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November 17

Mobilizing with the Mobile Web

by Christine Fiske

We’re all hearing it – the forsaken R word, the markets in disarray, you get the idea. Marketers are focused increasingly on digital, but as any good marketer should, they are likely questioning just how to reach their audience with a digital strategy that embraces emerging mediums including social media, mobile, and more traditional digital media such as online advertising. Mobile is one of the oldest of the “new” emerging technologies, and while 2009 was long poised to be a big year for mobile, it is worth taking a step back to reevaluate whether now is the right now time to be investing marketing dollars in mobile. As marketers, we’re always looking for relevant and valuable ways to connect our brands with customers, and mobile is perhaps the most measurable, relevant, and personalized means of meeting that need. Until recently, mobile has not been a very lucrative means of connecting with customers mainly because of low data-usage rates, clunky handset experiences with data, and slow network speeds. With the emergence of 3G networks, affordable data-plans, and brilliant new smart-phones (hut hum, namely the iPhone), customer data usage is rapidly climbing, making marketing to customers on mobile increasingly relevant, and increasingly popular.

Mobile is inherently unique in that it is portable, extremely personal, and now more than ever, highly measurable. Marketing for mobile, whether via messaging, advertising, mobile apps, or a mobile web presence; leverages all of these inherent unique properties of the channel. Marketers can reach users when and where information is most relevant, since the user is always connected to her mobile device. Mobile provides location-based services (LBS), provides a vehicle for instantaneous transaction and brand experience, and serves up relevant content to users leveraging demographics, handset device information, and other preferences gathered through increasingly accurate mobile usage data. Given the measurability of mobile down to the individual user, targeted and relevant content is not only possible, but in addition, enables us to glean valuable data on click-through, participation in campaigns, time and location relevancy.

Now, navigating through the mobile ecosphere is not always easy. Where does one start? For many marketers, the mobile web is the most natural starting point, as it is not really that much different from the traditional online site as it exists today. In simple terms, an optimized mobile web site is a streamlined version of an online site, which provides not all, but rather the most relevant content for individuals on the go, formatted for mobile, from the company’s traditional online site. For years folks have been asking if the traffic and popularity of the mobile web (or WAP, as some call it) can sustain building a site optimized for mobile. This should be less questionable in most recent months given the statistics being thrown around about trends of incredible upward usage of the mobile web. Consider this - ABI Research sees mobile web growth continuing over the next five years, with highly capable Internet browsers on smart-phones expanding from 130 million in 2008 to 530 million by 2013! Simply incredible when you consider the opportunity to connect with so many millions of users on a device they deem so personal. Mobile is no longer seen as a ‘nice to have’, but is rather a channel marketers are taking seriously and beginning to plan for not only in the short term, but in their longer term strategies as well. In many ways, having a mobile presence is akin to having a website in 2000. It is expected by consumers, will drive an increasing slice of the pie of your customers’ brand experience, and if smartly executed, is a huge opportunity to add value to your customers in pertinent and meaningful ways. Don’t wait too long; it’s time to mobilize.

posted to: Mobile | 1 Comment »

November 11

Can headlines and taglines support a brand experience? Damn right!

by Tony Gould

Whether writing for the Web or print, grabbing the reader’s attention is a must. That’s exactly what Canadian Club’s “Damn Right” campaign does. “Damn Right Your Dad Drank It” features great pics (submitted by Canadian Club employees) from the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s along with provocative headlines that remind guys that their dads were once cool… manly even. And real men drank Canadian Club.

Nice.

This campaign is clean—simple and easy to read. And, at almost a year old, it’s still gaining fans… and a few enemies. Some say the campaign is sexist and should be pulled. (It’s hard to whip out a headline like “Your Mom Wasn’t Your Dad’s First” and not expect some backlash.) Others, like myself, think it’s genius.

No, no—I’m not a sexist and I’m not condoning alcohol consumption. Here’s what I like about the ads: they out-do typical alcohol promos by conveying an image that men in their 30s and 40s can relate to. I am, after all, part of the target market—a guy in his mid-thirties. And I have on more than one occasion reflected and asked myself “Wow, am I becoming my father?” The “not his first” connotation taps the moment when guys like me first realized that Dad was a regular guy, too. It’s the campaign’s ability to tap into the real aspects of a man’s life that make it work.

And like any great image ad, there’s no call to action. The “selling” gets done through back channels. Beam Global, the makers of Canadian Club, spent millions on out-of-home and radio advertising, experiential elements, point-of-sale items and in-market events that still continue to this day. In fact, a co-branded event promotion took place in Boston a few weeks ago. Canadian Club sponsored a “Mad Men” party in junction with the popular A&E television series. The series, set around the 1950’s New York advertising scene, syncs well with CC’s retro campaign. At the event, party goers were given free Canadian Club cocktails in an attempt to gain new brand loyalists and evangelists.

As an astute Molecule, you’re wondering what this has to do with Web-based brand interactions. Through back channels, like the Mad Men event, partygoers are introduced to the website. The Web experience is straightforward. It lets users create their own Damn Right ad. Users choose their favorite ad and apply a personal pic, adjust it and download the finished product. What’s great from a copywriting perspective is how CC’s tone carries the brand theme throughout. The directions read “Fiddle around with the click and drag, rotate and scale tools until your image looks Damn Right,” and “Damn Right this was easy. Now you can download your ad and send it to your friends.” That’s good on-brand copy.

I slapped my picture on “Your Dad Was Not A Metrosexual.” (I’m hoping for those of you who’ve seen me around the office, “metrosexual” was the furthest from your mind.)

The experience is simple, effective and engaging. Log on Canadianclubwhisky.com and create your own. I’m going to send mine to my dad. He’ll be proud.

posted to: Creative | 1 Comment »

November 10

Service design and/or Experience design?

by Brian Gillespie

Service Design Management was the theme at the 5th Design Management Forum in Cologne this past weekend. The title to the conference was “Creating Experience” which got some of us in attendance discussing the difference between service design and experience design.
In my own investigations before the conference I noticed that descriptions of experience design tended to suggest that experience design was actually the super-design practice, responsible for designing products, processes, services, events, and environments utilizing such diverse disciplines as graphic design, interior design, architecture, digital design, theater, exhibit design, theme-park design, game design, environmental design, and communications. I’d like to meet that designer! You name it, they do it!
Since I was attending a conference on design management I could not help thinking that experience design ought possibly be instead considered experience design management. As a design management practice, and not a design practice, it is responsible for orchestrating the distinct design services into creating the integrated whole experience. All the original design practices can continue to call themselves graphic designers, architects, etc., who not only do what they typically do but also at times contribute to a larger entity, the experience, in collaboration with many other design practices. Now as we know bringing different design practices together to work towards a single end is not unlike a very ancient craft…cat-herding! However, ultimately the greatest skill of the designer who also wants to be regarded as an experience designer may be their ability to collaborate.
Parting musings…my pre-conference investigations had experience designers designing services and service designers designing experiences. Is this possible?
It was also suggested that experience design is different than service design because xd is focused on the touch-point itself, the front-line of the experience, whereas service design also considers not just that but also the day-to-day processes that make the service work. That it goes deeper into the organization…and honestly as soon as you start doing that, are we back to being design managers again?

posted to: Experience Design, Strategic Design | No Comments »

November 10

Busuu.com: Not Another Social Networking Site

by Karen Lin

Actually, you could even call it a “social teaching” site. Busuu.com (website) taps into an international community of language-learning enthusiasts — of English, Spanish, French, and German for now at least — and incorporates easy-to-use language learning methods much like its offline software brethren such as Rosetta Stone. But it doesn’t stop there. Busuu sets its users up to connect with and correct each other via “editing” of other users’ written responses in the form of comments and ratings (pictured below) and live chat. You basically have a network of a several personal language tutors at your fingertips, 24 hours and 7 days a week.

It works because it takes advantage of the fact that every person is already an expert in at least one language — their own — and when armed with an eagerness to learn new languages, this makes for a dedicated community of users who are more than willing to share their own expertise in exchange for the expertise of others. Combined with its interactive lessons, pick-your-own topics, news feed of when others have “edited” or commented on your writing exercises, and even little animated trees that grow as you grow your language skills, Busuu is well on its way to fulfilling the dreams of its co-founders in maintaining the diversity of languages around the world.

The inspiration for the website’s name “Busuu”? A language from Cameroon that is only spoken by eight people in the world.

posted to: Experience Design, Web 2.0 & Social Media | No Comments »

November 7

GSN - Play every day

by Tom Kershaw

GSN Logo color variations

We recently had the opportunity to work on an extremely fun project for GSN (Game Show Network) - this included a new brand identity and a total redesign of GSN.com. The use of the new logo and color palette went live yesterday and the redesign of GSN.com will launch early next year.

The logo concept that Molecular created (pictured above) is based on a game board which is meant to evoke the games and playfulness of GSN. The 9 game pieces can be used in a variety of ways to add to the playfulness and interaction inherent in the brand. The visual treatment of the logo is bright and colorful, with a glossy rendered look. As the target audience are adults, the aim was to convey fun but without the execution appearing child-like.

The real beauty of this logo is the versatility that the game pieces bring.The logo can easily convey themes and seasons. The game pieces allow a window on another world or they can be swapped out for objects like jewels, playing cards, scrabble tiles etc. The ability to animate the logo based on the desire by the client to ensure an interaction at every interaction is endless and can be utilized to enhance the transition of themes and seasons.

We worked in conjunction with Buster - an LA-based design firm specializing in broadcast and advertising. They have produced some very slick on-air elements, utilizing the playfulness of the pieces.

posted to: Creative | 1 Comment »

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