We hear a lot in social media about how you need to inject some personality into your brand.

Many struggle with the notion, feeling their brand is boring and has nothing beyond the facts about what they do.

When you think about brands with personality, government is not one that jumps to mind. Yet the US Government has managed to pull off one of the greatest examples of brand personality I think I’ve ever seen.

For those that haven’t seen it in the last two days, the White House has provided an official response to a petition on We The People calling for the construction of a Death Star by 2016.

Frivolous and as tongue in cheek as the original request may have been, the White House requires a petition to reach 25,000 signatures within 30 days to receive an official response. When it met the threshold, it would have been very easy, and less face it, very government-esque, to respond with a simple no.

But instead, they had some fun with it.

Click here to read it yourself.

In a way that celebrated the very geekdom of wanting to build one in the first place, Paul Shawcross, Chief of the Science and Space Branch at the White House Office of Management and Budget laid out a very detailed explanation of why it wasn’t possible, laden with references to blowing up planets, the kessel run, and the very thing that destroyed the original Death Star – a one man star ship.

The result – a viral sensation that’s spread like wildfire in two days.

So next time you think that you can’t inject anything fun into what you’re putting out there, just think – what is it that is really going to set your target market’s world on fire? What’s going to suprise and delight them? Try something in their language – see how they respond.

PHOTO – xoque

We talk a lot in product development about the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) – a product with a minimum set of features that allows people to familarise themselves with it, provide feedback, and a platform to iterate on. The important part of it is that the MVP is at such a point that people will continue to use it. It’s about the value it provides.

It’s important that we don’t limit this kind of minimum viability thinking to just products. We need to apply it to experiences as well.

Let me give you an example.

Lego

My son is mad for Lego. We got so much of it for Christmas we are still putting it all together.

So imagine his excitement when we discovered a coffee shop in Lygon St Melbourne that was adorned with Lego branding in the front window. Is it possible that I could have a coffee while he built? Sounded awesome!

So we parked the car and headed on in. Quickly, it became fairly obvious that not all was what it seemed from the front door. What we had instead appeared to be a shop that sold Lego that you could also buy a coffee at.

Lining the walls were a selection of the smaller Lego sets, scaling right up to the massive Star Wars branded fighters and Death Star models.

Not an open set in sight (unless they were already put together and on display). No Lego dimpled table tops for the kids to build on. No high chairs for smaller kids. Just more and more Lego to buy. And a coffee machine.

Now, being that what you can see from the outside is a Lego sign, tables with sugar on them and the coffee machine, any normal adult would assume that this is a cafe where kids can play with Lego. To consider it a retail store to buy the product in, but you can also get a coffee at just seems at odds with each other.

The Minimum Viable Experience

When we asked about sets to play with and high chairs, they said they had neither, but that they were great ideas that they would get to eventually.

Eventually. The problem with eventually, as opposed to a definitive timeframe, is that now that I know what the experience is, I won’t be back.

When considering the minimum viable experience, consider what people might perceive that experience to be. Does what you are offering live up to that?

If it’s not 100% where you want it to be, when will it get there?

It’s important that your vision for the future is obvious when it comes to the experience you want people to have, for you and for your customers. You need to keep them on the journey while you fine tune it. If they are not, then they abandon you before the vision can become reality.

Photo – Jez Page

I was lucky enough to have dinner earlier this week with a couple of friends who are chefs, and we got onto the topic of product endorsements.

With so many of their peers beginning to spruik pre-made stocks, museli bars and designer burgers at KFC, the question came up – at what point do you become a sell out?

Brand ambassadors and celebrity endorsement are nothing new, they’ve long been a staple of marketing. But sometimes the fit between the product and the endorser is so jarring that it’s obvious it’s for nothing more than the money.

So my answer to the question of when you know it’s happened is “when your first thought is about how awesome the money will be”.

Any kind of endorsement should be seen as an extension of you – is it something you use / eat / buy already? Is it a competitive brand to to something you use / eat / buy etc already that you can be convinced to use instead?

Most importantly – is it in line with your values?

Let me give you another example. Oprah got on board the widely panned Microsoft bandwagon last week, tweeting about how much she loves the new Surface. Techcrunch then ran a great story about how the tweet came from her Twitter for iPad app.

It’s no secret that Microsoft has spent a bunch of money marketing the product, and I can only imagine that this particular endorsement had lots of zeroes in it, but the very obvious mistake of the above shows that she doesn’t actually use the product.

Bottom line – unless you plan to actively consume what you are promoting, and believe what you’re saying – you’ve sold out.

PHOTO – captainslack