Do I have to be coherent?
You can choose not to pursue the path of coherence. Of course, you’ll invest more in making mistakes, you’ll have to work harder to cover your “untruths” and to clear up misperceptions. It will take more time to un-learn and re-teach. You’ll have a longer road to building trust.
But no, you don’t have to be coherent. It’s just much easier to be coherent once you’ve taken the journey.
Let me know if you need names of those who have elected not to be.
-Rick Bailey is the principal and founder of Richard Harrison Bailey/The Agency and author of Coherence: How Telling the Truth Will Advance Your Cause (and Save the World). Follow him on Twitter @RichardHBailey.
You’re working like crazy to be authentic. You’re telling the truth at every corner. So how do you know if you’re on the right track?
A great way to know if you’re being coherent will be the evidence you see in progress toward your goals. Are you achieving results for annual giving? How do your enrollment numbers look? Do your students stay to graduate? Are your alumni returning to campus for events? What indications of “love” are you able to measure?
Watching these analytics will indicate you are well on your way; but also start to watch for these telltale signs that your efforts are taking hold:
Working toward coherence is intensive. We’ve had a great time of late working with our clients on this important journey of self-discovery and truth telling. “Working” is the apt word; it’s a tough go for some, but so worth it.
-Rick Bailey is the principal and founder of Richard Harrison Bailey/The Agency and author of Coherence: How Telling the Truth Will Advance Your Cause (and Save the World). Follow him on Twitter @RichardHBailey.
Over the past few weeks, much has been written about everyone’s favorite photo service, Instagram. The “Twitter for photos,” as it’s now being described, expanded to the Android platform on April 3rd, causing controversy amongst its iPhone-loyal user base. A few days later, it was announced that they had been acquired by Facebook for $1 billion. Or if you hang out with lots of “hip” iPhone wielding Apple loyalists*, Instagram sold out twice in one week.
To the iPhone loyalists, Android users aren’t artistic enough to understand how to use Instagram. The cameras on their phones aren’t up to the quality of their Apple counterparts. They aren’t inherently interesting enough to take beautiful photos. The expansion of Instagram reminds them of a beloved indie band signing with a big record label. But did Instagram “sell out?”
Instagram did what they had to in order to further their product. While they were expanding rapidly on the iPhone platform, porting to Android has the potential to more than double their user base. In the six days after releasing the Android app, Instagram added 5 million users. Every day, 5 million photos are taken with the app. While this photo activity is only 1.67% of the photo activity on Facebook, this kind of exponential growth scared them into acquiring the niche photo service.
As Facebook approaches their IPO, they are releasing more and more information about their users and their actions. Yesterday, Facebook released some numbers that are nothing short of staggering. Currently boasting 901 million users, Facebook is on pace to top the 1 billion mark later this year. If the social network were a country, it would be the third most populous nation behind only China and India. Later this year, when it hits the 1 billion mark, an estimated 14% of the world’s population will have a Facebook account. A network this vast really is the ultimate tool for scalability of any product or company, and affords insight into Instagram’s motivation.
“Selling out” to Android was a business decision to expand a company’s market share at the risk of alienating its core group of consumers. But what does Instagram really owe to this core group? By expanding to Android, they realized their massive potential and scared a “competitor” into acquiring them.
And really, how many people in the iPhone Instagram community wouldn’t have accepted $1 billion and employment at Facebook?**
*Disclaimer: I am one of these people.
**I would have.
-Ryan Bahniuk is the Digital Media Specialist at Richard Harrison Bailey/The Agency and curator of this blog. Follow him on Twitter @ryanbahniuk.
Fifteen years or so ago, Jean-Marie Dru of TBWA introduced us all to his notion of disruption—the art and science of change to generate results. It’s a great concept, to be sure, but it’s getting out of hand. We’re infatuated with new, different and change. Disruption is over-hashed. Disruption has become an end to itself.
Disruption isn’t the goal. Great is the goal.
I wish I had a dollar for each time I’ve heard, “We want to do something really different.” I wish instead I heard, “We want to do something really great; we want to do something that really solves a problem.” Better yet, I wish I heard, “We want to do something really meaningful.”
In an effort to stand out from the crowd (of people or things), it’s important to find a point of distinction. That’s how brands are formed, by significant differentiation. If your focus is on meeting needs, finding new solutions, and creating meaning, your efforts may yield disruption. If you’ve got an offer that’s outstanding or you’ve created something wonderful, it likely will be disruptive of the attention-getting sort.
But be sure of your motives. Not all of your customers will welcome change. Disruption for the sake of disruption isn’t coherent.
-Rick Bailey is the principal and founder of Richard Harrison Bailey/The Agency and author of Coherence: How Telling the Truth Will Advance Your Cause (and Save the World). Follow him on Twitter @RichardHBailey.
A funny thing happened to this blog on February 1st; our traffic increased almost 380% from the previous day.
That day, Sam wrote a post explaining why model, aspiring chef and burgeoning celebrity Chrissy Teigen is a “Twitter superstar.” While the success of this article can in part be attributed to the quality of the writing, there is a reason that this post exploded.
Simply put, this post exploded because Chrissy retweeted it. As Sam described in his article, Chrissy’s audience is incredibly diverse and active on Twitter. This is a great combination for the perpetuation of a link. Viral is an annoyingly overused word, but this was our blog’s first experience with virality.
But was this traffic relevant? Our blog’s intended audience is at the intersection of higher education and marketing. The topic of that post—how to best utilize Twitter—has some crossover appeal. But, other than an immediate spike in traffic to our site, these extra visitors probably would not find the rest of our material interesting.
If we define a blog’s value by how many visitors return to continually read, this post provided no long-term value. Nevertheless, it was an interesting post that engaged conversation, and in the end isn’t that the point?
I am a subscriber to the “any traffic is good traffic” method of thinking, as long as you avoid whoring yourself out for Internet fame. While similar to the “any press is good press” adage, traffic is a more linear and specific term. You either have it or you don’t. And for a brief day in February, our blog had it. Here is a summary of a few (super-geeky) stats from February 1st thru the 11th:
While most of these visitors will probably never return to our blog to read another article, they really just added attention to our already fairly stable reader base. If Chrissy had not RTed our post, the “goals” of the blog would have still been met and we would have still had this readership. There really is nothing wrong with that. But, curating a blog is way more fun when you have the kind of traffic that we had February 1st.
-Ryan Bahniuk is the Digital Media Specialist at Richard Harrison Bailey/The Agency and curator of this blog. Follow him on Twitter @ryanbahniuk.
I’ve said it before: telling the truth gives confidence.
Every time I see that Chipotle animated spot—and I saw it again during the Grammys—I love Chipotle all the more. Yeah, I’m hooked on those chicken burrito bowls, but I’m talking about loving the company. That ad is one bold statement and it defines their brand as well as their values. They know who they are and aren’t afraid to tell you.
I almost get choked up when I watch that spot. Willie Nelson’s singing plays on my emotions to be sure, but there’s a great story in those 130 seconds. I especially love the moment, about the 1:12 mark into the story, when the farmer has an “aha” moment—that thoughtful moment when he sees that what he’s done is incoherent with who he is. When he knows that his actions don’t align with his values. And he changes course in the direction of coherence. He decides to “get back to the start.”
This month’s Fast Company includes Chipotle in their list of the world’s 50 most innovative companies (Chipotle is 34). FC recognizes Chipotle for changing the rules of fast food, especially when it comes to marketing. I love this line from Chipotle’s CMO Mark Crumpacker:
“Typically, fast-food marketing is a game of trying to obscure the truth. The more people know about most fast-food companies, the less likely they’d want to be a customer.”
Spot on.
So rather than trying to cover up their offerings, Chipotle ensures that their food is fresh, local and sustainable as possible, and as free from chemicals as it can be. I’ve been there. Many times. I’ve watched them chop. It is fresh.
Their ad speaks well to their distinctiveness: Food with integrity.
That integrity finds expression in the associations Chipotle makes, the causes they support, the events they sponsor and the relationships they create. Chipotle has selected a great partner to help them; CAA does beautiful work. Apparently, Chipotle gives them a long leash. “They’re open to try anything because they inherently want to change the food culture,” says CAA’s Mark Shambura. Chipotle is living their values. Chipotle is being coherent.
Coherence gives you freedom.
What if more colleges and universities were willing to align their “products” with their own values in a way that made each school truly distinctive? What if each college chose to create programs and deliverables that reflected who they really were? What if every university had the courage to stand apart, to change the rules? What if every institution chose the route of coherence? Those who choose that path enjoy the freedom to be courageous; and love being true to themselves.
P.S. While you are reading Fast Company, check out the story about Chobani on page 136. The last paragraph rocks.
-Rick Bailey is the principal and founder of Richard Harrison Bailey/The Agency and author of Coherence: How Telling the Truth Will Advance Your Cause (and Save the World). Follow him on Twitter @RichardHBailey.
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