The Impact of Disruption - Adam Kleinberg

TMI with Kevin Ryan

Adam Kleinberg joins us today to talk about how we can start to make sense of the customer journey, agency experience, and measuring media in this crazy data-driven world we live in. At Adam’s creative agency, Traction, in San Francisco, they work to create branding, advertising and digital experience that makes a deep impact on a human level. Adam talks about Traction’s press storm on paid time off for civic volunteering, and how they used it for positive momentum. He also talks about disruptive campaigns, brand challenges, and the new challenges within the industry.

Takeaways:

[3:59] Traction is a creative agency in San Francisco and has always been a very culture-driven organization. In support of the work/life balance and support of volunteers in civic engagement, they created a program called Days of Action. This allowed people to take 2 days of paid time off a year to participate in democracy however they see fit. After seeing how successful that was, Adam wrote an article on LinkedIn and the response to the post was far greater and more polarizing than they could have imagined, with over 300 media sites covering the press storm.

[18:27] Adam had no intention of making the press response a device for new business acquisition but did want to focus less on the nasty comments and more on the potential to make change and stay focused on the original intention of the program. He and his partners did not let it deter them to possibly inspire companies to do the same.

[31:27] The impact and ability of a disruptive campaign to have breakout success make it amongst the highest of all types of campaigns. This takes a notion, memory, or idea that consumers have cemented already, and changes it.

[43:16] Adam feels we are transcending from the digital user experience, which explains the renewed interested in understanding the customer journey driven by insight.

Mentioned in This Episode:

Traction

Why we’re offering paid leave for activism

Against the Machine: Being Human in the Age of the Electronic Mob, by Lee Siegel

Adam Kleinberg LinkedIn