Growth hacking is not going away anytime soon, because it works. It boasts the success of companies like Facebook, Dropbox, AirBnB and Spotify. Today you will find that growth hackers, and growth teams, are in high demand. They are highly appreciated for their new ways of thinking and doing, but primarily for delivering desired results.

The good news is that you don’t need to be a startup to use growth hacking. It can help to grow the tribe of any e-book, podcast, blog, or online service.

THE WAY GROWTH HACKERS THINK

“Build and they will come” is a popular lie that many entrepreneurs tell themselves. In a time when everyone competes for attention, this has never been less true. What it comes down to is that innovative products need users too.

Growth hackers do not market products, they build products that market themselves.  Tweet this

At their best, growth hackers accelerate the growth of products that people already love. Growth hacking is an ongoing process aimed at improving customer experience, and leveraging it for further growth. The more people enjoy a product, the more likely they will return, the more likely they are to refer, and the more likely they are to pay. The superior experience of a product cannot be detached from it’s growth.

Growth hackers excel at doing more with less, and do not require the budgets of traditional brand awareness campaigns. They will often use inexpensive tactics and channels involving social media, blogging, e-books, mailing lists, search engine optimization, and features within the product itself.

THE WAY GROWTH HACKERS DO

Growth hackers do their uttermost to engineer self-perpetuating growth machines. It’s not run as a campaign, or one-off gimmick, but rather an iterative learning loop. Growth hackers use data to inform a hypothesis about growth, that is validated through experiments.

These experiments are sometimes referred to as ”hacks” and can range from engaging tribal influencers, to changing the messaging and design of landing pages, to identifying and activating ambassadors to spread the word. Unsuccessful hacks are simply discarded, but the ones that work fine-tune the growth machine.

Growth hackers prioritize hacks that they believe can make a big impact, with a minimal effort. However, not only short term, but over time. Another important criteria is that hacks have to be measurable, scalable and repeatable.

Growth hacking is an iterative metrics driven approach that reduces luck and minimizes risk.

THE SKILLS GROWTH HACKERS HAVE

Growth hacking is often described as marketing, which is only half true. Growth hackers do not simply market products, but help to build products that market themselves. Some of the world’s most effective growth hacks have not originated from a marketing activity, but from a feature within the product itself. Hotmail grew to millions of users thanks to a “P.S. I love you. Get your free email at Hotmail” at the bottom of every e-mail, and Airbnb grew by cross-posting classifieds to Craigslist, and Spotify launched with an invite-only gate.

Growth hackers also care about customer development, far beyond awareness and acquisition. They strive to build customer experiences that drive retention, referral and sales. The bottom line is that growth hacking is the synthesis of many skills spanning marketing, product development, and sales. You will also find that many growth hackers are well versed in coding and psychology.

THE TOOLS GROWTH HACKERS USE

Data is the digital oil for growth hackers, and they require digital tools to collect and analyze it. At this point there is no single tool to rule them all. The tools available are so many, that each growth hacker assembles their own stack. Staying on top of new tools requires constant experimentation and practice.

The most interesting data originates from human behavior. Growth hackers let data guide their work from start to finish. It helps them track their performance, as well as shape new hypothesis and experiments they can run.

One concrete example is the ability to generate a heatmap based on how users move their cursor across the page. Analyzing a heatmap can help to discover bottlenecks in the design that jam desired user behavior.

CONCLUSION

The bottom line is that growth hacking is here to stay. Whether the name sticks 10 years from now is irrelevant. The mind and skill set of the growth hacker will impact the way entrepreneurs build and grow their products for years to come. Growth hacking is not the emperor’s new clothes. It is the new emperor for projects that need to grow fast and steady.

OVER TO YOU

What do you think?  Is growth hacking here to stay?

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Photos from the live event

– Anders Abrahamsson on Path

– Mario Y. Peshev on Twitter

– Hedda Loven on Twitter

Further reading

Subscribe to my Growth Hacking magazine on Flipboard

Growth-Hacking Isn’t Just For Startups

Startup metrics for pirates

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Tapping in to the wisdom of crowds  is immensely popular, for example through crowdsourcing and crowdfunding. That’s not surprising at all, considering it’s what we humans do best – namely band together and do stuff. What is more surprising is that it has taken this long. After all, we’ve been doing this for ages, across campfires, IRC channels, multi-user dungeons, bulletin boards and what not.

The best place to store knowledge is in a network of people – @JohnKellden
Tweet This!

Why has it taken so long for entrepreneurs and business folk to appreciate the power of crowds? We have obviously been misguided by an outdated mindset; that stems from the industrial age. Our perspectives have been overly top-down, inside-out and know-it-all. Luckily the remedy is really easy. To begin changing the niche you are in, you don’t need another seminar, book or blog post. All you need is this:

You don’t need to be a smart-ass guru to disrupt your industry. All you need to be is… a little more human. Tweet this!

Busting the crowd myth

Appreciating and leveraging crowds is a signal of good health. It demonstrates that we are starting to shun outdated business logics, and on a path to re-discover what we already know: how to be human. While a crowdsourcing mindset is a nice leap, it  is simply one step along the way. The concepts and methods of crowdsourcing and crowdfunding are not that impressive. They are still a remnant of our mass industrial legacy (!). Let’s have a closer look.

Jeff Howe, editor at Wired, described crowdsourcing like this in the NY Times in 2009:

“The act of taking a job once performed by a designated agent (an employee, freelancer, or a separate firm) and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people through the form of an open call, which usually takes place over the Internet.”

Undefined. When would you ever advise anyone to talk to an undefined crowd? This is really bad advice for someone looking to launch their product and build their business. The more you know about the people you want to connect with, the more likely you are to be as relevant and valuable as possible. The more likely you are to succeed.

Undefined crowds are never a good idea. If they ever had a place, it was in a mass broadcasting context, such as radio or TV. With mass broadcasting you will always be reaching undefined crowds, and hoping they respond to your open call bombardment. Kind of like shooting arrows into the dark.

There is never a reason to communicate with undefined crowds on the Internet. The social web is tribal, not crowdal. We all belong to many tribes, that gather around specific interests like hockey, True Detective, or home decor.

Sceptic? See this image graciously provided by the tribal influencer tool E-cairn. It clearly demonstrates how people band together around interests, and share information.

Understanding tribes is the same as understanding the structure of the social web. Tribes describe how we relate, and how information spreads. Crowds are ignorant to this fact, and not helpful at all. The fact is: crowds only exist to entrepreneurs and marketers that don’t know who they are talking to. Consider this:

Crowdsourcing involves an open call to an undefined crowd. Tribesourcing involves a direct invitation to one ore more identified tribes. Tweet this!

From crowdfunding to tribefunding

The rest of this blog post is going be to about tribefunding, but it also applies to a lot of internet marketing.

Many people that run funding campaigns on sites like Kickstarter, Indiegogo and FundedByMe do not do any real marketing. They simply follow the crowdsourcing recipe of the day: to make an open call to an undefined group. Maybe this is the reason, that more than 50% of all Kickstarter campaigns fail?

As a tribefunder you don’t have make this mistake, and leave everything to chance. You will not be oblivious to the people you are trying to connect with. You will rather have a superior target group definition. Crowds have nothing in common. Tribes have everything in common. Their very existence is based on sharing. People within a tribe share the same values, beliefs, experiences, languages, places, and influencers. This implies that they can be identified, and receive extremely tailored invitations in a language they speak, in a place they occupy.

6 Actionable Tribefunding Ideas

With a new tribal mindset you can now move on and implement some of these super actionable ideas.

1. List the tribes that relate to your product

You are going to make a list of the type of interests that people have that relate to your product. Interests can include anything from entrepreneurship, science fiction, airplanes, to scrapbooking. With this list in hand you are going to evaluate these tribes using the following criteria: 1) their size, 2) relevancy to your product, and 3) your credibility with this tribe. You now have a list which is far superior than any undefined crowd, because these people can actually be identified.

2. List top tribal influencers and personally invite them

There are many ways to both find and connect with tribal influencers. Why are social influencers important? They are people that others look up to, and your new product is going to need this secret ingredient: social proof. We are creatures of pattern-recognition, and we like to do what other people are doing.

One easy way is to use an influencer service like Traackr. With Traackr you will be able to find and connect with the influencers that matter the most, to the tribes you have listed and decided to reach.

3. List places where these tribes gather and invite them to join

The tribes you want to reach, are probably not where you are. The reason many companies don’t have an outreach component in their digital strategy is that they 1) don’t understand that tribal web and 2) have no clue where to find tribes. They sleep happily at night knowing that their digital channels are stuffed with broadcasted content.

As a tribal growth hacker, you are not going to fall in to that trap. To achieve the results you need, you are going to move beyond open uncertain calls and go out and meet people on their own turf.

Understanding that different tribes, and tribal influencers, prefer different social outlets you can start looking in these places: hashtags on Twitter and Instagram, groups on Facebook and Google+, as well as boards on Pinterest and the world wide web.

Once you have found them, you are not going to approach them all the same way. You are going to tailor messages and activities that resonate with their values. Use the fact that you know who you are talking to, to your advantage.

4. List 5 similar projects and partner with them

Create a list of similar funding projects and partner with them. Similar in what way? Similar in that they connect with similar tribes. For example: people that buy eco-friendly bare running shoes, will also be interested in your eco-friendly product.

Once, you have created this list you will weed it down to 5, based on who is doing the best job of reaching and engaging their tribes. You are after all not only looking for joint causes, but joint marketing efforts.

5. Find backers on twitter that have supported similar projects

Search on twitter for people that tweeted that they have backed similar projects, for example: “I just backed SCI-FEST on @Kickstarter”. What you have managed to do is amazing. You now have a list of people that:

1) are active on twitter, and not simply a ghost account
2) are members of the tribe you want to connect with
3) have an active funding habit
4) use funding as a device for self-expression (potentially amazing advocates for your product)

This is actually quite amazing, and doesn’t get any better than this. If you decide to simply follow one piece of advice given here, then this would be it. You will not find this tip anywhere else, and it will give you crazy conversions!

6. List your ambassadors and nurture them

All the advice given so far has been about connecting with existing tribes. This last piece of advice, is about another ball game. It is about building your own tribe, where YOU are the center of attention.

Setup an account on Mention.net and monitor anyone that mentions your project on the web. Keep a list of all your advocates and nurture them. For example: make stylish personalized JPG badges, acknowledging them as your ambassadors. Do not fall into the lazy trap of creating generic badges. (You will of course be making badges for all your backers, but ambassador badges are going to be something special.)

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Thanks for listening. Don’t forget. Undefined crowds only exist, for the people that don’t know who they are talking to. People that don’t want to be in the dark, and bet on chance, can partner with identified tribes.

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Are you planning on doing some tribefunding? Is there any super actionable tribefunding method that you would like to add to this list?

It seems like everybody, and their cat, has something they would like to share with the world these days. This could make it difficult for your brand, project or product to make it big. Do you get ever get a sense that you are at odds? Are there other ways of becoming more mentally, socially and emotionally available? When others zig, you zag!?

Language can open and sustain frequencies

Can you converse in steampunk? Each tribe has it’s own language.

– Bonjour
– HELLO (in caps)
– Boss (See: Shit people say in Mumbai. Thanks Abhay Adhikari for sharing this!)
– Yo dawg
– Nanoo Nanoo

Language has the power to open frequencies, but it’s really up to people to tune in if they feel like it. If you approach people in the wrong way you will turn them off. For example by being too salesy, over-confident, or akward. You may be opening frequencies in the wrong way, because you are acting like a wannabe.

When we speak with young children we tweak our voice, and when we referee a game we shout. But it’s not only how we say, but what we do and where. With the right approach you can connect with the most buttressed of individuals. You simply have to find, master and share the right frequency. It may be golf, travel, or something as exotic as steampunk.

Crowded frequencies

Still from Modern Times, Dir. Charlie Chaplin, 1936, United Artists.

We all carry hundreds of different frequencies, but most companies are jamming the signal on a select few. Many either following their brand book like mindless drones, more concerned with stringency than connectivity, or have a very shallow understanding of the people they want to reach. It’s not really their fault, because they are following the industry handbook.

It’s safe to say that the relevance of mass frequencies is in decline. They are not what they used to be, when middle-aged Joe:s in the city had a lot in common. Volvo:s are bought by both young and elderly, and runners can be found in any shape and size. Markers like age, sex and nationality, do not have the same relevancy as they did for our ancestors. Many people find it hard to get excited about being approached as a middle-aged Joe.

Luckily there are some potent and untapped frequencies that you can use on your trek towards availability.

Tribal frequencies

I used this original art to promote my blog post about lifelogging and connect with the Quantified Self movement. The post made it to the top of QuantifiedSelf.com

We all carry hundreds of different frequencies, because we all belong to many different tribes. Tribal frequencies are powerful, because they tap in to our need to belong, and make sense of the world. When we open tribal frequencies we connect with people and their passions, whether it’s for golf, startups, vintage or meaningful brands.

In contrast to mass frequencies, that address individuals with little in common, tribal frequencies are all about connectedness. Tribal frequencies are rich, because they have deep wells to draw from. They can be created and sustained from a shared repertoire of meaning, beliefs, and values. Which in turn are derived from symbols, experiences and stories. It’s important to understand that tribal influencers are the true masters of these frequencies. They can both help you to tune in, as well as lend you their halo.

You should never use a tribal frequency as a scheme to shove stuff down people’s throats. Focus instead on bringing authentic value to people’s lives, and share what matters. Brands that do this well receive a special perk. Over time, they themselves become a symbol – a secret handshake – that people can use to connect with others and express their tribal membership.

If you are a small player in your niche, like a personal blogger, startup, small business or crowd-funder, you can use the fact that you can’t communicate with everyone to your advantage. Rather than operating mass frequencies you can become more accessible to people through their passions.

If you represent a large player in your niche, but find it difficult to cut through the noise, then you should consider a more refined strategy that uses tribal frequencies to your advantage. Red Bull for example communicates over 35+ frequencies to connect with passions ranging from ice climbing to rugby. Chances are at large that you, as a big player, already touch upon lots of tribal passions, but need new ways of thinking and doing.

Examples of brands opening tribal frequencies

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Crowds are like the boogieman. They are big  and you never know who they are, or where they are coming from. However unlike the boogieman, crowds are quite popular these days. You can find them in many different shapes and forms, such as crowdfunding, crowdsourcing and even crowdvoting.

Airbnb, a DIY home rental service, recently crowdsourced the world’s first video using Vine. The crowd submitted their entries, for specific storyboard slots, via Twitter using specific hashtags. The entries were judged by a professional movie director, and the best vines were stitched together to create a short film. According to Wired the project had a slow start and could have faired a lot worse it hadn’t been aided by major endorsements and partners. In the end they got by with a little help from their friends, and you can view the final result here:

Many people rely on the crowd to help them create and fund their projects, and many of them fail to gain their support. They rely on the power of the crowd. Whomever that may be. An undefined crowd is like the boogieman. It is a great, big hoax. The social media landscape is only composed of crowds for those that fail to recognize it’s true constituents. The social media landscape is primarily tribal. It consists of lots of people banding together, in tribes, around common passions, like Breaking Bad, cycling, startups or sustainability.

Well, if Airbnb wasn’t crowdsourced, what was it then? Truth be told it was tribesourced! If we examine the identities of the top contributors we find that they are members of various art and designer tribes. Some of them are also members of Vine’s brand tribe. With this in mind, Airbnb could have cut to the chase. While it may be a good thing to make an “open call”, that doesn’t cancel the possibility to directly approach tribal influencers. Actually there is no good excuse not to.

When Memoto crowdfunded their automatic life logging camera on Kickstarter, was it funded by the crowd? It was funded by tribes of lifeloggers, social media nerds, and gadget enthusiasts. While I was deconstructing the spiceologist block, another Kickstarter project, I found that it resonated with the food blogger, and home cooking tribe. It appears that Kickstarter projects are not really crowdfunded, but tribefunded.

While some academics, such as Daren Brabham, recognizes that crowdsourcing involves “online communities”, it’s fair to say that few really dig into tribes. You can find many studies about the demographics of crowdsourcing platforms and projects, but what’s the point? The best way to understand the social structure of the web is not demographics. Traditional markers like age, sex and nationality do not form the social sauce. While you can find demographic trends within tribes, their true reason for being is passion and emotion that many times transcend traditional markers.

Whatever good intentions people have with the “crowd” thing, it’s turning out to be quite misleading. Projects are not funded and created by crowds, but by tribes. These tribes do not have to be discovered in hindsight, but rather identified, mapped and recruited beforehand. The bulk of any response is by far not going to come from an unidentified crowd, but from a tribe or several of them. Rather than sending a shuttle into the great unknown, and hoping for a signal from an alien crowd, entrepreneurs can craft their appeals specifically for tribes and their influencers.

So, until people really understand that their success hinges on tribes it’s time to say goodbye. It’s time to let go of the fuzziness of crowds, and say hello to the clarity of tribes.

Goodbye crowdfunding!

Goobye crowdsourcing!

Say hello to tribefunding, and tribesourcing..

People gather in tribes around strong passions like fishing, scrapbooking and gaming. Everyone belongs to lots of different tribes, and we move between them with ease. Our tribes gather in many different places to share and celebrate a common sense of belonging. For example the gaming tribe likes to gather on YouTube, but less on Pinterest, and the reverse is true for the scrapbooking tribe.

With tribes in mind, isn’t it strange that many companies still define their online groups as strangers with little in common? What do 35 year old women in Berlin really have in common? Today we find that many passions transcend traditional markers. For example runners are not defined by their age, or sex, but by their passion for running.

Have you noticed any companies acting intrusively or weirdo on the social web? While they may master the fundamental codes of the channel, for example Twitter, they fail to tune in with the tribes that populate them. Twitter is not one big mass of individuals, but rather lots of different tribes, each with their own distinct culture. To deeply connect with them you need to understand what they have in common. What are their values, beliefs, jargon, traditions and practices? Either you are in or you are out.

When was the last time you saw user statistics from Facebook or Instagram based on passions like fishing or yoga? Could it be that you haven’t, and that it was based on characteristics like age, sex, and nationality? Those mass communication markers which are becoming increasingly outdated? That fail to recognize that we use passions to connect with others beyond closest family and friends?

When you start to unravel the tribal structure of the web you actually get a better understanding of reality.  You start moving from a concept of isolated individuals with little in common to connected tribes with lots in common. This will potentially allow your thinking and actions to attain new heights, as you find cultural wells to draw on.

Defining who your tribes are, is a good starting point. Identifying key influencers and where they gather is another. Understanding their culture  and tuning in to that frequency is the next step. This will make your communication more native, relevant and effective.

[zilla_button url=”http://tribaling.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/where-do-your-tribes-gather.jpg” style=”red” size=”large” type=”round” target=”_parent”] Download a large version of the infographic[/zilla_button]

Special thanks to e-Cairn for providing the data. Also thanks to Karin Johansson and Sebastian Sjöberg for their expertise..

Anyone can be an influencer. People no longer need to own a TV station to make their voice heard, and neither do they need to be particularly conscious about their social magnetism. Influencers simply have ‘it’, a social currency that makes them look good to others. People trust influencers to show the way. Whether they want advice about what mobile to buy, or diet to try, or simply connect them to others.

Anyone can be an influencer. But not for everyone, and not everywhere. Influencers gain their power through relations, and never in isolation. Their status is constantly being negotiated between people that share their passions and interests. Influencers must be understood within the context of their tribes. Influencers are tribal influencers.

It’s becoming increasingly important for companies and organizations to rely on networks to spread their messages. We now know that people trust their peers more than companies, and would rather hear about news from them. They also spend time in social media, and other spaces, to connect with them, rather than brands.

Organizations can adapt two network strategies. They can either build their own brand tribe, or reach out to existing consumer tribes. While some people will advocate one way over the other, both should be considered whenever possible. Regardless it’s important for companies to understand how people exercise influence within their tribes when reaching out to them. This will make their initiatives more native and successful.

The 7C’s of Tribal Influence

The thinking behind the 7C’s of tribal influence.

Chieftain
They are the type of people that tribal members look up to. They have often attained mythic status, and over time they become symbols that encapsulate tribal values, beliefs and meaning. For example Kevin Kelly is a chieftain for the quantified self movement.

Cook
The cooks are the content creators of for example articles, books, images and video. A good example is Chez Pim. Her blog attracts 10 000 global visitors every week that turn to her for advice about food. She writes about Michelin-starred restaurants, street food, cooking equipment and recipes.

Collector
Curators gain influence by consistently sharing interesting content that others have created. The best curators do not simply copy-n-paste, but rather take the time to translate and re-appropriate content for their tribe. An example is Robin Good that curates for a tribe of independent video publishers.

Ceremonial master
They are the people that organize the tribal happenings, such as the events, meet-ups and conferences. A good example of ceremonial masters is Larry Harvey and the 6-man board that organizes the annual Burning Man event. During a week people convene to build a city in the desert of Nevada, and then leave without a trace.

Community member
The regulars are the small guys that interact with the tribe on a regular basis. They are the natural advocates that bring their tribal identities with them wherever they go. Thanks to the research of the influencer scientists Danny Brown and Sam Fiorella, we now know that decisions are affected by micro rather than macro influencers.

Crone
The crone acts as the spirit master and guide. They are in charge of bringing in and educating the newbies. They help them get in sync with tribal culture, so that they slowly can build their tribal capital.

Chum
The chums are the most overlooked role of tribal influencers. They do not participate with the tribe on a daily basis, but connect through past experiences or shared values and beliefs. The chums always constitute the largest influencer group, and their potential stretches beyond the tribe at hand. They can act as powerful bridges and go-betweens into other tribes.

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The 7Cs of tribal influence can help you identify and understand the needs and drivers behind tribal influencers, as well as defining your audiences as entire networks of people that share a lot in common. Influencers is one aspect of your tribal map, but not the only one. To be truly native and successful you should strive to understand and share as much of tribal culture as possible.

The 7Cs can also help you think about the role your company or organization can play to support a tribe. Consider how Red Bull are ceremonial masters for tribes that gather around extreme sports, or how Lowe acts as a crone for the home improvement tribe.

Don’t forget. Influencers are tribal influencers.

[zilla_button url=”http://tribaling.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/the-7Cs-of-tribal-influence.jpg” style=”red” size=”large” type=”round” target=”_parent”] Download a large version of The 7Cs of Tribal Influence[/zilla_button].

Any time is a good time to read, but for many of us vacation presents a special opportunity in an otherwise hectic schedule. While many like to rest their minds from work, a good book can provide a pocket for reflection and learning. I have collected five recently published books that I recommend to people interested in communication and marketing.

Brand advocates

By Rob Fugetta

This book gives you practical guidance for turning your most passionate customers into advocates, and activating them as marketers. It explains why it’s worth it, and how to do it. I was intrigued by the model Rob uses to estimate the value of an advocate. I recommend this book if you are interested in mobilizing enthusiastic customers.

Contagious

By Jonah Berger

Jonah has studied the science behind what makes things catch on. He has distilled 6 factors that you can use to make your content gain traction. My personal favorite is social currency which is built around the notion that we share things to look good. The book is an easy read, and contains lots of real world examples and cases. I recommend this book if you want to intentionally design your messages for high reach and relevance.

Influence marketing

By Danny Brown and Sam Fiorella

Whatever preconceptions you may have about influence marketing, this book will most likely influence that. Danny and Sam have combined years of science and trial-and-error to give you their abundant knowledge on the subject. For example that companies should focus on micro-influencers, instead of casting out big nets, and learn who really affects the buying decision process. I like this book, because it combines theory and practice as well as customer centrism and flipped thinking. I recommend this book if you want to use social media to aid the decisions people make.

Youtility

By Jay Baer

Jay wants you to re-think marketing, and build customers for life by informing rather than promoting. He points out that there are only two letters that differ between the words selling and helping. While the key message is really simple, the book is kind of like a journey. Jay uses facts and cases to demonstrate the benefits of being useful, rather than just amazing. There are also lots of examples of how to accomplish that. I personally appreciate the customer centrism in this book and how it narrows in on delivering value. I recommend this book if you want to put your customer first and become truly valuable.

Present Shock

By Douglas Rushkoff

This book is on the thought-provoking philosophical side, and can help you reflect upon major shifts occurring now. It examines how media and technology is changing our behaviors, and perceptions of people, time, and ultimately life itself. Douglas is concerned about the development of humankind, and does not shy away from the pointing out risks and barriers towards attaining that. I personally enjoyed reading about how narratives are collapsing as we become more concerned with what is happening right now. I recommend this book to anyone that wants to reflect upon the time we live in.

Happy reading! Do you want to discuss these books? Let’s do it!

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Deconstructing the spiceologist block

As a child I enjoyed deconstructing toys to figure out what they looked like. I once visited a friend’s house and enticed him to take apart his electronic toys. We weren’t able to put them back together, and his parents became very angry with me. From that day on I never dissembled another toy, and I understood that I was not gifted in engineering. As an adult I still deconstruct and reassemble things, but they tend to be less tangible… like brands.

A few days ago I was doing my rounds at Kickstarter, and came across the Spiceologist Block. I did what I often tend do. I began deconstructing their potential benefits. Watch the video for yourself, and share my thoughts.

I think they have done a great job with their presentation, and I can really appreciate the way they clearly link their product attributes and features to both tangible and intangible benefits. I have summarized my deconstruction in an infographic, and will simply highlight a few things.

The customer-centric brand model

A model is simply a model, but I have used my own brand model to take on the customer view. Rather than defining how brands can use people, it looks at how people can use brands. In this regard it is customer centric, and applies flipped thinking. The customer-centric brand model is more interested in how people can position their selves, than the positioning of the brand itself. It is also more interested in how people can use a brand to connect with others, than establishing relations with the brand itself.

Does that mean that classic positioning and brand relationship building is obsolete? No, but the customer-centric brand model is the missing half of what companies traditionally do. It brings in the best of anthropology and consumer culture theory to compliment what already is there. It is the logical step in a time when people are banding together to take a more active role in the marketplace.

How the spiceologist block can help people do

The spiceologist block can help people collect and organize their spices on the kitchen counter. This is cleverly accentuated by it’s design that bears resemblance of a knife block. It literally brings spices out of the closet, and makes them more readily available while cooking. It also becomes a distinct showcase for who you want to become, and belong to.

How the spiceologist block can help people become

We all recognize how cooking is used to express our love for our family, and care for our guests. In recent years many homes have been remodeled to make the kitchen a more centred and open space. The fact that it’s made in the USA by a home cook blogger, local spice company and wood artisan, as well as handcrafted, can mean many things, but it can certainly be used to accentuate many of the values and meaning associated with home cooking.

Beyond the obvious it’s interesting how the design can associate with an artist’s palette and the tubes of a scientist. People can use the Spiceologist Block to express their passion for cooking by collecting spices and experimenting with them – like artists and scientists.

How the spiceologist block can help people belong

We have already touched upon how the spiceologist block can help people reaffirm their bonds to their family and friends. Buying, using, and sharing stories about the product, can also help people reinforce and establish links to different tribes. It can be used to express a belonging to the Savorx and Kickstarter tribes, as well as the tribe that convenes around Heather’s own blog. In the long run the largest potential for product growth will be with the infamously large home cooking gourmet tribe.

A question to my visitors and readers: Do you want to see more brand deconstructions like this in the future?

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