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Things that matter (intro to this newsletter, 2006)
Jan 18, 2006
January is a good month to re-evaluate one's direction, and indeed each year around this time I try to give a summary of this newsletter and its worldview. (In fact, here is last year's: Introduction to this Newsletter, 2005)
Here's a thought to start us off. This past weekend, on MLK Day, I came across this wonderful quote by Martin Luther King, Jr.:
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.
It reminded me of a recent cocktail I had with a friend from Los Angeles. Dave [names and details changed] is a high-powered marketing consultant, advising some of the world's largest and most respected brands on how to improve their images in the minds of consumers. Naturally he is interested in my work at Creative Good and Good Experience, he said, since his work is all about the customer experience.
For example, Dave told me, recently he finished a project for a leading kids' cereal, which although is packed with sugar, fat, and preservatives, is nonetheless respected - or at least bought - as one of the most popular breakfast items in households across America. Dave worked directly with the CEO, advising him on how to (in Dave's words) improve the customer's experience with the cereal: printing better games and puzzles on the box, and packaging it to include various product tie-ins.
Still, he said, he's intrigued with Good Experience - even, in a way, apart from all the professional work he's currently doing. Don't get him wrong, business is great, and he wouldn't trade it for anything - but even so, when he heard about the Gel conference and this newsletter, something about the words "good experience" triggered something in his mind. "I've been thinking recently," he said, "I also want to work on something that's more meaningful."
Thinking back on my cocktail with Dave, I know that my work takes no credit in whatever transformation Dave did, or will, go through as a result... he came to the meeting already prepared for some next step. On the other hand, I find it intriguing that the words "good experience" alone would trigger such a response in someone who is so accomplished in what he considers to be customer experience work.
In my opinion, Dave's cereal project was not entirely focused on the customer experience. True "good experience" work demands that one have an integrated, holistic worldview that works toward the long-term best interest of the customer (or user, or student, or patient, or citizen,...). And while there's nothing "bad" about making sugar cereal more fun to buy, it's perhaps not the most meaningful way to spend such a big chunk of one's professional life.
I guess what I'm saying is that good experience isn't so much a particular method, or set of heuristics to follow, as it is a process of continually becoming broader and deeper in our outlook. It's not a judgement of one particular project but a challenge of what direction to take as we continue to improve.
So this year, I challenge all of us - newsletter readers, Gel attendees, myself included - to work in a more integrated way; to think about "good experience" as a long-term, holistic challenge, not a short-term or shallow project; and to think about how we can describe this message better - both in words and in experiences that we create (in technology, at events, in day-to-day work).
Or, to put it in the words of Dr. King, we're challenged to work on things that matter.
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Related recent columns:
Three strands of good experience (Nov. 29, 2005)
The overdetermined experience (Nov. 2, 2005)
A thought on selling good experience (May 18, 2005)
Introduction to this Newsletter, 2005 (Jan. 10, 2005)
on this topic - check out the recently(two weeks ago) published book by the folks at Cheskin (pioneers in the application of ethnography and social sciences to brand and experience design.)
->Making Meaning : How Successful Businesses Deliver Meaningful Customer Experiences
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You know I've spent my entire business career successfully achieving my goals but not always feeling successful. As I endeavor to find a new job in the coming weeks (or months), I will take you take your challenge to heart and focus on things that matter. Thanks for the inspiration.
The problem with your suggestion in this arena, Mark, is that the phrase "long-term best interest of the customer" is one of those nebulous things that people give marketers such a hard time about.
How do I quantify "long-term" - 10 years, 25 years, 50 years? And which customer am I targeting? Parents who pay for the cereal? Children who eat the cereal and then ASK their parents to buy more? Or, the cereal manufacturer, who believes in their product and wants to sell more of it?
Finally, I'm going to offer a bit of information. During the late-1970s/early 1980s a study was released by, I believe, the University of Michigan. The researchers sought to determine if a connection existed between sweetened breakfast cereal consumption and obesity and health problems in children.
The study found that children who eat cereal one-to-two times per day were taller and scored higher on standard medical health scales. The connection to obestity that was discovered existed only when other contributing factors were present, meaning sweetened breakfast cereals were never a sole cause of obesity in children.
I'm currently plugging away on Google to find that study, which I first discovered and quoted in a college paper.
I think this was addressed at Gel 2004. It was just a moment, but it really stuck in my mind: Scott Heiferman took the stage just after Brian Collins did a presentation on how Ogilvy + Mather created a unique brand experience for the Times Square Hersheys store; Scott starts off by saying something like "I don't care about Hersheys." Then he spoke about the way Meetup.com was really helping people's lives.
It was a very telling moment - and a rare one in our culture - not creating something for the sake of being able to market it and profit from it, but rather - to create something of benefit.
Agree, and take it one step further. "good experience" is beyond a project, and in addition to it being "a long-term, holistic challenge", I think it describes the fibre and mindset of a person in their daily (work and home) life. I can't help but redesign a long wait in line, a bad service support phone call, a poor product purchase experience etc. A bit like breathing, it's just something that a bunch of us have a knee-jerk reaction to doing. Just need to spread the gospel...
The least of things with a meaning is worth more in life than the greatest of things without it.
---Carl Jung
Your comments on the newsletter about the cereal maker are well made.
If I could offer a further view ...
If Dave was concerned about the company, then did he not have a role to play in being honest to the company about the risk to both the product line and the company overall about following an unhealthy strategy? Certainly in the UK, we are seeing growing pressure on companies that make unhealthy products and then aggressively market these to children be translated into damaged corporate image and ultimately profit. McDonalds has certainly suffered from this. Adverts to children in the UK now show fruit, bottled water and talk about eating sensibly as part of an active lifestyle. The question to ask is if they had moved to a balanced message about food (knowing that this was the case) rather than being 'pushed' by consumer pressure, then they may have lessened the pressures (both PR and financial) that they found themselves under.
The question of whether Dave is happy personally with his work at that client is something that only Dave can answer, but from your summary, it looks like he feels that he has made a trade-off with his conscience that he is perhaps having to justify.
Of course, I wouldn't advocate banning sugary cereals, but the manufacturer does have a role in showing responsibility in both the packaging and marketing of these.
Your comments about experience are right.
It is simple.
You cannot have a sustainable "good experience" if the product ultimately harms the customer. It doesn't matter whether this is food, cigarettes or alcohol, or shopping. Good experiences show responsibility.