Trinkets, trash and adult colouring books
Your brand is your user experience
Merry Amex-mas (Augmented Fun From Down Un)
Where do you stand on SOPA and PIPA?
Grip strives to embody the principle of “the tighter the agency, the tighter the work.” It encourages all employees to engineer new ways to enhance company culture, and blow off a little steam. Recently, we were on the hunt for a team-building activity that was fairly non-competitive, has simple rules and could work co-ed, recognizing also that in our line of business sometimes it helps to run and throw things.
Ultimate Frisbee was a natural choice.
Given that our daily bread is creativity and strategy, we got pretty methodical about how we would execute our fun. On reflection, our experience contains some pretty decent insights into how to strategize engagement play of all kinds.
Step One: Draw them in.
Whether you’re playing Ultimate Frisbee or piecing together a brand strategy, the first thing you see is how hard it is to put teams together with dedicated players. In the case of our beginners’ Ultimate team, the initial all-staff email recruited enough men but we were lacking in female participation.
Engagement tactic: Get personal and reward participation.
We set up an invite to play on the team, and sent it exclusively to Grip women (there’s no easy email list for this, so they had to be added separately). The subject line was, “Hey Ladies…need your help.”
From there, we tried to draw our targets in by proving the value of their participation on the team. Making your prospective team/brand participants feel like they fill a valuable role keeps them engaged. Also, we gave them t-shirts.
Let’s face it – free stuff never hurts.
Step Two: Navigate the barriers to participation.
Now that we had enough players for the team, we needed to make sure each game looked appealing and got full participation. This wasn’t always an easy task considering that on Thursdays our agency gathers for “beer o’clock”. Our barrier was chips and beer. That’s a tough one.
Engagement tactic: Give members a stake in the brand.
Our first move was to involve the team in naming themselves. Dialoguing bred familiarity right off the bat. “Ultimate Grip” may not have been the perfect naming solution in the end, but it democratized the team.
When the studio came up with a t-shirt design that was the envy of the rest of the company, we knew we’d hit our stride. Since they were strictly for team members, it created an exclusive team feeling that only Ultimate Grip could own.
Step Three: Get them to buy into your tone and manner.
In the end, if Ultimate Grip were featured in one of those sports drama movies as the underdog, we still would have lost after the coach’s stirring monologue. But we were so cohesive we never flinched. Our team brand had an upbeat attitude, and united people from different (and often divided) corners of the company.
Engagement tactic: Give them something to lose themselves in.
We were runners and screamers and hooters and hollerers. We made it an outlet of epic proportions. And, yes, we’d lose – but inevitably we’d walk off that field in a zen-like state of calm. The broken nose for the opposing team was an accident. Promise.
As a social branding exercise, Ultimate Grip hit all the sweet spots: it gave members something to invest in, it felt inclusive and it encouraged dialogue. It brought people together over a cause they didn’t expect to stand for.
That is, until the playoffs, when no one showed up.
Ean
August 18, 2010 @ 2:32 pm
Freedom! *charges up the field*
Ian Mackenzie
August 18, 2010 @ 2:50 pm
“Execute our fun.”
WIN.
Leilah Ambrose
August 18, 2010 @ 3:01 pm
Mir, great thought. Even more so when you consider that ’selling to the sellers’ (as you put it to me before) is one of the most challenging things you can attempt in this business. And yes, especially if you’re up against free beer on a hot day.
It’s always valuable to assess your tactics against the way you’d do it for a client, because the same rules apply.
Tweets that mention Ultimate Engagement Strategies « Big Orange Slide -- Topsy.com
August 18, 2010 @ 3:12 pm
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Leicentious, CW, CW, christopher hopkins, miranda and others. miranda said: I wrote a blog post for @bigorangeslide.. go read & comment :) Ultimate Engagement Strategies http://bit.ly/d5oP7A [...]
Brook Johnston
August 18, 2010 @ 4:23 pm
This is the most intelligently analyzed game of staff organized pickup ultimate frisbee that I’ve ever seen. Very cool – great ideas!
Akbar Singh
August 18, 2010 @ 4:37 pm
Well that was a boring read.
Ian Mackenzie
August 18, 2010 @ 4:51 pm
ED note: I’m pretty sure the above comment from Akbar is automated comment spam. But since I’m not 100% sure, I’ll leave it up.
Akbar, I challenge you to write something that proves you’re real.
Thanks.
Ian
Ultimate Engagement Strategies « Big Orange Slide | Bat Grip
August 18, 2010 @ 8:06 pm
[...] may not have been the perfect naming solution in the end, but it democratized the team. … bat grip – Google Blog Search Share and [...]
C Jones
August 25, 2010 @ 10:05 am
BUT WHAT DO THE T-SHIRTS LOOK LIKE!!!!!!!!