The Design Symphony Experience

The Best Creative Money Can't Buy

The interesting thing about the the video from will.i.am in my recent post is that it was created without any input, direction, or request from the Obama campaign.

As will.i.am tells it:

"I was sitting in my recording studio watching the debates...
Torn between the candidates...I was never really big on politics...
and actually I’m still not big on politics...

And then came New Hampshire... And i was captivated... Inspired...

I began making this song...
I came up with the idea to turn his speech into a song...
I wanted the inspiration that was bubbling inside me to take over...

so I called my friends...
and they called their friends...
in a matter of 2 days...
We made the song and video...

Usually this process would take months...
a bunch of record company people figuring out strategies and release dates...
interviews...
all that stuff...
but this time i took it in my own hands...
so i called my friends sarah pantera, mike jurkovac, fred goldring, and jesse dylan to help make it happen...
and they called their friends..
and we did it together in 48 hours...
and instead of putting it in the hands of profit we put it in the hands of inspiration...

You know you're delivering an impressive brand experience when your fans start creating their own ways to refer more business to you and promote your goals/dream/agenda.

After I sent out the video, my good friend and work colleague Berit sent me the following images created by Shepard Fairey - a well known artists of "Obey Giant" fame who specializes in the prolific stickering and flyposting of propaganda-style images.

Not only are these beautiful posters with powerful imagery, but once again, they were created by a "fan" who wanted to lend his own creativity to the cause. As he tells it:

"I first became interested in him [Obama] in 2004, after his speech at the Democratic convention and have been impressed with him ever since. I think I'm a pretty good judge of character and my feeling about Barack is he stuck his neck out by being against the war, he always seems to speak his mind whether it's the popular position or not and he just seems like he follows what he believes in, which impresses me. So I decided I'd support him and put up my own money to do so. Some people asked me why I don't wait until he's got the Democratic nomination, but if you want a candidate to win, why not try your best to ensure he actually gets the nomination? "

So here's the ultimate question: How many of your customers, supporters, donors, etc. would put their own time and money into creating amazingly creative campaigns to promote your cause?

If you struggle to answer that question, maybe you should start by thinking about how much you inspire them? Just a thought...

P.S. While the posters are sold out and there are no plans to print more, you can download a B/W version from Obey Giant here.

Dark Day for Design - London Edition!

The London 2012 Olympic Committee unveiled the official logo of the games today. It comes in a variety of colors including pink, blue, green, and orange.

Prime Minister Tony Blair said:

"When people see the new brand, we want them to be inspired to make a positive change in their life."

Organizing Committee Chairman Seb Coe said:

"It's not a logo, it's a brand that will take us forward for the next five years."

The cost of this logo? £400,000

Wow...

I work with companies and organizations to design logos and brand identities every day and I'm sorry, but this new logo just doesn't work.

* It's busy.
* It's confusing.
* It's cluttered.
* The "2012" numerals are hard to identify.
* The color combinations reflect some sort of Skittles binge-eating.

Not good.

With all due respect to Mr. Blair and Mr. Coe, I don't think it inspires "positive change" nor do I feel it is a brand that can take 2012 London forward.

The worst thing of all - the excuse that it's "all about the young people."

International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge said:

"This is a truly innovative brand logo that graphically captures the essence of the London 2012 Olympic Games - namely to inspire young people around the world through sport and the Olympic values."

Okay - let's be clear - young people around the world appreciate quality design and imagery more than any other generation living. And maybe more than any other generation in history. Just saying "it inspires young people" won't make it happen.

P.S. According to the BBC, the Committee plans to create a different logo for grassroots projects backing the Games.

Ouch.

Message to London 2012: If you're trying to build a brand from scratch - just create one logo folks. Don't complicate issues more than they already are with this original design.

The Seth Godin Experience

Last month I had the chance to meet the infamous Seth Godin - business writer, presenter, and marketer extraordinaire when he came to the University of Maryland business school.

Seth's writing is fantastic and his presenting lived up to his written word reputation. Here's my mindmap of notes from the meeting:

Download 3.4mb Mindmap PDF

The #1 takeaway for me from Seth's presentation?

Don't be afraid to risk.

And then risk some more.

Seth told a great story about one of his son's bathtub toys and a red circle that perfectly illustrates the point. Give me a call (two-zero-two -- 834-0111) or send me an email and I'd be happy to tell you the whole story (it's too long for a blog post).

Feel the JC Penney's Love

Last month I posted about JC Penney's new "Every Day Matters" campaign and promised some updated photos. Here they are - fresh from the JC Penney's homepage. The campaign theme is presented in a series of pages - each one encouraging you to make the most of every day.

No Thinking Allowed

"I almost rented that - but I didn't want to have to think"

On Friday I overheard a woman at Blockbuster say this in reference to the movie An Inconvenient Truth.

The interesting thing? Making you think is exactly what that movie was all about - and even though this woman never saw the movie, she heard enough about its main goal (to make you think) that she self-selected out.

You marketing is working well when people know about your main purpose/message without ever experiencing your product. Congrats to everyone involved in the successful marketing of this movie.

P.S. If you haven't seen An Inconvenient Truth - go rent it - tonight. Seriously. And then "think" of just one thing you can do to help the environment and start "doing" it tomorrow morning. It is going to take the efforts of the people - not the efforts of governments or corporations - to save our planet and it starts with thinking followed by doing.

Who Loves JC Penney?

"Our new campaign will show that we are not just looking to sell merchandise; we are looking to sell an experience."

Mike Boylson, Penney's chief marketing officer, notes that "by focusing on life's little moments, we are able to show our customers how we can enhance their everyday lives, helping them make each day richer and more inspiring."

JC Penney's new "Every Day Matters" ad campaign shows they are drinking Kevin Robert's Lovemark Kool-Aid and attempting to "cultivate deeper, more emotional and enduring" relationships with their customers.

Customer Experience is hot, but do large corporations have the courage to make it a priority? Will they be able to follow through at all touchpoints of customer interaction? Only time will tell...

P.S. Sorry for the blurry photo - the campaign doesn't go live until the end of the month and when it does, I'll update with a better image.

Three Traytop Laptops

When it comes to advertising, sometimes less is more.

On my USAir flight yesterday I was surprised when I lowered my tray table to find this:

That's pretty creative I thought.

The people on either side of me (yes, I was lucky enough at 6'2" to get the coveted "middle seat") seemed to think it was interesting too as I caught the furtive glances at my tray table.

When the passengers next to me lowered their tray tables and saw ads as well, I must admit it seemed a bit less creative.

To Panasonic's credit, the three ads were different - which was a plus.

What would have been better is to place one ad per row - with text that talked about letting the other people in the row see the ad too. This approach would encourage interaction (people on planes talk to each other anyway) and at the very least leave people curious. Placing an ad on every tray (a glance around the rest of the plane saw the same ads repeated on every tray table) makes it less unique, less creative, and less likely to get my attention.

They say it takes seven impressions to make an impact. That may be true - but don't do all seven at once okay?

The Blockbuster Experience

Blockbuster Video advertisements are promoting "Total Access." According to the ads and the company's website, if you have an online delivery membership you can return your movies by mail in the nifty envelope they provide or if you don't want to wait for the Postal Service to deliver your next movie, you can take the DVD to your local store and exchange it for a new movie instantly.

With Thanksgiving Holiday weekend upon us and a desire for movies, today I exercised the "drop it off at the store" option for the first time.

When checking out, I had the chance to be waited on by the manager of the store and she was delightful. I had one question for her: Now that I've turned in my movie and received another one immediately, does my online list wait until the newly received movie ("exchanged movie") is returned or do they just mail out the next movie on my list immediately?

"I've heard conflicting answers to that," the manager told me.

That's scary I thought... especially since you're the manager and the company is in the middle of what must be a multi-million dollar ad campaign to roll out this new service!

The manager explained that she had received conflicting reports from upper management on this question - some saying the next online delivery movie would go out immediately - others saying that it wouldn't happen until I returned the "exchanged movie" back to the store.

She did ask me to let her know (if I didn't mind) how it worked out for me personally so that she would have the answer when future customers asked.

If your own management team doesn't know how your newest program offering works, you have a BIG problem.

A great amount of time and money is spent on developing a program, creating the marketing materials, and building the IT infrastructure to handle a major change in logistics like this. But Blockbuster forgot to explain it to their own people. Oops.

I will say that her request for my input made me feel like we were "in it together" and I plan to let her know what happens when I received my next movie.

This results in an interesting twist to what could have been a bad customer experience... By requesting my help, the manager sympathized with my confusion about the program and set up a dynamic whereby I would find the solution and help her by sharing it. Kudos to the manager for taking this approach instead of just saying, "I don't know" or expressing anger at the lack of information management was providing about the program.

Somewhere at Blockbuster, they know what is going to happen to the movie I returned - now only if the manager and I had the same knowledge...