Innovation feeder


Go judge a book by its cover
June 23, 2008, 10:27 am
Filed under: FMCG innovation, Food trends & info, Innovation, Innovative Design, Innovative designers, Innovative marketing, Innovative products we like, Innovative promotions, Innovative stimulus, Marketing, new product development | Tags: , , ,

While you can’t judge a book by its cover, we often judge food by its packaging. One dollars worth of spaghetti sure looks a million dollars with a bit of fancy pants wrapping doesn’t it…Never underestimate the importance of appearance when it comes to food, or anything for that matter…

Why do pet care companies always put an animal on the front of their pet food? The dog can’t read but the owner can. Why are we packaging pet food for the pet? They know what dogs look like, talk to them in their own language.

I’d take a premium supermarket pet food brand & stick it in a stylish black tin with silver labeling & discrete branding with no visual reference to animals. Risky you say? I doubt it.

And another thing… why do washing detergents all use bright colours & show water or clean clothes? We make our decisions on what detergent to buy on the perceived quality of the brand. In the absence of any
laundry powders which don’t present pictures of clouds or water gushing through logos, let’s be honest, we pick the one we think looks more sophisticated or innovative or expensive than the rest.

Why not take washing powder & stick it in a metal canister that sits proudly on the laundry shelf instead of embarrassingly in the cupboard? Or better still, cook some good looking detergent granules &
put the stuff in a stylish transparent container.

For a fresh spin on packaging, make it design-orientated not product-orientated. Just because you’re selling pasta doesn’t mean you need a fat Italian & a bunch of tomatoes on the front. Lord, this is 2008.

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Leaving something to the imagination…
June 23, 2008, 12:30 am
Filed under: Asia, Innovative Design, Innovative designers, Innovative retail, Innovative stimulus | Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Leaving something to the imaginationThere’s something refreshing about a retailer who doesn’t just let it all
hang out for the world to see. The windows of this Commes des Garcons store are like a great first date outfit, you can see enough to know you want to see more but
not enough to satiate the appetite.

It’s almost as if they’re teasing you with a little peek but you have to
go inside to see the full story. You see, sometimes its better to leave a little to the imagination. A glimpse of skin is always sexier than getting an eyeful of the whole booty.

What if we took this idea someplace else . . Why not create a stylish fruit & veg store where you don’t actually show the fruit & veg? When people enter the store they are met with boxes upon old fashioned boxes containing fresh produce. People can read where the products come from, there’s a description of how delicious they are & the price point indicates they’re good quality. But you can’t see what you’re actually purchasing.

The philosophy of the store would be :: we’ve selected the best produce available for you, if you think that you can pick better fruit & veg out of some dumpster in a supermarket then you’re in the wrong store friend.

Think about how can you flirt with your customers? How can you play on their imagination & curiosity to drive demand? You need to make customers want you. Throwing yourself on someone is not only embarrassing, but lessens your chances of scoring.

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Another little ditty…
June 23, 2008, 12:07 am
Filed under: Innovation, Innovative marketing, creativity | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

nihilist chewing gumGum is always about taste. A nihilist doesn’t believe in anything. Nihilist gum doesn’t believe in flavour. Which begs the question..why chew it?

A counter trend can often be the most convincing way to get someone to try a product because for every go-with-the-grain consumer, there’s a million nosy parkers who want to try something new.

If we were to push this kind of reasoning to the extreme . . .well then, If restaurants are always about service, could you create a restaurant which goes against the grain of service? Instead of making you feel at home & treating you like a welcome patron, they abuse you and ridicule your food decisions..

If you don’t understand the menu they call you a philistine, if you don’t order enough they call you a tight-ass anorexic & if you don’t tip big they point out the cheapskate to all the other patrons. Dining becomes a combat sport. Welcome to the game, its survivor restaurant-style.

Assume for a moment that you are the marketing director of a large confectionery company. While everyone else is focusing on higher end premium bite size indulgence, you decide to launch the largest single
serve chocolate bar in the world. It is big & chunky and it proudly displays its calorie count on the front next to the name :: Fattyboombah. Nice huh?

For every trend there’s a counter trend. Look at the research, chuck it away & do the exact opposite. Imagine what you think people want and offer something completely contrary. The truth of the matter is that people are contradictory. A large percentage of Americans may disapprove of the reporting of a political sex scandal but you can bet that the circulation of trashmags increases when one is on the cover! So embrace the contradictions, scope out the challenge and then just close your eyes and pick a side….

2 Comments


Top 50 Australian Marketing Pioneer Blogs
June 12, 2008, 7:44 am
Filed under: Innovative marketing | Tags: , , , , , ,

Julian Cole, a digital strategist at Naked Communications has just created a new list profiling the top 50 Australian marketing pioneer blogs to shed some light on the Australian Marketing Blogosphere and connect us with some great Australian Marketing thinkers.

He uses a combination of ranking stats- (Google Page Ranks (10), Technorati Authority (10), Technoati Blog Reactions (10), Alexa Page Ranking (10), Bloglines (10) and has also added a Pioneer score (10) which is a subjective score reflecting the blogs ability to have pioneering thoughts about Marketing.

The list can be found here on his blog and will be published in the August edition of Marketing Magazine.

It’s definitely worth a look, my personal fave, the man who encourages more of us to get out there and engage, participate and connect Servant of Chaos comes in at number # 2. Yours truly makes its humble debut at number # 20.

Nice one Jules.

Total
1 Banner Blog 6 6 8 6 8 9 43
2 Servant of Chaos 9 5 8 6 6 5 39
3 Duncans Tv Adland 6 5 7 6 8 5 37
4 Corporate Engagement 8 5 5 4 5 8 35
5 Better Communication Results 8 3 6 5 6 6 34
6 Young PR 7 5 6 5 5 6 34
7 Small Business Branding 7 3 0 8 7 8 33
8 Get Shouty 8 5 7 5 4 4 33
9 Personlize Media 8 5 4 4 4 5 30
10 Brand DNA 6 4 6 5 5 4 30
11 PR Disasters 7 5 4 4 4 5 29
12 Ettf.net 6 5 5 4 4 3 27
13 1+1=3 5 3 5 4 5 5 27
14 Business of Marketing & Branding 6 5 6 4 4 1 26
15 Media Hunter 7 2 6 4 3 3 25
16 Australian SEO Blog 4 4 5 4 6 1 24
17 Wide Open Spaces 8 5 4 3 3 1 24
18 The Marketer 7 3 6 4 3 0 23
19 Three Billion 6 4 0 4 4 5 23
20 Innovation Feeder 6 5 3 3 3 2 22
21 Campaign Brief 6 4 0 3 5 3 21
22 EcioLab 7 5 2 3 3 0 20
23 Adspace-Pioneers 7 3 3 3 2 2 20
24 Publicity Queen 8 4 1 1 2 3 19
25 Filter Media 6 4 0 2 3 3 18
26 Marketing Easy 6 3 0 3 5 1 18
27 Hothouse 6 4 1 2 4 1 18
28 Mark Neely’s Blog - 3rd Horizon 7 3 2 2 3 0 17
29 Lexy Klain 7 3 1 3 2 1 17
30 Peter Sheahan 6 4 0 1 4 2 17
31 In my atmosphere 6 4 0 3 2 1 16
32 Elbow Grease 4 4 0 3 2 3 16
33 Falkayn 5 4 2 0 2 1 14
34 Pigs Don’t Fly 6 4 1 1 2 0 14
35 Diffusion 7 4 0 1 1 1 14
36 Australian Small Business 6 3 0 0 4 0 13
37 The Jason Recliner 4 4 1 2 1 1 13
38 The Wayfarer 7 3 0 1 1 1 13
39 Adnotes 6 3 1 1 2 0 13
40 Ryan’s View 6 4 0 2 1 0 13
41 B&T 7 4 0 1 1 0 13
42 Zero Budget Marketing Ideas 6 3 1 1 1 0 12
43 Blackwatch 5 3 0 0 0 3 11
44 Fresh Chat 5 2 1 1 1 1 11
45 Latin Ocean 5 2 1 1 1 1 11
46 Arrow Internet SEO 7 2 0 0 1 1 11
47 The Sticky Report 7 0 1 2 0 0 10
48 Naked Communications-The Flasher 8 0 0 1 0 1 10
49 Pixel Paddock 5 1 0 1 0 1 8
50 Send up a larger room 7 0 0 1 0 0 8
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Research 2.0 tool :: Brand tags
May 19, 2008, 10:17 am
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , ,

An interesting post courtesy of Taly Weiss pointed me in the direction of Noah Brier’s latest project. It’s called Brand Tags and the idea is simple: You tag brands with the first thing that comes to mind. The thinking went something like this: If brands exist as the sum of all thoughts in someone’s head, then if you ask a bunch of people what a brand is and make a tag cloud, you should have a pretty accurate look at what the brand represents (see picture below).

wal mart brand tags

It’s not dissimilar to traditional ‘free association’ planning tools where you use word or imagery association to build a consumer picture of a brand. Still, an interesting research 2.0 tool to file away in your mental cabinet for a rainy planning session that needs a bit of tech sexiness.

In the meantime, go and have a play here : Brand Tags

2 Comments


So what exactly is an unconference?
April 15, 2008, 12:22 pm
Filed under: Digital Strategy & Techno-culture, Geek stuff, Innovation, Innovative marketing, Trends stuff, creativity | Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

The wiki defines it as : An unconference is a conference where the content of the sessions is created and managed by the participants (generally day-by-day during the course of the event) rather than by one or more organizers in advance of the event. The term is primarily used in the geek community.

So where did it come from?

It all began one rainy day in the USA around 1984 with the first unofficial Hackers conference. In techland they have a regular conference called “Foo camps” where geeks get together & geek out over whatever they’re into at that moment. The problem is, Foo camps were always invitational which meant that there was an element of exclusivity around who was able to attend & who wasn’t. Thus, the idea of Barcamps was born. Barcamps began as a reaction to the exclusive elitest Foo camps. The idea was basically that people with a strong interest would publicly post their passion in meeting other like-minded folks and then the interested parties would self-organize a gathering. where everyone was welcome. Unlike the Foo, Barcamps were open to anyone & everyone & represented one of the very first unconferences.

Basically an “unconference” is everything a normal stuffy suity type conference is not - it’s open to anyone, anyone can come & anyone can speak. It disposes of the podiums, the rigid structure, the exclusive & polished speakers and the formalities in favour of a more democratised process where even the great unwashed may share their passions with the rest of us. (more…)

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Toyota . . so hip it hurts
March 24, 2008, 11:30 pm
Filed under: Advertising, Brand, Digital Strategy & Techno-culture, Gen Y, Innovative advertising, Innovative promotions, Street art, creativity

633419795420916763.jpgWell Scion have done it again. After being the first car manufacturer to stage a virtual care launch in Second Life in 2006, this time they’re letting users design their own crests for the car. A new campaign put together by Strawberry Frog [based in NY & Amsterdam], lets users pick from a range of graffiti inspired symbols designed by Triston Eaton and put together their very own coat of arms. Users can print out the images, save them to a gallery or [for for a few thousand dollars] actually get them customised for their cars.

Check it out at scionspeak.com

1 Comment


The next frontier: Design Thinking
March 19, 2008, 3:55 am
Filed under: FMCG innovation, Food trends & info, Future of Work, Innovation, Innovation Companies, Innovative Design, Innovative Research Methods, Innovative Work Practice, Innovative designers, Innovative stimulus, Looking for insights, new product development | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Here’s another little ditty from Andrew Tan’s blog WhatIf which covers innovation & design from an Asian perspective. And no, he’s not part of the global outfit Whatif Innovation, he runs his own innovation company and this is his personal blog.

Design thinking is tnanobiker1.jpghe latest and hottest methodology talked about to help a company innovate. GE calls it CENCOR (calibrate, explore, create, organize and realize). The Mayo Clinic calls it SPARC (see, plan, act, refine, communicate). Andrew’s new company calls it GIP (Gather, Ideate, Prototype). Its most obvious and direct power is in the creation of new products and services. Design thinking allows an organization to differentiate its products and services in an avenue other than pricing.
Andrew’s method is not dissimilar to the IDEO method of industrial design, one which has nurtured some of the most popular innovations of the past few decades. Apple’s first mouse. Prada’s ultrahip Manhattan store. Stand-up toothpaste tubes that don’t get icky. The Palm V.
In the Ideo universe, great design doesn’t begin with a far-out concept or a way-cool drawing. It begins with a deep and empathic understanding of the human condition. The first step for any Ideo team on any project is to try to empathize with the people who might use whatever product or service that eventually emerges from its work. Ideo has crafted a set of systematic research methods for understanding what the firm calls “human factors.” It then goes on to develop ideas and from those ideas, prototypes which can be tested for real responses on real people.

(more…)

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Gamers enjoy dying in first person shooters
March 19, 2008, 3:24 am
Filed under: Gaming, Geek stuff, Get another life, Innovative gaming, Looking for insights, Machinima, Second Life, virtual worlds | Tags: , , , , , , ,

In his blog CollisionDetection, Clive Thompson who writes for Wired and the NY Times has posted a great piece about about the pleasure and release MMORPG [massive multiplayer online role playing gamers] feel when they get killed  [as opposed to when they kill others]. His findings are based on a  study by Niklas Ravaja at MIND Labs, who wired up a bunch of gamers with biosensors and found that they gave off strong pleasure signals whenever they died in the game Super Monkey Ball.

The rest of his post is here and if you haven’t checked out his blog, it’s worth a look in:

(more…)

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The Digital Curator in Your Future
February 26, 2008, 1:14 am
Filed under: Digital Strategy & Techno-culture, Future of Media, Future of Work, Geek stuff, Innovative Work Practice, Social media, Thinking & Planning, Trends stuff, geek | Tags: , ,

A great post borrowed from Steve Rubel who writes Micropersuasion

Credit: Met by jesst7Content: it’s everywhere. Content is in your inbox, your feed reader, outdoor media, your living room, your pocket and, increasingly, on every web site you visit. It also increasingly resides on sites built and managed by your favorite brands, which are bypassing the media and going direct.

The democratization of publishing is without a doubt a revolution. When we’re all dead and gone, the 21st Century will be remembered as a Digital Renaissance - one that rivals the original that preceded it by 700 years.

The Internet has empowered billions of people and is distributing their creativity across millions of niches and dozens of formats. Quality and accuracy, of course, can vary. However, virtually every subject either is or will be addressed with excellence - by someone, somewhere.

However, the glut of content as we all know also has a major downside. Our information and entertainment options greatly outweigh the time we have to consume it. Even if one were to only focus on micro-niche interests and snack on bite-sized content, demand could never ever scale to match the supply. Content is a commodity. The Attention Crash is real and - make no mistake - it will deepen.

Enter the Digital Curator.

(more…)

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