We must Become a ”Tomorrow Country” says Bill Clinton

Speaking to a large crowd of sales managers and some CEOs in San Francisco last week at the Dreamforce 2010 Convention, former President Bill Clinton said “We live in a world where the way people get information is filtered through yesterday's categories." In other words, we’re making decisions about the future viewed through the lens of the past.

"We are fairly young as a country but our governmental and economic systems are fairly old," Clinton pointed out. "When you get long in the tooth, the institutions that made you great become more interested in preserving their power than doing what they should . . . being innovative."

He used as an example the fact that while the U.S. once held the lead in solar energy, we let the opportunity slip away, and the Chinese and the Germans are now the ones who will likely own it. Clinton said that unless things change, we are on a path to becoming a country in decline.

His solution? America ought to become a “tomorrow country.” We need to adapt to the future. We need to make our plans for the way the world will be five years from now, not the way it was five years ago.

This mindset has led to the extreme partisanship currently impeding our government. "I would like to break out of the left-right debate," Clinton stated. "I'd like to talk about the future."

As a new year quickly approaches, take some time to both personally and professionally think about you and your company's future.  Will you be an innovator and a person/company of tomorrow or yesterday?

Are “Angry Birds” the New Buzz?

If you’ve been wondering when the on-line gaming craze is going to cross over to smart phones  and which game will move from there to dominate the cyber landscape, well, the New York Times thinks they have the answer. In their Saturday edition a front page article describes how the “Angry Birds,” born in Finland, have taken over.

Produced for about a hundred thousand dollars by Rovio, a small Finnish gaming company, it portrays the revenge a flock of really mad red birds take on some greedy pigs who have stolen their eggs. Despite (or maybe because of) the simplicity of the idea, it has been downloaded over 50 million times this past year, and is Apple iPhones best-selling app.  At $.99 per unit, it has generated over 7 million in income.

Imitators have noted its simplicity and addictive nature. It is a game that you might play on the checkout line at the grocery store, or waiting on a delayed flight. It has hada minimal advertising budget and has succeeded by generating that ephemeral quality: “buzz”.

The Times quotes Jesse Schell, a professor at Carnegie Mellon, who studies game design and entertainment technology. “Rovio made a smart choice in making the birds angry. You can smash them into things and it’s O.K.,” he said. “Imagine if they said were cute little birds. It might be kind of funny on some level, but most people would probably be a little repulsed.”

To learn more about “Angry Birds”  Click Here to go to the Rovio web site.

Google Launches new Online Bookstore

c
According to the Boston Globe, there’s a new online bookstore with a familiar name, available to us, where we can now get e-books, in addition to Amazon.com.

This may also a boon to independent bookstores, which the article says will now be able to order online which they couldn’t do from Amazon.com.

Google books will be available through an app. from any electronic device that is online. The only device that is not supported is the Kindle, which is technology
totally owned by Amazon but if you possess an iPad, an iMAç, an iPhone, or for that matter, any “Smartphone,” you’re good to go, with access to over three million titles!

It is further proof of the age we live in, in which our online terminals have access to literally the whole world.c

Biden Unveils new Homeowners Energy Efficiency Campaign

By Richard Earle
Regis Affiliate

We’d like to thank our friends at SmartPower for tipping us off about this release. Last week Vice President Joe Biden announced a new energy efficiency program for homeowners who want to save money, energy, and create jobs for contractors. It’s a three-step program called Recovery through Retrofit.

The program will provide contractors with the with the software necessary to  show  people how they can save money,  and give people access to refinancing so they can easily afford it.  It also sets priorities for the contractors’ work.

“Most consumers do not have access to straightforward and reliable information about their home’s energy use,” said a White House release. “Without this information, homeowners are less likely to invest in home energy upgrades.”

“The Home Energy Score will help make energy efficiency easy and accessible to America’s families by providing them with straightforward and reliable information about their homes’ energy performance and specific, cost-effective energy efficiency improvements that will save them money on their monthly energy bills,” said Energy Secretary Steven Chu.
  

Change an Iconic Logo at your Peril; Gap finds out the Hard Way via Social Media

by Richard Earle
Regis Affiliate

At The Regis Group we often guide our clients into change, even to the point of re-branding, so it may seem odd for us to blog about a big mistake (later corrected) by a company that did just that.

For more than 40 years, the Gap has been a successful clothing purveyor.  For many of those years, it was the world’s largest apparel retailer. But lately, sales have been flat.  In response, Gap decided to completely re-brand the company, starting with the 20+year-old logo.  The new version was posted on the home page of their web site before changing it company-wide.

What they had not counted on was the almost instantaneous negative reaction of the blogosphere. “Disgusting,” “amateur,” “it looks like something a child created using a clip-art gallery,” were some of the comments on Facebook and Twitter reports Ad Age.  

So Gap reversed itself.  Gap President Marka Hanse said in announcing the reversal "We've been listening to and watching all of the comments this past week. We heard them say over and over again they are passionate about our blue box logo, and they want it back. So we've made the decision to do just that."

There are two lessons to be learned here: First, pay attention to the posts on social media, they are an incredible new source of consumer opinion - preferably before committing to any major decision that is immediately visible to the consumer.  Second, even if you are tired of it, think long and hard about retiring an iconic logo.  You can re-brand around it, but if it is beloved by many, leave it alone!  A tip of the hat to Gap for doing just that!

Marketing News: New Facebook App. Helps you Locate and Reach Smartphone Users

by Richard Earle
Regis Affiliate

For a few years, I handled Marketing for the Cape Ann Symphony, a wonderful Regional symphony in Massachusetts.

At a meeting at the Symphony Orchestra League in New York City, I met Gene Carr, CEO of Patron Technology, a service that provides e-mail distribution and other marketing aids to Arts organizations. I still get his newsletter and this week there appeared an article about a new feature offered by aggressive Social Marketer Facebook that locates a customer geographically and offers them a deal on their Smartphone. If this takes off, it has implications far beyond marketers in the Arts community, for anyone who sells a product or service and even for charity fundraisers.

Read more of Gene's article and follow his links to the Facebook Deals video.

Lessons from the Election

by Richard Earle
Regis Affiliate


Well, all the pundits are weighing in about the meaning of Tuesday’s vote. I’ve absorbed as much as I could take, I learned a bit. and will now add my voice to the chatter.

Importance of Planning and Organization. I live and vote in Massachusetts, which went in a direction contrary to the national trend, by returning Democratic Governor Deval Patrick (thought to be a total lost cause just a few weeks ago), and voting in all 9 Democratic Congressional candidates. 

But I think there’s a very good reason for that, that we at The Regis Group should  applaud,  because it’s part of what we help our clients do. When there’s an obvious change in the climate, look around and carefully assess the situation; then make or change plans and organize accordingly. 

In a strange way, a well-publicized loss earlier this year was the best thing that could have happened to the state’s Democratic establishment. We are a predictably “Blue” state, so when Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat became suddenly available after his unfortunate demise, and it was being pursued by an articulate and generally popular Democratic State Attorney General, Martha Coakley, the state Democratic leadership relaxed and sat on their hands. And low-and-behold, an attractive but relatively unknown Republican State Senator named Scott Brown who had quietly been going door-to-door throughout the state and talking to the PEOPLE, was swept into office.

A Republican in Ted Kennedy’s seat?  What a wake-up call that was for the state’s Democrats. So they went to work and assessed the mood of the people and planned and organized very effectively (I’m told they knocked on nearly 100,000 doors,) with the country-surprising result (even Martha was re-elected A.G.).

Two more lessons learned:

The People are Angry, not Mad. I’m also always amazed at the ultimate sanity of our electorate. Amid a sea of angry anti-establishment candidates, none of the real “kooks” made it into office.

A Lot of Money Doesn’t Guarantee Victory. Somehow every year more former CEOs decide that their experience in the boardroom equips them to make laws and serve their constituents, and if they just throw enough money at a race they will win. Fortunately, the electorate who rejected the kooks see these people as unqualified too, and rarely vote for them. This year, there were quite a few, and most were roundly defeated.

A Tip of the Hat to the Poll Workers

by Richard Earle
Regis Affiliate


A lot of voters are extremely angry, leading political pundits to believe  that it will lead to a record turnout today for a mid-term election.  That could have many unpredictable impacts on our country and the world. Amidst a sea of negative campaigning and mud-slinging stands a very positive and predictable constant of every voting day.  It is upon some people who are essentially invisible to most of us: the Poll Workers.

Many voters tend to forget that these are volunteers; community members who are profoundly committed to serving the finest manifestation of our democracy: our ability to vote for those who will lead us, and make our laws for the next few years.

And a heavy turnout can put extra stress on those good citizens who have given up their day to make sure that the process runs in an orderly and lawful fashion. If you haven’t voted yet, or if you have, please remember next time you close that curtain behind you, to say “thanks” to these selfless neighbors. They are the human face of our democracy, and deserve not only a tip of our hat, but deep bow in their direction. 

Political Ads: NY Times Picks the Best & Worst

Posted by Richard Earle
Regis Affiliate

If you’re like me, with less than a week to go before the election, you’re sick of the negative political ads stacked knee deep in every possible TV commercial break, you may find yourself shouting at the screen, “I’m not voting for any of you turkeys!”

But if you’re like me, you will also ultimately vote for one in each category.

Of course, this is a blog devoted to positive posts only, so I’d like to offer a tip of the hat to the New York Times, for posting a very amusing video made up of clips from actual New York area political ads, with awards for “Best Splash” and “Best Run-on Sentence” thrown in for comic effect. View this short video and see if you don’t say “Thanks, I needed that!” with election day fast approaching.

The Ultimate Backpack: Solar Panels to Charge your Cell and Laptop

Posted by Richard Earle
Regis Affiliate

We turn again to the blog site of our friends at SmartPower for an amazing innovation being added to that accessory that everyone age 30 and under seems to be toting about these days.  Safe to say that none of those backpacks are not without a cell phone or a laptop tucked into them.

So leave it to an innovative entrepreneur like Voltaic in New York City to find a way to keep those devices charged up and ready to assist us in living our complicated lives. And it's totally green!

To read more, visit the SmartPower Blog.

What URL really stands for, and other computer terms you should know

Posted by Richard Earle,
Regis Group  Affiliate

There’s a wonderful story in the first paragraph of an article in a recent AOL newsletter about the fellow who didn’t really understand computers, and once complained “I wish they were as easy to use as my telephone.” Well, he got his wish. He no longer knows how to use his telephone.

The rest of the article contains some terms that anyone who uses a computer regularly should be familiar with, and defines them completely. For example, did you know that URL stands for Uniform Resource Locator, and http before a site address means hyper-text transfer protocol? These and many other basic terms are explored in this article.

“Buzz,” the New Marketing B-Word

posted by Richard Earle
Regis Affiliate


For the last few years, the key word among Marketing professionals has been Branding.  But now, with the explosive growth of Social Media sites like Facebook and LinkedIn, a new “B-word” has roared to prominence in marketing circles: “Buzz.”

Buzz is an invaluable Marketing tool these days. The only problem is, nobody is quite sure how to create it. It’s discussed very thoroughly in a fascinating article by Jonah Lehrer on the Wall Street Journal web page. I heard about it in a LinkedIn Post from a colleague.

Jonah quotes Northwestern University Sociologist Brian Uzzi, who, although I disagree with some of his conclusions, does own a fascinating research tool. He also has some fascinating examples in two films, “The Sixth Sense” and ‘Toy Story 3” considered difficult to market that became mega hits thanks to a huge Buzz, and cites Apple as the leading product Buzz-creator.  To read article, please visit the page on LinkedIn.

A tip of the Hat to Google for a $5 Billion investment in Clean Energy

Posted by Richard Earle
Regis Group Affiliate

SmartPower, who was my client for several years has a very newsy blog dealing with issues related to clean energy at http://www.smartpower.org/blog/. Google, who has been my search engine and calendar of choice for many years, was unknown to me as a clean energy promoter, although that’s a field I’ve done a lot of work in. Apparently they are heavily invested in wind power, both financially and in other ways, so they certainly deserve a tip of our hat!

It makes some sense if you consider their mission as an “information superhighway.”  Here are excerpts from the SmartPower blog posting by Brandon Rose:


Google is partnering with the renewable energy financial firm Good Energies and many other investors to create a major wind farm. The project is called the Atlantic Wind Connection and it has the attention of a lot of investors. A big portion of this project will be laying down a 350-mile underwater spine, which would remove many critical obstacles to wind power development.

This underwater cable, or “superhighway for clean energy,” in Google’s words, is designed to link multiple offshore wind farms to the U.S. power grid. “By putting strong, secure transmission in place, the project removes a major barrier to scaling up offshore wind, an industry that despite its potential, only had its first federal lease signed last week and still has no operating projects in the U.S.,” Google said in a statement.

This isn’t the first time Google has gotten involved with energy, though. Google has already offered research in home energy use monitors and advocated for U.S. smart grid technology. The Atlantic Wind Connection is the largest energy project Google has been a part of so far.

Compassion Fatigue by PowerPact's Melissa Radin

Posted by Richard Earle
Regis Affiliate


I found this post through the daughter of an old friend on the Blog of the web site of the cause marketing  company she works for, PowerPact at http://powerpact.com. I’ve posted a slightly edited version.

Pink. Online or in-store any day in October you’ll see pink ribbons, pink logos and pink symbols, all supporting the worthy breast cancer cause. This celebration of pink at first seems like a winning equation for both brands and nonprofits: but is too much of a good thing too much? Take a walk down any street in America and notice how many people just aren’t wearing yellow bracelets any more. Instead you’ll see red, the new love color of the day, thanks to Bono’s creation of Project Red. What’s the deal? Is pink and yellow out and red in? Probably, but red won’t be in for long if we don’t change the way we market causes.

So many causes supported by so many brands looks to consumers that everyone is doing the same thing. People simply can’t connect which brand goes with which cause. They don’t know who supports what. So they support nothing.

This support nothing-attitude is called compassion fatigue. The consumer is desensitized and exhausted. This makes them actually less likely to buy your product or shop in your store because it’s tied to a cause.

Involvement in cause marketing is intended to build consumer loyalty.  Is it possible your cause programs may actually be undermining your company’s success with consumers over the long term? You bet. But there are ways to combat compassion fatigue. The key is to recognize it exists and go beyond the norm by finding ways to be more meaningful to your consumers.

Consumers are in the driver’s seat, so hand them the keys and give them the tools to take control. Create programs with them in mind, use the cause to connect the brand to them. American Express (AMEX) did this with the “Members Project” and it worked. Instead of telling their card members what cause program they were going to participate in they invited consumers to pick the cause/issue AMEX should support.  AMEX received over 9,000 ideas, and had 1.6 MM unique visits to their web site.

Crate & Barrel did this with their DonorsChoose.org gift certificates program. Instead of asking consumers to buy before donating funds they simply thanked customers by sending 3.6 million gift cards. The gift cards thanked customers for shopping at Crate & Barrel and invited them to make a predetermined donation to DonorsChoose.org, a nonprofit group that funds projects for needy schoolteachers nationwide. This shift in the paradigm paid back, as stores sales increased 15% in the six months following the promotion.

Social Media Glossary II

By Richard Earle
Regis Affiliate

I’ve been getting some positive feedback from my post last week containing some terms created by Pete Blackshaw, Nielson online digital guru, and published in two columns in Ad Age, one last January, and one this September, since he claimed the January terms were all obsolete (I don’t agree). Since I only had room to post a short Glossary, I thought it might be fun to look at some more.

Here are some more terms pertinent to the social media and mobile age:

SPURNED MEDIA: Just like it sounds, earned media that goes horribly negative, invades otherwise pristine search results or bleeds into traditional media. Bad customer service is a top driver of "spurned media."

MOBILENECKING: The alarming tendency to have our necks titled down or shifted sideways -- ever glued to our mobile device. This anywhere, anyplace epidemic is increasingly common in cars, airplanes and crosswalks. Closely related to term "Eyevoidance," where no one looks at anyone anymore.

JACK RIPPER: The device warriors who hog outlets anywhere they can find them -- in the airport, via the USB port of a colleague's computer, even a restaurant reservation desk. They get a charge from a charge.

FAUX POST: When you are talking to someone on the phone and they notice an unrelated tweet or Facebook status update from you showing up in real-time. Bad form -- don't do it. (Trust me!)

APPFUSION: An inevitable outcome of app overload. Very common among iPhone users who download so many apps they can't find their address book. Appfusion can lead to as many problems as the apps solve.

BLOG DODGER: Someone who has abandoned his or her blog for Twitter or some other lower-hassle social-media substitute. This was big in 2009, and we'll likely see much more of it in 2010.

QUAD STALKERS: Folks from your past who "friend" you (e.g., folks you marginally knew from the high-school quad) and who seem to comment on everything you post on Facebook. Mostly benign, but a tad curious.

TWEET SIFTING: Delaying or mixing Twitter posts so axe murderers don't know you're miles from home. Increasingly common as a spousal and family covenant among folks who travel with high frequency.

Web 3.0 is coming! More personal and easy-to use

Posted by Richard Earle
Regis Affiliate

I was browsing through the aol e-mail newsletter recently and an article by Tara Taghizadeh caught my eye. It announced the immanent arrival of Web 3.0. Since I had been totally unaware that there had been a Web 1.0 or 2.0,  I  looked with great interest to see how she had defined them. Some excerpts from her article follow:

In the beginning…
Web 1.0 was all about basics. Back then, websites provided information with little opportunity for user interaction and feedback -- a one-way process dubbed “read-only.”  The most interactive user activities involved chat and instant messaging.



Then Web 2.0 came along and introduced the world to blogs, social-networking sites, and a host of self-publishing tools. Articles are now accompanied with “comments” tools, and any hack with a computer can create a blog. Content exploded on the web, and a considerable portion of it is created by average users 

Web 3.0 is coming! What industry analysts foresee for the next version is a more personalized and easy-to- use web, eliminating several steps from your online searches to make them quicker. Hence, your computer is 'smarter’ and can better understand what you are searching for. According to PC Magazine, “the Semantic Web is a place where machines can read web pages much as we humans read them, a place where search engines and software agents can better troll the Net and find what we're looking for.”

For example, if you are planning a weekend getaway to a mountain lodge and you want to make sure that there are convenience stores nearby, you wouldn’t have to conduct separate searches for lodges and stores. The web would simply deliver search results for both and categorize it in such a way that you would know which places are more convenient.

A Tip of the Hat to aol for thus headsup!

A glossary for the Social Media Age

By Richard Earle

Regis Affiliate

I was browsing the Ad Age web site the other day and was directed to two columns by a guy who is intimately involved with social media on a daily basis, as exec. VP of Nielsen Online Digital Strategic Services. His name is Pete Blackshaw,  and he has a wicked sense of humor.  The premise for both columns is that in the current world of social media, “we're downsizing to small screens, friending the world, thinking in 140 characters and downloading -- dare I say -- "billions and billions" of apps designed to make everything we do simpler, faster and more convenient (well, we think).

We have affixed labels and buzzwords to our curious stampede to the social media and mobile future.

Here are a few choice selections from his January column:

WIKI WART: A bad piece of news or an embarrassing brand episode (e.g., an activist protest or a social- media campaign that backfired) that just won't go away in a brand's Wikipedia description. PR pros often give false hope to brands of removing the warts, but relentless Wikipedia editors put them right back.

OEDIPOST COMPLEX: The curious neurosis that compels folks to sleep with their Blackberry or iPhone. The afflicted can't stop checking -- even in late hours -- for responses to tweets or blog and Facebook posts.

APPFUSION: An inevitable outcome of app overload. Very common among iPhone users who download so many apps they can't find their address book. Appfusion can lead to as many problems as the apps solve.

This month, declaring that due to the fast-moving nature of Social Media his glossary “is already obsolete”  (I don’t agree) he added twenty more. Here are a few examples:

App rat: A relentless app collector who is known to download apps and then leave them to gather cobwebs. Related to Appotato, a compulsive app addict.

Textgression: The curious migration of adults into youth behavior, habits and practices, especially when it comes to texting. Here our language quickly digresses into comedic short-form. R U w/me?

Like meister: That person on Facebook who "likes" everything. Borders on compulsive. Even the goofiest photos get likes.

 Wiki whipped: When you just can't change your wiki entry, under any circumstance. Often activist groups, detractors or others will completely own your entry.

Who knows? These could become the “BIZSPEAKS” of the future!

Two more “Buried Secret” logos

By Richard Earle,
Regis Affiliate

This will be the last of our logo series, but both meet the criteria of having a buried restatement of the name, or a key branding element:

NorthWest is the more subtle of the two. Most folks get the addition of the arrow within the circle to help transform the “N”  of North into the “W” of  West, but look again. Imagine that the circle is a compass, and the arrow is the pointer. Where is it pointing? To the Northwest, of course!

Tostitos are branded to stand for a party; a good time with friends. So the two “Ts” in their logo  are turned into friends sharing a Tostito over a bowl of salsa, strategically placed atop the  “i”.

Logo & web design: the crowdSPRING alternative

By Richard Earle,
Regis Affiliate


As a consultant, your role is that of teacher and adviser, but every so often, I learn from a client, and I’m  happy to admit  it! 

Usually, when I consult with a client on branding  or rebranding, I find that they have a  staff designer  or a design firm that they are used to working with, and trust, and that’s fine. The Regis way is to work with a client, and organize and guide them into a plan or strategy that is truly theirs. So we work with them to develop a very tight Creative Brief, and often I work with their designer to execute it.

Recently, I worked with a client and we did a Branding session with client and their design firm. We put together a strong creative brief  and I assumed that the designers and I would go to work on an identity package. Then the client called out of the blue and said she had strong disagreement with the design firm and fired them. But since we were under a very tight deadline, she suggested crowdSPRING.

I admit to being quite skeptical, having had them recommended by another client, and after checking their web site, and noting the extravagant claims there (“over 72,000 designers, worldwide,” “a professional logo for as little as $200” “the world’s best creative team”) I said there’s no way this system can work, especially since one of my early mentors, Bill Bernbach, had turned advertising around by elevating the Art Director to full Creative partnership with the writer. Some of my best creative moments occurred sitting in a room with an Art Director, tossing ideas back and forth. Th e idea of doing this electronically with someone thousands of miles away made me very leary.   

Knowing that some clients pay anywhere from  $5-50,000 for a logo (Coke is rumored to have paid in the millions for theirs!) I remained skeptical as we started the process. My client posted a low-ball fee of $250, and a time frame of two weeks, and posted our very detailed Creative Brief , including a tag line, so I frankly expected about a dozen or so submissions. Actually, we got over 70!

They came from all over the world, and new ones were added every day. Most were quite professional and some were modified by the designers in subsequent postings. The one we all agreed was best was from a young designer in Transylvania. Once we had selected him we were urged to contact him by e-mail. His command of English  was excellent, and we went through a week of normal client/designer give-and-take, over color palette and such. All requests  were professionally answered in a timely fashion, and we finally got a very satisfactory logo for $250 from a  guy who lives somewhere in the neighborhood of Dracula’s castle!  

Check out the crowdSPRING web site at  http://www.crowdspring.com. Ignore the hyperbole and try them out! We can’t promise you’ll have the kind of smooth experience we had, but for $2-500 bucks, it’s worth a try!

Twitter rises to the top of the Social network heap through its use as a sounding board by hip (hop) recording artists

By Richard Earle,
Regis Affiliate 

Like many of my associates, I have watched with interest as the 3 major social networks, Facebook, Twittter, and Linked-In battled for dominance in the social media arena.

Linked-In has sort of faded in my admittedly limited world, while Facebook has come on strong. Many of my friends are posting daily description of their family activities, accompanied by cell photos, and even videos

I would have given it the clear lead, when an article last week in the NY Times caught my eye. Headlined “Hip-Hop’s New Medium for Choice Words,” it claimed that Twitter was now the medium of choice for rappers, whom most under-30s would certainly agree are the coolest cats around.

When they have an important message for either their fans or a fellow artist, they turn to Twitter. The article’s first example is Kanye West, the impulsive rapper who stepped all over singer Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech at the Music Video Awards by jumping up on stage uninvited and taking over the microphone to announce that in his opinion, the award should have gone to another artist.

As the Times put it, “It was early last Saturday morning, or perhaps very, very late the previous night, when the stream of emotional posts began appearing on Kanye West’s Twitter feed: “The media tried to demonize me,” “I felt the recession from the ownership side,” “I’m ready to get out of my own way,” “I’m sorry Taylor.””

Please note that the medium where West felt the most heat, and on which he chose to apologize, was Twitter. It was also the battleground for Soulja Boy and Fabolous’ infamous feud.

“More so than in any other genre, save for maybe teen-pop, stars of hip-hop have taken to Twitter. As a medium, it suits hip-hop’s instantaneity well. It also offers the illusion of outsider purity,” concludes the Times.

I have generally stayed away from Twitter because of their 140-character maximum post-length rule. But that may well be all today’s under-30 would sit still for.

And if they’re an important market to you, perhaps you should take note. And short-tweet Twitter may well win the Social Media race! 

A Tip of the Hat: Groupon.com

by Claudia Barrientos
Regis V.P. Client  Services


The down-turn in the economy has forced everyone, from large corporations to individuals to reconsider their spending habits.  An online article published earlier this year by business magazine Inc. reported a 27% increase in coupon use from 2008 (http://www.inc.com/news/articles/2010/02/coupon-use-hits-record-high.html).  The increase in coupon use has given way to new business ventures focused on bringing bargains to consumers.

One such successful venture is Groupon.com. 
Established at the height of the economic down-turn, Groupon was created to grant people access to community business that might otherwise be out of the consumer’s reach.  Groupon posts a discounted activity daily and “the deal is on” only if enough people purchase the activity.   A quota of Groupons must be purchased before a “deal is on” as Groupon likes to describe it.  Once the quota is reached, there is an additional number of Groupons that are promoted until sold or for a twenty-four hour period, whichever comes first.

Groupon’s success comes as a result of making things like fitness classes, salon visits, and restaurant outings accessible and affordable to the consumers.  In addition to boosting consumer power, Groupon serves as an advertising vehicle for local businesses and successfully promotes the concept of “buying local.”

Having had several successful Groupon experiences, (accessible at http://www.groupon.com/)I give Groupon.com a Tip of the Hat for their ingenuity and success.

The Tag Line: When it absolutely, positively has to make an emotional connection

By Richard Earle,
Regis Group Affiliate

I recently explored the Advertising Age blog site (www.adage.com), which always links to articles of interest in the mother publication. What caught my eye was an article on tag lines by Al Reis, a founder of Reis & Trout in New York City, who now has partnered with his daughter Laura in Atlanta. When he ran Reis and Trout in New York, he and his partner Jack Trout introduced the phrase “Positioning” which as far as I’m concerned was the basis for today’s much more sophisticated branding techniques. So what he had to say about tag lines (an important part of the branding “Identity package”) I wanted to know.

In this age of simple, short tag lines (“Just do it,” “Got Milk?”) Reis surmises that some marketers think that simply shorter is better. But what they forget is the emotional context that ties consumers to the tag line.

Among the many examples he gives are FEDEX and Perdue Chicken.  “Federal Express could have positioned itself as: ‘The overnight company.’  But it didn't. Instead, it launched a campaign that not only turned around the brand, but also made marketing history: ‘When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight.’" You can visualize someone yelling into the phone, "My package absolutely, positively has to be in L.A. tomorrow."

“When Frank Perdue was the spokesperson for his chicken brand, he could have said, ‘Perdue, the tender chicken.’ But he didn't. What he said built the brand and also made marketing history: ‘It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken."

Al Reis concludes with this historical quote: “When Abraham Lincoln was asked how long a man's legs should be in proportion to his body, he replied, ‘They ought be long enough to reach the ground.’

How long should a slogan be? It should be long enough to reach an emotional connection in the consumer's mind.”

To read the complete article with many more examples, go to   Adage.com

Look at the Letters

by Richard Earle
Regis Group Affiliqte


As the last of our Logo posts, we’re examining two cases where a clever designer discovered that the Initial letters of the corporate name could be used to convey a special message about the brand, in these two cases, the bottom line is fun, and the consumer can have some fun recognizing what was done.

Baskin-Robbins, the ice cream chain, prides itself on the number of flavors it offers, 31 in all. In fact they used to display the number with an arc above it in their logo. In re-designing the logo, it was discovered that thee “3” and ”1” could be an integral part  of the “B” and “R” and the consumer is left to discover that fact, and hopefully have some fun doing it,

The Milwaukee Brewers, at the time of their 1982 AL Championship had a very clever, and fun-to-figure-out logo, which turned the “m” and the “b” into a classic fielder’s mitt.

Both brands promise fun, and their logo “aura” captures that! 

Emma helps

By Richard Earle
Regis Group Affiliate

If you get our newsletter, you may have noticed the name “Emma” at the bottom. No, that’s not someone in our office. It’s the corporate name of our e-mail distributer. Emma’s the new kid on the block, a group that already contains the longer-established Patron Mail and Constant Contact. I first noticed Emma on a newsletter from a designer I really respect, and outside of the memorable name (derived, I suppose from “E-mail”) I found some tasteful templates, and on the test drive, a remarkably user-friendly system (you lay it out right on the template with standard word-processing techniques.)

Emma gives complete data about who opened your newsletter and when, who clicked through your links, and to where. You can even compare it to last month, or one from a year ago. Their service representative are exceptionally knowledgeable and helpful, and they send out pretty good newsletter themselves!

It is the most recent edition that is the basis for this post. An embarrassed user in Charlotte wrote: 

“Dear Emma,  I just said something that I didn't mean to say. And I said it in an email to my entire audience list. If I were at a dinner party right now, I would just make an exaggerated shrugging motion and smile bashfully. But this is my business we're talking about. What should I do?”

Emma’s response: "A prompt correction and apology lets you show a nice flicker of personality. If you do it with a touch of class and maybe even a little humor, your apology can even strengthen the bond between you and your subscribers.

Some other points:
   
Be prompt. You'll probably see one of the highest spikes in activity in the two hours immediately after you send your campaign. The sooner you send a correction, the more likely these early respondents are to connect you with your correction rather than your error.
   
Be specific. You don't always have to craft a completely new message to address a mistake -- sometimes it's better to correct your original content and send it out again. If you send a revised version of your original message, be clear about the correction you're making, starting with the subject line. If your audience sees "correction" there, they'll probably skip the first message and go directly to the follow-up.

Remember, email is one of the more personal communication channels available to you, and if someone has invited you to share information with them regularly, they’re likely to be forgiving of the occasional mistake. A prompt correction and apology will go a long way toward showing your customers the human side of your business. And who knows, it might even get you invited to one of their dinner parties."

So, Emma deserves a tip of our hat!


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FEDEX Logo: Straight ahead

By Richard Earle,
Regis Group Affiliate

I remember clearly the campaign tag line when Federal Express first put large dollars behind a national advertising campaign: “When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight!” The implication was, of course, that those other guys (especially those in the brown uniforms) couldn’t be trusted to get it there in the morning.

It was created at Amiratti-Puris, at about the time that my friend Paula Green wrote the seminal line for Avis at Doyle, Dane and Bernbach “We’re number two. So we try harder!” This was the start of the use of plain language in tag lines, that is still with us today, as an important part of Branding. And if you’re lucky enough to have an inspired designer as well, as did Federal Express when they shortened their name to FEDEX, then you’re way ahead.

Their delivery service is as straight as an arrow, as I have found the many times when my package has indeed arrived at my client’s door at nine am as promised, so a brilliant designer implanted an arrow in their logo.

Don’t see it?  Look carefully at the “E” and “X”, and you’ll see that they create an arrow out of the white background. Fortunately, this is a company that lives up to their excellent branding, and for that, they get a well-deserved tip of our hat!

Aother Tip of the Hat

by Marc Chinoy President, The Regis Group

A big tip of the hat to State Farm Insurance, and to the “exceeds all
expectations” performance from the staff of the Kemper G. Collins Agency
in Alexandria, Virginia. Once again, there is zero working relation
between Kemper’s team and The Regis Group team other than more than
three decades of extraordinary support to my personal auto and
home-owner coverage needs. At a time when many key industries have
shifted critical elements of support out of our communities and
frequently either on-line or off-shore, it is nice to be able to lean
back when circumstances are toughest and rely on both being known and
having my working preferences understood by individuals with names who
clearly care. Single events may not be a measure of true value, but
consistency of effort over time is hard to ignore. (And yes this is
triggered by their response to a sudden failure of a condensation relief
line in my home A/C system during some of the hottest weather on record
that brought down a piece of ceiling... what a mess!). This is NOT to
say that I am paying some kind of special premium, but that those who
'shop around' for discounts in this critical area, really need to
rethink their priorities.When it comes to insurance, the final
determinant is NOT supposed to be who has the very lowest price, but who
will be there when we need them the most and are at our most vulnerable.

Amazon.com: Great service and product range. And it’s all in the Logo!

By Richard Earle,
Regis Affiliate


In any branding identity package you will often find a logo and a simple tag line. The “aura” is usually created by a thoughtfully constructed tag line, and the color palette and typeface selection of the logo. However, many large corporate entities have cleverly buried other clues in their logo that are not evident at first glance. Discovering them can be fun, and can enhance the “bonding” experience that is the goal of any branding “aura.”

Amazon.com is one of those. I have always found them willing to go the extra mile in the service area, whether as a consumer (they keep careful records of the things I ordered and notify me by email when similar items become available) or as an author (their “look inside” feature approximates what you’d do with a book you’d pick up in the bookstore.) They also quickly posted  a  bit of praise from Michael Moore I sent them (that my publisher had omitted as “too controversial.”) I am also always dazzled by the depth of their stock, in all categories.

And it’s all expressed in their logo. Most people get the “smile” graphic underlining part of the type, and hopefully they connect that with the exceptional service they provide. But there’s another symbol buried here. Note the “wrinkle” at the right end of the smile. This can also be read as the end of an arrow, connecting the “a” and “z” of the name, and carries the message: “We have whatever you’re looking for, from a to z.”

Hulu Rules!

By Nathan Mishler, Studio Cypher - Amazing Games Everywhere
http://www.twitter.com/StudioCypher (812) 361-5981

Kurt Vonnegut, one of the greatest American authors, often praised
early mass media (weekly short story magazines, radio, television)
because it fostered community. You could reasonably expect to call
your best friend and say "Hey, did you just see that? It was amazing!"
Most likely, your friend would say yes! That expectation started
disappear as short story magazines went out of business and television
channels became more numerous.

The days of "communal mass media" are returning thanks to services
like Hulu.com. With Hulu, you are no longer a slave to TV schedules.
When my friend says "Did you just see that? It was amazing!" I can say
"No, but I'll watch it right now!" instead of "Darn, I'll have to wait
two months for reruns!" Hulu also frees us from lengthy commercial
blocks. For every half hour of program time (really 22 minutes of
actual programming) Hulu gives us 1.5 minutes of commercial time.
Compare that to basic cable, which gives you 8 minutes of commercials
every half hour!

Allow me to demonstrate! My favorite television show is called Life.
It's about a police officer who is wrongly accused of the murder of
his best friend and is sent to prison. In prison he discovers Zen
which completely changes his outlook on life. As the show begins, he
has been exonerated of the crime and has returned to the force. Here's
the first episode! You can watch both seasons until September 19th.

click here to see “Life” Episode

A Drive in the Country

By Marc Chinoy, Regis Group CEO

Recently, a Saturday drive from the Shenandoah Valley eastward toward Leesburg, Virginia, quickly turned to a major headache when my vehicle developed a problem at full highway speed that caused the engine to stop running. After costing for a mile with no RPMS and no ability to restart, I ended up at the foot of a little used down-ramp miles from

the nearest services. That was when I rediscovered the value of AAA

membership.

From the first moments of calling, the response was

courteous, helpful and thorough and within the hour my vehicle was on a

flatbed truck driven by a pleasant driver who knew his stuff. Within 90

minutes of engine failure, we ended at the dealership in Leesburg and

the charges from AAA (as promised in the promotion of the product

renewed by me over the years) were slight.

I recognize that this event COULD have ended differently... but it did

not. When you are in trouble there is insurance that might work and then

there are solutions. This was a solution.

(P.S. Although our team counts many service organizations among our

clients, AAA is NOT one of them. We have no business connection and they

are not aware of this posting (yet). This posting is simply a Tip of the

Hat in their direction.)

AT&T produces a memorable piece of Branding

by RICHARD EARLE, Regis Group Affiliate

I don’t know if you’re like me, but when I hear a special piece of music, it stays inside my head for days. I play it over it in my brain as I’m falling asleep at night, and I wake up the next morning humming it.

In the Branding workshops I run, I make the point that if you are to be properly branded, you should appeal to as many of the five senses as possible, with sight and sound being a strong #1 and #2. Therefore, if you’ve got a song that’s special, combined with some killer graphics, you’re well ahead of the curve. And AT&T has it bigtime in their current commercial “Re-think Possible: Birthday.” And from observing the amount of media weight they’re buying to support it, I would say they know what they’ve got. It is run in the major network shows several times each night.

The cell phone world is dog-eat-dog, with each large conglomerate striving to own the “most innovative” brand, and this spot accomplishes that by placing a 30-something having his lunch atop an LA skyscraper and re-imagining the fanciful and innovative drawings he used to create at age 5. Each graphic is a marvelously drawn creature that is electronically inserted in the cityscape scenes, until it runs out of steam and curls up and flutters to the ground. It’s all tied together and edited to this mind-sticking song that I found to be so different from the standard commercial sound track that I had to search it. I discovered that it’s called “Pure Imagination” from the 1971 film “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” It’s performed by Gene Wilder as Willly in a true movie-musical rendition. Unique for a TV spot. The song stays with you.

I have one minor quibble: the creators of this piece of unique work obviously got so involved with the song and the unique graphics that they simply ran out of screen time. The “product shot” at the end, showing all the “i” gadgets designed for AT&T by Steve Jobs (their very own Willy Wonka) is allotted only 2 seconds at the end, and the logo and tag line flash by in 1 second. Probably conscious of that, they actually prepared a :60 which gave them room for a proper ID space at the end, plus lot more graphics which you may also access here. Both the :30 and the :60 are accessible below. (Be warned, the song will stay with you!)

AT&T Rethink Possible Birthday extended version

AT&T Rethink Possible - Birthday

Nothing.org TV: "Taste Test"

Branding “Nothing!”

Since these days, I am consulting mainly in the areas of Branding and Cause Marketing, it was a pleasure recently to encounter a brilliant piece of Cause Branding, that met most of my criteria for both skills. It was featured on a local talk show “The Callie Crossley Show” on a Boston NPR station, WGBH.

The campaign was for what was certainly a very good cause: the Rhode Island Community Food Bank. In these economically stressed times, there are many residents of the tiny state (particularly hard-hit by the recession) who have literally, nothing to eat. The breakthrough moment for the creative team at Providence Advertising Agency Nail was to brand that meal of “no-choice” as if it were an actual product called, simply, “Nothing.”

Here is where it brilliantly fulfills one of the oft-neglected principles of a Cause Marketing Creative Brief: Desired action. Too often, campaigns for causes like this get so caught up in the portrayal of sad, emaciated children that they cross our “compassion fatigue” line. “Look,” we respond, I care about these hungry families. But the problem’s just too big. There’s nothing I can do!”

The “Nothing” campaign provides a simple answer on their easy-to-remember web site, www.nothing.org. Simply buy one or more of these empty “Nothing” cans at any of the participating retail outlets for $2.99 apiece (Dunkin’ Donuts, Whole Foods, etc. ) and for each can purchased, the Food Bank will deliver 15 pounds of food to a hungry family. The TV ads, which feature a bogus “Taste Test” at a shopping mall catches real people’s reactions when the silver cover for the tested “food” is removed to reveal . . . nothing! --RICHARD EARLE

A link to the campaign on YouTube is above.