Digital Transformation or Extinction

My notes from the Opening Keynote at ClickZ Live Chicago 2015

by Victor Lee @vlee, Senior Vice President, Digital Marketing, Hasbro, Incorporated

Why is change so hard? We love normal.

Netflix tried to sell 49% to Blockbuster, but Blockbuster said “no” because they didn’t want change. Now Blockbuster doesn’t exist any more.

We accept average. On average a banner ad click-through rate now is .1% to .2%. We celebrate a .25% click-through rate because it’s above average, but who wants to be average? The majority of the world has accepted the current numbers. It’s safe.

Don’t be afraid to fail. Be afraid to win. “Because we’ve always done it that way.” The people who have always done it that way, usually aren’t around anymore.

Newspapers, radio and TV have had to change to be relevant.

Nostalgia is the enemy of progress. 6 years ago Time magazine said that Google would never recover their investment in YouTube.

How Do We Win?

You have to have the will, confidence and belief that this is what you need to do.

The first one through the wall gets bloody, but they break it down for everyone else.

• Talent – don’t read resumes. Look for confidence and ability.
  • Interview questions – see how open the person is to sharing their actual opinions with you.
    • What is your favorite song?
    • What is your guiltiest pleasure?
  • Time person of the year 2006 – is YOU! (Great conversation starter.)
• Trends
  • someone decided to wear jeans so tight you can’t sit or move.
  • crossfit.
  • kale.
  • You can’t predict trends. “trendhunter” is a lie.
  • 8 zetabytes of data will go through the Internet this year.
  • How do you know what will catch on? You don’t, but fire catches quickly.
  • Flappy Bird took off – too much stress, so developer took it offline, even though he was making $50,000/day. Tried another app and it flopped.
  • e-commerce – China singles day started 11/11/11 – anti-valentine’s day – Last week Alibaba reported $14 billion in sales in one day.
• Transformation
  • Find your moment – how do you find your “it” moment.
  • When Oprah gave away the cars, it was a transformational moment for the audience, GM & Oprah. G6 needed a flashy launch. Idea didn’t come from the creative director or anyone else. Brainstorming session – idea came from an intern to use Oprah on her “favorite things” episode.
• Take a Shot
  • Be the person that says “let’s go to the moon!”
  • In 2007, two things happened in our world.
    • Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone
    • Facebook dropped the word “the” from their URL and opened it up to the world.
    • There was a convergence of the power of the person with a platform and a device
• Fail.. Alot
• Be Slightly Different
  • At Hasbro, they did research on Monopoly and found out that people didn’t like the tokens.
  • They put the classic tokens in jail and said they weren’t coming back.
  • Different companies leveraged social media to vote for their tokens. Tropicana wanted the wheel barrow. Zappos wanted the shoe. 9-Lives wanted a cat.
    • People love the nostalgia, but they also love the change.
    • The Internet loves cats – the cat got voted in.
  • YouTube influencers are bigger than other celebrities in a lot of cases. They got there because they were slightly different.
• Create the Future
  • Could you imagine a few years ago that
    • the largest taxi service didn’t own a single car?
    • the largest hotel company didn’t own a single property.

When developing a pitch, it should be so tied into the brand that if you replaced the logo with another brand, it wouldn’t work.