ideas = future

Great quote courtesy of @BrandDNA and the immortal John Hegarty.

Day 19: You did what at Bingo?

Observation: This is Bingo, but not as we know it. Pumping tunes, dance floor, texta everywhere and people looking like a new breed of child tattooists have gone wild. And some seriously sexy sassy people pumping the crowd. Welcome to the Underground Rebel Bingo Club.

These fabulous people have made the ordinary, extraordinary. In main part because they have the balls to do so.

There is so much mundanity around that could be made different with creativity, courage and a little effort. But just for fun, lets look at some of THE most mundane things.

Opportunities:

- Traffic jams - What if the highway company, just for one day, hired a team of themed "entertainment staff". Whilst in traffic they would dance, walk and skip through the crowd (safely) and introduce people to others in the car next door, do a dance routine or teach people funny phrases in other languages? What if we made it an everyday thing - putting digital screens up in the lead up to the toll booths with different things - one day it could be funny quotes, one day learn an italian word - or even for one month - with prizes for people most improved at the end of it?

- Putting out the rubbish - What if just for one neighbourhood, the dustbin quietly swapped all the bins as they were emptying them with personalised ones for that family, with an art series from a local artist or left a big herb pot plant beside each bin + a card with recipes for that plant? (similar to the SpainAir great example of delighting Christmas travellers)

- Cleaning - Why not make a new type of oven cleaner that smells like just-baked apple pie? Or do a gift with purchase promotion that has music from different kinds of holidays so at least you can dream of being elsewhere and enjoy the sounds of it whilst cleaning?

What is your most mundane thing? How could you make it better?

Day 16: Prettify, don't just stand there

Observation: Hoardings, scaffolding. Essential but often ugly. As people pass by it is like it becomes an invisible part of the landscape.

Surely the upgrade is expensive enough, without losing all value from this clearly very expensive real estate?

Opportunities:

- Hoardings as advertising medium. Cut price hoarding rental in return for use as urban advertising media. I suspect there may be reasons why this doesn't exist already but it does seem a glaring opportunity.

- Of course the number one priority is safety, but why not use the chance to get creative? If entire communities can get colourful, why can't some hoardings and structs? Could this be the point of difference and major marketing vehicle for a forward thinking construction company?

- Be the construction company leading in environmentally friendly scaffolding - use alternate materials such as the bamboo very common in Asia, add in hanging gardens at each level to provide healthy food for the workers or use environmentally friendly scaffolding covers.

- Host creative events in the scaffolding with acrobats and artists - done safely but spectacularly. A great example is this event by Target and The Standard Hotel in NYC. Imagine what the spectacle could be at night and the PR opportunity it would present for that new property?

Why not turn an invisible opportunity into a spectacular opportunity?

Day 14: Everyone loves a puppy

Observation: Puppies are an irresistible force of nature and people flock to them wherever they are.

Opportunities:

- Amongst inner city urbanites (particularly those of 'coupling' age), many pine for a dog but simply can't fit or commit to them. Why not have a 'puppy for a day' service - either a fully fledged rental business or in combination with the a local shelter as a revenue raiser? Surely more puppies would find a home this way too.

- Create a joint project between a pet shelter and local community / mental health groups to enable people who need to connect more to the community to take a dog for a walk, for half a day. It will gently help them interact with others in a safe way.

- Joint project with The Big Issue - creating a calendar images of homeless people and their dogs for sale. Homeless people form unique bonds with their dogs that is clear when you see them cuddled tight together, calm and together as a unit.

Day 10: Tag me

Observation: Our days are littered with little bits of paper. Some of them so close they are right beside our skin.

Be it dry cleaner tags, receipts, tickets or clothing labels...our daily life has many meaningless bits of paper. However they all have one thing in common - we physically touch them. Without thought.

Opportunities:

• Make all the small, seemingly meaningless customer touch points meaningful or distinct. Or do away with them altogether. If you are a dry cleaner, why not have tags that are colourful and make people laugh or gorgeously sleek showing the care and premium service you give? Why not surprise people with occassionally slipping in clothes care sachets or shop all with fortune-cookie like treats (this would be particularly fun for traditional Chinese-owned dry cleaners). Make a small daily transaction a meaningful brand gesture that customers will look for and enjoy, every time they come back to you.
• Run a 'golden ticket' competition - make a few of those daily touch points a potential pot of gold. People will definitely pay attention to your brand with a golden prize.

Observation Day 6: I never knew I wanted vintage butter dish

Observation: Hundreds of people braving biting winds and an early weekend morning to trawl through piles, tables, racks and stacks of stuff at a car boot sale.

Somehow, most people end up walking away with something they never knew they wanted. In my case, a vintage butter dish. Asking people why they loved it, they responded that it is the prospect of a bargain, the joy of finding something to add to their collection, the amusement of finding so many strange things and the slightly voyeuristic interest in seeing people's lives on sale.

There is so much to take from this simple experience - from the raving fans that hunt for years for their favourite pieces, the creation of a satisfying and inspiring hunt for a bargain and the creative inspiration that comes from the unexpected.

For now, I'll focus on one opportunity, the notion of creating a delightful rummage.

Opportunities:

- Create a virtual rummage sale. Each page is 50-100 images (a cross between google images with iPhone functionality). People can quickly scan what is available, maybe location limited, click through to price, live text-haggling and standard buy-now facilities.

- Create a virtual job-lot / car boot dump (maybe in addition to the above). People literally dump the contents of what they have to sell, take a pic, people get to 'rummage' through the images, tag what they are interested in and live-chat or email to finalise the purchase.

- Marketing idea - if you have a strong brand that people re-sell or trade, be it jeans or memorabilia, why not create a virtual meet-up or a virtual flash-sale for them all to meet and trade?

Observation Day 5: Community noticeboards are crap

Observation: Community noticeboards are in general, rubbish. Tatty, ill-maintainted, bad locations and even worse content. This is a prime example slapped to the side a a building.

By all accounts, it is healthy for the community and individuals themselves to be involved with others in the community. So how do we get to this goodness with such woeful tools?

Opportunities:

- Co-source subsidised community wi-fi for the neighbourhood, gaining discounts for people and importantly a central, literal, home page where people can organise events, lobby for change or discuss isssues.

- Have a community van. Like an old-fashioned ice cream van, it comes round with music playing, but people can come learn about things in the hood, meet with others there and it can even sell things to be self funding or more. This could be extended into a business where this concept is run across multiple councils.

- Create easily programable and extremely robust digital versions to increase engagement and updates. Could include on location at popular local bus stops.

Observation Day 3: Can my bag sit here?

Observation: Half of the seats in a cafe are taken up by bags.

Yes, this may be an effective social technique to keep some distance from others and a clean, convenient and safe spot to be able to reach it. But it also takes up seating space and is not necessarily safe.

Opportunities:

- Create a new type of chair with an extra 'shelf' under it for your Stuff.

- Create a chair that has an in-built storage box in it, similar to the old-fashioned school desk. In fact, why not make the table a hinged box similar to the old fashioned school desk? You could even leave secret messages in there for customers to find.

- Marketing / business ideas:

- Are you a high-end fashion retailer? Why not have a cafe or champagne lounge with special padded seats just for beloved handbags, or handbag dogs!

- Are you a retailer or f&b outlet near an airport or train station? Why not create a safe corral space for people's luggage so they can relax in comfort and traffic flows smoothly (and quickly, allowing you to serve more people).

- Similar concept, but in a high retail area - why not have fun with it and call it the trophy table, where people can proudly display their purchases. It could even be an elevated addition to the table where people can display their favourite purchase of the day - be it shoes, a vase, pot plants?

Imagine the PR and word of mouth opportunities it would bring.

Observation Day 2: How to shop when you can barely walk?

Observation: An old man pausing with his shopping on a bench outside the supermarket. Standing there with his eyes closed clearly marshalling himself for the next stage in the journey home.

How to get food when you can barely walk, have a tight budget and are from an era that pre-dates popular use of the net?

Opportunities:

- A meet your neighbour community programme where you get to know your elderly neighbours and once a week walk with them or drive them to get their groceries. Get sponsorship from a major retailer so you both get 10% off and they get more traffic.

- Retailers to create a specific community support programme for the seniors in their area, offering free home delivery and on pension days arranging a volunteer roster to shop and walk home with them. Heck, why not make it an outing day, going for a picnic or sight seeing once a month followed by a shop for heavier items with all people dropped off home at the end.

- Have a limited-time window concierge service each week so all those in the area with limited mobility can have a pick-up or at least a drop off with their groceries.

- Design a super-light weight, inexpensive and easy to operate shopping buggy (cross between child buggy and A frame) that requires limited finger mobility and requires limited bending over to use.

- Retailer to offer loyalty shopping carts (the fabric covered kind) for senior customers - they get a stamp per shop and from 20 stamps they get a branded cart.

Imagine the good, the publicity and the brand loyalty.

Image credit: Amelia PS

Observation Day 1: My BFF

Observation: School children always seem to walk home in twos. Girls, boys. Girls in particular start dressing like each other, doing their hair like each other.

The opportunities:

- Promotional idea - for tween brands such as fashion, make-up and media - create a BFF day, limited entry - people can only come in twos! The entire day has two for one offers. Could also be harnessed by products with more emotive moments, from cards to baking mixes and teas - why not create and then own that event each year, tied with a major media partner to make it big?

- New Business idea - A BFF market to teach younger girls and boys entrepreneurial principles, with their own in-built support team?

- Brand learnings - BFFs are great because they celebrate the person we are. How can you celebrate the person your customers are and at least go some way to them liking your brand that little bit more?

Image credit: XO laptops

Observation to creation: 30 days of new ideas

What to do with a window of opportunity? Create.

So here goes, 30 days, 30 new ideas entirely based on the day's observation. Inspired by a useful exercise recommended by IDEO to train yourself to really observe the world around you and see the opportunities for improvement all around. This is also an exercise that innovation trainers often use.

The ideas here are free for you to take and run with and ideally to act as a catalyst to see new opportunities in your own business. I hope they can be a daily spark of inspiration.

Try it and let me know what you come up with.

Eleven ideas to celebrate the depression

Recently I read a statement delivered by the esteemed NY Times Economics Columnist, Paul Krugman to the ANA.

"History tells us that we should not count on any kind of recovery anytime soon," he said. "The economy is depressed because people don't want to spend."

It was reported as a pronouncement of ongoing doom and caution.

What if we keep it real and accept that people are just behaving the way they need to in order to look after themselves and their families. This is our customers adjusting as needed to live well in the future. Surely this is a good thing?

So, to celebrate our customers newly focusing on that which is important to them and responding in new and creative ways to the challenge, here are 11 ideas to help customers celebrate the depression:

1. Send your customers a surprise bonus - just because. An extra something, a discount, $10 off their bill, some ideas on how they can use your service more efficiently.
2. Use your power to help your customer. If you have large purchasing power, special relationships with suppliers or unique access to places and objects - how can you leverage this for your customers benefit?
3. Do less. Charge less. Ask your customers what they can do without to pay less.
4. Support customers' re-focused lives - what about supporting local volunteering organisations, holding a street-long open dinner party or supporting walking to school?
5. Facilitate re-training and re-employment activities - start / wrap in a re-training program at your business that supports people that may have had forcible employment changes. Help them help each other.
6. Promote the great new more financially conscious lifestyle people are living, publicly. I saw a great campaign with luscious luxe green styling with the message "saving is the new spending". How can you make your customers feel proud of their new conscious choices?
7. Spend less as an organisation. Tell people people about it and the fact that this means that you did not need to put up your charges to them.
8. Spark a 'tight-ass tuesday' dinner party idea for customers. Share recipes, images, theme ideas and social linkages to help them do it.
9. Sponsor a council to create local free events for your area.
10. Utilise your space. Is your foyer, meeting rooms or carpark unused at times - how could you share this with customers to help them achieve their goals more cost effectively?
11. Support people to get and stay engaged in their community, irrespective of their work status. A great example of this is the Innocent big knit.

All of these celebrate the reality of people being more conscious and financially responsible whilst supporting your goal of increasing awareness and loyalty.

I don't know about you...but I'm feeling ready to get out and celebrate right about now :)

You? How are you helping customers celebrate the depression. Or do you think this is unreasonably fluffy for cash-constrained marketing budgets to contemplate?

Image Credit: Life Magazine (via http://www.chrisperruna.com/category/misc/)