OIC created this 30 second commercial for PowerBar Canada. Creative Director Darin Beaman, Directed by Brad Parker, Motion by Black Swan. Music by Human Worldwide.
The med tent. Not where I wanted to find myself at the end of my first half marathon. All manner of human exhaustion on display: heaving, shivering, writhing, retching. A volunteer was attempting to amputate my arms and legs—that’s what it felt like. He was in fact icing them down. The ice snapped my capillaries shut. And as the blood from my extremities made a beeline back to my brain, the sense that I was going to be an organ donor lifted. Within 10 minutes, I was back on my feet.
The morning had gone well. I’d recorded a personal best for the 10K. I was enjoying the run, powering through the first two hill sections on pace, on plan. Then at mile 12, trouble. I noticed my hands first. My fingers mutated to regulation-sized frankfurters. I couldn’t make a fist. Then my feet—I felt like I was running in wet Uggs. My pace slowed, then stopped. I willed myself to keep moving and pulled it together just long enough to get across the line. The video of my finish is hilarious, one arm flapping wildly and the other clutching my phone so I could stop my Nike+.
There are many online training plans available for first-time racers. I trained to one from a reputable site. I did about 140 miles in preparation. Then I made a rookie mistake. In the final days, I read an article on the same site, “How to Have a Great First Half Marathon.” “Drink at every aid station,” they advised. I know better. On my training runs, I drink very conservatively. But on race day, I rationalized, I’d be going harder than before—the experts were probably right. Nope.
The medics had a simple explanation: I was mildly overhydrated. My water intake was inhibiting replenishment of salt in my body. I had created an electrolyte deficit. To compensate, my cells were swollen with H2O. Basically, I’d made a tactical error: I drank too much during the race.
Marketers have an obligation not only to put out good information but also to contextualize it for athletes. In a rush to get info out inexpensively and in a timely manner, it is easy to forget that there are real people out there who are counting on it’s being well organized and correct. The organization that creates plans that are easy to understand, well contextualized, and experience appropriate can create a very loyal following.
In the end, what I discovered through training for and completing my first half marathon was that most free advice on running is like water: It’s best when taken with a grain of salt, so the electrolytes can keep the swelling down.
For the third year, Roxio asked OIC to lead their annual packaging redesign for three different markets – plus, standard, and pro. The on-shelf visual impact and relation between product markets were a key driver in design strategy. OIC delivered three distinct designs that were visually appealing and affiliated, scheduled to launch early 2012.
This week we saw photos of the Facebook founder and his girlfriend with their new puppy—commuting to work, playing on the hardwood, skittering across the parking lot. The puppy shots put a nice exclamation point on a fact that we already knew: Facebook has won. Its founder has moved on to more genteel pursuits.
For years we had heard how communities were going to be the new way forward for marketers. And indeed, as sites began to allow ratings and comments, great strides toward engaging consumers were made. Looking back even two years, it’s almost comical how many well-intentioned people made commitments to technologies they thought would create consumer “engagement.”
Those days are long behind us. The platforms of choice have reached a level of, dare I say, maturity: Facebook, Google, Twitter, Yelp, WordPress, and so on. Somewhere in the mix, people are finding a combination of commerce, sharing, and socializing that is right for them. That’s the engagement.
In the past, firms invested in features and functionality to try to help consumers have a richer experience with their brands. It turns out that what consumers want is not whatever flavor of community a company is pedaling. If the enterprise has a good Facebook presence, that’s fine. But consumers want products to work as expected. They want companies to be true to their word. Without that, no amount of community building matters.
Marshall McLuhan said, “If it works, it’s obsolete.” When it comes to engagement, technologies will come and go. When it comes to loyalty, delivering on your product’s promise is the only way to ensure a happy customer. Aw, shucks, go ahead and use my personal information to sell ads—that puppy is so darned cute.
Her: “Welcome to OnStar, Mr. Beaman. I’m Tracey, your navigation advisor. Where can I take you today?”
Me: “Los Angeles—Cole’s restaurant and bar.”
Her: “Certainly. I will now download directions to your nav screen.”
Me: “Dang!”
That was a great experience. No fiddling with the nav touch screen—just a quick conversation and I’m on my way to a French dip and refreshing beverage. There’s a lot that isn’t technologically great in my car. There are at least four different female voices involved in setting the car’s preferences (five, including my wife’s). The voice commands are painfully inaccurate. Setting up a Bluetooth device without any screen input is a fail. But asking for directions and getting them sent to the nav screen is fantastic.
The OnStar experience works because it doesn’t rely too heavily on the car’s computer’s having to be great. It is a service. It can be upgraded without touching the car’s technology. GM can tweak OnStar’s back end as much as it wants and then deliver the service when it’s tested and ready. A car’s computer, on the other hand, is essentially obsolete the minute it boots up. There are no upgrades, no cracking it open to add more RAM. Seven years down the line, the dashboard touch screen’s icon for the iPod will still have a click wheel on it.
External services such as OnStar have a much longer shelf life and are more satisfying for consumers. As connectivity to networks becomes more ubiquitous, automakers increasingly are going to shift services into the cloud. And we’re not talking only about new flavors of OnStar.
Google has an autonomous car that has been driving around California for weeks now. The car has been using a series of cloud-based data sets, radar sensors, and video cameras to direct itself down Lombard Street in San Francisco and along the Pacific Coast Highway. Google believes that the self-driving car will be available to consumers in eight years. Core pieces of car functionality are not only being taken off the dashboard, they’re being taken out of our hands entirely. That’s going to require a huge shift for the auto industry—and a fundamental change in the way we live. I, for one, can’t wait for OnStar to take the wheel.
