Getting Hyper in Saratoga

Palio just invested a sizable amount cash and time in their people. For 3 days they took us off site and introduced us to the team at Hyper Island – the extreme sports of social media schools (based in Sweden).

This was vital to us as an organization, and ultimately a slap round the face for our industry, which has been slow and conservative in its adoption of new media. (and yes, we can all cite good reason for this behavour, but we need to call a spade a spade in this case. We’ve been shockingly slow out of the blocks.)

The facilitators from Hyper Island worked hard at taking a temperature check of attitudes towards digital media and generally there was anxiety and some cynicism (particularly in the over 30′s!!) regarding its relevance and importance.

“why do I need to hear about someone Tweeting what they had for dinner?” …said one colleague.

Check out the following clip, which was shown on the day. It had us laughing!

So …with anxiety in our minds, how could we (as an agency) find context, personal value, and a narrative for us to realize opportunities for our clients brands?

Here are my core lessons from the 3 days – which I’ll aim to advocate from now on:

1. This is the biggest societal behavoural shift since the industrial revolution – realize it:

It’s not not about Facebook, Digg, Twitter, YouTube. These are merely tools. This is a change in how we live our lives. It’s about getting up in the morning, and checking our iPhone for the weather and news, going to a class online with students in China, lobbying your politicians through Twitter, sharing photos with friends, buying due to strangers recommending goods, reputations being destroyed in an instant, personal brands etc etc etc. This is the reality. If you don’t have an answer for it – tough. Embrace it or die (not my words …the words of Hyper Island. It certainly got everyone’s attention).

2. We all need to learn to swim:

All of us (the nay sayers of social media, and even those who claim to be proficient) need to invest time in social media, and find some context within it – or as our hosts would say “find your social currency”. Everyone who works in a communications agency needs to be able to say “I’ve done it”. On a side point – it was also suggested that we do our best to leave our personal bias at the door. You, and I might not care if a Pepsi video wants us to Facebook “Like it” – but there is a tribe out there that probably does.

3. Use social media more to listen:

There is so much conversation out there. So much opinion. People are opening up their personal thoughts online whereas in the past these would stay in thought, or in a written diary. It’s so easy to follow interest groups particularly through Twitter *using hashtag #, in addition to video, forums and blogs. Within those groups, we now have visibility to who’s influencing the dialogue. All this insight – for FREE.

4. Understand the “Day in a life” of the customer we’re trying to influence

A simple exercise to turn into a habit – we mapped out the whole day of our clients customer – including what media they’re exposed to, what information they seek, and what marketing opportunities may come through. This simple exercise made most of us question the tactics our clients are churning out to the market.

5. Understanding what influences that customer to adopt a brand:

Advertising today is more about leading your customer to a brand experience via a search engine. Complicated right? The example of a mini ad was used (…damn …I wish I could remember the name of the campaign??). The aim was for the consumer to see the ad and instantly Google the headline through their mobile device - leading to an online experience -  leading to some brand interest.

6. Change how WE work. More cross functional thinking time:

We hardly ever spend time outside of the projects are clients set, to explore new ideas and possibilities. At “the Island” we were able to develop some cool suggestions in a cross functional brainstorm that with some polishing we could probably present to our clients. If it’s that easy to come up with ideas – why are we not doing this more often.

Final word:

The urgency of now. This is a shift in how we live our lives – we’ve got to understand this new world and find some personal context.

I’d encourage you to follow @yellif and @markmedia who inspired our thinking throughout our 3 days. In addition follow #himc for all the feeds linked to the Hyper Island master class (past and present).

…thanks for following

Tagged: Hyper Island, Palio, Social Media

Posted in: General, Pharma