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1. Disruptive perception
06.18.13

2. Hello,
Let’s chat
Section 1
Creativity & imagination
Section 2
Perception
Section 3
5 ways to disrupt perception
Immersion
Challenge conformity
Novelty
Invite constraint
Disparate pairings

3. CREATIVITY
& IMAGINATION

4. Creativity & imagination
This is at the heart of our work
Our work is the
output of our
imaginations
Our success and the success we
drive for our clients is directly
linked to our ability to be creative

5. Creativity & imagination
No one would argue with this
This is not controversial
We get hired for our ability to
be creative, to think generatively
Our ability to apply creativity
to solve problems and create
business opportunities

6. Creativity & imagination
But if you believe in the power of
creativity and imagination, and if you
want to constantly challenge yourself
and your organization to be ever more
creative and innovative, then you must
think about and challenge your
perceptual capabilities

7. Make no mistake
All creativity and
imagination begins
with perception

8. PERCEPTION

9. “Perception lies at the root of all creativity,
learning how to see is the start of creative thinking.”
Source: Edward Prince Furniture Design: How to Be More Creative - Perception

10. But how you perceive
something isn’t simply
a product of what your
eyes and ears carry to
your brain, it’s a product
of your brain itself

11. “Perception
imagination
are linked because the brain uses
the same neural circuits for both
functions.”
Source: Fast Company: “Neuroscience Sheds
New Light on Creativity.”

12. What is perception?
The conscious mental
registration of a
sensory stimulus

13. What is perception?
Recognition &
interpretation of
sensory stimuli based
chiefly on memory

14. Perception
Experience modifies
perception because it
modifies neural connections
The more experience we
have with something, the
more efficient our brains
become at processing
information

15. Perception
Neuroscientists have observed
that while an entire network of
neurons might process a
stimulus initially, by about the
sixth presentation, the heavy
li ing is performed by only a
subset of neurons. Because
fewer neurons are being used,
the network becomes more
efficient at carrying out its
function.
Source: Fast Company: “Neuroscience
Sheds New Light on Creativity.”

16. Humans tend
to form whole
perceptions from
partial images

17. This is part of our natural
ability to quickly interpret
limited information, an ability
essential to making the snap
judgments needed to get
through life

18. This mental
extrapolation is a great
intellectual skill
At times, however, the filled
in information is illusory, a
product of the mind not reality.

19. Vision is not the same as perception
Vision is concrete
Observational versus judgmental
Perception is how we ascribe meaning to what we see

20. Vision is not the same as perception
We have to interpret what’s around us & o en our
unique interpretation can lead to distinctive ideas
Our unique perceptions of the world are in large
part what differentiates us from each other
Eliminate all perceptive differences & the
individual is more or less obsolete

21. Vision is not the same as perception
But at times, our brains
move to judgement so
quickly, we can miss seeing
what is truly there

22. “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking
new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”
Marcel Proust

23. Disruptive perception
The ideal of seeing
with new eyes is
merely a mental
pause button...

24. Disruptive perception
conscious inefficiency,
or said another way...

26. Perception
A very basic rule of
perception says that you
will perceive something in
a way that is consistent
with your prior experience
Once a perspective has
been adopted, it is rare
that new lines of thought
are opened.

27. “The eye sees only what the mind
is prepared to comprehend.”
Henri Bergson

28. This doesn’t bode
well for creativity
and creative solutions

29. In our business,
we have to be able
to see new things,
new opportunities in
existing landscapes
Most problems
are not new
The challenge is to
look at old problems
in new ways

30. Albert Einstein said
“Creativity is seeing what
everyone else has seen, and
thinking what no one else
has thought.”

31. Iconoclastic perception
“Iconoclasts see things differently than
other people. Literally. They see things
differently because their brains do not
fall into the efficiency traps as much as
the average person's brain. Iconoclasts,
either because they were born that way
or because they learned how to do it,
have found ways to work around the
perceptual shortcuts that plague other
people.”
Gregory Berns, "Iconoclast: A Neuroscientist
Reveals How to Think Differently"

32. “Genius o en comes from finding a new
perspective that no one else has taken.”
Michael Michalko: “A Theory About Genius”

33. Habitual thinking is
a drag on creativity

34. Disruptive perception
How do you disrupt your
perception, shake up your
attentional systems, fight
habit and enhance your
creative abilities?

35. 5 WAYS TO DISRUPT
PERCEPTION

36. 5 ways to disrupt perception
1 Immersion
2 Challenge conformity
3 Novelty
4 Invite constraint
5 Disparate pairings

37. 5 ways to disrupt perception
1 Immersion
2 Challenge conformity
3 Novelty
4 Invite constraint
5 Disparate pairings

38. You must break free of
what you think you
know to be true

39. We have set ways of viewing the
world and we are experts at si ing
out information to the contrary

40. Immersion
The cure for this
automated
thinking is doing
Experiencing
things, seeing
things first hand

41. Immersion
What activities or
information might directly
confront your implicit or
explicit assumptions?

42. Go outside
Probably something
outside the office field
trips, store checks...

43. Immersion
Empathy is good. Imagine or experience
things not as yourself but as someone else.
Talk to consumers not just behind the glass
of a two-way mirror, but experience their
habits and rituals with them.
Experience the products and services of
competitive and non-competitive
companies. What can you learn?

44. Environmental immersion
Renowned architect Frank Gehry wants
his buildings to be experienced, not just
admired. He deliberately breaks architectural
conventions to create work that elicits an
emotional reaction.

45. Immersion
Vontz Center for
Molecular Studies
“Cancer will be cured
here because the building
will make people think
differently.”
Frank Gehry, Architect

46. 5 ways to disrupt perception
1 Immersion
2 Challenge conformity
3 Novelty
4 Invite constraint
5 Disparate pairings

47. Challenge conformity
Every organization has its own
culture, own methods,
unchallenged assumptions,
pivitol strategies and set
way of “that’s the way we
do things around here.”

48. Document and identify
these core beliefs,
sacred cows, and then
challenge each one.

49. Or challenge yourself how
you would think differently
about the brand or category
if we didn’t believe what
we believe.

50. Challenge conformity
ROM bar
A need to be disruptive to get the brand
back into the hearts of the nation.

51. ROM
The idea was to steal it, to wrench
it away from the nation, to dress it
in an overseas international flag,
that of the states.
The nation rebelled, asking “what
have you done? You’ve given away
our national asset here.”
As such, that disruption, that
desire to break conformity, had a
fantastic effect.

52. As the campaign grew and
grew and grew, the anger
and the angst and the
passion grew with it.
When the candy bar was
then reclad in the flag of
the nation, everybody loved
it again and sales went
through the roof.
But it was a brilliant piece
of thinking because they
challenged the conformity
of the brand itself and
about the idea of
stereotyping nationality.

53. Hate is good
There is a very powerful emotion wrapped
up in hating something. Hating is visceral.
Hating is angry. Hating is disruptive. There
is a real usefulness in the velocity and
visceral nature of hating something if you
want to change something.
Only working within a convention will
get you back into the heartland of
habit. And if you are in a habit, then
you will do what was a bit like the last
piece or a bit like the studio over the
road from you.
As an example, pick something pretty
pedestrian, pretty mundane, and see what
happens when you hate something
associated to it.

54. Conventions
of camping
Escape
Basic
Countryside
If you define what camping is, it’s probably based on three things; escapism, living a pretty basic life, and being in the
countryside. So as a convention, if you hate one of those things, what happens? If you hate it so much you refuse to
accept it within the conventions of camping?

55. Conventions
of camping
Escape
Basic Glamping
Countryside
Image courtesy flickr user Donna Tomlinson
Image courtesy flickr user wicker-furniture
Glamping is the reinvention of camping. It sets the whole leisure and tourist industry back on fire. It is being outside but
not having to do it in a rough, tough, ants in your sandwich type of way. So when you hate basic, you get to something
not only more interesting but also a viable alternative.

56. Conventions
of camping
Escape
Basic
Countryside
If you take out countryside, what you get is urban camping, a trend that started to catch on in Europe. Camp in a city.

57. Challenge conformity
IEA urban camping
Because something was refused and taken out of the equation, it takes you to a really interesting place. You have to
sacrifice; you have to be aggressive in the reduction of one of the core components of the brand or the activity. IEA
has redefined a corner of what was otherwise a very static industry. Camping now, whether it be glamping or urban
camping, is significantly reinvented.

58. Challenge conformity
Hövding invisible helmet

59. Hövding challenged the norms
of a crash helmet being a rigid
structure that has been in play
for years and years and years.
By challenging the conformity
of the genre, they came up
with a radically different, very
important alternative.

60. 5 ways to disrupt perception
1 Immersion
2 Challenge conformity
3 Novelty
4 Invite constraint
5 Disparate pairings

61. As previously stated...
The networks that govern
both perception and
imagination are one in
the same

62. But they can be
reprogrammed by
deploying your
attention differently

63. Our brain’s natural inclinations
toward efficiency drive mechanized behavior of perceptual
shortcuts to save energy.
Perceiving things in the usual way
requires little by way of energy.

64. Novelty
To perceive things
differently, we must fuel our
brains with stuff it has not
experienced before.
A novel stimulus jolts
attentional systems.
Radical directly proportional
to fresh insights.
1. Novelty

65. “If you’re trying to be more creative, one of the most important
things you can do is increase the volume and diversity of the
information to which you are exposed.”
Wall Street Journal: “How to be Creative” by Jonah Lehrer

66. Novelty
can take
many forms

67. Novelty can take many forms
New insights or look
at existing research in
new ways to drive
new insights.

68. Novelty can take many forms
“Form teams with people with
diverse thinking styles more
likely to arrive at good
decisions. Their diversity
challenges each other’s
habituated beliefs.”
Daniel Goldman

69. Novelty can take
many forms
Doing a new and
unfamiliar activity

70. Novelty can take many forms
Exposure
to new
information

71. 5 ways to disrupt perception
1 Immersion
2 Challenge conformity
3 Novelty
4 Invite constraint
5 Disparate pairings

72. Invite constraint
We o en talk about
white space and
endless possibilities,
but the truth is the
creative process is
borne of constraint.

73. “I suspect that the welcoming of constraints is,
at bottom, the deepest secret of creativity.”
David Gentleman: “The Invisible Grail”, 2003

75. Invite
constraint
Your product now may be
only be used by those
under the age of 21
The #1 raw material in
your product is no
longer available
You may no longer use
your brand name to sell
your product or service
You must triple the
price of your brand
You must cut the
price of your
brand in half
You may no longer
promote your product
within your number
one channel
You may no longer
use your brand’s
primary equity color

76. “I suspect that the welcoming of constraints is, at bottom,
the deepest secret of creativity.”
Douglas R. Hofstadter, scientist and polymath
Image Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech

77. Invite constraints
Mars Rover
NASA’s challenge was to safely
land the Mars probe onto the
surface of the planet. NASA had no
problem getting to Mars or getting
to the atmosphere, but the last 200
yards were actually the hardest.
How do you slow down and control
descent onto the surface of the
planet while controlling everything
from mission control back on
earth?
So for the marvelous technology
that got us to Mars’ atmosphere,
the last 200 yards was delivered by
a winch, a mechanism that has
been with us for centuries.
Sometimes, the answer is right
there in front of you.
Image Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech

78. Invite constraints
Preem
Landor worked in Sweden with a petroleum
retailer whose business was suffering quite
significantly with the advent of the incoming
big international petrol companies.
Through the segmentation process with
them we discovered that half the audience
had a series of unmet needs and was an
audience that wasn’t being talked to
whatsoever—the entire female population.
One of the things that people familiar with
petrol retailers know is that you don’t make
any money now on pumping gas; you make it
in the C-stores. So if you do believe that you
want to seriously attract the missing half of
the audience, what do you do? You design
for women, not men. That’s the constraint.

79. Preem
As we worked back through the
experience into the C-store,
making it such that the dwell time
for the typical female customer
would be longer, purchases
increased. (Sales went up 33% a er
the redesign)
Changes included taking all the
porn off the top shelf of all the
magazine racks, taking out all the
donkey burgers, and putting in
things which were much more
suitable for food to take home for
the family.
Outside, the pumps were better lit
for ease and safety.

81. 5 ways to disrupt perception
1 Immersion
2 Challenge conformity
3 Novelty
4 Invite constraint
5 Disparate pairings

82. Five most important
skills for innovators:
Harvard Business Review
Associating
Questioning
Observing
Experimenting
Networking

83. Disparate pairings
Most powerful overall
driver of innovation
is associating

84. Associating:
Making connections across seemingly unrelated questions, problems, ideas, or categories

85. Disparate pairings
O en helpful to look at the best
of the best at a certain thing and
imagine how it might transform
your company.
Get inspired by Amazon’s access
to inventory
Nordstrom’s approach to
customer service
Disney’s approach to experience
management

86. Disparate pairings
+
=
Image courtesy wikimedia commons user Thegreenj
Locks
Personal audio
iPod

87. Disparate pairings
+
Jewelry
Gin

89. Disparate pairings
+
Sports cars
Whiskey

91. Disparate pairings
+
Drugstores
Department stores

92. Images courtesy flickr user daxoneil

93. Image courtesy flickr user daxoneil
Image courtesy flickr user Pauton Chung

94. Images courtesy flickr user Todd Huffman
Disparate pairings
London Olympics Logo

95. NEED
PERMI
SSION
Image courtesy flickr user tableatny
Image courtesy flickr user Tiws

96. London 2012 Olympics
In past years, there was a sense of
conformity in how the different games and
cities presented themselves.
It was the desire of the IOC to make the
games a legacy for the young people of
London and stay top of mind for the 6
relevant years. How do you engage them
while staying true to traditional sporting
values?
Wolff Olins adopted the code and
language of the streets by using graffiti as
an inspiration. The resulting design was
disruptive and different, and demanded
conversation.
Image courtesy flickr user Ben Sutherland

97. +
=
Disparate pairings
Siberian Airlines

98. Disparate pairings
Siberian Airlines
What do we do with Siberian Airways that can
resonate with the new generation of Russia and their
point of view?
The idea of freshness was brought in because
typically, in and out of Russia, perceptions of
travel were that it was a pretty grey experience.
Actually it’s a pretty grey in a lot of places, but
particularly Russia. So what can we do to add a
sense of freshness and vitality to it?
And can we combine it with something which
actually has a sense of style and modernity,
some lifestyle that people would find attractive?

99. S7
If you put fresh and fashion
together you end up with not
Siberian Airlines, but S7—
something that is absolutely bright
and cheerful and fashionable and
breaks the codes of the category.
Now they feel proud and walk
with a strut that is more akin
to being a lifestyle brand than
just an airline brand. The
lounges feel more like going
into a boutique than they do
just a furniture show room
you tend to get in lounges
these days.

101. Disparate pairings
UKTV

102. Disparate pairings
SOLIDARITY
+
UKTV’s personality was defined as the “Imaginative
Challenger,” which is already a paradox. How do you
bring together an idea of “what if” and a wandering
curious spirit with an emphatic sense of challenging
the status quo and norm?
=
The resulting identity combines the opportunity of a
cloud with strong, emphatic type. It is disruptive and
challenging to the sector.

104. 5 ways to disrupt perception
1 Immersion
2 Challenge conformity
3 Novelty
4 Invite constraint
5 Disparate pairings

105. Thank you
Landor.com