Cherryflava

iCatching: Food ad fight

Posted on 22. Feb, 2007 by Jonathan Cherry.

• Picture this – New York Times food critic writes a crappy review of swanky new Manhatten restaurant.

Manhatten restaurant owner is driven by rage to purchase a full-page advertisement in The New York Times,  accusing the NYT writer of being crap himself.

Handbag slugging match, over 10 000km away from, makes us note down the name of restaurant for visitation and champagne chugging purposes next time New York is lucky enough to see us. Genius.

• Has all other types of business ceased to exist? CNN Money lists their Top 25 startups to watch and they all seem to be those odd Internet 2.0 things.

• Once the clever nerds have made their billions – perhaps they’d care to take a look at the Forbes list of the World’s Most Expensive Homes of 2007. Stellenbosch wine farm house is right up there with the best of them.

Design Indaba: Roger Martin

Posted on 22. Feb, 2007 by Jonathan Cherry.

First up this morning, Roger Martin – Dean of the Rotman School of Management in Canada.

Speaking about the ‘The design of business’ – his presentation mainly dealt with the problem many design people have in selling their ideas to conservative, bottom-line focused business people.

Business think about a product / venture’s Reliability; while designers / ad agencies / consultants have their eye set on the Validity of their ideas.
The two speak different languages and there is constant tension and trade-off between Reliability vs. Validity.

Here are Roger Martin’s tips for designers to help them sell their ideas to business more effectively:

1. Take ‘Design Unfriendliness as a design challenge – know that when you walk into a corporate boardroom every suit there thinks you’re a freak. Work around that and solve that problem first.

2. Empathise with the ‘design unfriendliness of business – don’t say nasty things about your creatively challenged client. Help them see what you see.

3. Speak the language of Reliability – talk about how your ideas relate to improving the business bottom line. Your creativity should primarily result in more profit.

4. Use stories – prove that your ideas result in more profit. Tell stories about how similar things resulted in positive results elsewhere. Back us your theory.

5. Bite off as little a piece as possible to generate proof - maybe the client won’t go with the full big picture you propose, but negotiate to start off with something small to prove you’re not a crack-head.

Good points we felt, that relate to all creative consultants who’s job it is to sell their innovative thinking.

Design Indaba: Billboard bag

Posted on 21. Feb, 2007 by Jonathan Cherry.

Day one of Design Indaba 10 and in amongst the predictable hordes of funky-haired, appropriately oddly-dressed, accessory over-killed ‘designers’, we were greeted with mounds of paper advertising fliers (for industrial printers we’ll never need), printed out PowerPoint slides and…to our delight…this recycled carry bag made from an old ABSA billboard.

The billboard in question was one with the copy: THANK YOU! For voting us SA’s No.1 banking brand (with the required small print of the source being last year’s Sunday Times / Markinor Top brands survey 2006).

We got the ‘20′ of the 2006 bit.

More: Tswelopele

Free business idea: Coming soon to a set of robots near you

Posted on 20. Feb, 2007 by Jonathan Cherry.

Along with black plastic bags and Stormers flags, plastic hangers must be the most marketed product in South Africa.

Just while taking a drive home you can easily buy all the plastic hanger accessories you’ll ever need, in every colour you’ll ever desire, without setting a foot out of your car. That’s convenience,….but maybe it can be made even better.

An American company have stumbled across the idea of advertising combined with a bio-degradable hanger, made entirely from recycled paper, to create EcoHangers.

In the States they distribute the hangers through a network of dry cleaners, but right here in South Africa there’s a massive opportunity at the street lights, which we can already see forming part of our ‘Make Africa Wealthy’ philosophy.

Because the hangers are subsidised by advertising, they can be sold much cheaper to vendors (meaning bigger profit margins for them), they’re eco-friendly and they serve as a highly visible advertising medium on every street corner in South Africa.

Next – branded, eco-friendly, black dustbin bags…and your eager, relentless distribution network is already set up and ready for action.

Website: Hanger Network

[via Springwise]

Previously: Make Africa Wealthy campaign – Cherryflava

Design Indaba 10 – start your laptops and your camera phones

Posted on 20. Feb, 2007 by Jonathan Cherry.

The annual Design Indaba starts tomorrow.

We’ve cracked the nod to blog the event – so if you’re not able to attend this year’s conference, we’ll try bring you a bit of the action. Sights and sounds and that kind of vibe.

If you’re attending the conference and happen to gather photo or video footage of the speakers, or the coffee break banter or anything that you think might be of interest to us and the Cherryflava readers – please send it through.

Don’t forget about the Design Indaba Expo, which is on from the 23-25 February at the Cape Town International Convention Centre.

You can check it out without having to be part of the whole conference thing. You’ll be asked for R40 at the door, but that’s a small price to pay to hang out with cool people.

Website: Design Indaba

Previously: Design Indaba 2005 – Cherryflava pics
Design Indaba 2006 – Cherryflava pics

Peugeot van

Posted on 20. Feb, 2007 by Jonathan Cherry.

Copy: “For builders and other hard working people”

Good idea for a billboard – just a pity the actual van looks like a hairdresser’s car. Drop a couple of half-chewed bricks on that fancy front bumper and your tough bakkie starts looking like Britney Spears.

[via]

Productvertising: Banking promo that screams ‘yes please’

Posted on 19. Feb, 2007 by Jonathan Cherry.

It’s not often that a banking story gets us excited, but when a bank gets Ideo; our favourite, world-famous Palo Alto product design company -  to help them innovate, we sit up and shut down.

When faced with the challenge to grow their customer base, Bank of America could have spent millions of useless dollars on advertising – or they could build a better product and get people to come to them.

With the help of Ideo, they can up with something called Keep the Change.

The service rounds up purchases made with a Bank of America Visa debit
card to the nearest dollar and transfers the difference from
individuals’ checking accounts into their savings accounts. The
convenience and ease of rounding up now helps members save money over
the long run.

For the first three months, the bank matches the savings at 100%. That means for every Keep the Change
transfer, they’ll contribute the same amount to the client’s account. And when
the three months are over, they continue contributing 5% a year, every
year – to make it even easier to save.

The results?

In less than one year, the Keep the Change campaign attracted 2.5 million customers, translating
into more than 700,000 new checking accounts and one million new
savings accounts for Bank of America. Impressed by the unique and
intuitive nature of the program, 99% of its subscribers have chosen to
keep the service–along with their change.

So next time you see a bank throwing your money away on advertising and irritating you while trying to watch Egoli – think of this campaign and imagine how much of your own cash they could be been giving back to you.

Read: ‘Keep the Change’ bank service for Bank of America – Ideo
Advertising through product design – MIT
Keep the change – Bank of America

Nine Inch Nails uses disturbing viral marketing and toilet placement

Posted on 16. Feb, 2007 by Jonathan Cherry.

Although the old NIN classic ‘Closer’, has to be one of the best alternative tracks ever produced – time moves on, and Trent Reznor is preparing to unleash a new album; Year Zero.

But instead of smashing Las Vegas hotel rooms or getting arrested for drug possession like most other rock stars do to promote an album, the NIN marketing machine have created a series of disturbing, conspiracy theory-like websites which are unraveling, and being discovered by fans like an episode of ‘Skatterjag’.

Strangely enough, the story actually began on the back of a T-shirt
sold on NIN’s current European tour. Dates and cities are listed, with
certain letters highlighted. When those letters were arranged, they
spelled out the phrase "I am trying to believe," which most saw
as just another statement of shattered hope from NIN mastermind Trent
Reznor … that was, until one particularly, uh, "enterprising"
individual decided to Google the phrase.

In addition to the series of websites, a fan attending a NIN concert in Lisbon supposedly picked up a flash drive with an  MP3 of My Violent Heart, from the Nine Inch Nails’ upcoming album – in the men’s toilets.
We too would have gleefully picked it up and run like a squealing girl to see what was on it.

More story detail: Weird Web Trail: Conspiracy Theory — Or Marketing For Nine Inch Nails LP? – MTV

NIN websites: I am trying to believe.com
Another version of the truth.com

JetBlue’s very public meltdown

Posted on 15. Feb, 2007 by Jonathan Cherry.

Although we’ve never personally set foot on a JetBlue plane, we’ve heard,,and read a lot of positive stuff about the brand over the past couple of years.

Planes are apparently world-class, service outstanding, everything is cheap – overall, a brand that took ages to build.

Yesterday, partly due to bad weather in the US, JetBlue passengers were subjected to up to 10 hours of blue boo hoo, without going anywhere and they’re hopping mad. Cellphone video cameras have captured all of the mis-management and  JetBlue’s blatant brand molestation.

When all your clients / customers are armed with a fully loaded cellphone camera, you’re brand is constantly on trail. Try not to screw it up.

Watch out for the flood of YouTube testimonials in the days to come.

More: JetBlue passengers describe airport tarmac ordeal – CBS

Previously: Business beware, your next customer could be a blogger – Cherryflava

Available soon at your local Virgin Active

Posted on 15. Feb, 2007 by Jonathan Cherry.

Along with classes of Taibo and Yoga, you might just soon be able to sign up for a pole dancing workout at your friendly neighbourhood gym.

All over the world, a global trend of woman yearning to unleash their inner stripper, seems to be emerging.

What’s interesting is that there was a clear tipping point where something, which used to considered taboo…is now seen as rather mainstream. At what point did that change in perception occur?  Are brands labeled ‘evil’ hot right now?

If everybody’s now an expert pole master – we wonder what tricks the poor ol’ strippers have got up their sleeves now.

See: The latest exercise craze – Pole dancing Argentina [YouTube]

[via Trendhunter]