colindrummond’s posterous

It’s funny, somewhere along the way the word “Interactive” got co-opted by the digital world. If you talk about doing something interactive, people immediately assume you’re talking digital. It’s at the point where the 2 words are used interchangeably. It’s even confusing to use the term more broadly. Ironically, CP+B has always been interactive, but only started digital pretty much with Subservient Chicken in March 2004. A lot of our best work for MINI and Truth was interactive, for example. We were always creating stuff to be ripped out or worn or assembled.

I’d like us to return to the broader definition of interactive: a two-way communication, users and creators inter-dependent, the total experience not nearly as useful, interesting or entertaining if it’s only one-way. In fact, we’ve been experimenting with experiences that are SO dependent on participation that they flop if people don’t get involved.

Shocking Barack (www.shockingbarack.com) is a great example of taking that risk, of the experiment depending on participation. The idea was for our 2 riders to retrace the Detroit automakers trip to Washington, relying on the kindness of strangers along the way to get there and for people to spread the love on Facebook and Twitter. Big risk, no way of knowing what would happen. The press has finally picked up on it now. Craig Brammo joined Secretary Chu’s White House Roundtable. But at this time of writing, we still don’t know if the President will accept.

Designing for that same kind of co-dependence makes even more obvious sense when you think about retail and products. What the heck’s the point of a retail store or a product if there’s no one to interact with it? As advertising and marketing people, I think we can get stuck in this idea of a one-way communication: that we can stop at deciding what we want to SAY about a brand. That’s an important step, establishing a voice and POV, but it’s only a first step. We need to design for what we want people to DO. We need to think in terms of creating PLATFORMS for brands and users to do their thing together.

So it’s not a question of interactive NOT being digital. Digital is at the center of what we do. It’s that our best thinking will come if we think of interactivity more broadly.

Planners need to take responsibility for providing the insight underlying this broader definition of interactivity. Why the separation between planning and user experience design? Our insights and strategy need to inform all of these types of interactions, be they brand interactions, retail interactions, product interactions or digital interactions. We need to tap into the fields of experience planning, anthro design, design anthropology, call it what you will.

We are now working to bring this skillset into our department. CP+B’s Cultural and Business Insights department (we are nicknamed “Cogs”) is currently made up of 3 killer disciplines, collaborating together because we believe it makes for the best possible thinking. We are Account Planners, Investigative Journalists and Anthropologists. So different skillsets, but working in teams as generalists. This area of experience planning will be our 4th discipline. It’s still early days, so would love to hear from people about who the best people would be to work with.

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