Posted by Joel Hladecek on Mar 25, 2009 in Rants | 0 comments
ABOVE: Apple's 16GB iPhone 3G - in White. Optional keychain ring and free pink eraser not pictured.
When Apple started using the color white as it’s industrial design foundation back in the late 90s – it evoked all the coolest parts of Star Wars’ Storm Troopers, 2001: A Space Odyssey – and bathroom fixtures all at once. It was a powerful design conceit that differentiated the company assertively for a decade – and big-banged out trends that are still rippling their way down the lower design food-chain today.
Then, with the advent of multicolored aluminum iPods, Black MacBooks and silver iMacs, Airs and Mac Pros, it looked as though His whiteness was finally, at long gasping last, bowing out. And none too soon.
The fact is, the whole white consumer technology thing has been done to death. There is all manner of non-Apple, white and plastic-chrome “iWhatevers” on the market. So ubiquitous is the white and “chromed” plastic look that anything done that way today usually has “made in taiwan” embossed on the side or comes from a gum ball machine.
And then Apple unveiled the iPhone 3G.
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Posted by Joel Hladecek on Mar 24, 2009 in Rants | 0 comments
There is one thing I think mobile users have done well. We generally turn off our ringers when we go to the movies. Seriously, that’s an impressive thing when you think about it, and we should all feel pretty good about that. Yes, most of that is based on pure peer pressure, admittedly. There is nothing in average-day society that is more humiliating than the rush of realization as your pocket-muffled, yet vibrantly audible ringtone fills the theater. And man, it only gets worse as you’re forced to perform the pocket-pull of shame, adding insult to injury, liberated from your pocket, the phone bursts to full volume, and all eyes have found you with the help of the ungodly bright screen that lit up when you opened the thing.
But that’s never happened to me.
And smart people, which is most of us in this case (right?), remember to turn off the ringer. It does, however bring me to the point of this post.
My in-theater misanthropism has found a new mobile offender, and for once it is not audio related. It’s those people who read sms messages during a movie.
You usually know who he is before the feature starts. He glances at it while the lights are up and everyone is seating. The possibility already sinking in, you scrutinize him, his mannerisms, clothes, who he’s with, all in an effort to privately judge whether he’s one of those. But hey – we all do that while the lights are up, right? And then he does it during the trailers. You’re behind him, but you stare at the back of his head anyway with your laser vision because you like the trailers, and even though your eyes have not completely adjusted to the dark room yet, that phone’s screen was bright enough to counter the sun ten minutes ago. It’s just a trailer you remind yourself. Maybe this is one of those feature-respectful false alarm people. Fine. And then you forget about it as the movie starts and whisks you away.
You’re distracted as he shifts his weight with purpose and immediately sense what’s about to happen – in fact you mentally dare him to. And it’s startlingly bright. I mean, it’s so bright that in that blackened room you see a Doppler Effect. It doesn’t matter that he holds it low, in some feigned effort to be considerate – your pupils just constricted off.
I have learned that you can’t publicly ridicule screen abusers in a theater as you can “ring-holes.” The lack of an original offending sound renders your otherwise audience-gratifying “Turn it off jackass!” unacceptable.
You can however, rest your foot on his chair back. That provides options.
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Posted by Joel Hladecek on Mar 23, 2009 in Rants | 0 comments
Sorry for the belligerent title. But you know it, I know it, and everyone you know knows it, except maybe those 11-year-old-girls at the mall who smell like strawberry lip-smacker and buy Live Strong-knock-off rubber bracelets that say “I’m Rad” at Wet Seal, that music-based ringtones are so very lame.
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Posted by Joel Hladecek on Sep 10, 2008 in Advertising, Featured Articles | 1 comment
“Viral Marketing” is a myth. Always has been. It never existed. And as you’ll see, even if it had, you would want nothing to do with it. “Word of Mouth”? Less toxic, but critically, equally incomplete. Social Network Marketing? Swarm Marketing? Mobile Marketing? Just more opaque containers. In a revealing display of the industry’s ongoing struggle with interactive, none of the terms in use today comes close to illuminating how an advertiser can approach inspiring that Holy Grail of interactive marketing, a User-distributive spread… Until now.
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Posted by Joel Hladecek on Aug 21, 2008 in Interactive | 0 comments
EVERY INTERACTIVE CONSTRUCT MUST PROVIDE REIMBURSEMENT OF VALUE EQUAL TO, OR IN EXCESS OF, THE USER’S SELF-APPRAISED INVESTMENT OF TIME, ATTENTION AND EFFORT OF ACTION.
All the rules of economics apply to this system- though nothing physical is exchanged. In this economic exchange the User must perceive being the inordinate beneficiary, where time, attention and action are His currency. Whereas, promise and (not “or”) payoff of value are the currency of the Interactive content creator.
Ultimately value – and not the communication of value – is the light that attracts the moths in this system.
Some of you are thinking this is obvious. And yet, all too often, more often than not, advertisers do not demonstrate such an understanding. How often are we asked to “register” before gaining access to content of undisclosed value? How often does a click on a banner ad result in redirection to more marketing messaging? How often does “Click Here” reside, where rather, something wonderful that creates a sense of curiosity should?
This axiom operates both at the macro and the micro. On the one hand it is the foundation of an ongoing relationship with the user, and on the other it drives every unique rollover and click.
Every click or interaction represents a User’s investment- a prepayment that is based on a perceived promise, and must be rewarded with a payoff.
Not a tagline, a payoff. Failure to pay off every such prepayment is akin to thievery. No wonder users are so skeptical of most online advertising.
BRANDING THE PROMISE
Have you ever wondered why, on the one hand, visitors to Disneyland will go to such great personal cost to get to the theme park, and wait in line for up to 3 hours or more to experience a 4 minute ride? And further, why these same humans won’t give your proposition so much as a click?
Disney has done an excellent job branding their promise. They have consistently (not occasionally, or once) paid off the “users’” prepayment with inordinate value. Consistently, the pay off at the end of the line was “worth it”. Thus the willingness to prepay again.
What is the pay off at the end of your click? And at a higher level, what is the payoff at the end of all your clicks? Do you pay off with inordinate value? Do you even think in those terms? If you do pay off, have you done it consistently for years, and plan on continuing for many more?
There is an opportunity for every brand out there that is willing to make a commitment to paying off every marketing based click- for years to come. Should a brand take such a stance, it will be rewarded with a huge and consistent user response. Users will come to trust the brand. They’ll know that when that brand says “click here” it’s worth it. More specifically, they will come to trust the marketing. They will seek the marketing out. They will go to great effort to find that button to click.
One of the admitted issues here, is that advertising tends not to work that way. Campaigns are changed quarterly, or more frequently, few in the advertising industry contemplate multi-year initiatives.
And yet. That’s what is required. In order to brand the promise of your brand. Got it?
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