A talk I gave at for the master students in advertising at the Willem De Koning Academy in Rotterdam. The presentation is a plead for rethinking the essence of the creative idea an how this will help young creatives to become highly successful.

1. Persuasion eats
advertising
for breakfast
The secret for becoming a highly successful creative
@tomdebruyne
www.sueamsterdam.com
Ro3erdam,
March
21th
2012
Tuesday, March 20, 2012

2. Digital is a revolution in
buying behavior,
not in media.
Our
previous
agency,
Boondoggle
Amsterdam,
became
interacBve
agency
of
the
year
last
year.
We
got
the
reputaBon
for
being
an
interesBng
new
school
kind
of
agency
that
gets
digital
and
that
gets
social
media.
Although
this
is
the
perfect
posiBon
to
be
in
these
days,
both
terms
really
bugger
us.
Because
digital
is
not
a
revoluBon
in
media,
it’s
a
revoluBon
in
buying
behavior.
Digital
is
the
new
operaBng
system
of
the
world
and
people
who
are
tapped
into
digital
are
tapped
into
reviews,
raBngs,
opinions,
recommendaBons,
word-­‐of-­‐mouth,
customer
excitement,
customer
hate,
etc...
Tuesday, March 20, 2012

3. We should be obsessed with
one question: how do we
trigger behavior?
You,
as
adverBsing
students
are
trained
to
come
up
with
creaBve
communicaBon
ideas.
Actually,
even
when
you
come
up
with
stuff
in
the
real
world,
you
sBll
think
in
terms
of
communicaBng
a
brand
message.
CreaBve
communicaBon
is
just
one
tool.
And
I
think
this
tool
is
outdated.
There
are
far
more
interesBng
and
impacPul
tools
for
creaBve
people
to
use
to
trigger
behavioral
change.
I
want
to
talk
about
three
of
them
today.
I
hope
you
get
obsessive
in
learning
more
about
these
tools.
It
will
make
you
a
very
successful
creaBve.
Tuesday, March 20, 2012

4. LET’S START WITH AN ANECDOTE
This
is
one
of
my
favorite
examples.
Bank
of
America
rounds
up
all
your
debit
card
purchases
to
the
nearest
dollar
amount,
and
transfers
the
difference
from
your
checking
account
to
your
savings
account.
This
is
so
smart.
They
took
basic
neuroBc
understanding
as
point
of
departure
and
designed
a
soluBon
around
it.
People
all
know
they
should
save
more,
but
they
can’t
seem
to
take
acBon.
Keep
the
change
helps
them
to
save,
without
the
need
to
do
anything
about
it.
Tuesday, March 20, 2012

5. Design for word of mouth:
It’s called “keep the change”, not
Design for behavioral change:
“debet gold plus service”
triggering automatic saving behavior
Design for excitement:
People connect with the idea, recommend it
and actuallystarted to follow their progress.
Turns
out
this
has
become
one
of
the
most
compelling
ways
to
get
people
to
switch
banks.
People
just
love
it.
What
strikes
me
is
that
it
wasn’t
an
adverBsing
agency
that
came
up
with
this
idea.
It
was
IDEO,
an
innovaBon
company
that
used
design
thinking
to
solve
a
problem,
that
no
communicaBon
campaign
was
able
to
solve
in
the
past.
What
this
campaign
did,
to
me,
was
to
look
at
a
briefing
from
a
behavioral
economics
perspec0ve,
in
stead
of
an
adver0sing
perspec0ve.
Tuesday, March 20, 2012

6. http://gabrielutasi.com/comic/2008/12/10/dear-bank-of-america-keep-the-change/
By
the
way:
A
great
service
design
doesn’t
necessarily
cover
up
for
the
public
outrage
that
the
financial
crisis
created.
Tuesday, March 20, 2012

7. ADVERTISING VS BEHAVIORAL ECONOMICS
Behavioral economics Advertising
takes humans and their shortcuts, their routines, clings itself onto the naive conviction that
their small neuroses and unconscious impulses and people will change their behavior as long as
resistances as point of departure. we communicate enough with them.
QuesBon:
Why
are
we
training
our
creaBve
talents
on
making
creaBve
communicaBon,
while
the
real
impact
on
behavior
is
more
about
smart
intervenBons
in
the
choice
architecture
in
which
their
behavior
takes
place?
Tuesday, March 20, 2012

8. A NUDGE THAT AIMS to please A mind head device,
THE TOILET LADY clipped onto the airplane entrance
So
let
me
explore
behavioral
economics
thinking
a
bit
further.
This
is
a
great
example.
In
stead
of
communicaBng
to
men
that
they
should
aim
be3er,
this
brilliant
intervenBon
nudges
men
to
aim
be3er.
And
I
loved
this
nudge
when
I
got
into
a
Laoairlines
plane
last
month.
It
didn’t
need
to
say:
“mind
your
head”.
A
more
recent
example
is
the
redesign
of
ATM
machines:
in
stead
of
reminding
you
not
to
forget
your
card,
they
now
first
eject
the
card
and
only
when
you
pulled
it
out,
(most)
ATM
machines
release
the
cash.
Tuesday, March 20, 2012

9. THE SEDUCTION PROJECT for HIVOS:
How to design energy efficient behavior in Holland?
Given that Energy spillage here, causes natural disasters in the South
Advertising idea (2010) Behavioral economics (2011-12)
http://www.seductionproject.nl
This
is
a
project
we
did
at
Boondoggle
for
Hivos,
a
Dutch
NGO.
They
wanted
us
to
do
a
campaign
to
reduce
the
waste
of
energy.
In
2010
they
tried
the
adverBsing
route,
but
that
actually
backfired.
People
felt
insulted.
The
ad
says:
He
thanks
you
for
not
using
your
dry
cleaner”.
We
came
up
with
the
SeducBon
project:
a
series
of
experiments
on
how
to
trigger
or
manipulate
people
into
energy
efficient
behavior,
in
order
to
inspire
and
set
the
agenda
for
policy
makers,
urban
planners,
architects
and
designers
to
come
up
with
be3er
choice
architecture
soluBons
Tuesday, March 20, 2012

10. Tell me and I will forget
Show me and I may remember
Involve me and I’ll understand
CreaBves
that
need
to
trigger
actual
behavior,
need
to
rethink
their
approach.
We
are
numbed
by
such
an
excessive
level
of
communicaBon
overload,
that
it
hardly
does
anything
anymore.
The
real
challenge
for
creaBve
people
that
are
hired
to
solve
markeBng
problems
-­‐
never
forget
this
is
the
essence
of
your
job
-­‐
ought
to
think
about
how
they
can
let
people
experience
the
point
you
want
to
make,
in
stead
of
boring
them
with
a
brand
promise.
Tuesday, March 20, 2012

11. How to convince online viagra
buyers of the danger of
counterfeits and the importance
of the legal channel?
http://www.stuffworthsharing.com/medi-plaza/
This
is
a
campaign
we
did
at
Boondoggle
for
the
Dutch
Ministry
of
Health
and
Welfare.
They
wanted
us
to
come
up
with
a
campaign
that
aimed
at
convincing
online
buyers
of
prescripBon
drugs,
who
buy
via
illegal
channels,
of
the
dangers
of
counterfeit
medicines.
The
problem
is
they
are
convinced
they
know
what
their
doing
and
that
they
know
how
to
separate
fake
suppliers
from
real
ones.
So
we
hired
the
best
persuasion
designer
and
SEO
specialist,
build
a
highly
convincing
fake
web
shop,
boosted
its
google
ranking
and
let
10.000s
of
potenBal
buyers
experience
how
easy
it
is
to
fool
them
and
how
smart
online
criminals
actually
are.
Tuesday, March 20, 2012

12. All value is nothing but perceived value
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the first president of Turkey wanted to make the
country more modern by discouraging the wearing of a veil. Instead of
simply banning the veil, which would incite anger among the people, he
made a law that prostitutes had to wear the veil. “There is your
environmental problem solved, by the way, guys: All convicted child
molesters have to drive a Porsche Cayenne.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkLcwHmnPV4
Rory
Sutherland,
VP
at
Ogilvy
-­‐
one
of
the
most
lucid
thinkers
in
adverBsing
today
-­‐
has
two
brilliant
Ted
talks
on
behavioral
economics.
In
one
of
them
he
talks
about
value.
People
need
context
to
perceive
value.
That’s
for
instance
why
restaurant
owners
always
put
a
cheap
and
a
very
expensive
bo3le
of
wine
on
the
menu,
in
order
to
nudge
you
towards
the
one
in
the
mid-­‐prize
(overpriced)
secBon.
But
you
actually
feel
you’ve
made
the
best
choice.
Tuesday, March 20, 2012

13. Three areas of inspiration
every creative should get
maniacal about
So
to
round
up
this
talk,
I
want
to
inspire
you
with
three
area’s
of
research
you
ought
to
get
maniacal
about:
behavioral
economics,
persuasion
design
and
game
design.
I
want
to
share
with
you
some
sources
to
get
started
with.
Tuesday, March 20, 2012

14. Behavioral economics
"Help Save the Environment.
Show your respect for nature by reusing towels”
vs
“75% of guests in this room participated in our
towel reuse program”
Improving decisions about wealth, health and happiness
www.nudges.org
Buy the book
Read
this
book.
It
will
change
your
way
of
thinking
in
a
radical
way.
Tuesday, March 20, 2012

15. Sebastian Deterding:
“game design is not about fun. it’s about designing behavior and designing interesting choices”
http://codingconduct.cc/Don-t-Play-Games-With-Me When a game designer looks at a music academy,
http://www.slideshare.net/dings/pawned-gamification-and-its-discontents he sees a broken game design.
Compare that to Guitar Hero.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Hafzkwdwho (Dutch)
The
best
possible
introducBon
in
game
thinking
and
on
gamificaBon:
browse
through
the
brilliant
shlideshares
by
SebasBan
Deterding
(www.slideshare.net/dings).
For
the
Dutch
amongst
you,
watch
this
provocaBve
presentaBon
by
Willem-­‐Jan
Renger
from
the
Insitute
for
Applied
Game
design.
Tuesday, March 20, 2012

16. persuasion design
How to get more tips?
How to get more callers?
How to reduce non-show up?
www.amazon.com
And
this
book
is
a
great
introducBon
to
persuasion
design.
50
remarkable
examples
on
how
small
intervenBons
in
how
you
do
the
thinks
you
do,
can
have
a
massive
impact
on
gehng
a
yes,
or
on
gehng
people
to
act.
Tuesday, March 20, 2012

17. Stop playing the game of seducing.
Start to direct seductiveness.
That’s a whole different game play
I
want
to
leave
you
with
three
conclusions.
The
first
is
about
the
difference
between
seducing
and
seducBveness.
The
best
seducers
in
real
life
don’t
try
to
seduce.
Instead
they
direct
their
seducBveness,
in
order
for
people
to
get
curious
about
them.
AdverBsing
is
basically
a
bad
gameplay
of
the
seducBon
game.
We
all
know
it
doesn’t
work,
but
we
insist
on
hihng
at
the
girl.
Design
thinkers,
behavioral
economist,
persuasion
designers,
carefully
crai
the
seducBveness
of
a
brand.
They
get
people
to
act
without
seducing
them
to.
Tuesday, March 20, 2012

18. You’re not advertising creatives
You’re creatives that take human
understanding as point of departure and
design for behavioral change
My
second
conclusion
is
that
you
should
rethink
your
role
as
a
creaBve
who
is
going
to
work
in
this
industry.
It’s
a
bit
late
to
tell
you
this
at
the
end
of
your
master
study,
but
it’s
never
too
late
to
reinvent
yourself.
Your
job
is
to
use
your
creaBvity
to
get
people
to
act.
You
want
them
to
talk,
share,
enroll,
buy,
advocate,
etc...
that’s
a
way
more
tacBcal
game
than
just
adverBsing
an
idea
to
them.
Tuesday, March 20, 2012

19. Shouldn’t this become essential
to the curriculum of this Master Program?
To
quote
Walter
White
(from
Breaking
Bad):
“I’m
just
saying...”
Tuesday, March 20, 2012

20. /Persuasion eats
advertising
for breakfast
The secret for becoming a highly successful creative
@tomdebruyne
www.sueamsterdam.com
Ro3erdam,
March
21th
2012
Tuesday, March 20, 2012