kidis newsletter november 2013

KIDIS CREATIVE ADVERTISING

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A BRILLIANT METHOD TO GENERATE IDEAS FOR YOUR BUSINESSWritten by Simon Reynolds

The future of your business depends on just two abilities. Firstly, being able to come up with excellent ideas to expand your business. Secondly to be good at implementing those ideas.There are thousands of books and articles about the implementation part, but comparatively little about quality business idea generation.

Over the last 25 years I have made my living coming up with good business ideas and over time I developed a system that allowed me to do so quickly, efficiently and effectively. Below is a quick ten step methodology that will allow you to speedily generate lots of different ideas for your company. Whether you’d like to conceive new income streams, fresh marketing concepts, breakthrough positioning strategies or novel product ideas, this system will get the job done.

Here’s how it works. Spend ten minutes on each of the questions below. During the ten minute period endeavour to come up with as many answers to each question as you can. Only after you have completed each question should you review your solutions. At stage one it’s all about quantity – the more answers you come up with the higher your chances of generating something wondrous. Stage two is the sifting process – picking the gems and discarding the rest. Follow this process and you’ll have no shortage of excellent ideas to use throughout your company.

Question one: What’s something I could do that’s really extreme?This question forces you to think more

laterally than most of us usually do. Often when we brainstorm, our ideas are merely tiny changes to what’s already there. The danger is that if we think too safe and small we often will end up with solutions that have no hope of making an impact. By choosing to conceive ideas that must all be extreme we have a chance of coming up with ideas that, with a little tweaking, could be something really special.

Question two: What could we add to something we already do to make it more extraordinary?This question can lead to some wonderful ideas. By simply adding to an already successful concept you can take it into a totally different and vastly more profitable area. Is it not true that many of the most impactful concepts in your industry were only slightly better than what everyone else was doing? Take ten minutes to brainstorm additions to your existing best ideas, you may well be delighted by what you come up with.

Question three: What could we strip away from what we already do?This is in many ways the opposite of the previous question. When you look at an existing product or industry you can often come up with something novel by just reducing the core idea to something simpler. For example when Bic produced the first mass produced disposable razor it was merely a simplified version of the traditional version. Toyota did the same with cars, decades ago. What could you strip away to create something more unique, novel or marketable?

“By choosing to conceive ideas that must all be extreme we have a chance of coming up with ideas that, with a little tweaking, could be something really special.”

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Question four: What ideas could we take from other industries and apply to ours?It’s amazing how little cross pollination there is between industries. Yet one of the quickest ways to come up with a break though idea is to examine what other industries are doing and see if you can apply those concepts in your sector. For example software sales people could learn a lot from the best real estate sales people. TV writers could learn a whole range of new techniques from advertising writers. Don’t just navel gaze inside your own world- take a look at the industries around you and see how their old ideas could become your new ones.

Question five: What could we steal from competitors and make a slight change to?Picasso said “Good artists borrow, great artists steal.” Steve Jobs once remarked, “We are shameless about stealing great ideas.” If these so called original thinkers were happy to steal from their competitors, maybe you should consider it too. By stealing of course, I don’t mean

outright IP theft, I am suggesting that you look at products and strategies your competition is using with success, alter them a little then try them yourself. Generally speaking, if they work for them they’ll usually work for you. A case in point; Indian Motorcycles has grown a breakneck speed in the last three years by copying many of the marketing strategies that have worked for Harley Davidson.

Question six: What will they be doing in our industry in 20 years?This question sparks loads of intriguing ideas. Don’t look forward 12 months, have a go at foreseeing two decades. You may not predict accurately but you are far more likely to come up with interesting ideas and directions for your company. After all, the future is often dominated by those who can envision where an industry is heading, rather than merely looking at where it is currently. For instance, TV exec Barry Diller made himself a billionaire by successfully predicting 15 years ago that the internet would become a major advertising platform.

Don’t just navel gaze inside your own world- take a look at the industries around you and see how their old ideas could become your new ones.

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Question seven: What would we be scared to do?This question is all about pushing the envelope. How far would you go? Could you go? The answers will often up all kinds of intriguing ideas – and possibly create entirely new sectors. In the education world, the recent rise of MOOCs – Massive Open Online Courses that deliver high quality education to millions for free, shocked the industry. But that scary idea is currently creating several super fast growing enterprises. As the British Special Air Service commandos say, ‘Who Dares Wins.’

Question eight: What would Steve Jobs do in this situation?Or John Paul Getty? Or Andrew Carnegie? By trying to guess how great entrepreneurs would handle your business situation you free your mind up to think in different ways. How would they disrupt your industry? What direction would they choose to give them a chance of dominating your sector like they once did theirs? Pretend you’re them and find out.

Question nine: What’s the fastest thing we could do?This is another out of the box way of thinking about your business. If the usual

product cycle in your industry is 12 months, how could you get a product out in 12 weeks? Don’t just say it’s impossible, force yourself to think more laterally. James Patterson is one of the world’s most successful authors. When most authors produce a book every year or two, last year Patterson released twelve! How? He asked the speed question and came up with an entirely different way of writing, using teams.

Question ten: What’s the cheapest thing we could do?The vast majority of successful companies were started with less than $25,000. Many have been begun with a few hundred bucks. Contrary to popular opinion tiny budgets often increase creativity, not inhibit it. So think cheap, really cheap. What could you create for a song, if that was your only option? Stick with that question for a while and I guarantee you some exciting solutions will emerge.

So in summary, these ten questions have the potential to open the floodgates of your mind. I have used them for years to generate all manner of highly lucrative business concepts and directions. If you’re looking for a business break through, these questions could be the answer.

“Contrary to popular opinion tiny budgets often increase creativity, not inhibit it. So think cheap, really cheap.”

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NOVEMBER 2013

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MOBILE SITES OF MOST TOP BRANDS ARE SLOW TO LOAD, NOT OPTIMIZEDWritten by Ayaz Nanji

Pages on the mobile websites of Fortune 100 companies take five seconds on average to load, much longer than Google’s recommendation of one second or less, according to a recent report by The Search Agency.

The agency examined the mobile sites of the Fortune 100 and gave each a score based on five factors: load speed, site format, calculated download speed, social media presence, and app presence.

Site speed in particular was emphasized because of Google’s recent mobile best-practices guidelines.

Out of a possible five points—one being the lowest and five being the highest—the average score for the companies in the study was just 2.31.

However, the average score varied significantly by industry, with the mobile sites of telecom (3.26), logistics (2.97), and retail (2.89) companies ranking the highest, and those of wholesalers (1.16), aerospace (1.17), and oil/gas (1.87) scoring the lowest.

Site speed in particular was emphasized because of Google’s recent mobile best-practices guidelines.


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Worst-Performing Mobile SitesSysco and Hess had the lowest scoring mobile sites of the Fortune 100 (0.36 out

of five), Philip Morris International had the next lowest score (0.39), followed by Fannie Mae (0.48).

Below, additional key findings from the report.

Top-Performing Mobile SitesCoca-Cola and FedEx had the top performing mobile sites of the Fortune

100, tying for first place in the report’s ranking with scores of 4.49 out of five.TIAA-CREF and Walgreens tied for third place with scores of 4.24.Liberty Mutual ranked fifth with a score of 4.19.

Responsive Web Design

Although Google has established Responsive Web Design (RWD) as the best-practice for serving the same HTML across devices, the 20 sites that ranked the highest in the report use dedicated mobile sites rather than RWD.Of the 100 sites examined, only nine use RWD.Of the remaining 91 companies,

47 use dedicated mobile sites, while the other 44 do not provide a separate mobile experience from the desktop version of their site.

About the research: The report was based on an analysis of the mobile sites of Fortune 100 companies. Each site was assigned a score based on load speed, site format, calculated download speed, social media presence, and app presence.

NOVEMBER 2013

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Located on the corner of Pulteney and Pirie St in Adelaide’s CBD Caffe Amore offer an array of popular Italian foods such as succulent steaks, mouth-watering seafood dishes and authentic pizzas and pastas.We are proud to launch the new website and mobile site for Caffe Amore.

Let Us Know What You Think?

You can see the website at http://www.cafeamore.com.au/, and the mobile at http://m.cafeamore.com.au/. (Don’t forget to save it to your phone)

We are very grateful that we were chosen to create their entirely new online presence.

KIDIS AND CAFE AMORE LAUNCH THEIR NEW WEBSITE AND MOBILE SOLUTION

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Here it is folks, looking to buy property, get a home loan, financial advice, and or insurance, well Acquired Group have you covered, and we have them covered. Today we are proud to announce the launch of their new Mobile Website and Web App. Take a look and let us know what you think?

Acquired was after a solution to help mobile and tablet users interact with them online. The current website didn’t accommodate these platforms and

devices. We have provided Acquired Group with a simple, easy to navigate and cost effective solution that enables anyone from any device to interact with the company.

You can sign up to one of the free property seminars, download a free e-book, get some investment tips, or do a few home loan calculations and much more, to view the site visit:http://acquiredgroup.com.au/m/

CLIENT CORNER

KIDIS AND ACQUIRED LAUNCH THEIR NEW MOBILE SOLUTION

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NOVEMBER 2013

MONTHLY QUOTES AND SOME HUMOR

“If we hope to go anywhere or develop ourselves in any way, we can only step from where we are standing. If we don’t really know where we are standing... We may only go in circles...” - Jon Kabat-Zinn

“I think the person who takes a job in order to live - that is to say, for the money - has turned himself into a slave.” - Joseph Campbell

“The only easy day was yesterday” - US Navy Seal Saying

Written by Paul TselekidisDirector and Chief Marketing Strategist at Kidis Creative AdvertisingDistributed by Kidis Creative AdvertisingDesigned to inform and entertain our clients and friends

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