The Middle, The Market and The Media

Two kids gather in the woods and begin to pick berries; they pick enough to fill their jumpers full and stop to make a plan. They plan to walk into town and sell the berries. So up and off they go into town, they find a spot just under the clock in city centre and start calling out ‘Berries for sale!” They sell a few, but not all.

One of the kids goes for a walk around the town and continues to shout “Berries for sale” He sells a few more berries but not all. He stumbles across an old box of matches, stops to pick it up and begins putting his berries in the old box. He runs back to his friend and continues to help him out by yelling “Berries for sale” with the old box in his hand.

A lady comes over and asks, what is in the box? Berries, the kid responds...’are they the same berries she asks?, yes they are! And do you get them in box? Yes you do, he says, are they the same price she says? No they are 5c more he says. ‘Sold!’ she says.

The next week, the kids go through the town and gather all the old match boxes and run up to the woods to start picking berries. They fill all the boxes with berries and sit down to make a plan. They decide to each go their separate ways to the nearest town to start selling the berries.

“Berries in Boxes for sale!” they scream

Two months later:

“Special Berries in boxes for sale”

1 year later:

“Bring your box, pick your Special Berries”

The two kids turned out to be berry berry successful.

Mind Sets

Consumer buying behaviour:

The web can be broken down into a calculus of mindsets, assumptions and theories.

Be entertained

e.g. Games, blogs, forums, porn

Be informed

e.g. News, Wikipedia, learn, google, websites

Be social (a branch of ‘entertained’ highly personal to self)

e.g. Engage, meet, network, connect Facebook etc

Be Transactional

e.g. Banking, ecomm, shopping, pre-shopping- the intent to purchase; a certain mindset that allows for searching, browsing that may or may not lead to a physical purchase.

The psychology of the internet:

The mouse takes ownership of the future, part of the human brain sacrifices its control to the mouse and allows for it to determine the future of the online experience. E.g. a link may be clicked on out of habit, to see what lies on the other side. Yet the overall mindset of the experience is owned by one of the calculus above.

People can switch between mindsets however the opportunity to deliver a message is filtered by the intent of the experience. E.g An advertisement on Facebook promoting a ‘sale of any given product’ will receive much less ‘click through’ than if it was positioned on ebay.

the very Super Markets

Supermarkets will become a lot more ‘super’ in the next decade. Rightly so, they can’t just give in to their fast emerging competition- online. Internet retailers are attracting more unique visitations and selling more products than ever before. Do the research on how Woolworths are tracking compared to Amazon.

Supermarkets and retailers will always survive, in what capacity I am really not too sure. I think a few of the big guys will hang around and withstand the online storm a while longer, but I think it’s a case of, for how long?

Consumers are becoming more forward thinking; their modern networked lives are very automated, regimented and planned. Therefore they are purchasing accordingly and taking advantage of online shopping. Where you can take as long as you like, compare all products in the category, make an informed purchase decision, pay immediately and then instruct where you want the goods delivered all the while sitting in your comfy chair with your unfinished work document still open on your desktop. Make sense?

So just how do the supermarkets and retails compete? Technology- think online, in store. Think about how you can generate revenue when your sales are dropping and online figures are sky rocketing. Think about:

• Loyalty smart cards- Triggering a whole new shopping experience that remembers your past purchases, brand favourites and alerts you of promotions of the day.
• Eye ball tracking- Cameras that detect the gender of a consumer and digital adverts change accordingly.
• Intelligent Trolleys- equipped with GPS RFiD, navigation style on board screen and infrared scanning also linked to adverts that are aisle specific. This is also to cater for a proposed 'personalised shopping' experience- The more you shop the cheaper the items.
• Self replenishing shelves
• Smart phone compatible products.
• Self check out.

So stay tuned for the next developments in high street shopping. The day is not far away when we can enter a shop, scan our smart card, pick up a trolley or basket, use our smart phones to research promotions and specials, load our basket then push it through an infrared beam which totals the sum of all products and then commence a self check out. Hang on…isn’t that what I can do online right now?

believing

A little girl was depressed growing up, feeling no one shared her thought, loved her, no vision no future-counterpoint

Someone told her 23 words...

“Every time you walk under the sun, its kissing your with its shiny love. In the rain, the tongue of opportunity licks you”

What do you believe in?

Just a thought.

Cezanne, Ferdinand Porsche , Picasso, Jackson Pollock, Michael Jackson, Mandela ,Anselm Kiefer, Ricky Gervais, Andrew Carnegie all did it. They all did it in different times, with different inspiration and they are all resulted in one outcome- Leaving a legacy far greater than all others around them at the time, even today they are selling out, causing continued controversy or further inspiration and the topic of conversation in plenty of class rooms.

When you have a chance to do something, do it with the greatest of gusto or don’t bother doing at all. The world doesn’t need more mediocrity, it doesn’t need someone else that responds day in day out ‘not bad’ to a question about how they are.

You will not leave a legacy or a story to be told some other day by putting in ‘not bad’ efforts.

No one gets in the way of a moving truck/no one will get in the way of your gusto.

something wrong with this sentence...

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Empire of dust

I was asked to speak to a young group of individuals about career choices, the future, how to get what you want and above all how to sustain your motivation for a ‘better’ tomorrow.

I started compiling a few thoughts, getting my ahead around the right angle to propose this thought process/processes when I was watching the Prime Minister discuss a few current affairs. He was talking his way out or into yet another controversy and it occurred to me that for the majority of his role as Prime Minister of a Nation he was under fire, under scrutiny and under the pump.

The challenge here was not in the 'challenge'; it lay in the ability to employ foresight. When the dust settles how will it all unfold? Being able to employ this thought process alone will liberate you, give you breathing room and allow you the confidence to deliver to the task at hand.

The Prime Minister looks over an empire of dust; the greater the ability to see what it will look like when the dust settles the greater the serving of the role.

To paraphrase my little talk touched on the following:

Most of us are good; our job NOW is to find out how good?

Success starts when you know there are only ever two outcomes; Winning/Learning.

The future is sleeping; the loudest, the most courageous, the innovators and the kindest (the list goes on) will be the only ones it will wake for.

So my little talk went something on the lines of; Yesterday is gone, tomorrow doesn’t exist (yet), and all you really have and will ever have is NOW.