Blurb is a website that lets you publish your own bookstore-quality books. What does this mean? That means that you can take that your manuscript, photos, or witty comics and make your own book. For cheap. You can get a single book printed for as little as $12.95.
Okay, so now I sound like I’m a shill for a random website. But no, I just have an idea that came to me as I was visiting the Chapters by my house. Amazon should buy Blurb.
Think about it. Blurb allows individuals to create and publish their own books. It’s the ultimate long tail. It allows people to create an infinite variety of books. Books that maybe only themselves and a handful of friends will buy.
But that’s the beauty of Amazon. It doesn’t cost them anything to list one extra book. And once the books are ordered, they could be printed on demand (as they are currently at Blurb). So, even if only 5 people buy the book, Amazon will make money.
This idea lowers the barriers to entry to the book market for millions of potential authors. Anyone can write a book and have the chance to sell it to millions of potential customers.
This weekend I was at a Toronto Blue Jay’s game and my friends Chris and Hamid asked me an interesting question – why do all car ads suck? If you’re watching an hour of television, you’ll probably be exposed to over 20 automobile ads from five or six different brands. Unfortunately for the car companies, you’d be lucky to remember one of the ads. Chances are that you would even get the brand confused with another.
There are two reasons that the majority of car ads suck – (1) they don’t break through the clutter, and (2) they try to say too much in too little space.
1. Breaking Through
When I was watching TV this weekend, every car ad was the same. Car driving. People in moderately funny situation. Punch line. Information about their features/financing. Car driving again. It seems as though there is a standard “formula” for how a car ad should be. But if you want to stand out and have people pay attention to your ad, you have to give them a reason to watch. Be interesting. Be different. Be brave.
BMW did an excellent job of this with their BMW films. Instead of spending their 2001 ad budget on normal ads and buying typical TV commercial space, they made a handful of short films and put them online. The films don’t have the typical driving-on-a-country-road scenes. They entertain. They make BMW look cool. They make me feel as though I could be James Bond if I drove a BMW.
For 10 minutes of awesomeness, watch this video:
2. A Clean Message
If text is on screen for two seconds in an ad, it shouldn’t be more than 8 words. But if you take a look at the end of some car ads, they have closer to 50 or 60 words on screen! It is humanly impossible to read that volume of text in that amount of time, much less remember it. Car companies will try to feature their new sunroof, sound system, financing options, JD Power ranking and safety ratings all in the same :30 second spot. With all that information, who can possibly remember what car is being sold?
If someone is seriously into buying a car, they will go online and research all of that information. The point of TV ads is to make people to want to buy your car. Having an extra cup-holder or 3.5% APR financing won’t make people say “Holy crap, I should check out that new Chevrolet Malibu.” You need to make it appealing with ONE simple message. Then, when people are interested, you make the rest of the information (financing, features, safety) readily available to them, so they can compare cars.
I’m learning how to play golf, and it’s the same. If I’m told to focus on change one part of my swing, it’s cool. If I’m told to think about 9 different part of my swing all at the same time, I do everything wrong. A clean message means that your audience will take away the single most important point. If you bombard people with multiple messages, you have no idea which ones they are going to remember.
The most successful ideas are born out of brilliant insights. This is because the insight allows you to uncover a universal truth about people. You can then leverage that truth to help them improve their lives.
One of the most striking insights over the past couple of years was one about the myth of “real beauty”. So many women realize that they’re not going to acheive the perfect image of beauty portrayed in the media and advertising. Even though everyone knew this, it was Dove that was able to leverage it to create a movement – the Campaign for Real Beauty.
How do we find these insights? How do we uncover a universal truth that appears hidden to everyone outside a specific group? The old way would consist of the following:
- Focus groups
- One on one interviews
- Surveys
- Usability testing and labs
What’s the problem with these methods? They are not authentic. They are controlled environments where your “audience” knows that you are taking notes. So their behaviour changes. Their answers are different.
Additionally, you rarely get the insights you need by asking questions. insights are derived from observing real behaviour. This is because, as people, we don’t really know what we want. As Henry Ford put it:
“If I listened to what people wanted, I would have built a better horse-drawn carriage.”
The new way of mining insights is digital anthropology. With the vast array of niche cultural communities online, one can now observe honest conversations and interactions. All you need is your brain and this toolbox:
The transparency of the internet now allows people access to an unprecedented level of authentic conversations. The cost of entry is so low to create a community online, that you can find blogs, groups and websites catering to every consumer niche.
So when you’re looking for insights to fuel your next big idea, log on and observe some real conversations.
