An age of curiosity, experimentation

Live Curious' suggests the new tagline of Nat Geo.

As one surfs the channels on a cold winter evening, images of a middle-aged man competing and competing well with participants half his age in a dance reality show take you by surprise. What could be his rationale for doing it? Quite simply, he was trying something new.

The advertisement that comes on during the break provides a more straightforward explanation — pagalpanthi zaroori hai . To have fun in life, madness is a must. The next flick of the remote takes you to MTV, the iconic music channel that experiments with its logo itself every month, creating a new topical rendition every time!

And come to think of it, Google, the brand powerful enough to also be a verb, does so too!

That's not it. Smart tries once, Stupid tries often. Stop being smart, be stupid — is the branding stance of a new global designer store. Surprised? No it's not just a gimmicky phrase to attract attention. It's a sign of a deeper trend. Guess what's common across Google, Nokia, Apple, Intel, P&G, Unilever, McDonald's, 3M and Sony? Diverse as they may be in their areas of business, they have all found a place in the top 10 innovation leaders of 2010.

Innovation was the unequivocal agenda heralded by the world's top two advertisers, P&G and Unilever, at Cannes 2010 too. The festival also had its prestigious list of top 10 Titanium Lions dominated by winners from the unconventional spheres of engagement and experience. No less than eight of the top 10 Titanium Metals went to them as against a humbling two for conventional work. The Grand Prix winner was, actually, a customer care service taken online.

The more recently concluded Spikes Winners too underlined the sway held by unconventional ideas. Carlton Draught's slow-motion film, Canon's photo chains and Uniqlo lucky switch were all brilliant experiments that were acclaimed as the best.

Look around and we see various confirming signs of the trend. And it is easy to understand why.

The future is marked by uncertainty and an extreme dynamic. Thanks to the interconnectedness, discontinuous technological enablement, democratisation of information, media and marketplace, convergence and transference of brand control from marketer to the consumer.

In this new dynamic, there's no brand-to-consumer communication but consumer-to-consumer dialogue. No intrusion but engagement. No media planning but channel planning. No digital department but a pervasive digital culture. No single TVC-led Big Idea but many experience and engagement ideas.

No film production team but collaborative multi-channel producers. No mass media but mass customisation. No ‘you can't miss the impact' style of yore but influence, engagement and experience.

So what should be the right approach to lead our industry in this world 2.0 marked by uncertainty, multiplicity and chaos?

To answer this we simply looked at what we humans do when faced with a new and unknown.

The answer is we experiment .

Experimentation clearly is the commonest human behaviour exhibited when trying something new — the trial brush stroke of an artist, the experimental smear of a new lipstick or rouge, the free scribble of a new pen, the splash of a new shade of colour, the spray of a new mix of paint.

Given the new world order and values, the experimentation signs seem to be finding their way inti the socio-cultural milieu as well. Could playing the field with multiple partners before settling down in a relationship be a manifestation of the same? At least the title of the new Karan Johar-Kareena movie, Short Term Marriage, seems to suggest that.

Message for business

Not surprisingly, doing business, marketing and communication successfully in this new world order, is all about having traits such as curiosity and experimentation, the twin enablers of inventiveness. Which is what formed the basis in the rebranding of the original challenger and unconventional brand of the Indian communication industry — The Mudra Group.

Inventiveness, indeed, is the new creativity. It is the inventiveness of the brand custodians that will help recognise and leverage new information, new consumer, new behaviour, new consumption, new media, new advocates and new channels.

It is inventiveness that will help interpret a cultural foresight into a new advocacy and influence. It is inventiveness that will help trigger conversations, and steer them in the desired directions.

No wonder there are new functions such as ‘Spontaneity Directors' that we are starting to come across to facilitate contagion. It is inventiveness that'll help create the big channel idea. Perhaps the Go Jiyo platform of the heritage brand Godrej trying to reinvent itself around innovation and brighter ideas was an attempt in that direction.

It is inventiveness that will enable leveraging of new media with the old. No wonder the large media companies are infusing their organisations with not just mainstream planners but also creativity. A few of them today boast of new designations that go by the name of ‘innovation officers'.

It is inventiveness that'll help us go beyond a TVC and print to create new optimal combinations for consumer engagement and experience. Frooti's offline acts and commercials based on gags may have ended up more as a different TVC and not truly inventive as an idea but it was an effort in the right direction.

(The writer is the Chief Strategist & Head, Water Consulting, the strategic branding and design company of the Mudra group.)

COMMENT NOW