The living-room couches and chairs have been drawn tighter to help a group half as large as yesterday's to focus. Everyone receives an 11-page printout describing 33 concepts, 18 of which are individual kits in the Kaleidoscope line. Hall tells everyone to vote for 5 to 7 favorites, to help focus the discussion on the more promising ideas. While everyone reads, a Jimmy Buffet number plays on the jukebox.
If the Eureka! Stimulus Response sessions resemble tennis players warming up, the InterACT sessions are like match play. Suddenly, there are lines. And umpires calling, "Out!"
"I don't see a USP [unique selling point]," says Brenner, critiquing concept number two, Celestial Seasonings Nature's Force Ginseng Softgels. "It's not like we're introducing the product to the consumer; it's out there."
A 10-minute around-the-room discussion ensues. Siegel explains that Celestial's ginseng tablets do have USPs. "Ours is 25% stronger than Ginsana, and we include coenzyme Q10 [a substance with promising links to longevity]. WE also need to explain that we don't have ground-up weeds in our herbs; we've extracted the active chemicals."
"Standardized," says Moore. "We're experts at blending herbs."
Hall grabs the reins. "What I'd like to do is turn this into a marketing tool, one that can transcend ginseng and get to a corporate equity and a trademark that tells about this process of being naturally grown, of being lab standardized. If we could put a name on that."
"That's very good," says Moore. "Nature grown, lab standardized."
Notes are taken and shuttled to the library, where Wecker works on revisions. The updated ginseng concept and a couple of others reemerge a bit later, accompanied by the wording "NGLS certified, guaranteeing that each dosage is Nature Grown and Lab Standardized to authenticate optimum potency delivery."
11 A.M.
Tactic: Visuals as new stimuli
All discussions cease when Steve Klein enters with the fresh-off-the-computers artwork--full-color mock-ups of boxes, cans, bottles, and bags--some of them clearly launched by the previous day's discussions, others flat-out surprises. he spreads them out, and everybody studies them, before these stimuli begin to drive the discussions. Among the designs are a couple of outright bull's-eyes, many intriguing mock-ups that accomplish their goals in part, and two obvious misses. Ironically, the misses prove especially helpful. The box design for the Kaleidoscope collection is so bad--condom boxes, everyone agrees--that the talk almost immediately turns to rescuing them. Soon born: the idea that each box should resemble its Celestial cousin but contain a window, a strategy that will distinguish the product from the existing teas while also revealing some of the nontea contents. And to Siegel's dismay, the artists have veered off the mark--his, anyway--of the distinctive package he liked so much the day before.
"Someone ought to run over to Kroger's and get...." he says, naming several products with similar packaging. Not three minutes later, after a quick trip to the upstairs archives of product-filled bins, Sean McCosh reappears with those very items, plus a similarly packaged, less well known brand that Siegel reaches for immediately. "This is it," he says, holding it lovingly aloft like the golden statue raised by Indiana Jones in the cave.
2:30 P.M.
A clam at the mansion
The airport taxi arrives. The session continues. At 2:40 good-byes are said. Hall and Siegel hug. The front door closes. Hall turns to his crew: "Good stuff, folks. Get some sleep tonight."
Many of the concepts will be reworked tomorrow. Revised and new-package designs will be overnighted the following week to Celestial's headquarters, in Boulder. There will be more revisions and back-and-forth phone calls. Along the way, some totally new ideas will come to life. A month later, 41 concepts will be consumer-tested by AccuPOLL, a market-research company Hall cofounded and has since sold his interest in.
The question isn't so much whether Celestial will go to market with any of the ideas but how many of them it will go with. And more important, which ones: the safe, small ideas, or perhaps one of the big, hairy ideas? And how?
Standing in the now-quiet living room, Hall, still pumped on adrenaline and Brain Brew, praises the people who for him--those on staff and those on call. "We've been through wars together." His mind leaps to another metaphor to try to capture what it is he does. "It's a little like Daniel Boone deciding to go out on the trail, exploring. And you get to go with a whole bunch of really cool people. The key is, you can't do it in a vacuum. You can't expect to do it all at once."
In his inimitable--and marketably corny--way, Hall has reduced what goes on inside the Eureka! Mansion to a simple formula: E=(S+BOS)^F. "Eureka equals Stimulus to activate your mind--both related stimuli and unrelated stimuli--plus different Brain Operating Systems [smash-associating, mind dumping, bulging] to maximize the value of the stimuli. And last but not least, do it in an environment of playful fun to set off chain reactions, so one thought provokes new ideas and inspirations. I really believe that's the universal theory of creativity.
"You saw it--ideas changing and being sparked. I've come to understand parts of it," Hall says, "but a lot's still a mystery."
Then his face breaks into a big Eureka smile. "I do know, it's wicked-cool."
