Author Archives: Mads Kristensen

3 ways Lego has understood social

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Everybody looking at trying to create a social network around their product should take a look at Legos latest foray into social media, ReBrick. Because I think they have really nailed the approach. For three reasons:

  1. Lego has understood that the power of the brand is in its fans and their creations, so they have essentially built a site that showcases shortcuts to great creations; people doing more with the product thus in the end stimulating demand for the little bricks. Clever.
  2. They are not building a new network but curating the existing. One of the most annoying things is companies wanting you to fill out profile and build upon it on yet another network. Lego doesn’t do that. They curate the best around the web and make ReBrick a hub for links to all the best. Simple yet genius.
  3. Lego is playing down the brand on ReBrick. They are not falling into the trap of wanting to sell people things or communicate about new products or initiatives. Because they know that the content that fans create and curate does the job so much better. That’s really smart.

As far as I can see, Lego has understood perfectly well how to be a subtle facilitator of the culture surrounding it’s products. It has understood that what fans really want are tools to enable them to see what other fans are doing and get inspired – not engage in a dialogue with the company (which I still think as a concept is one of the most bogus things we have discussed over the last few years). Lego has understood how to provide a means to an end rather than an end in itself. And just done it. Bravo!

3 learnings from Apples record earnings

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Apple is shooting for the Moon. Heck, they may already be there judging from their latest earnings blow-out. Putting it in context with the revelation of their so far super-secret product development approach, I thought it would be nice to look at three learnings from Apple, which I think every envious company on the planet can use to move on from just being jealous towards producing amazing products and services themselves:

  1. You don’t win by being protective of what you have. If Apple had done that they wouldn’t be here today. Because what was there to protect before the iPod/iTunes, iPhone and iPad? Nothing. Apple was next to bust (thanks BillG for stepping in with a cheque when it was sorely needed). They win because they dare challenging themselves in completely new and incomprehensible directions without thinking about possible cannibalization.
  2. Design is everything. You start by figuring out what the insanely great product will look and feel like – and then you work backwards from there. You don’t sit down and sub optimize the other parts of the value chain and then see what come out of it in the end. You just don’t. It’s amazing how little thought is still being given to putting the customer at the front, right and centre of the product development process. Oh, and design doesn’t work by consensus. It’s a dictatorship.
  3. Execution is cut-throat. You don’t win by being nice and trying to get everyone onboard with the project. You find the key executioners and you give them the mandate to go and do what they do best. And of course you hold them accountable for any progress or lack thereof. Nothing must get in the way of being as successful as you can be with your products. Nothing.

I think these are in short some of the key learnings for why Apple is so extremely successful now. They pretty much leave it up to everybody else to think too much about what the right way of developing and executing on great products for consumers is. Apple just do it. The rest of us should be in awe – and learn.

New life to the paper

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Yesterday we finally released Berlingske, our flagship newspaper of Berlingske Media, in a native iPad edition. It’s a huge step forward for us, because for the first time we’re unleashing the product known from 263 years of print tradition onto digital platforms for subscribers, old and new, to dive into and get their daily dose of what’s happening in the world.

I think the team behind the creation of the app has done an absolutely stellar job. The app is slick, beautifully designed with a great flow of the content and a keen eye for presenting different kinds of content in the ways that I think it should be presented. Furthermore we have enabled personalization in a way where you as a user personalize through eliminating and adding content tags, a very intuitive and non-cumbersome way of making it your product.

There are still some things we didn’t get down in the first edition. Content sharing is among those. Many are asking about it, and it is something we’re looking into for future updates. So be sure to check back on it.

The really interesting thing for me on a higher level though is the packaging itself, the omnibus product. Even though many have claimed that traditional model to be dead in a world of hyper-personalization, the app will give an indication of whether it still hold merit. That is the one thing, I will be keeping an extra keen eye on.

Is the long tail really a pair of long balls?

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We love to talk about the long tail. Or rather; people at the head of the long tail love to talk about it. Either because they already have their business secured (read: Apple and iTunes/App Store) or make a living from talking about it (read: Chris Anderson).

For the rest of us the long tail is a big challenge. Some may even refer to it as a problem. I certainly do. Because I strive to figure out where the nutrition, I can sustain a living on, is in the long tail.

To me, the long tail does not seem like a very nice place to be. It’s like being at the final hair on the very tail end of the dogs tail: You’re not really clinging to much and the risk is that you’ll fall off and be left to die at the road side, while the dog just keep running into the horizon.

Many media companies essentially sit at the long tail waiting to see how much the consumer has left to spend on content once they have spent fortunes on hardware, software and access. And because it’s such a lousy place to be, media companies should try and figure out ways of moving a lot closer to the dogs head rather than it’s…well, you get the point.

If not all the long tail is going to give you is a set of very long balls.

Ads are killing themselves

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AllThingsD had an interesting piece the other day about how the Math Men are taking over advertising from the Mad Men. It’s interesting because it’s generally telling of how the advertising industry as a whole is busy killing itself in the face of the consumer.

Back before the Excel-guys took over, there were lots of obnoxious and terrible ads as well as the occasional fun one that struck a chord. Nobody outside advertising really loved them but it was seen as somewhat innocent because everybody knew the game that was being played on more or less equal terms: The advertiser in reality knew very little about the audience and thus often completely missed the plot, and the audience knew that and thus forgave the intrusion.

Now, it’s different. The algorithms have taken over and have changed the game fundamentally. Advertisers now know a lot more about the audience than the other way around. The game is skewed. The audience gets bombarded with detailed messages that include ever more direct calls-to-action. The fun is out of the equation. It’s ‘consume-consume-consume’.

As a result, the audience is going blind. Many don’t look at messages any more because they know that these are carefully tailored towards getting them to perform actions (buy stuff) they really have no desire to. And thus the effect of the advertising goes down. You need to game the system more to get effect back up. You need to apply even more clever algorithms. You remove costly human elements and rely more on automation. And so and and so on. Until you have essentially killed the ad.

Thus, going for an ad supported model for whatever venture you have, is not the smartest thing to do. Because you’ll be sitting at the thin end of the value chain; the advertisers and agencies will have optimized for their benefit, and your audience won’t respond. It truly is an industry that is by and large killing itself albeit slowly.