Adrian Ho, da Zeus Jones, no NBC11

transcript

2640 Lyndale Ave S.Minneapolis Minnesota 55408

What we can learn from the things we don't know.New Brand Communication

September 12, 2011

We’re here because of what we know and want to know.

But, the things we don’t know are much more important.

We built Zeus Jones around everything we don’t know.

It used to be that the majority of science fiction took place in the far future.Then gradually more and more began to be set in the near future.Today, most of it is set in an alternate present.”

The future is opaque, it is impossible to predict what will happen tomorrow.

Personally I think that contemporary reality is sufficiently science fiction for me...today, the sort of thing we used to think in science fiction has colonised the rest of our reality.”

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We are living in a time where the impossible is possible, tomorrow is happening today.

We left our previous jobs because we knew what to do.And that felt so very boring and so very wrong in the context of a world where it is clearly impossible to know.

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Modern brands are defined by what they do.

The decisions about companies and their brands are not being made in front of the television.

We try to discover and to affect the places where those decisions are really being made.

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Advertising can only solve a few business problems.

We try to find problems that advertising can’t solve.

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The data that these projects create is just as valuable than the role they perform.

The things we produce aren’t answers, they are ways of asking better questions.

Classic model of a brand.Built for a mass-media

world.

Modern brand model.Built for a world driven by

experiences and

interactions.

COREBELIEF

Classic brands Modern brands

Delivering a promise

Consumer insight

Singular consistent messages

Communicate an image

Trust through authority

Strive for perfection

Controlling

Marketing as a layer

Create a transactional relationship

Guided by a purpose

Internal culture

Multiple coherent ideas

Deliver an experience

Trust through transparency

Progress by iterating

Empowering

Marketing is built-in

Create a community

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We developed the new model for advertising at General Mills - the modern campaign.

Modern campaign flow

Campaignmarketing

Becomes a distribution channel for community generated messaging which helps to build

and reinforce the community

Multipliermarketing

Provides input and feedback for your media, provides

credibility for brand messaging and helps expand community

generated messaging to grow the community

Community accelerates innovation and evolution

Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4

Paid Media

Agency DevelopedCreative

Community DevelopedCreative

National Launch

Community Launch

C2 C3 C4 CX

We plan our “campaign” every two weeks, because it’s hard to think much further out.

We developed the new model for marketing and branding at Nestle Purina - Marketing 3.0

Traditional advertising and branding models are designed to create compliance and deliver predictability.

Modern brand models are designed for invention and innovation, to create brands that surprise and delight.

We are implementing these models on several of their biggest brands.

In 2007, it was impossible to predict what Zeus Jones would become in 2011.

Everything we have accomplished was possible because we did not know what we should do.

We are defined by our desire to not know.It defines what we do, how we do it, and the people we do it with.

Being deliberate about not knowing makes it quite clear what you should and should not be doing.

Our projects start with the fact that neither we nor our clients know exactly what needs to be done.

The best clients don’t believe you know what to do.

Our business is focused on helping clients figure out how to move their brands and marketing forwards.

Knowing Not knowing

Perfecting a process

Presenting to clients

Executing plans

Certainty

Boring

Learning what’s possible

Partnering with clients

Developing ideas

Uncertainty

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We redesigned our strategy and production process around the ability to not know.Because traditional strategy and production processes are designed to deliver predictability and certainty.

Traditional strategy is a process of making assumptions; as complexity rises so does the chance of being wrong.

Unlike communications, products and experiences reveal new opportunities for usage after they're built.

We realised projects should change during execution. We manage the change to improve the project.

We limit the number of up-front strategic assumptions and combine strategic and product development.

Traditional agency structures and roles are designed to develop traditional solutions.

We designed our space to preserve uncertainty and lack of clarity in roles and responsibilities.

THE BIG TABLE

AT ZEUS JONES WE ALL SIT TOGETHER AT ONE BIG TABLE. IT’S LOUD, MESSY AND AWESOME.

We hire people who not afraid to not know.

Q1: What inspires you? What or who motivates you to do more and to push

harder? What or who makes you feel big, or feel

small? Why?

Q2: What does “actions speak louder than words mean to you?”How do you interpret this in your life or in your world? What would this mean for how you’d approach what you do here?

Q3: What’s a marketing action that you think is innovative?Tell us about the idea, why do you think it’s right for the business and the brand? What would you do to make it even better?

Image via SkipSteuart

Q4: How would make sure Zeus Jones stays ahead of the industry?We’re best when we are pioneers but that means we have to push ourselves. What would you do to make sure we always move forwards?

Q5. What do you want to add to culture?How do you want to enrich culture either within or outside Zeus Jones. How will you be someone that adds to what we are and what we do?

New people tell me they are still figuring things out.

I tell them to get used to it because that doesn’t change.

It is very hard to know, but it is harder not to know.

Richard Feynman - The Pleasure Of Finding Things Out.BBC Horizon 1981

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2640 Lyndale Ave S.Minneapolis Minnesota 55408

Thank you.

Adrian Ho, da Zeus Jones, no NBC11

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