Just Can’t Get Enough
Saturday, 11 June 2011 - Oxfordshire, England
Presentation Summary
Presenting to the Institute of Development Professionals in Education in Oxfordshire, Kevin Roberts presents three ideas on creating Loyalty Beyond Reason and creating frameworks for development discussions.
We live in a VUCA world: Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous – which goes to the heart of schools development.
Every day you’re up against hot competition and cold austerity, invisible alumni, Whitehall’s whims and trims, turf wars and tax traps, all while the rich get richer. The world’s millionaire households now have $47.4 trillion in investible wealth.
Wildcatting capital is hard yards, unless you start with the answer and work back. And the answer is people, understanding not what your audience is doing or saying, but knowing how it’s really feeling.
It’s a total reframe of VUCA for your audience, pulsing the school so it feels Vibrant, Unreal, Crazy and Astounding.
I’m going to share three ideas to help you create Loyalty Beyond Reason for your schools, and create a framework for your development discussions.
Idea #1: DELIVER REAL ROI
Philosopher Daniel Dennett said it was an occupational hazard to be asked the meaning of life, so he devised this: “the meaning of happiness is to find something bigger than yourself, and then dedicate your life to it.”
The world’s great brands are purpose-inspired, benefit-driven, answering a priceless question: How will you improve my life? And the answer doesn’t lie in attempting to deliver a return on investment.
The right ROI is return on involvement, and getting involvement is all about pumping emotion, stoking the passions of alumni and relatives, sponsors and companies, in deeply personal ways.
Emotional involvement is the lightning rod for success in a VUCA world. Think about:
- School as a life-long romance
- Partnerships based on chemistry, not math
- Giving alumni and sponsors not what they want, but what they never dreamed possible
- Connecting people so that ideas flow between them. You don’t need all the ideas yourself. Steve Jobs: “Innovation is just connecting stuff”.
How is it that video games are a $50bn a year industry, and one third of UK adults play? It plumbs true desire. Adventure, fun, rewards, disproportionate feedback and best of all, permission to misbehave!!
School is life’s launch pad, ripe for returns. Reason leads to conclusions; emotion leads to action.
Real involvement is worlds beyond “like”:
- Brands are owned by management, marketers and stockholders. Lovemarks are owned by the people who love them.
- Brands are built on Respect. Lovemarks are created out of Respect and Love.
- Brands build Loyalty for a Reason. Lovemarks inspire Loyalty Beyond Reason. Beyond Attribute, Benefit. Loyalty Beyond Recession.
- Great Brands were Irreplaceable. Lovemarks are Irresistible. Ask: am I making our school irreplaceable – or irresistible?
Degrees of involvement with a school cuts four ways:
- Low Respect. Low Love. Raw materials to raw results. Commodities, bullying, cheating and illiteracy, unfair access. In transport, US airlines.
- High Love. Low Respect. The creative zone of “NEW” and “GONE”. From mobile ringtones and lunch debates to Whitehall’s latest brain leak.
- High Respect. Low Love. Land of “e-r” words, better, brighter, faster. Where brands wage wars around performance, respect and trust.
- High Love and High Respect. Lovemarks, communities pulsing with dreams and emotions, filled with big ideas and little surprises.
There are 3 secrets to intensifying involvement:
Mystery: Taps into Dreams; Past / Present / Future; Icons and Symbols; Great stories. It’s what we don’t know that matters.
Sensuality: Touch / Scent / Vision / Sound / Taste. Exciting the five senses is an accelerator of lasting relationships. Just look at school Open Days.
Intimacy: is empathy, commitment, passion, so important for schools development. A community of contribution happens through friendship, person to person, gesture by gesture, moment by moment.
Create a sense of intimate family through shared sayings, feelings, belongings, doings. 4 keys to attracting quality students, staff and sponsors:
- Responsibility
- Learning
- Recognition
- Joy
Idea #2: CONNECT IN THE NOW
Word of mouth is now at warp speed in an age when we are all screenagers, and when you can take a course on your iPhone.
In this 24 Forever world, New is dead. Speed matters. The Age of Now is here. Now is the only operational framework. Always on, but more than that. Living in the moment, a place that’s more exciting and joyful than the regrets of yesterday and fears of tomorrow.
70% of the happiness of your advocates, disciples and champions is in the Now, so you must go there.
| ERA OF NEW | AGE OF NOW |
| Attention | Participation |
| Inform | Inspire |
| Interruption | Interaction |
| Market | Movement |
The Screen Age runs on sisomo, sight, sound and motion lit with emotion. The opportunity is to involve and get people surging around your brand. Hot stuff:
- Togetherville – a social network built on top of Facebook for kids, families, and teachers lets them express their thoughts on education. 90,000+ U.S. schools in its database.
- IBM’s Serious Games – CityOne app designed for business leaders, city planners, and government agencies to solve real-world problems. Innov8 lets students, around the world, practice running virtual businesses.
- Intel’s The Museum of Me app – gathers all the data from a Facebook profile and presents it in a museum context, along with soundtrack. The story of you!
Only three questions matter:
- Do I want to experience it again?
- Do I want to share it?
- Do I want to improve it?
Idea #3: HIT OVERDRIVE
In the Age of Now, promoters need to move with the moment. Live in a state of perpetual motion. Act now and beg for forgiveness later.
Make 100 day plans. It’s as far out as you can see!
Don’t spend all your efforts trying to come up with the perfect development plan. Fail fast, learn fast, fix fast.
“Winning isn’t the only thing, but wanting to win is.”
– Vince Lombardi
The switch to flip is from getting things done to making things happen.
You can:
- Cross off the ‘to dos’ OR Set ambitious goals
- Reply to email OR Start a movement
- Repeat what you heard OR Change perceptions
- Go with the flow OR Forge a new path
- Anticipate roadblocks OR Create possibilities
Three Es to Sum Up:
- Enthuse: Be an irresistible force of nature.
- Engage: Involvement comes through emotions, inspiring, sensory and personal invitations to participate in what matters.
- Execute: The killer app! Make things happen.
