It's Always Harder than it Looks

Car-pooling has always been virtuous thing to do. It's always harder than it looks. It's really hard to find a compatible group that synchs up on the basics like starting location, time to go, destination location, and time to return, much less the finer, but just as important issues like what radio station to listen to.

Travel Convergence thinks they have the answer with their patented system (in New Zealand for sure and pending elsewhere). Apparently their pitching the system as a solution to New York's traffic problems at Less Cars In NY. They whole system seems quite well thought out. Ann Arbor is probably too small to implement a system like this, but you never know.

Location. Location. Location

The LA Times reports (free registration required) how Google maps are finding their way to gas pumps in a deal with Gilbarco Veeder-Root. It's only one small deal in among many in the emerging local search space, but it reminded me of something I learned as an eCommerce consultant in the late '90's.

When I worked at AppNet, I had the honor of working with John Cross, former CIO of then British Petroleum (now just BP). He was such a fine gentleman to work with. He pointed out that one of BP's biggest assets was its real-estate. If I recall correctly, at the time (around 1997), both BP and Shell each had more locations than MacDonalds, something like 20,000 to 30,000 stores each. As they began to see themselves as more than an oil company, they took advantage of their real estate to add retail outlets where you could buy high-margin "stuff" like pop, candy and other little necessities of life. If handled well, they could make more profit on the retail than at the pump.

Now they're equally in a position to leverage local search to their advantage. This assumes people figure out how to monetize local search adequately, mind you.

The importance of Story

One of the things NT Wright drove home for me is the importance of story in ancient culture. If you don't understand the general cultural stories people told about their lives, who they were, what the problems were and what the desired solutions would be, you're likely to mis-read an ancient book like the Bible. It is a story, told to people for whom story was a primary means of communication, entertainment and value sharing.

Today is no different, but instead of sharing stories personally we rely on mass communication for our stories. I wonder if we really understand the significance of this shift. Now, instead of telling "our" stories, we're left with others stories, conceived of in "Hollywood" (for lack of a better generalization), and co-opted as our own. Indeed, Hollywood is a powerful story teller as witnessed by the profound influence Western culture has on the rest of the world.

It's not just Hollywood, though. Brands tell a story, too. Listen to Max Kalehoff, vice president of marketing for Nielsen BuzzMetrics, talk about a recent study in Online Spin: We’re All Suckers For Narratives:

When people ask me what is my secret sauce, my answer is simple: it’s the ability to probe deep and elicit the essence of who you are, and to extract key stories that passionately demonstrate relevance, mission and a human connection to our world. While great brands are the result of many things — particularly all the factors that deliver great experience over and over and over again — it’s the presence of compelling, authentic stories that determine high resonance in our minds. Face it, we’re human and we’re suckers for narratives.

But it’s more than my gut that supports this notion. According to a three-year study by the Advertising Research Foundation and the American Association of Advertising Agencies, ads that tell a branding story work better than ads that focus on product positioning. As reported by Brandweek, 33 television ads across 12 categories were analyzed by 14 emotion and physiological research firms, with tools that included testing heart rate and skin conductance to brain diagnostics. Reported Brandweek: “The report contends that in many ways, advertising is stuck in the past. The 20th century was dominated by a one-way transactional focus where ads were pushed at consumers. Today, consumers interact with ads to ‘co-create’ meaning that is powered by emotion and rich narrative.”

He goes on to say, "But the most valuable takeaway is at the core brand level — specifically, how our minds are hardwired to embrace narratives and distill meaning with emotional force."