You’re sitting on the train, listlessly scrolling through Linked In, trying not to make physical contact with the person next to you spilling into your side of the seat. Is that…? Is that…? What is that stuff on his knee? No! Don’t look at it! Don’t look at him! You are unfazed. You are a professional. You have headphones and the internet.
Scroll, scroll.
Meh.
Scroll.
Meh, again.
How is it this has 5000 likes? How?
…
I like what I do. Most of the time.
I hope you like what you do. (Most of the time.)
But, do you ever get the feeling, reading through industry articles, that—oh, I don’t know—most quite a lot some of what you’re reading is unsubstantiated, un-researched, rehashed, you know… wank?
From the outside, nearly all industry (Pick an industry, any industry…) jargon sounds like complete nonsense. Now, jargon has a purpose—if you know the lingo, it has specific meaning. Most of it, that is…
Well, opinion varies.
Is it just this kind of corporate content-y, market-y kind of thing?
…
Yeah, so, we wanted to develop a vibe that we could apply to our campaign, right? So we took a box of the product, and we all went to a darkened room and had a workshop. Right? We passed around the product in the dark and, while fondling it, took turns shouting out which type of Tim Tam it reminded us of.
Then we had a hug. And then we cried.
We billed the client for $69,000, and told them that they really needed to pitch their language at their target market. You know, the people they actually wanted to sell it to. Those that would be likely to buy it. Those for whom it would most meet a core need.
We boiled it all down to one word:
Frugsnuffle.
Look, I didn’t say it was a real word, but we—collectively—agreed that the imagery it evoked, and, you know… the mouth feel, were representative of the product’s vitality… Like, don’t you just want to cuddle it?
We even printed signs, so throughout their work day, the designers and the developers could keep asking themselves: Does this frugsnuffle?
The CEO nodded sagely and took a sign back for his office too. The whole board salute it at 8am every day.
Projected sales are through the roof. They’re going to sell way more than any of those products they haven’t started selling yet.
…
And we’re back… Look, I know this stuff is part art, part science… But couldn’t we start bringing a bit more science into it? Evidence-based, real user experience enhancements?
…
Oh, and on a completely unrelated note, NBN co has just spent 700,000 dollars on a rebranding exercise. Now they’re just called NBN.
I think they should have gone with ‘Frugsnuffle’.
