john v willshire, smithery twitter - @willsh
Ideja X, Croatia, 2012

hello
bok
oh hai

my name is john
i can be hard to
understand

I can’t speak
german
i do run a
one-man-studio
it is called
smithery

i help businesses
solve problems

it’s something
to do with
these things

but it is
messier
than that

i started
writing
it on blank
playing
cards

ideas you
can step
inside

creation of exploitation
demand of demand

creation of exploitation
demand of demand
not a
choice,
a balance

creation of
demand
exploitation
of demand
yet we
seem to do
more of This >>

it made me
think of these

easter island - 1722
• population of 2000
• 64 square miles
• 1,400 miles from the
nearest inhabitable place
• 2,000 miles from the
nearest continent

no trees

200 giant statues
30ft high
80 tons

how?

the original
settlers arrived
in massive canoes

the island they found was
covered in trees

survive thrive
finite
resources

3. you can’t survive
1. too much
of this...
2. this all
disappears...

there are over 700 unfinished
statues on easter island
they kept making them right
until the trees ran out...

is our predicament
really that bad?

creation of exploitation
demand of demand
finite
resources

people would
not care if
70%
of brands
disappeared havasbrand study
meaningful
Media

Make
Things
Make
people
want
people
want
Things
we need to
redress
the balance

1
2
four ways to
make things
3 people want
4

make

The maker
used to be the
marketer

making
is thinking

antonio
Stradivari’s
workshop
created the
finest
stringed
instruments
of all time

he left it to his
sons, who had
worked beside him
all their lives.

the workshop
closed within
twenty years.

“he could not
teach either of
them how to be
a genius.”
Sennett on Stradivari

The marketing
died with
the maker

even the most
brilliant minds
cannot cheat death

Though they try...

branding was the next best thing

[ ]
long section on
100 years of
brand evolution

yet we’re still incredibly
focussed on ‘the maker’

“when the founder is still
there, people respect the
brand in a way that
doesn’t happen when the
reins have been handed
down over and over”
Entrepreneur magazine Apr 12

“when the founder is still
there, people respect the
brand in a way that
doesn’t happen when the
reins have been handed
down over and over”
Entrepreneur magazine Apr 12

“when the founder is still
there, people respect the
brand in a way that
doesn’t happen when the
reins have been handed
down over and over”
Entrepreneur magazine Apr 12

And the makers don’t seem
too bothered about ‘brand’

“I don't believe in
brands. People
buy our product,
not our company.
You're only as
good as your last
product.”
James Dyson

yet when they do depart...
who replaces
the maker?

Sometimes
there are
weird
replacements

product designer at hp?

packaging
designer at
diet coke?

creative director of polaroid?

creative director of intel?

but usually
there are
safe
replacements

“accountants
drift to the top
”
stephen king, jwt, 1985

0.6
51%
0.45
36% ftse 100
0.3
24% ceos with
0.15
finance
0 backgrounds
1996 2008 2012
source - Robert Half / Hendricks & Struggles

Make
Things
Make
people
want
people
want
Things
Safe pair
of hands

those nice people in
finance
like the wrong sort of
marketing

( you should really read )
Has Marketing
Failed, or was it
never really tried?
1985 paper by Stephen king, JWT

four marketing
routes to failure

1 thrust
marketing

2 marketing
department
marketing silo
marketing

3 marketing
accountant’s
payback
january december

4 marketing
formula
x + Y
success =
z

four essential
aspects of
real
marketing

1 start with
the customer

2 over time
working

3 resources
using all CEO
marketing
manufacturing

4 innovating

all deeply
linked to the
product

1 be a real marketer
2
3
4

things

what do marketers know
about making things...?

you are the
ruiners of all
things
good bill hicks on marketers

with this ad,
sadden us, you will

there is nothing
interesting
about our world
let’s borrow
someone else’s

you are the
ruiners of all
things
good bill hicks on marketers

marketing
has drifted
too far from
product
reality

the atoms of a product,
or the seconds spent
with a service

the feelings we get
from buying, using or
experiencing the thing

the two
cannot be
separated

pre-industrial industrial network

pre-industrial brands suffered
the stradivari problem

mass-production
branding helped
solve that problem

strip out and
replicate the
essence of
the maker

the art of
branding was
compression

companies
still seek
their fortune
in the ideas
of a long
dead mind...

compression
don’t work for
this world

every time
we blink
a brand
changes

which can be disconcerting
if you are used to
consistency

“I struggle to identify a
consistent set of
measures across our
digital campaigns”
John Woods
Coke, GB & Ireland

it will get
a lot, lot
stranger

we will need
automation &
Robots to
understand it all
this will scare
and confuse us
The NEw yorker, 1946

don’t lose sleep over it...
“We use the word
'machines' in place of
'software designed by
people predicated on a
set of cultural
assumptions'...”
kim plowright

but don’t
pretend it
isn’t happening

“Nostalgia isn’t a
business Model”
john naughton
http://memex.naughtons.org/archives/2012/04/05/15944

“We are born of
complexity, shaped
by complexity, and
interact with a
world that is
inexorably
growing more
complex.”
Bud Caddell
graphic from http://whtebkgrnd.tumblr.com/

don’t fight
fragmentation
accelerate it

fragmentation doesn’t
destroy brand value
it demonstrates value
....or lack of it

there’s a different way to
think about value...
the labour
theory of value

developed ...and later
by adam by karl
smith... marx

modern economics:
the value of a thing is
determined by what one
is willing to give up to
obtain the thing

The labour theory of value
the value of something is
determined by the labour
that went into its production

£0.99 £3.33
per pad per pad

“marketing is
world building.
With unlimited
bandwidth we
can now show
you the world.”
@TobyBarnes, AKQA

it’s easier to
buy this world...

...than
this world

What if we stitched smaller ideas together to create
a longer idea? What if we stitched smaller ideas
together to create a longer idea? What if we stitched
smaller ideas together to create a longer idea? What
if we stitched smaller ideas together to create a
longer idea? What if we stitched smaller ideas
together to create a longer idea? Gareth Kay What if
we stitched smaller ideas together to create a
longer idea? What if we stitched smaller ideas
together to create a longer idea? What if we stitched
smaller ideas together to create a longer idea? What

world building world borrowing

“The internet is biased
towards fact. People
don’t care about your
brand mythology, they
care about where your
product is made and
what’s in it.” douglas rushkoff

Labour theory
of brand value:
show the constant
additions to the
essence and the
substance

1 be a real marketer
2 let the deeds show
3
4

people

staring
at people
is rude

staring down at
people is a force
of habit...

“We do what we do largely because
of our interaction with - and under
the influence of - others.
And mostly without realising it.”
Mark Earls, Herd

stop staring
at people
start looking
between them

different
people
want
different
things

how do you look
between people?

anthropologish*
*not hardcore anthropology, before anyone gets angry

archeology culture
four disciplines
language social

fuck yeah
archeology !

oh..... that
archeology

digging
around in the
things folk
leave behind

unseen UK, 2006
photos by the people at royal mail

look for the things that
show you what people
are capable of...

language

google gets it wrong:
Provjerite što
ljudi žele

a friend helps it
get better?

we want a...
strapline
three values
proposition

200
million
we need a...
dictionary
lexicon
tweets phrase book
per day

it matters what they say about you
not what you say about you

culture
don’t look for
things that unite
look for things
that divide...

“We seek out these
obsessives, maniacs
and eccentrics
because they can
help us get to big,
breakthrough ideas”
Brian Miller,
Sense Worldwide

social...
...hang on, we know
about this one...

facebook offers
a partial glance
of the intangible
half of your
social
footprint

galvanism:
when we
thought
electricity
would cure
from “The Craftsman” by Richard sennett
all disease

facebook does
not offer
intimations of
the sublime
http://jeffberryman.com/2011/05/19/counting-on-the-sublime/

always look through
two lenses
Material
& virtual
_____.jpg by Alan Belcher

what’s fascinating is where
the two now begin to meet
People like the
clothes online,
appears on
hangers in store
C&A, Brasil

archeology culture
look between people
language social

1 be a real marketer
2 let your deeds show
3 look between people
4

want

three
different
wants
peter doyle,
Value-Based Marketing

incipient wants
things which
people want, but
have no idea about
until they see it.

the things
that sell
themselves

latent wants
things there are
no present
solutions for, but
are easy for
people to describe

existing wants
things we already
know we want, for
which there are
plenty of willing
suppliers...

existing wants
...this is where the
interesting shit is
let’s think about
coffee, for example

“like yacht racing,
modern markets are an
environment defined
solely by the position
of the competitors,
rather than by any
absolute geography”
John Cronk

Coffee was the Vendée globe

you needed a
super-yacht
to be in the
race, never
mind score
points

The internet is
a very lenient
race judge
it lets any
small boat
join in...

i am a bit geeky
about coffee...

i can find a
great place to
buy coffee
whenever I’m
out and about

I can blend
my own
coffee to
suit my own
taste
profile.
And name it

I can watch
509 videos
about how
to use an
aeropress

I can read 19,200,000 internet
links on coffee farm soil reports*
*i haven’t

ikawa coffee system
i could even start roasting coffee at home

amongst my
friends, I am a
novice

so what’s happening?

Talent hits a target
no one else can hit
genius hits a target
no one else can see
arthur Schopenhauer

the big boats find it hard
to see all the little boats

all of their
research tools are
geared to look at
the direct
competitors
marketers copy
each other just
like everyone else

It should still be possible
to do something though...?

this
is your
best
response?

barista style....?

barista
style is
free
hugs

no
free
hugs

but we have
market
share?

it never starts with people
who want market share...

there are
always people
who are more
geeky about
your market
than you...

make something they can believe in

you have to want to
make a difference

To Do a common thing
uncommonly well
brings success
henry john heinz

uncommonly well
is now a lot harder to achieve than it used to be

want to makes things well

want to tell
your story

want to create demand

people will
only want
the things
you make
as much as
you want to
make them.

1 be a real marketer
2 let your deeds show
3 look between people
4 want to make things

that sounds... hard
where do i start?

think of it
this way
you are an
operating
system

they’re not
consumers
they’re users

they will make
great things
that you are
afraid to make
by David Lee, howstrange.com

they will take your things and make other things

but they always have
Jingle Bells, Batman smells,
Robin flew away.
Kojak lost his lollipop
And bought a Milky Way
trad. children’s song, 1960’s onwards

open up your operating system

celebrate the passionate
outsiders who use your platform

partner with
people who
are better at
running your
platform

use your
platform to
share value
watching your
shitty hologram
has no value

use your platform for good things

listen to the
customers
who’ve been
begging for
an open
platform

remember which side you are on

we
fight
for
the
users

hvala john v willshire
twitter - @willsh
http://smithery.co/blog
thank you john@smithery.co