Good men, bring your ideas to life.

Came upon the concept of Ideaicide while reading John Moore’s blog, Brand Autopsy. Ideaicide, a term coined by Alan Parr and Karen Ansbaugh, means the killing of ideas by person(s) in a corporate setting. In other words, ideas are shot down on the basis that they are too radical, too new or too different from the company culture.

In their manifesto Ideaicide: How To Avoid It And Get What You Want, they illustrate ways to pitch our ideas such that ideaicide does not happen (literally bringing our ideas to life, haha).

While the manifesto is an interesting read overall, I felt that the section on relatibility was very useful:

Ideas are usually rejected out of turn for being too “something”—too fast, too unproven, too far beyond the corporate image. “Too something” is a reactionary description used to take the edge off ideas that are strong, bold, and a little scary at first sight. Your challenge is to help people discover a means, harmonious with the culture, to accept your concept.

People need something familiar to relate to in order to gain a sense of comfort with the new, the strange. Creative ideas take the facts, feelings and everyday fictions we all share and find new ways to connect them. By making the new and strange seem familiar, you not only establish an opening for your audience to interpret your idea, you create a backdrop against which the edge of your idea will shine.

Make your ideas relatable. I liked what it says because it happens to me a lot. An idea that to me is creative gets reactions that range from ‘don’t-get-it’ stares, skeptical eyebrow raises, and even “Haha! Oh, you weren’t kidding?”.

It sounds simple, but I think many people forget to make their ideas relatable, thinking that they can sell the idea simply because it is new and/or creative.

I think the worst thing to happen is not having your ideas rejected, but not allowing your ideas to be heard in the first place due to fear of rejection. Talk about them, invite others to suggest improvements, or even just write them down, but never kill your ideas. Which reminds me of this saying:

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

- Edmund Burke

Alan and Karen put the power back into our hands when they say “Ideaicide is your problem.”

The manifesto Ideaicide: How To Avoid It And Get What You Want is available here.

The problem of having/being a copycat

I was reading the Sunday Times today and came upon an article about how Starbucks’ case against the similarity of its logo with that of Taiwanese coffee chain Ecoffee was recently rejected because of the latter’s so-called distinctive features.

This is what I found on the Tai E International Patent Law & Office website:

Two logos respectively being “ECOFFEE & Design壹咖啡” and “STARBUCKS COFFEE and Design”, both comprising the white word “COFFEE” on a green circumference framing a white picture on a brown background were held to be distinctive by the Taipei High Administrative Court on December 13, 2007; because the word coffee is illustrative of the designated goods and the circular device has become a weak mark.

And this:

Therefore, the two trademarks “STARBUCKS COFFEE and Design” and “ECOFFEE & Design壹咖啡” should be deemed distinguishable since consumers applying a normal level of attention would not be confused.

I agree that the Ecoffee logo, while being rather similar to the Starbucks one, still has enough differences to warrant it to not be exactly like Starbucks - yes, as a customer I can tell the difference between the two.

However, what struck me was this quote from Mr Steven Soo, the Singaporean franchiser of Ecoffee:

“Ecoffee is like a Chinese Starbucks and I think there is a market for it here.”

The issue for me is not one of fooling your customers (I highly doubt that any regular Starbucks coffee lover would mistake one for the other), but one of how Ecoffee is marketing itself.

Why would any business want to market themselves as a local version of insert-highly-distinctive-much-loved-by-consumers-brand-here, when they can create a unique personality for themselves that automatically differentiates themselves from their competitors?

It’s like being a lesser-known relative of a famous person (Brad Pitt’s half-brother, Bill Gates’ Mexican cousin, etc). Why would you ever want to settle for second best?

Coincidentally, Michael Netzley from CommunicateAsia has also commented on this issue. He asks a very important question: Instead of trying to defend yourself from being labeled a copycat, why not just focus on differentiation and creating a brand that you can be proud of?

Today’s newspaper also featured a similar article ($50 iPod? Sounds too good to be real) on a S$50 MP3 player that looks convincingly similar to the iPod nano. In the article, one owner of the copycat nano says this:

“Honestly, not many people can tell the difference between the real and fake players. So I feel that I have made a smart decision to invest in a fake iPod.”

This leads me to several questions:

What motivates people to buy copycats? Is it a symbol of status that people desire but may not be able to afford? i.e. It makes me want to buy a Prada-lookalike bag because I want to be viewed as fashion-forward and trendy by my peers.

Also, the abovementioned user sees her purchase as an investment, meaning that she will get returns from it presumably via fooling people into believing that she has the real thing.

What if more consumers decide that buying an iPod lookalike at a fraction of the price is enough to buy into the brand experience, since most other people won’t be able to tell the difference (unless they start playing with the interface)? What does this mean for the original company?

I don’t know if these are important questions, but they popped in my head, so I just thought that I’d share them with you. Feel free to share your own views too.