Putting aside any frustration or elation you may be feeling over the Presidential election, we must acknowledge there are important lessons brands can learn from the Obama campaign about engaging Millennials. Whatever your political beliefs, the President’s focus on effectively reaching young voters was an enormously successful factor in both of his Presidential campaigns.

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The last four years have been challenging, to say the least, for physical retailers. The game has shifted and, unfortunately, many retailers aren’t clear on the new rules yet. They just know that their old style of gameplay isn’t working, but they
haven’t been able to adjust in the heat of the game.

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What makes the film so compelling is watching the artist in action as he physically grapples to transform his enormous canvases into something compelling. It’s almost as if the canvases have some kind of life giving force and its Richter’s job to turn them into something that he describes as “good”. Richter’s definition of “good” is based on a fading, but almost encyclopedic knowledge of good and bad in art and covers color, shape, form and the indefinable element that’s sometimes called “magic”.

What’s especially interesting is to see how Richter lives with his paintings for a while and keeps coming back to them for days on end. Sometimes he responds by changing them completely, but he often simply ignores them. It looks like a torturous and painful process of elimination and growth.

In summary, it’s a powerful film that sheds light on the creative process and the intuition and judgment that goes into creating the indefinable.

Most of our live art experiences; concerts, theater, comedy shows, museums, are usually pretty passive in their nature and form; we tend to lean back and take in the experience, rather than seeking it out, exploring and interacting.

Punchdrunk is a UK performance group, who for the past couple of years has been staging a version of Macbeth, Sleep No More in New York, to sell out crowds, in 100,000 sq. ft. of former nightclub space.

While there’s a stage where some of the action takes place, the audience is actively encouraged to roam around the building, opening doors and looking around in rooms to get closer to the action and uncover storylines. The seductively elaborate sets include; an infirmary complete with beds, a padded cell, doctors offices, a giant bathroom with multiple baths, a chapel, a hotel lobby space with a reception and dining area and even a forest.  When you are in these spaces, you are free to read the books and papers, open draws and cabinets, sit on the chairs and couches and pour yourself a cocktail, if one happens to be available.

The experience starts when you are given a playing card with a number and make your way to a bar area that looks like a relic from the late 1930s, here you are encouraged to partake in some absinthe and wait to be called. When you then gather as a group, you are told to remain silent are given a Venetian style carnival mask, which you are told you must wear all the time. During the “briefing” you are reminded that should it all become a little too much for you, there’s always the opportunity for you to return back to the safe haven of the bar.

As you make your way around the rooms in the different floors you find the dramatic action takes place around you; fights, arguments, love scenes happen right in front of your eyes and occasionally audience members are randomly and unexpectedly used as performers an inhabit a scene, or an actor running through a hallway grabs onto your shoulders as he passes through.

It’s a radically different way of thinking about performance and as an audience member it totally immerses you in the “dream state” of the piece, it allows you to see acting and drama in a new light and you truly become part of the action. It short it makes for something that because of your actions becomes truly memorable.

In a world where digital is fast replacing the real, Punchdrunk’s performance reaffirms the power of real.

In many ways the structure follows the familiar path of contemporary videogames (levels, rooms and free exploration), where you are the camera, but does it in a real world surrounded by a live actors and an audience to create something quite unique.

Judging from the popularity of this show, I can only see others coming forward to do more of this type of thing. It’s clear that people are craving it and there’s certainly a whole world of possibilities that can be explored around the idea and lots of options a range of different audience interactions.

Not surprisingly, brands have already tapped into Punchdrunk’s magic, a year or so back, Stella launched a new lager in the UK by creating an immersive experience with the group. 

The discussion around the Millennial generation is heating up as brands start to pay attention to this group of consumers more carefully. Brands are seeing the impact this generation will have on our evolving marketplace by how they are challenging the traditional marketing assumptions of many brands. The reality is that there may not be a consumer more empowered by technology and social media than today’s Millennial, a fact brands can no longer afford to ignore.

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Louis CK has been undergoing a very personal experiment. It started last winter with the release of his standup show, “Live at the Beacon”, that he personally directed, produced, and distributed directly to his fans.

In his own words, he describes his experiment,

“People of Earth (minus the ones who don’t give a shit about this): it’s been amazing to conduct this experiment with you. The experiment was: if I put out a brand new standup special at a drastically low price ($5) and make it as easy as possible to buy, download and enjoy, free of any restrictions, will everyone just go and steal it? Will they pay for it? And how much money can be made by an individual in this manner?”

And the results have surprised even him. In 12 days, he made over $1 million selling his video for $5 to excited fans. Additionally, he’s created a direct access model that eliminates the opportunity for mass ticketing services and ticket resellers to take control over what consumers pay to see his act. His goal was always to offer affordable tickets, but over the years, he’s seen the reality of price gouging infiltrate his shows with resellers buying up tickets and hiking up prices for his fans. It’s a common occurrence across many forms of entertainment today from concerts to sporting events, creating a bad taste for many.

So, Louis CK decided to stand up and take matters into his own hands. The cynical could argue that he’s doing this for personal gain, which is probably true to some extent, but it goes much deeper than that. It’s disrupting an industry that has traditionally served the bottom line first and the consumer second. He’s flipping that around and proving transparency, humility and access can be just as lucrative.

And, he’s also putting his money where is mouth is, giving just over ¾ of his revenue from this project back to suppliers, employees and charities.

“In any case, to me, 220k is enough out of a million. I never viewed money as being “my money” I always saw it as “The money” It’s a resource. if it pools up around me then it needs to be flushed back out into the system.”

There is one thing that Louis CK clearly gets, and that is that there is more than one authentic way to feed his fans’ appetite for his comedic storytelling and he can do so in a way that reflects his personal values and how he wants to treat his fans.Louis CK is taking comedy into an area previously explored by the English rock band Radiohead, who self-released their album In Rainbows (2007) as a digital download for which their fans could set their own price of purchase.

From the world of sports, Augusta National began selling direct day passes for the 2012 Masters practice rounds and tournament at a much reduced rate than golf enthusiasts found on StubHub.  Could this be an indication of a growing attempt to bypass the profit-driven ticket suppliers and give fans a chance to pay fair value for their tickets, eliminating the heavy surcharges and fees we’ve become so accustomed to swallowing.

The next phase of his experiment is beginning with the opening of his October through February live show tour. And he is once again turning to the direct to consumer model he’s been experimenting with for the last year. Playing in venues that aren’t beholden to exclusive deals with large ticket services and promising a value-priced ticket at not a penny over $45. He’s doing 67 shows, has sold over 135,600 tickets in one week, meaning sales are grossing around $6.1 million. Yep, that’s definitely a profitable model, but yet his fans can feel great about it too knowing they’ve paid fair value and not a penny more.

Louis CK’s personal experiment is a great lesson in re-imagining how to better serve consumers, while not sacrificing profitability. He had the courage to try, to be honest and genuine in his attempt to do right by his fans, and in turn they’ve continued to support him with their wallets. Unfortunately today it seems like an innovative idea, but really it’s about growing a business by putting your customers first. An unlikely smart-ass comedian is teaching fundamentals in truly being consumer-centric.

By: Kristi Burrows

One such individual is Jiro Ono from Tokyo, Japan who has done only one thing for his working life, since he was aged nine, which is making sushi.

The amazing thing about Jiro is that despite turning sushi into an art and winning all kinds of accolades for his efforts, he’s still not content and still believes he has more to learn.

In Japan, he’s called a Shokunin- which describes a person who relentlessly pursues perfection through their craft.

Jiro’s story can be seen in David Gelb’s documentary “Jiro Dreams of Sushi”.

Yesterday, the Mobile Marketing Association issued a bullish report(surprise!) based on some primary research it had conducted, it suggested brands were under-investing  on mobile advertising based on the amount of time people are spending on their devices.

It’s basically the same line of argument as Kleiner’s Mary Meeker raised in her internet trends presentation from earlier in the year.

Chunka Mui in a piece yesterday on Forbes.com got straight to the heart of the issue by looking at mobile from a couple of different angles; firstly Facebook’s future depends on mobile ad success, but since it isn’t hard-wired into the corporate DNA, this could be a tough ask and basically the company open to a challenge from a company that really gets mobile.

Chunka’s second angle referenced a brilliant post by Jean-Louis Gassée, (the founder of Be, the forefather of Palm) who clearly calls out the difference between advertising on the PC and that of the mobile.

“Mobile ads aren’t merely smaller, they have less expressive power, they don’t seduce…and they’re annoying. Of course, there’s more to the smartphone misunderstanding than the fairly obvious screen size problem. There’s also a matter of how we use our computing devices. When we sit down in front of a laptop or desktop screen, our attention is (somewhat) focused and our time is (reasonably) committed. We know where we are and what we’re doing. With smartphones, we’re on the move, we’re surrounded by people, activities, real-world attractions and diversions.”

If brands are going to succeed on the mobile platform, they are going to have to go about it a very different way.

1. The advertising format just has to be more compelling- this means more creativity in the design – basically this need to be blown up a re-thought
2. Simply embedding TV ads into mobile units isn’t the solution either
3. Those creating mobile ads need to think about the possibilities of the technology- what does the hardware and software allow for? how can the content be more dynamic and relevant to the user?
4. The user needs to be better understood and to be factored into the design. Since the premise of the mobile device revolves around usefulness and entertainment, perhaps it would be good to start there and ask the question how can be brands be either useful or entertaining within the context of mobile? It’s not simply about taking something that works in another environment and making it work for mobile, but with deep user understanding, relevant brand solutions can be created from the ground up.

Everyone knows that mobile has potential, but it’s probably not of the size of scale that the MMA or Mary Meeker believe and despite us living with the technology for a while and the considerable $$$ being spent on innovating both the hardware and software, the same level of investment has not yet been spent on understanding how users might interact with brands on their devices, so perhaps now is the time?

Sidekick Studios recently did an interview with Rachel and asked her about the meta trends for the next 5-10 years, here is her answer

“We are only at the start of a massive power shift from top down, centralized power/monpolies to distributed marketplaces. That’s the beauty of network technologies, they redistribute power and remove layers and layers of middlemen. We are seeing this meta-trend reshape industries from publishing (16 out of top 100 bestsellers on the kindle self-published), funding (Kickstarter surpassed US Endowment of the arts last year as the largest backer of creative projects), music (Spotify is now the second largest revenue earner for most traditional record labels) and so I could go on…

Ownership revolution. The concept of ownership is radically changing. I believe in 10 years time in many areas of our lives it will seem outdated to own something as we know it today. We will access what we need in real-time whether its cars, books, music, space etc.”

There two phenomenons are driving a radical change in the idea of branding; the first is giving rise to a new class of brands whose very mission is to undermine the status-quo and delight the user by providing new ways to interact with familiar categories, or giving to access to previously untapped spaces.

The “Ownership Revolution” is likely to have a much bigger impact, because brands have thrived by providing identity enhancement for their users and taking this element away radically changes the contract.

Material ownership is the model that’s being undermined here and replaced with something that makes more economic sense.

New brands in this space are obviously going to be all service and will need to educate consumers away from possession and highlight how convenient and easy their alternatives are.

As always, brands have to continue to offer value and need to remain relevant as the business environment changes and new models of engagement emerge, brands won’t disappear, they will just be redefined and the values they reflect transformed to connect to the culture of the moment.