Change the story. Change the game
It is a very simple idea
Think of it as Occam's Razor for your strategic thinking
Now let's take this idea one step further and see how we can apply it our marketing and innovation tactics
As I have said before very few campaigns (and by extension innovative new product launches) breakthrough and change both the story and the game
So how can we change our thinking to increase our chances of success?
It begins by adopting two old rules of thumb
The first from the world of advertising & marketing
One Ad. One Message
The second from the world of software development
One App. One Function.
and combining them into the golden rule
One Story. One Game
One Promise. One Action
... the perfect hook
... and this is why the challenge is so difficult
Ideas, creativity is emergent. It's divergent. It's contagious.
The urge, the desire, the overwhelming impulse is to expand, explore, experiment, add, inflate
When the real challenge is to reduce, distil, edit and reject
To focus on making it as simple - easy to engage, easy to understand - as possible
To illustrate what this means let's map the digital ecosystem to this idea of 'One Promise. One Action'
We'll begin with the social media platforms
Facebook: Share your life/stories (ie. upload your achievements onto a database) with your family & friends
Instagram/TikTok/Snap/YouTube: Share your photos/videos (ie. upload your achievements onto a database) and be discovered
LinkedIn: Share your work/stories (ie. upload your achievements onto a database) with your business network
Twitter/Medium/Wordpress/Blogger: Share your discoveries/insights (ie. upload your thoughts & impressions onto a database) with complete strangers
Roblox/Dribble/Fiverr/App Store/Spotify/GitHub/CodePen/Etsy: Share your work (ie. upload your achievements onto a database) and be discovered
In each case the task (Think: call to action) was to upload something onto a database with the promise it (Think: you) will be discovered (Think: seen/heard/promoted on a database)
You see how easy it is? Act and we promise you'll rewarded
One promise. One Action
The perfect hook. The perfect trigger... and (Hey Presto) a new addiction is born... as we all search for meaning on yet another database
The measure of meaning being your relative position in the lists (databases) you choose to populate
... and this idea. The quantification of meaning of life lived in the list. Points to the type of Players who will be engaged in the Game (Think: Target Audience)
Again we'll map this idea to the social media platforms
Facebook/Instagram/TikTok/Snap: A game for girls
LinkedIn: A game for professionals
Twitter/Medium/Wordpress/Blogger: A game for writers
Roblox/Dribble/Fiverr/App Store/Spotify/YouTube/GitHub/CodePen/Etsy: A game for creators
Kaggle: A game for data scientists
In each case the Players (Think Target Audience) was tasked (Think: called to action) to upload something onto a database with the promise it (Think: They) will be discovered (Think: Profit emotionally, reputationally or financially from the experience)
So (initial) success in the digital world comes down to a simple formula
One Tribe
One Promise
One Action
or, put another way
Change the tribe, change the promise and change the action
or, as I have said before
Change the Players, Change the Story and (You) Change the Game
Have a think about it... at least until next time...
and, before you go, take a look at this 25 minute deconstruction of the Roblox Business Model
See how they are profiting from applying the Golden Rule to the challenge of disrupting the global market for online games