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Posts tagged as 'Marketing'
Hello everybody, my name is Jason – the other half of Wise & Young. This is my first post on Wise & Young: The Blog, and I’m going to continue with Levi’s previous topic about how our generation will not listen to traditional advertising with as much faith as other generations. I’m going to use the movie industry as a prime example.
Due to being apart of the MTV generation, the youth is taught real well how to thin slice. We know what we like and what we don’t like by quick first impressions. This concept is explored in Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink, an essential read for anybody in this business. It’s only natural for this ADD generation to be really good at thin slicing—the superficial means everything.
You don’t even have to read reviews to know that the movie Stealth was seriously bad. But why did it flop when it had Oscar winning Jamie Foxx? Why did the film flop when so much money was thrown in to marketing it in commercials and billboards? Well I haven’t seen the film, but I’m thin slicing from memory all of those advertising spots on MTV, and I just knew it was going to be a disaster due to the ugly/unclear nature of it all. The billboards of Stealth boast the cheesiest graphics that I’ve seen since the XXX: State of the Union. I looked up at the billboard and wondered what the hell was the production company thinking. Saying the name and throwing some flashy B.S. in my face isn’t going to sale the movie.
I need context, I need a connection, and I need love!
Our generation defines trends in almost only word of mouth. Malcom Gladwell talks about connectors in his other book, The Tipping Point, and how connectors create trends ...
Tagged as Film, Marketing, Branding | No Comments » | Continue 
Saatchi & Saatchi CEO Kevin Roberts, no matter what they say about him (good, bad or evil), has a pretty solid and organized concept when it comes to lovemarks. Lovemarks, in plain English, is when a brand goes from being just a brand to something people cherish and respect emotionally.
Lovemarks, in my eyes, are going to become and have already slowly become very important to the youth consumer. The youth want authentic and respectable brands that they can associate themselves with but at the same time not feel like they have sold out. Sold out is a big word for the youth; if your brand has sold out, then in the youth's eyes, your company is a failure. Just look at Von Dutch (enough said).
For the youth, traditional advertising and trying to get your brand in to the mainstream is the first signs of selling out. That is why I believe companies trying to attract consumers should focus more on their products and less on trying to get their name shouted a hundred-million times during commercial breaks. From talking to other young people, we are tired of seeing the same commercial a second, third, fourth, fifth..etc. time, even if it is funny – it gets old and your brand begins to look ridiculous!
I'm sorry to break it to you, but the youth are not listening to television commercials anymore.
If your brand has money for marketing and is trying to attract consumers, get out of television and go focus on the internet. The internet has a plethora of ways to advertise your company without selling out and if your product is great, the word of mouth will spread like wildfire.
One way to get your brand out there is to sponsor ...
Tagged as Marketing, Branding, Business | No Comments » | Continue
Well if you haven't read Seth Godin's All Marketers are Liars, read it...now.
This great book isn't technically about lying, but more about stories and the way companies craft these tales around their products so consumers feel connected emotionally and personally. However, I found it interesting to apply this concept to design.
Most people don't realize that design can speak the same story, but hell of a lot quicker and stronger. Photos, colors, layout, and most importantly typography, all have an impact on the way the story is told to the consumers and since it is a visual medium it attacks the mind in a way a story would never be able to achieve. Furthermore, when walking around stores or surfing the internet, most products, services, and companies use typography so poorly that I'm surprised they are still around.
The companies that seem to have most problems are start-ups. It make sense to cut costs early on, so start-ups will skip design when instead they should focus at least a little time and money in that area to get some solid typography and maybe a concrete color scheme. One example of somebody that follow this model would be Flickr, who uses some clean, easy to read typography, but didn’t blow their whole budget on pulling it off.
Another example is a project we are working on here at Wise & Young, which is a confidential internet security company that affiliate markets all their services and products from their website. For each product and service on their website we branded them separately, but kept the entire look and feel connected to the overall company by using the same typography and color schemes. This created a sense that the company was a huge ...
Tagged as Marketing, Design, Branding | No Comments » | Continue
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