Selection for the curious: not the headline news in brand

Brand

Vitaminwater emphasize the "energy-boosting" properties of their drink with bus shelter ads in the States.

Kellogg and Augme Technologies have announced that they will be working on optimising interactive packaging technology with the aim of acquiring data about Kellogg’s customer base over the next year.

Sainsbury’s juices get portion control windows to help customers manage dietary intake.

Innovation

This time, innovation in service! Heartbreak Hotel - Dutch hotel's weekend divorce service. via @iconoculture

Where do good ideas come from? Great summary of current opinions by practitioners and insight into how its done by the Made by Many team. @madebymany

Design

Inspiring and cultivating creativity. Hint: 9 of the top 10 motivators are intrinsic, not intrinsic! via @the99percent

Great site around the new John Hegarty book. Home truths, funny truths and the occasional fish slap:

http://www.hegartyonadvertising.com. Includes the great quote:

Creativity isn't an occupation, its a preoccupation.

Genius

Good starter article on the learning secrets of Polyglots, Polymaths and Savants.

Dzongkha anyone?

Selection for the curious: not the headline news in brand

Retail: Zara back in black for the first time since 2007. Zara returns to profit as new shops boost sales via@retailweek

Design: Students from Les Ateliers-Paris Design Institute have created a project called Fabrique Hacktion that aims to improve collective spaces in the city via @LSNglobal

Design: Why two brains think faster than one. Video interview with Antenna Design by @the99percent

Big ideas: No Boinking: Raising awareness of India’s population control problem with a playful ad that works even without understanding Hindi for Idea 3G, by Lowe and partners: When the power goes out, don't boink, play 3G games!

Social / Tech: White House: Twitter helped debt agreement. Virtual pressure pushed the deal, whilst Obama lost 36,000 followers.

You’ve got FAIL: Windows Office365 team Punks Gmail via @ADWEEK

TaskRabbit iPhone App Lets You Post Errands On The Move via @PSFK

Innovation: The British Egg Market—An Incubator of Innovation via @popsop_com

Day 24: Direct logic brilliance

Observation: This inspiring bit of photography is actually the side of a traffic light controller. Not smooth, rough. Black.

How to stop graffiti artists and bill posters? Mess up the surface so it is almost impossible to write or stick anything upon it. Direct, effective and lowers maintenance costs whilst gaining kudos with your client for minimising impact on a beautiful street.

Opportunities:

- A great example of direct and effective is having multiple pay points + point of purchase impulse buys. Primark is a great example, the quicker they get people through, the more transactions they will have because their main limiter is store capacity. The success of Apps is partly driven by the same notion - purchase on the spot, the moment you want it. How can you simply, directly create more purchase occassions in your buy cycle? Is it giving a fast, low cost trial to start using your service, right at your very introduction?

- Building hoardings (mentioned in a previous post) - could they be texturised to stop the addition of bill posters?

- Perhaps using the opposite notion, could a safety jacket be invented that is so slick, not one could ever grab hold of you (i.e. for female runners who run in the dark).

- For a brand, would it make more sense to spend ALL your advertising budget for one year to completely focus on making the BEST ever widget? If it's better, be it in price, function, appearance or another significantly differentiated way, consumers will WANT to by it. Direct logic says that this will help sales.

A good post by @brandautopsy describes a company doing exactly that. And winning.

Is the best creative in the building your Finance Manager?

Ongoing research by Humantific in a fascinating project to understand the design thinking process, Design Thinking Made Visible, found that some students in Business Schools had the same type of creative thinking, in the truest sense of the word, as creative students. And vice versa.

So - what innovation goodness are we missing out in our marketing-led ideation sessions?

Can you invite the Finance Manager, the bus-boy or the logistics co-ordinator into the room next time you have have an ideation session? They may just be the spark that ignites your next success.

If not - you may all just have had a lot of fun in the process. Great!

Let me know how it goes :)

Hat tip to @Rubyku for sharing the research project. Thank you, it's awesome :)