IdeaEconomy.Net » Marketing

Brilliant Marketing or Deceptive Advertising?

John — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 21:44:11 +0000

Big Ideas

Subtle and creative advertising can be much more effective than in your face interruptions.
Hi-Tec demonstrates water-proof shoes that help you walk on water.

The Newest Sports Craze – Liquid Mountaineering – Walking on Water

Take a moment and watch this video. (Thanks to Alan Perlman of Nerve Rush for sharing this.)

This video is now approaching 11 million views. It is obviously very professionally done and quite interesting to watch, but is it real? Is it effective marketing?

Clearly the video is designed to market water-proof Hi-Tec shoes. What better way to emphasize water-proof qualities than to show that the shoes help you walk on water?

10.7 million YouTube views if proof enough for me of the efficacy of the video. Well done Hi-Tec!

Action Items

Exaggerate your products features to find innovative marketing ideas or positioning.
Think entertainment, not advertisement when promoting your company.
If a shoe video can get 11 million views, what can your company accomplish?

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Occupy Wall Street – Grows to a World Wide Protest

John — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 05:46:43 +0000

Big Ideas

Tens of thousands are now involved with the Occupy Wall Street Protests worldwide
Web based platforms facilitate the coordination of mass gatherings and protests around the world
With online collaboration tools, a single leader or clear plan are not required.

You have undoubtedly heard about the Occupy Wall Street protests that have been growing around the world. The short news snippets don’t really capture the magnitude of the movement. Protests are being scheduled in dozens of cities around the world and recently the Almalgamated Transit Union, with 190,000 members has given its support. This is a world wide phenomenon and it is growing quickly.

How Occupy Wall Street Started

The birth of the movement was a post on the Adbusters website on July 13th. Here is a small quote from that first call to action,

On September 17, we want to see 20,000 people flood into lower Manhattan, set up tents, kitchens, peaceful barricades and occupy Wall Street for a few months. Once there, we shall incessantly repeat one simple demand in a plurality of voices.

The home page of OccupyWallSt.org describes the movement as,

Occupy Wall Street is leaderless resistance movement with people of many colors, genders and political persuasions. The one thing we all have in common is that We Are The 99% that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1%. We are using the revolutionary Arab Spring tactic to achieve our ends and encourage the use of nonviolence to maximize the safety of all participants.

Occupy Wall Street to Occupy the World

Another website, OccupyTogether, has since been created to coordinate some of the scheduled protests and other activities in dozens of cities around the world.

On Oct. 4th, the date of this post, there were more than 39,000 followers for the @OccupyWallSt Twitter account, with many thousands more for city focused protests around the world. (@OccupyChicago – 7000, @OccupyLA – 5000, @Occupy_Boston – 3500, @OccupyToronto – 1600, @OccupyTokyo – 400, with many more for every major city on the planet.)

Lessons in Collaboration

We have learned from the middle east uprisings this spring that leaderless movements have the power to topple governments and really change the world. Occupy Wall Street is no different. There is no central organization or leader directing the movement, participants are connecting and coordinating with widely available web based platforms . There are groups like MoveOn.org, that are trying to co-opt the protests, but for the most part, it is a largely ego-less and egalitarian process. Even the demands of OccupyWallStreet.org have been community driven.

The Future of Collaboration

Whether you support the protests or not, there are many principles here to learn from. With the internet, and social media in particular, ordinary citizens can coordinate and mobilize on a large scale. Time, money and central leadership are no longer necessary for massive collaboration.

Consider some of these implications.

Motivating and involving a dispersed volunteer effort is starkly different than an employer – employee relationship. Try motivating people to take action without paying them.
A vision to do good in the world is far more powerful than any monetary reward. Is your company making the world a better place?
Large groups of people can be mobilized without central control or authority. What could your employees accomplish if given the freedom?
Democratic and egalitarian processes can formulate a unified vision. Direction doesn’t have to come from the boss. Give your employees the information and freedom to direct their own future.
Self-interests and ego gratification only serve to derail the process. Let the cause or vision be the focus, not a rock star executive.

Action Items

For your next project, try an egalitarian process where there is no leader and decisions must be made democratically.
Find a meaningful unifying vision for the project, and get out of the way.
Put trust in the process. You will not always get your way, but continued involvement by motivated participants is far more valuable than being in control.
If your company is not making the world a better place, than maybe it is time to adjust your priorities.

Links
OccupyWallSt.org
OccupyTogether.org
General Assembly for Occupy Wall Street
Reddit - Occupy Wall Street

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Inbound Marketing is the Future

John — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 06:14:22 +0000

Big Ideas:

Traditional advertising is becoming less effective.
Content marketing is the most cost effective way to generate leads and build trust.

Advertising is Dead

“Marketing in the future is like sex. Only the losers will have to pay for it.” Jon Bond via FastCompany

With print, TV and radio all suffering from declining viewership, traditional advertising is losing it’s effectiveness. Internet based content and applications are decimating print, radio and television based media sources so it only makes sense that marketing dollars are shifting to the web.

Of course, there is still advertising on the internet but it has a drastically different dynamic. Online ads can be highly targeted and everything is completely measurable. The old shotgun approach to advertising is dying fast.

Outbound versus Inbound Marketing

Traditional advertising or outbound marketing is about broadcasting messages out to a mass audience. It includes TV and radio commercials, newspaper and magazine ads, direct mail, telephone soliciting, spam, event sponsorship, etc.

In contrast, inbound marketing, is about attracting people already searching for your products and services. Instead of paying to market to a general audience, most of whom are not interested in your message anyway, inbound marketers create valuable content their target market is searching for.

Bloggers and internet focused businesses intimately understand the value of inbound marketing. Visitors to your website and social media outposts are the lifeblood of every forward thinking company. The most effective way to attract eyeballs is online content.

Most offline companies still haven’t made this realization. They are still blasting out newspaper ads, radio commercials to a mass audience trying their best to ignore the message. As consumers we are sick of being interrupted with advertising that doesn’t interest us.

Blogging for Business

The most cost-effective way to generate leads is to create valuable content that educates your potential clients. Write informative blog posts, case studies and ebooks that focus on substance over sales pitches.

If you want to sell custom WordPress set ups, teach your visitors how to use WordPress, search engine optimization and copywriting.
If you are a marketing agency, teach how to use CRM applications, crowdsourcing, social media and other key elements of the sales and marketing process.
If you are a real estate agency, focus on your neighborhood and write about everything happening in that area. Try to become an online hub, connecting everyone in the community.
If you are a restaurant, offer video cooking classes and share recipes.

People buy from people they know, like and trust. The best way to get noticed and established those bonds with customers is to create value, not spam them with cheesy sales pitches.

Action Items:

Start blogging helpful articles that are directly related to your potential customers’ needs.
Share valuable content from other sites on social media.
Write helpful ebooks, white papers or case studies that you give for free in exchange for email addresses.
Get comfortable with video, because it is the most effective way to teach complex tasks like how to use software or play a musical instrument.

More Links
Hubspot.com – the company that coined the term ‘inbound marketing.’
Content Marketing on Copyblogger.com.

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Hate Conferences? How about an Anti-Conference?

John — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 02:04:19 +0000

Big Ideas:

Social media connections are weak; real world meet ups are still essential.
Smaller conferences focused around an activity build stronger connections.

The Rise of Anti-Conferences

It is more important than ever to make real world connections than ever, but conferences? Spending a few days with thousands of people frantically handing out business cards is a difficult way to establish meaningful connections.

TheNextWeb reported on the rising trend of anti-conferences:

I can go and swap my business card with 500 people at a conference, but at a smaller event I can make 100 solid relationships with people that last a lifetime.

Unconferences have been around for a while providing an unconventional and creative setting for people to meet and network, but I’m witnessing a trend for the conference aspect of an event, (thousands of participants watching a speaker, bad coffee, organized networking) being thrown out of the window and more activity conscious events being organized. Friends who went on Summit Series, an event for entrepreneurs on a charted cruise ship that sailed round the Bahamas, were raving about their yoga/music and shark tagging expeditions as well as the relationships they made onboard.

Social media has made it easier than ever to connect with thousands of people around the world, but most of those connections are tenuous at best. Real and lasting relationships come from intimate real world gatherings where the focus is on something other than generating immediate leads.

Having attendees participate in activities like rock climbing, hiking, yoga, wine-tasting or cooking classes is a great ice breaker that immediately creates shared experiences.

Action Items:

Organize a sporting or cultural activity for clients, suppliers and/or acquaintances that focus on people, not business.
Make a consistent effort to meet other professionals without a hard sell. Focus on them, not you.
Set aside 30 minutes a day to support and connect others online. Again, NO sales pitches.

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How David Beats Goliath – Break the Rules to Succeed

John — Tue, 17 May 2011 22:44:37 +0000

Big Ideas:

You can’t win against bigger or more skilled competitors if you follow the same rules. Create your own rules to succeed.
The underdog has to outwork the competition in unexpected ways.

Malcolm Gladwell has a great article in The New Yorker on how underdogs can triumph against more skilled opponents. (Thanks to Karol Gadja for the link.) There are many great military and sports examples of how unconventional strategies and outworking your competition are the only ways to succeed.

When an underdog fought like David, he usually won. But most of the time underdogs didn’t fight like David. Of the two hundred and two lopsided conflicts in Arreguín-Toft’s database, the underdog chose to go toe to toe with Goliath the conventional way a hundred and fifty-two times—and lost a hundred and nineteen times

Insurgents work harder than Goliath. But their other advantage is that they will do what is “socially horrifying”—they will challenge the conventions about how battles are supposed to be fought.

This type of strategy is at the heart of all business model innovation. As the old saying goes, “you can’t out Amazon, Amazon.” If you want to compete against established players you need to create new rules that favor your style of company.

Selling T-shirts is a commodity business. Threadless.com turned it into a monthly design contest where customers vote on the best designs.
Apple doesn’t compete on price and features with other computer companies. It sells premium priced, beautiful computers that work better because they monopolize the hardware and software.
Installed software is expensive to buy and maintain. SaaS (Software as a Service) applications turn those purchases into a monthly subscription where data is always backed up and the software is always current.
Discount European airlines can make more money from selling hotels, rental cars and upsells than they can from the flight itself. That is how they can give the flights away for next to free.
Starbucks has a limited food selection that is shipped out of a central location. Great local cafes bake fresh pastries right on the premises.

Action Items

What can you do to change how your industry works?
Could you give away your main product in order to upsell other services?
What unique skill or knowledge can you use to compete against larger companies?
What is the biggest bottleneck in your industry? How can you completely bypass that bottleneck?
Instead of selling services sporadically, can you charge a monthly subscription for an ongoing solution?

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Not Getting Good ROI on Your Marketing Efforts?

John — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 23:12:53 +0000

Big Ideas:

Guy Kawasaki talks about his latest book Enchantment.
Brian Clark demonstrates how to write create copy that gets results.
The best marketing is baked into the product.

Brian Clark has a great interview with Guy Kawasaki about his recent book Enchantment. As an aside, take a moment to see how beautifully Brian Clark writes copy. Who wouldn’t listen to that interview with that much enticement? Learn from that article and use the same tactics on your own sales pages.

Clark and Kawasaki hi-light many key points of marketing and business. Here is just one of the key take aways:

The ultimate marketing is baked in. It is not lipstick you stick on a pig. If you have somebody beautiful, lipstick just makes her more beautiful. If you have a pig, you still have a pig with lipstick. So the key is to not have a pig. And not figuring that the lipstick will fix the pig.

Why are Most Businesses so Mediocre?

It is astonishing how terrible most businesses are now. Mediocre products with lousy service is the norm in English speaking countries.

When sales and profits are faltering most businesses turn to advertising to fix the problem. That is what Guy Kawasaki refers to as sticking lipstick on a pig.

If you build a great product and deliver great service, your marketing will take care of itself.

How many good shopping experiences have you had in the last month? Can you identify any companies that really delivered wow service that you told friends about? I would guess the answer to both of those questions is no.

Delivering great service costs much less than advertising to acquire new customers.

Action Items

How can you create more value for your customers?
Can you create exceptional service experiences that customers will talk about?
Do you and your employees care about delivering outstanding service? If not, that is the source of your problems.

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Your Business Needs a Growth Hacker

John — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 13:39:39 +0000

Big Ideas:

Start ups need a different type of marketing expertise than more established companies.
Growth hackers can focus on scalable and repeatable ways to grow your business.

Sean Ellis of Startup-Marketing.com coined a fantastic term, Growth Hacker.

Once startups are ready to scale, their biggest challenge is often hiring someone capable of leading the growth charge. A marketer with the right talents and approach can kick some serious ass once product-market fit and an efficient conversion/monetization process have been proven.

After product-market fit and an efficient conversion process, the next critical step is finding scalable, repeatable and sustainable ways to grow the business. If you can’t do this, nothing else really matters.

The Problem with Most Businesses

I have seen many marketing and social media consultants put so much emphasis on high level strategy, positioning, branding, logo design, etc. that the basic and easy opportunities to generate leads and customers remain neglected.

Who cares about your beautiful $20,000 brochureware website, if there is no content there to attract organic traffic or entice visitors to want to learn more about your offering?
Your professionally planned social media implementation doesn’t matter if your customers are online neophytes. Getting thousands of followers that will never be interested in your business is even worse.
Instead of looking at more effective ways of advertising, perhaps you should deliver a product or service worth buying.

A talented growth hacker can help you find the low hanging fruit to maximize your marketing budget.

Action Items:

A compelling business model comes first. You better have a good scalable way to create value for customers and get paid for it.
Make your business stand out from competitors. What value propositions do you offer? Make sure this is clearly communicated without the generic marketing fluff like “Customer service is our highest priority.”
Deliver on your value propositions. Service and quality in English speaking countries is so lousy now. The cheapest marketing is to actually care about customers.
Craft a unique story. If you want to be remembered, do something memorable. Check out my post on how a real estate agent uses bacon to stand out.
Research the keywords your customers are searching for and then optimize your website for those phrases.
Create online content your customers want to read, watch, listen to and share.
Develop effective lead nurturing campaigns to convert casual browsers into interested customers.
Have clear calls-to-action on all your marketing materials.
Engage people online and offline as humans with real conversations, not marketing pitches.
Consistently deliver more than you promise.

Am I missing anything? Let me know in the comments.

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Creative Marketing and Social Media Strategy from Jerry Aulenbach

John — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 23:18:04 +0000

Big Ideas:

Real estate agent, Jerry Aulenbach (@ZoomJer) creatively markets himself with … bacon.
Twitter now accounts for 39% of his business.

Edmonton based real estate agent, Jerry Aulenbach has brilliantly marketed himself to stand out in the competitive housing industry. What is his secret? Bacon.

I was seriously impressed the first time I saw Jerry’s bacon business cards that are actually smoked with real meat so they have an authentic smell like all bacon business cards should. The cards are a fantastic conversation starter but I later learned that Jerry has a whole selection of bacon products and bacon has become his identity. This creative marketing, along with an active social media presence seem to be working. Jerry was kind enough to answer some questions about his marketing efforts.

How did you get started with the bacon focus?

It all started with an idea to do something different for breakfast: the bacon weave, a 4×5 strip masterpiece that I posted to twitter in 2 photos. One was of the raw bacon cooking; the other was a finished, plated weave. Needless to say, they did more than make people drool. I quickly became the outlet for everyone’s interest in and love for bacon. “Hey, have you seen [insert random bacon product here]?” Every day, I get multiple mentions of this nature. I favourite most of them, so you can see them here: @ZoomJer/Favorites

You have an iPad, shoes, tie and business cards with bacon images, is there anything else?

I have several different bacon-themed t-shirts (Bacon makes everything better; push button, receive bacon; bacon bits video game, nature’s greatest miracle). I have bacon socks, a bacon wallet (not the one available online, but a vinyl one I got at the 104 Street Farmer’s Market, a bacon air freshener hanging from my rear-view mirror, the costume, bacon dental floss, maple bacon lollipops, bacon bandaids, bacon tooth picks, baconnaise. Most of these things have been given to me (which is awesome). I’m always on the hunt for more! http://myba.co/nTreats

I love the custom book your wife created, can you please explain what that is.

Well, she actually stole the idea from me! I was making a book with dozens of my friends from Royal LePage dedicated to the former Executive Director of the Royal LePage Shelter Foundation. I stole her nameplate from her office and we shipped it all across the country-to every province-and I presented it to her in Toronto. It blew her mind. However, just a few weeks before I was to do this, my wife hands me a gift at my birthday party. With everyone watching, I opened it to discover that she had done the same thing for me, but she mailed out my business cards to people across the country and in about 4 other countries. I was entirely stunned. In the book were several people who were also at my party. It was surreal. Not only that, but many of the people involved in the nameplate project were in this book, and several of the images were exact replicas of the ones they sent me, except instead of a name plate, they were holding my bacon business cards, of a bacon plush. I love that book and still take it with me wherever I go. (P.S. -both books were made in iPhoto).

You had an article written about you in the Edmonton Journal, how did that come about?

For my birthday last year, I decided I was going to wear my bacon outfit to Wendy’s and order a baconator. It was of course a tweetup, and about a dozen friends came along for kicks and giggles. On my way over, I was contacted by a reluctant writer for the Edmonton Journal, who informed me of a LifeStyles two-page spread on bacon. I burst into laughter (which probably didn’t help her feel much better), told her about the tweetup and said to send down a photographer. This she did. One of my friends ordered me a special baconator. One with no patties and 20 extra orders of bacon. It was probably a 2 lb sandwich of purely bacon. I’m pretty sure it inspired EpicMealTime. No, I did not eat it. I actually took it home and froze the bacon! Photos of that sandwich have been circulated in the National Post, Montreal Gazette, Calgary Herald, etc, under health articles that usually speak unfavourably about bacon. I get no respect.

Has your unique marketing gotten you more business?

It sure has.

You can’t just make a lot of noise on Twitter if you run a business that requires face-to-face interaction. I’ve never much liked the general public perception of realtors. It can make things like handing someone a card feel awkward, because you can easily come off as just another useless pushy salesman. When I (somewhat timidly) had my first batch of bacon-shaped business cards made up, I soon became aware that there was a way around that awkwardness. Instead of just giving them a “call me when you need to buy or sell” card, I was giving them a piece of creativity, art even. I was giving them an automatic conversation, which would quickly turn to me. “Why bacon?” “What does that have to do with real estate?” etc. I was also branding myself at the same time, and I knew it was working because people would tell me that they couldn’t look at bacon without thinking of me. My bacon card has evolved since. I’ve used increasingly better photos of bacon (instead of stock images, I now shoot my own), they are getting larger (the last one was about 4.5″), and I now have them smoked at the same place where I buy the actual bacon. Now I get a double effect. The shape of them plus the spot UV coating to make them look greasy is usually enough to blow people away (“these are the best business cards I have ever seen” is a regular comment), but when I tell them to smell it, I get the added bonus that most people were hoping it offered anyway!

I’ve also used the bacon costume to make a scene on more than one occasion. The biggest impact it has had was at a national sales rally for my company in Montreal. I wore it on the dance floor for a few hours. Needless to say, the image stuck. Combined with the cards, a lot of people know who I am now, and it’s leading to more referrals from other areas.

You are very active on Twitter, how do you use it?

I’d like to think that if I wasn’t in business, I’d still use Twitter in the same way. Most of what I do is simple socializing. I reply to virtually every mention, I follow back most everyone with a human-run account (but I refuse to use automated follow services-totally against what I do). I also run a daily search for people saying that they are moving along with some reference to Edmonton. I have to filter most of them out, but in a lot of cases, I’m the first one to know when someone is moving to the city, and I can give them a friendly greeting without being spammy. Some people respond well, some don’t respond at all. I automate that search through twilert.com, and I also run a search for “aulenbach OR aulenback”, as it is a rare name, and it’s interesting to see what comes up. Other than that, I basically let the business come naturally as it would through the people you meet from daily interaction. If they know what you do, need your services, and like you, chances are good they will call you when the time comes. Seems to work for me so far. (Jerry has a great blog post on how to use Twitter.)

How much time do you spend on social media everyday?

The time question is difficult to answer. It would probably amount to a few/several hours each day that I spend interacting with others online with twitter and facebook, but it is so spread out that it isn’t like doing just that straight for that long. It fills a lot of gaps between appointments, standing in line, down time, etc. I also enjoy it so much that it doesn’t seem like work.

What can we expect from you in the future?

Bigger and better parties. I love planning and promoting events (birthday parties, fund raisers, small tweetups), and I believe that you should never eat alone where possible. I raise money for the Royal LePage Shelter Foundation, and I am always trying to find ways to raise more money for their efforts to protect at-risk women and children. Philanthropy is a very significant part of what I do with my tweet cred. I’ve been asked to be on panels and to present at various events, and I quite like that. I usually have a chance to show social media skeptics how I use it and what it can do for them in a practical way. They always want to know “what’s in it for me?,” when a better question is “what do I bring to the table?” My motto for Twitter is “put out,” and I always do my best to be original, informative, entertaining, and sincere.

Links from Jerry’s Website

Follow Jerry on Twitter.

Just for fun. (Some of the items from the Bacon Store)

How I became bacon.

Twitter tips for n00bs.

A more comprehensive article on social media.

Action Items:

Can you come up with a fun and interesting way to differentiate yourself?
Jerry is “the Bacon Guy,” What kind of Guy or Gal are you?
Can you use Twitter to more effectively engage with potential customers?

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Is Your Business the Right Size?

John — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 15:54:50 +0000

Big Ideas:

Is your business the right size?
Are you expanding to satisfy your ego or because it is essential for your business?
There is a right scale for every business, straying from that point will harm your economic viability.
For most businesses, there are diminishing returns on investments in staff or technology.

Bigger is not Better

Talk to any entrepreneur and you will find someone that wants to grow a business. There is a natural assumption that bigger is better. Bigger may be better for our egos, a fifty employee company sounds much better than a five person company, the problem is that bigger is not always better for our bank accounts.

My wife and I ran a small service business for about ten years. In the beginning we worked hard, cared a lot about our customers and grew steadily. It wasn’t long until we were making a great income and were turning customers away.

Then we started to expand. We hired more staff and opened new locations. We noticed immediately that every new employee or investment we made contributed less and less to revenues and profits. The work my wife and I could do with minimal hassle, required 3 or 4 outside staff or would require exorbitant salaries to attract rock star talent. The worst part was that my time was being spent on boring administrative tasks that added little real value to our customers. Suddenly I was focused on hiring, training, managing, sales, marketing, accounting and countless other tasks that kept popping up. By expanding, my wife and I were working more and making less money.

Sure it was foreseeable that we could have reached a point where we could have afforded to hire staff to do all the administrative work, but that was not an incremental growth level. It would have required us to be 5 or even 10 times bigger than we were. It would have taken a lot of time and money to reach that higher level, and even then it was very likely that we would have been too big for the market to support.

Eventually, we decided against the growth and scaled back to just the two of us again with non-essential work like accounting, web development and graphic design outsourced to professionals. We made more money with shorter work weeks, longer holidays and much less hassles.

The Right Size

In the blog post, An atomic theory of business size, Seth Godin points out that a business can not only be too big, but it can also be too small.

Rightsizing your business is one of the most important decisions you can make. Just because you’re thriving at one scale doesn’t mean that a little more effort or a little more investment magically take you to the next. They probably don’t.

Several times I’ve run businesses that the market liked but couldn’t find the right scale… adding more people didn’t add a significant enough amount of revenue, and fewer people would have cost us our customer base. Just because it’s a good idea doesn’t mean that there’s a scale that works.

How to Really Get Big

Growth for growth’s sake is foolish. If you have a successful business that is generating good profits and it is work you enjoy than be happy where you are and invest your free time in projects you enjoy.

If you really need to change to the world, than look for a better business model. With innovative uses of technology and new business models, it certainly is possible for small teams to accomplish amazing things. However, it is unlikely that any company will miraculously achieve phenomenal returns just by scaling the old business model. Doubling staff will not double sales, and it definitely won’t double profits. Doing more of what you did before will only bring more administrative hassles.

Action Items:

Is your business the right size?
Is your optimal profit level at a higher or lower revenue level?
If your business can’t effectively scale up or down, are you satisfied at the level you are at?
If you can’t find the right scale, maybe it is time to completely reinvent your business model?

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The Gamification of Business – Example of Kurasushi in Japan

John — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 15:53:13 +0000

Big Ideas:

Businesses are increasingly using games to improve the customer experience and productivity.
Kurasushi in Japan offers a perfect example of how the restaurant experience can be transformed through simple gaming elements.

One of the funnest places I have ever eaten is Kurasushi in Japan. The popular Japanese chain a a perfect example of how to turn business more into a game to enhance the customer experience, excitement and even lower costs.

Kurasushi is a kaiten, rotating sushi bar, where the sushi streams by on rotating belts throughout the restaurant. Kurasushi has taken the experience to new levels with a touch panel ordering system and plate collector that counts how many sushi dishes you have eaten.

Not only does this reduce the staff needed to take special orders and deliver the food, but Kurasushi also turns it into a game by giving users a chance to win a small prize after every five plates dropped into the collector.

Even though the prizes are small and not particularly interesting, it is a lot of fun to drop the plates and play the game to see if you win or not.

Here is an explanation of the image above.

1. Prize Dispenser – The available prizes are above every table in a clear box so that it is completely visible to everyone. You can easily see other tables win.

2. Touch Panel – Here you can order fresh dishes and other items like miso soup or deserts. It is also turns into a simple game after every five dishes dropped in the plate collector slot. Users have to chose one of three choices and variations of a slot machine type of game are displayed, slowing revealing if you have won or not.

3. Custom Order Belt – This is a special high speed belt that delivers food on a special train to specific tables. When your order arrives it starts beeping to notify you and there is a button to press to signal that you have finished taking your sushi plates off of the train. It is actually a lot of fun to see the train quickly pull up to your table and then return after it is finished.

4. Main Sushi Belt – This is the main rotating sushi belt where sushi is delivered in a steady stream to every table in the restaurant.

5. Plate Collector Slot – This is where you drop finished plates to be tallied on the touch panel display. When you are finished eating, there is a button to press to call a staff member over to give you your final bill.

The Future is Games

In a previous post, Games Can Make the World a Better Place, I have included a couple of great videos highlighting the potential of games to improve our lives. There are many examples listed in that post but here are some more ideas.

Contests and loyalty programs like airmiles or credit card rebates are common but there is still a lot of room for companies to improve the user experience through gaming elements.

Salespeople are typically motivated with incentives and publicly displayed sales records. Customer service staff compete for the most positive reviews. Manufacturing firms monitor product defects and on-time deliveries. Geo-based location services like Foursquare and Gowalla encourage repeat business. However, those measures are just scraping the surface of the possibilities to gamify our business and lives.

Restaurants could have loyalty programs that reward customers who have ordered the most dishes. Regular customers could be given special tables and items not on the menu.

Department stores could have in store treasure hunts where customers have to locate items throughout the store. To increase environmental awareness, they could have contests to guess how many plastic bags are used by the company every year.

Toy stores could have receipts with special numbers that give online characters special powers in competitions against the characters of other customers. Kids would want to buy more things in the store to increase their character’s abilities.

Airlines could have in flight seat raffles while waiting for passengers to board. This might make the wait actually enjoyable and encourage passengers to get to the plane earlier.

Authors could have contests where users have to find mistakes in new manuscripts.

With mobile phone scannable QR codes, it is possible to link real life to the Internet. The possibilities really are endless.

Action Items

How can you turn you business more into a game?
Can you get customers competing against each other for more status or recognition?
Can you get employees working together to come up with new ideas or ways to increase profitability?

Links
Gamification on Wikipedia
The Gamification Encyclopedia
The Gamification Blog
Fun is the Future: Mastering Gamification – Youtube video
The Future is a Video Game – Canadian Business Article

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