On corporate transparancy

Recently, I've been reading about a lot of havoc and drama that has been created over a video that Draftfcb shared that eventually made its' way over to George Parker (love him or hate him, he's totally transparent and isn't afraid to share his opinion)over at AdScam.

It got me to thinking about an article I read a while back on how more corporations need to be more transparent. Bottom line, I believe corporations need to not only be transparent, but they need to be brutally honest. The audiences we're pushing this marketing and PR content to (it all comes back to content doesn't it? ) has a pretty good nose for bullshit.

So when I read the threads and responses from leadership weaving a web of lies and twisting the facts, it's more than a little troublesome. Being in the ad and marketing business, I understand the need to spin a message, but I also see that when someone already has the information, it only makes things infinitely worse when you get called out by your own employees for trying to cover it.

Maybe it's time for more companies to start being a bit more transparent.

Case in point for Draft... if they'd just leave this video issue alone, or take the lump from George's critique of it - the discomfort would eventually pass. Whether the blog was supposed to have the video or not, it was clearly a PR produced video intended for broad distribution eventually anyway. ... It's out there, some people aren't going to like it. Deal with it.

On Yahoo's: Shine

I've been meaning to review Yahoo's new portal for women, Shine, for some time now. After spending about 15 minutes a day on it for the past two weeks, I think I'm ready to pass judgment.



Here's the rundown:

Shine is in essence Yahoo's first target of a specific audience as opposed to its usual topical approach (Sports, News and Entertainment), but operates under the same principles.

What you get with Shine is an aggregation mash up of original blogs, user generated content and content from major publishing partners including Conde Nast, Hearst, and Time.

Yahoo's press release says:

The idea is to provide women between the ages of 25 and 54 with information "most relevant to their daily lives.

So, how well is the mash up executed?

Average at best. This is yet another attempt by marketers to tell women who they are as opposed to allowing them to tell the brand who they are.

While I like the cleanliness of the design, the massive font is distracting and looks unprofessional. Navigation, sucks it, big time. When you click on a content channel like, say Love and Sex, a secondary navigation bar opens with Related Topics. The thing is when you click on one of them in any channel you are taken to a list of posts in that topic back on the front page design and the topic navigation goes away. Changing the design colors and taking users off channel is a big no no for me and most designers who want their users to actually be able to find their way around. This seems typical for Yahoo though.

Content is dull. Many of the topics and bloggers write in an incredibly sophomoric style and focus solely on gossip, avoiding being overweight and the proper way to leave your husband if he's cheating. Sigh... I realize that I'm not a woman, but they have to be interested in more than Hollywood, affairs and soap operas.

Don't get me wrong, I like my fair share of "lifestyle" and "fluff" content every once in a while, but Shine isn't doing anything new here. It's just boxing it different and front paging some really terrible advice from its users.

Granted, I'm not in the demographic, but if this is who real women are, I'm glad my fiance isn't one of them.

Go back to the drawing board Yahoo! Retool this beast, get away from dedicating prime real estate to the perfect pair of jeans, the next chick flick and get a little substance. Either that or go with a new masthead that says Yahoo:360 - Desperate Housewives Edition. This just doesn't show any innovation. It has potential but needs a soul.

On Automotive Spy Photos

Recently, I had my year anniversary at Campbell-Ewald. And for the last year, the majority of my work has been on the Chevrolet account.

Now, many people either see the Chevy account as the kiss of death, or see it as the way to make your career. I'm probably somewhere in the middle. On the plus side you get to work on an automotive account, which for a car geek like me is absolute heaven. And, on the negative side, you get to work on an automotive account, which is stressful, difficult and puts you under constant scrutiny. I enjoy the stress of working on Chevy. I believe it forced me to be a decent marketer as fast as humanly possible. And it strengthened my journalistic, research and web skills ten fold.

I now scour RSS feeds more often than I did when I was an investigative reporter, and am constantly tapping industry sources for other info. I now go directly to the consumer to figure out my audience and think we're producing stronger stories and advertising as a result.

But what I haven't figured out yet is to cater to the spy crowd. How do I leverage the Jalopniks and the AutoBlogs of the world? I know I get excited about spy photos... how do I capture that sort of enthusiasm for Chevy vehicles. That would be the theoretical golden ticket.

The audience is a powerful one... and they can be harnessed, but the big question is, how do I get around the legal ramifications of showing pre-production vehicles masked off without upsetting the balance.

Some cool wallpaper

I don't often post about good design nearly enough anymore. However, today, I was cruising through Smashing Magazine and was taken by this post on using desktop images to serve up calendars. It got me to thinking about how some members of an advertising group are preparing to have people skin calendar software to portray their message. Wouldn't a desktop wallpaper be just as useful?



I tend to think if someone is interested enough in your calendar, and you want to use it on a desktop application, why wouldn't you just make it a wallpaper instead of something that needs to integrate with the software.

Thoughts?

On Digital Magazine Design

I was cruising LinkedIn this morning when one of their Question and Answer topics caught my eye. There was a woman in India looking for advice on how to promote a digital newsletter.

Having just a little experience doing digital publications for several Chevy vehicles, I offered up my recommendations for setting up a method to virally promote the publication.

Then I got a look at it.

Her magazine, Architectural Evangelist needs a pretty big overhaul in my opinion.

It seems clear that the publication was designed solely in flash. Doesn't appear that they're using any of the big magazine, magalog programs.

I'm fine with having to click through to read the type closely... but the font is barely readable even in the sub head sections.

Good design for newsletters and magazines online must be taken into account... otherwise, there's no point in producing them.

Love the tabs on the AE newsletter and I like the interactive graphs, but this needs a serious overhaul from a useability standpoint. If you were the quality assurance engineer on this project, what would you flag first?

On Sleep Deprivation and Marketing

I've said it many times before, and I'm saying it again. I'm exhausted. Sleep struggles seem to have decided to rear their ugly heads in my world again and to be honest, it's really messing me up. My wife to be (we're inside three months people, scary!) kept shouting at me last night for snoring. Every time I was just asleep, I apparently was snoring and kept her awake. I finally forced myself to be awake until she fell asleep, then couldn't get back to the state I had been in that caused my snoring in the first place. It wasn't a good situation.



I got up, played a little God of War and then began frantically wireframing a Web site for my friend Melanie. I've been designing something for her for a long time, but hadn't put any of the final touches on anything for a while now. I need to pass those initial plans along to her.

So all this lack of sleep has begged me to ask the question - Why can't I seem to want to use or purchase any sleep aids? Part of the problem, admittedly, is that I refuse to consult a physician on my little sleep problem. So, why then, am I hesitant to take over the counter solutions?

It got me to wondering how marketers could better position OTC sleep aids.

So, I started clicking, especially on LexisNexus (Thanks GR Press!) and found out that apparently, more Americans aren't actually insomniacs - marketers are just really great at their jobs.

The 60 percent increase in the use of sleeping pills between 2000 and 2005 is due to marketing rather than an increase in insomnia. This trend became particularly noticeable when a luminous green moth floated onto U.S. television screens in April 2005 and quickly became a well-known emblem of Lunesta, the prescription sleeping tablet.

For every 10 percent increase in advertising for a given type of medicine, prescription sales for the category rise 1 percent, according to a 2003 study by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation of Menlo Park, Calif. In 2002, every extra dollar drug companies spent on ads pushed up revenue by $4.20, the research found.

I just can't tie advertising/sales figures to OTC. I'm looking into it though. I know why I don't want prescription drugs - as it requires a trip to the doctor and I think the ads are BS. I just want to find some hard data for the OTC.

On Hulu

News Corp. and NBC Universal launched on Hulu today.

The goal of Hulu is to attract marketers by offering a richer experience than Google's answer to the online video craze (maybe you've heard of it?) YouTube.

Supposedly a lot of marketers are very interested in the program. Marketers already working with Hulu for beta testing -- which allowed users from media executives to journalists try out the site -- included Cisco Systems, Intel Corp., Unilever, General Motors, Nissan and Toyota.

It will be interesting to see how many other companies jump on the streaming media bandwagon. Limited commercial interruptions within streaming media can be quite obtrusive. Personally, I go online to avoid advertising. I go out of my way to block it (thanks AdBlock Plus!) and want my shows uninterrupted. That's why I was incredibly upset to hear that NBC and others were abandoning the iTunes route.

I'll blog a lot more on this topic as I surf Hulu and get my bearings. I can't believe I wasn't asked to be a beta tester!

On Street Art in Marketing

Thanks to a recent work meeting, I've had to pay a bit more attention to tattooing and street art.

So needless to say, I was thrilled when I came across this fantastic little feature on PingMag.

It's an interview with Excusado Printsystem, a Columbian art collective geared at making art inventions in Bogata. It got me thinking about the recent craze on using street art in advertising. Pepsi Co.'s recent launch of the Green Label Art, for its Mountain Dew drink.

What I love about that campaign is what you never see in the ads, the partnership with the artists. These artists, who might never reach the audience that Mountain Dew can provide are getting a chance to have their work seen (whether you think the artist is "selling out" or not is irrelevant to me - artists and designers have to eat too!).

There seems to be a resurgence in allowing outsiders to have a crack at logos, designs and campaigns, and I like the spirit behind it. But it needs to be done very, very carefully. There's a cred that goes with graffiti and tattooing. And if you're going to allow people who claim they're "artists" a shot at shaping your brand, you'd better be damn sure they're legit and they're not going to blow it.

Today's appreciators of "urban" and "street" (whatever you want to call it) culture have a finely tuned bull shit detector.

Mountain Dew has always been branded pretty well in my opinion. They latched onto the X-Games before the X-Games were cool and use their sponsorship bucks very well. Nice to see they worked with some legit artists here as well.

At any rate, check out all of the above. Any thoughts on use of "Street Art" in a campaign?

On staying relevant in a "Free" economy

This week's Advertising Age features an interesting interview with Chris Anderson, who is probably best known for his work with Wired, but is also known for his book The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More.

I was particularly drawn to some of Anderson's classifications of different kinds of free. Here's an excerpt from the interview:

When you think about it, there really are three kinds of free. There's the free we've known forever, which is the King Gillette razor-and-blade model, which is a form of cross-subsidy. A spin-off of that model is the media model, where the product is free because it's subsidized by the advertiser. That's called a three-party market -- the publisher, the advertiser and the consumer who gets everything for free.

The second kind of free is this weird kind of the free that's never existed before, simply because cost goes to nothing. Moore's Law said processing would get cheaper every year, but there are corollaries for bandwidth and storage. As the price gets closer and closer to zero, you can eventually just treat it as free.

Hotmail started with a tiny amount of storage for free and then you had to pay for the rest. By 2000 to 2002, you were getting more. Then Gmail said, "We're going to give away one gigabyte for free," and revolutionized the market. Yahoo said, "We'll give them infinite storage. We'll use that to reinforce people's connection with Yahoo and make the money somewhere else, maybe banner ads on Yahoo News, maybe just the information you get from people's user behavior that allows you to charge more for ads."

The third model of free is the gift economy. This is what used to be called freaky, Berkeley, hippy-commune stuff and now is the basis for Wikipedia, the blogosphere, Craigslist. There is a real economy out there that is motivated by nonmonentary consideration such as reputation, attention, expression -- all the social incentives that are turning out to be incredibly effective in getting people to do things for free. Before we didn't have a platform on which they could work.

Interestingly enough, Wired is also free to the first 10,000 on an e-mail list and is dedicated to how the future is "free" as well.

The Long Tail is something that's consistently brought up in presentations to our digital clients at work. One of our EVPs of Planning recently blogged about how he believes Barak Obama to be the first successful "Long Tail Candidate," by hitting on a massive niche area of campaign donors. This targeting has allowed Obama to continue to flourish while other candidates war chests have become a bit tapped out.

All interesting discussions really, and it presents a big challenge for marketers and traditional ad people alike. How can we really gain traction when more and more people want things for free? In my opinion, a lot of it comes back to content. People are willing to pay for something if they believe it to be a quality product. Just look at Radiohead and the success it had with allowing its fans to purchase "In Rainbows" digitally for any price they chose. It was an interesting exercise, and while it wasn't the first band to try it, Radiohead was by far the most successful.

Radiohead's success doesn't necessarily come from the fact they make good records (I believe a lot of their stuff between "OK Computer" and "In Rainbows" was absolute crap). The band is successful as well because they have people waiving their flag and attesting to their quality despite critical bashing from time to time.

I'll blog more on "The Long Tail" and freeconomy later. I'm just getting going on my initial research into this realm. What do you think of the Free Economy? I'm curious.

As a side note: thanks to all of you for the well wishes and great feedback on the redesign. You're great friends and colleagues.

xo - Eizans

Flickering along

On the iPod "Coffee" - Copeland

So, things around the mitten have been good for me. I'm now fully into swing at the new gig and am enjoying myself for the most part. I don't miss journalism nearly as much as I expected I would. The deadlines in advertising are still strict enough to keep things interesting and I'm certainly encouraged to use all of my faculties here. Here I've been given a path that I can follow as opposed to someone's perception of where we "could" be going. There were some empty promises made by my last few employers.

In wedding news, the planning has come along slowly but surely. We've identified our photographer, officially put the deposit down on Waldenwoods and are now in the process of setting up invitations, gathering ideas for centerpieces and narrowing guest lists. I'm just hoping things start to run a little more smoothly. It's been tough sledding at times so far.

Finally, for all you Transformers fans, there's an interesting interview with one of the original toy designers over at PingMag.



Click here to go directly to the article.

Happy Fourth.

On On Demand Video, on and on.

On the iPod: "Alec Eiffel" - The Pixies

Now, I fully understand that online video is becoming more and more niche oriented. There have been a ton of YouTube knockoffs springing up like weeds across the net. One that Al Tompkins over at Poynter, tipped me off to is GodTube.

Now, I have no problem with Christians or anyone else who practices a religion in the least. I applaud certain forms of evangelism and even plan on making my support. My very best friend and his new bride are two people who I think do it right.

My problem with services like GodTube is the tactics under which these "evangelists" are presenting their case. They're being no better than those terrible heavy metal bands with their slick media presentations. People, especially the people online video sites are aimed at, are impressionable. And this site is full of videos that bash homosexuality, evolutionary theory and free thinking. While some of these clips present some interesting theory, they go no further than scratching the surface and presenting guilt laden trickery to sway the minds of the weak.

My biggest problem is the lack of logic that goes into these arguments. Even evangelists, priests, and other clergy should have some sort of basic training in discourse. Wouldn't it be better to show both sides and then pick apart? Wouldn't that make your argument seem stronger. Instead of filibustering on about how homosexuality is immoral or say that you can't understand how a human can evolve from a primate, so it can't possibly be true, make an argument. Give me some proof. At the very least, back it up with some real premise. And for Christ's sake (pun, very much intended) back it with something other than, The Bible "says so." Take the time to support this almighty faith you have. I'll respect you more for it. Have blind faith, but have the reason to back it.

John Brownlee over at Wired, presents a well-stated vision of some of the problems with this site. I tend to agree with him for the most part. I haven't had the time to fully explore GodTube yet, but plan to out of my newly renewed interest in faith, religion and theology. Look for a full report in a few days.

should i ...hush... up?

On the iPod: "Again and Again" - The Bird and the Bee

Last night I couldn't sleep. I kept digging through old records and designing on my laptop. I'm convinced that I need to properly brand ...hush... The reason I've never done so in the past is because there are already a lot of other hush things out there.

There is Hush records, which puts out some fantastic music from the likes of Kind of Like Spitting, Norfolk and Western and the ohh so popular The Decemberists. Then, there is hush restaurant in Laguna Beach, CA. And who can forget this piece of crap solo artist, or this, piece of crap rapper, who just happens to be from Detroit.

Click on that link and listen to that terrible "Miss Music," where they ruin that bad ass Mr. Mister song "Broken Wings" by sampling the whole track. I swear, if he ruins "Kyrie," I'm going to start a riot.

Now, I've always used the ellipses with my branding of ...hush... but as of now, I've been toying with the idea of re-naming, re-branding and becoming my own Limited Liability Company. So I'm curious. What are your thoughts on ...hush...? Do you think it's too much a throwback to my "indie" wannabe days. What might be a better name for my company? At this point, I think it better to re-brand and rename now. Because I'm sure I'll be a juggernaut in design in no time.

I'll be putting up those race car designs I talked about a while back, along with some potential names and logos for the new, whatever-I-might call this would be company.

Edit:



This is one idea, Ruhe Design Co.

Ruhe is the German word for peaceful. The fonts used are "The Sans Semi Light" (Capitals) 620 spacing on top, 880 on the bottom. The bottom font is Sans Semi Light normal.

On men's fashion

On the iPod: "White Trash Period of My Life" - Josh Rouse

Apparently, handbags have become all the rage in Tokyo according to PingMag.

This particular article addresses what you possibly might carry in these bags and addresses the overcrowding problem and largely commuter population in Asia. I just wonder if it would really, really catch on in a city like Detroit.



Now, I've been rocking messenger bags for quite a while now. Old friends often called it my man purse. Now my regular bag that I carry almost everywhere I go is my Firefox messenger/laptop bag made by Ogio. It's fantastic and I like to think I'm helping further the cause for Firefox by wearing it.


Now, handbags are a different story. What could you possibly need to keep in a handbag? In my messenger, I carry a book I'm reading, my laptop, my iPod, my cell phone and usually a mishmash of pens, pencils, a reporter's notebook and usually some sort of food in case my blood sugar crashes.


Purses for guys. I'm not so sure. The article is a good read though.

Design is everywhere

On iTunes - "Swell" - Thomas Cunningham and the Locofocos

I'm in the midst of creating a car design for the Indy Racing League. The league has opened up a design competition for their opening race this season at the Miami Homestead race. I've been very much enjoying it.

If you have any interest in marketing and branding issues via race marketing, check out the templates. I'll post mine when I'm done.

On packaging.

On the iPod - "Summer Skin" - Death Cab For Cutie

It's snowing in the city. And as beautiful as I think a snow covered Detroit can be, I hate driving downtown in the stuff. The drive to work was particularly hectic today, and my only saving grace was some fun things to design at the office and some interesting posts on the news wires and on my favorite daily stops.

One of those stops led me to an interesting article on the often linked by yours truly PingMag.

The article covered packaging practices in Japan and other Asian countries. Anyone who knows me even reasonably well knows that I'm fascinated by Eastern art, philosophy, marketing and advertising practices and culture.

What I find most interesting about the marketing and advertising campaigns (and the design of packaging for that matter) in this region is the dedication to some wild color palettes. Asians seem to have affections for the brighter colors, are more accepting of cartoon mascots for everyday products and seem more adept at handling numerous stimuli attacking the rods and cones in the eyes.

I'm actually longing for a trip to Japan, if nothing else than to people watch. Sure, I'd love some real sushi, would jump at the chance to take in a Dharma talk at a real Zen temple and would be giddy at the different technology, but just taking it all in and immersing myself in a visual playground is very appealing.

I know a lot of this packaging would never make it stateside, but it's still fascinating, as someone who appreciates interesting design.