how to transform limitations into advantages

EXPERTS IN CHALLENGER BRANDSEXPERTS IN CHALLENGER BRANDS

@markcbarden @ABConstraint

The limitation was the

impetus for a better outcome

@markcbarden @ABConstraint

The freedom

of a tight

brief

A BEAUTIFUL CONSTRAINT:

How To Transform Your Limitations Into Advantages, and Why It’s Everyone’s Business

1Victim

Neutralizer

Transformer

2Break Path

Dependence

3Ask

Propelling

Questions

4Can-If

5Creating

Abundance

6Activating

Emotions

A BEAUTIFUL CONSTRAINT:

How To Transform Your Limitations Into Advantages, and Why It’s Everyone’s Business

Imagine . . .

You are 17

You’re an awesome guitarist

EXPERTS IN CHALLENGER BRANDSEXPERTS IN CHALLENGER BRANDS

Industrial factory setting

EXPERTS IN CHALLENGER BRANDSEXPERTS IN CHALLENGER BRANDS

Industrial factory settingHow do you feel now?

A BEAUTIFUL CONSTRAINT:

How To Transform Your Limitations Into Advantages, and Why It’s Everyone’s Business

Victim TransformerNeutralizer

What do you need now?

EXPERTS IN CHALLENGER BRANDSEXPERTS IN CHALLENGER BRANDS

A BEAUTIFUL CONSTRAINT:

How To Transform Your Limitations Into Advantages, and Why It’s Everyone’s Business

“We are the stories

we tell ourselves”Timothy Wilson

A BEAUTIFUL CONSTRAINT:

How To Transform Your Limitations Into Advantages, and Why It’s Everyone’s Business

Victim TransformerNeutralizer

You need a new story

A BEAUTIFUL CONSTRAINT:

How To Transform Your Limitations Into Advantages, and Why It’s Everyone’s Business

Victim TransformerNeutralizer

You need to begin looking for

solutions

A BEAUTIFUL CONSTRAINT:

How To Transform Your Limitations Into Advantages, and Why It’s Everyone’s Business

Abandon conventional thinking

• None of the usual methods of guitar playing can help you now

• This requires a set of truly novel solutions

A BEAUTIFUL CONSTRAINT:

How To Transform Your Limitations Into Advantages, and Why It’s Everyone’s Business

1Victim

Neutralizer

Transformer

2Break Path

Dependence

3Ask

Propelling

Questions

4Can-If

5Creating

Abundance

6Activating

Emotions

A BEAUTIFUL CONSTRAINT:

How To Transform Your Limitations Into Advantages, and Why It’s Everyone’s Business

The Propelling Question

A BEAUTIFUL CONSTRAINT:

How To Transform Your Limitations Into Advantages, and Why It’s Everyone’s Business

The Propelling Question

PLAY

INCREDIBLE

GUITAR

WITH

DAMAGED

FINGERS

A BEAUTIFUL CONSTRAINT:

How To Transform Your Limitations Into Advantages, and Why It’s Everyone’s Business

We can if we…

• We can play incredible guitar with damaged fingers, if we…

EXPERTS IN CHALLENGER BRANDSEXPERTS IN CHALLENGER BRANDS

Your new sound . . .

EXPERTS IN CHALLENGER BRANDSEXPERTS IN CHALLENGER BRANDS

A BEAUTIFUL CONSTRAINT:

How To Transform Your Limitations Into Advantages, and Why It’s Everyone’s Business

We can if we…

• Introduce thimbles to extend fingers

• Substitute guitar strings with banjo strings

• Remove some tension on the strings to make them easy to bend

• We think of it as “heavy metal”

• Required a creative approach to how he saw “assets” (creating

abundance)

A BEAUTIFUL CONSTRAINT:

How To Transform Your Limitations Into Advantages, and Why It’s Everyone’s Business

Difficult

challenges

require Can If

thinking…

A BEAUTIFUL CONSTRAINT:

How To Transform Your Limitations Into Advantages, and Why It’s Everyone’s Business

How can I write a book 1st graders can’t

put down…using only 225 CVC words?

How can we win the race…when our

car is no faster than anyone elses?

A BEAUTIFUL CONSTRAINT:

How To Transform Your Limitations Into Advantages, and Why It’s Everyone’s Business

I can if I introduce rhyming absurdity We can if we substitute a TDI

engine for a conventional one

A BEAUTIFUL CONSTRAINT:

How To Transform Your Limitations Into Advantages, and Why It’s Everyone’s Business

A BEAUTIFUL CONSTRAINT:

How To Transform Your Limitations Into Advantages, and Why It’s Everyone’s Business

1Victim

Neutralizer

Transformer

2Break Path

Dependence

3Ask

Propelling

Questions

4Can-If

5Creating

Abundance

6Activating

Emotions

A BEAUTIFUL CONSTRAINT:

How To Transform Your Limitations Into Advantages, and Why It’s Everyone’s Business

Surf Propelling Question

How can

we

increase

share by

25%

When we

lack the

product

performance

of leading

brands?

A BEAUTIFUL CONSTRAINT:

How To Transform Your Limitations Into Advantages, and Why It’s Everyone’s Business

A Mindset Journey

Victim TransformerNeutralizer

Nike Propelling Question

Vastly

improve

factory

conditions

Without the

people to

enforce

compliance

Source: Sydow, Schreyvogg and Koch

Propelling Questions force us off the

tried and true path

Nike Propelling Question

An even

better

running

shoe

Big

reduction

in

resources

used

An Airbnb Propelling Question

Great

photos

of every

room

W/o huge

personnel

& travel

costs

We can if we resource it with…

…photographers in our community

A BEAUTIFUL CONSTRAINT:

How To Transform Your Limitations Into Advantages, and Why It’s Everyone’s Business

1Victim

Neutralizer

Transformer

2Break Path

Dependence

3Ask

Propelling

Questions

4Can-If

5Creating

Abundance

6Activating

Emotions

“If you don’t have resources

you have to be resourceful”K.R. Bloom

Create Abundance

ASSETS

What do we have in abundance?

What can we Trade?

REFRAME

How can we reframe these assets to give

them more relevance and value to others?

ASSETS

What do we have in abundance?

What can we Trade?

REFRAME

How can we reframe these assets to give

them more relevance and value to others?

Planes

San Francisco Bay Area

Sir Richard

ASSETS

What do we have in abundance?

What can we Trade?

REFRAME

How can we reframe these assets to give

them more relevance and value to others?

Planes Audience/eyeballs

San Francisco Bay Area

Twitterati / sharers

Google, method

Sir Richard Glamor, celebrity

Victoria’s

Secret

Let’s take this for a spin

Try to write a couple of different Propelling Questions

• Experiment with different combinations of ambition and constraint

• Try different levels of specificity

Propelling Question #1

How can we

provide

fresh

produce for

all

When there

is less water

to irrigate

our farms?

Propelling Question #2

How can we

feed

everyone

Without as

much

farming?

Propelling Question #3

How can we

dramatically

improve

farmers’

access to

water

When

there’s a lot

less rain?

Try to answer

your PQ

using the

Can If

prompts

Can if instructions

• 5 mins on your own getting some can if ideas on paper

• Use the prompts to get you started — doesn’t matter where you start

• You don’t have time to try them all!

• Share out with your team members

• Build on each others’ ideas

• Choose your best one to share out and present it like this:

• How can we [ambition] when we [constraint]?

• We can if we ….

The Rise of the Unreasonable Challenger

“…brands able to unite

attributes that have

previously been perceived

as disparate are showing

considerably more

momentum and energy than

the ones stuck in their old

one-dimensional territory.”

The historic foundations of strategy in marketing and comms

• Categories historically structured around trade-offs — poles of values, which stood in

opposite dimension to each other:• Fast vs Fuel Efficient

• Quality vs Inexpensive

• Healthy food vs Fast Food

• Trade-offs any reasonable person would accept

• Brand strategy: choosing a pole, and linking oneself strongly and creatively to it

• Structure the marketing mix around the most potent delivery of that offer

• Task for comms: romancing why this pole was the most important criterion for choice

Cross platform mobile messaging…for free

The latest fashion… at disposable prices

Good value, fast food

Good value, fast food with a

side of sustainability

An Oscar-worthy gown

An Oscar-worthy gown returned

the next day

The latest smart phone but no

contract

‘One of the roles of planning is to define

the right level of ambition for the brand’

Luis Toledo, JWT

Unreasonable Planning: The Yves Behar Model

What do you think?

mark@eatbigfish.com

@markcbarden

Star Wars and The Resource Curse