Tuesday 30th June:
How can you crash people’s shopping autopilot?
Take some inspiration by wandering around a Paris area home improvement or gardening big-box store like Leroy Merlin – you might happen upon the work of the French artists collective called Encastrable (http://www.encastrable.net/). The group randomly visits DIY stores and create temporary sculptures and installations from products and materials for sale in the store. They work covertly and don’t ask permission from the store staff. Their website documents all their recent ‘Résidences’.
Ref. http://www.psfk.com/2009/06/artists-create-guerilla-sculptures-in-paris-diy-stores.html
Sunday 28th June:
What can you do to turn your world upside down?
Think like Dutch architects i29 and Snelder who have designed a school that inverts everything about traditional education buildings. Gone are wall posters and notice boards, institutional green paint schemes and a jumble of colors. Instead, it’s all about poetry. (tx David, down under)
And that’s quite literally: The key bits of writing on the wall, floors, desks and tables aren’t graffiti, but room labels, and stenciled lines of poems specially written by Dutch poet Erikjan Harmens with guidance by the kids themselves.
The main idea was to use the school’s name Panta Rhei – translated as “everything flows” – as a theme to come up with the new building designs. As a result, the starkly utilitarian concrete structure is broken up with stenciled text and lots of open spaces that have unique furniture in them. The tables and stools, for example, are designed to be unusual shapes so that they can be rearranged to suit group or individual work.
Friday 26th June:
Is it possible to be too convenient?
As consumers increasingly seek value ahead of convenience, portion-controlled packs are falling out of favour, says Mintel. Recently, 100-calorie snack packs had been very popular as a convenient way to control portion size. But sales are now falling and, according to Mintel, new launches of 100-calorie packs have slowed too.
Mintel senior research analyst, Marcia Mogelonsky, gives three reasons: consumers want value over convenience in the current economic situation; 100-calorie packs were a diet fad that has proved ineffective; and these packs use an unsustainably large amount of packaging.
The 100-calorie packs were touted as a weight management tool but that reason for purchase has also lost sway after a Journal of Consumer Research study last year found that the 100-calorie snacks had no effect on how much people ate throughout the day.
But Mogelonsky added that portion-controlled packs do still have a place, especially for parents looking for convenient lunchbox snacks for their children. According to Mintel’s Global New Products Database, 21 new ‘100-calorie’ products were launched last year, compared to six in 2007 and five in 2006. Just seven new 100-calorie products have been launched to May 28 this year. (Great spot by big Nick.)
Thursday 25th June:
All the little things add up
Which is why Australia’s Keepcup have created the world’s first barista-standard reusable coffee cup, designed to stamp out the dreaded bin-filling paper cup.
Disposable paper cups are not recyclable. And in arid regions like Australia, biodegradation of a paper cup can take 50 years or more. Keepcup believes that small acts can make a big difference – for better and for worse. And that through good design and a little effort we can easily incorporate reuse into our daily routine and prevent the massive environmental impact of all single use items.
(Thanks to David, Elmwood Melbourne, for sharing this one)
Ref. www.keepcup.com.au
Tagged with: Food and drink, Sustainability
Wednesday 24th June:
How can you help bridge the generation gap?
Every generation has their own ‘language’, and today’s is text-speak. Now, text stress need no longer worry parents who haven’t a clue what the kids are saying – with LG’s DTXTR, which translates ‘text’ into English. OMG!
The application can translate over 2,000 commonly used words from/to text, much like language site BabelFish.com. LG is positioning the DTXTR tool as an ‘educational site and credible resource’ and warns, “Please be aware of the adult language and recognise that the glossary may have offensive nature.”
Ref. http://www.iconoculture.com/Approach/WhatWeIdentify/Observations/GenXers/index.aspx?DocName=oa_DTXTR_110588
Tagged with: Mobile, Technology
Tuesday 23rd June:
How can you verify ‘it’s all for a good cause’?
Vendors and manufacturers have long been using product life stories to demonstrate their sustainability. Now, Dutch nonprofit, Made-By, is making this easier by tracking and documenting the efforts of participating fashion brands.
Made-By aims to expand the market for environmentally and socially conscious fashion by facilitating sustainable production processes, and then giving brands a way to publicise their product stories. Made-By first advises brands on how to clean up their manufacturing processes and – together with fair-trade NGO Solidaridad, which launched Made-By back in 2004 – helps them develop completely sustainable production chains. It can advise companies on getting an organic cotton supplier certified, or refer them to its worldwide network of sustainable suppliers. Member brands use organic cotton and work with sewing factories that have a social code of conduct. To proclaim their participation, they identify their clothing with a small blue button placed near the care-instructions label.
Perhaps even more interesting is Made-By’s online Track & Trace database system, where consumers can read their item’s product story (using the unique code on the label), and click a Google Maps link for the location of each factory and plant involved. The database is populated when each link in the production chain enters information about its production processes, e.g. how many bales of cotton were received, or whether an organic certificate was included. Made-By also publishes scorecards online and in its annual reports detailing how much of each brand’s collections were produced sustainably.
“I can tell people that Komodo is a fair label, but will the consumer believe me? Made-By is like a certification for us, and proves to consumers that we are a fair label,” explains Mark Bloom, director of participating brand Komodo UK.
Ref. http://springwise.com/non-profit_social_cause/madeby/
Tuesday 23rd June:
How can your brand tap into word-of-mouth and recommendations from real people?
Maybe find ways to link up with social search services, such as Aardvark http://vark.com/ What exactly is Aardvark?
- Aardvark is Social Search: finding information from real people.
- Aardvark is a live channel to anyone in your network who has the knowledge and experience to answer your question.
- Aardvark is the IM buddy who always knows the right person to ask.
- Aardvark is a community of helpful people who share tips and opinions.
Aardvark has become the perfect way to get answers to questions where you need an opinion/ recommendation instead of facts.
As Max Ventilla explains on the company blog:
‘Aardvark is great for subjective questions and queries for more complex information. When you’re looking for a hotel in Chicago, or an HDTV recommendation, or a suggestion for a new mystery novel, the information you need is dependent on *taste* and *context*. The kind of hotel you’d like depends on why you’re travelling, who will be staying there, your style and price range, and all sorts of other considerations that you can easily talk about when you’re in a conversation with another person.’
For marketers of all sorts, Aardvark has the potential to become an incredibly important tool. After all, the holy grail of marketing is being able to reach a person at the very moment when they are most interested in your brand. That is why Google has a market cap of $125 billion and why the world has been abuzz about customer service through Twitter.
Monday 22nd June:
Kindness never goes out of fashion
Members of Hyatt’s Gold Passport loyalty program already enjoy numerous benefits when they visit a Hyatt hotel. Soon, however, they’ll also benefit from a new Hyatt initiative – to deliver random acts of kindness.
Hyatt’s mission is to provide ‘authentic hospitality’. CEO, Mark Hoplamazian, defines it as “making a difference to the lives of those we touch.” As part of a new effort to take better care of its Gold Passport members, Hyatt will soon lavish these guests with pleasant surprises designed to delight them during their stay. In a recent blog post, Hoplamazian wrote, “Don’t be surprised if Gold Passport picks up your bar tab, comps your massage or treats your family to breakfast. It’s part of bringing authentic hospitality to life and making you feel more than welcome.”
Not only does the effort stand a good chance of boosting the authenticity of Hyatt’s service delivery, it’s also a shining example of the kind of corporate generosity increasingly being sought by disillusioned consumers, and offered by clued-in brands.
Ref. http://www.springwise.com/tourism_travel/hyattgoldpassport/
Tagged with: Authenticity, Hotels, Leisure
Tuesday 16th June:
How can you inspire people to become creatively involved in your brand?
Take look at Jay Jay Burridge’s installations for the Levi’s 501 Live Unbuttoned campaign. It encourages people to submit their own creations and win the opportunity to design the Levi’s flagship store window in London’s Carnaby St.
This spring, Levi’s and Burridge teamed up with Dazed to produce a second wave of dynamic London-based art installations for the ongoing campaign.
http://www.501.com/en_GB/#button
This time around, the groundbreaking artist will be creating spectacular, standalone, eight-foot high denim waves, inspired by traditional Japanese woodblock art. For the latest submissions check out http://www.dazedgroup.com/projects/Live-Unbuttoned/Default.aspx
Ref. http://www.dazedgroup.com/Default.aspx
Monday 15th June:
How can you use social media to promote events?
Think like Anthony Gardiner, a New Zealand man, who was spurned by the woman of his dreams. He came up with a novel way of disposing of the diamond engagement ring he bought her – a treasure hunt. “I met this girl I thought was pretty cool, bought a ring, turns out she wasn’t as keen,” Anthony, a 29-year-old call-centre worker, told the Dominion Post.
Anyone wanting to pick up the ring, valued at $5,000 (£1,970) needed to be in New Zealand’s capital city, Wellington, on Saturday 6 June to join the hunt.
Clues about the ring’s whereabouts started being posted on Twitter (http://twitter.com/donoogle_com) at 8 a.m. local time. Gardiner says he will keep posting clues, and if the ring is not found by the end of the day, “my clues will suddenly change into directions”.
Having bought the ring in Hong Kong, he couldn’t return it and didn’t want to sell it, so he hit upon the treasure hunt idea. Hanging on to it in the hopes of finding a willing recipient is also not an option. “Obviously, it’s been a pretty unlucky ring for me,” Gardiner said, adding he hoped it would be found by somebody who has “found a cool chick and who wants to give them something they normally wouldn’t be able to afford.” (Another spot from Claire D)
Matt Rhodes of Futurelab also has some ideas on how organisations can make use of Twitter:
1. To put a public face on your brand
This is what Ford, Southwest Airlines have done so well. Taking a large, ‘faceless’ brand and putting people centre stage helps people emotionally connect with the brand – especially useful in the current economic climate.
2. Allowing you to segment and then target different groups
Dell is a great example of how to use and experiment with social media. The company has a large range of Twitter accounts used by different people to engage different audiences about different things. With Twitter, you can also monitor and analyse the different conversations people are having about your brand. Which means you can start to understand the segments and give out different messages using different accounts. The marginal cost of multiple Twitter accounts is practically zero so it’s a great way to engage diverse audiences.
3. Using Twitter as a gateway
The best use of Twitter can be as part of a hub-and-spoke model of social engagement. You can start by engaging people on Twitter just the same as you would on Facebook, YouTube or Flickr. Then you can direct them to your own site or online community. It’s when they’re on your own community that you can really share and discuss ideas, and get a better understanding of who they are and what they think. And bringing them to your own space makes them feel special. You move from interrupting them where they’re doing something else, to providing a direct line to engaging with you.
Ref. http://uk.news.yahoo.com/22/20090603/tod-oukoe-uk-newzealand-ring-b7e5c6f.html
and
http://blog.futurelab.net/2009/06/how_organisations_can_use_twit.html