How Can You Not Love Cookie Monster?

Image by The Mary Sue

In the 1990s, I was crazy about watching Sesame Street, a longtime favourite children and adult show. Big Bird led the entire show teaching children shapes, colours, numbers and more. Some other characters that were created were Elmo, Cookie Monster, Bert, Grover, Ernie, Oscar the Grouch, Kermit the Frog, Mr. Snuffleupagus (Whew! That was a bit hard to pronounce!), Two Headed Monster, Abby Cadabby and more.

Back in my home country, Philippines, there were only 2 main TV stations that were available at that time. One of the largest stations scheduled TV shows to make sure that family members don't have to fight over a show. Here's a typical schedule:

• Early Morning: Morning talk show
• Mid-morning: Educational shows for children
• Noon: Game Show
• Mid Afternoon: Soap Opera
• 4 pm: International Shows (i.e. Anime)
• 7 pm: Drama/Action/Comedy (local/international)

Sesame Street was usually being played during brunch hours, most particularly during 'recess' (a.k.a. break). I used to go to my friend's house every day since she used to live beside my school. We watched Sesame Street almost every day. The show became a part of me when I was a child.

Competition and technological advancement led to an opportunity for TV stations to expand or modify their shows. One of the shows that were being sacrificed was Sesame Street. And I believe that the same scenario happened in all the parts of the world. I haven't seen Sesame Street show for a while. However, there are lots of Sesame Street toys that are sold in-store nowadays. As a matter of fact, my nephew used to have Elmo stuffed toy where you can press a button so you can hear "Elmo's World" opening song (below).

After a long time of not seeing Sesame Street characters, I found an article yesterday on Adweek website showcasing a new Apple ad. When I saw Cookie Monster, I got so excited! When I played the video (see below), I remembered all the memories that I had when I was a child. I was ecstatic! 

I thought this ad was clever. When I heard the song Time in a Bottle by Jim Croce, I giggled. I grew up listening to classic songs from 60s-90s. One great thing about this commercial, too, was the humour that was used to communicate the message like when he was turning the lights on and off while listening to the song, checking the oven from outside and sighing all the time. Cookie Monster reminded me so much of myself being impatient. Honestly, I can watch the ad over and over again. I will never be tired of watching it.I think the ad was targeted to millennials like myself. Millennials who spent their childhood watching children's show like Sesame Street. Apple aimed to let us know about iPhone's hands-free feature. The video was posted last week and it now has more than 4 million views. Great job, Apple!

Goodbye Webinars? Hello New Video Streaming Apps!

Last year, I took a 2-month webinar course at Sheridan being presented by a webinar coach from US. I felt the need of expanding my skills in learning more about this approach since I was in the IT industry woking in the marketing department. I had so much fun and I thought that this approach will last for a long time. Here are some of the technologies that you can use when you want to present webinar series (I used some of these from the past):

• GoToMeeting or GoToWebinar by Citrix
• Cisco WebEx
• Adobe Connect
• Google+ Hangouts
• Skype

Note, you can subscribe to premium webinar platforms if you want to sell your products, track attendee, ask polls and surveys, display more panelists, breakout rooms for discussions and more. However, additional features mean higher cost. The more sophisticated a product/service is, the more expensive it is.

Guess what? I think I have to say bye to these platforms now! I found out 2 awesome applications to stream event in real-time! And they're FREE to use, too! This means, my webinar skills are no longer useful. Everyone can be a journalist using these 2 apps. They're easy to use and they are still in the infancy stage. I believe that this will change the way businesses communicate and interact with consumers.

And without further ado, please help me welcome LiveStream on Facebook and Periscope! Check out some tutorials below if you're interested in learning more about these apps.

Livestream on Facebook

Periscope

Many companies have already started embarking and embracing these technologies. I was just watching half an hour ago a live interview with Canada's Poet Laureate George Elliot Clarke presented hosted by The Globe and Mail. Since I liked The Globe and Mail's Facebook page, I received a notification on Facebook about the upcoming event. It was pretty cool and personal since journalists don't have to worry about editing the video. In honour of February 9th #NationalPizzaDay, Delissio celebrated this event by sharing sights and sounds of baking pies on Periscope. Every hour during the feed, Delissio gave away amazing prizes such as a month or a year of free pizza to the lucky winner/Periscope viewer.

Cool thing, huh? Do you know other apps aside from Periscope and Livestream on Facebook?

Perception is Everything

Picture this, a sales rep shows you 2 types of chocolates. Both of these chocolates contain the same ingredients. They both have extra cocoa butter that enhances the flavour and mouthfeel, cocoa liquor that excites one's tastes, nutritious milk and delicious vanilla. The first chocolate is being held by a young guy in one of the sections in Harlem, New York. The other chocolate was being presented by a posh girl in one of the places in Manhattan, New York. Which chocolate will you choose and why? I bet you'll choose the second one!

As we all know, perception is everything. It is something we can control. Interestingly enough, I found a TEDx presentation by Rory Sutherland, current Vice Chairman of Ogilvy Group who talked about how we can change other's perception by adding value to a product and not by changing the product itself.

He explained the concept very well by using a potato as an example. In 18th century, Frederick The Great was worried about the situation of the poor people in his territory. At that time, bread was the common food of people. However, he thought of introducing potato as a substitute for bread when there's famine or when the price of bread increases. However, people thought that potato was disgusting. Dogs cannot even eat a piece of it. So what did he do? He introduced the potato as a 'royal' food eaten and consumed by royal families. At that time, people (especially peasants) eat whatever was 'royal'. People started using potatoes in their kitchen and was being eaten routinely (staple food).

So what's the moral lesson of the story? That we do not have to do drastic changes to please others. We have control to modify other people's perception towards us. We need to improve our way of communicating with others (verbally and non-verbally). 

In the industry, there are a lot of ways on how we can change the perception of customers towards a product. Here are 3 ways:

1. Increase the price: For example, a wine is considered as a high-quality product if the price is higher than the average wine. People have the tendency of perceiving the quality of a product based on the price. 
2. Take the price out of the table: Words are very powerful. Words can make or break someone or something. Let's take a look at a diamond ring as an example. Sometimes, we do not have to tell the price of a product. Instead of using 'the diamond ring is expensive', we can use 'the diamond ring is forever'. It is innate to us, as humans, that we value a product if it lasts a lifetime. 
3. Fonts matter: Isn't it more enticing to buy a product if it uses interesting font styles with attractive font colours? Little did we know, there's a psychology behind fonts. Aside from the fact that fonts influence readability, fonts invoke a certain response to readers. New York Times presented 2 satirical articles using 2 different fonts, Times New Roman and Arial. NYT asked readers how they felt when the article was written in Times New Roman. Readers were more likely to connect the words "funny" and "angry" when the article was printed in Times New Roman as compared to the article that was printed in Arial. What do you feel and think when you see the words below?

 

Do you have more ideas on how you can change other's perception towards a product? 

Why You Do What You Do?

I love to watch TEDx. Speeches empower me to become a better person, to be aware of what's happening in the world and to remind myself that there are still lots of greatness in the universe.  I have TEDx app on my phone and tablet. I subscribed to the TEDx channel on Youtube. I attended to one of the TEDx events in Mississauga last year. Yes, I am a bonafide TEDx fan!

I discovered lots of great speakers and authors thru TEDx such as Seth Godin, David Kelly, Ken Robinson, Tony Robbins and many more. But my most favourite speaker is Simon Sinek, a communication professor at Columbia University. I never thought (I just found out today) that he is a marketer and advertiser who left law school to go to advertising and used to work at Ogilvy & Mather in New York. 

Simon Sinek delivered a presentation at one of the TEDx events and asked everyone their 'WHY's'. He also presented a simple but a great model called The Golden Circle (watch video below). The model only has 3 sections - what, how and why. 

WHAT

Every organization on the planet knows WHAT they do. These are the products and services that they offer to the consumers. We, humans, know WHAT we do. We study, work, travel and many more.

HOW

Some organizations know HOW they do the products and services. These are the things that make them extra special or set them apart from the competition (or what we call in marketing/advertising - unique selling proposition). We, humans, know HOW we study, work or travel. We do these by playing classical music (when we study), using a system (when we work), choosing to drive (when we travel) and eating with spoon and fork (when we eat).

WHY

Very few organizations know WHY they do what they do. A few people know WHY they do what they do. Why is not about having a greater profit or making money. That's a result. According to Professor Sinek, WHY is the purpose, cause and belief. It is the reason why companies exist. We study because we want to learn more and expand our knowledge. We work because we want our skills to be of use - giving us personal satisfaction. We travel because we want to experience different things. We want to understand other cultures and traditions so we become open as a person. 

I certainly believe in what he believed when I watched his TEDx video for the first time. I constantly use this concept not only in my professional career but also in my personal life. The concept guided me in everything that I did from the past few years of my life. It directed my life to choose the paths that I want to take, the people that I want to be with and the connections that I want to make. 

It inspired me to make better choices, drop the things that are irrelevant and take one step forward to be happy overall. 

This concept is very relevant in the marketing and advertising world. We will not be able to find the sweet spot if we don't know how to answer our targets' WHYs. We will be wasting a lot of resources if we don't know how to answer these 'WHYs'. Why do people do what they do? Why do people care? Why? If you know the answers, you're on the right track. 

What are your WHYs?