Jonathan Moore
I am a designer who lives in code, entrepreneur, and an idea incubator driven to make our world a better place.
I am a designer who lives in code, entrepreneur, and an idea incubator driven to make our world a better place.
As I sit in the passenger seat of my car today (wife is driving), I am utterly distracted by the countless political yard signs plastered across my city. But what boggles me most, is the candidates absolute failure of differentiation. Every single candidate does the exact same thing and expects to be noticed, understood, and voted for. How stupid is that?
From Dale Partridge article on how to be an orange dot in a sea of color.
Excellent case study from Think Vitamin on the benefits video for online conversion and the importance of metrics and testing.
The takeaway here is that potential customers want a quick summary of the product, not an actual demo. The bigger takeaway here though is this: you have to be testing your site to see what works and what doesn’t. Going on a gut feeling won’t work. In fact, this very method that worked better for us may not work for you. You won’t know until you test.
“As digital marketers seek to increase profits, they almost always make the same mistake. They continue to add more clutter, messaging and offers, because, hey, it’s free. […] Once you overload the user, you train them not to pay attention. More clutter isn’t free. In fact, more clutter is a permanent shift, a desensitization to all the information, not just the last bit.”
Seth Godin - The Inevitable Decline Due to Clutter
Adding more messages, ads, promotions, and channels is never better. The trick is to learn restraint and practice the art of focusing your efforts.
VaynerMedia put together this case study from their geolocation marketing campaign for the New Jersey Nets using Gowalla. This case study proves that Gowalla can move consumers.
Read the full post about the campaign on VaynerMedia.
Via Jay Robinson
55 stylish kids surprise the public at Union Square in San Francisco with a hip hop dance battle that showcases the latest H&M Kids fashion.
Via Dave Curry
StruckAxiom just launched a new campaign, Flame It, for DreamWorks new movie “How To Train Your Dragon” that lets users unleash a firestorm of attacks on their friends Facebook page or any website.
No surprises here on digital ad spending, but seeing visually in context with other media types puts things in perspective. My guess is a huge chunk of the money has also shifted away from ad spending all together, and is being replaced by marketing campaigns to connect with real customers (a.k.a. social).
Via Bud Caddell
“Cognitive fluency is simply a measure of how easy it is to think about something, and it turns out that people prefer things that are easy to think about to those that are hard. […] Fluency is implicated in decisions about everything from the products we buy to the people we find attractive to the candidates we vote for - in short, in any situation where we weigh information”
Although some of the results of cognitive fluency studies are somewhat as predicted, the studies have also produced interesting findings around the disfluency of a product, message, concept or design. Often by creating an element of disfluency in marketing a product, potential customers are more likely to view the product as less familiar (a positive in many instances) and far more innovative.
Read the full article discussing the research findings of cognitive fluency (and disfluency)—Easy = True | The Boston Globe.
“Rather than spending another misguided year trying to “engineer” viral campaigns that will propagate themselves, regardless of consumer intentions, it’s time to refocus our marketing efforts to align with the way that people actually behave.”
Ivan Askwith (@ivanovitch), Big Spaceship
“Brands must understand that people have their own personal brands and are not willing to associate with anything lame.”
“You’ll see fewer brands creating a site for one campaign and then throwing it away. Certainly we won’t do that at Unilever any more.”
Cheryl Calverley, Unilever UK’s senior global manager for Axe Skin
Both Coke-Cola and Unilever reveled that they are moving away from the concept of creating one-off campaign sites for every new product and initiative. This will be a drastic shift from the current site throw away model. Many interactive studios will resist and fight this change, but I honestly see this as an opportunity for innovation, producing some really exiting campaigns. 2010 will prove to be interesting.
William Poundstone, author of Priceless: The Myth of Fair Value (and How to Take Advantage of It) explains the techniques and tricks that restaurant menu designers use to draw people to the dishes with higher profit margins (stars) and downplay the popular but unprofitable items (plowhorses).
1. The Upper Right-Hand Corner
That’s the prime spot where diners’ eyes automatically go first. Balthazar uses it to highlight a tasteful, expensive pile of seafood. Generally, pictures of food are powerful motivators but also menu taboos—mostly because they’re used extensively in lowbrow chains like Chili’s and Applebee’s. This illustration “is as far as a restaurant of this caliber can go, and it’s used to draw attention to two of the most expensive orders,” Poundstone says.
Read the full article as he points out the remaining design & marketing techniques of menu design.
![This is a great idea. ExpenseASteak.com is site for the steakhouse Maloney & Porcelli that spits out fake receipts in the exact amount of your bill for things like taxis and gluesticks. [Via AdAge & heyitsnoah]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kr3j2fbr3y1qz6ljpo1_500.png)
This is a great idea. ExpenseASteak.com is site for the steakhouse Maloney & Porcelli that spits out fake receipts in the exact amount of your bill for things like taxis and gluesticks. [Via AdAge & heyitsnoah]
Stop marketing and be more engaged in the consumer conversation.
“Rather than suffer through a slow economy, creative professionals should seize the opportunity to market themselves! A recession just slows everything down. Clients act more slowly, fewer projects enter the pipeline, and we are left with a little extra time. Rather than fill this time with insecurity, we should use it to differentiate ourselves and build our own personal brands as more actionable, affordable, and innovative. Here are a few tips to consider in these uncomfortable yet opportune times…” Continue reading at Behance Magazine
