• by April 25, 2005

By Kendra Hatcher

By now, you've heard about Malcolm Gladwell's second book, "Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking." Like "The Tipping Point," his earlier book, I found "Blink" mentally stimulating, and have spent the past two months encouraging my colleagues and clients to apply its simplicity to our business. Within a week of reading "Blink," I was quoting two of Gladwell's ideas: (1) "Successful decision-making relies on a balance between deliberate and instinctive thinking," and (2) People "gather and consider" way too much information because it makes them feel more confident.

These two principles are the foundation for what Gladwell dubs "Blink" moments, when people overthink, under think, or simply forget to think about the challenge at hand. As I read the book, I thought about the hundreds of Blink moments that I have witnessed or shamefully enabled over the past 10 years. Here are two just to illustrate the point; names have been removed to protect the guilty and innocent.

"Blink" Moment No. 1: Working as a junior account planner for a No. 2 brand obsessed with its key competitor, which happened to be a cultural icon, my job was to overthink. In fact, it was required. I spent many dark nights in focus group facilities across the United States trying to decode the mystique behind the competitor's brand positioning, while over-analyzing our own. While I benefited from the experience (I can now decipher any piece of copy, interpret art direction, and frame sell-in presentations), it remains a lesson in overthinking.

A few years ago, I actually met the creative director responsible for our competitor's advertising brilliance and learned that they rarely pre-tested their commercials, qualitatively or quantitatively. Go figure. So while I was racking up thousands of frequent flyer miles and developing a taste for Ian Schrager hotels, our competitor was producing breakthrough work, instead of analyzing it.

"Blink" Moment No. 2: Since we were always in jeopardy of losing this particular account, I created a file that had four or five folders labeled "Save the Account 1," "Save the Account 2," and so on. This particular "Blink" moment happened during one of the "Save the Account" fire drills when I was deployed to moderate a round of focus groups.

My mission was to record consumers on videotape playing back the campaign strategy. If I failed, we would  you guessed it  lose the account. After the first group, I knew we were in trouble. The respondents didn't "get" the idea, no matter how much I nudged them in the right direction. I knew the problem was in the last frame of the storyboard. I delivered the news to the account supervisor, who literally cursed at me over the phone. I told her my hypothesis, but she wasn't convinced. She dispatched an account executive to get on the next plane out. The creative team met me that evening and assured me they could get the job done, but not before the three of us consumed a $300 meal. Around 1 a.m. we picked up a $1.99 box of Crayolas at a 7-Eleven and fixed the frame. Consequently, we saved the account.

What if life's problems could be solved from lessons learned from "Blink" or a box of Crayolas?

Wouldn't you want to live in a world where "less is more" and "frugality matters?" Where people wouldn't drown in an avalanche of unnecessary data, blinded by a belief that more numbers and resources make them stronger and more invincible? Instead, they would only focus on the right data needed to make the right decision.

Can you imagine a world where we could make recommendations based on our expertise without a forest of paper to support our decisions (what Gladwell refers to as 'thin slicing')? Picture this  annual brand planning without optimizers, competitives, and fact books  just a few meetings and a handshake.

For the moment, this world lives in my imagination. That's why "Blink" is the perfect escape after a long day at work, far from the craziness of my chosen profession where egos sometimes rule, and the ridiculous often becomes reality.

Kendra Hatcher is a vice president and director of consumer context planning at Starcom MediaVest Group's Coca-Cola City unit. (kendra.hatcher@cocacolacity.com)