Acela means business...

…Or so the new “Take Off” advertising campaign for Acela Express would have us believe. And maybe they’re right. According to the New York Times, 75% of travel between NYC and Washington DC occurs on Amtrak trains. And Acela ridership specifically accounts for nearly 3.4 million passengers on Northeastern corridor rail transit every year.

Here's a video from the campaign:

When Acela was launched in 2000, it focused on business travel with its offer of speed, efficiency and flexibility. Today, the new “Take Off” advertising campaign hits this proposition well, with a sharp elbow-jab toward the Northeast corridor airlines that comprise the main competition for the business travel dollar.  But the “Take Off” campaign pitches Acela even more ambitiously – it speaks of “reimagining business travel”. We wondered if Acela is really doing that and what it would take.

To create a brand experience that delivers on that promise, Acela needs more than a well-articulated ad campaign. They have to start looking for ways to use innovative spaces, better services, and powerful partnerships to shift the current perception of business travel time from “wasted” to “optimized.” Here’s how we’d get started...

The basics matter

In some ways, today’s Acela merely represents the basic standards that business travel should be delivering. What could their “reimagined” business travel look like? Could Acela be the ‘ultimate mobile office’, and what would it take to be that? Maybe it isn’t so much about luxury or premiums, but about the most reliable basic necessities.

Could Acela ensure that every passenger has a super clean and comfortable seat that doesn’t remind you of the 3.4 million other passengers who are using them? And of course…a working power outlet, maybe even two per passenger?

And how about consistently reliable hi-speed Wi-Fi? While both the Delta Shuttle and many express bus services also offer Wi-Fi, Acela’s ‘ultimate mobile office’ would need to go the extra mile to deliver a fast, consistent service. (Easy for us to say, as we don’t have to figure out the location of cellular towers, router reception, demand load, etc.) Acela could look for an opportunity to partner with a best-in-class mobile Wi-Fi provider, and create an utterly compelling Wi-Fi delivery that locks them in as the go-to choice for Northeast business travellers. Trenitalia’s Frecciarossa, Italy’s state-owned TGV, gets high customer ratings for its Wi-Fi Internet, an experimental network available through a co-operation between Trenitalia and Telecom Italia.  

Delight with fresh food and dining

Given that many busy business travellers often have to travel during mealtimes, quality, healthy food and beverages could go a long way in this “reimagination” of business travel. Would a franchise partnership with Whole Foods or Le Pain Quotitiden enable Acela to differentiate from the low-grade food options served on most airlines? Acela’s café car facilities, compared to airplanes and buses, could provide their brand a real advantage. The ‘ultimate mobile office’ might even offer its first-class passengers the option of hot or cold gourmet meals served directly at your seat. They could take a cue from Virgin Rail’s Intercity line in the UK and the TGV in France for example, which both offer a gourmet food service that creates a distinctly enjoyable travel experience.

Optimizing the space advantage

Given that air or bus travel makes most think of cramped and stuffy space, could Acela maximize its comparative space advantage to help reinvent business travel? We played with some more ideas to put space to work in a way that would change the game.

Conference Call Pods:

Acela’s Quiet Cars are wonderful – no need to blast music in your earphones to drown out your fellow passengers’ important discussions or telephone calls. But given the reality that business travellers do indeed have pressing matters to discuss, could Acela take full advantage of the space offered by a train and provide a car fitted with sound-safe conference call pods? 

Executive Meeting Room:

As time-optimization is high on the list of priorities for all business travellers, wouldn’t it be cool if you could simultaneously nail a key meeting or presentation whilst traveling? Could Acela offer executive meeting rooms equipped with conference table, Okamura or Aeron inspired seats, and a large-format HD screen that connects to a PC for video projections.

Workout Car:

Building on our imaginary executive meeting room, could Acela further optimize its space advantage and offer a fitness car? Maybe partner with Equinox Fitness or CrossFit and install stationary exercise machines so travellers could optimize their time and workout while traveling instead of sitting still.

Legendary service

One of the great things about an Acela journey is the low number of service announcements compared to the seemingly never-ending in-flight announcements suffered on your average flight. Could Acela further focus on reducing travel stress and become known for memorable and delightful employee service? Could they model a program on the Ritz Carlton’s “Legendary Service” training program for employee and customer engagement? Or survey their passengers to really understand what comprises the ultimate in service on-board Acela?  Per our service-announcement point, they might find that less is more. 

21st century rail travel

Rail travel in the US has a long way to go to catch up to European and Asian standards, and perhaps that is more a political question than brand experience. But hi-speed rail tracks that are designed for hi-speed trains would really help Acela deliver on its core promise of speed. And ensure it could truly differentiate from the legacy of Amtrak and freight trains! As the US becomes increasingly conscious of carbon-foot printing (again some way to go to catch up to European standards), hi-speed/hi-efficiency rail travel could give Acela a valid advantage in offering business travelers the greener mode of transport. 

Acela brand potential

We wanted to play with the possibilities that a meaningful brand experience could deliver, and imagine what it might really take for Acela to “reinvent business travel”. By providing innovative spaces, services and powerful partnerships that enable business people to travel and work more efficiently, Acela could potentially reinvent the current perception of business travel time as wasted, and reinvent business travel in a way that delivers high value with a low carbon footprint.

We’re onboard, are you?

Angela Riley is a Strategy Director at Wolff Olins New York. 

Silence is the purist form of enquiry

By Angela Riley

The very wise Edgar H. Schein (former professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management and widely credited ‘father of corporate culture’) stated in one of his books*: “Silence is the purist form of enquiry.” The more I thought about this slightly contrary statement, the more I found it to be helpful. And here’s why…

As all good consultants know, understanding how to best help your client begins with understanding your client. Hence the tried and tested management-interview process at the beginning of most consulting engagements. Given we need to invest considerable thought, time and energy into management interviews, how do we ensure we mine-the-gold so to speak… get the most informative, interesting and intriguing insights out of our management interviewees? The robust stuff that really helps us understand what’s special and unique about the clients’ organization, offer, business model, culture?

Of course, there’s an art form to asking the right questions – already the subject matter of many clever white papers, articles and blog posts. And it goes without saying if you don’t ask the right questions you’re very unlikely to get what you need from your management interviews. (In which case you probably shouldn’t be doing the interview in the first place!) But Mr. Schein’s utilization of silence is an art form in its own right.

Creating the silent space:

I’ve learned that the concept of creating a silent space in an interview sounds fairly simple, but simple isn’t always easy! It takes a little intestinal fortitude to be able to pose your question, then sit silently and calmly for sometimes several seconds longer than is comfortable, as you wait for the interviewee to respond. It’s a very natural response for most us to feel a squirm of discomfort when the question we’ve posed isn’t immediately answered. We may try to help clarify or reframe our question. Or worse still, offer a couple of potential answers to the question, thereby either relieving the interviewee of the task of answering the question, or making them have to take a somewhat adversarial stance to ‘correct’ our suggestions. 

But if we can hold our nerve and leave a silent space, the interviewee can take their time to reflect on the question posed, interpret it in their own terms, fully collect and compose their thoughts, and feel confident they are answering your question wisely. And what interviewee wouldn’t want to feel wise when being interviewed by you?

A silent guarantee?

So here’s my question for you: can you pose your question, keep your cool, and sit with a few more seconds of silence than you feel wholly comfortable with, in order to create a small silent space out of which may pop the brilliant answer you’re looking for. Or sometimes even better, a brilliant answer you weren’t looking for! I’ve grown to love and rely on the inherent truth – and discomfort – in the premise that silence is the purist form of enquiry. Have you?

* Process Consultation Revisited: Building the Helping Relationship

  Angela Riley is a Strategy Director at Wolff Olins New York. 

  Image via gallerie lelong

The healthcare game is changing

By Angela Riley

With President Obama’s re-election on Tuesday, the Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act (PPACA) looks set to move full steam ahead.  And in response, the healthcare sector can now confidently prepare for a series of massive transformations. Perhaps most notably, by January 2014 each state will have set up a Health Insurance Exchange (HIX) – a regulated marketplace in which healthcare insurers will compete head-to-head for consumers and small group members in a way they haven’t done before.

The opportunity is huge. Industry analysts estimate the market for health insurance premiums will rise to $60 billion in 2014, and by 2019 be worth $200 billion. For all the risks presented by the PPACA, a slice of $200 billion may be a seductive goal.

No doubt the super-sharp actuaries behind health insurance companies have been busy reinventing their business models since the PPACA was announced in 2010. But are these companies really ready to face a consumer marketplace? Have they started brand-led transformations that can help them attract new members, maintain current members, and generate positive public perception?  Have they figured out how to create a compelling proposition to consumers that shifts their task from ‘selling’ to ‘inviting’?

To be fair, the health insurance companies are no slouches at marketing to members – with sophisticated membership newsletters, plan brochures, direct marketing messages, and a plethora of highly specialized marketing services and advertising agencies to help them. For some time, there’s been talk in the healthcare marketing industry about “building plan awareness”, “educating consumers”, and “creating a new array of touch points.” But this frames the challenge as something they need to ‘do to consumers’, a user-friendly layer to be built on top of their existing platforms.

Instead, this market transformation calls for a greater shift. Health insurers must transform themselves to become consumer-centric through to their core.  To get there, they’ll need to be asking themselves some new questions: 

–      KNOW THE CONSUMER: Do we understand our new consumers – in all their diversity, complexity and individuality? Not just demographically and geographically, but how they think and what motivates them.

–      BE SIMPLE & USER-FRIENDLY: Can we build and present our offer in a simple and user-friendly manner, so that a net new consumer, perhaps shopping for health insurance for the first time, can understand what to buy? Think of what Dell did to simplify the purchase of a personal computer - which previously had been a fairly complex, and high-stakes process - making it a simple, user-driven online transaction. 

–      GO RETAIL: Do we need a new retail-oriented presence that reintroduces our brand and our offer to consumers, particularly in a digital and mobile way? Think of how easy Geico has made it to buy auto insurance online, or Fresh Direct for grocery shopping without going to a store. Or how Geek Squad established a physical presence to sell its services.

–      COLLABORATE: What new partners could help us reach our sweet-spot consumer? Maybe the obvious alliances with Geico or All State spring to mind, but what about forming an innovative partnership with a wellness-oriented retailer such as Whole Foods?

On the surface, maybe a health insurance collaboration with Whole Foods is a stretch, but one of the game-changing principles we’ve recognized in many highly successful brands in the 21st Century is what we’ve termed “boundaryless-ness.” Some smart organizations use their brand to focus on what they do well, and then open their arms to partners, customers and outside forces to supercharge ahead of the pack. For example, instead of competing with other retailers, Amazon chose to enable them. Amazon, of course, created an ecosystem of retailers that allows any professional third-party vendor to access billing, marketing, distribution and customer relationship management systems, many of whom are wholly integrated into its fulfillment process and even leasing space in its warehouses. Unusual as this may have sounded initially, Amazon has bucked the downward trend in retail to exceed 50% growth annually.

Sparked by this legislation and driven further by Obama’s continued presence in the White House, the game in the health care sector is most certainly changing. It’s our belief that those organizations that develop the most simple, user-friendly brands, and the most boundaryless partnerships will be the ones that best make the shift from B2B to B2C and capture the consumers they most want to reach.

Angela Riley is a Strategy Director at Wolff Olins New York. 

This is an abridged version of a Wolff Olins Whitepaper

Sources: Change the channel, PwC’s Health Research Institute, July 2011; Four Key Findings from Health Reform, PwC, 2011; What Supreme Court ruling could mean for healthcare, Reuters, Nov 2011; Health Insurer WellPoint to buy 1-800 Contacts, Associated Press, June 2012; Healthcare Industry Outlook: If You Liked 2010, You Will Like 2011, The Camden Group, Jan 2011; Health Plans Step Into Retail Operations, Health Leaders Media, Nov 2011; Health, trendwatching.com/premium, June 2011

Trends in 2012 Elections Messaging

The Yahoo! Advertising blog recently asked several agency leaders one question: "What are some key trends you're seeing in political advertising this election season?" Angela Riley, Strategy Director for Wolff Olins, talked about what brands and politicians can learn from each other to better engage consumers---and constituents.

Here's a snippet from the piece:

For Politicians and Brands, It's Essential to Be Clear, Consistent and Authentic.

Like a short-lived advertising campaign, political messaging platforms can evaporate into the ether without ever resonating with the voting public. Perhaps, like the all-too-common one-off approach of a glossy advertising campaign to appeal to an audience, politicians react to public sentiment and rush to get a message out before they've figured out what they really stand for.

Politicians can take a page from well-loved brands, which stand for something clear, authentic and desirable. Think Target and the democratization of chic, or BMW - the ultimate driving machine. Think too of the Obama-Biden presidential campaign of 2008 standing for "Hope" and "Change" — similarly clear, authentic and hugely desirable (given the public sentiment at the time).

So how can a political candidate get at the authentic, aspirational heart of what they stand for? Keep reading the full piece here.

Image via BarackObama Instagram