Monthly Archives: March 2008

The story of the Cobblers Children is an all-too-familiar one. The town’s Cobbler is a busy man—he’s so busy making shoes for his paying customers, that he neglects his own children. It’s a story based on truth and while common sense tells us that the Cobbler should take care of his children as well, reality tells another story. As a follow up to Dave’s recent post about “lights out” and the feedback we received on our blog design, you should know that we heard you and would have even acted sooner—if it weren’t for those clients who pay the bills.
Truth is, this is a topic worth thinking about. In the race to exceed client expectations, can we sometimes lose sight of our own “children”?
Quick Links
- Fallon Brainfood: The Social 10
- What’s Next In Marketing & Advertising
- Talking About Mobile Marketing
Sites of the Week
Last week, Starbucks launched My Starbucks Idea. Many have likened the social site to Direct2Dell, or more recently, Dell IdeaStorm. I think any brand who creates a forum to sincerely listen and proactively and consistently respond to all types of ideas and/or complaints deserves some applause. The consumer side of me really commends that.
The marketer side of me, also supports the initiative, but notices a fundamental difference between the two corporate forums listed above. Dell’s IdeaStorm fosters communication on product development for items that have a lifecycle once purchased by a consumer, versus a Starbucks purchase and consumption which arguably starts and finishes over the course of thirty minutes. It will be interesting to see if MyStarbucksIdea can offer a sustainable idea-generating community given that very short purchase cycle. Along the same vein, it will also be a challenge for Starbucks to offer ‘acceptable’ solutions to consumer concerns with such a low-price product. I know what you are thinking – a $5 coffee is not ‘low price,’ but in comparison to how a consumer feels about purchasing a vacation, a vehicle or mobile phone service – there isn’t a lot of thought put into the research and consideration phase of the purchase.
I don’t know if I’d say the theme of last week’s iMedia Breakthrough Summit was mobile, but there has definitely been movement in the marketplace since this time, last year. There’s no secret in our industry that the mobile web has unlimited potential. Mobile is likely the most important of the emerging platforms. John Hadl, Managing Partner & Founder of BrandinHand, Inc. has been quoted as saying, “We are at the tipping point in terms of consumer adoption and the starting gate in term of marketers’ readiness to embrace the medium. 2008 is the year of rising tides … a rising tide lifts all ships.” By 2011, the mobile advertising market is estimated to be worth over $11.5 billion annually. While there were more noteworthy case studies at this year’s conference, mobile has yet to find a fixed spot in the marketing mix budget. After talking with some of my peers, it seems like the biggest hurdle for mobile is that it is directly competing with online budgets. Should it be? Does it take the place of traditional or online media? (more…)

Troy Young: Video Egg
I just wrapped up two days at the Ad Age Digital Marketing conference in NYC. This post will be short and perhaps bittersweet as I am about to jump on a delayed flight back to Chicago (translation, I’m tired).
The panel I took part in was the official “social media” discussion. It was a great conversation, and the conference itself conducted polls from the audience in real time. Here’s how usage of social networks broke down according to the attendees there:
Facebook: 39%
LinkedIn: 37%
MySpace: 12%
Other: 7%
None: 5%
Quick Hits
- What Is A Designer? An Explorer Or A Style Councillor (Featuring former CM’r Kengwei!)
- Question Your Work
- Bridging the Designer-User Gap
- Social Aggregators Emerge To Manage Digital Lifestyles
- User Generated Content Done Terribly Wrong
- Vintage Logos [Flickr Album]
- 17 Ways To Visualize The Twitter Universe
- Modernista! Letting Others Define Its Identity
Sites of the Week







