Tag: startups

New York Series: Dylan’s Candy Bar

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

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:

  • Theatre at transaction – best I’ve ever seen
  • Premium product
  • Single Minded proposition
  • Being the experts
  • Feel good factor
  • Service by people who dig working there (when you get served they say ‘have a sweet day!’ – love it)
  • Escapism
  • The brands are the stars – the product ‘is’ the promotion. No advertising required here.
  • They know the category is more important than their ‘Dylan’s brands’.

In fact, instead of me raving on…. here’s a huge photo essay I took. That should give you the idea. Enjoy.

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New York Series: So much advertising

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

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.

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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.

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Dubai Series: Sugar Daddy’s

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

I stumbled upon this Single Minded Hero in Dubai. In fact, my Dubai host drove out of her way to take me here. The Sugar Daddy’s ‘Cup Cake’ Bakery. And they make and sell, yep – just cup cakes. Here’s a bit of a photo essay I took.

Also Notice the word ‘make’. Selling just ain’t enough these days. We want to deal with the expter, the person who knows what they are doing, the person who cares about what they are doing and deliver it to us themselves. We like to deal with the craftperson direct.

No doubt we are living in the age of the micro niche. There’s also no doubt that simplicity in Ideas and theatre at transaction is very refreshing and worth investigating.

How micro is the focus of your startup?

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Dubai Series: From Chrysler ‘A Space’

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Here’s another simple innovation from an old industry, a parking lot, actually giving a hoot about their customers.

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As you can see in the pic there is a little red or green light above every space indicating its availability. So the tiny car space mirage is now a thing of the past. The thing that actually excites me about this innovation is that it doesn’t benefit the car park owners. They’d be better off having cars drive around longer searching for a spaces and elongated traffic jams, which would result in greater revenue. But they chose this instead which is very cool.

What stuff is your business doing for them, and their benefit?

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Dubai series: Hijack Advertising

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

The photo below is on the car of the guy I am staying with in Dubai. Have a look at the wheel cover on his 4 wheel drive, of which there are more than sedans on the road in said location.

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You’ll notice that it has a cover on it for ‘Danube’ which happens to be a building materials company. Funny this is ‘Michael – the car owner’ doesn’t work there. He told me one day he returned to his vehicle to find it placed on his spare wheel.  I asked him if it annoyed him, and he proceeded to tell me, it doesn’t worry him as it protects his wheel, and it is a bit of a hassle to remove. Yep, he hasn’t got around to removing it yet…

Subsequently I noticed these on many cars in Dubai. Seems the other owners of the hijacked cars haven’t bothered to remove theirs either.

It’s an interesting piece of advertising and media invention. It is giving an item of value to the hijacked, that is the wheel cover, but on the same token it’s very interruptive. If the cover get’s thrown away, it becomes a costly exercise for the advertiser. I’m not sure it would be tolerated in a western market, but it’s innovative non the less.

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Dubai Series: Hotel Sampling

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Once you pass through the customs area in the Dubai International Airport they have a very interesting area reserved for Hotels as can be seen below.

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The area has all of the 5 star hotels from the city represented. The general idea is that each hotel has a mini foyer with the exact styling and ambiance of the actual hotel. The mini foyer has Video footage of the hotel, details on menus and hotel services, samples of the haute couture fragrances in room and some even have masseurs for weary travelers to encourage / reward bookings. Concierge salespeople are there to explain the benefits and convert the sale. For those already booked they have a comfortable waiting location where they serve refreshments until the hotel driver arrives.

A simple idea, but one which makes sense for such a burgeoning metropolis and shows that even the oldest industries can innovate too.