This is only a test.

Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.

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I don't blog, but I have one

That's typically my answer when people ask me if I blog. As I look to 2010, there will be much to talk about. Will it be the year I finally find my blogging voice? Judging by the fact that I haven't blogged since March of 2008, chances are looking slim. Keep your fingers crossed.

Happy Holidays!

Orson Welles is a classic

This is worth sharing. I like Orson's drunken gusto and lazy French accent.

Mah haaaa!

I'm back! I'm back!

I heard a common comment from Andy at work today, "you need to start blogging again dude." I explained that I have been having trouble accessing my "old" blogger account through my work email and wanted to add my actual google account as an author, but haven't been able to because my "old" account isn't working. Oh, the blogger drama.

I decided to have another go at accessing my blog after my short conversation with Andy and his fashion-forward new eye glasses earlier today. You can see that I have achieved great success!

It feels good to be back.

Image via toothpastefordinner

No Tech Bubble

The video said to blog it so I blogged it.

Brand Edit

These days, branding is everywhere. A search for "branding book" at Amazon.com brings up almost 50 results. Brand culture, story telling, brand laws, brand blunders, branding in a digital age, etc, etc. The Amazon list is only a small portion of the branding resources available to the masses.

Something I have noticed during interactions with new and existing clients is how, for the most part, they understand and value their brands. They know it's a primary sources of differentiation. They know how to shape their brands; what questions to ask about their brands. I think many, many people understanding the brand construction process. Everyone has their onion these days. So, branding is an important function of marketing. We get it.

This opens up an opportunity for editing. Clients that have established brands don't need their brands built from the ground up. They may need a refresh or an edit. There may be errors, items out of place, missing pieces that agencies can help them address.

Something I'm pondering is if agencies are moving to a brand edit model, rather than a construction model. Helping clients patch the holes in their brand. Branding processes often involve questions about passion, values, positioning, perceptions, missions in hopes of shaping the almighty essence. After those items have been established and begin to dwindle it may be time for an edit.

My next question is, how does the edit process differ from the construction process? Instead of aspirational questions, I see questions like:

• What have we learned?
  
• What about the brand is working?
  
• What's not working?
  
• Is the brand reflecting the vision and mission for the company?
  
• Has the vision and mission changed?
• Is there a gap in the market the brand could be filling, but isn't?
  
• Are their trends or causes to support that would strengthen the brand?
  
• Does our branding reflect the brand? (This may seem silly, but I think it's an important question to consider.)
  

With the number of agencies and companies championing the thousands of brands on the market today there's a lot of room for error. It's impossible to get it right every time. It may be time for an edit.

Someone should write a book about it. That is, if there isn't one already.

Waiting on Saturday

I meant to post this last Sunday. Oh well. Here it is anyway.

Things I did while waiting 2 hours to speak with a Time Warner Cable Modem Specialist:
Loaded the dishwasher
Emptied the dishwasher
Took a shower
Brushed my teeth
Took out the trash
Wiped down kitchen counter and stove top
Picked up backyard
Winterized my koi pond (this one took a while)
Vacuumed upstairs living room
Swept kitchen and dining room floor
Swiffered kitchen and dining room floor
Cleaned upstairs bathroom

Things I didn't do:
Talk to a Time Warner Cable Modem Specialist

Unusual things on Wikipedia

While perusing popurls this morning, I came upon a link to the unusual articles page on Wikipedia. Did you know the world's steepest street is in the small town of Dunedin, New Zealand? I didn't. Now we do.

Thanks Wikipedia.

Pro-Idee Browsing

After my last post, I spent a few minutes browsing the "Electronics & Play" product category at Pro-Idee. The image below caught my eye.


He looks so happy with his sleeves rolled up and work related stress flowing through his fists. Apparently, the stand-up punching bag with water fillable base, which, according to Pro-Idee is "always raring to go," is "the best way to vent your stress" at work.

This guy is probably just jealous of the go-cart racer briefcase guy.

Briefcase Racer

I remember playing with crappy electric car race tracks when I was a kid. They were usually good for a couple of rapid laps around the track before one of the two plastic racers flew off into the wall. Always a good time. While browsing Geekdad (whether you're a dad or not, I recommend the blog, lots of funny, geeky stuff) I came across something amazing: a briefcase go-cart race track from Pro-Idee.

According to Pro-Idee, the briefcase racer will be "The new topic of conversation at your office and an amusing passtime during long train trips."

If your looking for a fun way to NEVER achieve anything productive in a meeting again (or, at least until everyone gets tired of their car flying off of the track), I think I have found the perfect tool.

Wipe Out

I'm not sure why, but this video gets me into "let's break stuff!" mode.



Found here

Cell phones win!

My first cell phone was a super fat Motorola. The battery was two inches thick and lasted about 3 hours, if I wasn't talking on it. It's reception was next to nothing unless I stood under a cell phone tower.

I think my plan included 60 minutes of talk time a month, after which it cost about $2.00/minute to make calls. I was in 8th grade when I started carrying the beast. At the time it was very exciting since many of my classmates didn't have cell phones yet. Now, finding an 8th grader without a family share plan is a challenge.

Oh how things have changed. Yesterday Media Mark Research reported that there are more Americans that only have a cell phone than Americans that only have a land line. 14 percent of US households have one or more cellphones, but no landlines, 12.3 percent (almost exactly the percentage of the US population age 65+) only have landlines and no cell phones.

86.2 percent of households now have cell phones, whereas 84.5 percent have landlines. No matter how useful and attainable cell phones become, there is a portion of the population that will probably never adopt them.

Score one for wireless.

NYT

Confidence on the low side

According to pretty much every news source in the U.S., consumers (also known as people) lost a portion of their confidence in August. It seems like sour news has been seeping from every vein of the U.S. economy lately. So much so that according to leading economists, financial woes (subprime mortgage defaults and personal/corporate debt) have overtaken terrorism as the primary threat to our nations well being.

It's finally reached a point where credit card companies might actually take a hit. Most people are still able to pay the card that feeds them despite high energy prices, a stagnant housing market and tighter lending conditions, but credit card default rates are on the rise.

Here's a quick rundown of this weeks economic report:

• Consumer Confidence dropped nearly 7 points to 105.0, its lowest reading in a year--the steepest decline since Hurricane Katrina
  
• House prices across the nation declined by 3.2 percent in the second quarter compared with the same period last year--the worst decline in twenty years
• The Present Situation component of the index decreased to 130.3 from 138.3 in July, reflecting that consumers were less positive about current conditions, especially in their appraisal of the labor market
• The "expectations" component, which declined to 88.2 from 94.4 showed that they are also less optimistic about business conditions and employment opportunities for the next six months
• Sales of existing homes fell to a five-year low in July, while the inventory of unsold homes hit the highest level since 1991, and not far off its record high.

There is more, but I don't want to bore you.

Here's what Lynn Franco, Director of The Conference Board Consumer Research Center has to say about it:

"A softening in business conditions and labor market conditions has curbed consumers' confidence this month. In addition, the volatility in financial markets and continued sub-prime housing woes may have played a role in dampening consumers' spirits. But, despite less favorable conditions and in spite of all the recent turmoil, consumers still remain confident. And, current Index levels suggest further economic growth in the months ahead."

Despite sharing a somewhat positive outlook for the foreseeable future, some believe the consumption boom is over for now. I have to say, with all of the negative economic press that has surfaced this week, I can't help but agree.

In a society that depends upon citizen's for two-thirds of spending, the confidence measure is closely watched to predict spending. I remember reviewing the index last year and reading similar news. It was not as dreary, but as people emerge from summer office hours, kids begin going back to school and everyone starts assessing the summer damage of travel and leisure, I would assume that many would be ready to watch their pennies during months to come. There are many other things that factor into the nation's current mood, but I wonder how much our summer fun wieghs on our short-term outlook this time of year. This is something I will have my eye on during the weeks to come.

I got my information from here, here and here.

Did you know?

I'm going to put this quote somewhere I can see it daily.

"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."

--Albert Einstein

Weather made simple

I remember reading an extensive Pew Internet Research study late last year about how men and women use the Internet. At the top of the list of "what people do online," checking weather followed closely behind emailing and reading daily news. There are a plethora of weather sources online; local, national and international.

Typically, I visit weather.com to check outdoor situations, because, well, it's weather.com. Even though the basic weather information is there, the site can be a bit cumbersome to navigate.

After 12 years, The Weather Channel has answered the call for a simpler site and created simpleweather.com. The URL really does the site justice. Just type in your zip code and you are immediately taken to a basic page with current temperature and weather conditions along with a weekly forecast. It's, well, simple.

Twinkies, Deconstructed

I can't remember the last time I bit into America's favorite synthetic snack cake, the Twinkie. It would, however, be interesting to know what ingredients make up America's most indestructible food, which is exactly what Steve Ettlinger provides in his recently released book Twinkies, Deconstructed.

Here's a quick synopsis of what Twinkie, Deconstructed readers can expect:

Beginning at the source (hint: they’re often more closely linked to rocks and petroleum than any of the four food groups), Ettlinger reveals how each Twinkie ingredient goes through the process of being crushed, baked, fermented, refined, and/or reacted into a totally unrecognizable goo or powder with a strange name—all for the sake of creating a simple snack cake.

Rocks and petroleum, eh? The next time someone offers me a Twinkie I think I'll tell them no thanks, I'm on a none similar-to-petroleum diet.

What Web 2.0 is and isn't

Michael Wesch of the Kansas State University Cultural Anthropolgy program has crafted a video overview of Web 2.0. Beautiful and intelligent.

Disliked. Very, very , very disliked.

Apparently, people aren't to accepting of the Citi "Very, very, very Rewarding" commercials. According to people polled in the USA Today AdTrack study, only 7% of respondents reported liking the ad, 52% said they disliked the ad and only 8% believed the ad was effective.

The campaign aired during the holiday season to showcase how easy it is to pile on the points with Citi's holistic rewards approach. From what I can tell, Citi's reward program and long list of services are respectable. The ads are one part of Citi's agressive consumers marketing campaign. Other growth tactics include:

• New financial products, such as its online Citibank e-Savings.
• More branches.
• Expansion into new markets, such as Philadelphia and Boston.
• More one-stop shopping, such as putting Smith Barney brokers in some Citibank branches.

Obviously, Citi isn't suffering a decline in profits due to overspending and under performing. Fourth quarter profits were up 14%. What I wonder is how effective Citi customers found the ads? I don't know this for sure, but if one of the campaign's goals was to get current customers to use more products, then the strategy makes sense, regardless of what a random sample of survey respondents said. Maybe they didn't get a lot of new customers, but if the ads spoke directly to current customers showing them how easy it is to improve their banking experience, then, maybe it worked.

Link to the article.

This t-shirt says it all...

If you want one for yourself go here.

Death of a copywriter

Over at Brand Story, I read that the writer/story teller Martin Conroy died last week. To be honest, until a few moments ago I had no idea who Martin Conroy was or why he is famous. As it turns out, he's famous for writing the "two young men" letter 28 years ago for a direct Wall Street Journal direct mail piece. A piece that is one of the longest used ads in our history. It hasn't been altered. It tells the same compelling story today as it did in 1980.

Conroy died of lung cancer last week in Connecticut at the age of 84.

His story reads:

On a beautiful late spring afternoon, twenty-five years ago, two young men graduated from the same college. They were very much alike, these two young men. Both had been better than average students, both were personable and both — as young college graduates are — were filled with ambitious dreams for the future.

Recently, these men returned to their college for their 25th reunion.

They were still very much alike. Both were happily married. Both had three children. And both, it turned out, had gone to work for the same Midwestern manufacturing company after graduation, and were still there.

But there was a difference. One of the men was manager of a small department of that company. The other was its president.

Clearly, Conroy wrote a great story. But, I would add that he also followed a great strategy. The target is clearly defined and the Wall Street Journal is depicted in a useful way.

In The Brand Gap, Marty Neumeier says that brand messaging has evolved from saying what it is, to what it does, to how you feel, to who you are. 28 years ago I don't think it was common practice to take this kind of stance in an ad. Conroy's copy draws a clear line between the Wall Street Journal reader and nonreader. It's bold and very clear. Not everyone wants to be the president of the company, but it is nice to see yourself out ahead of the pack.

The story follows the Ruler archetype. According to Margaret Mark & Carol S. Pearson's The Hero and the Outlaw:

People with high Ruler archetype tendencies are concerned with issues of image, status, and prestige-not because they are superficial, but because the understand how the way things look can enhance power. They act with natural sense of authority that makes it easy for others to follow them. at their best, Rulers are motivated by a desire to help the world. At their worst, they are just domineering or controlling.

Conroy was clearly appealing to the Rulers. Or, at least, the part of people that desires to be a ruler. The Wall Street Journal is represented as a tool for the bosses, leaders, politicians, responsible citizens, managers and administrators among us. Great writing, clear strategy.