Friday 31st October:
How can you transfer the brand story from one world to another?
Think like potato peeler Zyliss and their tongue in cheek parody of Gillette
(Tx again Wadey)
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=a3Gy1ZDrkqM
Thursday 30th October:
How can your brand combine the online and offline worlds?
Think like the venture from Alcatel-Lucent who released into beta earlier this month, tikitag. http://www.tikitag.com/
Tikitag uses short-range, high-frequency RFID to let consumers and third-party application developers connect everyday items to online content or applications. To tap the connection, users of the technology need only touch a compatible device such as a cell phone to an item tagged with a corresponding sticker. Parents, for example, can use tikitag to link their toddler’s teddy bear to an online story about that same bear; museum visitors can wave an enabled mobile phone at a painting to call up the painter’s Wikipedia profile. In a business/logistics setting, meanwhile, a cleaning company could use tikitag to record that a room has been successfully cleaned by touching an enabled mobile phone to a tikitag-linked sticker that has been placed in the room.
(Ref http://www.Springwise.com)
Wednesday 29th October:
How can you help people deal with their pent up credit crunch frustrations?
Think like Sarah’s Smash Shack who are demonstrating that it’s possible to profit from any human desire, was conceived to relieve people who are stressed-out. Customers in San Diego can choose fragile tableware from the Smash Shack Menu—for example a set of three glass flowers for USD 10, or the House Special, which consists of 15 plates at a cost of USD 45. They’re also welcome to bring in their own breakables to pulverise for a ‘corkage fee’ that starts at USD 20. After donning protective gear, smashers are escorted to one of the break rooms, where they stand behind a waist-high barrier and hurl their arsenal at a stainless steel wall.
To make the process more personalised, customers are encouraged to bring their own soundtrack on MP3, and to write messages on whatever they’re about to throw. There’s also the option of flinging objects at a photo or mantra of choice. A VIP room is available for group smashes.
Since August 2008, the shack has helped quite a few customers vent their frustration and release their tension. Or just plain enjoy the process of harmless destruction without having to clean up after themselves. It’s hard to tell whether the credit crunch has benefited or hindered the business’s success, making customers thriftier but also more stressed and up for smashing . . . Aware that it’s not cool not to care about the environment, the shack donates its broken glass and ceramic to mosaic art programs throughout the United States.
(Ref http://www.Springwise.com)
Tuesday 28th October:
Why not look for inspiration across the room from where you product might sit!
Think like Rita, a multidisciplinary design studio in Montreal, Canada, has developed a new geeky furniture concept. The aptly named Folder chair takes its inspiration from the traditional paper file folders, situated not a million miles from where the chairs might be!
Folder has a funky look with its bright yellow colour, and it might actually add some life to an accountant’s office.
(Ref http://www.trendhunter.com)
Monday 27th October:
How can you help people shop by mood not by product?
Think like Amazon who have a couple of speciality stores who help you do just that! (Cheers Wadey)
Love the way that you can browse the Oxford World Classics store by the mood you’re in / want to be evoked by your book choice – thrill, dream etc.
The second store for Vintage Classics has a similar thing but does it through the navigation bar on the left – here you can choose from categories like ‘books to read at midnight’ and ‘books to make me cry’ etc.
Friday 24th October:
How can you reward people who share your brand beliefs?
Think like IKEA who are tapping into what trendwatching are calling ‘Perkonomics’!
Consumer infatuation with perks and privileges isn’t new. For years, airlines, hotels, credit card companies and private banks have been cleverly rewarding their most valuable customers with surprises, status symbols and convenience
But as we move towards a consumer society that’s based more on experiences, on the ephemeral—and in which, for many, time is now the only true scarcity—expect perks and privileges to become an integral part of every B2C industry and sector.
PERKONOMICS: A new breed of perks and privileges, added to brands’ regular offerings, is satisfying consumers’ ever-growing desire for novel forms of status and/or convenience, across all industries. The benefits for brands are equally promising: from escaping commoditization, to showing empathy in turbulent times. One to have firmly on your radar in 2009.
(ref http://www.trendwatching.com)
Thursday 23rd October:
How to make local needs cooler?
Think like Starbucks Japan. Here canned coffee has an almost cult like status
as the original RTD in Japan and a staple of any convenience store and vending machine.
http://www.starbucks.co.jp/doubleshot/
The trouble is, canned coffee is typically consumed in one gulp by unpretentious salarymen and blue-collar workers who are not exactly Starbucks’ core clientele. On the other hand it can be served warm and from a vending machine, and the Autumn launch is perfectly timed to coincide with vendors beginning to switch from cold drinks to more hot ones. Either way, the Starbucks brand will give canned coffee a fashionable lift and has the potential to lure new customers.
(ref http://www.trendbird.co.kr/1157)
Tagged with: Drink, Packaging
Wednesday 22nd October:
How can your brand cuckoo a brand idea from another industry?
Think like Louis Vuitton who have combined social networking, user-created content and location to literally be your guide through some of the worlds major cities by stepping into the shoes of TomTom!
The Louis Vuitton Soundwalk adapted to the needs of today’s international traveller can be downloaded in a few clicks from this website, and then transfered to virtually any MP3 player device.
http://www.louisvuittonsoundwalk.com/preview/?l=en
With thousands of foreigners entering China this Olympic year, Louis Vuitton, the French luxury fashion brand entered the mobile space with a unique location-based audio guide, available in six languages, to three major cities, Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong. The voice is coming from three locally born actresses: Gong Li for Beijing, Joan Chen for Shanghai and Shu Qi for Hong Kong. It directs visitors by mobile phones in real time through the cities and costs 17 USD for for each city in one of the six languages, English, French, Cantonese, Chinese, Korean and Japanese.
(ref http://www.cscout.com/blog/trends/trend-blog/)
Tagged with: Fashion, Interactive
Tuesday 21st October:
How can you use ‘gallows’ humour in these credit crunch times?
A city worker laughs at a spontaneous art installation of wilting flowers and messages topped with a plaque reading ‘in loving memory of the boom economy’. The piece is stamped with the monogram K.GUY.
(ref http://www.psfk.com/
via http://www.woostercollective.com/
Tagged with: Credit crunch
Monday 20th October:
How can you involve your most important customer?
Think like Best Buy who are starting to reflect the fact that women make the majority of consumer purchase decisions these days!
http://www.bestbuy.com
Recently they opened a new store in Aurora, Colo., that was designed with women in mind. Specifically, the company asked 40 local female customers and its own Women’s Leadership Forum—or WoLF pack—to participate in the design of the new store. Among its findings over the nine-month effort were that female customers wanted more help seeing how products could work together and fit into their lives, for example; also that the term "home theater" suggested technologies suitable only for the very wealthy, according to the Associated Press. Accordingly, the new store features electronics products working together in homelike settings, and "home theater" has been renamed "family room." Gone are the chain’s typical warehouse-style blue interiors and metal shelving, replaced instead by wood panelling, carpets featuring earth tones and skylights for natural lighting. Family-friendly restrooms and race car-shaped shopping carts are also among the additions to the store, which is reportedly putting a new emphasis on making eye contact with customers as well, following its female advisors’ recommendations. The cost of building the women-friendly store was higher than usual for the company, but Best Buy says it expects customer loyalty will make it worthwhile, the AP reported.
(ref Springwise)
