At the end of last year Brian Murray came to me and said, essentially, "I know we don't have 'official hours' and are encouraged to pursue cool, innovative ideas anyway but we do still have time sheets. Why don't we put a line on the time sheets for 'innovation' or 'trying cool stuff'?"

I walked down the hall, shared it with Brad, Jeff and Joni and without much discussion we all said, "Sure, why not?" Someone said, "How much time?" Someone else said, "Like 10%?" We all said, "Okay." The very complex process took about 15 minutes, I think.

I am happy to say, roughly four weeks into the new year, that "The McKinney 10%" has yielded not one, but two ideas, that have been as talked about as almost anything we've done in the last five years. It's weird. It's strange. And it's very cool. Let's be honest, we don't get covered on CNN that often.

The Twerrible Towel and Crow's Nest are the fruits of our initial foray into trying cool stuff. 

I have to say, if we have two of these every month, we will be golden.

Nice work: Stevie Archer, Brett Buddin, Ben Eckerson, Scott Gaston, Nick Jones, Jenny Nicholson and Trevor O'Brien.

Provoke!

I once heard that The Coca-Cola Company decided to stop advertising the Coke brand a few years ago. According to the story, the thinking was that advertising wasn't necessary if the beverage truly was only "an arm's reach away" all over the world.

So, they stopped advertising. And sales went down. But why? You can't get much more ingrained in people's consciousness than Coke - or be more ubiquitous. So how could advertising really affect sales?

In the case of a brand like Coke I think it's because people not only want it to be ingrained into the fabric of their lives but they also want to LIKE or LOVE the brand for the way it expresses itself - and now, to literally interact with it. It seems advertising can increase that effect by several multiples. And it also seems, as you might suspect, that good advertising (defined as advertising that creates increased emotional resonance, engagement and sales) is even better at doing it.

So the question is, does The Coca-Cola Company want to sell more Diet Coke?

Judging by the advertising, no.

Because a beverage like Diet Coke that is consumed as if it were a religion, as addictive and as necessary to many daily routines as cigarettes, coffee or vodka, could certainly do advertising that is more emotionally resonant, engaging and impactful than "Stay Extraordinary."

If you are like millions of other people you drink Diet Coke. But can you name the last Diet Coke ad, app or program you saw? Can you say whether or not you liked it, or loved it? Can you recall, vaguely, the vibe you get from the way Diet Coke expresses itself?

I don't know the strategic thinking behind the work. Having worked on the brand a while ago I do know that they've struggled for years to capture its essence in the way "Open Happiness" has for Coke. Too worried about "intrinsic" and "extrinsic" blah, blah, blah. Simply start with Diet Coke being an essential ingredient in millions of daily lives. Creating ideas that spring from that truth could lead to fun, engaging, useful, loved conversations with the world. And sell more Diet Coke.

Have you ever wondered why "provoke" is one of our five words? What exactly are we trying to provoke? In what ways are we trying to be provocative?

I am so glad you asked.

We are in the business of being provocative. Sometimes simply in the interest of creating a stir, yes. But more often we are trying to provoke connections between brands and consumers. The reason we say "provoke" is that much, much more often than not people simply aren't waiting around to be "informed" about a brand's products, goods or services. It would certainly make life easier if they were (but maybe less interesting and less profitable for us).

No, unfortunately it's not that easy. We need to earn consumers' permission to inform them. We must entertain and engage them (provoke a reaction, a response, a reason to give a shit) in order to gain the right to inform them. They must be PROVOKED. Once we have gained permission to inform consumers we need to keep doing so in entertaining and engaging ways. We need to keep the conversation interesting. You've certainly heard the old saw, "people don't read advertising they read what interests them and sometimes that's an ad." Never more true than now. But even more than being entertaining or engaging for the sake of informing we MUST provoke irrational connections to brands.

Why "irrational?" Because people simply don't make decisions about what brand of car to drive or shoes to wear, insurance to use or paint to paint with (or whom to marry for that matter) based on "rational" thinking. Human beings make decisions based on emotion. All decisions. Quite often those decisions are quickly buttressed by "rational" thoughts - it's safe, it's less costly, it's close to where I live, it has a new technology. But those things are used simply to support their desires.

So provoke irrational connections. Make them love. Surprise and delight them as Becky Minervino would say. Enrapture them, tickle them, excite them, make them cry. Entertain and engage. MAKE THEM FEEL SOMETHING! Think about that when you are doing work. Do you FEEL anything? Poked in the funny bone, punctured in the heart, stimulated in the cerebral cortex? If you don't, why would anyone else?

Let's Make 2011 The Year of Provocation.