COMMITMENT & Disruption

When I heard we were going to TBWA/Chiat/Day I wasn't sure what to expect. I'd heard they produced the famous Apple ads: 1984 and Think Different, but this just added to their mystique. Once I started filling out the Agency Worksheet I came across an airbnb ad that was just different. It had such a simple message: "Don't go there. Live there."—an idea so bold and succinct that it's still kind've stuck in my head. After that I was sold, I had to get a glimpse of what's going on there and hopefully glean what they do differently.

After making our way up stairs into the yellow pod, we met Scott Stanner a Planning Director. Scott brought us through a Fifth Element-esque white hallway to the ground level of the agency. Just beyond a classic surf truck drop in between two walls of cell like offices, we came across a lively crowd circling a beer pong game—which I later learned was organized for the new hires. Apart from the party in center, there was a somber intensity among the offices strewn all around as a quiet aggregate continued their work. We snuck through feeling somewhat intrusive as we made our way up the stairs at the back of the building into a conference room.

Enter: Project Blue Shirt

Scott introduced himself and detailed how account planning is quite different in the way it gains consumer insights. While often market research is used, Scott explained that it is backward facing using statistics and figures of what the market was already doing and how consumers responded. On the contrary, planning is forward looking and can involve a lot more hands on work with the consumers. Scott described how planning started with focus groups, but these were often not helpful and even misleading because people responded differently since they knew they were being observed. While there are other methods like ethnography, none are completely free from this "observer effect," but Scott found a way. At the time they were working with Pioneer trying to figure out why they weren't selling better in Best Buys, and Pioneer wondered if the employees were trained well enough to sell Pioneer products. There was not simple solution to figure out what was going on, so Scott went out posed as unemployed and got a job at a local Best Buy. He spent nearly a month "undercover" and recorded the experience at projectblueshirt.blogspot.com. By going in first hand he discovered that new employees received essentially no training and that culture was heavily emphasized in the stores, while sales were encouraged but not incentivized by commission—so essentially there was no reason for Best Buy employees to recommend the most expensive and best Pioneer TVs. He also noted that customers often came in completely unnerved with a list of stats and no idea what they should buy. With these two key insights, Scott delivered the best intel possible to his team and the resulting work was perfectly suited to the market by simplifying the message to promote pioneer as the best choice.

I was shocked by this story, and maybe somewhat inspired. For one I was surprised that his agency let him essentially go work somewhere else for a month, even though it was for an assignment. But most of all I was shocked at how much Scott committed to this project, he even lied a bit about his identity to learn what was really going on, but he got the job done better than probably anyone could've imagined before hand.