Brand Biology - Evolution by Customer Selection

90% of startups fail, 80% of product launches are not successful and 60% of the fortune 500 companies in the 1970’s do not exist today.

Your species (brands) are dying in an alarming rates.

In face of such grim truth brands and brand managers should seek survival tools. In this article I will cover two survival tactics and strategies of those who were able to survive the wild of the markets, those who were heard among the white noise and stand out from the crowd.

“If everything seems under control, you're not going fast enough.”

― Mario Andretti

1- Survival of the fastest:

One of the reasons of extinction for brands is refusing to adapt or not adapting fast enough to new technology, even tho their markets and their customers has adapted to it.

The simple and most obvious example of that is websites adapting to mobile technology even tho:

• Google is now penalising websites that are non-mobile friendly.  

• Two-thirds of smartphone users say a mobile-friendly site makes them more likely to buy a company's product or service.
• 61% says that if they don't find what they're looking for (probably within about five seconds), they'll click away to another site.

We are still faced with the fact that 91% of small business’ websites are not optimized for mobile use.

Adapting fast to technological shifts is a key tool to a brand’s survival.

Borders didn't think they need to adapt to amazon fast. Blockbuster video didn't think that Netflix was a threat and that digital was a threat that needs to be  eliminated fast.

Borders closed all of its retail locations and sold off its customer loyalty list, comprising millions of names, to competitor Barnes & Noble for $13.9 million. Borders' locations have been purchased and re-purposed by other large retailers.

Saddled itself with over $1 billion in debt and was unable to make the transition to digital. Blockbuster filed for bankruptcy in 2010 and has been replaced by Netflix and other digital services.

Fast adaption is a survival tool as customers don't select slow brands, they let them slowly perish in a non digital world for maybe a nostalgic to revive  them in a casual conversation.

“It’s easy to predict the future, just remove the fragile elements from the present”

Nssim Taleb

2- Survival of the Antifragile:

“Fragile” if you read this word written on a box that is delivered to you, normally other words that associate with this box are handle with care,easily broken or caution.

The Oxford dictionary defines fragile as ”easily broken or damaged”.

In his book “Antifragile” Nassim Taleb asks, what is the opposite of the word fragile?

What would be written on that box if the item inside is the opposite of fragile.

Words like strong, robust and solid doesn't really mean anti-fragile. Because a fragile object is very risk sensitive where those words describe more of a risk neutral case, where the pressure or risk doesn't really harm the items yet it definitely doesn't benefit it.

If there is an antifragile item in that box the words on that box could read as please mishandle, add pressure or the item inside gains from risk. In this case the objects actually benefit from risk and pressure.

Some brands were able to find a lifeline, a cure from fragileness and a process to becoming an antifragile brand. Introduce risk in fractions so your brand can survive, this process is called 70 - 20 - 10.

Where 70% of the Brands investment is in “Now”, or established and successful programs; 20% goes to “new,” or emerging trends that are starting to gain traction; and 10% goes to “next”.

This concept can be applied to any brand’s activities where 70% of the activities are safe, familiar and cash cows, 20% of the activities are for the stars, trendy and new and finally 10% is for the risky more dangerous activities. This process seeks sustainable growth and most importantly antifragility.

 

Customers tend to abandoned fragile brands and leave them to the memory of textbooks and academic studies of worst case scenarios.

These are two branding survival tools in this series of articles. We will be unlocking more branding ecology mysteries and other survival mechanism in the coming articles.

What are some of your favorite podcasts to listen to in the morning?

An interesting question and some amazing answers here,

I second every podcast mentioned here some of the stuff mentioned I am addicted to.

so here is my list I hope I don't duplicate any of the resources already mentioned,

Inside Personal Growth

This is how they describe themselves
“Inside Personal Growth provides listeners with high quality interviews featuring leading authors in the field of personal development.”

Podcast Episode Archives - The One You Feed

I came across this podcast from Maria Popova’s brain pickings , I find the podcast both beneficial and fruitful.

the idea of the podcast comes from an ancient story that an old man was teaching his grandson and told him that inside all of us two wolfs a good one and a bad one and they are in a constant battle, so the kid asked grandad which one wins? the grandfather said the one you feed.

Writers' Bloc Podcast

Even if you are not a writer I think you can appreciate the create of writing specifically of those who create some of best selling TV series and programs.

The show describes itself as
“Writers’ Bloc is a podcast about comedy writing hosted by J.R. Havlan, an 8-time Emmy Award-winning writer for the Daily Show with Jon Stewart. “

Unmistakable Creative Podcast

Interesting in-depth conversation with some of the most talented creative minds, the podcast explore, investigate, create and enlighten about the subject of creativity and innovation.

Books and Authors

I will directly quote the description here “Featuring Open Book and A Good Read. In Open Book, Mariella Frostrup talks to leading authors about their work. A Good Read features Harriett Gilbert discussing a range of favourite titles with guests.”

92Y
92nd Street Y (92Y) is an arts, educational, cultural and community center serving people of all ages, races, faiths and backgrounds. The most recent episode was with Actress Natalie Portman

The Entrepreneurs - Radio

A tour around the startup world, Looking at the global SME’s and business world, very interesting thoughts and interviews.

Interviewing Authors with Tim Knox, Author, Talk Radio Host, Serial Entrepreneur, Small Business Expert - Interviews with bestselling authors.

Interviewing Authors is one of the Web’s premiere blog and podcast destinations that focuses on the process of creating, writing, editing, publishing, marketing, and selling an author’s work.

I am working on a list of 100 must listen to podcast.I will share it here upon completion.

feel free to reach me on Twitter : @fouad_khafaga

Familiraity breeds Creativity ( creative thought process ).

Familiarize 

Monsters of the wild and creatures of the sea adapt to the environment they live in as much as they physically can.

If they could not adapt or evolve, they go extinct. If the climate is changing, they change the immigration path, if it is too hot for them they try to move to a cooler place and vise versa.

Only humans had the creativity and aggressiveness not to adapt to the environment but use the environment and make it adapt to their needs.

Humans are able to cut through mountains, fly into the clouds, dive into the deep of the ocean not because they are the strongest or the most skilled, but because of their ability to familiarize themselves with the most abstract and most challenging situations their environment has to offer.

So how does one adapt? This technique is used by magicians, stand-up comedians, painters and different artist of all kinds.

Magicians are the masters of using this technique; it is the only way they function. From weird character concepts to magicians who cut people in half and artists who disappear in less than 30 seconds while they were chained in a pool cage filled with water.

Just to illustrate how early the magician’s circles adapted the concept of familirisim, here is a story from ancient times.

 In ancient Egypt, there was a magician called Dedi and the story goes as follows:

According to the Westcar Papyrus, prince Djedefhor brings up the story of Dedi.

He stands before his father, king Khufu, and says: “There are only tales of miracles which happened a long time ago, something known by past generations. Truth and falsehood cannot be distinguished here.

 But there is someone under thy majesty´s own lifetime who is not known, someone who is able to make a ignoramus become wise".

 Khufu asks: “What's the meaning of this, Djedefhor, my son?” Djedefhor answers: “There's a commoner named Dedi, living in Djed-Sneferu.

 He's a simple citizen, but 110 years old, eats 500 loaves of bread, a shoulder of beef and drinks 100 jars of beer every day. He is capable of resurrecting decapitated beings. He is also said to be able to make wild lions so obedient that the animal would follow him with a cord dragging on the ground. Furthermore, this Dedi has the knowledge of the number of I put in the wenet-sanctuary of Thoth.”

The pharaoh spent a good deal of time seeking for these chambers, planning to build something similar to his horizon. And Khufu orders: “You thyself, Djedefhor, my son, may bring him to me!”

Even in that very early start of humanity the magician was painted in a more of a mythical figure. He does not eat , drink or live in a normal manner and this lifestyle made him able to perform bizarre and abnormal actions. In other words the magician was able to familiarize himself with unfamiliar surroundings.

A great modern example of how we as a species are able to familiarize ourselves with the environment with disregard to how abstract the object in question is, would be the modern technical field of IOT. 

The Internet of Things (IoT) is an environment in which objects, animals or people are provided with unique identifiers and the ability to transfer data over a network without requiring human-to-human or human-to-computer interaction.

 IOT has evolved from the convergence of wireless technologies, micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) as well as the Internet. The concept may also be referred to as the Internet of Everything.

It is the network of physical objects or "things" embedded with electronics, software, sensors, and network connectivity, which enables these objects to collect and exchange data. The following examples are to elaborate on the implementation of such a concept in real life and how we are again using our creativity to familiarize our environment;

Smart Cities

Smart Parking: Monitoring of parking spaces availability in the city.

Structural health: Monitoring of vibrations and material conditions in buildings, bridges and historical monuments.

Smart Roads: Intelligent Highways with warning messages and diversions according to climate conditions and unexpected events like accidents or traffic jams.

Smart Environment

Forest Fire Detection: Monitoring of combustion gases and preemptive fire conditions to define alert zones.

Snow Level Monitoring: Snow level measurement to know in real time the quality of ski tracks and allow security corps avalanche prevention.

Earthquake Early Detection: Distributed control in specific places of tremors.

Smart Water

Potable water monitoring: Monitor the quality of tap water in cities.

Chemical leakage detection in rivers: Detect leakages and wastes of factories in rivers.

Pollution levels in the sea: Control real time leakages and wastes in the sea.

This concept as shown above can be used in a variety of fields by listing the field , the topic , the story , the character or the industry on one side of the table and create a list of 10 unfamiliar tools, things , approach on the other side of the table. By matching, eliminating or just brainstorming a process with the creative team.

Some Final thoughts

According to Dr. Yuval Harari, there were three major revolutions in the history of mankind; a cognitive revolution, an agriculture revolution and a scientific revolution. It is of no coincidence that the three revolutions are made by the capacity of the human brain to both innovate and create. Creativity is a unique feature of our race.

 For far too long the human mind was lost in the woods of ignorance until the mind have let the light of innovation guide us through this dark forest. Innovation skills and techniques are observed in all the aspects of our lives from business to parenting, from survival to discovery and in both creating and destructing.

This book offers a crack to the code of innovation through experimenting some case studies and examples. Yet creativity in itself is just a tool that should guide to an ultimate goal. Just being different doesn’t mean it is useful, just being innovative doesn’t grantee success. The tools that are offered in this book should be used as youtility built that is making the process of reaching a specific goal easier, faster and overall more efficient.

This small E-book should be my personal guide to create another book under the same title both longer in length and deeper into the code of innovation.

So if you’re reading this and have any ideas, feedback or thoughts on what would you like to read in the next edition of the book feel free to contact me and send your thoughts.

twitter : @fouad_khafaga