caffeinated blog
How PR Inspires Product Innovation
08.10.11 02.16 PM
We don't challenge our clients to answer the question "Why do you matter?" merely so we can market them. Rather, we do this preliminary work because the answer often inspires actual product innovation.
Let me explain.
One of the first steps in our process with every new client is conducting what we call the "Desert Meeting." We lock ourselves in a room with all of the stakeholders - we recently did one with more than 16 participants! - and we don't leave until we've nailed The Undeniable Truth: if the client disappeared tomorrow, the world would be missing this (fill in the blank).
Sometimes the client's product or service has a true differentiator. In these cases, our job is a relatively easy one.
More often than not, we're working with clients who compete in commoditized industries. At the end of the day, their products aren't that much different than their competitions'. So we start by looking for brand differentiation. Is there something about the client's brand that the world would miss if they disappeared? Take Harley-Davidson, for example; lots of companies manufacture motorcycles, but no one sells freedom and rebellion like Harley-Davidson. (Of course, it's imperative that Harley's bikes actually live up to this promise. Which they do.)
In some cases, there's neither product nor brand differentiation. Tough luck, but we still have to do our job. When the answer doesn't exist, we create one. We call this fostering an "aspirational reality," and it's in cases like these that we often have the most profound impact on our clients.
As the phrase implies, an aspirational reality is one to which our clients must aspire. It's our way of saying, "If you want us to create news about you, you must live up to this promise. Otherwise we have to go out there and bullshit about you. And we're storytellers, not bullshitters."
In this way, we actually inspire our clients to innovate. We pen a rally cry - the client's "Braveheart speech" - and this rally cry is shared with, often performed in front of, everyone in the company, including researchers and designers who have never considered how they're changing the world.
There's a famous story out there about a janitor at NASA in the 60's who, upon being asked "What's your job?" by a bored journalist, responded, "I'm helping to put a man on the moon."
This story is proof positive that the Caffeine way is time-tested, and that our ultimate goal for our clients is an attainable one. Granted, this kind of pervasive entrepreneurship is not easy to achieve, but when it happens, anything is possible.
There's a flag up there on the moon to prove it.
Where Are All the Rockstars?
08.08.11 10.43 AM
Two weeks ago we brought on a new client, a leading bowling ball brand. We've been commissioned to create an "outrageous marketing campaign" - that is the client request, verbatim. My gut is that they may soon regret using a word like "outrageous" once they hear what our demented creatives cook up. We also got to see the new International Bowling Campus (IBC) in nearby Arlington. Home to the International Bowling Museum and Hall of Fame, International Training and Research Center and National Headquarters for Bowling Proprietors' Association of America and United States Bowling Congress, the IBC is the bowling Mecca of the known universe. Need some inspiration? Check this out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2t2GgN_RC7M I've heard that if you want to quickly assess the health of any industry, just check out how the people at the top are living. By this standard, bowling could use a shot of life. A jolt of Caffeine, if you will. That being said, working in niche industries like bowling is often times more fun for us marketers. The rules are different. The tribes are more passionate and engaged. "It's not a sport, it's a lifestyle." That kind of thing. Either way, we're eager to roll up our sleeves and get to work with this client because they have a classic sleeping giant brand on their hands; their loyal base is just waiting for an excuse to get fired up again, like a sleeper cell waiting to be activated. And I'll be damned if we can't get them rioting in the streets in the name of their bowling ball of choice. Game on. - Matt Sabljak, Director of Branding
The timing was fortuitous as we had the opportunity to attend Bowl Expo in Fort Worth this past week. Bowl Expo is the industry's largest tradeshow. I don't know much about bowling, so the kind of full immersion introduction that Bowl Expo afforded me was hot sauce.
Bryan (Caffeine founder and mastermind) went there a day earlier and relayed the following story to me (I removed all the expletives for brevity's sake): "I spent the entire day hanging out in a bowling alley. At one point, I was talking to a guy for like twenty minutes before I realized that he's one of the top bowlers in the world."
From my perspective, this story is indicative of a problem with the bowling industry (which has been shrinking for awhile): there are no rock stars.
Most of the top bowlers in the world were at Bowl Expo, and they were all working in their ball sponsors' booths like they were district sales managers, not the sport's top athletes. If it wasn't for their name badges, I wouldn't have been able to tell the bowlers from the vendors.
Granted, this is an industry tradeshow, and most of the people in attendance were professionals who have likely been overexposed to these bowlers. But still, I'd like to see a little razzle dazzle surrounding these guys, even if it's all for show. Bowlers will never have the kind of physical presence that basketball and football players command, but that's no excuse.
Maybe the situation is different when these guys are interacting with normal fans and not industry people? I hope so. But that remains to be seen for us.
Welcome to the Tornado
08.04.11 08.27 AM
We launched a pilot project called "Where is Dillon?". We got some nice press. We won a few clients on passion alone. We spent many beer-fueled hours griping about lame, copycat marketing, and we swore we'd starve before we produced that kind of garbage. And we struggled. From that moment on, it was trial by fire. We wrote our first new business proposal before we were even on the payroll. And yes, we won that business. -- Matt Sabljak, Director of Branding
Bryan is ferociously intense. He was aptly nicknamed "Caffeine" when he was in his twenties for his ability to spark people to life. When he's wound up, he cusses and jumps and yells. He gets a look in his eye that says, "Bet against me. I'm begging you to." That's what scared me: that look.
My creative partner Sam Hogerton and I co-founded a transmedia storytelling company called Dactyl Transmedia five months ago. Our plan was simple: tell awesome stories on behalf of brands. Do work that matters.
We struggled to define our services. "We're a multi-platform storytelling company," didn't resonate with most people. So we talked about social media, web video, and alternate reality games. The feedback was unanimous: "Wow! That all sounds really awesome and creative. But I'm not sure we need that - whatever 'that' is."
They were right. Nothing we said spoke to a particular need or budget.
And then we got together with Bryan. "At Caffeine Communications, we create stories that beg to be shared. Ad-men buy attention with billboards and thirty-second spots. We earn it by creating news. We inspire brands to define their undeniable truths - their reasons for being - and then we make those truths impossible to ignore. Outrageous events, compelling content, social media - these are our tools."
Suddenly it all made sense.
By the end of this three-hour meeting, we were finishing each other's sentences. Bryan invited Sam and I to join him in his sandbox at Caffeine. We accepted.
One of Bryan's former colleagues described him as a "creative tornado." That description is spot-on. I am smack-dab in the middle of that storm now. And I love it. Every day I do meaningful work as a manager, a storyteller, and an inspirer.
At Caffeine, we create stories that begged to be shared. On this blog, we'll share the stories behind those stories.
