New Work: Storytelling is What We Do

Take a look at the latest work from Rockhill Strategic. Created for Travois, an amazing Kansas City company that prides themselves on being a mission-based for profit corporation. Since 1995, they have been the leading builder of housing on tribal lands and have had a positive impact on tens of thousands of lives. 

Be sure to keep and eye on them, as they are growing fast and doing a great deal of good both here, and globally. 

Now, back to our project. Travois approached us to help them better tell the story of their investing program. In partnership with the incredibly talented Rhymes With Style, we created a brand vision platform and then developed the following investor video around a story and design concept that is expandable to their other business units.   

Not only are we proud of the work, we are proud of the story it tells and the result it has had in helping them to raise investor dollars to further their mission. 

Great work always begins and ends with a story. We love helping our clients to find the story within them and then tell it in a fun and interesting way.

We hope that you enjoy it as well. 

Travois: Low Income Housing Tax Credits Explained

The One Thing Your Company is Missing in Innovation

Proposed Retail. Thor Equities Building Wrap, New York City

Demographic data. Data, data, data.
Please. Wait. Don't run away.
I know, just the words 'demographic data' fill you with fear and loathing. You picture reams of data in boring spreadsheets. I can relate. In the course of my career, I have dug for data on Census.gov and requested trend data from countless other sources. I have sorted and analyzed it any number of ways. I can be the long and lonely work in vetting the viability of a company, a product or determining which markets to enter.

Now for the good news. Finding and sorting data has never been easier. Technology now allows us to have nearly limitless data points to pull from. Granted, you still have to have the skill (or hire the expertise) to identify what is valuable, and extrapolate how the information relates to your product or service. How you can use it to create positioning, naming and branding that will resonate. Determining where you will locate your restaurants or retail locations, and what sales you might expect.

Demographic data has also never been more important. In the hyper competitive marketplace of today, it is the smart products aligned with the smart marketers drawn to the right places that win.

That is why I wanted to highlight a site that offers some incredible data. I recently discovered it through and article in The Atlantic highlighting age distribution disparities between metro areas. But the data has much more depth than that.
The Urban Institute has long offered great data insights through their MetroTrends portal.
Now they have also launched a new Metropolitan Area Data Dashboard that offers a really great array of data from jobs to age distribution. It also offers maps of each metro area with the data shown on a simple map (see below).

I look forward to using this tool for clients to help them further understand their marketplace and the marketplace of the future. That is what we do and what all businesses should be doing.

I would like to hear from our readers as well.
Where do you go for relevant data?

The Best 15:37 of Your Day: Rob Forbes on Ways of Seeing

This TED talk delivered all the way back in 2006, is even more relevant today. Looking at the world and interpreting the patterns and designs around us becomes more difficult by the day.

Rob Forbes, the founder of Design Within Reach, and more recently PUBLIC, a design-based alternate transit business, takes us on a tour of how he views the world.

Mr. Forbes shares some great ideas in his TED talk. Here are a few more ideas to consider when working to spark your own creativity:
1. Walk the streets. Walking in places both familiar and new will bring new ideas and patterns to you. You will be able to experience them with all of your senses and consider how they function collectively.

2. Put down the phone. You can only experience the world when you are in it.

3. Pick up your phone, but as a camera. Archive your experiences. This can be accomplished by photos, notes, sketches or verbal notes. Whatever works for you. Organize them in different ways. Consider viewing your various collections by color, or subject. You might be surprised what ideas develop.

4. Small can be huge. The smallest vignette sometimes brings the biggest ideas. I like to call them the 'unexpected delight.' These can be a sidewalk pattern, a handwritten sign, most anything.

5. Be a consummate student. Ask questions. Read, read, read. Then read some more. Learn about the bridge you walk over daily. Find out why that sculpture you enjoy is there. Knowledge is truly power.

6. Don't view the world with a commercial mind. If you are seeking a specific product to develop or monetize, you won't get the full value of your experience. File away your specific challenges, but stay open to simply experiencing the world around you. Then overlay later how those ideas may be used to address your challenges.

7. Frequency equals success. The more often you can turn your mind to truly viewing the world, the more you will get out of it. Try an attempt it once a week on your walk to lunch. Then continue to increase the frequency.    
       
As we enter 2013, we should all take a fresh look at how we view the world. We are entering a time that Mr. Forbes saw forming years ago. An age that values fewer material goods, but ones that are quality and well-designed. An age of curation over our lives and our possessions. It is exciting, but will require that the innovators work hard to interpret our world and respond to it.

Enjoy. Then start really seeing your world.

Storytelling is Joke Telling: Why it Matters in Advertising

When you are in the industry that I am in, it is all about telling a story. That's not true actually, it should be about storytelling. What it becomes all too often is terrible regurgitations of creative briefs. This results in near plagiarized ideas of other successful advertising and campaigns and commercials designed to shock or simply grab attention. Now let's look at one of the most successful storytellers.


Andrew Stanton is a filmmaker at Pixar/Disney, and is responsible for some of the most iconic movies of the last 25 years. Finding Nemo, Toy Story and Wall-E, just to name a few. Simply put, the guy knows how to tell a damn compelling story. The advertising industry could learn a lot from him. Here are a few of my thoughts from his great TED Talk.  

• "Storytelling is joke telling." Using humor is indeed a great device in advertising, but it has to lead to a bigger pay off. Humor is not the reward, it is the device that leads the customer to the reward.  

• "We all want affirmations." We want shared experiences. being part of a larger community is a must for emotional connection.   

• "The greatest story commandment is: Make me care." To care about your brand they have to understand your brand. To understand your brand you need to relate it to who they are and what they stand for. Confirming some truth that reinforces who we are. Mr. Stanton uses a great quote, "There isn't anyone you couldn't learn to love once you've heard their story." -Mr. Rogers. This is it in a nutshell. 

• Humans are born problem solvers. The audience wants to "work for their meal." They just don't want to know it. Don't craft your story so simply were it is obvious. Leave a few gaps and let people fill them in. Wall-E is a very pure example of storytelling where you have to work. No dialogue will do that to a movie. However, with beautiful flow, design, sound and music, we are able to complete the story. In my estimation we complete the story better than if there had been dialogue.  

• Be true to yourself, your story and your brand. Without truthful storytelling all the rest is just window dressing.   

Now let Mr. Stanton weave a story for you...

Five Radical Ideas for Saving Hallmark Stores

Apple Store 

A critic of Apple's move to open bricks-and-mortar retail stores once famously said, "I give them two years before they're turning out the lights on a very painful and expensive mistake." Of course Apple proved the naysayers wrong and are now the most successful retail story of the last 20 years. Not only are their stores cult destinations for Apple fans, they are also the most profitable retail stores per square foot in America. Other retailers that blend great brand experiences with profit includes Coach and Lululemon Athletica. As Business Insider notes, four of the six most profitable retails stores are also on the fastest growing list. Their success certainly makes sense. But how did they accomplish it?


Let's use Apple as an example. First, they rightfully looked past their retail and technology competitors. They based none of their retail positioning or experience on Best Buy, Comp USA or others. Remember, the "prudent" plan would have been to compete with the big box stores that were the market leaders, and incredibly successful at the time.


Second, they looked not at the then current user of Apple products, but rather at the huge potential audience. They then reinforced their brand by modeling their experience after their product: clean, fresh and intuitive. 


Third, they kept the retail footprint small, allowing them to enter higher traffic, more "upscale" developments. 


Finally, they created the entire in-store experience to connect with their online experience. The Genius Bar is the human face of their online support.

Hallmark Gold Crown Store

This brings us to Hallmark, the grand dame of the greeting card industry. They are the industry leader and a near universally known brand. They are sporting a newly refreshed tagline, Life is a Special Occasion. Life is indeed a special occasion, but why does a visit to a Hallmark store make me feel decidedly not special? In fact, most Hallmark stores make me feel downright dreadful. Judging by the declining sales and changing demographic trends, I am certainly not alone. A November 2011 Los Angeles Times article explains away a lot of it as lost sales to online business. But to shore up that business while growing their specialty product business having a physical retail presence has never been more important. So, how can Hallmark use fresh retail thinking to salvage their eroding retail business? 


First a few facts. In a Retail Info Systems News article, Hallmark says that it has over 4,000 principle stores called Gold Crown, 500 of which are owned by the company and  the rest are franchise operations. The real revenue is generated from the 43,000 other outlets that sell their greeting cards and gifts, from Walmart to gas stations. This accounts for an estimated $4.1 billion in revenue annually. The greeting card industry is facing a monumental consumer shift as fewer cards are mailed and people move to more electronic and social media for celebrating major "life events." Hallmark has some very smart people tackling these issues around how to keep Hallmark relevant in the 21st Century. But as they innovate with product, they seem to be neglecting arguably the most important part of their brand experience, the store. 


As their retail experience has languished, it has reached a point where a fresh coat of paint or a new retail end cap will not do it. Hallmark retail needs a radical makeover. One that will reposition them for the future and highlight their product innovation in the proper way. 
Here are five ideas to kick start that process. 


1. Stores as Brand Tool: Recognize that the Gold Crown Stores, especially the company owned ones,  are primarily a brand marketing tool. Launch a "blue sky" rename and rebrand of these stores to  position the brand well beyond its current perception. Think uncluttered, fresh and contemporary. Let the product be the pop of color. Rethink the signage and overall look and feel and approach it from a fashion, art and design direction.


2. Smaller and Higher Profile: Move to smaller retail footprints in high traffic, urban and power centers. Open up the exteriors to be primarily glass and corner activated. This will compel the casual visit and generate a higher pass-through volume.  


3. Curate Product Content: The trend of "buy local" continues to grow and evolve. Hallmark should serve as the leader in providing the best in emotional messaging. This goes beyond their own creative materials. In fact, Hallmark already has an entire trend department dedicated to tracking and recording trends within their industry. Instead of identifying what products in the marketplace are competitors and then attempting to counter them, Hallmark experts should be hand-selecting cards, posters and gifts that are designed and made locally in each market to feature in their stores. This would allow them to bring the latest trends to the consumer faster and better reinforce their new tagline and campaign theme that "Life is a special occasion," challenging consumers to stop and enjoy life's perfectly imperfect, unplanned moments. 

4. Idea Think Tanks: As local bookstores continue to struggle, Hallmark has the ability to capture a portion of the "third place" for social gathering that is being lost. These newly minted Hallmark stores should work to host creative events that are in fitting with their brand promise. Become a place for writers and poets. Highlight their work and engage them in how their art directly ties to the Hallmark vision. Some stores should consider having a coffee shop as well.


5. Social Media Connectors: Each store should then activate a localized online "Genius Bar" of sorts by becoming the local hub via bricks-and-mortar and social media for celebrations. Both in the store and online, the staff of that store will be dedicated to proactive management of customer relationships. Guide customers to in-store product and various online product via Hallmark.


The above ideas are simply those of a brand and retail marketing expert who loves Hallmark. I am looking from the outside and crafting suggestions as an example of how a large retail brand could (and should) reshape how they operate in order to be more relevant in the future.


Feel free to share your feedback here or better yet, mail me a Hallmark card.


      

Curating is the Key to Social Media Success

Recently I wrote about the benefits of "curating your life" in the post Buy Less, Benefit More. The theory is that by simplifying your life, buying fewer but more meaningful things will improve your life. I also posit that retailers and business will benefit from more consumers leading smaller, more meaningful lives.

Today I want to talk briefly about your social media life. Well, your brands social media life. Most experts contend that you are doing your brand a disservice by not embracing the social media world fully. They will talk about multiple touch points and active and passive engagement. Indeed, it is true that you need to be available and accessible via social media. Geo-locating is also crucial for most retailers in this new world. A new study by JiWire that we referenced yesterday in the post Your Mom Buys More Online Than You, clearly shows that the majority of consumers research and find information about your products online. They study reviews and price compare, they geo-locate to find the nearest retailer and increasingly they buy online. But there is a problem with this.

When you build social media channels for your business, you are creating rooms for consumers to experience your products and services. Those virtual rooms must be branded, updated, staffed and managed. Just as you would not open a retail store and then ignore it for months, you must actively engage and manage your virtual store. A brand management plan must be created. Staff must be trained and customers responded to. ROI must be assessed. Investments must be made. That is where we get to the curated part.

I am not saying that any business should abandon a channel in social media. However, depending upon budget and ability you may have to consider converting some social media channels to sign posts. Feeder areas that direct people to an actively managed "room" where they can gain the contact and brand experience you want them to have. That does not mean that you still shouldn't actively monitor all of your social media channels. After all, you don't control your social media rooms fully. Others have the ability to influence for you. For effectively monitoring your online reputation and activity we have been excited to explore Datasift, a real-time data feed monitor. 

Finally, curating what you convey to your customers is vital. Mark Twain was once credited with saying "I would have written you a shorter letter, but I didn't have the time." Just as in Mr. Twain's time, curating your message takes time and is hard work, but it is more valuable than ever. Clear and on-brand messaging will set you apart from the cluttered world of social media. Create a curated and managed social media life, align that with a curated offline presence that matches and then run both as you would a great retail store and you will be on the way to success.    

Your Mom Buys More Online Than You

There is some interesting findings in a new study of how consumers use mobile devices.

In a study by JiWire, a location-based online media company, we learn that more are using location-based content to find a business versus connect with others. Even fewer are checking in at locations. However, a majority are willing to reveal their location to gain more information about a business or to gain an offer. In a big leap from previous studies, a full 53% of those surveyed say that they plan to use their mobile device for their holiday shopping this season. All great trends for social media marketing and mobile marketing.

The most surprising statistics are when you look at the data by generations. The infographic below from JiWire summarizes the results well. Simply put, Generation X, and those up to age 54, are much more likely to make purchases via their mobile device. They are also almost twice as likely to research using their mobile device and then purchase in store. Granted the spending power of those aged 35-54 is greater than those 18-34, but the results seem to confirm the comfort level that older mobile users have has increased dramatically. This makes sense considering that most people over the age of 35 have been using mobile devices and shopping online for up to 20 years. 

As marketers, what does this mean for us?

1. Location-based information is a must for your business. Even if it is passive, businesses must have online location presence with details and links to their other social media and online presence.

2. Retailers must align their social media and online brand with their bricks-and-mortar presence. It is clear that consumers view your brand as your brand,. If one does not relate to the other you are in trouble and they will question their potential purchase.

3. Active engagement and response in social media is crucial. With a near majority researching items online before buying, having an active engagement and response protocol is crucial. View social media engagement as sales staff in your store.

4. Monitoring your third-party product reviews and earned media is vital. Tracking and reporting of online product evaluations, reviews and blog commentary is vital. Develop a plan for engagement as response.     

Ultimately, this simply reinforces the convergence of channels as it relates to your brand. You cannot neglect one outlet anymore.  

The Best 17:16 of Your Day: How Beauty Feels

Designer Richard Seymour paints an incredible picture of beauty and why it matters. Not a whiny appeal that we need to appreciate beauty that you hear from designers from time to time. No, he outlines for us how we subconsciously know beauty, appreciate beauty, respond emotionally to beauty and most importantly, know what is not beautiful.

From a branding and marketing perspective, this reinforces to me that as professionals we need to do a better job of selling quality design to clients. We need to work to convey to them that an immersive brand experience is valuable. That they need to invest in their brand, their packaging, their total experience. Not just because it will look beautiful, but because the consumer will respond to that beauty. They will act on it. Ultimately, if it is on message, they will buy it and regard the product more highly.

Richard Seymour's design company, SeymourPowell is a leader in product and packaging design. You should check them out, view their work and see how it makes you feel.

This is a TED talk that all designers should watch. More importantly, this is a talk that all agency owners, strategists and branding experts should watch. Enjoy...  

Richard Seymour: How beauty feels

Dying a Qwikster Death

Article first published as Dying a Qwikster Death on Technorati.

Reed Hastings, CEO

It was a death that most everyone knew was inevitable. The ill-conceived direct mail spin-off of Netflix, Qwikster, has been declared dead only a month after its creation. Brian Stelter of the New York Times covers it deftly in his Media Decoder column. While this is a catastrophic and high-profile failure, we see this same type of mistake daily in companies big and small. Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix is attributing it in his press release to moving too quickly,

“Consumers value the simplicity Netflix has always offered and we respect that. There is a difference between moving quickly — which Netflix has done very well for years — and moving too fast, which is what we did in this case.”

There is no doubt that they moved to quickly, but speed doesn't kill, if you don't make the other mistakes they made. Hidden in the multiple missteps of bad naming, terrible branding, bad launch strategy, poor planning and unsatisfying public relations management are two key failures.

Failure #1:   They lost sight of their company vision in making this decision.

Mr. Hastings stated in the 2003 Netflix Annual Report that the vision of the company was to create "the best movie experience.  Period." A laudable goal and a worthy one. The company abandoned this vision in an attempt to advance the company to what future customers will demand. The problem with that is that their customers are not future customers, they are current customers. Anyone who uses Netflix will tell you that the online streaming library is far from "The best movie experience." It lacks many current films and TV shows as well as many classics and art house films. The consumer does not want to hear excuses. There are valid ones about licensing, Hollywood studios being difficult and cost-revenue factors. It is not the consumer’s responsibility to understand your company’s challenges. All they are required to do is determine if your company vision matches the experience.

Failure #2: They forgot that the customer comes first.

It’s an old adage, but a very important one. Simply put, they placed revenue and expense at the forefront of boardroom decision making. Evert decision should start with the questions "what will make our most loyal customers love us even more? What will make our former customers love us? What will convert new customers over to us?" Those questions are the first litmus test. Once those ideas are on the table is when you sharpen the pencil and determine what makes the most financial sense for the current landscape and into the future.

Failure to Launch. Now on Netflix

So what should have Netflix done? I guess the better question is, what should Netflix do now? The reality is that the mail order DVD business is dying. No doubt. They need to exit it. Perhaps they felt that a quickie (pun intended) rebrand and spin-off would allow them to make a value sale of that portion of their business. This was not the way to do it. The value of their DVD business was in the brand of Netflix which they are not willing to sell and the infrastructure. Most possible buyers would have bit on a sale as-is, without a spin-off business. Netflix should invest in more streaming films, better software and distribution services, better search and viewing features and so on. They should make streaming the best it can possibly be.

Second, Netflix should consider a tiered Premium service for streaming customers. Offer exclusive content, preview viewings of new releases and even live streamed content. Make it a real and worthwhile premium product. At the same time, they should slowly continue to ramp up the pricing of the DVD mail order product. Over the course of a year or two the price will have steadily climbed to a point in which a smaller user base is paying a premium for the service. It will then become an "exclusive" service versus a lag service.

The Qwikster death should certainly be a reminder to all businesses that they need to reflect on their vision and customers before making any decision.   

Angry Birds Stealing My Wallet?

Angry Birds are Everywhere

The Atlantic recently published an article, Estimating the Damage to the U.S. Economy Caused by Angry Birds, that caused quite a stir.

In the article, Alexis Madrigal offers up how much American productivity is lost by employees playing Angry Birds at work. He uses a a variant of a calculation that a consulting firm has used to determine lost productivity from the NCAA Basketball Tournament. I am not here to question his math, just the basis of the assumption of "lost productivity." 

In my professional career thus far, I have been a lowly account coodinator at a huge advertising agency and the director of accounts, with large teams of employees. I have also been the president of a region of a company and an entrepreneur of a tiny startup. Through all of these career moves I can assure you of one thing. People at work don't need a specific smartphone game to lose productivity. They (myself included) are perfectly good at seeking out ways to distract themselves from work. Referencing the hot new game is simply a device that journalists use to get the readers attention. An article titled, "Various Means Employed by People to Lose Productivity" isn't nearly as exciting as picking the hot new game or industry.    

Courtesy of The Atlantic

If we look back through the archives of 'lost productivity" articles I assure you they list causes such as the personal computer, phone, water cooler, windows, air conditioning, co-ed working environment... and so on. Therefore, the lost productivity idea is a fallacy as it relates to specific new technology advances. What the advent of smartphones and social media has done, is make it easier to hide the actual activity from their boss. But banning Angry Birds and social media doesn't solve the problem. It only leads more secretive activity and alternative forms of lost productivity, such as people standing around talking about playing Angry Birds!

I am certain there are plenty of great Human Resources professionals that could chime in and offer a great deal of suggestions on how to increase productivity in the workplace. I am not going to attempt to tackle the complete productivity issue. I do feel that it all stems from proper supervision and pro-active management with a human understanding of how people work and live.

I do want to take a minute and address the Angry Birds and larger social media challenge that employers face. How to best solve it? 

Employers should stop directing their IT staff to block offending games and sites. They should stop issuing corporate policies designed to prevent game play and social media (specifically Facebook and Twitter) usage at work. Instead, they should look at their customers and understand that they are probably using the same channels of social media and games. Enterprising marketing officers should be challenging their company to see how they can turn their most avid game playing employees and heavy Facebook users into defacto developers, idea generators and online brand advocates. By engaging with employees about their online activity, a company can better understand changing trends. If employees as unafraid to talk openly about what they are doing, ideas can be shared. 

- Integrate social gaming into company team building.

- Offer incentives for employees that bring ideas on integrating company products into social gaming or online advertising

- Focus less on restricting activities of employees and more on accountability of delivering results.

- Offer at work education on Facebook, Twitter and other social media. 

- Conduct education on what information employees can share about the company and its products. 

- Let social sharing about your company occur naturally.

- If you have active social media marketing staff already, they should add monitoring and reporting of social media activity to their responsibilities. 

There is a great deal of potential in leveraging the ideas from social gaming and the actual reach of social media. If handled proactively and positively by a company, you will be creating a large innovation team and social media marketing team from your existing employees. 

Your Cure For Writer's Block

From time to time we all struggle with the dreaded writer's block. Those who write many column inches for a living struggle with it, and so do us branding and marketing types. For me it is concept creation and short form creative copy. My clients look to me for the next "big idea." They expect something that will stand out, fit their brand and be clever and creative. All of those things are what they should expect of course.

However, being creative and relevant to a brand in an on demand fashion can be taxing. Ideas don't work 9 to 5. That is why there is the handy Moleskine. One travels with me at all times, and one stays on my nightstand. They get filled with ideas. Some of those ideas eventually become workable solutions to a client challenge. Some become dreams for future work and some are simply terrible. The edible bike helmet "dream" for instance seemed great at 3am.

So, what do you do when the ideas are are clogged up somewhere in your head and just not flowing? How do you get those ideas going again? I have already mentioned that watching some TED talks gets me going. A little Spotify music helps. Taking a walk. Finding inspiring  work in unrelated fields, such as architecture and fine art. All help me to break the cycle of a creative block. But there is one other little secret that I would like to share and that is the New Yorker Magazine. Specifically, their cartoons.

You may not know this, but they have a weekly contest to write the headline to a published cartoon. It is a fun weekly challenge and blends a visual idea with short form copy. 

The Caption Contest is certainly a fun secret pleasure of mine. Though I have yet to win and have a caption of mine appear, it is a fun challenge to try and meet. Go give it a try and see if it works for helping to break your writer's block. 

I would love to hear what other ways people have for breaking their creative block.

I will update this post as people send me ideas.   

Google+, Party of No One?

Google opened up registration for it's Google+ social network to everyone today. That might be the catalyst that it needs to drive usage and propel Hangouts, and it might not. There is no doubt that the Google name propelled Google+ to near cult status at launch. Social media types bragged about invites and being a first adopter. Volumes were written nearly overnight explaining how this was a game changer. Google+ was the future. Facebook was going the way of Myspace. Twitter was dead... Most entertaining was that the death tomes were written and spread on the very networks that were supposedly dying. 

This Hangout is Awesome!

But a funny thing happened on the way to world domination. It appears that for all the members signing up, few are actually hanging out in the Hangouts. As reported by Dan Reimold for MediaShift, Google+ "is worse than a ghost town." While actual details on traffic and usage are hard to come by, more anecdotal evidence is suggesting that the assumptions of lack of volume is in fact the case. So what does this mean for the ever fracturing social media world?

First, it proves that the raucous social media landscape is the Wild West. While some continue to focus on niche applications, LinkedIn for example, others continue to drop into the general consumer arena. Over the next few years many corporate obituaries will be written, but the winners will be very strong players with some incredible applications. Buckle up, it is going to be a fun ride.    

It also reaffirms that Google is not King Midas. Like every other business, they will need to work hard to build relevance and be very strategic about it. If Google+ was actually a VC funded start-up void of the Google connection, I believe that it would have worked much harder to create category buzz. It would have launched a branding campaign and reinforced the natural occurring brand advocacy. In short, a boot strapped start-up would have fought and engaged earlier. They would have nurtured actively some initial category users. 

The next few weeks will be a litmus test for the social network. Will the opening of Google+ to the 'general public' spur it past the "must engage daily" tipping point? Just as important is the announcement of the new API Hangout. Allowing third-party application development could certainly kick the place into high gear. new features are being launched as well that hold a great deal of potential.  

Without a doubt, there are some exciting things occurring on Google+. It has some exciting features and is being adopted in very exciting ways by journalists the world over. The journalism potential is huge, and very exciting as we look at media convergence. 

The University of Missouri School of Journalism has taken the lead in the Google+ newsy world. KOMU TV, the school-owned NBC affiliate has embraced it 100%. They recently launched a 4p.m. hour-long web newscast. The U_News@4 anchored by Sarah Hill uses Google+ as a core component of the news. This application holds the potential to truly transform local television. While Google+ is a core component of this news program, it remains to be seen if it will become the vehicle or if another outlet will co-op the segment as more news outlets follow Mizzou's lead. I will write more about this specific item soon. TV NewsCheck has done a nice job covering it's launch thus far. 

Worth it in spite of our terrible graphics package

Sample of U_News@4

I look forward to following, engaging and seeing where this all goes. Based on what we have seem thus far, Google+ will have a future, but it may be far different than the Facebook killer it was purported to be. 

Until then. Get to Google+, grab a Hangout and see if it is indeed a party of one. 

 

          

The Best 16:17 of Your Day: The Origins of Pleasure

This one is a bit esoteric, yet incredibly relevant to marketing, branding and communications professionals. In short Mr. Bloom hypothesizes that our knowledge of the origins of an object is critical to our emotional response to it. He uses art and forgery as his primary example, but this is critical in our lives with brands and products.

In short, if we perceive a brand as an original, a brand of quality. One we have had positive experiences with before, we will respond to it with pleasure and enjoy it more.

I will leave it at that, and let Mr. Bloom explain the psychology of it. If you are in the marketing and branding world however, listen to this talk with an eye toward how you reach consumers. Is your brand, your story, reinforcing originality and trust... pleasure?

It is critically important to realize that the experience and perceptions of a consumer will determine your brand's fate with them, even if your product is identical to one they love. Think about that next time you decide to skip brand planning and go for a crowd sourced logo. The next time you consider skipping a review of your retail experience, your staff training.

Once you lose originality and the consumer loses that pleasure in your brand, it is gone.


Paul Bloom: The Origins of Pleasure

 

Update: The Post Office Doesn't Like Radical Ideas

Last week I discussed some radical ideas that might save the U.S. Postal Service.

Five Radical Ideas for Saving the U.S. Postal Service

As it turns out, they seem to think that worse service is the answer to their ills. 

According to a recent Washington Business Journal article, they feel that closing processing facilities is the way to balance their budget. Given the decline in mail, closing some facilities may actually be needed. However, here is the problem. According to the Postmaster General this would result in much slower delivery of First Class Mail. Having worse service for more cost doesn't seem like a way toward solving their problems. 

Your new Post Office

On the bright side, they are actually implementing one of the Radical Ideas... Sort of. 

I proposed that the USPS sign a massive co-location deal with places such as McDonald's. They are not doing that, but they are moving forward with what they call "Village Post Offices." According to this CNN article, up to 3,700 mostly rural Post Offices could be converted to this type. Basically, small general stores will pay for the right to have Post Office services in their store. That way they can sell stamps with their Lotto tickets, beer and fishing lures. 

This isn't quite the massive transformation or positive brand relationships I would like to see, but I guess it is a start.  

 

Five Radical Ideas for Saving the U.S. Postal Service

The popular saying for the Post Office goes "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds." However, it appears that changing consumer habits, poor management and a hesitancy over the years to close some of the now 32,000 postal facilities may doom the fabled institution. 

I am not going to discuss the politics, the structuring of the financing or any other of the more laborious and realistic next steps. 

Rather, I am going to look at a few ideas that could (or could have) been enacted within the retail and branding areas over the last few years to stem the tide of red ink and led to a more successful USPS for us and our children. 

1. The USPS should radically redesign itself and it's brand. No one has taken this issue to task better than FastCoDesign with their great summary last year on Radical Retro ReBrand. 

 

2. Rather than fighting to close existing Post Offices, the USPS should sign a long-term co-location deal with McDonald's. Move the vast majority of their retail outlets to cool new in-store kiosk facilities and even locate P.O. Boxes within McDonald's. The burger giant would always welcome the added traffic. Ideally they would have partnered with Blockbuster several years ago and also led in the mail order movie business that Netflix's move to streaming is now killing. Though that ship has sailed, it might not be too late for a radical retail overhaul.  

Your Neighborhood McPost Office

3. The USPS was once one of the most trusted brands globally. Why not trust your email security to the Post Office? Internet security is a real concern and a huge multi-billion dollar business. If you receive an email with an attachment that has been delivered and certified by the United States Postal Service you would trust it. A Norton-USPS partnership could generate a lot of revenue for both and embrace the one thing that is diverting the most mail.

4.  USPS Mail Carrier for rent. OK, so that is a bit much. However, with such a large employment base there are very few other employers that have that many feet on the ground in neighborhoods each day. Why not utilize them for services beyond letter delivery? 

Market them local to deliver door hangers. Generate revenue by selling limited sponsorship's on their uniforms and delivery vehicles. Local municipalities could save money by contracting with them for services such as meter reading. 

5. Don't get rid of Saturday delivery, but rather add Sunday delivery too. Make it weekend premium services and charge accordingly.

One more bonus idea:

6. Partner with Hallmark and others to create a unified campaign for special moment cards and deliveries. Demonstrate to people that while a Facebook Birthday is nice, people that really care about you will mail you a card. Make it a movement. Make it green and focus on the simpler more meaningful moments. 

So that is it. My thoughts on radically reshaping the USPS. Do I think any of these ideas will be adopted? No. Do I think we will see tens of thousands of employee layoffs and billions in loses? Sadly, yes. Should the Postmaster General think like a gutsy CEO of a new business start-up? Absolutely. 

Another great article that discusses the more mundane ideas:

NPR: Five Ways the Postal Service Could Reinvent Itself 

Thoughts on The World's Hottest Brands

Courtesy Ad Age Magazine

Ad Age, the leading publication on advertising, marketing and branding recently released a comprehensive report that includes 30 case studies examining brand strategies as well as 32 videos of ads and viral content. It is a very well written and well researched piece that is certainly worth the subscription price. Yes, it is a fee based article to read and view the videos. If you are in the industry and deal with branding daily, I highly recommend that you read it in full. For the rest of you here are a few thoughts. 

They outline ten global brands, ten regional brands and ten local brands. Some you will have heard of and know a lot about, Nike, McDonald's, Facebook and Ikea for instance. Other great regional brands such as South Africa's Nando's, a chicken QSR with great advertising and Chinese 'local' brand Li-Ning, a multi-faceted sports and sporting apparel company. 

For the rest you will have to read the white paper. 

Here are a few of my thoughts as I read the paper:

• Now more than ever, a consistent brand strategy and brand platform is imperative.
• Local and regional brands are embracing their heritage, but looking and acting much more global.
• Social media and the Internet have forever changed how we look at brands.  
• The U.S. no longer has a monopoly on strong brands and advertising.
• Brand immersion and experiential marketing are vital everywhere.
• Successful brands are looking to multiple touch-points with their consumers via multiple product lines and activities.

Read the much more comprehensive article here with more thoughts from Ad Age:

Ad Age Article: A World of Inspirational Problem-Solving, Savvy Brands and Smart Marketing