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TRIPOD is a Marketing podcast produced by Tricycle Creative that aims to helps entrepreneurs be better Marketers. Each episode features news, tips, interviews, and commentary from the worlds of Marketing, Media, and Miscellaneous.

On this action-packed episode we discuss...

Nike, Boeing, and other Fortune 500 companies are hiring science fiction writers to prototype possible futures to create environments for product and service innovation.

We have a new viral video series that features everyone’s favorite skate shoe, Vans.

A new Nordstrom ad leads us to wonder – can a memorable ad be considered effective if you don’t remember the company behind it?

Show Rundown

0:00 – 1:30: Show Intro
1:31 – 14:08: Science Fiction Writers Build Futures + Directors Take On Commercials
14:09 – 26:27: Vans Viral Video (*24:20: Ross blows Chris’ mind)
26:28 – 38:53: Nordstrom’s New Ad Campaign Grabs Our Attention (But Will It Grab Our Money?)

Science Fiction Writers Take On Commercials

If you’re a business, how do you know what your customers will need a year from now? How about 5 years? 10 years? 100 years?

To answer that question, Fortune 500 companies such as Nike, Boeing, and Microsoft are hiring science fiction writers to design futures so they can create relevant products and services. According to Brian Merchant on OneZero:

For a fee, they’ll prototype a possible future for a client, replete with characters who live in it, at as deep a level as a company can afford. They aim to do what science fiction has always done — build rich speculative worlds, describe that world’s bounty and perils, and, finally, envision how that future might fall to pieces.

Alternatively referred to as sci-fi prototyping, futurecasting, or worldbuilding, the goal of these companies is generally the same: help clients create forward-looking fiction to generate ideas and IP for progress or profit.

He continues to say:

The best example, he says, is Intel, where until recently he served as chief futurist. “It took Intel 10 years to design and deploy a chip, so they needed to know 10 years out what people would do with computers.”

Ridley Scott's Hennessy video for your viewing pleasure:

Also throwing their hat into the Advertising ring are established Directors such as Errol Morris (Thin Blue Line, Fog of War) who’s doing a series for Chipotle called Behind the Foil. According to Ad Age the series, “includes documentary-style commercials in which director Errol Morris asks questions of restaurant staffers as they show off their culinary skills.”

Marketing Tip:

Think about your goal(s) for your video marketing. You probably won’t be able to afford Ridley Scott. If you can, please let us come and meet him. Few small businesses can afford to do full-scale Branding campaigns, but it is possible (we know because we do it with our clients…)

The other tip is for you to think about the future. There’s a brilliant line by Danny Meyer, CEO of Union Square Hospitality Group:

How can we become the company that would put us out of business?

(props to Allison Hale of SOS Mechanical who recently posted this on her socials)

Vans Viral Video

It all started with a Tweet. Just like any good viral video does…

Did you know it doesn’t matter how you throw your vans they will land facing up pic.twitter.com/nKVJCncW4H

— lana m!sses tøp (@lanacutherlip) March 2, 2019

We’ve been waiting oh so longing for a wholesome viral video and this one definitely scratched the itch. It also motivated us to look back at viral videos from our past (remember Star Wars kid?)

We also tried it for ourself with…well…results…