In celebration of Halloween I’ve created the first Fresh Peel Orange-O-Lantern (with the help of Photoshop). Maybe next year I will get around to carving an actual orange.
Stay safe Peelers and don’t eat too much candy. (I fail miserably at that last part every year.)
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Be sure to check out these awesome Jack-O-Lanterns, made from the traditional pumpkin instead citrus fruits:
My generation is historically known for being addicted to bite-sized bits of information. The Internet hit schools right at the time we were enveloped in the core of our developmental learning. We quickly adapted and changed how we digested information, and schools in turn changed the way they taught. This was the beginning of the Media Snackers.
The story doesn’t end there. Now the term Media Snacker could be applied to just about anyone who lives in this mock 1 speed society.
Drew McLellan, from Drew’s Marketing Minute, tagged me on a discussion that Jeremiah Owyang started by asking, “do you respect media snackers?”
So here’s my analysis:
How I do My Part in Feeding the Snackers?
Where I could use some work
It would be a shame if the conversation stopped here, so I will tag Bill Gammell, Steve Woodruff and Dan Pink. I’m giving my coworker Kelly the tag, because her short blasts of design love keep the Media Snackers more than satisfied, myself included.
If I didn’t tag you, feel free to join in. I will talk to anyone.
No I’m not talking about Harry Beckwith’s classic on how to sell and market services that deal with no actual products. I’m referring to Hyundai’s new ad campaign, Think About It, which doesn’t show consumers any of their vehicles until you go to the website thinkaboutit.com, and even then you have to dig through all their videos to catch a few glimpses of selected models.
You can view the spots on the HyundaiUSA’s Youtube Channel. (The Youtube user name of the user and the fact that they joined just a few days ago to post all these spots makes me wonder if Hyundai is trying to do hoping something viral will happen with these videos. But that’s only speculation at this point.)
So here’s the question:
Is it necessary to show a product in order to sell it?
I think in this case the answer is most definitely YES! Cars are one of the most emotional and sensual purchases that people make. Emotional logic leads consumers to choose a car that will be safe for their family, or fits them deep down inside and conjures up questions like “Does this look like a car I would drive?” or “What does this car say about me and who I am?”
How can we make that connection without seeing the car? And better yet, if we make that connection, what product or model do we pin it on?
I guess Hyundai is going to leave it up to the local Hyundai dealers to fill in the blanks for consumers. Boy, nothing will tug at the heart strings of human emotion and builds up the Hyundai brand like the words, “BUY BUY BUY, No Money Down!”
For those of you who haven’t been keeping up with Jaffe’s updates, Chronicling Bumrush the Amazon charts for Join the Conversation, the results are in. Join the Conversation quickly climbed the Amazon bestseller’s list yesterday, topping out at magic #26 on the overall bestseller’s list. The book set at #2 at the top of the business best sellers list right there next to the famous FED man, Alan Greenspan, who has been at #1 for weeks.
I’ll have to admit the results turned out a lot better than I expected. It was a very impressive show. Greg Verdino comments:
“there’s nothing to stop pretty much any marketer from applying these techniques to garner attention for their own new product launches and spur on-demand sales. Nothing, that is, if that marketer takes the time to build their own community, fosters meaningful relationships with the members and then makes a coordinated effort across a variety of conversational channels to connect with the community at just the right time to move the needle. None of these things happens overnight — they take quite a bit of effort and long term commitment.”
Since hitting #26 the book has made a slow descent. As I write this it is sitting at #95. This may be the last time we see the book this high on the Amazon charts, but there is sure to be buzz floating about, on what happened during the “Bumrush for Join the Conversation,” and that’s what it is truly all about — (forgive me for this Pete) CONVERSATION.
Joseph Jaffe has a new book out called Join the Conversation, and he has come up with an “event” for which he is asking everyone to “bumrush” the charts at Amazon, by purchasing the book at the same time. Jaffe hopes this will shoot the book up in the rankings.
The “bumrush,” as Jaffe so eloquently named the event, is going on right now, Sunday, Oct 20th! So “join the conversation” and “Bumrush the Charts.”
Jaffe has beautifully taken something as ordinary and structured as purchasing a book on Amazon and turned it into something to participate in. Instead of giving the usual “here are reasons A, B and C explaining exactly why you should buy my book”, he is giving readers an opportunity to experience what the book is all about, even before they have read it.
I’m excited to see how this turns out!
Congratulations to our friends at TOMS Shoes who have been chosen, by the people, to receive the 2007 People’s Design Award.
This is a big honor for TOMS. They were up against some stiff competition, including the iPhone, New York’s Floating Pool, Good Magazine, and Global Green’s Efforts in New Orleans. One notable nomination was one of my favorite blogs, Design Observer.
This announcement comes as the close of the Cooper-Hewitt sponsored, National Design Week nears.
National Design Week takes place at Cooper-Hewitt from October 14–20 and is an initiative to draw national attention to the ways in which design enriches everyday life, through outreach to school teachers and their students, and partnerships with design organizations across the country.
If you live in New York City or surrounding area, be sure this would be a great weekend to visit the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, which is offering FREE admission through Saturday, in celebration of National Design Week.
A Zen View is what author Christopher Alexander named his architectural pattern 134, in the book A Pattern Language. 134 Zen View says:
If there is a beautiful view, don’t spoil it by building huge windows that gape incessantly at it. Instead, put the windows which look onto the view at places of transition- along paths, in hallways, in entry ways, on stairs, between rooms. If the view window is correctly placed, people will see a glimpse of the distant view as they come up to the window or pass it: but the view is never visible from the places where people stay.
This concept comes from a “parable of a Buddhist monk who lived on a mountain with a beautiful view.” The monk built his house so that the beautiful view could only be seen during the brief walk up to his hut. This way the view would not become something that was seen so often that it became common and unappreciated to him.
This reminds me of a humorous theory that has been running around the office at HD for over a year now. We speculate that Apple has the technology to bring us an iPhone that is beyond our imagination, but the secrets are locked away in some Sector C, high security vault in the basement of Steve Jobs’ house. At specific timetabled dates Steve opens up the vault to present the next “iDevice at the Apple keynote, spoon-feeding us with tiny systematic upgrades to keep us engaged.
Although our theory is a little farfetched, there is some truth to it. R&D is an ongoing process, especially with a high-tech company like Apple. There’s no doubt that Apple’s got a few aces up their sleeve.
But is the answer to building in a Zen View into a product or company brand found in minor adjustments and upgrades? I believe it could be one option, but that is not the only way.
Arm & Hammer, for example, saved baking soda from near extinction by coming up with new ways for consumers to use the old product, which over time had become an ingredient rarely needed for cooking. Today there are literally thousands of books on numerous ways in which Baking Soda can be used.
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What other ways can you think of for designing a Zen View into your products, company, and brand?
Now that Radiohead’s, much talked about album, In Rainbows, is being downloaded (paid for?? maybe) by fans all over the world, all eyes are looking in the bands’ direction to see what will happen now. I hope the band will eventually disclose some figures on how this panned out for them. How many times was album downloaded? What was the average price paid for the album?
But for now, if you want to get an idea of where the music industry is heading, you will have to look a little deeper into the industry just than whats been going on with Radiohead. No surprise here but it’s all about marketing.
Rick Rubin & WOM
Legend Rick Rubin has teamed up Columbia Records to be their new co-chairman. Rubin had this to say about his new position, in the New York Times, “In the past, I’ve tried to protect artists from the label, and now my job would also be to protect the label from itself. So many of the decisions at these companies are not about the music. They are shortsighted and desperate. For so long, the record industry had control. But now that monopoly has ended, they don’t know what to do. I thought it would be an interesting challenge.”
Rubin thinks that he can save Columbia by generating word-of-mouth using street teams and social media that hit up chat rooms, teen hot spots and hangouts. I think it’s going to take a little more than roughly contrived buzz to save this sinking ship.
Oasis & Jamiroquai
Following the extreme amount of buzz created by Radiohead’s “pay what you want for it” internet release of In Rainbows, some big names in the industry are reevaluating their relationships with their music labels. Alan McGee, the manager of the Charlatans had this to say, “The record industry is obsessed by age and fashion. And so you get these amazing British bands like the Charlatans and the Happy Mondays that were massive 10 years ago and are still great, but are out of contract. How do you get them profile? You give away the record.”
There are also rumors that Oasis, and Jamiroquai are considering following in Radiohead’s release in similar fashion for their next albums.
The Format
The Format is not a new name to The Fresh Peel. They are a band that I have discussed here a few times before (even did a phone interview with Nate Ruess, the bands front man), one because they are one of my favorite bands, and two because they tend to do things their own way.
One of the smartest thing I’ve seen the band do is give away their most recent album, Dog Problems, by making it free to download if you signed up for their newsletter. This happend right before they started a big tour and before releasing some new live material. I think a few factors that led to the idea to give the album away, one being that they realized the power that file sharing has played in their popularity and they decided to stoke the fire in that area and use word-of-mouth even more in that area. Also, by having fans sign up for the newsletter, they were given permission to keep fans updated on when live shows would be in their area, or when they were releasing new material. Thirdly, when I had my interview with Nate in April, he mentioned that he thought that the real money wasn’t in selling albums anymore and that the real cash these days is in merchandising and shows.
Brad Sucks
Brad Sucks is an interesting artist to include in this list. He is probably not a name that’s familiar to many of you, but I think his approach is worth noting.
As far as I know Brad, who calls himself “one man band with no fans,” has been giving away his music from day one, and ironically he doesn’t suck and has a few fans. Brad states that, “most of the ‘marketing’ Brad Sucks does is just fans spreading my songs. So while I might make a few more dollars up front, I’d be hindering that whole process and that doesn’t seem like a good trade for the long term.”
What’s even more unusual is that Brad lets people mashup, mix up, and screw up his tracks all they like. In fact, he encourages it by giving away the source files to his music willingly. In one of Brad’s latest self-promotions, from his blog, he offered up the source file to his newest song, Out of It, asking for readers to submit their attempts at backup vocals on the track.
Touring Giants
With the fall of the music label, some of the industries biggest names have found a gold mine in touring, which makes it even more appealing to leave the label out of the equation all together.
Here’s the complete list of the best-paid performers to tour the U.S. last year according to PollStar’s data (via Wire Blog):
Who cares about album sales, when The Rolling Stones, who haven’t released any new material, aside from greatest hits albums, is bringing home the most dough on the touring circuit.
‘Music Is Not a Loaf of Bread’
I couldn’t help but slip in some quotes from a Wired News interview with Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy, from 2004. It’s a few years old, but what Tweedy says is still relevant today.
WN: What if the efforts to stop unauthorized music file sharing are successful? How would that change culture?
Tweedy: If they succeed, it will damage the culture and industry they say they’re trying to save. What if there was a movement to shut down libraries because book publishers and authors were up in arms over the idea that people are reading books for free? It would send a message that books are only for the elite who can afford them.
Stop trying to treat music like it’s a tennis shoe, something to be branded. If the music industry wants to save money, they should take a look at some of their six-figure executive expense accounts. All those lawsuits can’t be cheap, either.
WN: How do you feel about efforts to control how music flows through the online world with digital rights management technologies?
Tweedy: A piece of art is not a loaf of bread. When someone steals a loaf of bread from the store, that’s it. The loaf of bread is gone. When someone downloads a piece of music, it’s just data until the listener puts that music back together with their own ears, their mind, their subjective experience. How they perceive your work changes your work. Treating your audience like thieves is absurd.
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This is pretty open-ended, but where do you think the music industry is headed?
I’m not a big advocate of TV ads. Generally, I believe that they are a downright waste of money. In fact, I believe you could be just as effective as throwing handfuls of company literature out of an airplane over a big city, with the hopes that the pamphlet will glide into the hands of the perfect consumer.
It used to work a little better when there were less choices and attention spans were much longer, but interrupting people’s lives has just never been a good strategy. Today the list of factors that must line up before a TV ad can be an effective form of advertising is longer than ever, making it very rare for an ad to rise above the clutter, and keep from being skipped by Tivo.
Nevertheless, every great once and a while a TV ad, or series of ads, will come along and defy gravity by maintaining the attention of the consumer, communicating effectively and producing results.
CareerBuilder.com’s new series of TV ads have peaked my interest. I find them quite humorous, which is usually a red flag in TV commercials. Many ads use unrelated humor to get noticed, but in doing so the messaging and branding is overshadowed. That’s why you can often remember a funny scene from a commercial, but then you have no idea who or what the ad was for. However, I found the humor in these ads to be very relevant and on target, depicting scenes that America’s workforce can immediately relate to.
I don’t want to say too much more about the commercials because I want to see if you can remember them when all you have been provided is the companies name, CareerBuilder.com, and my short vague description above.
Could you recall anything about the commercials?
Here are a few of the CareerBuilder spots:
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Did you remember the commercials?
Do you think these ads are effective or merely entertaining?
Are you in a branding tug of war?
It’s a battle we all know too well, design versus business strategy.
Designers don’t want to clutter up their designs with marketing mumbo jumbo.
Marketers don’t want to water down their messages for the sake of design. The problem is that many times brands will be stretched by both parties in different directions until they are completely unrecognizable to consumers. (How do you like the drawing I did this morning to illustrate this point? I’m no Hugh MacLeod, obviously, and this isn’t the Gapingvoid, so it’s unlikely to see many illustrations like this here.)
So, who’s right?
Designers hold the secrets to what visually stimulates, and delights the senses. They know the power that pleasing design can have in taking communication to the next step, leaving consumers on the edges of their seats wanting more.
Marketers hold the secrets to finding target markets, positioning, differentiating products and communication methods.
In order to create a solid brand, the gap MUST be closed. I believe that the answer is collaboration. The earlier in the process that marketers and designers can brainstorm and collaborate together, the less likely there is for a tug of war to occur. This gives everyone a chance to start with the same focus and goals in mind and also helps prevent ideas from being crammed in later on.
The Brand Gap is one of the best books that I’ve read on this subject. There are a lot of books on branding but very few make the any connection to the power that aligning design and strategy has on a brand.
Marty Neumeier has a long history of involvement in all areas of design, marketing and branding, making him the perfect voice on this subject. He has worked on the branding of high profile companies like Apple and Netscape.
This book has made its way around the blog world once already, but I think it is worth mentioning again. This will give some of you slackers that haven’t taken the time to read it yet another kick in the butt. It’s perfect for weekend reading, since it is only a little under 200 pages. It’s also full of illustrations, fun graphics and type treatments so that appeals to both designers and marketers. I read it in a little over an hour one night at the gym while I was on the stationary bike.
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What experiences have you have with the brand gap?
What’s your answer to the gap?
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