From “WHAT” to “WHAT ELSE”

What leads to success?

Think out of the box and make changes!

This evening, Paul Vinod gave a speech at S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications of Syracuse University. He is an experienced creative director, whose brand consultancy, The Gravity Field, helps organizations and companies create unique business models or solve problems. By sharing his years of global and national experience in the advertising industry and some extraordinary advertising campaigns, Vinod believes that innovation, in other words, “what else,” is the key to success.

• “WHAT” is just a formula while “WHAT ELSE” can change the world

According to Vinod, “WHAT” is nothing more than a formula. If we follow it, we will be restricted and not able to create anything new. So, WHAT ELSE? To make progress, we have to think irrelevantly and sometimes irrelevance changes the world. An excellent example of this is Every Beat Matters campaign, launched by Save the Children and Ad Council in 2012, which aims to raise awareness of kids’ health and bring basic lifesaving care to children around the world. However, there are countless similar campaigns showing pictures or videos of children in need, what else can you do to attract more attention? Listen to the powerful heartbeat of a healthy child! Every Beat Matters recorded the heartbeat of kids in Guatemala and used it on the website to engage with the audience. They even created a song called “Feel again” with the sound of the real heartbeat. Instead of following what others did, Every Beat Matters made its own way to help children and succeed.

• “WHAT” follows but “WHAT ELSE” hustles

“Follow the rule” maybe one of the most common advice, but it’s not always true, especially when it comes to creative activities. However, instead of following others’ rules, we can actually promote ourselves by taking advantages of “others’ rules”. Take a minute and think about what else you can do in a 15-second advertisement to explain what the whopper sandwich is. In April 2017, Burger King released an advertisement designed to trigger Google Home by asking at the end, “OK Google, what is the whopper burger?” And it worked! Google helped Burger King to explain to the consumers what the whopper sandwich is. So next time when we try to create campaigns or advertisements, take the development of technology into account and take advantages of it.

• “WHAT” answers questions; “WHAT ELSE” reframes questions

We face incomputable questions every day and we’re always frustrated about how to answer similar or same questions differently. According to Vinod, many people get stuck when answering “WHAT” cause the problem and “WHAT” they can do to solve the problem. WHAT ELSE? It is a good idea to reframe questions and think from different angles. For example, to solve the problem of food waste, people always try to emphasize how large the portion of wasted food is and yell for others’ attention about how many people are still starving around the world. In 2015, Inglorious Fruits and Vegetables campaign was Created by Paris agency Marcel Worldwide for France’s third largest supermarket chain Intermarché. It aims to raise awareness of Europe’s 100 million metric tons of wasted food every year; worldwide the figure amounts to one-third of the food produced for human consumption, or 1.3 billion metric tons. The supermarket bought imperfect fruits and vegetables that are normally thrown out from growers and sell them with a 30%off discount. By offering them cute name tags and providing soups and juices that were made by using inglorious fruits and vegetables, the campaign tried to convince people that inglorious fruits and vegetables are just as good as glorious ones, so people would be willing to buy them, which helped to reduce food waste.

Above are the three key explanations of “WHAT” and “WHAT ELSE”, based on Vinod’s speech. From “WHAT” to “WHAT ELSE”, it’s all about being creative and taking actions. As the new generation, we have to believe that there is actually no rulebook: we are running our own lives, we are writing our own stories, and we are capable of anything. So go forth and imagine! Go forth and make! Go forth and create!