Filed under: Designers, FMCG innovation, Food trends & info, Innovation, Innovative marketing, Innovative promotions, Innovative stimulus, Marketing, new product, Nice Design, Nice products | Tags: FMCG, Innovation, innovative packaging, new product
While you can’t judge a book by its cover, we often judge food by its packaging. One dollars worth of spaghetti sure looks a million dollars with a bit of fancy pants wrapping doesn’t it…Never underestimate the importance of appearance when it comes to food, or anything for that matter…
Why do pet care companies always put an animal on the front of their pet food? The dog can’t read but the owner can. Why are we packaging pet food for the pet? They know what dogs look like, talk to them in their own language.
I’d take a premium supermarket pet food brand & stick it in a stylish black tin with silver labeling & discrete branding with no visual reference to animals. Risky you say? I doubt it.
And another thing… why do washing detergents all use bright colours & show water or clean clothes? We make our decisions on what detergent to buy on the perceived quality of the brand. In the absence of any
laundry powders which don’t present pictures of clouds or water gushing through logos, let’s be honest, we pick the one we think looks more sophisticated or innovative or expensive than the rest.
Why not take washing powder & stick it in a metal canister that sits proudly on the laundry shelf instead of embarrassingly in the cupboard? Or better still, cook some good looking detergent granules &
put the stuff in a stylish transparent container.
For a fresh spin on packaging, make it design-orientated not product-orientated. Just because you’re selling pasta doesn’t mean you need a fat Italian & a bunch of tomatoes on the front. Lord, this is 2008.
Filed under: Asia, Designers, Innovative retail, Innovative stimulus, Nice Design | Tags: commes des garcons, fashion, Innovation, innovative, Japan, Retail, style, Tokyo, visual merchandising
There’s something refreshing about a retailer who doesn’t just let it all
hang out for the world to see. The windows of this Commes des Garcons store are like a great first date outfit, you can see enough to know you want to see more but
not enough to satiate the appetite.
It’s almost as if they’re teasing you with a little peek but you have to
go inside to see the full story. You see, sometimes its better to leave a little to the imagination. A glimpse of skin is always sexier than getting an eyeful of the whole booty.
What if we took this idea someplace else . . Why not create a stylish fruit & veg store where you don’t actually show the fruit & veg? When people enter the store they are met with boxes upon old fashioned boxes containing fresh produce. People can read where the products come from, there’s a description of how delicious they are & the price point indicates they’re good quality. But you can’t see what you’re actually purchasing.
The philosophy of the store would be :: we’ve selected the best produce available for you, if you think that you can pick better fruit & veg out of some dumpster in a supermarket then you’re in the wrong store friend.
Think about how can you flirt with your customers? How can you play on their imagination & curiosity to drive demand? You need to make customers want you. Throwing yourself on someone is not only embarrassing, but lessens your chances of scoring.
Filed under: creativity, Innovation, Innovative marketing | Tags: American, brainstorming, chewing gum, FMCG, idea, Innovation, innovation idea, innovation tool, new product, positioning, technique, what about..., what if
Gum is always about taste. A nihilist doesn’t believe in anything. Nihilist gum doesn’t believe in flavour. Which begs the question..why chew it?
A counter trend can often be the most convincing way to get someone to try a product because for every go-with-the-grain consumer, there’s a million nosy parkers who want to try something new.
If we were to push this kind of reasoning to the extreme . . .well then, If restaurants are always about service, could you create a restaurant which goes against the grain of service? Instead of making you feel at home & treating you like a welcome patron, they abuse you and ridicule your food decisions..
If you don’t understand the menu they call you a philistine, if you don’t order enough they call you a tight-ass anorexic & if you don’t tip big they point out the cheapskate to all the other patrons. Dining becomes a combat sport. Welcome to the game, its survivor restaurant-style.
Assume for a moment that you are the marketing director of a large confectionery company. While everyone else is focusing on higher end premium bite size indulgence, you decide to launch the largest single
serve chocolate bar in the world. It is big & chunky and it proudly displays its calorie count on the front next to the name :: Fattyboombah. Nice huh?
For every trend there’s a counter trend. Look at the research, chuck it away & do the exact opposite. Imagine what you think people want and offer something completely contrary. The truth of the matter is that people are contradictory. A large percentage of Americans may disapprove of the reporting of a political sex scandal but you can bet that the circulation of trashmags increases when one is on the cover! So embrace the contradictions, scope out the challenge and then just close your eyes and pick a side….
Filed under: Innovative marketing | Tags: Australian Bloggers, Australian blogosphere, Julian Cole, Marketing Magazine, Naked Communications, Servant of Chaos, Top 50 pioneer marketing blogs
Julian Cole, a digital strategist at Naked Communications has just created a new list profiling the top 50 Australian marketing pioneer blogs to shed some light on the Australian Marketing Blogosphere and connect us with some great Australian Marketing thinkers.
He uses a combination of ranking stats- (Google Page Ranks (10), Technorati Authority (10), Technoati Blog Reactions (10), Alexa Page Ranking (10), Bloglines (10) and has also added a Pioneer score (10) which is a subjective score reflecting the blogs ability to have pioneering thoughts about Marketing.
The list can be found here on his blog and will be published in the August edition of Marketing Magazine.
It’s definitely worth a look, my personal fave, the man who encourages more of us to get out there and engage, participate and connect Servant of Chaos comes in at number # 2. Yours truly makes its humble debut at number # 20.
Nice one Jules.
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Total | ||
| 1 | Banner Blog | 6 | 6 | 8 | 6 | 8 | 9 | 43 |
| 2 | Servant of Chaos | 9 | 5 | 8 | 6 | 6 | 5 | 39 |
| 3 | Duncans Tv Adland | 6 | 5 | 7 | 6 | 8 | 5 | 37 |
| 4 | Corporate Engagement | 8 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 5 | 8 | 35 |
| 5 | Better Communication Results | 8 | 3 | 6 | 5 | 6 | 6 | 34 |
| 6 | Young PR | 7 | 5 | 6 | 5 | 5 | 6 | 34 |
| 7 | Small Business Branding | 7 | 3 | 0 | 8 | 7 | 8 | 33 |
| 8 | Get Shouty | 8 | 5 | 7 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 33 |
| 9 | Personlize Media | 8 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 30 |
| 10 | Brand DNA | 6 | 4 | 6 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 30 |
| 11 | PR Disasters | 7 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 29 |
| 12 | Ettf.net | 6 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 27 |
| 13 | 1+1=3 | 5 | 3 | 5 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 27 |
| 14 | Business of Marketing & Branding | 6 | 5 | 6 | 4 | 4 | 1 | 26 |
| 15 | Media Hunter | 7 | 2 | 6 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 25 |
| 16 | Australian SEO Blog | 4 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 6 | 1 | 24 |
| 17 | Wide Open Spaces | 8 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 24 |
| 18 | The Marketer | 7 | 3 | 6 | 4 | 3 | 0 | 23 |
| 19 | Three Billion | 6 | 4 | 0 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 23 |
| 20 | Innovation Feeder | 6 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 22 |
| 21 | Campaign Brief | 6 | 4 | 0 | 3 | 5 | 3 | 21 |
| 22 | EcioLab | 7 | 5 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 20 |
| 23 | Adspace-Pioneers | 7 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 20 |
| 24 | Publicity Queen | 8 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 19 |
| 25 | Filter Media | 6 | 4 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 18 |
| 26 | Marketing Easy | 6 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 5 | 1 | 18 |
| 27 | Hothouse | 6 | 4 | 1 | 2 | 4 | 1 | 18 |
| 28 | Mark Neely’s Blog – 3rd Horizon | 7 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 0 | 17 |
| 29 | Lexy Klain | 7 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 17 |
| 30 | Peter Sheahan | 6 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 2 | 17 |
| 31 | In my atmosphere | 6 | 4 | 0 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 16 |
| 32 | Elbow Grease | 4 | 4 | 0 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 16 |
| 33 | Falkayn | 5 | 4 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 14 |
| 34 | Pigs Don’t Fly | 6 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 14 |
| 35 | Diffusion | 7 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 14 |
| 36 | Australian Small Business | 6 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 13 |
| 37 | The Jason Recliner | 4 | 4 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 13 |
| 38 | The Wayfarer | 7 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 13 |
| 39 | Adnotes | 6 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 13 |
| 40 | Ryan’s View | 6 | 4 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 13 |
| 41 | B&T | 7 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 13 |
| 42 | Zero Budget Marketing Ideas | 6 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 12 |
| 43 | Blackwatch | 5 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 11 |
| 44 | Fresh Chat | 5 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 11 |
| 45 | Latin Ocean | 5 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 11 |
| 46 | Arrow Internet SEO | 7 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 11 |
| 47 | The Sticky Report | 7 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 10 |
| 48 | Naked Communications-The Flasher | 8 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 10 |
| 49 | Pixel Paddock | 5 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 8 |
| 50 | Send up a larger room | 7 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 8 |
