{"id":12525,"date":"2023-08-22T14:53:34","date_gmt":"2023-08-22T13:53:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thndrblog.bikostudio.com\/?p=12525"},"modified":"2024-03-06T16:49:03","modified_gmt":"2024-03-06T16:49:03","slug":"thinking-inside-the-box","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thndr.horizondm.com\/blogpost\/thinking-inside-the-box\/","title":{"rendered":"Thinking inside the box: Mustard vs Tomato ketchup"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Pick your poison\u2026<\/h3>\n

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\n\n\n\n
\"Mustard
Mustard Skittles<\/strong><\/td>\n		\"Tomato
Tomato Blood Ketchup<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/figure>\n

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Two condiments, two limited edition holiday products. One of them works, the other is vomit-inducing (hint: it’s not the blood-themed ketchup).<\/p>\n

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So what went wrong here? Both ideas are clearly \u2018outside the box\u2019 – the highest honor that can be bestowed upon a marketing professional. Why does one work and the other flop? Before we can talk about thinking and boxes and thinking outside of boxes, let\u2019s set a few things straight. First order of business\u2026<\/p>\n

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What is a box?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

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It\u2019s easy to picture a small and stuffy cardboard box as a metaphor for restricting your thoughts and creativity.\u00a0 But this isn\u2019t how the famous saying came about. Thinking outside the box refers to a very literal 3×3 grid of dots.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The grid made one of its earliest appearances in \u201cSam Loyd\u2019s Cyclopedia of 5000 Puzzles, Tricks, and Conundrums\u201d published in 1914.<\/p>\n

The grid came with a simple challenge: Without lifting your pen from the paper, connect all the dots with as few lines as possible.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/figure>\n

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You can give the puzzle a go yourself and then check the solution linked here<\/a> to see how well you did.<\/p>\n

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What is thinking?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

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Now that we\u2019ve got the box covered, let\u2019s move on to thinking. \u201cThinking outside the box\u201d usually refers to creative thinking. To keep things simple here, let\u2019s say that thinking is the act of creating new thoughts out of old ones.<\/p>\n

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What is thinking outside the box?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

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As elegantly illustrated with the 9 dots puzzle – thinking outside the box means breaking free of the arbitrary limits you\u2019ve unconsciously set for yourself. This is also known as lateral thinking – a term popularized by psychologist Edward De Bono.<\/p>\n

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When thinking outside the box goes wrong<\/strong><\/p>\n

Once upon a time in the distant year of 1950, you could count the number of TV channels on one hand. Brands had an audience of millions to advertise to, and most importantly, they had their attention. Today, things look a little bit different. In the time that it took you to read this far into the article, over 500 hours of video were uploaded to YouTube.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Toss in another half dozen social media and streaming platforms and a high-speed connection to the cumulative knowledge of the human race in its entirety and you\u2019ve got yourself an attention economy. More brands than ever are scrambling for the leftover scraps of attention nestled in between an Instagram post of your coworker\u2019s wedding party and a video of a singing cat.<\/p>\n

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Here\u2019s the secret sauce though: creativity captures attention. The desperate attempt to stand out in a hopelessly overcrowded market has led to an arms race of creativity that would give the scientists of the Cold War a run for their money. Thinking outside the box has become so valued that we\u2019ve started going…<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n\n\n\n
from this…
\"\"<\/td>\n		to this.
\"\"<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/figure>\n

<\/p>\n

Creativity for the sake of creativity, is far removed from goals or purpose. The original 9-dot puzzle encouraged you to think outside the box to find a better, more efficient solution. It wasn\u2019t about tossing the rules in the trash.<\/p>\n

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Mustard Skittles<\/strong>: A limited edition product created by the French for National Mustard Day. The brand went all out with a beautifully themed car <\/a>and was reported on by several magazines. Is it out of the box? For sure. But what objective does it fulfill?\u00a0<\/p>\n

It captured attention\u2026 but then what? The flavor was universally hated and the partnership between the two brands adds no apparent value to either. The idea is \u2018wild and crazy\u2019 for the sake of being wild and crazy. You may as well duct tape a banana to a wall.<\/p>\n

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Tomato blood ketchup: <\/strong>A limited edition product created by Heinz for Halloween. Ketchup is a fun and playful condiment. A sweet unnaturally red goop that stands out in aisles of cream and brown. You can drizzle it all over your fries and burgers. Kids love ketchup. They like to play with it. So why not lean into the essence<\/em> of ketchup? With a simple package redesign, an ordinary dinner is transformed into a gory ghoul feast.<\/p>\n

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Thinking inside the box<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Tomato blood ketchup takes a product\u2019s essence and boosts it unconventionally. Instead of following a linear path of thinking \u201cWhat monster should we put on the packaging? What if we create an ad where vampires love ketchup?\u201d Heinz broke free of regular thinking patterns – thinking outside the box – and temporarily renamed their hero product. Mustard Skittles on the other hand are a shallow cry for attention.<\/p>\n

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So when it comes to being creative – it sometimes pays to \u201cthink inside the box\u201d a little. Get close and comfortable with the core of your brand, its unique selling points, and what makes it tick. Always keep your goals and objectives in mind.<\/p>\n

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Red Bull used to fill trash cans with empty cans to create the illusion that everyone was drinking it – an out-of-the-box execution of a very inside-the-box proposition (See: 9 out of 10 dentists recommend our toothpaste). Texas\u2019s award-winning littering campaign \u201cDon\u2019t mess with Texas\u201d started with them taking a step back to redefine their audience – the most basic of marketing exercises.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When they discovered that their audience was pickup-truck riding, beer-drinking, and gun-loving teens, thinking outside the box was easy. They pivoted from a tree-hugging angle to a \u201cdon\u2019t mess with us\u201d attitude.<\/p>\n

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Closer to home<\/strong><\/h4>\n

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Ramadan is ad season in the MENA region. The cost of running ads spikes as consumer attention plummets in an overcrowded space. So how could Thndr stand out?<\/p>\n

Getting started with investing, as seamless as Thndr makes it, can take a bit of a learning curve – and having a close friend or family member introduce you can make getting started much easier. That\u2019s why word of mouth can be a particularly effective channel for growth.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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An insight we noticed is that during Ramadan, people meet with family and friends almost daily for iftar – the perfect opportunity for spreading through word of mouth. So instead of running ads, we took our referral bonus and doubled it for the entire month of Ramadan. We thought outside the box by first thinking inside the box.<\/p>\n

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This article was written by Danny Arafa – our in-house creative. From children\u2019s books to food magazines, social media content, and now fintech – Danny loves testing the bounds of creativity with a business-oriented approach.<\/p>\n

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