacle to create even more engagement from the spectators. I think if we could combine the sales focus of the QR codes with the higher consumer engagement of the SMS slot machines I think it could create a really powerful tool for brand exposure and to drive consumers off of the sidewalk and into stores. With budgets the way they are right now that execution will probably have to wait but I hope to see this trend of using technology to enhance brick and mortar retail continue.
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If a good interface is hidden and no sees it how does it make a difference?
I’m a car guy. I love to drive a great car and I love a great car design. The new Chevy Camero intrigued me in that ‘it’s a cool design but still won’t buy an American car’ kind of way and so I checked out the site. I was in the photo gallery and found one of those things about the site that is like the American car industry itself – a nice design idea badly merchandised and probably lost on most everyone. In this case you go to the photo gallery and the obvious move would be to go to the ‘view all photos’ tab at the bottom of the page that reveals the standard long line of tiny thumbnails that you can randomly click across to reveal the true content of the photo that looked like nothing but an amorphous blog in the thumbnail. After you select the previously mentioned amorphous blog the main photo changes along with two smaller photos on the right hand side. If you are paying attention you will realize that two smaller photos are actually the photos directly before and after the large photo on the left hand side. If you are really, really paying attention and curious to rollover those smaller photos you will find that they are also navigation that lets you move from photo to photo without the need for the standard interface at the bottom of the page. It’s a really nice elegant solution to this kind of content and surprisingly something I had never seen before. That being said my reaction to the good execution is quickly drowned by the anger generated from the realization that most people will never know it is there. If they just would have taken the time to develop the short term memory loss needed to see that what they have created is too much design and not enough usability. So all of your designers out there please take the time to look at your work with fresh eyes or show it to your mom, your dog or whoever you need to be able to see if your solution is as genius in the real world as you think it is in your head.
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Why is client-side creativity too often a self-defeating process?
I came across something really interesting this week that was near and dear to my heart for two reasons. It was a site called ‘Dear American Airlines‘ that was created by Dustin Curtis who wanted to show American Airlines what an updated design could look like for their brand. He didn’t take the subtle route with comments like “If I was running a company with the distinction and history of American Airlines, I would be embarrassed–no ashamed–to have a Web site with a customer experience as terrible as the one you have now…Your Web site is abusive to your customers, it is limiting your revenue possibilities, and it is permanently destroying the brand and image of your company in the mind of every visitor.” Shortly after posting it Dustin received a response from a user experience architect who works on AA.com titled “ You’re right. You’re so very right. And yet…”. It goes into a long description of the reasoning behind why their corporate culture has blunted and paralyzed the design of the site to the point where the site and customer experience suffers greatly.
This problem, this brand and this trend are all very near and and dear to my heart because I worked on American Airlines’s advertising for 4 years and I spent all of that time begging to get my hands on their site. Those attempts were greeted with the list of excuses that are chronicled in the letter Dustin received. It’s a problem that I have seen too many times over the years with my clients and even in my current client side position. So why does it keep happening? What goes wrong inside the creative process of a corporate structure that creates this dysfunction?
Short term memory loss in the ivory tower
I think the first part of the problem is a matter of perspective and being able to look at a project with fresh eyes. When a team starts working on a project they forget that when it is released the site the customer experiences is completely blind to the logic, compromises and excuses that have been built up on the by the internal team over the course of the project. The consumer doesn’t know or care about why something was de-scoped to awkward solution or that you will fix it when you get around to version 2.0. You have to have the ability to develop short term memory loss and be able to see the work with fresh eyes or else those problems will be glossed over by the meaningless internal reasoning for why they it wasn’t right. You have to look at it from the customers point of view because that is the only true reality and that will determine the success or failure of the site.
I think this happens the most inside of a corporate structure because you live with the brands, their problems, their work and their excuses so you become desensitized to them. The symptoms of this are usually expressed as eye rolling and under the breath jokes in meetings when you try to propose solutions to fix long standing problems that are en-snared with internal politics and problems. It is a hard place to be in when you have to be the person who needs to stand up against the apathy and frustration that lives around these issues and try to effect change. You constantly have to work to keep a fresh view of what the outside world is seeing. The only advice I would have would to try and start with small problems that can really be solved to get momentum and then try to work up to the larger ones building on the smaller successes.
Better design doesn’t just come from better designers
I wrote the previous paragraph knowing full well that even if you develop the ability to rise above the internal excuse blindness you still have to overcome a massive problem. Let’s look at the problem by creating a comparison between a web site that is produced by an agency and one produced by an internal creative team. What is the difference in the process and structure between the two where you generally see more cutting edge and powerful solutions out of the agency than what you see out of internal creative teams? The divergence isn’t in the process of how the work is created but in how it gets feedback, gets approved and the hierarchy is has to travel through. At an agency the creatives are in a structure that puts them at the center of the universe and empowers them to be leaders and the voice in guiding the vision with supporting teams to help delivery of their vision. In a typical corporate hierarchy creatives aren’t the center of the universe and they have they aren’t empowered to be able to influence the final deliverable because their work has to go up a decentralized corporate approval system. This breaks the idea in to multiple directions by multiple stakeholders who dilutes it in to smaller and safer ideas a large group can take credit for and will satisfy the internal approval audience. This is a crime because the internal creative teams have the best view into the problems that need to be solved for the company and can bring solutions to market faster than those created by an external agency who aren’t as familiar with all the nuances.
If you ask any company they will always say how they want to be like Apple or BMW and produce these breakthrough ideas and designs but they don’t understand that better designs and ideas aren’t going to come from hiring better designers. They come from a fundamental structural shift where the people with the best ideas are given the most power and best ability to execute on their ideas without having to put them through a mouse trap like system that robs them of their power. Hopefully more and more people will come to understand this problem so more good ideas see the light of day.
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Creative leadership doesn’t comes from a job title
Anyone who has ever had to lead and inspire a group of creative people knows how challenging it can be. You have to lead but let them find their own solutions and creative process. You have to set the tone and style for the work but allow for individual creativity. This isn’t ever going to be book that will give you all the answers on how to do it. I get a lot of emails from people of all levels asking for advice or ideas on how to do it better as we all move down the road in our career and develop from a creative designer to a creative leader.
I break the problem down into how you manage the creatives who work for you on a day to day basis and creating the long term road map for the group.
The day-to-day creative director
I have found that creatives will come to me for two things on a day-to-day basis – hope and support. Hope because they they need to know that tomorrow is going to be better than today and they are going to be able to do better, cooler, bigger work in that future. I think that if we are really honest we would say that creatives are restless and insecure by our very nature so we need a sense of hope that this personal endeavor will be well received. Support so that they know their work is valued and you are just as passionate about it as they are and will fight to protect the countless hours they have spent creating this work that is very personal to them.
I say that knowing those are very big and general points so I break it down into things that are more executable like the next time I talk with one of them I am sure they walk away from me with:
1 – a plan of action for both of you which will give them hope that things will improve and the two of you will work to fix their problem, challenge, campaign, design, etc. It also sets goals and expectations so that hope will be fulfilled and not become and empty promise which will become more damaging.
2 – an understanding of what I am going to do about the problem because this tells them I understand and value the work they have done and tells them I am going to fight and protect them, their work and our group
From designer to creative director (or how I miss the days I was still a designer)
You get to the point when you decide to transition from a just a designer to a designer and manager and that you need to be able to focus on leadership, vision and hope more than your design ability. In a lot of ways it is a strange system that the higher you go in your career the further you get away from what you love and what brought you into the industry in the first place.
For leadership you need to lay out a clear path for your team and the company right away so they know what is expected of them and what they should expect from you. Vision to me has always been to be the one who is always pushing the team to go 10-20% beyond where they want to so the work gets better than it is now. Hope, so that they know tomorrow will be better than today, that their work will be better than it is today and for you all of that will add up to them staying with you for years.
Along with laying out your expectations for the group you also need to evaluate the talent you have to work with. Trust your gut and make any cuts you need to. The one thing I have learned from working for a lot of epic creative directors is that you always protect your best talent no matter what and let the rest fall where they will. It is never worth losing a truly talented art director because you didn’t fire a junior copywriter who is making their life hell.
These things are just the starting point but don’t be afraid to actually lead, set the tone and set expectations. Listen to your people so you know what they need, how they work and what you need to do to support it. You are asking them to creating something personal for you while working crazy hours so remember you owe them just as much as they give you.
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