Capital C

Happiness by Design- The 40% Rule

Something as complex and significant as happiness should be designed into our lives.
But like so much of our daily reality, we're mindless of these simple, intuitive strategies.There's an entire field of psychology devoted to this concept, and below are some key learnings.

 
For humans and marketers alike :) -BK

The Suspension of Disbelief- Cap C Holiday party buzz

I might have mentioned we throw a great holiday party. Off the chain. This year's theme, conceived by the brilliant Mary Pallatella, was op-art married with fantasy. It lived up to the hype and more. Check out the buzz at bizbash

Merry X-Mas/Happy Hanukkah/Eid Mubarak everyone!

*Photo credit- Donovan Bond

Digging has resumed

Folks, Cap C's Digital Digs is back. A weekly digest of what's emerging in marketing, technology, and strategy.Have a gander-visit our DigitalDigs section. 

Marketing the Myth II

  I came across a fascinating tale from Hindu mythology which I must share.

  Ganesha, the divine scribe, had a warlord brother, Kartikeya. Being very proud of his physical prowess, he challenged Ganesha to a 3-lap race around the world. Kartikeya leapt onto his peacock and  hurtled across the continents, mountains, and oceans at a furious pace, summoning all his celestial power. He flew around once, twice, while Ganesha lounged about, munching on his favorite sweetmeats.

Just before Kartikeya returned from his final lap, Ganesha stood up, folded his hands in reverence, and circled his parents, three times.  And when his brother returned, Ganesha greeted him with  "I won."

In response to Kartikeya's ire and disbelief, Ganesha calmly countered by saying "You went around THE world. I went around MY world. What matters more?"

THE world is objective, logical, driven by fact.

MY world is subjective, emotional, driven by perception.

Business is the interaction between the behavior of the market and the organization. If the organization's behavior makes the market happy, then the market will reward it. But this requires the organization to understand the consumer's belief system, and consistently empathize with it.

Post wholly inspired by the incredible Devdutt. Watch him mesmerize TED here.

Build it and they will come

Songdo is a new city being built in South Korea, on 1,500 acres of land reclaimed from the Yellow Sea.  Billed as the largest real estate development in the world, their mission is to redefine the ‘city’ as an ecosystem; embracing complexity, green technology, and systems learning allows Songdo to deal with common urban sprawl issues including health care, transportation, education, and fresh air.  Even the toilets will analyze your urine to give you continuous data on your health and suggest strategies for preventing disease. 

This is a bold partnership between government, corporations, education and environmentalists, a working lab that they can commercialize to help the world deal with sustainability. Jane Jacobs would be proud.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if Canada could create that type of alignment and invest in the future versus the past?

- TC

BuyCotting

Last week I was invited onto The Agenda, hosted by Steve Paikin.  The topic was ethical consumerism, and whether the consumer had the power to motivate corporations to be better citizens of the planet.  To ‘buycott’ by drinking Fair Trade Coffee, to buy running shoes from factories that adopted fair work practices. 

My argument was that the consumer has a very real say.  Over 60% of them have chosen brands beyond immediate gratification, a powerful show of intent suggesting scrutiny into the corporation's belief system.  My faith stems from the principles of capitalism, and that supply will always chase demand.  If demand shifts beyond price, convenience and status to transparency, values and philosophy, then supply will shift accordingly.

-Tony Chapman 

tvo- Tony Chapman on The Agenda discussing Ethical Consumerism

Velocity- Admire Tiger's swing, but can't hide from his swinging

Velocity is defined as the rate of change of position; both speed and direction are required to define it. The rate of change of velocity is acceleration – how an object's speed or direction changes over time, and at a particular point in time. 

Never before has the average citizen experienced velocity and acceleration as we do today.  We send emails and texts out constantly; our faces and experiences are continuously captured and often posted, even our voice mails are stored.  There is no escape or hiding from the public eye, there is no spin doctor that can contain citizen journalism.

When the simplest of stories captures the public eye, everyone feeds and shares creating a potent force, powered not by iron fields but by the humans craving for attention.  Anyone with anything to contribute fuels the feast, hoping for their 15 megs of fame.  What was once a private matter has such velocity such that it connects billions of dots, a billion times a day.

-Tony Chapman

Ambassadors of Community

Came across a little gem that truly embraces the 'desired consumer' concept  (Aside: Excerpt is from Mehta's 'Maximum City' , a book that brings Mumbai, the maddest metropolis, to life)

A recent magazine advertisement for an Ambassador car, the sturdy workhorse of the Indian roads, illustrates what I mean. The car, an unadorned version of a 1950s Morris Oxford, is trundling along a rain-drenched street. The ad copy doesn't devote the usual lascivious attention to leather seat covers, digital dashboards, electronic fuel injection, or the trim lines of the car's design. The Ambassador is actively ugly but lovable in the way elephants are, with a jaunty visor and a wide grin. Instead, there is a snatch of dialogue from within the car. Three people can be seen squashed together on the front bench seat. A man crosses in front of the ungainly pachyderm, holding a briefcase over his head to ward off the downpour.

"Arrey... isn't that Joshi?" "Yes. Let's take him also."

"But we are so many."

"Have a heart, we can always adjust."

Car ads in most countries usually focus on the luxurious cocoon that awaits you, the driver, once you step inside. At most, there might be space for the attractive woman you'll pick up once you're spotted driving the flash set of wheels. The Ambassador ad isn't really touting the virtues of space. It's not saying, like a station wagon ad, that it has lots of spare room. It's saying that the kind of people likely to drive an Ambassador will always make more room. It is really advocating a reduction of personal physical space and an expansion of the collective space. In a crowded city, the citizens of Bombay have no option but to adjust.

Marrying car with community instead of boasting about nonexistent product advantages.  Superb.

In-N-Out Burger: Cult Cuisine

In-N-Out is a Californian restaurant chain that has achieved cult status among the burgerati. The owners opted to keep it privately owned to retain control over the quality and the customer experience. Good move. Estimated revenues are at $216.8 mn, and by staying true to their 'Quality You can Taste' slogan and indie culture they've been able to sidestep the stigma associated with corporate chains (read McDonald's) and become a movement.

My favourite snippets:

• IN-N-Out is the only fast food chain allowed to open up in the fiercely independent Fisherman's Wharf
• An extremely limited menu offering, with only three burgers on the cards
• Host of secret menu items ('animal style', 'veggie burger') that become popular purely through word of mouth
• Gordon Ramsay chose an animal style-burger as his 'death row' meal :)

They kept it simple, kept it scrumptious. Amen