Once upon a time brands made stuff and told people why they should want it.
Then: Tell and sell.
Now we need to remember that our people need to be involved from the start of the project to create mutual ownership.
Now: Share the process.
Tag: Advertising
The moving target & radvertising
It’s easy to think that our target audience is the same people it has always been.
18-24 year old influencers
Main grocery Buyers
Retirees
Primary School kids
But sometimes, that target market evolves. Some times it is the exact same people it was 20 years ago – except they are actually 20 years older. Case in point is Ice Magic. Yes, that chocolate coating dessert that is scrumptious when spread all over ice cream. These guys who run the brand found out that a whole bunch of big kids (35 year olds) were reliving their child hood and sharing photos on line. They even invented ‘ice Magic Day’ an annual event where pics of the choccy treat are shared on twitter and flickr.
Rather than fight it, they embraced this underground brand community and where it is going. And the end result is this uber cool graffiti piece.Which I am really digging because I am one of the members of the community. Enjoy
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuxFPxqFBBc]
Address is approximate – Imagination is vital
I came across this piece which is a totally brilliant mash up on of film making and Google maps. There is no real technical genius in this. A few simple time lapse techniques is all it is. The real value is the imagination need to think of this new use of an omnipresent technology. As I have said before the art of business in the new world is taking the seemingly disparate and creating new meaning.
This almost made me cry. Enjoy.
[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/32397612 w=400&h=225]
Address Is Approximate from The Theory on Vimeo.
The tender folly
Here’s the plan:
We’ll ask a bunch of companies to solve an important business problem for us.
It will be a big problem with large financial consequences.
We’ll give companies a written document on what we think we want.
We wont let any of the companies ask us more about what we want. They just get what is written.
We’ll have a deadline that is immovable. If a company is not inside it, they lose. Even if they are the best.
We wont meet with any of the people we will work with. We wont find out if we like each other.
We’ll only give these companies 1 hour to explain what they think we should do. Even if the project takes years.
We wont tell them the budget, or we’ll give an immovable budget. Either or.
We’ll get a purchasing person to run this thing. Not someone from the department who will work on the project.
We’ll keep certain secrets on the project in house until we choose a partner.
We will go through this process this every X years. Even if our current provider does this for us very well.
——
Sound silly? If it does, then maybe it is time we started re-thinking if we want to do business with anyone who believes in the tender process.
Content vs Context
While reading the Age newspaper on my iPhone yesterday I happened upon an unfortunate advertisement. Have a look at the series of screen shots I took to see if you can notice it:
No doubt you too can see that a red Double Decker bus ride is probably not so compelling in the middle of a street riot. Although it is pretty funny, this could and should have been avoided. Why digital media providers don’t have a simple tagging system where certain advertisements don’t run is beyond me. Simple example;
Key word for advertisement: Flight & London. (run adv)
Don’t run advertisement tag: Flight & London & Crash (don’t run adv)
Pretty simple really, so why the GUI internet is nearly 20 years old and these mistakes still happen is beyond me.
If your startup ever runs digital placements, be sure you include your ‘do not run’ tags too.
I'm in love with Shwood
I saw this video below and fell in love with all of it. Every single P. Of the 4P’s that is…
The Product: So cool. Who doesn’t want something hand made, that has a story, that looks uber cool, and is recycled?
The Price: I almost don’t care, so long as it wasn’t more than what I would expect to pay for this product, then it is fine. Really. In fact, I’d probably pay a little more.
The Place: I hate shopping. I like ordering over the web and not have to go find a car park, pay for parking, deal with condescending retail worker fashionistas. In fact, I’m not even sure how these will look on my head. But I figure because they are so cool, I’ll feel cool and they’ll automatically look cool on me. (hey, I’m not pretending sunglasses are not a fashion accessory)
The Promotion: Well let’s put it this way. All I have ever seen is the video below. No one has ever spoken to me about this brand or product. In fact it is my first exposure to it. I loved the film, the light and most of all the story. It was beautiful to watch. I have already placed an order over the web. I found out via a tweet that someone sent. (By the way over 10 million tweets a day are about brands). That was all it took.
And now I’m in, part of the brand and spreading the word. This is how startups gain traction. Making cool stuff and embracing new methods to go to market.
[vimeo http://vimeo.com/26124634]
New rules of media
The new rules of media are pretty simple. The only type of messages pretty much anyone is interested in these days are:
Anticipated, personal and relevant messages.
Anything else is just noise, or maybe even SPAM. It’s also easy to conclude that this is only relevant in new media. Not true. These changes in the landscape have modified our worldview to the point that all media must now abide by the rules in bold above.
So next time we talk to our audience, we should ask ourselves if we abiding by the rules of the new world, or damaging our brand by living in the past.