Kaleidoscope - Innovation-Driven Product Development

Thursday, August 02, 2007

Tell Me A New Story

Last weekend I made a trip to Target for a new toothbrush. In my experience, all toothbrushes perform the same function, so I tend to look for something that gives me a little extra joy in having one. Usually, I spend a few minutes looking at my options and choose one that grabs my attention with an unusual detail or color.

Each toothbrush told me a story: "Hey, choose me! I'm ergonomic! Hey, choose me, I come in a cool color! I'm the best at getting your teeth clean, check out my bristles!" I realized that each product was telling me the exact same message about its performance. Since none stood out from the rest, it was impossible for me to decide.

As my wife grew impatient, she finally asked, "Why don't you just pick the ugliest one you can find?" I agreed and quickly found a brush with three-color, cross-action bristles, metallic plastic handle, and hot pink overmolds. It works just fine and I like having it.

Lots of product categories are just like these toothbrushes. When we all try to sell our product around the same benefits, it confuses consumers and limits our success. Instead of fighting fire with fire, why not tell a different story that connects with another part of a consumer's personality? For example, I would have bought a toothbrush that claimed to have minimal environmental impact. By speaking to different parts of a consumer's personality, products can cut through the clutter and attract people who will agree with your message.

Labels: marketing

Saturday, July 28, 2007

Back from YPulse Mashup

Demetrius and I spent a few days in San Francisco last week attending the 2007 YPulse Mashup. In the words of YPulse founder and organizer Anatasia Goodstein:
The 2007 Mashup is produced by Ypulse, the leading independent blog for youth and teen media and marketing professionals and Modern Media, which builds, produces and markets highly-engaging business events for leading media brands and media entrepreneurs.

We had a great time, and learned a lot. The two-day event was divided up into a variety of lectures, panels, and roundtable discussions, all centered on how teens are talking and living online. We don't do a lot of interactive work, but we do work on tons of products for Gen Y consumers, and we figure that we need to have a detailed understanding of their world- and online is definitely a huge part of that.

One of the most interesting pieces was the teen entrepreneurs panel, featuring half a dozen teenagers that founded companies like myYearbook, Emo Girl Talk, and Scriptovia. They offered As I suspected, the teen panelists all said that they use email exclusively for business communication, and use MySpace, Facebook, or texting for personal communication. You can read more details on that at the Yahoo recap of the panel.

Other interesting pieces of the conference included Melanie Strong, US brand manager for Nike iD discussing their online strategy and Nike iD's role within the company's portfolio as a whole; an "Old School to New School" panel featuring representatives from various old-school print empires like Harper Collins and Hearst talking about their transition to online presences; and the keynote the discussion on "convergence culture." It's way too much to summarize here, but if you subscribe to the YPulse podcast, I'm sure there will be some clips up shortly.

Thanks for Anastasia at YPulse for putting together an amazing conference, as well as all the sponsors, panelists, and attendees that made it happen. We hope to be back next year!

Labels: branding, links, marketing

Friday, July 27, 2007

Ted: my kind of airline

I flew through Chicago today on my way home to Cincinnati, and got my first taste of Ted, United's newish spinoff. The verdict? It's a bold, captivating start down the path towards recreating the air travel experience.

The branding at the terminal was surprisingly fresh and engaging. I'd seen some of their print and online ads, but hadn't ever actually flown on the airline. First of all, the name "Ted" was a stroke of genius. Like BP's new branding, it puts a more human, accessible, and friendly face on the airline (something the industry as a whole is in dire need of), while still subtlely recalling the United name. Well done. It's all reinforced with nice environmental graphics that say things like "Ted's the name, smiles the game" and "Chicago is Ted's kind of town." The typography is just Helvetica 85 in white over solid yellow backgrounds, but I think that works, given the brand's down-to-earth, approachable, and straightforward character.

A few free-standing signs reminded everybody that "Ted is part of United." At first I thought this was too much, too obvious, but after thinking about it further, I realized that it's a great solution. They need United for the credibility that brand brings to the table, and they need to tie Ted to United somehow. Like the environmental graphics, these signs that simply state the facts are a great way to reinforce the character of the brand: why make it more complex than it needs to be? That kind of transparency is a welcome change of pace.

I'm excited to see some of these huge, old-school companies like BP and United begin to embrace more informal, fun, and accessible branding. The next generation of consumers responds best to this kind of communication. They're tired of stilted, phony, branding and marcom. They're engaged by brands that treat them as peers, with no hype, overstatement, or overt sales pitch. Ted is the beginning of an airline that fits into their world.

Labels: branding, marketing

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Juan Faura: Hispanic Marketing Grows Up

Hispanic Marketing Grows Up - Juan Faura
I picked this one up blind off the shelves, and it turned out to be absolutely fantastic. The author is the principal of noted Latino marketing agency Cultura and a former director at Cheskin. Juan's credentials are impeccable, and the book is everything you would expect from someone with his impressive background. First of all, I love the conversational, personal, yet authoritative tone. It's a welcome departure from the stuffy, phony writing I oftentimes associate with business books. It's much more like reading a blog or interview transcript.

Second, the book is absolutely crammed with insights, despite being relatively short. It's the product of hundreds of interviews and years of experience, all distilled into easily digestible but powerful nuggets. There are about a dozen composite profiles of different Latino consumers, chapters on acculturation, media, and other topics, but what really hit home for me were the 30 "perceptions and realities" about the Latino market, in which he lists typical assumptions we make about the Latino market and his take on them.

For example, the Latino market is broadly divided into people that speak primarily English, primarily Spanish, and those who are bilingual. The conventional wisdom is that primarily Spanish-speaking people prefer to consume Spanish media, but it turns out that isn't necessarily the case for a variety of reasons- social, political, cultural, and economic. Faura lists 29 more insights like this, all concise, impactful and very readable.

What I like is that he doesn't tell us that everything we thought we knew is wrong, that all the conventions of Latino marketing are wrong. Instead, he says they're basically correct, but that marketers need to understand their nuances and details in order to effectively understand the audience. It's a nice change of pace from the blowhards and pundits that crowd the business book market, and the book is worth reading for anybody in product development.

Labels: books, marketing

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Salesforce.com's Ticker Symbol as Branding

One of the most clever, fun, and free pieces of branding comes courtesy of Salesforce.com, makers of leading customer relationship management (CRM) software. If you're like me, and aren't an expert on CRM, check out this demo of their app suite for some background on their offerings. It's a little stuffy, but appropriate for the space they're playing in.

In a brilliant move, Salesforce.com took "CRM" as their stock symbol, instantly positioning themselves as quite literally synonymous with CRM itself. What I like about this is that the Salesforce.com team looked at something as mundane and unsexy as their ticker symbol as an opportunity to say something about the brand, to make a positive impression on the viewer. This kind of attention to detail tells you something about the people behind the stock symbol: they care, and they want you to know it. And what's more important to potential customers than seeing passion?

A brand is much more than just a logo, a tagline, or a color palette. It's the sum total of the consumer's reaction to every touchpoint surrounding your product, service, or idea. Think about what aspects of your organization can become jewels of branding like this. Go beyond the obvious, and show your passion.