Breaking in your mind towards innovation diligence
Mindshare MENA’s Rasha Rteil reflects on what it takes to create a breakthrough media or communication idea
Now more than ever, in an era of economic doubt, controlled resources, and amplified global competition, more and more businesses and brands in the Middle East are shifting to media innovation as novelty communication solutions by crafting immersive and experimental media moments.
What is repeatedly lacking in the Middle East’s media industry when differentiating between creativity and media innovation is not creativity in the idea-crafting sense, but innovation in the production sense – as in putting ideas to work. The pot of gold lies in the ability to understand what’s trending in the audience’s world, and as communication and media practitioners, make our brands robust enough to adapt and evolve with our audience’s ever- changing needs and expectations.
What does it take to create an innovative breakthrough media or communication idea? For those brands that make it, the rewards can be incredible. The so-called “first mover’s advantage” is real and means the successful innovator may just take part in shifting the MENA industry’s communication mindset. In my stirring years of experience between creative and media agencies, I have come to realise that creativity is the price of admission, but innovative media channels and planning pay the bills.
Now is the time to ignite your mind by considering how to bring in innovation by provoking the imagination. Take your brand/product, unmuck your mind, and break through your mental blocks by pushing yourself, your team, and your client beyond the limits with a simple “What if...?” by swap- ping the “it” with your brand. Ask yourself these questions: “What if it could replace my morning caffeine fix?” “What if it understood my mood?” “What if it smelled?” “What if it was my tutor?” “What if it came from another culture?”
Because everything begins and ends in media, we need to adopt a systematic approach when creating inventive concepts through our adaptive labs and innovation thinking. Through external and digital assets, we gradually move towards finding solutions for our clients’ specific business challenges and opportunities. With notorious players such as Google and Twitter, innovation in media is only a step away. Look at Lego’s partnership with Google in creating ‘Build with Chrome’, which uses Google Maps APIs and added Lego’s building block layer. Another example of a nifty business execution is by Amex and Twitter, who teamed up to deliver exclusive specials that are coupon-less and hassle-free, offering users easier ways to save more when they tweet.
A simple “What if?” can ignite your imagination and accelerate your mind into thinking that anything is possible. Here, I’ll demonstrate some idea ignitions to this question and try to extend some logic into the magic.
Can you invigorate your consumer’s taste buds in the morning? You can if they smell your delicious product. Oscar Mayer asked their app users to compete to win a bacon-scented device which plugs into their iPhones, emitting the mouthwatering scent. A brand can be your tutor. Financial banking brands guide the youth segment with financial education through webinars, e-schooling, and financial tutoring from renowned financial icons. They use YouTube in partnership with Google to endorse e-seminars and even Shazam short TV tutorials for the user’s full content extension. This strategy would win any bank’s youth segment for a lifetime.
A social listening and sentiment analysis towards #MondayMornings resulted in a finding that urban, onthe-go consumers want their caffeine fix before 10 am. Even juice brands can send out special juicy caffeineadded treats to tweeps by hashtagging #MondayFix – this way you’re adapting to your consumer’s need for a quick fix through realtime listening and product innovation. Traditional channels such as TV, radio, and outdoor are feeling left behind with the bewildering pool of real-time digital data. Innovation in media calls for breaking misconceptions about physical spaces and traditional media, particularly when it comes to creating immersive experiences. The potential for more value to be generated via the integration of those channels and their technologies is the foundation for your innovation.
Media innovation that ignores customer experience and data gathering cannot be successful. Opportunities for your brand abound when you transform the entire customer experience into customised forms of communication. We must believe in not just filling space, but creating space. Our efforts must go into guaranteeing that consumers can continuously live their firsttime experience with the brand, making it memorable, efficient, and recurrent by transforming this first-time experience into an integral part of the brand’s communication channel.
As ‘Blue Ocean Strategy’ denotes creating an untapped and uncontested market space, we as media and communication whizzes need to be open to untapped media spaces. Brands need to create their own media space, amplify it, own it, engage new customers, and get the audience to fancy these new spaces by making the competition’s media channels irrelevant. Creating the next new thing in media is no easy matter – it takes an extraordinary idea, perfect implementation, the audience’s attention, and more than a little luck. But boy, put those together, and you can change the market and the industry, and that is what we need to do.