Personally, I'm not sure what all the hullabaloo about Web 2.0 has been. I understand that it's been about the individual being able to make themselves known in a big way. I get it.
But that's already been happening for years. eBay was giving people a forum for their own self-expression since 1995 albeit under the awning of selling whatever they happened to have around. All the meaningful content on that site was user generated and don't let anyone tell you any differently. The web has always been a wide open place for individual self-expression it was just that the barrier to entry was larger. Someone actually had to learn HTML to do something rather than type into an interface (like I'm doing right now).
With the advent of blogging and MySpace and Facebook and LinkedIn and Spock and Plaxo and all the other social networking and content generation sites, it seemed as if Web 2.0 was officially here. So why am I so unsatisfied?
Maybe it's because what everyone is calling Web 2.0 nowadays feels a lot like the Desktop Publishing boom of the 80's. Suddenly, the ability to generate, produce, and distribute printed matter was put into everyone's hands. Just because some can do something doesn't necessarily mean they should. Armed with a Mac, PageMaker and clip art, we were forced to endure some truly heinous design and creative. As Yogi Berra said, "It's like Dejá Vu all over again."
So I've decided to skip over Web 2.0--just move right by it and get to Web 3.0. Because the next wave is what this wave should have been about anyway: relevance and utility. Does it mean something to me and am I actually going to use it. Personally, I don't need something else to fritter my time away on while I'm trying to figure out if it works and, simply put, is there a there there.
I may be the lone voice, but I don't really care what my friends are doing every minute of every day. Somethings are better left unexpressed. This constant need to broadcast and "share" everything about themselves touches a narcissistic vein propelling it into exhibitionism. Privacy is more than keeping websites from obtaining and distributing personal information they have gleaned from me--it's also about leaving some things unsaid.
Again, does it mean something to me and am I going to use it. That's the new bar that needs to be reached. Otherwise, it's just empty bits which are just like empty calories: at times tasty but, in the end, unsatisfying.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Friday, February 22, 2008
"The One Thing"
Whenever I introduce the the standard of "The One Thing", I'm constantly amazed at the pressure I get. "Can't I make it two?," is the insistent plea. (With a secret glee, I reiterate, "No, you get one.")
One should be all you need. One is a great number for this. One demands focus. One means that decisions will need to be made. One begs for discipline. One can be a bitch. But... one is also liberating.
In the end, one is all you want. Because one can be executed flawlessly.
What am I talking about? Exactly what you're talking about and it should be just "The One Thing". People are extremely busy these days and constantly assaulted by messaging through all forms of media. There is no place safe from someone trying to message something to you. Marketing screens at the ATM and gas station pumps, vinyl graphics on supermarket floors, postcards on the walls above urinals, edible ink on Pringles and Fruit Roll-Ups. Messaging is everywhere making our everyday existence that much more complicated. Our parents (at our age) didn't have to deal with the volume of information we're asked to process and, you know what? Our kids will be confronted with even more and asked to digest just as much.
So I ask: in this sort of environment, why would you ever expect your harried, time-crunched, over-saturated audience to spend more than a modicum of time on your piece of marketing? It ain't going to happen. Get it to "The One Thing" and make it easily consumable.
Remember, your "One Thing" should be an invitation for the consumer to enter your world and engage further. No one wants to engage with something that feels like it's going to be complex from the outset. That is an immediate show-stopper. "Hey, come here. I want you to take a look at this thing I've got. Now, it's going to take no fewer than 10 multi-part steps through several cluttered screens for you to discern what we're trying to say much less what we want you to do. But, I promise, cross my marketing heart, that it will be worth the pain and suffering once you've gotten there. Our product is just soooo cool."
Here's the main reasons I hear for making undisciplined, unfocused communications:
1. We need to tell them the whole story
2. We have so many benefits/features
3. We're trying to accomplish a lot of things
4. What we're offering is complex
5. We have multiple audiences/everyone is our audience
6. My product manager/marketing manager thinks we should talk about all this stuff
7. We have different goals for this communication (usually means "goals at cross-purposes")
8. This is the way we've always one it before
9. This is the way my boss/VP/CEO wants it
10. One is such a lonely number
Now admittedly the last one is mine and reflects my love for great 60's music. As for the others, I've heard them all in some form over the years and, when left to their own devices, create a recipe for disastrous creative executions. The one I left off the list is the gauntlet that any creative runs inside a corporation. Getting it through the numerous "stakeholders" without suffering the "Death by a Thousand Cuts" is an art unto itself and worthy of a blog post all its own.
A ruthless fanaticism to "The One Thing" will ensure that your communication is clearly understood. Isn't that the raison d'etre for any marketing communication? To be clearly understood and acted upon? I would certainly hope so.
Back to Walter Consultants.
Subscribe to this blog in a reader
One should be all you need. One is a great number for this. One demands focus. One means that decisions will need to be made. One begs for discipline. One can be a bitch. But... one is also liberating.
In the end, one is all you want. Because one can be executed flawlessly.
What am I talking about? Exactly what you're talking about and it should be just "The One Thing". People are extremely busy these days and constantly assaulted by messaging through all forms of media. There is no place safe from someone trying to message something to you. Marketing screens at the ATM and gas station pumps, vinyl graphics on supermarket floors, postcards on the walls above urinals, edible ink on Pringles and Fruit Roll-Ups. Messaging is everywhere making our everyday existence that much more complicated. Our parents (at our age) didn't have to deal with the volume of information we're asked to process and, you know what? Our kids will be confronted with even more and asked to digest just as much.
So I ask: in this sort of environment, why would you ever expect your harried, time-crunched, over-saturated audience to spend more than a modicum of time on your piece of marketing? It ain't going to happen. Get it to "The One Thing" and make it easily consumable.
Remember, your "One Thing" should be an invitation for the consumer to enter your world and engage further. No one wants to engage with something that feels like it's going to be complex from the outset. That is an immediate show-stopper. "Hey, come here. I want you to take a look at this thing I've got. Now, it's going to take no fewer than 10 multi-part steps through several cluttered screens for you to discern what we're trying to say much less what we want you to do. But, I promise, cross my marketing heart, that it will be worth the pain and suffering once you've gotten there. Our product is just soooo cool."
Here's the main reasons I hear for making undisciplined, unfocused communications:
1. We need to tell them the whole story
2. We have so many benefits/features
3. We're trying to accomplish a lot of things
4. What we're offering is complex
5. We have multiple audiences/everyone is our audience
6. My product manager/marketing manager thinks we should talk about all this stuff
7. We have different goals for this communication (usually means "goals at cross-purposes")
8. This is the way we've always one it before
9. This is the way my boss/VP/CEO wants it
10. One is such a lonely number
Now admittedly the last one is mine and reflects my love for great 60's music. As for the others, I've heard them all in some form over the years and, when left to their own devices, create a recipe for disastrous creative executions. The one I left off the list is the gauntlet that any creative runs inside a corporation. Getting it through the numerous "stakeholders" without suffering the "Death by a Thousand Cuts" is an art unto itself and worthy of a blog post all its own.
A ruthless fanaticism to "The One Thing" will ensure that your communication is clearly understood. Isn't that the raison d'etre for any marketing communication? To be clearly understood and acted upon? I would certainly hope so.
Back to Walter Consultants.
Subscribe to this blog in a reader
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