Open up your mind and say, ahh...

In a previous Fast Company article, I wrote about
hitchhiking. Specifically, what I’ve learned about hitching a ride in
semi-rural South Africa and how these strategies apply to marketing. I learned
something by accident last month that took my thumbing skills to a whole new
level.

I Buy a Bicycle

I live in an area with steep hills, dangerous switchbacks,
potholes the size of dorm refrigerators, and occasionally incompetent and
frequently insane motorists. So naturally I thought: “A mountain bike would be
fun here.”

My friend Anthony was selling his old Merida Matts Sport 500.
I took it for a spin around his yard, liked it, and told him I’d be back with
the money after my next encounter with an ATM.

Given the risks and the fact that most of my
income-producing power begins between my ears and ends up at my keyboard, I
also picked up a helmet and a pair of bike gloves. And at 8:30 a.m. on a momentous
Wednesday, I began walking up the road to Anthony’s house wearing, rather than carrying, the helmet and gloves.

I hadn’t walked 20 meters when a big, new, shiny Toyota SUV
roared past, slammed on the brakes, and backed up toward me. A genial tourist leaned out his window and beckoned,
“Need a lift?”

Gratefully, I accepted. I had been feeling a bit dorky about
wearing the helmet and gloves on the walk, so I was glad to speed up the trip
and reduce my exposure. I wondered about my good fortune; in my experience a
man traveling alone is more likely to have a pair of bluebirds alight on his
head than get a ride if he actively solicits one. To get offered a ride,
unasked, is unheard of.

When I plopped myself down, SUV Man inquired pleasantly,
“Your bike broken?”

So that’s what was going on. My helmet and gloves had provided
a Reason Why.

Not a Fluke

Later that day, after Anthony couldn’t find a pump with a
Presta valve, I walked my flat-tired Merida several kilometers to the cycle shop
at Mountain Splendour. Again, wearing helmet and gloves. This time, for added
effect, I was pushing a big blue bike down a hill. And again, I received an
unsolicited offer of a lift.

How to Hitch a Ride
in South Africa

So now I know how to reliably get a ride around here. I just
wear my Bell Slant helmet and start walking. Before, drivers had to wonder why
a healthy-looking white guy didn’t have his own car. (In South Africa, that’s
pretty much an anomaly.) Now they know why I need a ride: My bike must have broken
down somewhere.

Once my situation makes sense to them, the ride offers come
easily, often unrequested. The Reason Why alleviates their fears that I might
be a Psycho Killer or Unpleasant Travel Companion. It also gives them a reason
to pick me up: I’m in need, and they’re the kind of person who helps strangers
in need.

The only thing that had changed about me was the Reason Why.
The power of that insight applies to our businesses as well.

The Power of Reason Why

Human beings are programmed to make sense of the world, to
look for patterns and predict outcomes. It’s how our species survived, adapted,
and thrived in so many different environments. And one of the strongest
patterns is cause and effect–reasons why certain things happen.

Social psychologist Ellen Langer found that human beings
exhibit an automatic response pattern of saying yes when given a reason. In a
fascinating study reported in Robert Cialdini’s Influence, Langer and her colleagues asked to cut in line at a
library photocopy machine with one of three statements:

1. “Excuse me. I have 5 pages. May I use the
   Xerox machine because I’m in a rush?”
2. “Excuse me. I have 5 pages. May I use the
   Xerox machine?”
3. “Excuse me. I have 5 pages. May I use the
   Xerox machine because I have to make some copies?”

The first request (“because I’m in a rush”) worked 94% of
the time. The second request (no reason) received only 60% positive responses.
The third request (“because I have to make some copies”) succeeded in 93% of
cases. “Because I have to make some copies” is not, of course, an actual
reason. It’s simply phrased in the form of a reason, and that was sufficient to
trigger the automatic “that sounds reasonable” response.

Reason Why Marketing

I’m not suggesting that you pepper your marketing with
meaningless reasons (“Buy our product because we say so”). Rather, acknowledge
the natural skepticism of your market to any claim of superiority or dramatic
difference and tell ‘em why it’s so.

All business advantage is founded on some anomaly. You have
a unique set of experiences that makes you better than anyone else at a
particular skill. You engineered a new business model. You found a pool of
talent that others had overlooked. You have a patent on a process or material
that sets you apart.

It’s not enough to describe the difference or the advantage
you hold in the marketplace. Reason Why Marketing explains the difference and
makes it believable, credible, even obvious.

People are naturally skeptical of competitive claims, but we
want to believe. We cling to Reasons Why as life vests in a sea of mediocrity
and sameness. We’re passionate about the companies that create, and
demonstrate, and justify their Uniqueness.

Some Examples of
Reason Why Marketing

Why are Apple products so good? Because Steve Jobs was a hyper-driven
visionary perfectionist who imbued the company with an ethos of innovation and
elegance.

Why is Zappo’s customer service so good? Because Zappo’s
spends huge amounts of money on training, creates a fantastic workplace
environment, and empowers employees to do almost anything to make customers
happy.

Why are Surefire flashlights so good? Because the company
was founded by an engineer with a PhD in laser design who saw the potential of
outfitting weapons with laser sights almost 30 years ago.

Why is your company so good? If the answer doesn’t
immediately pour out of you, go into reminiscence mode. Why was the company
founded? What’s the background of the founders? What was missing in the
industry that they wanted to deliver? What was their particular passion? What
unique set of perspectives influenced their decisions?

If you truly offer something dramatically better in your
marketplace, Reason Why Marketing may be the missing core of your message. In a
world where most businesses rely on meaningless platitudes (“Value, service,
integrity”) or unfounded claims (“The leading purveyor”), a simple “This Is
Why” explanation can cut through the clutter and position you as the obvious
choice.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go to town. Wallet, keys,
phone, helmet…

Image: Flickr user Nemodus

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is beginning real-world trials of cars equipped with prototype vehicle-to-vehicle technology, deploying a communication network where cars can talk with one another to increase overall road safety.

Starting next August, NHTSA will begin gathering data from 3,000 cars equipped with wireless communication technology. Known as The Safety Pilot, the trials will run for a year in Ann Arbor, Mich., and give researchers valuable data in setting V2V standards and determining what data streams are most helpful to collect.

NHTSA administrator David Strickland says V2V could be a “game changer” for safety, and it’s easy to see why. While existing active safety systems can only respond to immediate threats, connected cars can prevent otherwise unforeseen accidents through instant communication. In other words, a car equipped with active braking can prevent an imminent rear-end collision in traffic, but only a V2V equipped car can sense the out-of-control driver about to speed around a blind curve in the wrong lane.

Here’s how it works: Using existing, universally accessible technology such as GPS and on-board diagnostic data, cars broadcast what’s called a “Here I Am” message at 5.9 GHz. All V2V equipped vehicles will be able to communicate on this band, sharing data such as speed and location. On-board computers sense the presence of other nearby vehicles, calculate the risks they may pose and even taking action — such as hitting the brakes or warning the driver of an impending collision.

It’s much more than just fancy version of existing active safety technology. While current lane-keep assist and crash avoidance systems rely on each individual car sensing immediate threats, cars equipped with V2V have a more detailed situational awareness of all other cars nearby. NHTSA says widespread deployment could eliminate the causes of up to 76 percent of accidents.

In order for the program to work, however, all cars must be speaking the same language. That’s why NHTSA wants to use existing technology that can be installed in all vehicles, from 18-wheelers to motorcycles. According to the agency, setting universal V2V standards can also bring the technology into the marketplace more quickly than waiting for automakers to develop their own solutions to active safety.

In the short term, the agency will study data gleaned from the tests in Ann Arbor, examining how drivers participating in the trial program respond when their car warns them of an impending collision.

“This pilot deployment of vehicles that ‘see’ and ‘talk’ with one another with the help of wireless communication will allow us to learn how drivers use electronic alerts to avoid crashes in a real-world environment,” said Peter Appel, administrator of NHTSA’s Research and Innovative Technology Administration

The first phase of the trials will determine what hardware is most cost-effective and what percentage of vehicles will have to be equipped with V2V technology for it to be effective. NHTSA will also examine the business case for deployment and ensure that communication protocols are universal regardless of vehicle manufacturer or type.

See Also:

• When Active Safety Systems Fail, Who Pays?
• Too Much Safety Could Make Drivers Less Safe
• Automotive Black Boxes, Minus the Gray Area

Photo: Flickr/Adan Garcia

There are a few dozen fuel-cell vehicles roaming Southern California, and today the early adopters driving them got one more place to fill up. But the nation’s newest hydrogen-fueling station is unlike any other in the United States.

The public station in Torrance is the first in the country supplied by an active hydrogen pipeline. This is significant, because most of the stations in the United States provide hydrogen that is delivered by truck.

The station is run by Shell on land leased from Toyota, which remains enamored with hydrogen. For all the love automakers and policymakers are showering on battery electric vehicles, several automakers remain firmly committed to hydrogen fuel cell technology. Honda, Toyota and Mercedes-Benz promise to have mass-market hydrogen fuel cell vehicles in showrooms by 2015.

“Fuel cell technology is viable and ready for the mass market,” Chris Hostetter, Toyota vice president of strategic resources, said at this morning’s grand opening. “Toyota plans to bring a fuel cell vehicle to market in 2015 or sooner, and as you see, we will not be alone in the marketplace. Building an extensive hydrogen re-fueling infrastructure is the critical next step in bringing these products to market.”

The station, near several freeways and Los Angeles International Airport, is open to all. It can fuel as many as four vehicles simultaneously in less than five minutes and can dispense up to 100 kilograms of hydrogen in 12 hours. A Honda FCX Clarity holds 3.92 kilograms of the stuff, while the Mercedes-Benz F-Cell holds four.

The hydrogen will come from Air Products plants in Wilmington and Carson that serve several industrial sites, including the Exxon Mobil refinery in Torrance. The project was funded in part by the South Coast Air Quality Management District and the Department of Energy.

“This fueling station will be a tremendous model to show how effortless a pipeline supply of hydrogen can be to an automobile fueling station and other hydrogen fuel cell applications,” said David J. Taylor, VP of energy business at Air Products. “This site will be a model to learn and expand pipeline-fed stations as opportunities arise.”

Honda FCX Clarity driver Jon Spallino (pictured) was the station’s first retail customer.

Toyota has said it has cut the cost of fuel cell vehicles more than 90 percent by using less platinum and other expensive materials. It plans to sell its first hydrogen vehicle for around $50,000.

Photo: Honda

Thousands of doctors have signed up for a service that, among other things, they can use to try to prohibit patients from posting reviews. You can read a bit about it here.

In Iowa, in a surprisingly similar move, the state government is moving ahead with a law that will make it a crime to take or possess videotapes of factory farming that might harm the commercial interests of the farmer.

In both cases, an organization is trying to maintain power by hiding information from the public. Can you imagine being arrested for possession of a photo of a pig?

It’s easy to argue that from the public’s point of view, laws like this are a bad idea. The public certainly benefits from the outing of bad doctors and from the improved hygeine of factory farms. In that sense, it’s unethical for doctors and legislators to subvert their responsibilities by ordering the unempowered to shut up.

I think it’s interesting to think about from the doc’s point of view (and the chicken farmer), as well. The temptation is for those in charge to defend the status quo by fighting transparency. This ignores a simple truth:

When book reviews are posted, book sales go up.

Yes, the argument of fairness matters. The patients have no choice, the chickens certainly have no choice and the consumers don’t have much choice either. There’s an argument that goes beyond choice, though… it turns out that transparency increases profitability.

If every chicken coop has a video camera in it, quality will obviously go up. Confidence in the product will go up. Employee behavior will improve as well, because it’s hard to torture a chicken if you know you’re going to get caught.

But wait, you might argue… if we have to take better care of the chickens, our costs will go up as well.

Here’s the thing: when consumers get used to transparency, they’re also more interested in the quality of what you sell, and are more likely to willingly pay extra. They’ll certainly cross the street to buy from an ethical provider. And once people start moving in that direction, the cost of being an unethical provider gets so high that you either change your ways or fade away.

Chicken farms don’t need a law prohibiting possession of images. They need a producer who will make a ton of great (true) chicken movies. Inundate us with images of cleanliness and quality instead of blacking us out. Don’t race to the bottom (you might win). Instead, force your competition to race you to the top instead.

Aside: the same objection happened when we started regulating hygeine in restaurant kitchens. Yes, it got more expensive to clean the pots and kill the rodents, but it was okay, because post-Duncan Hines, demand for quality went up enough to more than pay for it.

The same argument holds true for doctors. Once information about good doctors becomes widespread, patients will be more willing to seek out those doctors, rewarding the ones who consistently take better care of their patients. The entire profession doesn’t suffer (we’ll still go to a doctor) merely the careless doctors will.

One more: A leading politician in India is arguing that bribery (in certain transactions) ought to be legalized. Why? Because if the briber feels free to rat out the bureaucrat, bribery goes down.

In all three cases, sunlight is an antiseptic and the marketplace rewards those that behave–and the entire market grows when the standards increase.

Consumers and those that want their admiration ought to reward those in favor of transparency (what a great opportunity for McDonald’s). And the antidote for speech a provider doesn’t like isn’t a contract or a law. The antidote to speech you don’t like is more speech.

Angry Birds fans can’t get enough of the bird-hurling application and game franchise from mobile developer Rovio.

Angry Birds Rio, the latest iOS and Android edition of the game, features a theme based on the upcoming FOX animated motion picture Rio. The app saw ten million downloads in its first ten days after release.

The milestone metric spans all free and paid versions available in the App Store iTunes link, Android Marketplace and Amazon Appstore. The stat was first announced on Rovio’s Twitter account.

The news is flashy tidbit of information that demonstrates Rovio’s stronghold in the mobile gaming genre. Everything the company releases in the Angry Birds franchise is an instant hit, plush toys included. The impressive figure also demonstrates why investors were keen on forking over $42 million and could help lay the groundwork for a profitable IPO.

I recently re-read this great article about how many marketers are moving into partnerships with product makers so that they own more equity in the product and so that they own more of the design and development stages as well. This is interesting, because it’s the opposite of showing up for work as a marketer for a company. Instead of pushing Coke or Fritos or whatever, you’re making a deal with John’s Original Lime Rickey and building it into something you can sell better. It’s what my friend, Tim Hayden and I called during a recent discussion “having some of my own ponies in the race.”

Not everyone will go that route. It’s tricky. It requires one to be an investor. It requires a sense that the marketplace will support your product and it requires a lot of thought into the ways it differs to work for a company versus be part of the ownership of a product (or service).

If you do think that way, I think the way to go is with local and/or small businesses on the one hand, and with huge outsourcing and manufacturing teams on the other. For instance, if I know someone who makes an amazing premium cupcake, I just have to figure out a way to dropship it safely, and I could really add to that person’s bottom line. If I could partner with a Chinese manufacturing company, I could create some kind of product that appeals to the kinds of people I’ve built my community around. Either way, I wouldn’t be just selling someone else’s product. I’d be partnered, and that would include shouldering more of the burden, but also reaping more of the rewards.

There’s more on this in this thread at Third Tribe Marketing (membership required). We go on to talk about the evolution and some ideas and some pitfalls.

I’d love to hear your thoughts.

• February 19, 2010
• View Comments

Interesting headline I know…However, it’s not intended to be sensationalist, simply a matter of fact and also a topic worthy of discussion.

Facebook announced that active users of its mobile platform surpassed 100 million, each and every month. And, this usage happens on almost every carrier in the world. If interaction and participation serve as the foundation for social media, then Facebook is setting the standard. Facebook is reporting that mobile users are twice more active on Facebook than non-mobile users.

According to estimates, the number of mobile Facebook users far exceeds the total active user base for Twitter, including mobile, Web, and through third-party applications.

This news also represents a concentric ring around another major milestone the company reached earlier this month. On February 4th, the burgeoning social network celebrated its sixth anniversary as well as hosting more than 400 million users.

In a recent statement, Facebook voiced its dedication to mobile platforms…

Facebook’s goal is to enable our users to be able to stay connected and communicate with their friends whenever, wherever they are. To accomplish this we are working with every major operator and mobile device maker to ensure that users are able to access Facebook – through SMS, mobile web sites or an application – from the device of their choice.

To further improve the mobile experience, Facebook redesigned m.facebook.com and touch.facebook.com enabling people to access Facebook from any mobile browser in more than 70 languages.

Text messaging remains significant, with more then 80 operators in 32 countries enabling millions around the world to stay connected via SMS. The Facebook team also introduced FB.ME that makes it even easier for people to share content from their mobile devices.

Of course dedicated applications for Facebook remain paramount as smart phones gain traction within the marketplace. The network recently released updates for the dedicated Facebook applications on Android, Blackberry, iPhone, Nokia and Samsung and it also supports a broadening array of new devices from HTC, INQ, LG Electronics, Palm, Sony Ericsson and Microsoft’s Windows Phone.

Let’s quickly recap…

100 million active mobile users. 400 million total Facebook users. Facebook is truly gaining prominence all over the world.

While Twitter is seemingly stealing the real-time spotlight, Facebook is where brands, whether local, national, or global, should concentrate significant attention, creativity, and engagement. And with 100 million active users interacting with other Facebook contacts from their mobile devices, creating portable brand experiences is now predominant.

Why?

The social graph that each individual user builds within Facebook is unequaled in its design and effect.

The average user on Facebook has over 130 friends, sending eight friend requests per month. Individuals spend more than 55 minutes per day interacting with contacts while also exploring the activities of those defining their social graphs (which is exactly where brand opportunities reside).

More than 35 million users update their status each day with more than 60 million status updates posted daily.

More than 20 million people become fans of Pages each day.

Pages have created more than 5.3 billion fans.

At a time when businesses are rushing to create Facebook Fan Pages and Twitter profiles without necessarily calculating or defining goals, intentions, or targets, the question becomes, how are you optimizing your brand or story for the Facebook and also the Facebook mobile experience…?

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