Videos - Servant of Chaos

Casting the Client as the Villain

Advertising, B2B Marketing, Storytelling, Videos

Selling business software can be a dry argument. But sometimes a unique twist on the hero’s journey makes all the difference. I am loving this ad for Teamwork.com – casting clients as the evil villain and the agency team as the struggling hero seeking a resolution.

Video – testimonials on steroids

Videos

We all know that testimonials and case studies can have a powerful impact on your brand’s products, sales cycles and reputation. But just as video has transformed a whole range of customer touchpoints, from advertising to onboarding and education – we are now seeing a greater use of video in the development and distribution of testimonials.

Usually such testimonials would be developed by the brand – but in this role reversal, the testimonial has been produced by a customer. I guess it helps that the customer in this case is well-known for creating explainer videos and TVCs, but this video for Slack by Sandwich sets a new standard.

Safe on Social Media? Don’t Bank on It

Cyber Security, Videos

Often when we hear of “hacking” or more correctly “cyber hacking”, we hear about how personally identifiable information or secure information has been compromised. This can take the form of files and images or it can be photos, information that confirms our identity and more.

And while a great deal of attention is spent on securing digital systems, one of the most common forms of cyber hacking is “social engineering”. This is where small amounts of personal information are taken from your online profiles and then used to broker more detailed information about you. For example, checking in to a hotel via social media can yield surprisingly useful information that can be used to gain more worrying data, such as your date of birth or address.

How does this work? This interview / experiment from CNN will raise your eyebrows.

Game Changers: So Bad it’s Good

Creativity, Videos

Is this ad, “The Game Changers” from the Department of Finance, the worst waste of taxpayer’s money or the most ingenious?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zlEFTgk1tg

Clearly performed by members of the Australian Public Service and not by professional actors, the dialogue comes across as clunky and cliched. Creative Edge’s Dee Madigan calls the ad “hilariously bad”. But I wonder.

It has been revealed that the agency Together Creative has been paid $37,400 for marketing services over four years. That’s around $9000 per year. Let’s say half of that budget was used on this video aimed to recruit the next wave of graduates to the Finance Department.

With around 130,000 views on YouTube, the video has cost the department around 3c per view. And no doubt those views will continue to climb.

Sure, it may be difficult to watch as you wash your paleo pear and banana bread down with a perfectly balanced almond milk latte, but I can’t remember the last time anyone was talking about working at the Department of Finance. Or maybe that’s just me.

Walking a Mile in the Shoes of an Old(er) Person

Life, Videos

At the touch of love everyone becomes a poet
— Plato

One of the great challenges of age is empathy. As a child, I viewed my father not as the young, vigorous man that he was, but as an old man. A keeper of knowledge and secrets.

As a young man I saw my elders as fixed barriers. As red traffic lights that would never turn green.

But as many of us do, I was using the lens of my youth to view the world. I saw slowness where there was none. I wore my impatience like a badge of honour. And I favoured action over strategy.

But worse.

I reined in my imagination. I conformed thought to structure. I shrank at the point that I should have expanded. And I did so out of a paucity of love.

But it was in my impoverishment that I received the greatest gift. Time and attention was bestowed upon me without expectation of return. And I learned, to my surprise, that my learning was far from at an end. And that the road ahead was built on the generosity and efforts of my elders and my peers.

To this day I seek mentorship and insight not only from my elders but the young people I come in contact with, my peers – and even strangers. It doesn’t always make for an easy path, but the rewards cannot be measured.

Find and give love in any and all its forms today. You’ll amaze someone (and it may be yourself).

Lufthansa Takes You on a Virtual Journey

Customer Experience, Future of Your Brand, FutureVisions, Innovation, Videos, Web/Tech

One of the key marketing challenges that we face in the customer journey is moving from awareness to trial. That is, we want potential customers to “try out” our products or services.

This can be particularly challenging when your product or service has a substantial price tag attached.

Think of travel.

There are a whole series of steps that we go through when we are on a travel journey:

Ideas and inspiration: We seek out amazing stories, pictures and reviews of places, people and experiences so that we can plan our own adventures
Planning and projection: We start to actively curate our activities, destinations and journeys, connecting the dots and figuring out our itineraries and (gasp, horror) budget. In this stage we are not just planning our activities – but actively imagining what it will be like to BE there
Lock and load: When we’ve checked, double and triple checked, confirmed our budget and dates, now we wade neck deep into the process of locking dates to a loaded credit card. Yes, it’s commitment time and the pressure is on (so many websites, so many things that can go wrong)
See ya, see ya, wouldn’t want to be ya: Wave goodbye to your friends and family and take the leap into the unknown
Wish you were here: Well, we say this to be kind, but if the planning and projection phase was well done, you’ll be taking hundreds of selfies all around the world and using them to induce raging envy across your social graph
Reflection and longing: Planes aren’t the only things that land with a BUMP. So too does our travel ego. Coming back to “reality” can be a confronting experience. To cope, we return to our #RunningWithTheBulls selfies to remind ourselves just what the travel rush was all about and how we really are #travelheroes.

In amongst each of these steps, there are hardly any that an airline can directly impact. They can inspire us with their media activities, advertising and profile. And they may even help us to plan – albeit in a small way. A good airline will make locking and loading a breeze and but it’s really when you are in the plane that they can make a huge impact.

But experiencing airline travel is expensive, right? And price alone is a barrier.

This virtual travel experience from Lufthansa by 3Spin is a very interesting innovation that I expect will see plenty of others follow.

Lufthansa have touched on many aspects of the travel journey – turning a largely imaginative process into something that is more tangible. More experiential. In fact, it’s not just the destination that is inspirational, it’s the experience of the virtual reality itself. And with a clever mix of digital, analog and old fashioned customer service, they’ve created something far more than just a 360 degree virtual experience. They have created an EVENT – a point in time and space that will create memories. Stories. And hopefully for Lufthansa, bookings.

It makes me think there may be something to this VR lark after all.

The Industrial Internet, Accelerator in a Box and Retail Disruption on #DisrupTV

Digital Strategy, Disruptive Technology, Future of Work, Innovation, Marketing, Startups, Strategy, Videos

Each week, Vala Afshar and R “Ray” Wang host a web series DisrupTV. It’s a 30 minute deep dive into the world of digital transformation featuring the people and organizations that are leading that change.

This week’s episode featured GE’s Chief Digital Officer, Ganesh Bell, Constellation Research Principal Analyst, Guy Courtin and myself.

Setting a cracking pace, GE have become the poster child for the world of digital transformation, coining the term “industrial internet”, establishing startups in Silicon Valley and setting a vision to be a top 10 software company by 2020. In the episode, Ganesh talks about the challenges of transformation – of moving from an industrial company to a digital company and what it takes. It’s well worth watching the replay to learn more about the tangible impact of digital transformation that GE is making not just within their business but well beyond it.

Joining Ray and Vala, about 25 minutes in, I shared some insight into the world of enterprise innovation in Australia:

How enterprises are learning from startups – from the Qantas Hackathon to accelerators like Telstra’s Muru-D
Federal Government’s Digital Transformation Office and the recent launch of their Alpha Guide for digital government
Stone and Chalk’s Fintech hub in Sydney and the amazing Open Orbit business process improvement platform
Our Disruptor’s Handbook Accelerator in a Box program

Guy Courtin joined around 45 minutes in and brought amazing insight into the changing world of retail. From showrooming to the internet of things, he covered a vast terrain of disruption and opportunity, suggesting that bricks and mortar stores still have plenty of advantages over their digital only counterparts, and explaining that to be truly transformative, we need to stop thinking about “e” commerce and connect the dots around the customer’s commercial experience.

While the show ran for just over an hour, it’s jam packed with insight and energy. And DisrupTV is fast becoming an authoritative, must watch series for all those who are serious about the business of disruption and transformation in business. Check out recordings of past episodes here. And watch this week’s episode replay from Blab below.