New home

Infectuous Ideas moved to tumblr.

T-Mobile & Merton the piano improv guy - Welcome Back Video

Great ad campaigns

Advertising Agency: Del Campo Nazca Saatchi & Saatchi, Argentina

The formula for success: Start with why

Have you ever heard of Ernest Schackleton? He was an anglo-irish explorer famous for an expedition he took on the ship Endurance. This expedition is so legendary because the Endurance was stranded in the Antartic for nearly two years, and no one died. You can find loads of articles all over the web about Shackleton's extraordinary leadership skills and how these contributed to these 27 men successfully braving the 22 months in the Antartica Ice when the Endurance was trapped and crushed in the ice. However, one of the most fascinating things about this story was exactly how these 27 men were recruited. Shackleton was so great by being a true leader who put his men's weel-being, both mental and physical, above all else. But was really did set Shackleton apart as a true great leader started with his selection of the Endurance crew. How did he hire the crew? Like most companies out there still do today. He placed an ad on a newspaper. And what do we usually say when we take out job ad on a newspaper or on a website? We say what we are looking for, correct? The typical job ad usually says something like this: Account Manager needed. Required skills? Minimum 5 years experience in account management. Must speak 3 languages. Come work for a fantastic company. 

Here's the job ad Schackleton posted:

Noticed any difference? Brutally honest,right? The only people who applied for the job were the people who believed in what Shackleton believed.They were people who loved adventure and insurmountable odds. Bottom line: they were survivors just like Shackleton. And this was the reason the expedition ended being a success and why they all managed to survive in the Antartic Ice for so long. I wrote this here before. Simon Sinek's inspiring message Start with why explains clearly that it's not what you do that matters.It's why you do it. This is the formula for success, no matter who you are and what you do. Shackleton knew that his goal wasn't to hire people who needed a job. He knew that he needed to hire people who believed in his cause, and who would work for him with blood, sweat and tears because they loved adventure and challenging insurmountable odds. Honour and recognition in case of success was their reason for doing this expedition. If Schackleton had hired his crew based only on their skills and experience, and only on the fact that they could do the job, probably his expedition would have had a different ending. I heard about this story for the first time in another inspiring keynote presented by Simon Sinek and thought it was really worth sharing. 

A Branding nightmare

China: The Land where fake brands reign supreme

The death of traditional resumes

The World has changed. Everything has changed. Why? Because the Social media revolution has changed the way we live our lives, the way we connect with other people and even the way brands conduct their business. Many brands out there have already understood that the game changed and therefore are moving their marketing efforts from traditional media like T.V and radio to online tools waiting to share content and build communities. Now it's all about building a community and establishing a relationship with your community. At least this should be the path. Despite this change, most brands out there still use traditional methods to recruit staff. They might post something on their facebook or twitter page saying they are hiring staff, but they still expect you to send them a nice cover letter explaining why you should be hired, and your resume. Why does this still happen?


Personally, I believe resumes suck. I hate reading resumes and I hate writing resumes. When I was a graduate student I was told "to get a job you should write a resume or a curriculum vitae describing your educational background, your work experience and your skills."  I was told, and you probably as well, that this is the first step for you to get a job. Then start bombarding 50 to 100 companies per day and if you're lucky at least 10 of them will call you for a job interview and soon you'll probably have a new job. This worked in the past. But it's over. It doesn't work any more. The game changed. 


If you think about it...a resume as it is traditionally defined is just an excuse to reject you or me. Once you send a .pdf listing a bunch of facts like where you studied or where you worked and what you did, whoever is reading your resume is probably thinking "well...they're missing this or they're missing that". That person will probably be looking for specific keywords and then boom, you're out because relevant keywords were missing. If the HR department of that company you just applied for is polite and has time they might even send you a nice e-mail saying you're out, but most companies out there will just ignore you. I totally agree with the legendary Gary Vaynerchuk when he once said: 


"Developing your personal brand is the same thing as living and breathing your resume every second that you're working. Your latest tweet and comment on Facebook and most recent blog post? That's your resume now."


Gary is absolutely right! I believe that in the future people will get jobs based on their desire to succeed and not on their qualifications (the past) as we still see right now. Traditional resumes are dead, or at least they will be soon. 

The law of two-thirds by Simon Sinek

When you go to college you’re told you can have good grades, a good social life or sleep – pick two.  Business is no different.  Almost everything we buy can be boiled down to quality, speed or price – pick two. A Rolls Royce, for example, is made from the finest materials and costs a lot of money.  But they take a long time to make.  A Toyota Camry, in contrast, is fast and cheap and though the quality is good, it’s not the best.


Energy consumption is governed by the same principle.  Choosing oil as our primary source for energy – we decided we wanted our energy cheap and readily available – but the damage it does to the environment is the compromise.  In contrast, clean energy is less damaging to the environment but, depending on the source you choose, it can be slow to collect or expensive to deliver.  You can have two out of three, but not all three. 

Our economy is the same.  The way we judge and manage our public companies is often based on quarterly results (speed) and large returns (money) but to achieve that, the long term stability of our public companies and our economy (quality) constantly seems at risk as a result. The rich and fast choice we made during the dot-com era weakened the foundation of the economy that resulted in a stock-market crash. The rich and fast mentality of the housing bubble and the sales of mortgage backed securities produced the same result.  As did the boom before every bust in history.  In contrast, companies that choose the combination of money and quality, like Warren Buffet’s Berkshire-Hathaway, offer good results and long-term success, but few get-rich-quick opportunities. Two out of three.

The two-thirds compromise is so remarkably consistent in so many areas that you can even use it to test if a salesman or a company is being honest when they are trying to sell you something.  I never trust anyone who tells me they offer the best price, fast delivery times and the best quality.  No such thing…something’s gotta give.

A business that understands the two-thirds compromise when marketing its products or services will be viewed as vastly more credible and honest when they offer two out of three.  Offer someone amazing quality, offer it at speed…but don’t be shy to charge a premium for that combination.  If you want to keep the cost down but don’t want to sacrifice quality, then make sure your customers know they will have to wait a little longer to get what you sell.

The remarkable thing about the rule of two-thirds is that people are happy to sacrifice one third to get the two-thirds they value more.  In fact, they expect and prefer it.  If I’m going to pay a lot of money for something of extreme quality, I actually prefer that they take a little more time putting it together for me.  And if I’m going to eat at a fast-food joint where I want my food fast and cheap, I’ll get impatient if it takes too long – even if they tell me it’s because they are trying to ensure the best quality. I don't want quality - I want it fast and cheap. If I wanted quality, I would have gone somewhere else that would make me wait longer or pay more. That's just the way things work.

Source: Re:Focus

Culture Shifts

Another inspiring keynote. Gary Vaynerchuk rocks!

Curiosity is the keyword

During the 1950s TV kicked in and it changed the World. What TV demonstrated is that if you spend enough money interrupting as many people as you can, with ads they didn't want to get...If you spend enough money, you can repeat your message enough times as you can make money to buy more ads. This allowed you to make more stuff and buy more ads and the world moved around this. It didn't matter what stuff you made and who and how you targeted people. The world lived around habits that were build from 40/50 years of this. But suddenly it stopped. The World changed. Internet and all sorts of new social media were created and the way how people behave and communicate and look and respond to brands changed.

Seth Godin explains that a fundamentalist is a person who considers whether a fact is acceptable to their faith before they explore it. But what we are seing is that fundamentalism has really nothing to do with religion and everything to do with an outlook regardless of what your religion is. The keyword for the World we live in is curiosity because curiosity is all about a desire to understand, a desire to try whatever you are interested in. Curious people count not because there are a lot them, but because they are the ones who talk to the masses in the middle who are stuck. Curious people are the ones who were responsible for a technology revolution that created social media like facebook and made it so popular. The masses in the middle have brainwashed themselves into thinking it is safe to do nothing. Unfortunately many brands out there still allocate all their efforts to the masses in the middle or even worse, make the mistake of targeting and communicating with the curious people treating them as if they were fundamentalists from the masses.Watch this great video with Seth Godin to learn a little bit more about why curiosity is the keyword for the new World we live in.

The best marketing strategy ever: CARE

Great quotes

"Too many marketers try to build buzz instead of engagement. My mom has zero buzz, but if she says something, I'll listen."

Tony Hsieh,
Zappos CEO

Do what you love

 "There's too many people right now doing stuff they hate. Please stop doing that! There is no reason in 2008 to do shit you hate".  Please watch this presentation. Gary Vaynerchuk is so brilliant and he is absolutely right!  Let me tell you a story to show why Gary is right.

Facebook is such a great tool to understand what the hell is going on out there. I'm from Portugal, and in Portugal during August almost everyone is on vacations. What I noticed a lot this year was that many of my friends wrote stuff on their facebook saying how happy they were because they finally were on vacations. Some were even counting the days left until they were finally on vacations. When they were back to work, they wrote messages like "back to work :( "

This made me think: why the hell does this happen? The only obvious answer I can find is: they probably don't love what they do. They probably are in pain because they are probably underpaid, probably stressed out following orders and doing something they probably don't really love. Our society, in Portugal and all over the World, is struggling because during times of change the last thing you need in your Company and on your team is having unhappy people. We need original people, people who care, people who can think for themselves and feel part of your cause. And you can only find people who care if they love what they do, and especially if they believe in WHY they do what they do and what you do. Simon Sinek's message Start with why explains clearly that what matters is why you do what you do. Why do you get out of the bed every morning? As Simon says "If you don't know why you do what you do and people respond to what you do, then how will you ever get people to be loyal?" The goal of your company should be not to hire people who need a job. The goal should be to hire people who believe what you believe. Or if you are looking for a job your goal should be to find a job at a place where you believe in the cause, the purpose, the WHY of the place. As Simon says " If you hire people just because they can do a job, they will work for your money. But if you hire people who believe what you believe, they work for you with blood and sweat and tears." Or as Gary Vaynerchuck brilliantly says on the presentation I just shared:

 "If you for a second don't believe in what you are doing, whether it's your personal brand, or the product you represent you need to get out now."

Manipulation Vs. Inspiration

Whether you are a politician, a brand, a charity or any other type of organisation there are only two ways to influence human behaviour: manipulation or inspiration. Examples of manipulation in business:

- Manipulating your price: If you drop your price low enough people will buy your product.
- Fear: probably the most fantastic manipulator out there. You can convince people to do all kind of things if you scare them. Remember how George W. Bush was re-elected?
- Peer pressure: 4 out of 5 dentists recommend it. Peer pressure tries to make us fear that we are being left out of something.   
- Sales promotion: Buy 2 books and get your 3rd free. It's basically giving away things for free to reduce the risk so that people buy what you sell.

Inspiration is the alternative. Simon Sinek's message Start with why explains clearly that it doesn't matter
what you do and how you do it, if you don't start by answering to the question: why you do what you do? True leaders, true brands and all their marketing efforts are only effective when they start with a clear vision, with a purpose. When they start with WHY. Manipulation works, but it does not bread loyalty or trust.  Conversly, if we start with a deeper vision or purpose, a Why, we are talking directly to your lymbic brains, attracting those who are inspired by our message.

Let me tell you a story as an example of this. Let's think about Charities. The other day I was walking in Carnaby Street in London, when this lady asked me if I wanted to help her charity. I can't recall the name of her charity, but basically they help children in Africa. She started listing me a bunch of facts about poverty and the needs of poor people in Africa, and through manipulation she tried to convince me to make a donation. To help her charity, I would have to fill out a form providing loads of private information including my bank account number because the donation would be something like 30 GBP per month during at least one year. It was hard for me to say no because it was for a good cause, but the bottom line was I didn't like her approach, and she wasn't convincing at all because she didn't try to inspire me with the vision of her charity.

Now let me tell you another story about another Charity. About a year ago or so, I saw this incredibly inspirational movie on a blog I follow. The girl effect is a charity, and they start with Why. Check out their message:

WHAT YOU ARE ABOUT TO DO IS NOTHING SHORT OF REVOLUTIONARY

There are 600 million adolescent girls living in poverty in the developing world. By giving one of these girls a chance, you start the girl effect. When girls have safe places to meet, education, legal protection, health care, and access to training and job skills, they can thrive. And if they thrive, everyone around them thrives, too.

This Charity has a clear and inspirational vision and It's all about the powerful social and economic change brought about when girls have the opportunity to participate. I was so inspired by the message that I ended donating money for a project called Save the Children Empowering Girls in Bangladesh.

In conclusion, the message here is: when inspired, people move into action. They are more likely to donate money to your charity, or more likely to buy your products, tell their friends, advocate, and the best part, be loyal to your cause.

Corporate culture matters

In June I flew from Detroit to Chicago on Southwest Airlines. The plane was just like any other plane from any other airline, but there was one thing that made it a great flight: the crew and the pilot. If you've ever flown on Southwest, you'll know that humor is part of Southwest's corporate culture. When you fly with these guys it´s likely you will hear the pilot or the flight attendant tell a joke or just having fun over the public address system. At Southwest they are being true to their culture of having fun, and that's what makes it such a great experience to fly with these guys.

For example, after taking off from Detroit one of the flight attendants said something like: "Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to smoke, the smoking section on this airplane is on the wing and if You can light 'em, you can smoke'em." After landing in Chicago, when everyone was gathering all of their belongings before leaving the plane the flight attendant said "Last one off the plane must clean it". Everyone laughed. Everyone was smiling and seemed happy. It was the end of a fun experience. Southwest Airlines truly sees the value of creating an experience and adopting 'humor to enhance the time we spend on the plane.

Last week I flew from Lisbon to London on TAP Portugal and it was the total opposite. The flight was delayed, for unexplainable reasons the crew had less flight attendants than regulations require and therefore, no meal or even drinks were served. Bottom line: the crew did the minimum that was required to be considered service. Ok, they didn't have enough flight attendants but the ones who were there did not make any effort to create a different experience to enhance the 2 hours we were going to spend on the plane. Anyway, this wasn´t a surprise at all to me as it´s not part of TAP's corporate culture to provide a different brand experience to their customers. TAP thinks that to be successful they just need to provide the same kind of service British Airways, Iberia or most of the other boring Airlines out there provide.

The point is: corporate culture matters, and it matters a lot. You need to know why you are different, and why your customers are loyal to you. If you make no effort on this, over the long-term you won't have loyal customers, and you will have to spend more on your marketing budget to try to attract more and more customers.

Southwest Airlines has always been profitable, and their corporate culture is definitely one of the main reasons of their success. When Rollin King and Herb Kelleher decided more than 38 years ago to start Southwest, they decided to start a different kind of airline. They began with a simple notion: if you get your passengers to their destinations when they want to get there, on time, at the lowest possible fares, and make sure they have a good time doing it, people will fly your airline. You know what? They were absolutely right!

One of the greatest missed branding opportunities ever

The other day I was reading the truly fascinating book "Brand Sense- Sensory secrets behind the stuff we buy" (the revised and updated version) written by the legendary branding guru Martin Lindstrom and I was amazed by  a fact Martin shared. I bet you didn´t know this: many centuries ago carrots came in every color but orange. What's that?! Carrots weren't orange?! That's right! They actually were red, black, green, white and even purple. Then, sometime in the sixteenth century, Dutch growers decided to be patriotic and give this root vegetable a dutch edge. Using a mutant seed from North Africa they started developing an orange variety in honour of William I "The Prince of Orange", the first King of the Netherlands, or by other words the guy who led them to independence against the Spaniards. So, after Netherlands gained independence, a country with an orange flag now had as well its very own orange carrot. This is probably one of history´s most incredible successful branding exercises, however one that mysteriously was never capitalized on by the dutch, as very few people are aware that orange carrots were in fact a dutch creation. This is one of the greatest missed branding opportunities of all time. Interesting isn't it?

Why saying you're the best doesn't work

I am interested in people and in what, how and why they think what they think. This is one of the reasons, advertising as a marketing communication tool used by brands to communicate with consumers simply fascinates me. Advertising due to media fragmentation isn´t as powerful as it was in the past, but if correctly used it still has the potential to create an emotional impact in consumer´s minds. 

We live in a World where so many brands offer very similar products, so it is very difficult to sell stuff based only on logic and rationality. Here is where advertising can help. Advertising helps creating an emotional impact, or as Seth Godin would say, advertising helps brands build symbolic meaning through a narrative (but it needs to be bold and audacious) that captures the imagination of the key audience grabbing people emotionally and making them want to be involved with the message. However, most of the brands out there seem to not understand this and they use advertising (or whatever other marketing communications tools they use) really in a wrong way. 

Every single day, as consumers we are bombarded with thousands of marketing messages and most of them unfortunately tend to assume our behaviour is rational. This is why we see so many brands stating they are the best, they offer the best service in town, or the best quality products, listing us complex information like features and benefits, or facts and figures. This is a wrong approach and biology can explain why so many brands don´t have a clue of what they are doing and why they are doing it. Here is why. The explanation is the human brain and how it works.

The human brain is basically broken into 3 major different components: the neocortex and two middle sections, our lymbic brains. The neocortex is the structure of our brain responsible for our rational and analytical thought, and is also involved in higher functions such as sensory perception, generation of our motor commands and language. The lymbic brains are responsible for our feelings, stuff like trust or loyalty so important for brands. It is also responsible for human behaviour. Our decision making process has no room for language as it is driven by our emotions, or by other words, it is driven by our lymbic brains. So why do brands seem to prefer to talk to our neocortex (remember, the neocortex doesn´t drive our behaviour) by saying they are the best in what they do and listing us a bunch of rational stuff like features and benefits rather than talking directly to the part of brain that controls our behaviour with inspiring messages that create emotional impact on us? This is a huge mystery to me! 

For instance, let´s look at a successful brand like Bang & Olufsen. Have you ever thought about why B&O is so successful? If your answer was it´s because of their design, you aren´t exactly right. The right answer is:

it´s because they know why they do what they do. They have an inspiring philosophy and they clearly communicate it straight to the lymbic brains of their target audience. Everytime B&O introduces a new product, the danish brand causes a similar stir and it´s all because of their philosophy: creating audio concepts that combine in such a brilliant way authentic sound quality with simple yet surprising design and a touch of magic.So that living with it becomes a truly special pleasure.It´s such a powerful message isn´t it? Much more powerful than if they would go the other way round by stating just like everybody else that they offer the best audio concepts, and the best design, with the best features of the market, etc. Do you notice the difference?