By Ted Page, Captains of Industry


In their excellent book, Switch, Dan and Chip Heath offer research-based insights into how communications initiatives can change behavior within organizations, or broadly within society. Here’s a key point they keep driving home:

I wrote about one perfect example of this previously in the Captains Table – getting people to reuse their towels in hotels. Begging people to help save water and protect the environment has never worked. So they took a different tack, with a sign based on contagious behavior: “The majority of guests at this hotel reused their towels at least once during their stay.” Guests with this sign in their rooms were 26% more likely to reuse their towels. That’s impressive.

So, the question is, how do we apply the principal of contagious behavior to the global warming communications challenge I wrote about last week? Answer: We have to reach a tipping point where the majority of Americans believe that global warming is both real and man made, then leverage that fact in our communications. It doesn’t have to be the vast majority, but it needs to be simply most people. Unfortunately, it appears we were at this point just a few years ago, but attitudes have changed again – for the worse. A recent poll from Yale university indicates that while most Americans believe global warming is real, slightly less than half think it’s caused by human activity. If people don’t think we’re causing it, they’ll have zero interest in changing behavior. And less than half is not the majority we need for contagious behavior. I chalk up the worsening of American attitudes towards global warming to disinformation spread by cable “news” commentators, as well as the well-publicized email snafu in the scientific community.

Getting back to having a majority of Americans behind the idea that global warming is man-made will not be easy, but having the truth as a foundation is a great thing to build on. Among the top climate scientists globally, the debate is over.

Enjoy, and happy friday!

See the whole page: Zombie Bikinis

By Mark Kammel, Captains of Industry

Apple’s new professional video editing software Final Cut Pro X was released last week as a downloadable App in the Mac App Store for $299.99, which is $299.99 more than it’s worth. That bad? Yup. The closest analogy we can think of is the introduction of Jar Jar Binks into the Star Wars series. Jar Jar and FCPX come right out of left field and ruin something that was once great. “The kids will love Jar Jar,” George Lucas thinks as he high fives his friends. “Now everyone can be a professional editor,” Steve Jobs thinks as he greenlights the new FCPX. But Jar Jar was just plain annoying, and FCPX lost the familiar features that made it easy and powerful to use in the first place. In order to market to a wider consumer audience, Apple downgraded the formerly-powerful software making it akin to that of their pre-packaged, entry-level editing software, iMovie. As Jar Jar might have said, “Ooh mooey mooey, me think this software no goody!” We could go on and on about how truly awful this upgrade (gag) is, but nothing could compare with this eloquent video “endorsement” from the editors of the Conan O’Brian show:

By Ted Page, Captains of Industry

“The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.”
Verbal, The Usual Suspects, in reference to the infamous Keyser Soze.

For many years now there has been an army of lobbyists and “news” channels doing their best to convince people that global warming is a hoax. Or the latest argument (kind of a fall back position) that global warming is happening, but mankind – little us – has nothing to do with it. This coordinated campaign of disinformation has had a powerful and very negative effect. A survey by Yale University and George Mason university found that the number of Americans who believed that global warming was not happening doubled between 2008 and 2010. The Devil, you could say, has once again pulled his biggest trick.

This change in belief occurred despite the fact that we are seeing more frequent and severe storms – exactly what the world’s leading scientists said would happen as man-made global warming progressed. Devastating tornadoes in Missouri and Western Massachusetts are just the latest example of the increasingly freakish weather we are subjected to, a trend that is on track to worsen. So, what’s really going on here?

We have a communications problem. Solving it will be a huge challenge, but it can be done. Only when we Americans (and the people of every nation) believe that global warming is real and man-made can we then start the hard work of slowing and stopping it. I’ll be writing about this challenge in the coming months, with examples of campaigns that have worked in the past to change public opinion and behavior on other pressing issues. Stay tuned!

Fourth of July Weekend is almost here. Start enjoying the fireworks now!

By Ted Page, Captains of Industry

So, you get together with a group of creative people for a brainstorm, and ideas are popping up like popcorn in a pot – ping ping ping – and suddenly the BIG IDEA appears. Everyone agrees it’s a home run. Later, the question often gets asked (sometimes by the client), “Who came up with that?” The answer should always be “we did” – and never a single person. Even if it was a single person who actually suggested the idea to the group, the reality is that there’s no way that person would have come up with the idea if they were not building off the ideas generated by the group. Of course it’s important to hire people who are good at coming up with big ideas. But if you look closely at how they came up with their ideas, it’s inevitably because they’re good at working with a team, being supportive of other people’s ideas, and never hogging credit to make themselves look like a star.

By Ted Page, Captains of Industry

Group brainstorming sessions – love ‘em or hate ‘em – are a common practice in the advertising biz, driven by the constant need for big, juicy creative ideas. While I do think these sessions are a good way to simulate new thinking, it turns out that brainstorming is happening all the time inside our individual minds on a subconscious level, whether we’re taking a shower, driving to work, or staring at the ocean. In his best-selling book, Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain, author David Eagleman provides a fascinating look inside what Woody Allen has called his “second favorite organ.” Our brains, apparently, are constantly cogitating on a subconscious level, as if a massive supercomputer were inside our heads crunching highly complex code and connecting disparate ideas into unique and flavorful ideas. Eagleman describes writers who have no idea what they are going to write about on any given day, but when they do sit down to write it’s as if the words emerge like they’re being dictated by someone else. That other person is actually their brain, which has been secretly working overtime on their behalf. One takeaway from this insight is that we can’t expect all the great ideas to come out of a single group brainstorming session. Think of that first group session as a catalyst designed to jumpstart individual brainstorms. Keep each group brainstorm short – no more than an hour – and schedule follow-up meetings spaced a day or two apart. This will allow time for each member of your team to benefit from hearing the ideas of others, and to then keep the brainstorm going inside their own head, subconsciously, while they are away from the office or even sleeping. When they return to the next group brainstorm, they’ll share new ideas they came up with when they were away from the office. It’s ironic and kind of funny that some of our best ideas may be created when we are supposedly engaged in “brainless” pursuits, which in my case involves watching Game of Thrones. Who knew?

By Mark Kammel, Captains of Industry


Google’s ads will never cease to amaze me. It’s not that they have huge production value. Rather, they’re just simple but well-conceived commercials that you want to show to your friends. For example, this semi-DIY commerical features some kids using Android to play Chubby Bunny.

How else can I put it? “The age of advertising based on interruption is on its way out.” I know, we’re quoting our own Manifesto, but it doesn’t make it any less true. These ads aren’t on television, they aren’t annoying pop-ups online, and they aren’t interfering with your daily routine. You’re going to hear about these ads because they are actually fun to watch.

So whether you’re interested in finding out whether Google’s browser is faster than a lightning bolt, or whether you can order Indian food on the phone in a different language, or even if you’d like to have a fashion show with your friends tonight, Google is ready to amuse you.

Happy Friday! Enjoy the weekend!

By Jean Levasseur, Captains of Industry


The front-end design of your site is important, but so is the back-end structure of the site – the part that makes it actually work. If the website isn’t programmed on a solid platform, it might not function properly, and it will be difficult to update and maintain. Based on our website development experience, here are the five most important questions that you should think about when talking to your site programmer.

1. What platform will the site be built on?
   With the plethora of free, high-quality content management systems (CMS) available online, you shouldn’t have to settle for an HTML-only site that you can’t update yourself. The two content management systems that we use are WordPress and Drupal, but there are many others out there, all of which give you control over your own site. Never settle for a setup that doesn’t allow you to easily update text and images on the site with your own in-house resources. Read more Share This
   

By Ted Dillon, Captains of Industry

I’m so sick of Green Lantern and Hangover 2 trailers. You can imagine my surprise this past week then when I watched a new Green Lantern trailer that actually turned out to be a trailer for The Muppets movie. The Muppets movie? That’s right, the two most recent trailers for The Muppets are spoofs, one of The Hangover 2 and the other of Green Lantern.

But why? What is the target demographic for The Muppets movie? Their first trailer was a spoofed romantic comedy, and now these two. Are they targeting teen girls who see rom-coms, comicbook fans and Canadians who see Green Lantern, or college kids who love The Hangover? I guess all three. It’s tough when most everyone born after ’65 has grown up with a Muppets movie release.

I enjoy the angle they took: They made sure to stay fresh by including modern content, and in every trailer they say nothing about the plot except to ask themselves “What are we hiding? Is the movie in Swedish?” By doing this they don’t have to appeal to just one demographic and typecast their audience. Kermit can cast the net wide by parodying movies from an array of audiences and hype his movie based on the child in all of us that remembers and loves The Muppets. Green Lantern and Hangover 2 both ranked #1 their opening weekend so choosing to play off those movies was a sure way to get wide exposure. Gotta say I’m definitely gonna go see The Muppets, even if I haven’t watched once since A Muppet Christmas Carol came out, because who knows what will happen in this one?

Happy Friday!