A Beautiful Wrench In The Works

Let’s say you work for a company that has a target audience that is spending a lot of time online and you want to reach these people. Where do you go? Logic says you’d try to find out where they’re spending the most time and purchase online ad space in the form of a banner or a box ad so that you can either build brand awareness or encourage them to click through to your site, depending on your marketing strategy.

Unfortunately with an advertising-rejecting society, also comes advertising-rejecting solutions. Ad blockers are among the most frequently adopted solutions, with the most popular, AdBlock Plus being downloaded over 18 MILLION times.

One of the newest, Add-Art, is one of the most exciting in my opinion and could pave the way for a whole new breed of customized ad-blockers. It’s a Firefox add-on that replaces banner advertising on sites with works of art by young contemporary artists, turning your Internet browser into an art gallery. I recommend the download.

So what are the advertisers to do? Well, they’ll have to get crafty and figure out other ways to engage their consumers without relying on the traditional interruptive form of advertising. Maybe they’ll be more apt to embrace social media. 

Maybe some will even develop their own pop-up blocker programs that replace other advertisers’ ads with beautiful, artistic pictures of their product. Hmm, wouldn’t it be amazing if Porsche decided to make one? Now that’d be something I’d download in an instant. Just for giggles, we mocked up what it would look like above. ; ) Porsche, are you listening?

by Garret Ohm

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Think You Have What It Takes To Fiesta?

Ford Motor Company is about to relaunch a new U.S. model called the Fiesta in 2010 (European model shown) and they want to know if you’ll do the advertising for them. Not the traditional 30-second TV spots that you’re accustomed to, though—This time they want you to be their word-of-mouth marketing stewards.

Here’s how it works. They’ve set up a site at www.fiestamovement.com where they invite “people with a strong presence on the web, an ability to craft a compelling story through video, and a hunger for adventure” to apply to be one of 100 participants to take delivery of a Fiesta for 6 months. They’ll even pay for your gasoline and car insurance for the stint.

In return, all they’re going to ask of you is that you tell your online friends and followers about your experience with the vehicle.  To make it more interesting, and so that folks aren’t just posting videos, blog posts and tweets about their trips to and from work, they’re going to give them monthly assignments (think scavenger hunt) that will “take them to places they’ve never been, to meet people they’ve never met, and to experiences they’ll never forget.”

Ford is going to pick the 100 participants based on a number of factors. Among those the sphere of influence for each participant, their ability to articulate in both written and spoken word, monthly miles driven, and although they don’t specifically state it, I imagine they are going to target specific demographic and psychographic sets that are likely to be Fiesta buyers. If you aren’t one of the 100, don’t worry, they also plan to supplement with over 100,000 test drives before the vehicle’s official launch.

I think this is going to be an amazing way to relaunch the vehicle here in the United States. By the time the car reaches dealer lots in 2010, there will be built-in demand, tons of content and information for potential buyers, and Ford’s engineering and marketing teams will have received vital American feedback from 100 very expressive owners.  Vehicle launches will never be the same.

Gotta run. Time to go make my video. ; ) Maybe being Twitter friends with @ScottMonty, Ford’s social media chief, will play in my favor…

Update: Make sure to follow @fiestamovement on Twitter, also.

by Garret Ohm

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E-Learning Advances, And I Finally Understand Economics….

Sometimes I wonder how previous generations functioned without the technological advancements of the 21st century. That might sound a bit naive perhaps, but if you take a look at the dearth of information at our fingertips these days on the internet it's almost mind blowing. Simply Google the information you're seeking, and voila! There it is.

Take the credit crisis for example. If it were 20 years ago and you got curious as to why the economy was behaving as it was (humor me here) you'd have a couple of choices. You could either ask your uncle Milton to explain it to you, which would inevitably lead to him reminiscing with you about the war and "when he was your age." Or...you could head to the library and spend a couple hundred hours scouring economics books chock full of fun words like "contagion" or "Ricardian equivalence."

Sheesh. Nowadays, everything you'd ever want to know is available electronically with a few keystrokes and clicks. Not only is the internet making the process of learning quicker, but the net result is often more effective learning (more is retained) and drastically reduced costs. Case in point, Crisisofcredit.com. It's the work of a student at the Art Center College of Design and it does a brilliant job of taking a very complex and multi-faceted topic and turning it into something where the information can be easily understood by folks like me without a degree in economics.

I totally "get it" now (ok, I get it, but still don't know how to fix it...).  If you have time, you should check out the entire video. I have to warn you, it's a slow load! But if you're at all interested in the art and science of e-learning or distance learning like we are, it's totally worth it.

by Garret Ohm

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Have You Seen?

One of our favorite blogs, Thought Gadgets, today pointed out that the Obama administration semi-quietly launched Recovery.gov when the economic stimulus package was passed on Tuesday. The site is beautifully simple in terms of aesthetics but more importantly it does a great job of organizing content, allowing Americans far and wide to explore the ins and outs of the recovery package. You can view video of Obama speaking directly to Americans (on YouTube, of course), share your story or viewpoint about the economy, see updated news, see exactly where the stimulus package’s money is going, and even engage with the government through email alerts and by contacting the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board directly. As Obama promised, it’s a new level of transparency in government, and we love it.

Ben from Thought Gadgets makes a good point in his blog this morning, though. He talks about how interactive media and the pervasiveness of social media are allowing huge organizations to bypass traditional forms of media. You see, back in the day if a company wanted people to go to a site like Recovery.org, they’d have to either pay bazillions (ok, not really) to place an ad, or pay bazillions to have a PR firm manage the dissemination of information into the press. Now, they spend a modest amount to create a website, and use channels like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube to make their message spread like wild fire. Oh, and blogs, too…like this one.

What this all means is that the traditional media model, chock full of support from advertisers is becoming less and less relevant the more companies harness new media. It’s happening, little by little, and organizations are going to have to be proactive and creative to get their message heard. It’s not as easy as a simple ad buy anymore. It should be interesting to watch this develop over the years.

by Garret Ohm

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Blimpie Identity Deflates

I was catching up on some reading this past week and came across a post on Brand New, a great site that showcases major identity redesigns, about the sub shop Blimpie. If you’ve spent much time in the good ol’ US of A, you’re probably familiar with the chain. They’re everywhere – over 2,000 of them from coast to coast. In fact, they’re the second largest submarine sandwich shop behind Subway according to Wikipedia.

Recently the Blimpie brand underwent a makeover, and the results were…not so good. It has been a really long time since I’ve seen an identity change that has headed so far in the wrong direction. Here’s the before and after:

What do you think? To me, if there’s one thing the Blimpie brand has always stood for in my mind it was a sense of fun and light-heartedness. Who could really take themselves seriously with a name like Blimpie anyway? And hey, they even have a “Fun Zone” section on their website – although admittedly there’s not much “fun” there. For the most part this “fun” was something that both of its major competitors (Quiznos and Subway) lacked, so Blimpie had a real opportunity to claim that position in the consumers’ minds.

With the redesign, the rounded, fatter logo has given way to a straight forward sans-serif Futura typeface, virtually personality free – they even settled on a duller color. And they didn’t stop there with the blandness. They chose “America’s Sub Shop” as the tag line. I’m really not sure what they were trying to accomplish with this tag, but they certainly don’t appear to further develop this patriotic idea in any of their materials online or otherwise.

Identity redesigns usually present a huge opportunity for an organization - they allow creatives to harness the energy of a company and make the branding match the actual brand. What Blimpie did with this redesign was to in effect tell the American public that there’s really nothing interesting going on at Blimpie. Somehow I doubt that was the strategic goal of this exercise, especially considering the millions of dollars it will cost to roll this new identity out to 2000+ retail stores. Yikes. I can’t help but think this might have been the result of a design by committee process gone wrong.

NOTE: Hey Blimpie, if you’re having cold feet with the revised identity, I know a talented group of creative communicators that would love to come up with something that’s actually reminiscent of a sub shop rather than an IT firm.  ; )

by Garret Ohm

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