During one of my Fora.tv lunch breaks, I came across this talk that discusses how the creators of the “Heroes” series managed to develop such a strong community around the show, and most importantly how this community spans over a large number of touchpoints. There are many lessons that brands can learn from such a case study. I will try to summarize a few here that I find key.
The Talk: Digital, Life, Design 2010: Audience Sourcing
Speakers: Tim Kring (”Heroes”) and Peter Hirshberg (The Conversation Group)
Duration: 27 minutes
Build around a strong message
Remember that one liner summarizing your vision that some consultant or trainer asked you to come up with. Well, that’s really useful to have. Heroes was created around the message: “Save the world”. This message was not only used in the series, but also in communications and activities organized around the series, with ultimately a game developed to get people to do good. Whether it is internally with your employees or externally with your customers, this message will help unite everyone and give a personality to the experience people have with your company.
Whether there exist a written version of this vision or not, all companies have one. Companies communicates this vision or identity through all its channels and making a conscious effort to phrase it and work with it makes a real big difference. As such this vision should be realistic in the sense that it reflects the nature of the organization. If it does not, it won’t resonate with employees and customers.
A strong vision is necessary so that innovation can happen. Many companies around are afraid to set a vision as it is seen as reducing the scope of possible ideas generated, but the truth is that not all ideas are good for a company. There is a crucial difference between ideas and innovation. For the “right” ideas to be uncovered, employees and customers have to be helped to the right path. The vision helps innovation.
Surrender some control to your customers
The vision set for a company has to be specific enough to inspire people, but it has to be opened enough as well to leave space for innovation and idea generation. This vision is not there to ensure the company will keep 100% control over its identity, it’s here to ensure the brand evolves in the right direction.
And this is the second important point. Now, branding as mentioned in the talk is not a one-way street. It is definitely a two way street and companies need to adjust their strategies to this environment. Allowing your customers to participate in the brand is scary, but by turning them into brand ambassadors it is also a huge opportunity. For Heroes, the community is encouraged to come up with artwork around the series, and pirating of TV episodes although not encouraged of course, is tolerated as a reality of life. In this second instance, the multi-channel approach helps monetizing these customers using different means instead of getting stuck on one dysfunctional touchpoint.
Stay close to your customer
That’s where user experience or design thinking comes in. In order to implement such an approach, it is necessary to stay as close as possible to your customers. To do so, a community was key to Heroes and their series, but in case of a company in general other tools should be used to keep this strong connection. An open channel for front-line staff to report their observations of customers is always a very important component of this strategy. Other tools like ethnographic research, testing or other qualitative and quantitative techniques come in handy.
In the end, the approach to user experience should be a holistic one instead of one that is driven by individual projects. True innovation does not happen on demand. The right environment has to be cultivated for it to happen.