You might already be aware of the new smart fitness brand in the market because of the mistakes it made in its ad. Yes! We are talking about Fire Boltt ‘Wearable Watch’ brand. The brand had some mixed reactions in social media, but overall, apart from the mistakes it committed in the ad, it did manage to make some noise in the market and be heard. This article will be talking about this ‘special’ technique that brands are using these days to be heard or seen in a cluttered souk.
The Art of Deliberate Mistakes
The brand is already drawing flak for its cardinal mistakes in the ad and still going on. Be it for the heartbeat racing up to 800 bpm (which almost makes it a motorcycle engine), or be it for 20,000 steps in 10 km walk/run (which is practically incorrect as per the experts), the brand didn’t quite bother to be scientifically accurate. The only thing, according to us, they considered was, how do we make some noise in the market?
Remember when Heineken-owned beer brand Tres Cruces was about to launch Tres Cruces Light in Peru? The company shipped nearly 3 lakh beer cans to its retailers only after realizing that the packaging had a typo. The cans should have had the company slogan ‘Disfrute’, but it missed the “s”. They turned this error into a contest and the campaign “Rescue of the S”. This campaign generated a whopping sales of 1 crore litres in a month which the brand usually sells annually. Isn’t that a genius move? Experimental, yet genius!
The value of experimentation can only be understood by new brands and the ones who are willing to risk it all. That’s what entrepreneurship is all about! On the contrary, not all mistakes are genuine. Entrepreneurs design the experimentation process and when they draw certain inferences that work out for them, that’s when they proceed with such BOLD experiments.
The Layers’ SHOT deodorant commercial, in that case, also seems to be a deliberate move to draw some eyeballs and controversies (if that was the communication objective of the brand, after all). Taking inspiration from Thomas Edison who failed in various experiments, brands these days are learning quickly from their own mistakes and that’s speeding up their way towards reaching the solution. In general, brands consider making deliberate mistakes when:
- The cost of the mistake is far lesser than the potential gain
- Such decisions are taken frequently
- There’s a dramatic change in the environment
- The complex problem has a number of solutions
- Your company’s experience is limited regarding the problem
Mistakes are Necessary
There’s this innate rush in everyone to be spotless in everything we do, personally or professionally. The resistance to making mistakes is quite a natural phenomenon. According to an article published in Harvard Business Review, there are four main reasons why making mistakes is necessary. These reasons, which find their expressions in a company’s culture and strategies, apply to the individual’s psychology as well.
As individuals and brands, we are sometimes overconfident: We often find ourselves in the blind spot when it comes to what we know and what our expertise is. Inept individuals make mistakes and learn from them. The wise, on the other hand, have to make deliberate mistakes in order to test their limits of knowledge.
We are known to be averse to risks: It gives us a great feeling of pride when we do a job impeccably without any mistakes. Even writing an error-free article makes us feel like we are the experts. Rewarding an employee for taking good decisions fuels their ego, and penalizes them for taking the wrong ones to make them spend more valuable time trying not to make mistakes.
We always seek confirming evidence: Like the Fire Boltt ad didn’t quite rely on confirming evidence for the stats mentioned, they let it go the way it was. As individuals, we always seek data that supports our beliefs. If we find something that negates it, we question them all.
Our assumption lies in reliable feedback: Not just individuals, but even brands seek validation from people and that’s normal. In the extremes between the ‘kind’ and ‘wicked’ environment of a feedback ecosystem, we often find ourselves making deliberate mistakes to identify what kind of impact it makes on the brand.
A classic example of how deliberate mistakes boost a brand’s visibility can be none other than Neil French’s ad campaign for Singapore Press Holding (SPH) newspaper. He created a fake beer brand and started writing print ads for them. A campaign that became a case study for advertising schools, creating so much hype around the imaginary brand, SPH finally revealed the suspense with a single line – If our paper can sell this, what can’t we sell?
This is exactly what we believe at 3 Dots Design Pvt. Ltd. When we make mistakes, we learn from them and come up with solutions. Being one of the best ad agencies in Pune, we take pride in the kind of spotless (also some not-so-spotless) work we have done for our clients. Wabi-Sabi is the philosophy that inspires us to accept that transient and imperfect world that we live in and make the best out of what we got. If you wish to take a look at some of our works, please visit www.3dotdesign.in or get in touch with us at contact@3dotsdesign.in to make some wise choices (or deliberate mistakes) together that uplift your brand’s visibility in the market.