Last week my power supply broke for my MacBook. Which sucked. My battery was about to die and I still had some work I needed to finish that night. So I got myself off of the couch and headed down to the Apple Store to buy a new power supply. I got to the store, found what I was looking, got a little bit more upset after seeing how much money I was going to have to drop on it, then I got in line to check out. While waiting in line an Apple employee came up to me and asked if I was paying with a credit card. I said yes and he checked me out on a pocket computer and I was off. It was amazing as I was walking back to my car I was no longer thinking about how much it sucked that my power supply broke, that I had to drive down to the Apple Store, and that I had to pay my hard earned money on a new one. I was only thinking about how awesome Apple was because an employee went above what was required of him and saved me at the most 5 minutes waiting in line. Once again it just proves that your brand is more than just your logo, your products, etc… It is all the small things as well.

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Last year I designed a post card for my Dad's mobile home park down in Florida, Lake Marian Paradise. Working with Pop's is a headache. He's never understood why you would pay someone to put text and photos on a page. Aside from knowing the programs anyone can do this stuff, right? Well, just the other day I got this years postcard design, shown here. I think he created this in MS Publisher or even MS Paint. Which by the way, Adobe refuses to recognize a MS Publisher file worth opening cause I tried. Anyways, he sent this around to all his friends and evidently they preferred last years design better. So what do you know.

I suppose graphic design is becoming a generic term. It can mean you work for Pentagram in NewYork or simply the night shift at the local Kinkos. Even my pop's at home can be a graphic designer! Everybody "does graphics". So what do we do? Change job titles and sit at a different lunch table and hope people will think we are cool now. I actually like that my dad attempts his own projects before coming to me for help. What it does is make my job more valuable to him. It seperates the men from the boys! The more he values what I do, the less of a headache working with him will be.

So what do I do with everyone else. How do I make design more valuable. Obviously, I cant have every client attempt their own projects. But I should to be able to explain why I do what I do. I think that's where you become something more. Its not just whatever you felt like doing, there is a purpose. If their is a lot of white space or type going off the page, there needs to be a reason why. Lord knows all my dad can see is wasted space and unreadable words. If you cant explain it in plain english, you probably dont have a good reason and my dad is going to see right through you. In the end even the best designs have to be sold. Not always do they speak for themselves.

MS Paint Video

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Recently, we traveled up to New York and had some time to cruise around Time Square. The store fronts there fascinate me for two reasons; 1. The experience they build 2. How much money they pay for that experience.

On average, Times Square rental properties cost $100 to $200 per square foot (Do the math For the Virgin Store of about 4,000 sq. ft)! Talk about Park Place and Boardwalk with Hotels, holy geez that's a lot of dough. Just to put that into perspective, something like The Trump Towers property in Midtown Atlanta goes for around $30 per square foot. The best part is, these stores don't operate for retail purposes or to turn a profit. Sure, they might sell an overpriced item here and there to Aunt Betty from the Sunshine State, but mainly they are there for Brand Experience.

One place that stood out in my mind, was the M&M store. They had beautiful color coordinated displays of giant stuffed M&M characters, giant tubes of dispensable candy, and my favorite – an M&M mood reader. The mood reader, which had a 10 minute wait, would have the guest stand on a scale to determine the person's mood, and based on their mood, dispense a colored candy specifically for them. In my opinion it was pretty overrated for the ten minute wait, but Wow what a cool and different interaction. I went home with M&M's on my mind and on my heart.

They've learned that Stores are much more than retail. They are stages to create interaction, memories, and experiences. Your office or store is a Stage, what kind of show do you put on?

See The Photos

*Special Thanks to Meredith from the C Group for some numbers research!

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My family had dinner tonight at IKEA (we're all suckers for the Swedish Meatballs) and I couldn't help but notice this sign as I entered the eating area:

Why should I clear my own table? At Ikea, clearing your own table at the end of your meal is one of the reasons you paid less at the start! By taking your tray to a tray station we can continue to keep our prices low. It also means our staff have more time to serve you and cook. It's a piece of cake!

I often hear people talk about how customers have unrealistic expectations and want to be catered to at every step. IKEA obviously can't afford to staff more people to clean up everyone's table (who knows, they probably can, but this way, they don't have to), but they find a way to phrase it in a way that gets me excited to clean my own table.

What an amazing job of proactively turning a negative experience into a positive one

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I've never really put much thought into how big client relationships are until recently, and I have a feeling that way of thinking is quite common. I mean everyone knows that without a client or customer the business stands no chance of existing, but I think the actual relationship is overlooked more often than not.

Then I found out about a realtionship between a design firm and paper company (suprise suprise) that's on the verge of 25 years, and it got me thinking on the idea of the relationship in accordance to the brands, and how they actually strengthen each other.

French Paper company used to be a run of the mill, pun intended, paper mill until Jerry French met Charles Anderson in the mid-eighties. At that time, the French Paper brand was lacking the visual edge for a paper that is still pretty incredible. That's where Charles stepped in. The first design took French's worst selling paper to top selling in 6 months. Thus the beginning of a relationship.

At the time French had lackluster paper sales and Charles Anderson was designing at a firm he didn't own. Fast forward to today and Anderson is the head of his own company, Charles S. Anderson Design, and French Paper is one of the most respected paper companies out there.

I think if everyone were more open to the possibilities of long term relationships, everybody wins, including the kids.

_gern

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Names are a powerful part of any brand. I was reminded of this recently with two stories of food items I heard over the last couple of months.

The Story of the Chilean Sea Bass

First, let's start with what this fish's real name is – the Patagonian Toothfish. It is neither a bass, nor Chilean – its actually from the Arctic. In the 90′s, Chileans simply discovered this fish to be very versatile in cooking and understood that no one would choose to eat a fish called "Toothfish", so they gave it the name "Sea Bass". It quickly spread in popularity in Chile with its knew found name. Soon thereafter, chefs from the U.S. caught wind of this phenom and gave its complete name, the "Chilean Sea Bass", adding to its mystique. Many chefs in the most upscale restaurants in NY & LA began using the Chilean Sea Bass in their recipes, adding to the popularity of its use. When the fish first began growing in popularity, it was widely available. Today, after a decade of popularity in the U.S. which caused overfishing, the Chilean Sea Bass is on the verge of extinction. Many of the very chefs who gave it its popularity are now banding together to attempt to save the fish from such a fate. This fish went from obscurity to one of the most popular ingredients in restaurants all because its name was changed to something that communicated a different message to consumers.

The Story of the Portobello

The portobello mushroom has a similiar story. This mushroom is nothing more than a brown crimini mushroom allowed to grow larger. This mushroom actually used to be something that farmers couldn't sell and had to throw away…"The name ‘portobello' began to be used in the 1980s as a brilliant marketing ploy to popularize an unglamorous mushroom that, more often than not, had to be disposed of because growers couldn't sell them."(The New Food Lover's Companion, Sharon Tyler Herbst, 3rd edition [Barrons:New York] 2001 p. 485M). Again, something that was considered unpopular, but in plentiful supply, was given a new name and marketed as a high-end product, and began being used in upscale restaurants and recipes. Today, this ingredient is something we hear about all the time.

Both stories show us that names are a crucial part of branding. Names set the tone for how someone will perceive any organization or product. Next time you're thinking about naming something, just think about the stories of the Toothfish and the brown crimini mushroom.

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Ok, so here is another instance where a useful product or service is given away for free and in return good things happen. In this case, we have a 17 year old teeny bopper girl, designing free Myspace page templates for other teeny boppin' girls. In return, her website is racking up more hits than Oprah.com and making her advertisers very happy. Enough so that she recently turned down a 1.5 million buy out. All I can say is WHAT THE CRAP! 

People love free things. People love things that make them unique. People love to talk about themselves. So make it affordable, make it unique and make it somthing people want to talk about. 

www.whateverlife.com 

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Why is it that so many businesses out there are trying to be everything to everyone? There's a store I often pass in East Atlanta with a huge sign exclaiming, "THE PLACE FOR EVERYTHING!" Do they really have everything? I'm going to go with probably not. Not only are they filthy liars, but they also want to be known for everything and instead will be known for nothing.

Maybe in the Wild West Saloons and General Stores of John Wayne's Day the rule was the more you had on your shelves the more you would profit, but those days are over. It is the day of the brands my friend- ¡VIVA LOS BRANDS!

I must admit, as a business owner, it is not easy to have focus. Fear seems to drive the comfortable conservative bus when its comes to narrowing your focus or niche. Why is that? Isn't being safe and cozy the real risk? The safe and cozy formula always builds mediocrity, and mediocrity inevitably builds failure. I believe to be extraordinary you first have to stop being ordinary and narrow your focus.

There's an analogy I love called "Floods and Rivers". Floods are a mile wide but an inch deep and cause destruction and damage. Rivers, on the other hand, are narrow and deep. They produce things like food, energy, and transportation. Rivers are good, Floods are bad.

Another example, Virgin Enterprises. What comes to mind when you think about Virgin? Is it their Record Label, Mobile Service, Airline, or the nut ball dare devil englishmen of a founder? Probably the latter. The power of the Virgin brand is spreading thin. Imagine if Richard Branson (the nut ball dare devil englishmen) would have put his billions into just the Airline, or just mobile service. He would have the best mobile service ever to grace the Western Hemisphere, with a brand that would rival Coca-Cola. Instead, without dramatic change, Virgin will sink out of existence capsized in an "Everything to Everybody" type of flood (which is Ironic because Branson's first attempt to cross the Atlantic in his "Virgin Atlantic Challenger", ended when the boat capsized and was dead in the water with an English Rescue Helicopter on its way).

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I recently read this article in Fast Company by Alex Frankel. It was the report of a two year undercover journalistic venture into the corporate culture of a few of America's entry-level retail jobs. One guy for two years went from working at the Gap to Starbucks, to UPS and then to Apple. At each job, becoming that critical frontline employee who represented the company's face and brand.

In the process he found that when he worked at the Apple Store, he didn't seem to be selling (or working) too hard, "just hanging out and dispensing information. And that moves a ridiculous amount of goods: Apple employees help sell $4,000 worth of product per square foot per month." How do they do this? What is different? The author poses this thought, "When employees become sharers of information, instead of sellers of products, customers respond." One little tidbit, his job orientation at the GAP started with a video of the perils of employee theft!

For sure, Apple is unique in its committed and loyal following of not only its products but also the CEO and therefore the brand as a whole. So naturally, they hire their retail employees based on their enthusiasm for the brand. It seems the more of a fan you are of the company the more of its products you will sell. Go figure.

So how do you create loyal fans of your brand? For one thing, make a good product. Secondly be honest and trustworthy, don't try and sell ketchup popsicles to women in white gloves. Lastly, treat employees and customers like fans rather than robots or credit card numbers. Encourage their sense of belonging to your brand as something of value and uniquely them. Just like that band you started listening too before anybody else, and felt cool because of it.

At the risk of this being yet another article about the awesomeness of Apple
Take a tip from the Blue Angels…

The Blue Angels Creed
"Today is a very special and memorable day in your military career that will remain with you throughout your lifetime. You have survived the ultimate test of your peers and have proven to be completely deserving to wear the crest of the U.S. Navy Blue Angels.
The prestige of wearing the Blue Angels uniform carries with it an extraordinary honor — one that reflects not only on you as an individual, but on your teammates and the entire squadron. To the crowds at the air shows and to the public at hospitals and schools nationwide, you are a symbol of the Navy and Marine Corps' finest. You bring pride, hope and a promise for tomorrow's Navy and Marine Corps in the smiles and handshakes of today's youth. Remember today as the day you became a Blue Angel; look around at your teammates and commit this special bond to memory. "Once a Blue Angel, always a Blue Angel," rings true for all those who wear the crest of the U.S. Navy Blue Angels. Welcome to the team.

Inspirational Video

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Last week Radiohead released a new album “In Rainbows”. The fact that they released a new album wasn't remarkable. The way they did was. Radiohead has built such a brand for themselves and such raving fans that the traditional high dollar marketing campaign, with advance singles, videos, promotions etc… wasn't needed.

Instead Radiohead announced they finished recording their album and it would be released 10 days later, only through their website as a download or you could pre-order the physical CD along with bonus material, etc… Radiohead's brand is so strong with their fans, that they not only were able to skip the slick marketing campaigns, etc… but they actually let the consumer decide how much to pay for their new album. You could pay $0.01, $1000.00, or as much or little as you wanted to. It was up to the consumer to decide what the music was worth.

Do you have enough confidence in your brand and the value of your brand to consumers to offer your product up for whatever they see as the price they should pay for it? The only way that you can do that is if you create raving fans of your brand.

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