Category Archives: collaborating

collaborating, gamifying, gaming, pioneering

The Great Game: Of Paradigms, Creativity and Intrinsic Rewards … Lessons and Musings on the Joys of Gamification

the above awesome video is Jane McGonigal’s presentation to Cannes this year, at which Jane explored how we can harness the power of games to solve real-world problems and boost global happiness. Jane is introduced by PHD’s very own Mark Holden, who was inspired by Jane’s book to add a game layer to our global operating system, Source.

it’s been a genuine pleasure to have been involved in not just the development of Source over the last two years, but more recently being able to help lead the charge for the great gamification in the Australia. we’ve written a book called Game Change (available on Amazon from January) which explores the background, history and current context of gamification … and at the start of this month in conjunction with Mumbrella we facilitated a Gamification masterclass …

the amazingness of Colin Cardwell of 3rd Sense and Marigo Raftopoulos of the Strategic Games Lab led sessions which walked the assembled masterclass crowd through approaches, strategies and tactics for gamifying their own businesses or marketing efforts. whilst Colin and Marigo were talking I was struck by several things:

first up, and this is a point made brilliantly by Jane in the above presentation, gamification is genuinely a new paradigm in how we work. in his book The Play Ethic, Pat Kane suggests that “Play will be to the 21st century what work was to the Industrial Age – our dominant way of knowing, doing and creating value” … the potential is huge – if we unlock even a fraction of the engagement currently spent on play to create shared human value the effects could be genuinely transformative.

the second though that occurred to me is that like any great project a problem well defined is a problem half solved. similarly when gamifying (I’ll call it G from here on in) a process, you need to be crystal clear on what your business and / or marketing objective is … applying G shares many of the same considerations and questions that a conventional approach to tackling a brief requires – don’t forget the basics.

Marigo and Colin both made clear the point that the process of G comprises around 10% design and 90% iteration. I was struck by the parallels in the efforts of game design and how marketing efforts work in a post-digi, content socialised age. in a reversal of the broadcast model (90% effort crafting the message, 10% effort towards shouting it as loud as possible), G requires that your projects have a beta sensibility (PHD’s Source is still in beta despite being live for almost a year) – think always on, always listening, always redeveloping, always creating, always deploying.

focus on what the ‘desired target behaviours’ are … what do you actually want people to do as a result of your gamification efforts? being really clear on this helps you navigate the mechanics that you look to bring to bear on a project or process.

G isn’t a replacement for an idea. the best examples of G often have an awesome, smart, idea at the heart of them. think the speed camera lottery or Jay-Z’s decoded (below) … in both these cases G isn’t a replacement for two awesome ideas – rather it was the approach that allowed the ideas to flourish. creativity counts.

the final thought that occurred to me was that when you think about the rewards you offer when gamifying a process, intrinsic beats extrinsic. always. perhaps it’s the Spotify Christmas playlist that I’m listening to as I write this, but G is a reminder that we are generally much more motivated by intrinsic forces (for the love of doing something) than we are by extrinsic rewards (eg payment) … yeah we can offer some dollars here or a prize there, but what really gets us humans going is a cause or task – no matter how audacious – that we can care about.

which gives us something to ponder between the mice pies and sprouts … whether its adding value rather than demanding attention (or as John Willshire would say ‘making things people want not making people want things’), designing utility, or creating communications that are as responsive and relevant as each and every user they reach – what does intrinsic thinking … intrinsic marketing look like when its radically embraced by marketing and communications.

speaking of intrinsic rewards, I’ll leave you with the first seven seconds of the below Mumbrella Hangout with me, Tim and Mark Holden. wait for it … “and we’re live”.

Merry Christmas everyone

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collaborating, IPA|ED:three, Mediated

Clients versus Agencies Round One Results: Clients 1 – Agencies 0 … and why some independent mediation may be required

sir-clive-woodward-via-Wales-online

Clive Woodward … Coach supremo – it will make sense later on (pic via WalesOnline)

something of a war or words seems to have broken out on the pages of Adnews of late. on one hand we have David Morgan of Nestlé (let’s call him the ‘client’) and on the other a range of voices including Leigh terry of Omnicom Media Groupe, Travis Day of Vizeum and Peter Grenfell of VCCP (let’s call them the agencies).

here’s a few samples of the debate:

“We’re getting stuck in the middle, stuck in operations, stuck in process management … we’re spending so much time doing things that are not core to our trade of marketing, that it’s taken up our ability to do our trade of marketing. Today, our guys are managing eight, nine, 10 different agency groups – digital groups, media groups, creative groups, strategy groups. It takes up a lot of time to talk to them, coordinate them, project manage them.”

David Morgan, Nestlé director of corporate communications and marketing services, speaking at ADMA Conference two weeks ago

“Managing relationships is easier when agencies are treated as strategic partners … modern agencies of all disciplines are recognising this and pouring significant effort into ensuring that they have a partnership role with all clients; that they are trusted advisor and, most importantly that their reporting and admin are streamlined”

Travis Day, general manager of Vizeum Melbourne

“Agencies can be guilty of getting caught up in their own world … agencies need to open up and be more collaborative with each other. Creative agencies need to not be sniffy because they lead the strategy and media agencies need to not be sniffy because they hold all the money.”

Peter Grenfell, MD VCCP

it’s been an interesting debate not just because it comes at a time when tensions across a whole range of agency / client issues are coming to the fore – remuneration and transparency, the pitch merry-go-round and the protection and respect of IP, and most recently the time and agency effort spent on entering awards – but also because there doesn’t seem to be any kind of logical or constructive response or solution to Morgan’s assertion.

the frustrations on both sides or more than understandable. unfortunately (or fortunately depending on your POV) media went and fragmented. fact.

non of which is new news … back in 2008 I wrote a piece as part of my IPA Excellence Diploma (module three if you’re wondering) in response to the question: what approach should a client take in terms of who does communications planning on a brand? my observation at the time was that the agency response to “media fragmentation … has been twofold. Firstly, diversification into a multitude of different and varied operations; secondly, generalisation …historically all props had to do was scrummage; now they expect themselves to run, catch, pass and lift in the line-out too”

I know … I resorted to a sporting analogy, but bear with me.

I explored the idea that the players (agencies) on the pitch were now so diverse and the necessary roles so specialised that coordination was a full time job (the latter point was perhaps the very one that David Morgan was making at the ADMA conference that sparked this debate). it seemed to me at the time that there were to solutions, the client coordinates or the agencies do, and observed flaws with each:

“One, individual agencies can never know enough about other disciplines to ensure communications planning they derive consider every perspective. It’s like asking prop-forward to plan a game strategy incorporating the nuances of the role of fly-half; the knowledge required is too broad and getting broader all of the time.

Two, Buckminster Fuller’s principle: “If all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail” (as quoted in John Grant’s After Image). A player will never take themselves off the pitch; the very concept that any one agency can comprehensively and without bias write comms planning that excludes themselves is fundamentally compromised.” (source)

I suggested that there was a third way. that some clients may want to employ a coach (and the sporting analogy is complete) who is neutral, independent and can coordinate and allocate roles and responsibilities for agencies whilst the client focuses on marketing and ultimately business objectives.

as Clive himself said:

“My role isn’t to do players’ jobs for them. My job is to ensure that every player performs to their potential and as part of a team”.

Clive Woodward, BBC Interview

that sound’s like exactly the kind of role we need to me.

it’s perhaps not entirely right for every client, and there are flaws – not least of which is that its another outsourced role and relationship for a client to manage; but its a constructive suggestion … and I can’t help but observe that some of the agency response to Morgan’s challenge is at best smart observation of the problem, and at worst a claim (bordering on a whine) that agencies aren’t respected enough as ‘strategic partners’.

I fear that statements like “Creative agencies need to not be sniffy because they lead the strategy” do less rather than more to win the respect of a client who posed a reasonable and clearly present issue to the agency community.

this round’s result: Clients 1 – Agencies 0

we explore this is a ton of depth on last week’s PHDcast which you can enjoy listening to here:

player not working? click here to listen on Audioboo

featured image is Clive Woodward (the coach, gettit) via WalesOnline

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collaborating, experiencing, partnering

Collaborations We Love #129: [Man of Steel x Google Earth] @ Galeries Victoria = whoo hoo

Man_of_Steel_Google_Mapsso jumped out to grab a smoothie this afternoon and caught some awesomness happening at The Galeries Victoria at Town Hall. the Galeries have teamed up with Warner to promote Man of Steel by letting people fly over Sydney like Superman, courtesy of Google Earth technology.

simple, cool, and fun for all involved.

lovely.

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collaborating, content creating

Collaborations we love #173: [Tropical North Queensland Tourism + GoPro] x Amplification = Awesome

so I jumped to the cinema not too long ago with Dan (hey Dan) to see Gatsby (awesome but started to dread someone saying “let’s go to New York” as eight minutes of pointless car shots would follow … amazing soundtrack though) and caught the above trailer. its a great example of a perfect collaboration that produces relevant content, yet doesn’t fall into the trap of failure to amplify.

Australia’s tourism communications are consistently some of best the country produces. they have to be. in 2010/11 tourism represented 2.5% ($35bn) to the national economy (source), and getting a share of that is a serious business. the domestic competition is feisty enough, add to that cost-efficient South East Asian holiday options on our doorstep, and you get a situation where you need to stand out from the crowd.

that was the challenge to Sapient Nitro, the agency from whence previously emerged the ‘best job in the world’ idea back in 2009.

“The challenge to 20 of Australia’s most exciting filmmakers was to create quality content and authentic human stories that engage and create desire, and redefine what it means to be in ‘paradise’.”

Ralph Barnett, creative director SapientNitro

as collaborators go, GoPro are a perfect choice for the tech and attitude to showcase the region – they’re no strangers to content themselves, their website is a masterclass in how to use and integrate YouTube into a brand’s own site.

but the real smarts is in the amplification … playing a trailer for the project in cinemas may seem obvious in retrospect but never-the-less represents a smart marriage of audience targeting and the cinema environment and format; and with pop up screenings planned for the eastern seaboard, there’s plenty of amplification yet to come.

awesome stuff. you can view all the videos here:

featured image credit David Gulliver via Mumbrella

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