Another great example of the promise and the power of social media.
Reid Gower is a big fan of NASA, but has been very frustrated by the Agency's lackluster marketing. In particular, he feels that they have really dropped the ball in terms of using social media.
So out of frustration as much as anything else he put his own video together for them and posted it to his YouTube page. Gower wants to help rekindle public interest in what he feels is "the most fascinating, adventurous, epic institution every devised by human beings". And since NASA is doing such a poor job of it, Gower decided to take matters into his own hands.
This one young man (24 years old), working alone, produced one hell of a video. It's only been up for a day, and it's waves are already rippling across the Internet. Let's hope NASA takes note, and is appropriately moved. I know I was.
Here's a print ad that's not pulling any punches. It's a Thai ad for hand sanitizer, and I think it's safe to say that the impact is very strong. A little nasty, but then again that was clearly the point. I've spoken before about the impact of powerful imagery, and here's yet another memorable example.
The key to successful marketing campaigns is knowing which buttons to push, and which to ignore. Take this recent campaign for cork. Yes, cork.
Up until about 15-20 years ago cork had a virtual monopoly on the wine stopper market. The percentage of wines using a cork stopper stood at around 98%. With the increasing popularity of non-cork wine stoppers such as screw caps, plastic plugs and "zorks" however, that market share has dropped to 70%. Perhaps less.
Needless to say, the Portuguese Cork Association is not happy about this. So they have begun fighting back with a $22 million PR campaign based around the natural and (of course) "green" qualities of natural cork.
To that end they are funding the 100% Cork initiative, and so far they have been fairly successful. For example they've already generated over 30,000 "likes" on Facebook, with the majority of those coming from women. The particular concern of women on this issue may have been what inspired the creation of the video below.
Note that this campaign mostly ignores whether or not cork is actually the best product to use as a wine stopper. So far the consensus seems to be that it is best for some wines (especially those that need to age), and perhaps not for others. But since there are legitimate arguments pro & con on that point, this button is ignored.
That cork is more "green" and sustainable is difficult to argue however. So that is the point of differentiation used. Twenty or thirty years ago this might not have meant a lot to the average wine drinker. But these days it means quite a bit more, so this is a very clever positioning strategy.
Four Takeaways: 1) Focus your communication on your strengths. 2) If you can legitimately attach a "green" label to your product or service, you should. 3) If it matters to women, it will very soon matter to men. 4) And of course - even a somewhat silly presentation will sound perfectly reasonable when delivered with a British accent.
It's pretty rare that the beauty and importance of typography is understood and appreciated by non-designers. But perhaps this video will help. This is an example of what is often called "kinetic typography". It's an entire music video of kinetic typography created by Jarrett Heather for Johnathan Coulton's song Shop•Vac.
Remember my last post about sweating the details? Jarrett put in over 500 hours on this, and it shows. Really well done.
Yet another example of how much it matters to sweat the details. Apple is obviously famous for that, but this example is about Google. When it comes to design, they put a lot more thought into this than you might think. This analysis of their mapping services by Justin O'Beirne is a great reminder of that.
Important point - Google is known for having a fairly simple design approach. People often confuse simple for easy. Not the same thing. In fact a quality design that's also really simple can be devastatingly difficult to pull off. And large organizations do not, by their nature, lend themselves to simplicity in design or anything else. The video below, for example, is a fairly well-known jab at just this tendency. Anyone who's worked in a large organization will tell you that this video is more true than not.
Multiple Takeaways - 1) Sweat the details. It's worth it. 2) Simple is best, but don't assume it's easier. It's often far more difficult. But again, worth it.
;)
Tuesday, January 11, 2011 at 8:15AM ;)