I'm sure you have seen this as it's been well covered this weekend and through today, but if not, be sure to go play around with Brand Tags.
It's a simple, interesting, and great idea from Noah Brier that lets you see what people say/think about a few popular brands. If you want to know more about it, Noah has written a couple of posts about it that provide a bit of the background.
Google has turned out the lights to help raise awareness for Earth Hour. I think it's a great example of brands using their marketing and advertising* to make things better. It certainly fits Google's brand and their desire to do no evil.
Judging by the the fact that I can't get Earth Hour's site to load, and thus the prior link to their Wikipedia page, I'd say it's working.
You can take part in Earth Hour by turning out your lights tonight for one hour at 8 P.M. local time.
*I say advertising in this case because many of the major "portals" sell ad space on their home pages or allow home page takeovers by brands so that brands can promote a new product/movie/etc. Think of how much money Google could make if they let brands take over the background on their "home" page. Yet they don't do it. Yup. Makes me feel better about Google.
Faris wrote a post recently that reminded me of something I meant to share, but neglected to back in early January. The Future Department has a new magazine out called The Next Issue. As described by The Future Department, the purpose of the magazine and what differentiates it from other magazines are:
Our aim is not to report on past events – or just talk about the future – but to play a proactive role in developing new solutions and approaches, through an ongoing conversation with the creative and business communities we serve, making intellectual and personal connections across all creative disciplines.
In every other magazine, the published article represents the end of a journey: the subject has been treated, and the author and reader move on. Here every article we publish is the starting point – developed and shared by an exclusive group of the most creative minds in the world: our readers are also our contributors.
The request that launched the first issue was something like this:
Summarise the challenges involved in bringing ideas to fruition in a rapidly changing and unpredictable environment. Please submit your thoughts on this subject in as many words as you choose.
The folks at The Future Department were kind enough to publish my response, which was:
Ideas, media and content are all becoming more and more disposable. What was popular and relevant one minute can be dead the next. If you don't do your homework on who you are trying to communicate with, you could end up looking very out of touch, and thus, irrelevant.
Another challenge is the growing amount of content on the web. What you think is an original idea, could very well be out there already or in production at the same time. Then when you release your new shiny idea, someone links the two and accuses one of ripping off the other. In reality, the creator of each may have never known about the other.
Last thought is that thanks to all of the quick communications tools we have at our disposal, clients can more easily send out for feedback on ideas to various audiences and then use this feedback to kill ideas. Odds are this "research" was not done correctly but now they're not going to move forward with the idea because of what someone said to them in an email that was out of context.
I'm extremely flattered that they included my quick thoughts (thank you, Steve & Alex) and encourage you to download a copy of it via PDF here. But not to read my simple note. There is much smarter stuff in there by the likes of Russell Davies, Stefan Sagmeister, John Maeda, John Grant and many, many more.
In addition to the PDF / printed magazine, there are also some bits of exclusive online content including Faris' article. Here are the links for those:
Burnt Fingers - Simon Andrews | In The Future - You Are The Entertainment - Faris Yakob | Ready. Fire. Aim. - Carl Johnson | The Nearest Thing to Pregnant - John Grant | Unknown Green Consumer Insights - Tamara Giltsoff | The Ultimate Pub Conversation - Adam Sefton | Publishing - Daljit Singh | Planet - Carsten Beck | Crystal Balling - Frank Palmer | Passion - Cindy Gallop | Reverse Engineering - Valerio Franco | Doing Down Under - Richard Hollingum | The Next Issue - Lewis Blackwell
I hope you find it as worthwhile of a read as I did and if anything grabs you, or you have some thoughts of your own, please share...
In looking up some of Fallon London's work from last year, I came across this one. Wow.
I remember getting an email about it, but the link was broken then. Makes me wish I had remembered to go back and look later.
It's interesting, engaging and just plain fun to watch and listen to. More than that, it supports the brand idea brilliantly, in my opinion, and makes me want to go see and learn more.
Which, nicely enough, they have developed a web site as part of the campaign. It looks pretty interesting as well, but I haven't dug into it yet. For tonight, I just wanted to be sure to share this spot before I forgot. Enjoy.
Sidebar: Anyone else see it as a Cog (chain reaction/domino effect) meets Amateur (using a series of single notes to make a song) in a way? I know that's a bit of a stretch, but I couldn't help but think of those two things after I watched it.
Sally Hogshead has written an interesting post over on Hog Blog calling for bigger thinking and big ideas. Here's an excerpt:
...To be successful over the long haul, your career can’t be founded upon trendy epiphanies or shiny new executions. Just as a pun wasn’t a concept in the late 80s, a typographical treatment wasn’t a concept in the mid 90s and shock value wasn’t a concept in the late 90s, so does new media need a core idea in order to reach its full potential. Most new-media revelations will seem laughably quaint in a few years. But true human insight will never go out of style....
Read the full post here.
Here's an interesting spot for Snickers in the UAE. Looks like it's been out for a while as Adverblog first reported it back in February. (Here's another post from around then as well.) You can see the full director's cut of the video here.
In digging for info on that spot, I came across a post that also showed this one from Russia using the same "Don't Stop" line:
While one could loosely connect the dots between these "Don't Stop" spots and Snickers' "Most Satisfying" stuff over here in the States, in that both get to the bigger idea of keeping you going, it is two very different ways to communicate it that I believe most people would never really get to on their own.
The idea of "Don't Stop" is a vastly different emotional state than "Most Satisfying." Don't Stop is active. Most Satisfying is passive. Don't Stop is about getting you through the next hour or two so you can keep going. Most Satisfying is about fulfilling your hunger. Don't Stop challenges and pushes you on a higher level (it kind of feels like "Just Do It"). Most Satisfying, well, it really doesn't do much of anything - it feels a bit lethargic.
It seems to me that Snickers could learn a thing or two from Coke about having one global message that works everywhere. Regardless of what country you live in, you can see a Coke spot from anywhere around the world and it all pays off the same idea.
The world is far too small today to not have a consistent message. Especially when your product is available around the globe.
FOOTNOTE: I could be wrong on this, but Snickers may have tried the active approach here in the U.S. I seem to remember something from Snickers about being the "Original Energy Bar." Maybe they did and then quit once they introduced their Snickers Marathon line? Even if they did try it, they still need to get to one idea that works everywhere.
Seth Godin was in town this morning. The title of this post was his opening remark, or close to it after his story about sticking a suction cup rattle to his head to entertain his kids. He then quickly rolled into his shtick, talking about the subjects his books cover and providing real world examples.
I didn't walk away from his presentation blown away by any of the information. But I wasn't really expecting to be. If you read the marketing and planning blogosphere with any regularity, you already know his content quite well.
His case studies are very effective to make his points sink in well though, and he's a very engaging presenter and storyteller. If I took anything in particular away from this morning's session, it was this:
1) How to do a better job of using Keynote to tell a story with your presentation (his presentation was pretty much just using visuals/pictures in Keynote slides to support what he was talking about) and how to make the presentation more interesting.
2) Remember to look more for uncommon case study examples to go along with your more well known ones to help give your audience the feeling that you don't have to be a gigantic consumer brand to do this stuff.
All in all, I'm very glad I went. I'm even more happy that one of my clients was in the audience as well. Seth's presentation reinforced everything we've been talking with them about doing to launch a new product. To the point that he cited examples we've been using. It couldn't have come at a better time.
A few of my notes in case you don't know what Mr. Godin covers:
- Traditional advertising is broken
- Trying to sell someone something who doesn't have a problem with their current solution doesn't work
- Marketers have been dealing with clutter by creating more clutter
- Interrupting people's lives with clutter doesn't work anymore
- People are willing to pay for things that make them feel something
- Nobody wakes up thinking about your brand other than you
- To win, you have to play on the edges or beyond them - being in the middle gets you nowhere
- If you're going to make something, make something worth talking about
- Old marketing vs. permission marketing = hunting vs. farming
- People like doing what other people are doing (Sounds a bit like HERD don't you think?)
- If cat food were really for cats, wouldn't they have a mouse flavor? Cat food is really for cat owners and baby food is really for moms. The cat foods and baby foods with the best stories win.
- Always tell the truth
- Tell a good (true) story about your brand that consumers find relevant to their lives and one that is easy to retell.
- Be remarkable
If you work in an agency and Seth is coming through your city, I'd highly suggest taking your clients. Hearing a well published author talk about the same things that many of us preach every day to our clients certainly doesn't hurt you any. And if you're not talking to your clients about the things Seth covers, well, shame on you for not staying on top of the increasingly faster changes that are going on in our business.
Finally, if you're reading this and you were there as well, I'd love to get your thoughts. Please feel free to share them in the comments section or send me an email - paul[dot]isakson[at]gmail[dot]com.
Recent Comments