Announcing a major buzz killer for anyone who eats. Bees, those pesky flying things with stingers attached, pollinate our fruits and vegetables. Late last year, beekeepers alerted entomologists that some keepers were losing up to 90 percent of their hives due to colony collapse disorder, fancy words that mean the bees are disappearing. No one knows where. Some blame neonicotinoids, a new-fangled agricultural pesticide. Can anyone spell food shortage?
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Rapidly disappearing bees
Category: New Ideas Blog Comments Off | June 16, 2007
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Let brand haters convert brand lovers
Target marketing lets us train our marketing dollars on that narrow group of people who might want to buy our products and services. But what about all those other people out there we are leaving behind?
The curious paradox in target marketing is that while we focus, pinpoint and carefully select that microcosm of people who are going to live, breathe, and buy our product, we delude ourselves in thinking that the millions of people we intentionally exclude will think, Theyre just saying its for them, but it’s really for me too, right?
When were selling something as ubiquitous as milk, soda, or bread, its hard to intentionally leave out anyone with a mouth.
Its tough, says an innovation officer at a global jeans brand. Most people have two legs so naturally you want everyone to buy you, but you know they wont. Products as ubiquitous as jeans, cars, water want everyone to love and consume them. Sure, they target their chosen demographic, but then hope everyone else wants in on the ride.
Targeting is a risk, because our bulls eye may be off center. But lets not delude ourselves (even as we commit millions of marketing dollars) that those excluded consumers will like us anyway.
Instead, embrace the fact that not everyone is going to want to buy your product.
Admit that some people are going to reject you. Nourish it.
Nothing stiffens the resolve of your enthusiasts than someone questioning their zeal for you.
What the cola war taste trials solved was not so much how much better Pepsi tasted than Coke, but how much Coke drinkers really really like Coke. Want to firm the resolve of pro-choice or pro-life? Question their beliefs. Want people to really commit to green? Tell them how dopey their new Prius looks. Try to convince a 15-year old that any old MP3 player is as good as her iPod. Tell a golfer their new Callaway driver truly sucks.Those brands and social issues are wrapped up in belief systems that commit them at core levels of human behavior. Knowing there are others out there who don’t believe (and who question their beliefs) makes them even more committed.
Let your core target know there are others out there who arent feeling the love and theyll want you more. Which will make more people like them (in other words, everyone else in your target market) want you, too.
Category: New Ideas Blog Comments (1) | June 13, 2007
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CityCars
Have trouble parallel parking? How are you at stacking? These electric CityCars designed by the Media Lab at Massachusetts Institute of Technology are perhaps the perfect fix for dense urban jams. Grab a CityCar to your destination, then deposit it at another CityCar site located at shopping and culture centers.
click: CityCars
Category: New Ideas, New Ideas Blog Comments Off |
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chuck close
This new book of photographs by Chuck Close, A Couple Of Ways Of Doing Something, displays head shots of Philip Glass, Laurie Anderson and Chuck Close himself. The book is amazing not only for its lucidly aware photographs, but because the images themselves have been printed over a silver tint in the book printing process that gives the prints a halographic reality. As you turn the pages this way and that, the eyes seem to follow you.
click: amazon.com
Category: New Ideas, New Ideas Blog Comments Off |
