Pek Pongpaet

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I found some commercials that I think have the right ingredients of really great advertising. If you’ve read the book “Made to Stick – Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die” by Dan and Chip Heath, you’ll notice that the following commercials have many of the characteristics that make them “sticky”.

A little info on these commercials: They are part of a campaign to promote life insurance policies by “Thai Insurance”, one of the big Thai insurance companies. They are in Thai, but somebody has taken the time to add English subtitles to them. You’ll have to pardon the translation as it’s a little rough sometimes, but it gets the meaning and message across.

Apart from the fact that they are all really well done, I like the narrative style and the visual style. I don’t know if the impact of the message is lost in translation, but as a Thai, I was certainly moved by all of them. But let’s get back to what Chip and Dan think are elements of great ideas and how we see them in these commercials.

1. Simplicity – each of the commercials is trying to convey one idea, not try to throw 10 things at you hoping one of them sticks
2. Unexpected – I would say the last commercial was definitely unexpected
3. Concrete – each of the 3 stories is a concrete idea that can be grasped, not some abstract thought or generalization
4. Credibility – although I certainly wouldn’t want any of these to happen to me or anyone I know, we know it COULD happen.
5. Emotional – ditto
6. Stories – each one of these is a single story that can be easily told – hence transported

I hope that gives you some ideas on how to make your message “sticky”.

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I’ve read about Majora Carter in Guy Kawasaki’s new book Reality Check. Here’s her TEDTalk in 2006. It’s 18 minutes long but well worth it.

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A guest blog post by Kim Pongpaet

I have to say that day after day my husband never ceases to amaze me with his creativity and vision. Not only is he masterful writing code and creating design, he has a pretty darn good memory when it comes to things he’s read or seen. He consumes knowledge like a fat kid consumes cake.

Me, I’m more the common sense (street smart) kinda girl. I was raised in an upper middle class home with two parents that never divorced (as so many of my friends parents did). Our house was the party place and there was always a bunch of people from every race and ethnicity laughing and eating and drinking and having a good time. Early 70′s must have been a blast for my folks and I was carefully watching –probably more than they knew or would have liked.

While I liked school; I loved English, Creative Writing, Psych, Sociology…But throw science and math at me and it was like kryptonite. Anything but that! It was too analytical.

I went my whole life without any need (practical application need) of anything I learned in Algebra, Geometry, dissecting frogs, pigs and any other poor thing that couldn’t get away fast enough.

So when I met the love of my life, and he was the analytical, book smart, reserved person I was like ……huh. Well either he’s the ying to my yang or we’ll kill each other. He’s patient and softer spoken. I’m impatient and always ready to speak up. Yet as different as we are, we’ve found that we compliment each other in so many ways. We’re truly soul mates.

Enough mushy stuff. So my technological/ internet savvy (on a scale of 1-10) was like a 3. I could turn on my computer, check email and surf the web. What more did I need it for anyhow? But my husband (who understands the inner workings of these things) see’s the infinitely possibilities. In his never ending quest to share his interests with me without stuffing them down my throat, I’ve found there actually is more to the net than checking email and finding movie times.

Myspace, Facebook, Shelfari, Linkedin, Blogs, Monster, Careerbuilder, Social media sites, all these things were totally new to me and some were quite cool. I met my husband on Myspace actually. I had no clue how to build a page … but a girlfriend of mine insisted that I had to have one and helped me build it. I no longer have it, as I think it doesn’t really fit my “demographic” LOL. But there are plenty of other things I have plugged in to, that I never would have known if not for him.

Open mind. That’s all I can say. Everyone out there keep an open mind. Technology is advancing at light speed. Things we see as amazing (like online banking and bill pay) are things our parents would never have dreamed of. I can only imagine the world our children will grow up in (well, after we have some of course).

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I’ve seen some fights in the cafeteria during my youth but they never looked anything like this before.

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