Today my Entrepreneurship students at Purdue voted on their top Super Bowl ads. Our goal was to examine a few of the top ones and determine what made them “sticky”, per the Chip & Dan Heath model.
As I listed the top 10, it struck me how many of the top ads were also about transformation. As it turns out, the one both sessions selected as the “stickiest” was VW’s “The Dog Strikes Back”. The VW transformation story is told through the eyes of a dog that longs to chase it. But alas – the dog is too plump to even make it out of the doggie door. We witness the transformation – the stair work, the swim laps, the will to refuse tasty morsels right before the dog’s nose on the floor. And the dog prevails – with a leaner body that glides through the doggie door, leaps through the trees and catches up to the VW of his dreams.
Classic transformation – here are the elements:
- “The Vision” – or the compelling future that pulls you into action.
- “Acknowledgement of the Current Reality” – even if painful. The look into the mirror in which the hard truth is owned.
- “Continual work over time” – taking steps that enable the transformation, one at a time, over and over. Not one big thing – but a series of incremental nudges in the right direction.
- “The Will to Carry On” – in spite of temptation.
- “The Transformation Realized” – the thrill of reaching the vision.
Just as in life, the real transformation story lies in the day-to-day actions that require repletion, will and persistence to take us, one step at a time, into the transformation we desire. We want to believe in immediate transformations – however the hard truth is that transformation is a series of painstakingly slow and deliberate steps in the right direction.
So when you find yourself saying, “Someday we will….” Or “In the future…” or “When (this happens), I’ll be able to” – STOP. Instead ask: What is the one small thing I can do today that takes me one step closer to where I want to be?”
