I want to share Three lessons with you today that made me a better entrepreneur, a better marketer, and I hope a better person. I believe that these lessons apply to you. Whatever your profession or endeavor, and they extend well beyond your career to who you are, and how you're valued by others. That Three lessons are as follows. Number 1, attention is the oxygen of all human endeavor. 2, insights matter more than ideas. And the third, head, heart, and
hands. Let's begin with attention. Attention's the oxygen of all human endeavor. Whatever you're hoping to accomplish lead, market, sell, inspire, motivate, coach, parent, teach, attention is your only path to persuasion. But the problem we all face is that we're living in this age of noise. Too much and too many is chasing a finite amount of time, and this age of noise that now been put within arms Three of desire, and audiences are shifting effortlessly
from content consumers to content creators. They're no longer captive, and many would argue, interested. Their average attention span is 8 seconds, and it's been plummeting since the year 2000. It's no wonder that so much of what we put out in the universe is starving for attention. So how do you get the attention you deserve? Here's the harsh reality. You don't matter unless you matter to me or to anyone you want to Three, so you better learn what
matters to the people who matter most to you. You need to know where they are at a point in their life, where they need, want, and deserve to go. What you need to understand is their journey, and it's not that difficult. In the fifties, there was an American psychologist called Abraham Maslow, and he proposed that humans go on journeys based on 2 sets of needs, deficiency and growth. In terms of deficiency, we first need to
survive. We need to find food and shelter and security. And we're in that place, then we're in a better position to search for, where do we belong? How come you find love, build a family, become part of community? And from there, chasing purpose,
passion, and even for some, their meaning of life. I would argue that anyone you know, including yourself, while we're all on journeys to improve our circumstances, and the more you know about where someone is today, where they're heading, the better you're in a position to determine, can you add value, and will you be valued? Let me illustrate a couple of case studies where we used an insight to create a big idea. When we were in the agency business, we won Sun
Life. At the time, they were primarily life insurance, but their ambitions were to become a full service wealth management firm. Our client was married to Polly, who now holds that top marketing job in Canada as the executive VP and CMO of RBC. She's also a recent inductee into the Canadian Advertising and Branding Hall of Fame. She knows what she's doing.
The target market were boomers, and we needed insights in how they were feeling as they headed into retirement, and how they felt their life would unfold as the years passed on. That came back was one of the most important insights we uncovered. Many felt that they were going to outlive their money. I remember being in a focus group, one of those two way Matters, that somebody blurting out, I don't want to eat dog food in
my eighties. So we came up with the idea of Tony for life. Took an existing product and annuity, where somebody could invest a lump sum today and be guaranteed a monthly check the rest of their life, and in doing so, they could budget throughout their entire retirement, and more importantly, never be concerned about outliving their money. Money for Life was an incredible campaign, and why?
Because it was based on an insight, and our ability to show that we could take the uncertainty out when it came to retirement. Another one is Holt's. We won the Holt's business. They consider themselves that preeminent luxury retailer, Gucci, Prada, Blueberry, Versace. But they came with such arrogance. You almost had to dress
up to shop there. But when we talked to the consumers at Wintelholz and other luxury retailers, we realized that, yes, sure, some were just perusing, because shopping's fun, but many were there because they had an important event coming up. Could be black tie, a boardroom presentation. So we came back to
Holt's with the idea there's no place like Holt's. But it wasn't about there's no place like Holt's because of the brands we sell, but because at Holt's, you could find what you needed to own the moment. Here's the final one I'll share with you, but if you're interested, just reach out. I have so many more. Pepsi secures the NHL hockey rights, and they want a promotion. Now shoot for a million or want a VIP Stanley Cup experience. But we said, you know, let's not
race to the ideas. Let's first uncover an insight. We found another powerful insight that die hard hockey fans, when they're getting ready to watch the game on TV, they have rituals. They have their own shrine, they wear their their team's hockey sweater, they put out their favorite snacks. They don't want to miss a second of the game. So we looked at the rituals and
saying, that is where we can come up with an idea. Can you imagine being a die hard hockey fan and winning a hockey shrine in your home, designed by the set directors of Hockey Night in Canada. It comes with a giant TV set, a Pepsi phrase, home team memorabilia, and then Marc Messier, one of the most revered athletes in hockey, would come over to watch a game in your new shrine, and he would bring along the Stanley Cup. Ritual was the insight, bring home the Stanley Cup was the
big idea. The final lesson I want to talk to you about is head, heart, hands. I've been put into PowerPoint calmness too many times with people trying to describe their insight and idea with dozens of pictures head, heart, and hands. Head, make your insights and idea easy to understand. Heart, personalize them. Make it about your audience. Make it about the journey. And hands, make it easy to action. You should be able to take any insight and idea and express it in one page, if not one line.
Those are my Three lessons for you today. Tensioned your oxygen, insights matter more than ideas, and head hard in hands. If you have a moment, share a life lesson with me. It's Tony Chapman. Thanks for listening. Please subscribe to Chatter That Matters, And more importantly, let's chat soon.