Monday 31st August:
Brands who listen are beta
People and businesses are communicating with each other like never before. It’s mostly down to technology, which is making it possible for brands and consumers to find, introduce, follow, chat and collaborate with each other.
At this level, the conversation becomes more of a looping, continuous dialogue than a one-off, casual encounter. Which means that brands, like people, must reveal themselves, flaws and all, in order to get valuable feedback and advice.
TCHO, the San Francisco-based chocolatier, famously uses customer feedback to develop its chocolate creations. The works in progress are called ‘Beta editions’ and new versions of products can emerge as often as every 36 hours. TCHO’s 1.0 bars recently came out of Beta after 1,026 iterations.
“When one of our chocolates graduates from Beta, it means we’ve integrated your feedback, finished our tweaking, and can get it ready for general release—which of course means much bigger batches.”
As well as help TCHO develop their confections, you can also visit them at their Beta Factory Store on Pier 17 in San Francisco. http://www.tcho.com
Ref. http://trendwatching.com/trends/foreverism/
Tagged with: Food and drink, New product development, Social networking
Friday 28th August:
Built by us and you’
At last, Dell and Nike-like thinking comes to the world of bikes. Republic bikes assemble custom bicycles based on shared design. Every component and colour is curated for quality, value and aesthetics. So, basically, you pick, choose, swap and decide what you want and they’ll build it, box it and ship it out. As they say, ‘built by us and you.’ (Thanks to big Kev.)
Ref. http://bikes.urbanoutfitters.com/
Thursday 27th August:
Retro, just like it used to be
Walkers have taken retro one step further. Or is that one step backwards? When they re-launched Monster Munch, they didn’t just change the packs back to how they were in their 80s heyday, they also changed the actual crisps back to the original size.
The witty ‘OLD’ instead of ‘NEW’ flash is a nice extra touch too. (Cheers. Jo)
Wednesday 26th August:
Big-brained celebrity endorsements
There are big heads, and then there’s just canny self-promo. A giant crop-circle image of the face of The Streets’ Mike Skinner amazed people arriving at this year’s Glastonbury festival. The singer created the enormous work of art because he wanted his face ‘to be seen from space’.
(Thanks, Laura, for this one.)
“It’s the Great Wall of China come to a rock festival in Somerset,” he said.
Mike Skinner had always been fascinated by crop circles and decided to create his own to celebrate his appearance on the Jazz World stage. After researching the phenomenon, Mike, his friend Ted Mayhem and Sony UK spent 24 hours creating the 100 sqm image using tractors, GPS remote-controlled vehicles and strimmers. The image was seen by thousands of festival-goers as they arrived at Castle Cary station, the nearest to the festival site.
On Twitter, he added: “My headphones have become part of my soul. I will be incorporating them into my crop circle”. Mike’s XB700 headphones are part of Sony’s new XB (Extra Bass) range and are the ultimate headphones for urban, hip hop and club music lovers.
Sony also made a short series of videos posted to YouTube describing why they did it and how they approached the practicalities. Over 30,000 people have seen them.
Ref. http://www.sony.co.uk/article/thestreets
Tuesday 25th August:
New take on the ‘soap opera’
More from Sorrento. This time from a small launderette down one of the city’s many side streets. Watching the washing go round and round can get a bit dull, so this launderette uses manga-style stories to divert its customers. Part of Manga’s popularity lies in its mass-market appeal, from the kid-friendly adventures of Pokémon to the adult underworld drama of Sanctuary. So whoever’s doing the laundry, there’s something for everyone.
Monday 24th August:
Going loco for local
The main piazza in Sorrento is named after Torquato Tasso, the greatest Italian poet of the late Renaissance. Tasso is best known for his 1575 masterpiece, Jerusalem Delivered. Sadly, in the same decade, Tasso developed a persecution mania and died just days before he was due to be crowned by the Pope as the ‘king of poets’.
As well as being honoured right in the heart of Sorrento, his name also appears on a very local soft drink – Tassoni. This confident, distinctive bottle has no branding, no label, no nothing. You don’t get much more local and authentic than that. Are there any opportunities to go this local where you live or work?
Friday 14th August:
Do you know what you’re dealing with?
When Good News!, an exhibition at London’s Orel Art opened, people were intrigued to discover two new artists. Yuri and Konstantin Shamanov had a long and detailed biography. Soviet army conscripts who’d gone on to work in secret space labs and as salesmen on Cherkisovski market, they listed other places they’d exhibited. So how come no-one had heard of them before? And why did their publicity photos look a bit iffy?
The mystery was solved when the brothers turned out to be Jake and Dinos Chapman, the ‘notorious and often brilliant’ Brit Art duo, in disguise. Remember, things may not always be as they seem…
Ref. http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/visual_arts/article6725166.ece
Tagged with: Art
Thursday 13th August:
How can you help customers get what they really, really want?
Trust us, says sexybachelorpad.com, you need us. It seems the busy, busy boys of NYC who’d rather work late and party hard than sort out their apartments would agree. Those who’d previously been slumming it with mismatched furniture are flocking to the website to set up a consultation for sexybachelorpad.com to transform their space.
It seems the service is particularly aimed at boys wanting to shake off their bachelor status, though. As one line goes, ‘you got her home, we’ll make sure she stays’. So, any bachelor in the area who thinks the way to a lady’s heart is through interior design might like to give them a call.
Ref. http://www.sexybachelorpad.com/index.php
Tagged with: DIY, Furniture
Wednesday 12th August:
Staying local
Many local newspapers are struggling just now but some are showing real resilience. What’s their secret?
Tindle Newspapers owns over 200 local papers and is Britain’s tenth-largest local-news publisher. It’s run by Sir Ray Tindle, an octogenarian who believes that local news should be, well, local.
When Tindle Newspapers took over the stricken West Wales Observer, Sir Ray changed its name back to The Tenby Observer. He made sure its journalists only covered things that happened in and around Tenby itself. This focus on truly local news, politics and happenings has seen it go from strength to strength.
Ref. http://www.economist.com/world/britain/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14085662
Tagged with: Authenticity, Publishing
Tuesday 11th August:
Woodn’t it be nice?
When the weather seems to turn on a sixpence, it’s good to know what to expect as soon as you wake up. WoodStation is a timber timepiece that doubles up as your own forecaster. It’ll sit on your bedside table (or mount it on the wall if you prefer) and look more or less like a piece of wood art. Wave an arm in front of its motion sensor, though, and glowing numerals and symbols let you know whether to get set for a sunny, partly cloudy, rainy, snowy or stormy day.
If the icons are a bit tame for you, you can check out the barometric pressure, indoor relative temperature and indoor relative hygrometry data and make your own predictions. And, as you’d expect, the alarm clock has all the usual hour, calendar, alarm and snooze functions.
One review says the face itself is more formica than wood, glorious, wood. But still, it’s an interesting mash-up of traditional materials and contemporary wizardry.
Ref. http://www.yankodesign.com/2008/10/09/divining-rod-technology-rediscovered-in-clock-form/