momorantings

Flext - 97% of users can't help recommending it to others. That's what it said on the side of the bus. But what does it mean? Did they actually recommend it to others? Did they do so in some helpless Tourette's manner? Is this a statistic that's been extrapolated from some concocted research question and did people act on the recommendation? In a time when potential customers are increasingly cynical about advertising messages, it seems to me that it's increasingly crucial to make those messages unambiguous. ADDENDUM: And to have a product about which you can be unambiguous.

John Grant reminds us that it's Earth Hour tonight 8pm local time and suggests that we join him in getting the blogosphere to flip to a black background, taking our lead from Google who went black screen today.

I promise to have a new post tomorrow, but in the meantime... Congratulations are in order for my soon to be former boss Maggie Boland , Arena Stage's Director of External Affairs since 2003. Maggie will be leaving Arena Stage at the end of April to join Arlington's Signature Theatre as their new Managing Director. I think many of else felt that she was more than ready to take this step in her career, and I am glad that the DC theatre scene is not going to lose her. Now she is going to go work for a " competing " theater so I might have to Tonya Harding her before she leaves, but until that time, I can be very proud of her. One of her first responsibilities on the job--attend the opening of Signature's GLORY DAYS on Broadway . What a rough way to start. Check out the article in Variety.

A combination self-help and business book, Michael Port's Beyond Booked Solid focusses on scalability issues and how to expand a small enterprise. It is filled with pragmatic tools and techniques designed to grow a business via innovation and leveraged income, but the key message is that of developing a mind-set that works on your rather than in your business. To some extent that's just a reframing of the old adage of keeping one's eye on the big picture, but it's something that can't be repeated too often. Constantly reminding yourself and your colleagues of why you're in business (and specifically what customer needs you meet by doing something better than anyone else) is crucial to evaluating everything that you do day to day. If your marketing tactic du jour, your latest product development or your inter-departmental meeting isn't centred on that, they're not worth your time and resources.

At the risk (i.e. certainty) of attracting some snarky comments, I have to admit that I sometimes feel like I'm sending out the same few ideas here - over and over again. But, then I notice another example of corporate idiocy and realise how far there is to go. Today's two examples: 1) A television advertisement breathlessly announcing the details of a business conference. It managed to register the name of the event in my head but not the contact details - there wasn't enough time. No matter, the internet is a wonderful thing. I google that name. And what do I get? Not the event site, but a couple of local listing sites that mention the event yet have no link to it. The reason? The official website - where valued customers can book tickets - turns out to have a slightly different name from that of the conference. Go figure. 2) I try to contact the local council to report a collapsed manhole cover in a nearby street. My phonecall is answered with a message telling me that,

"There are two ways to do a show. You can do it at the audience or you can do it with the audience. The best way is to do it with the audience."

As you can see, it snowed this weekend. I saw evidence of it on the news (where families were seen sledging down green hills) and briefly outside the window. However, this was not the serious weather event promised by the media meteorologists. A few weeks ago, there were winds gusting to 70 mph and some houses were damaged, but this too was not the threatened re-run of the 1987 hurricane . It seems to me that weather forecasters have strayed beyond using their training to present forecasts and have been moving towards predicting weather as event, hypeing the weather into headline news whenever the abnormal is deemed likely to occur. They've blurred the line between their expertise which consists of the technical skills and knowledge that go into creating their product/service, and interpretation of the impact of this product/service on its users. The former (objective information) is what people want and expect from meteorologists, the latter is messaging (subjective information) t

Three sentences I've heard this week. "Media is moving from a source of information to a site of action." Clay Shirky "The Internet is a collective hallucination." Jonathan Zittrain "Information processing is being dissolved into behaviour." Adam Greenfield Made me think. A lot.

Adam Greenfield started his talk yesterday by characterising his past few years of working in user experience as having been "marinated in the mass-frustration........of intelligent people." What a great phrase. If nothing else, marketing's aim is surely to reduce mass-frustration. Person by person.

So today I listened to Clay Shirky talk quite brilliantly about his ideas. I then went to another venue and discovered Adam Greenfield (another member of NYU's ITP and one week into a new job as Nokia's head of design direction) outlining ethical guidelines for ubiquitous computing. In the evening, Sir Ronald Cohen founder of Apax expounded on entreprenurialism. And those are just the highlights, so you'll understand that my brain is a little fried.

The reporting of Bebo's acquisition by AOL revealed that the name wasn't initially an acronym for "blog early blog often" after all. That was a belated bit of PR spin. The original and much smarter reason was that it was a meaningless word to which users could append meaning and qualities. It's an approach which emphasises the reality that you can't dictate brand values to your users. But it's not an excuse for inaction. In fact, it means you have to work harder. It requires an active passivity . It only works if you show that you actually stand for something.

Marketing is the price you pay for creating mediocre products. That's a phrase that was apparently repeated at a panel at SXSW. It went down well, but it's so wrong. Without knowing the context, I can only observe that it sounds like yet another example of the tendency (prevalent in geekdom and beyond) to believe that marketing and advertising/promotion are synonomous and that great products sell themselves. They're not and they probably won't. If you create mediocre products, you probably will have a high price to pay but it won't be an increased marketing spend - indeed you're already behind the eight-ball in that respect because marketing starts with deciding what products/services you can develop to best meet customer needs in a certain area. If this leads to mediocrity then your marketing effort is wrong-headed already and frankly there's not much point paying a price in promotional expenditure. If you create great products, you're in much better sh

While I was a bit sceptical about some of its assertions and assumptions as regards the causes of "The Rise and Fall of the Ad Man", the recent BBC3 documentary of that name (which UK readers, at least, can view here ) has certainly produced a lot of discussion online. Drawing some parallels between the allegedly changing media landscape of the late 80s and today Iain Tait has mused upon the skills needed for the creative organsiation of the future. Coincidentally and serendipitously, Mark McGuinness has produced a great overview of the specialist/generalist argument which lies at the heart of the matter. My inclination is towards the generalist, as long as the aim is to have depth as well as breadth of expertise. Generalism today is not about being a jack of all trades and master of none, it's about diversity - all the more so in our fast-changing times. Crucial also is the ability to see the overview - strategic and analytical thinking are skills through which special

Americans for the Arts invites you to submit a proposal for the National Arts Marketing Project Conference in Houston, November 10-12, 2008. Priming the Pump: Fueling Integrated Arts Marketing, Fundraising, and Sponsorships to Optimize Revenue will focus on best practices in marketing and audience development in the arts. New This Year! For 2008, the NAMP Conference is about fundraising too! In addition to the marketing track, there is now a fundraising track, and a track focusing on where the two areas interact. We encourage you to propose sessions in marketing, fundraising, or the intersection of both. Topics of interest include: -Branding -Social networking -Sponsorships -Young philanthropists -Dynamic copywriting -Loyalty programs And more! You can share your experience in any format-choose from three types of sessions. Applications for conference sessions, exemplary practices presentations, and roundtable discussions will be accepted. Americans for the Arts welcomes proposals from

"I know it will take me months to master maybe 40% of its functionality, so why would I put myself through that?" A typical and unsurprising comment from some technology focus group research that I saw recently. But what's the solution? Intuitive interfaces for sure. But let's not forget what intuition is - it's defined as immediate cognition. The trouble is cognitive biases mean that cognition (and thus, I assume, intuition) can differ greatly between individuals. Along with others , I've recently been testing the new xda Orbit 2 from O2. It's elegant, has great audio quality and made me want to use it, but that's where my problems started. I've finally got around to locating a helpful and extensive online pdf instruction manual (sadly not a website). But the crucial "out of the box" experience was, for me, not what it should have been and I understand that some more technically-astute users have also been "unintuitive" - in o

To reposition themselves from dusty department store to modern retail destination, Selfridges has often hosted art exhibitions. In their Oxford Street basement, you can currently find an exactitudes show featuring Ari Versluis's photographic documentation of group identities. This time they've extended the idea into their merchandising. That's joined-up marketing.

I've followed xkcd.com for its cartoons, but recently came across this brilliantly subversive idea on their blog . What they've done is incorporate software that blocks your comment if it repeats what somebody else has said. In their words, be original or you can't belong because you're just adding noise. Something all marketers should live by.

The merits of consistency in marketing/advertising tone have been debated ad nauseam and, for the record, I'm fairly ambivalent because I think it's the viewer/reader who ultimately deciphers the tone of your message and does so on a personal, individual basis. You can be different things to different customers. The big problems only really arise when you are contradictory and that is why this effort from EDF Energy caught my eye at a friend's house. As you see above, there's a big splash about being green on the envelope and they urge you to recycle it. Since that recycling involves opening the envelope in a slightly different way, it's a pity they give that instruction on the back and run the risk of the envelope being opened before the message is read. But that's quibbling isn't it?. But, then so is pointing out that each of these envelopes still contains one of these. Of course, this ensures they receive their payment or meter reading slip and that'

So, it's criticise advertising week apparently. Here's a visually confusing billboard that's about ethical investment funds and not coffee. But the thing that caught my eye (and for which you'll have to click on the image) is the list of attributes on the right hand side. Claims two and three both refer to "our award-winning" investment team and not much else. Repetition aids recollection, but if you do it too obviously, you run the risk of appearing either patronising or having not enough to say. If you've got my precious attention, tell me something new.

I've never flown Singapore Airlines but their TV spot this weekend completely amazed me. I know they and their Australian tour partners wanted the viewer to fly with them but their voiceover justifications were as follows. They use new planes - cue picture of plane but no technical specifications. They offer "thousands of entertainment options" - but give no details. They provide "great service and comfort" - again no evidence. USP stands for unique selling proposition. If you're buying expensive advertising, I think it helps if you've got something unique to say. Addendum: If anybody can find the ad online, I'd love to have the link because I failed in my search and it would help people judge.