Adventures in Media

I was just made aware of Oracle’s Iron Man 2 campaign page. Having been a part of the team that conceived of, and did most of the work on the original Iron Man campaign, I was interested to see how the relationship with Marvel was playing out. Its great to see Oracle Marketing keep the Marvel partnership going (even though they had to be dragged, kicking and screaming, into the partnership in the first place).

Oracle Iron Man 2 Campaign Page

The first thing we see on the page is the branding message, followed by too much text. The branding message is repeated in an edited version of the trailer that also appears on the page. To me, juxtaposing “Man. Machine. Hero.” against “Software. Hardware. Complete.” is just too obvious and blunt. I feel insulted, or at least, like I’m being subjected to a hard sell. There is just no subtlety, no room for creative interpretation, no room for thought. By contrast, the slogan we came up with for the first campaign, “Hardware by Marvel. Software by Oracle.” was more subtle and interesting as it implied linkages at multiple levels and made you think a bit.

There is a “Master Cloud Operative” game on the page. The button launches a Flash interactive experience. The Flash content is very pretty, and its a great idea to key off the Stark Expo theme, and create a learning game. The initial startup looked great. The progress indicator, made out of a 3D arc reactor that you could move around was cool. The wide shot coming into the room was cool (with the people sitting at virtual consoles at the sides.) The big Exadata racks felt a little cheesy — why not arrange them in a more dignified pattern, like the machine room we made in Episode 1? But all is good because the thing overall looks pretty slick. Unfortunately, when we get to the video screen, the experience starts to break down, and the lack of depth and polish becomes distracting.

It doesn’t seem like much thought or care went into how the game itself imparts information, and what it teaches the participant. For example, there is little to no introductory information given, you have to ‘fail’ on one of the questions to reach a teachable moment. Many of the questions are “All of the above” — and easily guessable, so the opportunity for learning is lost. Think: What is Oracle’s unique contribution to the field of cloud computing? Did the presentation leave the participant with a solid sense of what Oracle can uniquely offer here?

Along another dimension, the MCO game was not a particularly pleasant gaming experience — I felt kind of like a trained monkey being led through the steps. Nor is it a great training experience — I managed to get through all the questions without being exposed to a single bit of training material.

And, where was the demo? Don’t we actually have an Enterprise Manager page that lets us control the cloud? Why not show that, instead of making me click on a bunch of fake stuff?

From a media perspective, a lot of the Flash elements were really nice looking, I especially liked the way the floating panels would tilt and track the mouse — gave it a very interactive feel. But there were also a number of really distracting elements. The actress is clearly reading from a teleprompter, which is super unnerving. The whole ‘cyber voice’ thing feels kind of unmotivated — is she human? Is she a robot? Why? In the future can we not afford a good audio and video feed? The script spends a lot of time on theme, but not much time actually imparting key marketing messages.

For me, the moral is that its not enough for someone in marketing to come up with a cool idea, and throw it over the fence to a creative firm. You need a crack internal team fully engaged from beginning to end, skilled across multiple facets (product messaging, demonstrations, technical content, training, media production, creative management) to produce something that works on all levels. That’s the kind of capability that we had built up over the last few years.

Here’s a little story I made up, distilled from my 10+ years in a sales organization:

“Yes, indeed, there is such a thing as a free lunch!” thought Joe as he piled the chicken salad onto a plate. These free presentations were his little indulgence — a welcome break from endless project meetings, impatient users and temperamental servers. The presenter wore a red power-tie. His words were carefully chosen like cut and polished diamonds that sparkled and mesmerized everyone in the room. The 3D animations distilled the concepts into simple metaphors, and video clips of credible people proved the truth of the message. The speaker was a master. The crowd seemed happy as it left. Back at the office, Joe ran into Jenny: “So, how was the seminar?” Joe replied, “Oh, very well done; great speaker.” Jenny asked: “Cool, what was it about, anyway?” Tom replied, “It was all about their software, I think… there was a lot to digest. Its hard to explain exactly… Hmmm, I can’t seem to remember what it actually does. Its probably too expensive for us anyway.”

Effective presentations are more than just slick graphics, good food and expert speakers. What you need is for your ideas to “stick”. You want to create that moment of insight that causes your audience to see a new truth, and thereby change the way they think and act.

Made to Stick is a book that explores the characteristics of “sticky ideas”, and explains why some ideas survive while others die out. What is a “sticky idea”? The authors start out with one of the most successful urban legends ever: the kidney heist. Do you remember the main points? The drugged drink? The bathtub full of ice? The cell phone and instructions to call 911? Most people do. A gruesome, but sticky, idea.

With lots of examples and stories, the authors identify 6 characteristics of sticky ideas:

1. Simplicity: The idea must be stripped to its bare essence; if you try to say too many things, you say nothing. Also, “don’t bury the lead”, in other words, start out with the most important concepts first.
2. Unexpectedness: The idea must tear-down resistance and preconceptions, readying people to accept a new paradigm.
3. Concreteness: You must avoid corporate-speak and domain-specific jargon and bring in real examples, real people, even props to help people understand the idea in a visceral way.
4. Credibility: Provide a reference point for believability: an expert or someone who has been through an experience, or someone who represents the viewpoint of the audience.
5. Emotional: Information makes people think, but emotion makes them act. Appeal to emotional needs, sometimes even way up on Maslow’s hierarchy.
6. Stores: There is something in the way our brains are wired that allows us to remember a story, and forget facts and figures.

All throughout, the authors use stories to drive home their points, and even do several message makeovers that show how to take an inaccessible message and make it stickier. Beyond business, this book applies to education, religion, charitable causes, and any area where people need to communicate ideas. And, the authors do a good job of practicing what they preach: for each of the 6 characteristics, I can remember at least one story from the book that illustrates the point. The end of the book contains a summary of all the principles for those of us too lazy to take notes. All-in-all, one of the best books I’ve read in a while.