A great insight from an everyday observation: when you drive into a parking lot, you haven’t got a free hand for your parking ticket, so you put it in your mouth. Wrigley printed tickets with a very thin layer of mint and placed them in parking lots. Drivers experience the fresh flavour of Wrigley’s Extra Polar Fresh gum.
Chip Kidd is one of the most prolific book cover designers in American design history. He started designing covers for Knopf in 1986, where he was responsible for 75 book covers a year. He is still employed at Knopf as art director. He’s brilliant and funny, but what he says is really close to our work too. Take 15mn to lough with him, you won’t regret it. Chip Kidd in TED.
A Chip Kidd jacket is unexpected and perfectly right for the text within. Jurassic Park, Naked by David Sedaris, 19Q4… His book covers continue to influence designers and pop culture and many of them are widely imitated.
HE has spoken, again. At the time where we are contacted by brands to make a buzz, to enter into the facebook’s life of consumers, to collect CRM datas, he reminds to us to respect the oder of priorities. First what to say, what people are interested in, and after how to reach them.
« To those brands that say ‘I understand you’ I say ‘Fuck off, you don’t understand me. Mind your own business, I don’t want to be understood by you. I don’t understand myself sometimes… and it can be fun.’ »
« I don’t want people to know what I drink in the morning and what I drink at night – throughout history we have fought for our freedom to be an individual, and you’re taking it away from us.
Regarding mobile advertising, John Hegarty emphasized that advertisers must put the consumer first, not the technology. « We have a major problem in that our work isn’t as good as it used to be, and consumers value it less and less – that’s the first thing we have to address. »
« Our solution to the problem is to constantly think how we can interrupt consumers more, how we can trip them up, how we can shove a message in their face that they don’t want to see. We’re becoming more aggravating, when surely we should engage consumers and give them something they want to watch and respond to…Instead we talk about what we can do on this platform or that platform…The only space I want to occupy, the only space that’s interesting to me, is the one between people’s ears. That’s where I want my message to go and how I get there is an irrelevance. »
Fear Hunters is born in the mind of a father whose children had imagined heroes to fight against their fears. The product consists of 3 components: a fear hunter, a spray with essential oils (pshh on the bear to enhance the psychological protection effect) and a comic book that tells a story related to one fear in particularly. Seven hunters, one by fear: black, illness, monsters, etc..
We considered the packaging as an extension of the elements themselves, and recommended quality, natural and aesthetic. The box needs also very clear explanation. Projects here.
Stand or packaging study has allowed us to get closer to design experts. We’ve been particularly happy to met Bundl. Nicolas Cap, the manager, shows a great creativity in technical. Unfortunately, we haven’t worked with him for this time.
Fear Hunters is still in the production process. To give you an idea of how interesting and fun were that job (thanks a lot to our clients!) Hope you’ll see the result soon in shops.
One thing is reassuring in this bible on the Mobile Revolution published by Taschen: popular (and commercial) successes of apps owe much to the content and the form of them, and their usefulness for people.
But even from a well-designed site with great content, you can’t just decline web towards mobile. It’s not enough to recode and create a mobile redirection. In addition to verification and adaptation of technical possibilities, it requires an absolute simplification. Lars Basthom (no less than 3 Cyber Lions Grand Prix winner) says you need to know to do one thing really well. Unlike websites often demand lots of actions from the user, a good mobile app is stripped, effective, ready for action, and of course connected to social networks. Some brilliant examples are discovered on the site of Taschen.
iHobo based on a solid strategy and well thought for its connected target that wants always new stuff. A charity company that helps homeless young people has put one of them in its Iphone’s target. Was he well treated and his situation got better. Was he neglected, and he began a descent into the hell of hard drugs – the reality for 3 on 4 homeless young people. After living with him for 3 days and 3 nights and developed a sense of responsibility, the app proposed to make a donation in one click. Well thought, beatifully done, touching, concrete. (By Publicis London.)
Adidas Urban Art Guide. Created for the 60th anniversary of the brand, this app is logically linked with its target and the young urban culture, without a too commercial intrusion. The concept, wich will declined in other cities, began with an artistic journey in Berlin, where artists have even decided to create pieces of work specifically for the app.
The World Park. Goal? Position Central Park as a leader of the theme parks in USA. And make young people come back outside, rather than spending they leisure in front of screens with video games, etc. QR codes were created and placed throughout the park with contents related to these places (where movies where shot, infos about the history, old pictures…) Launched the National Tree Day, the app extends far beyond and now, companies are ready to complete gradually the content.
1kilo3 is a creative house that creates content, communication concepts and innovative solutions with the objective of get brands closer to consumers. Born 8 months ago (already), 1kilo3 delivers ideas and production on very various projetcs, in an opened dialogue that makes brands emerge, live and grow.
1kilo3 delivers ideas and production, with 20 years experience in advertising creation combined with a 20 years experience in strategy, activation and production experts. But most of all personalities with convictions and intuition, close to people. Our skills go from brand identity, creative strategy, copywriting and art direction, offline and online campaigns and content, photography, to social media.
1kilo3 fights for useful, relevant, quality communication by equivalently using the left brain (650g of strategy) and the right brain (650g of creativity). And the heart. We shouldn’t tell our prospects but all 1kilo3 does is for love rather than money. Love of ideas. Love of communication. Love of experiment. Love of people.
Would not be the crazy currently enthusiasm for TV series a thirst of content from the spectators ? Of a content more subtil and deeper than just a good story? Of an affection for the characters who have the time – and who take it – to reveal who they are and take part of our life?
We all know that in communication too, sagas has a much more powerful effect than a one shot. The brand, if remaining herself, creates long term relationships with her public. Not only its awareness increases, but the affectivity for her too. The brand can afford to go further than her competitors, so emerge and experiment new concepts. People knows her and will forgive her possible errors. Big creativity without (almost) any risks : sounds good for the brand’s image.
Emotionaly richer, reassuring (we know the characters and the context) series have an anti-crisis effect in these uncertain and heavy times. Would not it be nice for brands to think a story in time, rather than adding the same message on different channels? Note that the new hit series show an unmatched level of quality that pays off and that advertising should get inspired.
Sharing, liking, forwarding… emptyness, narcicism, private jokes. Talking with my teen, who yet looks more than ever for the exchange with his parents, often supposes: « Look, Mom! Wouarf Wouarf Wouarf! » in front of an Ipod Touch screen that shows two guys farting. In short, I become myself, without wanting it, a Facebook link instead of engaging a conversation. A survey tells that the teens need to exist on social networks to built themselves by now, and not by opposing his parents anymore*.
OK. But after adolescence? Is there any excuse to remain sharing banalities ? « Look, I’m like you, I do everything just as everybody and I show it. » And so what? Share becomes the objective in itself, even if there is nothing to share. And me, it annoys me a bit to releave nothing, it even smells vaguely like a life blues. When brands have noticed how important to provide content is, we should all be less lazy and more imaginative. And remember, as we connect on the web for the 200th time of day, what Blaise Pascal (17th century) once said : “I’m sorry I wrote you such a long letter; I didn’t have time to write a short one.”
We meet each day more than 3000 brands. Solicited from all sides, but with a storage capacity limited to four per sector, our western brain is less and less available. Moreover, just as if we reject the father’s authority, we kill brands in order to emancipate ourselves from their grasp. The property is out. Why storing, maintain, protect goods while we can have them when we want by renting them ? On the Internet, downloaded audiovisual content gradually lets room to the streaming. Sharing books on parks benches or in random shacks books (The Little Free Library), recycling, customization and borrowed clothes in vetitheques in Suede, the fairs where everyone exchange stuff for free in Argentina (Argentine), the come back to simplicity in architecture and design are all signs of the deconsumption’s trend.
In this context, to survive for brands “is to create the conditions for relationship with new values for their consumers. This is what is built through social networks. (…) Loved and shared: this new face of the brands should show truth and transparency.”(Ecce Logo.) But while we’re trying to empty our wardrobes and to lighten our lives, the middle classes of the emerging countries, in dramatic growth, prove an insatiable hungry, after 50 years of consumerist abstinence. An unusual situation for brands: How can they satisfy those who demand utility and virtue and, at the same time, those who are waiting for banquet and bying rapture ?
The world is changing in all senses, and many planners try to analyze how it currently works. Here is a summary of the last trends from globaltrends.com.
Mobility. Companies in emerging economies are ahead, benefiting from faster knowledge flows to rapidly catch the leaders in many industries. Infos can be disseminated in minutes with a “tweet”. Time is being compressed. New ways of communicating are appearing constantly, as the “new sound of anti-government protest”, the first organized synchronized mobile phone alarms, in Minsk, Belarus, in july. Young flash mob groups converge on the streets, then at the appointed time their mobile phone alarms sound simultaneously.
Communities of social networks and buying groups are changing how we interact and behave. Trust and dialogue are critical to building relationships with these communities – innovations, co-creating with consumers. Consumers want more involvement and personalization, wants it all anywhere, anytime.
Critical resources. By 2030, the water gap could be as much as 40% between demand and supply. Geopolitical and social tensions may rise, along with negative economic impact.
Global race for technology. China is actively pursuing clean technologies. India is building global nuclear power knowledge. In 2010, China’s economy surpassed that of Japan to become the world’s second largest. India is forecast to be the fifth largest consumer economy by 2025. Companies need to start looking to the next tier of attractive future markets: Indonesia, Mexico, Turkey, Iran, South Korea, Egypt, South Africa, Thailand, Vietnam, Pakistan, Bangladesh, the Philippines and Argentina.
Not only one financial power. The influence of the US, Japan and Europe is likely to decline under the burden of national debts, driving more internal focus and reducing their ability to fund international projects of all types whether aid, military or scientific. Value spaces are defined by consumers, not firms.
Four distinct generations. For the first time, 4 distinct generations are present in the workforce in many developed countries. The resulting differences in generational ambitions, attitudes, technology skills and ethics are impacting management styles, how work is done and the ability to attract talent.
Globalization in the same time than fragmentation. Globalization continues, but there is also an opposing trend towards fragmentation – tribalism, nationalism.
In 19 years of copywriting, I have seen hundreds of briefs and thought about nearly as much creative strategies. From copy to creative strategy, there is only one step.