Whenever I speak of intangibles having unlimited value, I?m often met with silence in India. In our consulting practice of Change Management to Branding, Retailing and Industrial Design (for engineering products like automobiles, refrigerators or laptops), we need to constantly create intangibles for our clients? deliverables to sustainably connect to their end-customers in today?s market banality.
Intangibles always come from a strong, tangible base platform. Anything tangible has logic, science and is materialistic, but these are technicalities. When elevated to a certain point they become illogical, making them intangible. The boundaryless, illogical substance that is the intangible is absolutely non-intellectual; it?s never a readymade formula. What is intangible for you may not be so for me. So creating intangibles in a subject for mass consumption requires passion and activities beyond the obvious.
In business, intangibles are invaluable, the basis of an organisation?s goodwill. Only when customers first appreciate this intangible will they pay a premium for it. Better profitability, better share price, better market capitalisation are all related to intangibles.
Learning of, admiring and ingraining intangibles may have roots in the milieu of artists I associated with at the start of my life in France. As part of my sweeper?s job in a lithography print shop, I had to deliver packets of 175 lithography proofs to the painter?s car. When the painter would offer me a service tip, I?d refuse and instead ask for a chance to spend time in his atelier.
When I met Erte, Russian-born Parisian artist and designer, at his atelier, he told me of his obsession with the encadreure (framer) of his paintings. It took me time to understand that Erte found a framer to be unique because he understood the artistic value of Erte?s paintings. Another famous French landscape painter, Yves Brayer, used to sit me down in his atelier and narrate his imagination of the South of France, the primary subject of his paintings. I?ve since been to the south of France many times, but I?ve always seen its reality overshadowed by Brayer?s paintings.
My fixation on the intangible went through several artistes I became good friends with. Celebrated mime Marcel Marceau, illustrious photographer Marc Riboud and feted writer-singer Francis Lemarque, all showed me the tangible base of the intangible. Renowned theatre-TV-film actor Daniel Prevost told me about dropping his personal life scene when on stage. He recounted how, on the day he lost his loved one, he had to play-act comic absurdity to create the intangible so that his theatre audience could connect. ?People don?t see Daniel Prevost when I play a role, they see what I represent. I detach myself to create the intangible of the character.?
Francis Lemarque eulogised the beauty of Paris in a song that travelled across the globe. One day he described to me his sad childhood, how his Lithuanian Jewish mother was suddenly transported off to the Auschwitz Nazi gas chamber, and he had to overcome this mental stress. He said he looked up at the Paris skyline to write the song that intangibly made the world dream about Paris, but his own ground reality was cruel.
After watching Marcel Marceau?s mime artistry in Le Theatre des Champs-Ellysees, I asked him how, through his ?art of silence?, he could transport his audience to a totally different atmosphere on a vacant stage. Over dinner at my home in Paris, he explained that this is the drama of the intangible. He practises in real surroundings for several hours, tangibly touching and feeling everything to totally internalise it all. The moment he comes onto the empty stage, he transposes all the tangible aspects into his act, allowing the audience to feel them even as the stage is without sets.
Marc Riboud of Magnum Photos, an international photographic cooperative, was famous for powerfully capturing fleeting moments in potent compositions. He happened to be a judge at my design school, Academie Julian, when I topped a project. Afterwards, he invited me to Magnum, where I saw his famous 1957 photo of Jawaharlal Nehru laughing together with Chou en Lai, obviously not anticipating the 1962 India-China scuffle. Marc explained to me how the camera?s view should arrest that exact memorable moment that can never become old. The visual direction should cover the 24×36 frame, with no cropping. The picture may be still, but it should look to be moving. There is always the dilemma of whether to focus on the foreground, mid-ground or background within a second. He trained me that the main subject can become a timeless intangible only by highly calibrating the focus dilemma. He said a photograph has to be so intangible that it becomes universal for all nationalities to understand at a glance.
The thousands of consumers I interact with in my work deal with intangibles in different ways. As a poor child, I remember it was an incredible experience to sit in an Ambassador car. A rich person is likely to have the same intangible feeling in a Rolls Royce. In love and affection, intangibles are certain moments you want to recall over and over.
The materialistic world is highly driven by intangibles you value beyond the price.
A brand?s real value is its intangible. But every brand cannot be for everyone. In the same category, Lexus gives you more features but Mercedes commands a higher price as people value its intangibles. It?s not cost that matters, though. At just $30, the Swatch watch has created aspiration that?s driven higher intangibles than expensive watches in the last 26 years.
Intangibles form and grow from a product?s rational credibility. It may remain totally tacit with the user, but its unspoken layers are crucial for business houses of any size to ignore. Your business can grow to become gigantic if you have the capacity to uniquely deliver consumers? hidden desire. For business results beyond the obvious, you may take regular baths in the ocean of the intangible.
?Shombit Sengupta is an international creative business strategy consultant to top management. Reach him at http://www.shiningconsulting.com