Marketing and Strategy Consulting
Brinton charts 14 degrees of visibility all the way from black type on a yellow background (the most legible) to blue type on red (the most offensive). This research is certainly nothing new today, but gets you thinking about how the theories have been exercised. Take, for example, the classic hazard symbols, or street signs—they each use the most visible color combinations per Brinton’s chart.
via This 1939 Chart Explains How Color Affects Legibility | Fast Company
It absolutely baffles me that there is no “Parent Mode” on iPads for adding multiple logins. Amazon does it insanely well with its FreeTime offering (my kids love it) on both Kindle DX tablets as well as “regular” Kindles. Android does it well and allows for parents to easily set up multi-user accounts on one device. Even Chromebooks do it well with managed user accounts (which is what we use for the kids’ laptops in our house).
I’m guessing the “buy an iPad for your kid if you don’t want them messing with your enterprise business files!” mentality of Apple has served them well.
Once Apple does enable multi-user or managed user accounts, people will laud Apple with a technological breakthrough despite the intentional foot dragging to cause more iPad sales.
iOS 9 iPad multi-user feature coming alongside split-screen apps | BGR: “However, the feature won’t launch with iOS 9.0 this fall, but sometime after that. Apparently, multi-user support is still in development, and might not be unveiled at WWDC next week.”
Nope, not yet.
Elisabeth and Merianna talk about when your writing is ready to reveal to someone else. They talk about the danger of releasing it too soon when you haven’t had enough time to mold it and shape it. They also discuss that if you put your writing out there too soon, then it’s going to impact the writing itself.
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This week, Thomas Whitley and Sam Harrelson examine the
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“YouTube isn’t just a place for brands with primetime budgets, it has become a powerful tool for small and medium businesses too. If it works for Homer Simpson, it can work for you. YouTube video ads help your small business succeed on the web, just like Mr. Plow.”
Well played, Google.
But they are right… I’ve been seeing great results with client YouTube ads (it takes a little more know-how and technique than typing with 8 total fingers, but the results are out there).
I’ll take my Religion major any day…
USC considers charging different tuition for some majors | The State: “‘Look at what it costs to deliver an engineering degree than it does to deliver a philosophy degree,’ USC President Harris Pastides told trustees Tuesday. ‘Yet these two students pay the same amount of tuition.’
After the board meeting, Pastides said he could see lowering the price tag on humanities majors, such as history, which have lowers salary potential.”
Our university system is a broken diploma / tuition factory that is breaking the backs of our young people who think they have to have a degree in order to have a “good job.”
Our democracy will suffer.
Interesting to see the first company utilize Facebook Messenger for customer service, but it’s not the first instance of companies using messaging platforms such as WeChat to do so…
Rogers offering customer service via Facebook Messenger | Marketing Magazine: “Rogers claimed to be the first telecom company in the world to offer customer care via Messenger. Representatives from the two companies first met earlier this year, said Deepak Khandelwal, chief customer officer with Rogers.”
As I keep saying, messengers (Messenger, WeChat, iMessage, Hangouts, Line, Snapchat etc) are the future of social interaction on the web, so this is a big first step in North America (already happening in Asia just as texting, emoji etc developed there first).
Twitter needs to get its Direct Messaging app and product out there. Quickly.
//platform.instagram.com/en_US/embeds.js
I think we have two different definitions of “authenticity,” especially as it relates to marketing…
Marketing Strategy – Ranking GOP Presidential Candidates According to Digital Strategy : MarketingProfs Article: “Donald Trump takeaways: Use social media to be controversial and troll the media—it’s the most cost-effective way to get mainstream media mentions. Obviously, you want to protect your brand with integrity—a line that Trump has crossed a few times—but don’t be afraid to side with unpopular beliefs or call out someone. People are starving for more authenticity.”
From marketing or digital strategy standpoints, there are certainly anecdotal insights businesses and groups can glean from the current crop of GOP candidates for the 2016 election.
This conclusion about Trump’s campaign raises a much needed question about the nature of social media marketing as it relates to authenticity, however. It’s a question I frequently get from clients, especially in the beginning stages of a campaign.
My take is that “authenticity” as a social media tactic involves more than just one way trolling towards something like the media. It means more than being controversial, glib, or quick-to-the-point (especially as a business). Instead, the authenticity that the author says people are starving for has more to do with communicating an experience that is possible.
That is most frequently accomplished by incorporating visual imagery with precise text. So, if you’re looking for authenticity to drive part of your marketing campaign, look to Instagram.
A few examples of product-oriented companies that do a good job of using authenticity on Instagram as part of their marketing are ThisIsGround and Bexar Goods. You can see the types of “lifestyle products” I enjoy viewing and interacting with on Instagram… but I’ve made quite a few purchases from both companies as a result of their marketing there. Or take Newspring Church here in South Carolina… they do a great job with their design, sites, social media campaigns, and Instagram by telling their story and giving glimpses of what it’s like to participate there.
If you’ve been in the public eye for thirty years, have billions in the bank, and once appeared on a network reality show… troll the media in search of authenticity.
If you’re looking to build a successful business or expand your organization or group, then think long and hard about the concept and how you might be able to use social media to showcase glimpses of the experiences that you offer.
Elisabeth and Merianna are reunited and it feels so good! They discuss finding reason, meaning, and purpose in writing in decisions we make as writers. They also discuss creating purposeful pauses rather than head-scratching confusion. They also ask how can I revise to achieve the effect I want in the reader?
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Thomas Whitley and Sam Harrelson discuss domestic terrorists and the Carolinas, the myths of American Progressivism, creation stories, Trump’s views of citizenship, hate licenses, and the soft cultural underbelly of fear.
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Fascinating…
Roman Empire GDP Per Capita Map Shows That Romans Were Poorer Than Any Country in 2015 – Brilliant Maps: “What a difference 2,000 years makes. The map above shows the GDP per capita in 14AD of the various provinces of the Roman Empire in 1990 PPP Dollars. On average, the GDP per capita across the whole Empire, was only $570.”
I’m archiving this snippet and article to revisit in 2020… I wonder if we’ll look back on 2015 as a “tipping point” of the internet as we knew it?
The Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace by John Perry Barlow in 1996 does seem like a long ago dream.
Perhaps immediacy is not a democratizing state of being for modern humans? Literalism is the enemy of imagination, after all.
The Internet’s Loop of Action and Reaction Is Worsening – The New York Times: “Hear me out. If you’ve logged on to Twitter and Facebook in the waning weeks of 2015, you’ve surely noticed that the Internet now seems to be on constant boil. Your social feed has always been loud, shrill, reflexive and ugly, but this year everything has been turned up to 11. The Islamic State’s use of the Internet is perhaps only the most dangerous manifestation of what, this year, became an inescapable fact of online life: The extremists of all stripes are ascendant, and just about everywhere you look, much of the Internet is terrible.”
Emotion + Experience = Marketing
I do wonder about the scale of virtual reality. With Google investing in Cardboard, and Facebook spearheading Occulus Rift development, there is certainly a case to be made for mainstream adoption.
Of course, there was once such hype around Second Life as well.
Interesting read from Mike Elgan…
How Virtual Reality Is Redefining Marketing: “Advertiser-supported virtual reality and mixed reality content will have experiential marketing content instead of ads. These can not only be convincing and immersive, but potentially social and participatory. Best of all, they can go viral and spread across the world in minutes. And that’s why virtual reality and mixed reality will totally transform marketing. It combines the emotional impact of experiential marketing with the viral scalability of Web campaigns. “
Keep in mind…
Focus Fracas – The Chronicle of Higher Education: “We talk a lot about distraction, but the way we tend to talk about it suffers from historical amnesia. Since the invention of writing, people have warned about its supposedly harmful effects. Socrates thought it would weaken readers’ memories. ‘Be careful,’ Seneca warned, ‘lest this reading of many authors and books of every sort may tend to make you discursive and unsteady.’ In his Moral Letters to Lucilius, written between AD 63 and 65, Seneca touches on a condition that today might be diagnosed as attention deficit disorder. The ‘reading of many books is a distraction,’ he cautioned, that leaves the reader ‘disoriented and weak.'”
Thomas Whitley and Sam Harrelson discuss the issues involved with marketing and p
Thinking Religion is 50 minutes long this week.
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This might make Franklin Graham’s head explode, but I think it’s a good move to associate design with “politics” and assert the relevance of seemingly mundane things such as color choices to cultural conversations:
Pantone Color of the Year 2016 – Rose Quartz and Serenity: “Joined together, Rose Quartz and Serenity demonstrate an inherent balance between a warmer embracing rose tone and the cooler tranquil blue, reflecting connection and wellness as well as a soothing sense of order and peace. The prevalent combination of Rose Quartz and Serenity also challenges traditional perceptions of color association.”
Religion’s smart-people problem: The shaky intellectual foundations of absolute faith – Salon.com: “But we shouldn’t be deceived. Although there are many educated religious believers, including some philosophers and scientists, religious belief declines with educational attainment, particularly with scientific education. Studies also show that religious belief declines among those with higher IQs. Hawking, Dennett and Dawkins are not outliers, and neither is Bill Gates or Warren Buffett.”
Those of you who know me well know that I carry a Field Notes notebook pretty much everywhere inside of their Gentleman’s Memo cover with a Space Pen that has their branding on it. That’s a pic from just now as I was writing this. Note the coffee stain on the notebook cover. Character.
Branding hegemony aside, I do love their stuff. I use notebooks more than any other form of technology (analog or digital) for everything. My notebooks have been my “Inbox” for about 10 years now and I lovingly keep them archived in a special order so I can re-reference things or read back through long ago thoughts as needed. Their notebooks are durable, small, and able to take the daily wear and tear I put on them which can be a considerable amount since they ride in my back pocket when not on a table somewhere.
So in the midst of all the Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Giving Tuesday emails I’ve been receiving from various companies and groups, I was happy to open and then read this one…
Field Notes Brand: “Today only, buy anything and and get a Field Notes ‘Pitch Black’ 3-Pack free. No coupon codes. No minimums. No bull. Heck, you don’t even need to be aware of the deal. If you buy something today, you’re in. But get moving, as we expect Thursday to roll in sometime later tonight.”
Like computer interfaces, the best marketing is marketing that gets out of the way.
Thinking of how great it would be to add a member to your family?
Looking to have a baby soon?
Pregnant?
Buy one of these…
Amazon Kindle Paperwhite or Voyage.
Trust me.
Your friend… Sam, the newborn dad at 3am on a Wednesday morning.
Scary, true, and worth your attention if you value your privacy…
Mozilla will let go of Thunderbird | Boing Boing: “There are many good reasons to use standalone email clients, but for Americans one of the most compelling is the absurdly outdated Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986, which treats any file left on a server for more than six months as ‘abandoned’ and accessible to law enforcement without a warrant (no, really!). That includes all your Gmail previous to June 2015. Really. All of the efforts to reform ECPA have died on the vine, because law enforcement loves this creaking piece of legislation.”
Vote out your representative if they don’t “understand technology.” That’s not an excuse anymore.
yep…
Places that send you away | Scripting News: “And before you get all cynical, think — that’s how new things start on the net, by breaking rules that were once considered sacred and delivering value to people with minds.”
We’ve all seen them before and I’m seeing more and more of them now that the Holiday Season is upon us (and today is “Giving Tuesday”).
I know I’ve seen a number of well-intentioned pictures of people holding up signs to support a specific cause on social networks this winter. A large number of those, especially on Facebook, have been churches and religious groups.
I hate to be Donald Downer, but be careful with such postings, especially if they include your face. It’s very (very very) easy to take those and do less-than-well-intentioned things with the images after they’re found via Google Image Search or a Twitter Search or Instagram hashtag search etc.
You’re not Michelle Obama, but that doesn’t mean that your own perception of your network size (or good intention) protects you from the wilds of the internet in 2016 and beyond…
Michelle Obama gave the Internet a sign—here’s what it gave back: “But once Reddit got ahold of the photo, its users—well-known for hosting Photoshop battles such as this—went wild adding anything and everything to the blank page”
So be careful, or you could be espousing something you probably wouldn’t agree with.