Goodby’s cab test (part 2)
What brand do you think is most in need of a makeover and why?
When blogs die
Wall of Same
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The iPhad
How Apple’s hot new tablet misses the boat.
Unless you’ve been hiding under an iRock for the past year, you already know that Apple’s got a brand new bag. It’s called the “iPad.” It’s about the size of a small diary. And it’s supposed to be an e-reader and netbook in one, only better.
Apple touts this as its “most advanced technology in a magical and revolutionary device . . .”
If you watch the product launch keynote, or the promotional video on their site, you could be forgiven for believing they have just unleashed a new technology that will revolutionize the world in the same way the personal computer has.
When I first heard Apple was releasing a tablet, visions of a device similar in nature to the sleek and slim MacBook Air, except a tablet with a really nice stylus, danced in my head. Could this be the perfect computer for the creative mind?
Unfortunately, my hopes were dashed last week when Apple unveiled its tablet.
My first thought was, “Wow – ‘iPad’ – what an unfortunate name.”
My second thought was that it seemed to be an iPod Touch that doesn’t fit in your pocket. The more I learned about the device, the more that impression was confirmed.
So, is it a good product? Depends on what you’re looking for. Here’s my list of iPad hits and misses, divided into “Smarts” and “Stupids”:
Smart – Apps:
Whether the iPad is a “real” computer or not, having access to the Apple App Store is smart. I rarely buy new software for my computers. I used to think it was because I had what I needed and that was it. But after having an iPhone for quite some time I realized it was more about access. And if I had access to cheap novelty apps as a built-in mechanism on my MacBook, it would be making fart sounds 24-7.
Stupid – No multitasking
So there is Steve Jobs, sitting on a couch, talking about how fun and productive you can be using your iPad. Checking email, surfing the web . . . but not at the same time. If you want to come close to competing with netbooks, you need multitasking.
Stupid – No full-featured web browser
Mr. Jobs (which seems like an appropriate name right now) also claimed that it was the best web browsing experience, period. Really?! No third-party plug-in support. No Unity. No Flash. Nothing? 33% of web content is Flash. I’d hardly call not being able to access 33% of the web “the best experience.” Not to mention the lack of support for Hulu (Flash Player). When I was living in The Big Apple (see what I did there?), all my TV viewing was done during lunch watching Hulu, along with millions of other Americans. No Flash = no Hulu = :-(
Smart – iBooks
This goes back to my comment about accessibility to product. The iBook store will make finding and buying books easier than ever. And when something is easy to do, humans will tend to do it. Even when we shouldn’t.
Smart – Same hardware as iPhone
By using the same processor and other hardware elements that the iPhone and iPod Touch use, Apple was able to keep costs on the product low. Given that the product is larger in dimension, Apple was also able to cram in a bigger battery to power low-demand hardware. This translates into impressive battery life. But still not as good as the Kindle.
Stupid – Same hardware as iPhone
Really?! Here is the most anticipated product launch since the iPhone. A product that your customers want as a Notebook/Netbook alternative. And you give it a phone’s CPU? You can’t run anything of substance on it! It is just not powerful enough. It feels like Steve has created something for himself here, not considering the needs and wants of his customers.
Smart – iTunes for movies and TV
The biggest barrier that I have had to buying TV shows and movies from iTunes has been not having a comfortable venue to watch said shows. And I’ll be damned if I buy yet another piece of electronics and attach it to my TV (AppleTV, hello?). Having access to iTunes, a comfortable chair, and an iPad is an intriguing prospect.
Smart – Its screen
Having a big, bright colourful screen will be a bonus to many people. That screen will make movie buying and watching worthwhile.
Stupid – Its screen
If one of the reasons Apple wants you to buy an iPad is to read books, then they should have used a screen technology that is easier on the eyes. The Kindle and Sony Reader’s ePaper screens reflect light similar to paper, so they reduce eye strain.
Stupid – Not a real computer/no stylus or pen
The iPad is not a real computer. What I mean by that is that it is not a full-service operating system. It doesn’t have a full-powered CPU, with proper inputs and outputs (USB). People were looking for a real computer. People were looking for a lightweight Apple alternative to a netbook. What they got was literally an oversized iPhone – except it doesn’t fit in your pocket, and you can’t make a phone call with it. It doesn’t even have a stylus or handwriting recognition. What good is a tablet you can’t write or draw on? The only benefit you get from this device being a tablet is that it is nice to hold.
Stupid – Its name
The “iPad” . . . Really?! What about this device is pad like? Is it like a landing pad? A pad of paper? A feminine hygiene pad? There is nothing pad-like about this product. Or is there? On top of all this, people in Massachusetts are wondering how to differentiate talking about their iPod and their iPad. (Accent joke!)
Stupid – It’s not positioned well against anything
I struggle to try to figure out what the iPad is great for. What is it positioned against? Is it a reader with added features? Well if you were going to buy a digital reader, you would likely want something that is pleasurable to read. The iPad’s bright LED screen can and will cause eye-strain. Let’s look at the iPad versus the Kindle.
iPad has video.
iPad has colour.
Kindle is easier on the eyes for reading.
Kindle is smaller and more portable.
Kindle is cheaper.
For an e-reader, advantage: Kindle.
If you are in the market for a sub-$500 Notebook or netbook, you are likely going to want something that is powerful enough to run the applications you need, and perform the functions you want it to. You would likely want something you can plug external devices into like a USB key, hard drive, or even your iPod. If we compare the iPad versus a netbook . . .
Netbooks are cheaper.
Netbooks are more powerful.
Netbooks have full browsers.
Netbooks can multi-task.
Netbooks have USB and external interfaces.
Netbooks are real computers.
For a sub-$500 computer, advantage: Netbook.
Conclusion
Overall, the iPad is on the wrong side of dull. It’s a product that tries to fill many roles, but fills all of them poorly. It is positioned between two high-demand products, without anything close to an advantage that would make the average person want to buy it.
Apple will likely sell thousands of iPads simply due to the brand following and “cool” factor of new technology. Over the long run, however, unless Apple positions themselves better in the market, I can see the iPad hurting their overall brand image.
Mobile flexes fundraising muscle
As early as five years ago, only organizations such as World Vision and the Red Cross or governments with armies could mobilize and respond quickly to massive humanitarian crises. Today, technology connects us in ways that enable, empower and compel us to do more than lament. We can act on our intentions by giving in extraordinary ways.
Case in point: There has been an overwhelming response to the recent Haitian crisis. Largely, it has been achieved by harnessing quick, real-time applications such as Twitter, texting and Facebook. Companies large and small are all thinking creatively and quickly to set up fundraising for these platforms. People have been able to immediately share the ways that they’ve given with their friends, which has inspired (and pressured) others to respond as well.
In the hours and days immediately following the disaster, you could text “HAITI” to 45678 on your Rogers, Bell, Virgin or Telus cell phone and $5 would automatically be directed towards The Salvation Army from your monthly bill. (More details here.) Rogers has promised to donate $250,000 to relief efforts, and customers can donate $5 by texting “HELP” to shortcode 1291. You can also text “HAITI” to 90999 to donate $10 to the American Red Cross relief for Haiti.
How much money are we talking here? The Red Cross has reported that as a result of the mass social network campaign, it received $35 million in donations in the first 48 hours after the earthquake — more than half through online contributions and at least $8 million by text.
Great results, but a word of caution: beware of jumping on the fundraising bandwagon without proper research. Many companies and non-profits may not be organized to direct the funds to the right place. There have also been a number of false fundraisers setting up collection bins on Facebook and other websites. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has even released a Haitian Earthquake Relief Fraud Alert.
Personally, I like the transparency of the Clinton-Bush Haiti Fund. Donors can give to the efforts, then connect with up-to-date information via email, Facebook or Twitter. Once you’ve donated, you can tell all your friends by posting links and buttons, tweeting and blogging.
Where design meets advertising
It’s Design Week in Toronto. That means the Toronto International Design Festival is on from January 20-24. Anchored by the Interior Design Show (IDS), the city is set to burst into little design flames with shops, galleries and even schools opening their doors to celebrate design and innovation.
Curated and promoted by Design Exchange, there are a number of events that span the disciplines of design: fashion, interiors, graphics, architecture, and environmental.
My top pick? I’d like to hear Bruce Mau share his thoughts on “A World Without Oil” at IDS. Opinions of Mau are polarized, but he’s clearly a design thinker who contributes across many disciplines and he’s been a longtime proponent of lateral, collaborative work in efforts to cause positive social change.
Unfortunately, it will cost you dearly for the privilege: $125 for a half day of talks.
Then, of course, we have Advertising Week. It picks up where Design Week leaves off. January 25-29, to be exact. Promoted by the Institute of Communication Agencies (ICA), it will be held concurrently in six Canadian cities and will include film screenings, talks, networking events, exhibits and the like.
Apparently Advertising Week is for people in “creative industries and those who aspire to be creative.” That covers just about everybody, doesn’t it?
There are a lot of great picks here, ranging from Toronto advertising celebrities such as Terry O’Reilly and living legend Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at MaRS with ideas, tools and inspirations for “Leading Social Change.”
The only downside to all this action is that it’s impossible to take it all in. Maybe somebody will design a time machine. Or at least a better way to track the growing number of relevant events now that things are really getting interdisciplinary.
Three things we should be playing with
Boone Oakley makes good use of YouTube Annotations.
YouTube Annotations
Forgive me – this first one’s not cutting edge, but Grip’s Stephen Bennett reminded me how powerful, yet under-utilized, this technique can be. YouTube Annotations let you add background information about your video, create stories with multiple storylines, and link to other videos, channels or search results – all within the video player itself. For an elegant demo, check out the Charlotte, North Carolina-based agency Boone Oakley’s YouTube-based website (above).
fotobabble
This fun little site lets you quickly and easily add your voice to photos and then share them via e-mail, Facebook or Twitter, or embed them into a site. They call them, “talking photos.” My guess is that we are minutes away from seeing the first brand with a Facebook app using this simple marriage of existing platforms for a contest or community activation. I hope we’re working on something!
Digital Spray Paint
Technology puts street graffiti into the marketer’s arsenal with software-creation tools and projection interfaces. Think: the immersive, experiential qualities of graffiti – without the nuisance of the arrest warrant.
Your holiday reading list
You know about TED, right? The small, non-profit devoted to “Ideas worth spreading”? TED’s ever expanding online database has more than 500 15-minute videos: the TED Talks – ranging from Al Gore’s climate to Jane Goodall’s primates, and all points in between.
If I had one issue with all that knowledge, it would be that while it’s topically diverse, it often just scratches the surface. In other words, it’s a mile wide but only 15 minutes deep.
For people hungry to dive deeper into TED’s world of ideas this holiday season and beyond, check out this list from its book club:
• An Inconvenient Truth – Al Gore
• Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist’s Guide to Global Warming – Bjorn Lomborg
• Design Like You Give a Damn: Architectural Responses to Humanitarian Crises – Kate Stohr and Cameron Sinclair
• Earth From Above – Yann Arthus-Bertrand
• Everything Bad Is Good for You – Steven Johnson
• In Pursuit of Elegance: Why the Best Ideas Have Something Missing – Matthew E. May
• Mannahatta: A Natural History of New York City – Eric W. Sanderson
• McMafia: A Journey Through the Global Criminal Underworld – Misha Glenny
• The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap Between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World – Jacqueline Novogratz
• Ocean: An Illustrated Atlas – Sylvia A. Earle and Linda K. Glover
• Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces that Shape our Decisions – Dan Ariel
• slide:ology: The Art and Science of Creating Great Presentations – Nancy Durate
• Stumbling on Happiness – Daniel Gilbert
• The Assault on Reason – Al Gore
• The Atlas of the Real World – Daniel Dorling
• The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable – Nassim Nicholas Taleb
• The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries Are Failing and What Can Be Done About It – Paul Collier
• The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope – William Kamkwamba
• The Case for God – Karen Armstrong
• The Elephant, the Tiger, and the Cell Phone: Reflections on India – The Emerging 21st-Century Power – Shashi Tharoor
• The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom – Jonathan Haidt
• The Invention of Air – Steven Johnson
• The Invention of Hugo Cabret – Brian Selznick
• The Untied States of America: Polarization, Fracturing, and Our Future – Juan Enriquez
• Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us – Seth Godin
• What Are You Optimistic About? – Edited by John Brockman
• What Matters: The World’s Preeminent Photojournalists and Thinkers Depict Essential Issues of Our Time – David Elliot Cohan
• What We Believe but Cannot Prove: Today’s Leading Thinkers on Science in the Age of Certainty – Edited by John Brockman
• Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto – Stewart Brand
• Work Hard. Be Nice.: How Two Inspired Teachers Created the Most Promising Schools in America – Jay Mathews
Have you already read any of these? Would you recommend them? Why or why not?
Food for thought – TED India report
The TED India Conference that I attended in Mysore India last month was themed by the concept: The Future Beckons. It seems to me that the future is arriving at an exponential speed compared to its passing, and with it is the ever-pressing need to find solutions to marketing’s global challenges.
The idea of “design thinking” provided an underpinning for this year’s TED. On that note, the Director of the Stanford Design Program and the founder of the “Design for Change Lab”, Banny Banerjee had this to say:
“Design Thinking – the term used for the combination of the processes, skills, cognitive processes, and attitudes prevalent in design – is being used to infuse innovation into businesses; an even more significant phenomenon is that design thinking is being looked at as having genuine promise in addressing issues of sustainability.”
Banerjee’s ideas, like so many speakers at TED, got the design geek in me super-psyched to help spread the gospel of design thinking. And writing this post forced me to think about some examples that prove its relevance to our world of marketing. Thankfully there are many.
Here are three:
1. Progressive Insurance – Progressive Insurance implemented design thinking in the early 90s; the result was real time accident evaluation and customer care – an industry first. With operational innovation, Progressive could suddenly provide better service at lower costs than its competitors, according to a 2004 article by Michael Hammer in The Harvard Business Review. That move reflected a designer’s way of thinking about customer needs, but the company was able to execute the idea through its ability to measure, analyze and improve its processes.
2. Pact Underwear – Launched earlier this year, PACT and futurist Yves Behar are refashioning how people perceive apparel in the 21st century by focusing every aspect of their product through a socially conscious lens. They started with the integration of a social aspect into the design itself. As part of the brand’s essence, PACT is commiting to partnerships with nonprofit organizations that work to create social and environmental change. Each underwear collection is aligned with a nonprofit. Internationally recognized artists and designers create graphic visualizations of each organization’s mission with underwear as their canvas. PACT then gives 10% of each sale to support these organizations. That ladders back to a positioning that’s embodied in their motto: “Change Starts With Your Underwear.”
3. Apple – And, of course, there’s the iPhone. Simply put, the now-iconic commercials that bring to light the tactile functionality and intuitive nature of the device are a succinct reflection of what Mr. Jobs presented to the brand’s legions of followers via the keynote unveiling of the iPhone.
If Banerjee’s (or my) opinions about the power and potential of design thinking have piqued your interest, you might be interested in Toronto’s Roger Martin, the Dean of U of T’s Rotman School, and his concept of “Integrative Thinking”.
Torontonians who want to learn more about Design Thinking and Integrative Thinking, should check out the “Integrative Thinking Experts Speaker Series” at Rotman. Next Event is December 3, 2009.
Revisiting your ABCs
Gotten your hands dirty with design lately? Likely not.
With the shift of most professional creative endeavors to the digital realm, particularly in fields such as graphic design, photography, illustration, video, and music, it is easy to lose touch with the hands-on experience. As a designer and production artist working in advertising, I often feel bound to the computer as a creative tool. Sometimes, however, it’s a good idea to step out of your comfort zone and look elsewhere for inspiration.
Case in point: despite my love of digital design and its capabilities, one of the more rewarding type experiences I’ve had recently was with a child’s lettering kit. I was looking for an appropriate typeface for an invitation. The prospect of trolling through endless digital font samples to find the right type just seemed too much like work. Sure, there are some great digital typefaces out there, maybe too many.
This time, however, I found my type in a simple stamp set belonging to my daughter. This unassuming little kit includes individual stamps for each letter of the alphabet, as well as the numbers 0-9, some key punctuation, and an ink pad.
It was a revelation to work with. And a heck of a lot of fun, too! The whole process was immediate and rewarding. No two stamped letters were exactly alike, and the results well-suited the intent. Of course, I couldn’t resist the temptation to scan in the lettering and manipulate it further on the computer, imposing “order” on the random results. But the real fun was in the tactile, hands-on approach to creating the type.
I’m sure that many graphic designers began their careers, as I did, working with traditional media, and then adapted their skills to computer-based applications. Certainly, hand-drawn type, Letraset, paste-up, halftone screens, and such production methods can seem like quaint memories from decades gone by. Contemporary design and image software have rendered traditional approaches all but obsolete.
It can be difficult to break away from reliable production methods, certainly in advertising, where so much of what we do is deadline-driven and constrained by brand standards. And while this idea of returning to “the source” for inspiration is an old standby, it’s worth a second thought.
While we become more comfortable with our high-tech tools, we can lose touch with some of the simpler creative outlets that drew many of us into the world of design in the first place. But there is definitely room for outdated technology in the digital world. The union of the two can create interesting – and liberating – results.
As the saying goes, “everything old is new.”
Thoughts on a film about stuff
Objectified is a feature-length documentary about our relationship with manufactured objects. For the marketer, it is a look behind the curtain at the business of creating what we sell (objects, more often than not) much earlier in the process than we are often privy to.
Director Gary Hustwit’s (Helvetica) film offers us a look at the creativity and discipline, as well as the decisions and constraints, that must guide the form and function of everything from toothbrushes to tech gadgets. Hustwit’s bias is definitely toward uncovering designers’ personal philosophies, but the resulting film also reveals the demands that consumerism, social identities, and now sustainability, place on the shaping of all things manufactured – and ultimately bought.
More than anything, Objectified serves as a primer on the subject. Great for the student, the curious culture observer, or a communication nerd because it scratches at the topic of industrial design with just enough depth to be engaging and informative, without becoming too concerned with the plumbing.
The film’s perspective on how digital interaction and the microchip has the power to change the form of products – but how it doesn’t appear to be doing so yet (digital cameras still look like film cameras, for example, despite the absence a film chamber that dictated its predecessor’s form) – starts to uncover how arbitrary consumer expectations influence the design process.
Among the film’s highlights is hearing Chris Bangle (former Chief of Design at BMW) talk about the automobile as ‘personal avatar’, and IDEO founder Bill Moggridge recounting the moment when, upon designing the first laptop, he realized software would define our world more so than hardware.
On the topic of bad design, David Kelley, also of IDEO, says:
“Bad design is where the customer thinks it’s their fault that something doesn’t work. So if you can’t make your GPS device work in your car — I mean, there should be a riot because they’re so poorly designed! Instead, the user thinks, ‘Oh, I’m not very smart, I can’t make this GPS thing work.’ People should demand more from the things they own, they need to demand that things work.”
The film does get a bit thin in places where the designers are given reign to wax philosophical on their craft. I’d have gladly traded some of that for more time with legendary Braun designer Dieter Rams, who is given conspicuously short shrift when one considers the weight and span of his influence in contemporary design circles. A lesser peeve is that though iconoclast Karim Rashid’s suggestion of cardboard laptops and sugar cane mobile phones is well articulated, the man’s sartorial resemblance to Brüno undermines his argument.
I came away believing (more than ever) that that the average consumer is irrelevant. It’s the edges of an intended audience that truly set the parameters for effective design. I think there’s a lot to be learned from that belief in how we choose to communicate with our respective audiences as marketers and advertisers.
What Google Maps can teach us about display advertising
Marketing Essentials: Designing For Your Audience
If you’ve mapped your way to a destination in the last two weeks using Google Maps, you may not have noticed some recent design changes it has undergone. They are the first changes to the core design of Google Maps in almost five years.
While there were many incremental changes – none particularly earth-shattering on their own – what the Google Maps overhaul shows us are four simple design principles that are just as important for the effectiveness of any displayed brand communication – both in digital and in print:
1. Put relevant content where it belongs.
Taking a look at some of the higher zoom levels, relevant secondary highways and arterial roads are now also visible. The result: easier planning of alternate routes between cities, rather than only being able to see the expressways and main roads.
For branded communication this holds true for your specific campaign target; is my ad sending relevant information to the target audience at the right time? It this the right channel for this information?
If it is not, perhaps it isn’t the right media vehicle, or perhaps it belongs on a different page on the site.
The right information for the audience, at the right time and place.
2. Reduce clutter.
Google maps now features narrower city streets, and a more subdued colour scheme to make it easier to pick out your destination quickly, especially in city details.
Applying this same sensibility to branded communication, is there a single message ringing through loud and clear? Are there extra visual elements that are clouding the communication?
The more single-minded the communication, the better the chances that the intended message is the takeaway.
3. Make it easy to read.
Names and streets in the new maps are in a darker font, and are aligned with street directions, making things easier to read quickly.
For brands it may sound simple, but it can often be overlooked: is the copy – in both length and legibility – appropriate given the placement?
Strong long-format content may work well on a microsite or in a magazine, but 5-7 large, legible words are optimal on a billboard or in an online banner. High contrast between background and copy is always better too.
Make it easy for the audience to read the message and consider the time you expect them to have to view it.
4. Regionalize your message.
For certain cities, elements of the new maps design are adapted to the local customs of signage and mapping in those cities.
Applying this idea to a campaign – did we check to make sure this is locally relevant? Is there a regional piss-off factor we might be overlooking?
Because, as hilarious as that headline may be in one region, you may be putting your foot in your mouth in another. Coors Light’s misstep a few months back (and Bud Light’s retort) provide a particularly poignant example.
Together, these four principles help makes Google Maps easier to use, and will make your branded communications more effective.
Are there other considerations for designing for your audience that you would add?
