The lead article in todays Ad Age Daily news covers, in part, a study examining the effects and possible contribution to the rapidly growing (excuse the pun) obesity epidemic in the US. With particular focus on the African-American community, it suggests that marketing to this group has been squarely focused at fast food chains and not healthier options and complains that in poor neighborhoods all you can find to eat is bad food.

My concern with this kind of research is simple that it doesn’t capture the broader picture, e.g. that fast food, and in particular budget meals at fast food chains, is targeted at poorer people generally not just poorer African Americans. It also makes a very relative and unquantifiable statement, that the marketing “contributes”.

Well, how much does it contribute? Is that contribution 50% contribution to other socio-economical shifts, or is it a tiny/negligible amount?

So, my point, though more of a political one is that we are constantly moving towards a system or blame and lack of responsibility for oneself. Ignorance may have a part to play here: is it McDonalds’ fault if a person picks up a scalding hot coffee from a drive through, places it in her lap and subsequently burns herself as she pulls away? No!  And it’s also probably not their fault when people get fat because they eat McDonalds at every meal (including more than one sandwich, fries and a soda).

Of course I do appreciate that there should be boundaries: I don’t agree with soda drink manufacturers sponsoring schools and planting their vending machines in every vestibule, or misleading advertising. I also agree that we haven’t done enough, particularly in the last 8 years, to resolve our extreme poverty problems here in US, but ultimately, people must take responsibility: to educate themselves (the only way to improve your status) and to keep yourself fit and healthy. You don’t need an Equinox membership to do that.

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I blogged here how I’d swapped my 1st gen iPhone out 4 times for hardware problems.  So I had under my ownership a total of 5 iPhones and now as the owner of a 2nd gen, 3G-network iPhone the number is now 6.

Tomorrow it will be 7.  The casing has cracked, but I haven’t dropped it or rough-housed it at all.  It drops 1 out of 3 calls. Accessing the contacts takes about 5 seconds.  And the 3G data connection during peak hours is non existent. Yesterday (after I had applied the 2.01 firmware patch) a dropped call managed to lock the entire phone and required a reset.  Having owned mobile phones for the last 13 years, I can’t remember having such problems placing and receiving calls.

These don’t seem to be isolated to me, and don’t seem to be the fault of at&t.

Of course I’ve applied some introspection and checked with my neighbors that they aren’t running giant Tesla coils in their apartments.

So, the well trodden path to the Genius Bar will be walked again.

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So as not to waste a good site, we thought we’d post and host the ExpressJet site we’ve recently done for Dentsu. The site was designed to allow people to submit their stories in/of ExpressJet destinations. It’s a lovely site with a small dose of 3D Papervision thrown in. Check it out and let us know what you think - hey, why not submit a story. The competition isn’t active but you might discover something about yourself in the process. Or not.

http://www.expressjetmicrosite.com/

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Pete Blackshaw of Planetfeedback.com, wrote in AdAge today a (self serving, yes) article about consumer feedback, or rather the lack of it.  Here’s a snippet:

I wonder if we’re afflicted with service schizophrenia. Take a mega brand such as McDonald’s, which aggressively spends billions to position itself around ease, convenience and service (e.g. “We make you smile”). The company practically hides the most basic of contact forms on its website. Further adding to the disconnect, the company’s comments-rich corporate blog is called “Open for Discussion.”

From the point of view of a design agency, these forms are, for the most part, blown off, left until last and pretty much standard.  The sub-conscious assertion being that if someone really wants to contact us, they will.  Most forms are pretty simple simple and easy to use but yes, definitely uninviting and if you’re a brand projecting an open door philosophy, this could be detrimental to your cause.  Worse still are customer service telephone lines.  These seem to be designed to frustrate and often cause extreme anger as you are constantly passed from department to department and required time and again to repeat your account details.  OK, we’re not going to go into all that as we don’t have much control apart from suggesting better approach to our clients.

Back to web-based consumer feedback.  After reading this post, I considered one of our recent clients, an Italian motorcycle brand, that prides itself on being very connected to its consumer.  We’re currently in the design production cycle and considering the global community behind this brand, I thought it necessary to review our strategy.  We’re now considering allowing users to upload images, movies and to format their feedback via a rich text editor (much like using word) so our client’s customers can really articulate their message.  I’ll post a link once we’re done.

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As a digital agency, one might think it odd that we’re producing our reel as a hard media, DVD. In deed, it has been a bone of contention for some time and thats why, several months after completing our 2008 Design Reel
, we are only just approving the production. After laboring over the reel itself, we’re spending a fair penny on mastering, duplication, packaging and distribution. So I’m still asking why? when we’ve done a great job encoding at different sizes and serving. Electronic distribution is easy and basically free and above all: immediate. As a digital agency, perhaps we should be committed to the channels we predominantly work within? The answer is punctuated by a single word that my partner at Last Exit often heralds “RELEVANCE”. On top of that, I would like to add “penetration” and “visibility”. Our in-boxes are, unfortunately crowded with enough spam to fill a million cheap sandwiches and whilst we can use many different creative tactics to draw attention to a mailer, we believe in a multi-channel and relevant approach that taps into the the behavioral characteristics of our audience. Ours is splie between CMOs at the brands themselves and producers/CDs at ad agencies. Both sets have spent much more time in TV/Radio than in interactive and whilst the transition is happening it’s important to bridge the gap, speak the right language and not to be too disruptive.

So, our belief is that receiving a well designed, beautifully produced DVD (spot glossing and all) will, at the very least, leave an impression in the recipients mind (even if they never actually load the disk into a player) backed by the appropriate and well timed follow up. This is a tried and true and simple tactic that has worked for many reps and EPs in the advertising and motion business and whilst there’s not model for reps in interactive, we’ll give this a go.

Here’s a few screen shots. You can view the reel here, or let us know if you’d like to receive DVD.

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Lucy Woodward has just (finally) launched her latest, self written, performed, produced and managed album. Away from the overbearing management of a large record label, Lucy has spread her wings and found a groove that not just suits her but suits the audience just nicely thank you very much! A rollicking mixture of styles rooted in a soul groove. Go buy it at Barnes & Noble.

But what I really wanted to say was how fantastic it is that artists have access to many vehicles for self promotion, though a balance of new world and old world techniques is vital. Lucy has utilized the internet to great effect (and and we designed/built her website) whilst keeping a more traditional promotional manager busy and networking like crazy! What a studio album and most marketing tools can not convey though is how fantastic Lucy is live. So, I think it would be great for her to build out a HD video video player and to capture as much live content as possible. Perhaps she can use MOLI’s platform to do that?

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After enjoying a lovely weekend in the Hudson Valley with my wife, we stopped by our old Friends Sean Nutley and Gregory Triana at their kitchen accessories store ‘bluecashew - Kitchen Pharmacy‘, tucked away in the beautiful town of High Falls. I first met Sean and Greg back in ‘99 when we were sharing a space in Chelsea Market; me with my old company Deepend and Sean and Greg as SBN, an event production and PR company. We got along instantly and decided to barter services; they threw our launch party, which was awesome, and we helped re-brand them as bluecashew and develop their first website. They still use the logo that my best designer of the time Angela Lidderdale created.

So, as usual, our vist turned into a shopping extravaganza. We’re no different from many people in modern day America, we take great pride in the stuff we own and enjoy the shopping experience itself, granted, but the fact is that every time I visit bluecashew, I find products that I have longed to find but couldn’t as well as many products that are simply better than the bulk standard utensils I’ve purchased from Bed Bath & Behind. Viking products are not easily come by in my local stores and are bloody awesome. Beautifully designed and built to last. But, Joseph Joseph, being from my home country and fantastic, utilitarian designers create true objet d’arte for the home. I almost don’t care what ‘it’ does, I just want it!

Sean and Greg have assembled a phenomenal shopping experience for all kitchen fiends out there by assembling the very best products based on functionality,durability and quality and of course, beauty. They’ve recently launched their inventory online and are currently wading through the sea of search engine optimization. Go check out the online store and let me know if you agree. Better yet, take a short vacation and drive (just 2 hours) up to the Catskills and see the store for itself, while enjoying one of the country’s most beautiful national parks.

OK, like the car posting not strictly in market but, Hey, I mentioned their website didn’t I?

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Last Exit has just (soft) launched a new campaign for our clients MOLI. The campaign is based around a series of 5 short films about a character called Marcus - an insufferable control freak - who runs a young ad agency. Though he’s rather hateful, the aim was for us, the creative class, to see something of ourselves in this insidious person. The question is, whether we rejoice in this or bow our heads in shame. Well, the site goes some way into celebrating control freaks. Yes, it’s something we have to learn to let go of and ultimately chill out as our companies grow but in the early days it may be seen as essential.

So, the site is hosted by the good doctor, Dr. Zizberg - the foremost authority on control freakism. He has developed an elaborate brain scan test which reverse engineers your computer monitor to scan your cranium when pressed against the screen. Amazing!!

The site was a lot of fun to work on and a lot fun to use. And, MOLI are giving away 25 iPod touches as part of a sweepstakes competition. So go in, create a profile, take the test and GOOD LUCK!!!

http://www.controlfreaktv.com/

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We love Christine, and apparently so does the Today Program.

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Sipping Pinot Gris at the MediaWeek ‘Re-Launch’ party on Wednesday night, I was flush with the feeling that the good times seemed to be rollin’ in again. Launch parties, new magazines, sushi, champagne; happy times.

I was, however, hoping that this second surge into the digital world would be far more measured but the latest $numbers being thrown around Slide, I have to wonder whether the crazies are all back!!

On the bright side though, I met a smart, witty chap called Jeremy Greenfield, Editor of Post Advertising and enjoyed an hour of industry backlash with him. I promptly starting reading his digital ‘zine. Totally unabashed, unadulterated, insightful and humorous: www.postadvertising.com (Do you think that will earn us a story one day?)

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