Using Shape in Marketing

This case study comes from the world of music and the performing arts. In our work with music organizations, consistent with the Woolston Inventive philosophy of making people smarter, we quickly identified “the circle of fifths” as a powerful and beautiful tool that resonates (pun intended!) with our target audience. If you are a musician, then you’re already familiar with it (IYKYK!). If not, in brief, think of all the white keys on a piano: That’s the key of C major. It starts on C and ends on C eight notes later to make a complete scale. Add one black key (the F# which is first one in the set of three) and it becomes the key of G major: It starts on G and ends on G, and skips one of the white keys (F) in favor of one of the black keys (F#, or F raised to be sharp). You can do this one additional black key at a time until basically you’ve made every note in the scale sharp, and you can go the other direction doing this with flats. There are 12 total keys, elegantly represented in a circle that resembles a clock.

The fact that this is a circle makes for an effective recruitment tool because a circle is such a versatile shape. Woolston Inventive has had numerous opportunities to re-explore this powerful concept and image, always letting the most appropriate and powerful uses evolve organically, a core concept for our recruitment philosophy.

Example #1: Spinner

When you look at a circle that is so rich in content like this, one thing that jumps out is the idea of a spinner. This could be particularly relevant for practicing because, to become an accomplished musician, you have to learn ALL of the keys not just the “easy” ones. Some are obviously easier than others (looking at you, C major!), but you still need to know “the one with all the sharps” (not just F#/Gb, all the way to C#!) and “the one with all the flats” (not just Gb/F#, all the way to Cb!). Often, depending on the instrument you play, one direction is trickier to master than the other. How can you ensure that you’re not always working on the “easy” keys?

One way is to rely on random chance. Woolston Inventive worked with a music group to turn the circle of fifths into a spinner for rehearsal purposes. We set it on a durable square card by putting a standard set of exercises (rhythm and melody) on one side, and the circle of fifths as a spinner with a pointer on the other side. Now, warm up exercises for the group consisted partly of a randomly selected key. This introduced an element of chance and fun (“oh no oh no oh no... keep going... Nooooooo, not Db major!”).

Example #2: Throwing disc

How about swag, something not paper-based? Another circular shape that leaps out is the idea of a Frisbee or throwing disc. This was a rare occurrence of an idea that emerged before the application (usually the medium or format evolves most naturally out of the knowledge gap we’re trying to fill). An ideal distribution opportunity was quickly apparent when working with a group that conducted auditions in the southern US during the middle of winter. We put together a branded circle of fifths image for a throwing disc, then gave it out liberally during those auditions. In the following several weeks as these top performers were auditioning at other organizations across the country, most of which were in far colder climates with more severe winter weather, they would still have this throwing disc reminding them not only of a positive experience auditioning, but the wonderful weather and ambience they experienced during the dead of winter. This would come in handy during the selection period when these musicians would then decide where to commit, giving this organization a competitive advantage. (Of course it was imperative that we selected a quality throwing disc, since every single one of us has received a low-quality throwing disc at trade shows in the past that we would be hard-pressed not to throw straight toward the trash can!) We often received feedback on the psychological impact this piece had. It even had unexpected applications, we found out, from people who hung it on their wall in their music studio as art. This was a surprising and creative application extending the utility and life of the recruitment tool!

Example #3: Cards

Ironically, it turned out that we didn’t even need to use this concept as a circle to take advantage of the power of the circle of fifths. As noted earlier, part of the fun of a circle of fifths spinner is the random chance of which key you’ll land on. One inherent disadvantage is that you could potentially go a long time without hitting certain keys, most problematically, the keys you most need to work on. We worked to develop a deck of cards based on the circle of fifths with a different card representing each key. We used a non-standard card shape such that the cards could be assembled into a circle to construct the circle of fifths, but this then allowed the musicians to shuffle the deck and systematically work through each key before moving on to the next randomly generated key. As keys were drawn, the discard method became placing them into the overall circular frame until the circle of fifths was complete. Then when reaching the end of the deck, they could re-shuffle and repeat.

There are ample other examples of taking advantage of shape for recruitment:

• State shapes: The state people live in or come from is often a source of identity and great pride… and great opportunity!

• Certain iconic shapes depending on the industry: Consider the standard “house” shape for home services, or the shape of a degree or diploma or graduation cap for education.

• Fitness: Fitness provides us apparel opportunities obviously, but beyond that there is just SO. MUCH. GEAR. The shape of a shoe alone is evocative, let alone the shape of a bicycle and all its parts, or any ball, each of which is so versatile because of the distinctive shapes of the lines on the ball for any given sport.

The opportunities to identify and leverage a particular, relevant SHAPE are endless.