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CHAPTER 09

THE ORGANIZING IDEA

Inspiring Experiences That Change Behavior and Drive Transactions

We have now introduced the working model and all four pillars that hold up an Organizing Idea: Brand Purpose, product/service positioning, understanding of consumer emotions, and understanding of consumer needs. You’ve also learned the importance of and the difference behind creating a world instead of just creating ads. So now it’s time to dig into one of the keys to unlocking the creation of your world—the Organizing Idea. Why? Because an Organizing Idea does just that; it organizes. Organizes what? you may ask. It organizes the connections between your consumer and your story in a way that builds emotional association and inspires behavior. It’s a strategic input and sometimes, just sometimes, it may also be a creative expression. Organizing Ideas have the ability to help define how your brand interacts with the consumer. Even the very premise of what content you create, curate, or associate can be enhanced by leveraging it against an Organizing Idea. It’s a powerful concept that unlocks great effectiveness in how your story is told, delivered, engaged with, and experienced.

Your Organizing Idea is built from the four pillars of insight and knowledge you develop around your brand and the consumer. We have covered each of these pillars in depth in the previous four chapters. Having a true and meaningful connection to your Brand Purpose is integral; your Organizing Idea becomes part of how you bring that Purpose to life. Without a connection to the Brand Purpose, your Organizing Idea is nothing more than another random idea.

As expressed in Chapter 6, the positioning of your product or service is an equally important pillar. You’ll need a very clear perspective on what you offer, why you’re offering it, and how you are going to deliver it; otherwise, the behaviors that you’re seeking to create from Storyscaping will be less effective. The Organizing Idea serves to guide the type of experiences that are created and how those experiences are connected through a Story System. If you do not have a fundamental connection to the product or service positioning, everything you do will be less efficient in driving the ultimate response of a transaction.

The previous chapters on consumer insight prove how important it is to understand the emotional desires of consumers. The Organizing Idea fuels that emotional territory. To ensure the manner in which behaviors are inspired and immersive experiences are created, your Organizing Idea must have relevance and an association to consumer insight. This is key in keeping the desired connection in line with the purpose. Real consumer insight is often the foundation for the most creative solutions, particularly in the area of communication and the telling of the story. Truly understanding the emotional toils or cultural influences of a consumer is priceless. No amount of effort, exploration, or discovery is too much when it comes to finding fresh and authentic insight. It pays to explore all the dimensions of a consumer. We should explore at the widest level while taking the following into consideration: cultural insight, category insight, competitive insight, and the deepest level, insight into consumer emotion.

Finally, you gained a clearly defined view of how a consumer interacts with people, places, and things. Often illustrated as a consumer journey, knowing and following these interactions is foundational to understanding what and where behaviors exist. This information provides insight into how interactions may be harnessed, changed, or amplified. This effort is not as simple as looking at a day in the life of a consumer. We need to go deeper and understand the emotional journey and how that sentiment relates to their behavior.

Using these pillars, we can explore how to establish an effective Organizing Idea. First, we must understand what it is we are creating. We define an Organizing Idea as “an active statement that defines what the brand must do to change consumer behavior. It inspires the type of experiences that are created through the Storyscape.”

An Organizing Idea is not a big idea. A big idea is the creative expression or the OMG experience that delivers to an Organizing Idea.1 Red Bull is an amazing brand, a content brand that is connected with big ideas—really big ideas, like a guy riding a balloon to space and jumping out of it. Now that is a big idea, but it’s not an Organizing Idea. Let’s explore that a little. Red Bull has many big ideas, partnerships, content, and distribution channels.2 How does it get value from them all? The value appears and appreciates because they are all connected to an Organizing Idea. An Organizing Idea for Red Bull could be something like “take flight,” which is beautifully expressed as, “Red Bull Gives You Wings.” Starting from an idea like “Red Bull Gives You Wings” gives you real options to organize around. That’s why, when a crazy (in a good way) guy wants to jump from a balloon in space, you say, “Hell yeah that works.” It works because it is in line with your brand, it connects with your product through energy, it engages consumers that are content driven, and it excites emotionally. And even more than that, it brings to life the Organizing Idea of “Red Bull Gives You Wings.” When you look at Red Bull Flugtag, Joyride, Cliff Diving, and X Games sponsorships, you see that many of its connections and associations link to its Organizing Idea. And most important, the role of product is undeniable. This enables each Red Bull experience to lead to another without brand disconnect, even though the experience may be around different content.

Let the Creation Begin. Creating an Organizing Idea is not a science; there is no formula. There are inputs and insights but not a formula that guarantees a great idea. If there was a formula, ideas would no longer be the outcome of creativity. What we can offer you is a way to test whether you have an Organizing Idea or not. We see it more as a craft—a craft that comes from the input of many people. It’s a recipe of sorts—the main ingredients being instinct, gut feeling, experience, and passion—mixed into a melting pot of opportunity. The way you want to approach this dish is by finding a balance between being strategically minded, and at the same time, inspiring. That’s why it’s a craft; it’s built on teamwork.

We utilize an approach called connected thinking, where the outcomes of multiple opinions from different dimensions are more powerful than the view of one lone genius. That’s not to say that having a genius contribute isn’t valuable, of course it is, but it’s just one dimension. An Organizing Idea has multiple perspectives supporting it. At the same time, an Organizing Idea has a far-reaching application. This is why connected thinking is a critical foundation for ensuring the exploration of opportunities, while ownership of the idea remains shared. Plus, this process of collaboration builds understanding among people from the outset.

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When crafting and creating an Organizing Idea, we are looking for key characteristics that deliver on the pillars.

Here are some initial questions to ask yourself as you try to develop your Organizing Idea:

– Does it organize? Does it clearly give you a premise to organize how consumers will connect with the story?
– Does it help define the role of the channels you will use?
– When you hear it, do you feel like it activates behavior? You’re looking to stimulate an experience for consumers and these experiences require a behavior.
– Is the Organizing Idea, along with the associated projected experiences, delivering on the Brand Purpose? That is, does it align with and activate your brand’s belief? You should be able to draw a very clear logical connection between what the Brand Purpose is and what the Organizing Idea is all about. A good perspective comes from also asking yourself, Is the expected emotional connection in line with the brand cause, belief or Purpose?
– Brands are more than messages; a brand is a personification of a company. This personification should make you more likeable, memorable, and desirable for consumers. Similarly, an Organizing Idea should be in sync with and even a proponent of the brand’s tone and style. You can easily and quickly ask yourself, Does it sound like the brand would say this?
– Remember, the goal is to inspire immersive experiences. When you think about your Organizing Idea, do you instantly feel like you can create an experience that will deliver the behavior?
– Finally, Storyscaping is about building a world of immersive experiences and participation. An Organizing Idea is a core platform of experience, and as such, it needs to seek participation, either overtly or through likely behaviors. It’s a hard ask, but it’s one worth considering: Does the Organizing Idea have the potential to inspire experiences where people will involve the brand in their stories?

We’ve offered a series of aspects that we look for in an Organizing Idea, but again, it isn’t a science. Assessing a few words of thinking is not a definitive task. This is why experience, multiple perspectives, and forethought are applied. You have to imagine the creative expressions and experiences that the Organizing Idea is part of. Often the Organizing Idea is not formed in isolation of exploring creative expressions and territories. It’s not a passing-of-the-baton process between an Organizing Idea to a big idea and so on. It’s an organic, interactive, and creative process.

What to Avoid. Creating an Organizing Idea is a new concept. We have explained how it differs from a big idea. From a strategic point of view, sometimes it helps to explore what to avoid. So, here are some things to watch out for when creating your Organizing Idea.

– Do not use a proposition. That is, a statement about a brand feature or benefit and will not serve to organize. Instead, it should be an expression that inspires and changes behavior—not an offer that aims to manipulate. In other words, don’t use phrases like, “Only Sue Generic pizza has a family made special sauce,” or “Buy one pizza, get one free, only at Sue Generic pizza.”
– Do not use a bland or obvious statement. Our aim is to inspire creativity that connects with sharp insight. In other words, don’t use expressions such as, “Increase the preparedness of our fans and customers,” or “Help our customers do more.”
– Do not have it come from a consumer insight or consumer point of view. We seek to connect with consumers through insight, because insights inform Organizing Ideas. It shouldn’t sound like a description of a consumer’s world or desires. In other words, don’t use insights such as, “I seek balance in all dimensions of my life,” or “You can only fully immerse yourself in a place when you live there.”
– The principal purpose for and the creation of an Organizing Idea requires a fundamental shift in perspective. It’s at the very center of Storyscaping because it enables the development of connections for Story Systems and helps define channel roles, points of engagement, story dimensions, priorities, and experience opportunities.

If you are now starting to think about what your brand’s Organizing Idea might be or have done so while reading this chapter, you are right on track. If not, then please begin that process. If you have identified an Organizing Idea but are not sure whether it is right, just keep in mind that capitalizing on the power of an Organizing Idea requires some organizational shift in perspective. If you are not able or willing to define decisions around how to deliver your brand, build experiences, create content, tell stories, plan media, or define commerce channels with an Organizing Idea, you risk the true effectiveness that can be achieved. This is where we see many organizations are being challenged. Use this challenge as your fuel for positive change within your company. Believe in an Organizing Idea and strong Purpose that drives and builds immersive experiences—doing so can catapult organizations to new levels of efficiency and effectiveness and even increase the value of brands and your business as a whole.

Over the last decade, Coca-Cola unearthed the power that a strong application of Purpose and an Organizing Idea can achieve. And they still never sacrifice creativity, story evolution, or consumer engagement. Back in 2003, the Coca-Cola brand used the slogan, “Coca-Cola . . . Real” but there were many different ad campaigns that played out around the world. In 2005 they adopted the slogan, “Make it Real” and continued with a variety of diverse advertising campaigns across the world, and the casual observer could think that the brand and slogan were the only link between them. But in 2006 they started to consolidate as a global brand around the positioning of “The Coke Side of Life”3—a powerful, consumer-relevant idea. A couple of years later, you could start to see how the brand was more consolidated to the idea, not just the tagline. A few more years down the road the work became more aligned to their Purpose, when they focused around the Organizing Idea of “Open Happiness.” Now the majority of marketing effort appears to be behind one idea platform.4 They continue to create many different and great stories and experiences of the brand, and you can see they are all true to “Open Happiness.” This illustrates that Coca-Cola has streamlined globally—from having many different communication ideas and ad campaigns only connected by the slogan—to being centered around one core idea. Can you imagine the impact and effectiveness that would come from this global level consolidation, as consumers are more globally connected? Oh, and if that wasn’t enough value, please also note, their share price is 174% of what it was in 2003.5

Now that you have an understanding of the strength and importance of an Organizing Idea, let’s explore how to apply an Organizing Idea within the creation of Story Systems.

ESPN X Games: An Awe-Inspired Organizing Idea
CASE STUDY
With X Games (part of the ESPN world) expanding rapidly to host six events per year (from three) and taking their events global in 2013, we were faced with a few specific business challenges:
First, we had to invent new ways to distribute more content to more markets as part of a new digital suite. Second, we were charged with maintaining the premium status of the X Games brand within the world of action sports. Fundamentally, we had to create a world of experience to engage fans through user-generated content (UGC) and branded content keeping the X Games on the forefront of technology as well as sports. And with the global expansion, X Games called on us to help them grow their audience. Of course, this global audience created other strategic hurdles like content coming in from mixed markets; so part of our planning process involved mapping the markets to demonstrate how they could be linked. Finally, and perhaps most important from the client’s point of view, we were challenged to increase revenue by raising both site visits and user engagement.
Action and Inspiration. The Organizing Idea behind creating a new world for X Games was simply “Activate Awesome.” What this inspired was by no means simple. The foundation of the Organizing Idea was a collaboration of many people and truly displays connected thinking at play.
We were provided with a clear Brand Purpose for X Games: “bring new and go huge.” The campaign to communicate would be built on this offer. We aimed to connect and to inspire even more action and even more immersion in the experiences.
The product offer was also clear, with X Games expanding in markets and in content with the addition of new events and activities ranging from film competitions to the Big Air.
We then set out to understand our consumer. Our insight approach focused in large part on our two main target groups: “avid” fans who were already action sports loyalists and “two-way players”—general sports fans who would tune in for large scale action sports events (mostly via TV). Research into these targets yielded key information regarding how technology plays a role in their lives, how they consume and use sports content (and why), where the broadcast and entertainment trends intersect with their behaviors, and what the existing conversation landscape was for X Games and competitive sports on the whole.
Through this process we found out that our avid fans connected more on the basis of a subculture of expression, with creativity and personal accomplishment serving as core motivations. Our two-way players connected more on the basis of competitive sport, with a bigger focus on newsworthy performance and the broader spirit of competition.
Next, we mapped out the engagement landscape. This started with a global look at the technology our fans used—everything from Internet-enabled TVs to smartphones and tablets—and just as important, how they used technology in tandem with the standard broadcast. This second-screen approach was a big part of a successful launch for us by recognizing the value that a second point of contact could bring by immersing people in the experience rather than creating broadcast redundancy. Our engagement insights helped us establish a vision for transforming passive viewing into active experiences.
It became clear that we had to “Activate Awesome” on many levels. So, we set out to make X Games the home of more than just an action sport. We became the home of ACTION. This involved making all events more connected to the fans by engaging them across a digital platform where X Games would be available to them no matter where they were—the couch at home, the mountaintop of Tignes, or a skate park on the street.
X Games are big and bold by nature, with athletes striving to bring innovative new tricks and their own sense of style. It is this combination—modern engineering paired with artistic expression—that inspired our visual design for the new X Games digital world. We took an app-first approach to design and focused on tablet and mobile experiences to define our interface and navigation styles. In short, making sure that X Games could evolve to become cutting edge without losing its edge.
Activating the Experience. We started with the X Games second-screen tablet app, which extended the viewing experience for the fans who were at the event and for the fans who were viewing and participating anywhere else. We connected the two audience groups in an unprecedented way!
The connective feature that we introduced is called The HypeMeter—a real-time interactive engine (live during X Games events) that measures at-event, at-home, social, and gaming buzz to boil each moment of X Games down to a single score from 1 to 100. For the first time ever, fans at the event and fans at home could actually cheer together, adding hype through Twitter velocity, Facebook shares, and lightweight gaming through both the site and app experiences.
Through the use of a corresponding “hype chart,” fans were then able to explore the biggest moments of X Games at a glance and access pieces of content that correlate to the biggest peaks. This means ESPN now has a new way to add a social layer of analysis.
Another key feature of the digital experience is Trick Track, a second screen experience that adds to the live broadcast by providing real-time trick names, statistics, and results—which means fans everywhere can engage with an entirely new level of information. So, from your couch at home, you can now feel like you are in a fan seat and in a judge’s seat, bringing you closer to and deeper inside the action.
It’s one thing to design a new world; it’s another to build it into an interactive experience that brings together fans at home and fans at a live event—across social content, broadcast, and action—in one space. We believe that is the power of an Organizing Idea. This one inspired us to change the way that fans actually engage with the sports and the athletes they love.
Immersed Like Never Before. By “Activating Awesome” in a new world of immersive experience, we generated a depth of engagement never before realized. At launch, the app was number one for 12 days in the iTunes store. Over the full year, all digital engagement measures from uniques to time on site, and video plays, everything is up 100 percent or more.
Our partners at X Games were delighted with the results: “The numbers were MASSIVE compared with those of last year. It was a great win for the brand, and we are extremely happy.”

Utilizing an Organizing Idea is a powerful new concept for marketing. With it, you can create worlds of experience that are inherently connected to the four pillars: your Brand Purpose, product and its positioning, the consumer on an emotive level, and the consumer on a behavioral level, from newly defined opportunities and insights. The next step is the application of an Organizing Idea to the Experience Space. It’s where the Organizing Idea helps define the role of channels, the story line connections, and the types of experiences that matter.

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