by Ernest Kim

Kevin Mintaraga, CEO of XM Gravity, is featured in a story in the March edition of Forbes Indonesia. Unfortunately, the article isn’t available online, but the print edition should still be available at newsstands across Indonesia.

See the March issue of Forbes Indonesia for a great feature on XM Gravity CEO Kevin Mintaraga, and the secret to his agency’s success.

The piece is focused on the secret to Kevin’s and, by association, XM Gravity’s, success, and is titled Selling Happiness. Here’s a snippet:

“I believe everyone in this company should be happy, because only happy people make other people happy,” says the chief executive of the country’s biggest digital agency (measured by number of staff) … “Believe it or not, when I focus on that thing [happiness], the company grows faster.”

Some may think this a naive view, but any doubters would have a hard time disputing the results. As mentioned in the quote above, XM Gravity is Indonesia’s biggest digital agency; and, at a personal level, when the agency then known as Magnivate was acquired by XM Asia Pacific in March of 2012, Kevin became the youngest CEO within the prestigious WPP group. As he says, “happy staff want to make clients happy,” and it’s working.

An important point to recognize, though, is that Kevin’s approach is rooted in much more than just words. He’s established processes and tools to help nurture the culture of happiness that’s been so central to the success of his agency. The latest example of this is a native mobile platform called the XM Gravity Happiness App that was developed in-house for use by XM employees.

XM Gravity has developed a native mobile app for iOS, Android and Blackberry OS to “pump up the happiness quotient among its own staff.”

The app was recently featured in a Campaign Brief, Asia story, where Kevin explained its genesis: “As a digital agency, we help our clients leverage technology and social media every day to meet their business goals. This time, we’re leveraging that know-how to help us achieve our own goals—happy staff who feel connected and cared for.”

The Happiness App has been rolled out within XM Gravity and, ultimately, will be deployed across the entire XM Asia Pacific network. As Kevin has observed, “only happy people make other people happy,” and we believe this is a truth that applies across cultures and borders.

by Paul Soon and Gerard Lim

As sure as Copernicus removed the Earth from the centre of the universe and Darwin knocked humans off their biological perch, the near future will see brands surrounded by authentic consumer dialog without being poked, prodded and cajoled by hired ‘guns’ such as bloggers and community managers.

The future is a society where brands and consumers form a behavioral bond of mutual trust; where the former listens and transforms to meet the needs and desires of the latter. In return, consumers will allow brands to be part of their lives and share personal data readily.

The future will see big and small data being utilized with greater transparency. Brands and consumers will have a shared goal of building ever-improving, personalized experiences to enrich and fulfill daily lives.

Watch our CEO, Paul Soon, talk to Campaign Asia-Pacific about the future of brands and marketing communications.

The biggest challenge every CMO faces today is to continue to build and preserve relevant brand equity in the face of higher consumer expectations amidst the complex digital evolution that marches on even as you read this.

Read the rest of this entry »

1.) Plan in Analog
Steve Jobs made his mark in the digital world of bits and bytes, but he plans presentations in the old world of pen and paper. A Steve Jobs presentation has all the elements of a great movie—heroes and villains, stunning visuals and a supporting cast. And, like a movie director, Steve Jobs “storyboards” the plot. Before you go digital and open PowerPoint, spend time brainstorming, sketching or whiteboarding in the early stages. Remember, you’re delivering a story, the narrative.

2.) Create a Twitter-Friendly Description
Steve Jobs creates a single sentence description for every product. These headlines help the audience categorize the new product and are always concise enough to fi t in a 140-character Twitter post.

3.) Introduce the Antagonist
In every classic story, the hero fights the villain. The same holds true for a Steve Jobs presentation. In 1984, the villain was IBM, known as “Big Blue” at the time. Before Jobs introduced the famous 1984 television ad to a group of Apple salespeople, he created a dramatic story around it. “IBM wants it all,” he said. Apple would be the only company to stand in its way. It was very dramatic and the crowd went crazy. Branding expert Martin Lindstrom says that great brands and religions have something in common: the idea of vanquishing a shared enemy. Create a villain that allows the audience to rally around the hero—you and your product.

4.) Focus on Benefits
Your listeners are asking themselves one question: Why should I care? Steve Jobs sells the benefifi t behind every new product or feature—and he’s very clear about it. Why buy an iPhone 3G? Because “it’s twice as fast at half the price.” What’s so great about Time Capsule? “All your irreplaceable photos, videos and documents are automatically protected and easy to retrieve if they’re ever lost.”

5.) Stick to the Rule of Three
Nearly every Steve Jobs presentation is divided into three parts. When Jobs returned from a health-related absence on September 9, 2009, he told the audience he would be talking about three products: iPhones, iTunes and iPods. Along the way he provides verbal guideposts such as “iPhones. The fi rst thing I wanted to talk about today. Now, let’s move on to the second, iTunes.” The number “three” is a powerful concept in writing. Playwrights know that three is more dramatic than two; comedians know that three is funnier than four, and Steve Jobs knows that three is more memorable than six or eight.

Kudos to Carmine Gallo for the great slides!