davidartemiw.com

sticking

In their book, Made to Stick, Chip and Dan Heath outline the SUCCESs checklist for giving your ideas a fighting chance to cut through the noise and be remembered.

• Simple
• Unexpected
• Concrete
• Credible
• Emotional
• Stories

Aim for those and your idea might have some legs.

So, what about the pomegranate phone?

Go have a look and then come back. I’ll wait.

Wow. Right?

I know.

How does it stack up on the SUCCESs list?

Simple - The core message is that Nova Scotia is the place where you can have it all - even if you can’t have it all in a cell phone. That message is shared through the simple line, “Come to life.” In Nova Scotia, it says, you can realize all of your life’s ambitions.

Unexpected - It starts as an ad for a cell phone. A ridiculous cell phone that can do anything including shave and brew coffee. It’s clearly a put-on, right. But then why do they have a link for the release date? And why do they keep asking me if I’ve seen enough? With one’s interest piqued they hit you with the unexpected.

Concrete - Both the ad for the fake phone and for the province meet this test. For the province, one is introduced to real people who talk about the tangible benefits of living in Nova Scotia. Most remarkable is that they make the fake ad concrete. They demonstrate the most insane features of this non-existent product. The ad doesn’t do such a good job in showing people how to take specific action. There is one link on the page that isn’t obviously a link to a more fulsome website. However, once you get there, they do have a link to various job search websites so one can start working on the move immediately.

Credible - The Pomegranate Phone ad has credibility because of its sophisticated presentation. Video, demonstrations, clips of people using the phone in real life, a narrator who sounds like Billy Van. The ad for Nova Scotia is credible because they use, in the Heath brothers’ phrasing, the anti-authorities. It’s not the Nova Scotia premier telling me to come to the province. It’s people who live there. People who grew up there. People who moved there. People who travelled the world and chose Nova Scotia above all else. The campaign also provides a number of “Did you know?” styled bits of information to put more credibility behind their claim. Nova Scotia, isn’t just awesome, it’s also a full day’s sailing closer to Europe than any other North American port. And it’s the only one the east coast that can handle the new design of ships.

Emotional - The ad doesn’t move one to tears or fits of laughter, but that’s not really what the Heath brothers meant by emotional. They meant an idea needs to be expressed in a way that gets people to care. The campaign is very good at getting one to imagine one’s self in Nova Scotia, about how one would benefit from the move. It appeals to one’s self-interest - but not just the basest self-interest. It may be cheaper to live in Nova Scotia than Ontario, but that’s not going to be enough to get one to move. The campaign addresses those other things, like quality of life, that people take into account when deciding where to live.

Stories - The campaign is almost entirely based on stories. The story of the cellphone that does everything. The stories of the people who live in Nova Scotia. Very interesting people. Architects, doctors, surfer girls, a guy who makes t-shirts. And those stories are told in very well-produced movies where it becomes easy for one to imagine one’s self as the star. And leaves one wanting to find out more, wondering if a move is realistic.

According to the internet, the ad campaign cost $300,000 and isn’t as universally loved as I liked it. Witness Twitter where the campaign was hash-tagged the #pombomb and others. And others.