Lame Excuses for Being Boring - #4

To continue this series, which started in June, here is excuse #4:

"If we become more innovative, we'll become too advanced and too expensive for our strategic partners."

I have two responses to this lame excuse:

1) Who do you want to be your strategic partners? Are your current partners doing things to improve quality of life and to make the world a better place? Are they continually raising the bar? (And no, I am not referring to their cellular service.)

Or are your partners just maintaining the status quo?

If the former, your partners are innovating. And you will serve them best if you innovate, too.

If the latter, do you really want to be doing business with them?


2) Innovation does not necessarily equate to increases in price. If low cost is important to your brand, to your partners, and to customers, then be innovative at providing the greatest value while cutting unnecessary costs.

Lame Excuses for Being Boring - #3

Excuse #3:

"We're just a little local shop. We/Our clients can't afford any expensive 'new media' or outdoor stunts."

Actually, it's less expensive - and more effective - to do something outstanding and creative that gets people interested in your brand, than it is to keep cranking out boring, unremembered print ads, billboards, and tv spots.

When people see something new and different and crazy and remarkable, they pay attention. They tell their friends. With the near-ubiquity of cell phones, your story can be spread around the globe - literally - within minutes. For free. If it's worth talking about.

CiCi's Pizza recently launched their Penny Picker Upper campaign, in which they dropped 1 million pennies ($10,000) outside of 650 of their stores. Those who picked up a penny might find a ticket for a free drink or kids meal or buffet. They accompanied this campaign with a website, beapennypickerupper.com in which visitors can create a virtual bobblehead of themselves on a penny. Think this got attention?

Other companies have dropped wallets containing business cards and coupons around city streets. Some have anchored vehicles to the sides of skyscrapers, or "accidently" blown up the "wrong" restaurant. Think they got attention?

How much did ideas like this cost, in comparison to the exorbitant costs of television commercials, or newspaper and magazine ads, or billboards? And which produces more impressions, more responses, and more brand awareness?

Yes, you can create really amazing traditional ads that capture attention (think Super Bowl commercials). But why not save those hundreds of thousands of dollars it costs to simply get the ad running, and use that same creativity to do something that gets you free marketing from viewers and the press?

(For more words of wisdom on how to get people talking, visit www.ideavirus.com to download and read the free e-book, Unleashing the Idea Virus by Seth Godin.)

Lame Excuses for Being Boring - #2

Excuse #2:

"We've always been this way. This is who we are."

Being creative in your work does not mean departing from your identity as a company or as a brand. Being creative does not mean that you must become Apple, or 3M, or Southwest Airlines, or Starbucks, or Procter & Gamble. In fact, imitating other "innovative" companies is not "innovative" at all.

Being creative means proactively looking for ways that your brand can be even better at who your brand is supposed to be. Becoming even more aligned with your corporate identity, by creating greater value for your customers within that context. Be creative within the boundaries of who your brand is.

So who is your brand? What is your brand promise? Is your brand about luxury and status? Then find ways to pamper your guests in even better, more serving, more extravagant ways than before. Is your brand about family fun? Then spur on your imagination - and create amazingly fun products and environments that encourage kids (and their parents) to use theirs, too. Is your brand about bare-bones, no-frills, low-cost? Then be innovative about how you can cut non-necessities to help your customers save money. Is your brand about customer service? Then bend over backwards for your customers. Is your brand about drawing people together? Then probe for ways in which your products and locations invite people to share life.

Let your brand be itself. But make it the absolute best self it can be.

Lame Excuses for Being Boring - #1

I'm starting to collect a series of lame excuses for why a company doesn't have creative products, services, marketing, or marketing communications.

Here's the first:

"We can't afford to hire the top creative minds."

Then cultivate creativity among the team you already have. Research shows that for persons with enough intelligence to have attended college (an IQ of about 115 or higher), success is less a product of innate talent than of preparation, practice, and opportunity. (Read Malcolm Gladwell's book Outliers for more information on this.)

Your marketing department, or product design team, or logistics personnel, or supply chain managers, have the capacity to think of creative ways to better serve your customers. To communicate better, to design better products, to reach them better, to provide better value (greater quality or less expense). You need to inspire them.

How do you inspire their creativity? Give them an afternoon at the movies - watching YouTube videos of excellent tv commercials and human zaniness. Send them to a park, or museum, or art gallery for the morning. Take them to lunch at a themed restaurant. Hold your next brainstorming session in a lime green room full of bean bag chairs, playdough, and whiteboards. Confiscate all pens - write with crayons instead. Have everyone name the most creative thing they've seen this week, then free associate to think of creative things that could work for your brand. Make your team act out a story using puppets (a story they make up as they go along, not one they know already).

Inspire creativity. Expect creativity.