Escrito por Suzana Ourique el 28 de Noviembre 2008

Last Tuesday, the 26th of November, I went to Ficod, the International Foro of Digital Content in Madrid, and one of the conferences that most called my attention was Kevin Roberts‘. He is the CEO of Saatchi&Saatchi, and he talked about emotional connection with the consumers in the screen age. I know this is something that can be considered basic for professionals like publicists, but since people that went to the Foro had all kinds of backgrounds, it was really nice to listen to so many motivating ideas. He really knows how to motivate and inspire people, and I had a good time listening to what he said. I will try to put the highlights of what he mentioned there on that day, so we can all pick up something and use for our own lives and daily routines.

He says that, as human beings, we are 80% emotional and 20% rational. And we have to take advantage of this emotional side and use it in everything we do. Why are the virtual communities like MySpace, Tuenti, Facebook, and many others, a great success? Because they’re based on emotions. You have your friends there, your pictures, your interests, it’s your virtual piece, a way of people getting to know you and what you enjoy doing.

Since we are in the digital age, and we don’t know much about it (we are continuously learning in this field), it’s time for innovation, for experimentation. In times of crisis, and with the great use of internet, soon it’s going to be more expensive to use the traditional media. So he says that we should forget about planning too much, forget about strategies, and simply take the risk, use the creativity, the courage, the talent and innovate. People should be able to fail fast, learn fast and fix fast. And also do the following changes:

• From information society to attraction society
• Instead of inform - inspire
• Less reason - more emotion
• Don’t interrupt - engage
• Don’t be reactive - be interactive
• From one to many - to many to one
• Instead of return on investment - return on involvement
• From market at - to connect with
• And above all: loyalty beyond reason

Some ideas to have in mind:

1. Dream big. Have a dream. Not a dream of surviving, more than that.
2. Aspire to lovemarks. Would you like your brand to be liked, respected and loved? If it is loved and respected, it will be remembered, it will be a mark. That’s the difference between a brand and a lovemark. A lovemark is owned by people, it has its mystery, its sensuality and its intimacy. Love and respect are basics, all relationships start with this, otherwise you have a transaction.
3. Nothing is irreplaceable. So try to change from being irreplaceable to being irresistible.
4. Learn from TV, which is the biggest media in the world. It’s also part of the family of the screens, and it is always innovation in design, high definition and superior technology.
5. We live in the age of idea. Consumers will choose what they want to consume. At the same time they are co-partners in the process of building new ideas.