Behavioral Change: Fun Theory Part 3

When it comes to going viral, Volkswagen and their ad agency DDB Stockholm appear to have hit the jackpot. Their new campaign, "The Fun Theory", is a series of experiments captured on video, to find out if making certain activities more fun can improve people’s behavior toward the environment. By the way: it's an actual contest as well. You can enter your own fun theory video and win some decent money.

Among the experiments: does turning a set of subway stairs into a real-life piano encourage people to use them? The answer is "yes": 66% more. Another experiment asks whether making a trash can sound like a 50ft-deep well will make people pick up their trash.

The brand placement couldn't be much more subtle: a simple VW logo at the end. Yet thousands of people pass the video around the internet and create positive associations with the VW brand.

Here's the latest entry:

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What Can't You Not Share?

I was thinking about a Mercedes Benz TV commercial that shows their car smashing into a concrete wall as part of a safety test. Then, someone asks their spokesman why they don't enforce the patent on the Mercedes Benz energy-absorbing car body. The design is evidently copied by other companies because of its success.

The matter-of-fact reply: "Because some things in life are too important not to share."

What do you have that's just too important not to share?

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Will You Survive Your Branding?

A New York family bought a ranch out West where they intended to raise cattle. Friends visited and asked if the ranch had a name. "Well," said the would-be cattleman, "I wanted to name it the Bar-J. My wife favored Suzy-Q, one son liked the Flying-W, and the other wanted the Lazy-Y. So we're calling it the Bar-J-Suzy-Q-Flying-W-Lazy-Y." "But where are all your cattle?" the friends asked. "None survived the branding."
--- D.A.C. News
 

• How many different business cards do you carry?

• Do you need the entire height of the Sears Tower to complete your elevator speech?

• Have you learned not to answer the question "What Do You Do?" but instead respond with, "Here's how we help people like you?"

The best line I've ever heard for the relationship between focus and success comes from comedian Bill Cosby: "I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody."

Branding ourselves is a bit of a misnomer. Other people brand us by how they experience who we are, what we do, and how we do it.

What do you unbelievably well?

Now, stick to it so you survive the branding.

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