söndag 21 september 2008

Broadcast your Identity & Do good as you do well


Rob Walker, columnist at New York Times recently published this book, Buying in.
It's about how we conciously or unconciously define who we are in what we buy. I'd say we do it conciously. Today, we want to broadcast our identity as much as we want to talk about ourselves. And, of course you want to buy something in which you believe in. You also want to show the world who you are in relating yourself to a specific brand with a specific story. There are of course other ways in showing who you are. For example Mr Damien Hirst who skipped the Art Gallery and went to the auction and got 1, something billions for one of his work and 2 days later posted a checque of 10 millions of something to a Shelter in London. Talking about broadcasting your identity and doing good as you are doing well.

fredag 19 september 2008

Babies to Consumers


I gave birth to a little son two weeks ago, and with work still relatively fresh in my mind, I am already beginning to wonder about how my child will be affected by products and marketing early on. I guess these thoughts, although probably a bit premature, are better than sitting around watching Oprah all day during my maternity leave!

Today, companies are targeting children as well as young adults who still have positive childhood memories lingering. It isn't hard to find major marks on toys where we adults would not have expected them when we were children. When I was young, I wanted everything to be free from all graphics, markings and names. Our moms perhaps picked out and bought items for us, and we may not have thought that so bizarre. Does this option even exist any longer?

Today's kids are born into a world totally bombarded with messages. The statistic of how many choices we are forced to make per day is staggeringly high (and increasing by the minute). Every minute our brains take in massive amounts of information and we then make decisions- Am I interested? Is this worth another second of my time? Do I look twice? Delete? Save in short term memory? Long term memory? Because kids today are born into a much more intense world than we adults were, they are faster at making these decisions, however unaware he or she may be of this decision-making process.

Mom? Picking out something for the kids? Highly unlikely and probably unacceptable! Kids today know exactly what they want, and they don't want someone else doing their picking and choosing.

And of course, when generations grow up, smart companies know how to maximize the interest of the young adult through connection of positive childhood memories. Generation X'ers and Y'ers for instance, were targeted by Mazda through the connection to Transformers, the robot conversion toys which will soon celebrate its 25th anniversary. Mazda hoped to pick up on positive memories of this target market by tying in the toy with the car. See this link on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGA17R6sU3A



Interested in reading more about this topic? There are numerous excellent books that can be purchased from Amazon.com. Here is one recommendation:


Article by Gail Baker

måndag 15 september 2008

An Oasis of Good Communication

Oasis releases a new album, and street musicians in New York are the first to perform the songs off of it. Trained by Liam and Noel Gallagher of course.











I love this campaign. The Sjönell brothers at BBH New York engineered this thing, and it's just solid proof of their understanding for what makes people talk. I'll toss a coin into that hat! Bravo!






torsdag 11 september 2008

Awesome Red Bull Idea, Lars Berghe, Murketing, And Alignvertising

Here's a not to shabby idea by Red Bull:


They sent out people all over the world to ask bartenders to "give me something you recommend". If the bartender gave them Vodka Redbull, the bartender recieved an extraordinary tip, namely an Apple Ipod.


Do you think that these incognito bartender charity workers got talked about? You betcha! The rumor spread like wildfire, and pretty soon Vodka Redbull's where handed out as the standard respons to the question in question.


Lars Berge writes about this and other Red Bull campaigns in his column in SvD, and makes a good analysis on the concept of branding as opposed to advertising. When someone says that youngsters are getting immune to advertising messages, Lars argues that we are instead more motivated than ever to involve ourselves with different brands, just not in the traditional forced way. He's backing up his argument by referring to Rob Walker's book "Buying In", where the phenomenon is called "murketing".


Personally I think that this is a very bad term. It's not about murketing or being sneaky, it's about getting people to identify. Let's call it something else. How about... alignvertising. In alignvertising we do cool/loveable/responsible/outrageous/funny stuff that people want to be a part of and have their personalities align with.


Still, this might be a book worth reading. I'll look into it and get back to you.




tisdag 9 september 2008

When the product speaks for itself!



Read about Aesops products and found out that I really like their philosophical touch to things. As well as their design and messages.
Philosophy has a similar range of products and company culture. Check out their Charity products.
But what I like the most is the names; Cinnamon bun, Belgian wafles, The frango mint diet, Coconut frosting. All for the shower!

söndag 7 september 2008

Swedish companies investing in design grow faster


Just wanted to push a bit for the most important report from SVID for the last 24 months - "Swedish companies about design 2008". To have it in English post SVID an e-mail. Yes, companies who use design as a strategic tool tend to grow faster and have higher rate of exports.
Take a look at one of these Swedish companies, Fagerhult.