Smile for the Data, Sweetie!

Marketers are used to mining data as a resource.  But effective presentation of data is increasingly less about numbers and spreadsheets, and more about turning the quant into a quality visual.

Not that Powerpoint isn’t visual, mind you.

‘Data visualization,’ the process of distilling reams of statistics into something aesthetically pleasing and functional, is quickly becoming a buzzword.

Tech companies have been doing this for years. Google Maps and Google Earth, for example, are just enormous amounts of data packaged into a useful and consumer-friendly service. 

Now marketers are catching on. Intel created the Museum of Me website which pulls Facebook photos, videos, and other archived bits to create a gorgeous, if self-absorbed, virtual exhibition. 

For marketers themselves, data visualization tools help synthesize paralyzing amounts of consumer information.  Forward-thinking agencies like R/GA are hiring computer scientists to find new ways to distill and display data. 

Easier analysis means faster insight and decision-making -- and even though number crunchers abound, it’s visuals that stay with most people.  Think back to your ‘how to give a presentation’ lessons -- gesture, smile, and be a presence.  That’s what’s remembered more than the content.

Data visualization creates a demand for those who are able to think mathematically as well as artistically. By using both sides of the brain, we can graph recipes that double as art work and discover new music and apps through interactive maps.

In this highly visual, digitized age, a picture’s worth a thousand words...and a million data points.

http://adage.com/article/digital/powerpoint-data-lure-consumers/227997
http://www.intel.com/museumofme/r/index.htm
http://www.abisolberg.com/#1217452/Sum-of-the-Parts
http://discovr.info
http://mwtech.com/rw/photos/GoogleEarth/

Counterintuitive Counterfeits

The counterfeit industry has long been the shady brother of legitimate, high-end manufacturers. Conventional knowledge says fakes steal sales from genuine brands, but could they actually be good for business?

A preliminary study of counterfeit sales in China (the birthplace of all these fine products) suggests that rip-offs may serve some good after all. 

In the 1990s, China suffered a bout of well-publicized cases of food-poisoning and gas tank explosions. As policing efforts were diverted from counterfeiters towards the drug, food, and gas industries, knock-offs proliferated. Instead of losing business, however, high-end labels saw rising sales in the following years.

There might be several reasons for this:

• Fakes serve as free advertising by signaling brand popularity. All publicity is good publicity, right?
• Owning a fake could eventually lead to purchasing the real thing. MIT marketing professor Renee Gosline calls counterfeits “gate-way” products that allow the owner to form an emotional attachment to the brand.
• A guilty conscience helps propel counterfeit owners to buy the genuine article.

As more brands and corporations go global, the best solution against counterfeits and copycats  is differentiation through quality. For high-end labels, luxury materials that are harder to replicate fetch higher prices anyway.

Imitation may be flattering, but it’s so much better when it’s also profitable.

http://www.slate.com/id/2294927/

http://in-this-economy.com/2009/03/04/fashion-flash-new-black/rich-louis-vuitton-car/

The Times They Are A-Changin'

A documentary about journalism might not seem like edge-of-your-seat material -- you’re thinking white guys on computers, right?  But Page One: A Year Inside The New York Times, is gripping -- a spirited defense of traditional print media in its most dire hour.  

Page One follows the goings-on of the newsroom, casting media reporter and colorful personality, David Carr, as the main protagonist defending journalism against bloggers and new media types.

Carr is actually far from a luddite. He calls himself a ‘digital adopter’ while at the same time recognizing that derivative news sources such as blogs and the Huffington Post can’t exist without and can’t replace rigorous, original reporting.

Page One makes clear that journalism as a public resource is what’s at stake -- but it’s also a classic tale of an older entity struggling to adjust to new markets and resources.

TV Guide transformed into an online fan resource; AOL is trying to sell ads instead of dial-up portals.  Can the Times, and the traditional news industry in general, make the leap where the FREEconomics have changed the field?  And if they don’t, will the blogs and aggregators in essence kill off the host organism that feeds them?

David Carr believes the Gray Lady can keep shining, beyond just using new hair dye.

He calls newspapers “branded information put together by people you trust.” The brand, if valuable enough, can live on even if the physical product, delivery method, and business model change.

The Times put up a pay wall in March, the first step in what might be a future largely supported by readers instead of ads or subscriptions.  If the Times is going to be asking for dollars, Page One is  a pretty persuasive infomercial.

http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/archives/watch_trailer_for_journalism_documentary_page_one_inside_the_new_york_times/

http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/browbeat/archive/2011/01/28/david-carr-page-one-and-the-future-of-the-new-york-times.aspx

http://www.thenewsgallery.com/2011/06/page-one-ny-times-documentary-opens-for.html

Small Logo, Big Noise

Not everyone knows the name Les Paul, but everyone Googles. When Google recently created an interactive logo to honor the late musician and inventor’s 96th birthday, the Gibson Les Paul brand received enough exposure and word-of-mouth to fill a stadium.

The logo let users strum, record, and email their masterpieces. Of course, countless work hours were wasted and YouTube videos uploaded.

Through a simple widget, Les Paul updated its image and introduced itself to non-guitar afficionados. Sometimes, small but smart executions deliver a bigger impact than scale and dollars. Rock on.

The Les Paul Google Doodle now has a permanent page, you can test it out and annoy your friends and co-workers.

Click image for the obligatory, guitar-store-banned rendition of “Stairway to Heaven.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnaqjobfkI8&feature=related

Friskies’ Marketing Cat-alyst

You know why Apple never marketed the iPad to cats? There just weren’t enough apps for them. Cat food maker, Friskies, has changed all that with a line of tablet games for the underserved feline segment.

Capitalizing on the Internet’s insatiable appetite for cat videos, Friskies released an ad on YouTube that was quickly imitated by pet owners who rushed to film Fluffy playing with the most expensive toy ever.

The value of technology like the iPad lies in how you use it to serve real human needs and passions. For Friskies, the formula was: 1 open-ended tech medium + 1 community of cat lovers = cheap exposure/good will from consumers.

Sprint aimed for the same market with its Android 4G cat commercial, but Friskies actually integrated itself into the online cat phenomenon by giving people a product to use and share.

How can technology benefit and entertain your consumers? Zippo has an app featuring virtual lighters for concert-goers; Pedigree created a facial recognition program called “Doggelganger” that matches users to their shelter dog counterparts.

As our personal gadgets become more sophisticated, what’s imaginable is often doable. And the impact of marketers spending dollars not on a 30 second TV blip but on an app that interacts with consumers, furry or not, is a welcome development.

But then again, we're also easily distracted by balls of yarn.

Click image for video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaif2uq_0Vc
http://technabob.com/blog/2011/05/20/friskies-ipad-games-for-cats/

Name That Logo!

If a picture is worth a thousand words, a good logo is worth even more. A good logo is likable and persuasive (think Obama’s 2008 campaign design); a bad one is...well, the briefly lived Gap fiasco.

A well-designed logo is the literal face of the brand-- an ambassador that conveys corporate identity, personality, a promise. It does all of this instantaneously and has the potential to linger in the public memory far beyond words and slogans.

Need proof that effective logos really settle into the public consciousness? You can test your own recall skills with Sporcle.com’s Corporate Logos quiz. You have 6 minutes to name 36 common brands. It’s a little trickier than it looks, there’s always that one at the end driving you nuts...

Does your logo say what you want it to? Would investing in identity work reinvigorate the brand or will consumers pounce if they feel like you’re changing something beloved and familiar? Ponder these questions as you take the quiz.

It’s a great time waster if nothing else. There’s even a Corporate Logos 2 and 3 for 200% more brand action.

http://www.sporcle.com/games/corplogos.php

Trick or Tweet

Twitter user @oldmansearch is apparently an 81-year old man who was told by his son that Twitter is how you search on Google.

You can imagine, peeking into an old man’s “searches” provides endless amusement: “Diane sawyer swimsuit pictures” -- “Is alex trebek really smart?” --  “Doorbell volume.”  

Though @oldmansearch has racked up over 100,000 followers in a month, it’s probably fake. Hard to believe even a computer-illiterate senior citizen would continue searching without any actual results.

Most likely, this is someone hoping to capitalize on the success and subsequent TV deal around the ‘Sh** My Dad Says’ Twitter feed made popular years back.

Nonetheless, the account is a great example of how Twitter is leveraged for different purposes.  Companies like Dell effectively use it for customer service, TV networks use hashtags to connect with viewers, and others obviously use it for pure amusement.  Or to communicate live during turbulent times across the globe.

Twitter has become a viable people mover.   And from offers to awareness, it’s worth considering how your business objectives could be met by a tweak of these tweets.  

Just use under 140 characters.  Or one really old character.

http://twitter.com/#!/oldmansearch