While in Starbucks I stumbled upon this cool little piece of branding. A branded chocolate coin:
Such a simple idea with relatively low cost. If you’ve got a small business or startup and you are handing out flyers or stickers, maybe a gold call will be more memorable, and leave a good taste in peoples mouths.
I went to 30 Rock to check out the NBC studio. One thing that struck me was the involvement they create for customers in the studio. Here’s a picture of me as Al Pacino:
It’s an old trick, but the point is simple:
We now demand to be part of the experience, to create the stuff we buy. Especially in new media and web forums.
I was so impressed by Dylan’s Candy Bar – they get it.
It’s just perfect in every way. The understand the following important factors in branding, retail, business, marketing:
In fact, instead of me raving on…. here’s a huge photo essay I took. That should give you the idea. Enjoy.
I am absolutely flummoxed at how deep the media channels flow in the USA.
I’ve never such visual pollution in one city. So much advertising.The thing I’m most surprised about is the ethical (pun intended) pharmaceutical category. TV advertisements for Drug X, encouraging people to go to the doctor to see if they have disease Y, in which case they should ask the doctor to prescribe drug X. This is so wrong, on so many levels. Start ups out there, please be in business for good – sales should be your secondary objective – helping people your first.
Sure, Times Square is kind of cool to look at, a real visual orgy. But it just never ends.
If you’re in the media business in Australia or Europe, there are plenty of new spaces which can be leveraged. I’ll provide a summary of new media channels with a photo essay at the end of the trip. But in the interim here’s a link to an historical advertising photo stream I found on flickr. Quite interesting.
On my flight from Dubai to New York I was amazed at the usability of the Audio Visual system on the Airbus A380. It was was an incredibly good user experience. Even the biggest technophobe would find it a pleasure to use. Some of the stuff I found particularly cool included:
But most impressive was the user interface. If you want to know what the future of the web interface looks like, pay some close attention next time your fly internationally.
And here’s some pics I took below.They don’t really do it justice, but at least give you an idea…
Here’s a little thought experiment I did on paper while flying from Dubai to New York. I think it’s important to visualise our thoughts. You never know what our toughts might turn into. This one is a bit obtuse, but might be worht a close look.
These are starting to pop up in the better airports around the world. But every airport has the space for them in the international departure lounges. I’ve seen them in Singapore and now in Dubai International Airport as seen below:
They are just a cool idea which makes sense for ‘the people’. A classic ‘1 percenter’. When we are traveling for days at a time a little welcome relief on the ground or a stopover might just make us go through that airport on our next global trip, instead of that other one.
