I still think advertising is 20 percent idea and 80 percent execution. It’s knowing what ideas are going to be great. It’s knowing how to make those ideas. I always love that great quote, ‘We’re all artists, it’s just that some of us shouldn’t exhibit.’ Just because everybody can do it isn’t to say they should.
(Sir John Hegarty, Worldwide Creative Director of BBH)
”Google Play: “Because it’s all - simply - here.”
I love the juxtaposition of old and new…as Google creates solutions that make old forms of technology useless, they use those old technologies to demonstrate the power of the new.
Happy Valentine’s Day everyone! Google spreads a bit of BRAND LOVE today with their Google Doodle. Enjoy!
Happy 13th Birthday, Google!
Welcome to your (hopefully not awkward) teenage years!
Is Google Eating Your Brain?
There’s quite a bit of grumblng and back-and-forth-ing about memory these days. Columbia assistant professor Betsey Sparrow’s study that Google is significantly altering human memory kicked off a rancorous debate about what the cognitive consequences of all this digit-ality.
So, is Google ruining your memory? No more or less so than your GPS is ruining your ability to find your way around using a map. In other words - communication and information technologies are always changing, tweaking and morphing existing skills into new forms. Sometimes, they’re morphing them totally out of existence. The availability of Google changes our need to remember facts. Little facts - like the address and phone number of the local pizza joint. Big facts - like what year the Civil War ended.
Sparrow’s other findings are a bit ho-hum as well. For example, I learned from the NYT best-seller Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything, by Joshua Foer (a good read, by the way), that our memories are designed to work visually and spatially. Think about it…you’re struggling to recall the name of a song and all you can do is stammer through a description of where you were and who you were with when you last heard it. In Sparrow’s study, people could recall where they placed a fact (which computer folder it’s in) better than they remembered the fact itself. All that shows is that when we know we can retrieve a bit of data, our minds tend to let that info go and apply the free cycles to something more pressing, like trying to find our way around without a damned GPS.
Insight into the research and strategy behind Google Plus
By: Ray Perfetti - Studio Manager NY
If you haven’t been paying attention to Google Plus, the first real next generation competitor to Facebook, you should because the strategy behind it may change the way we use the social web. A mighty claim, I know, but Google Plus takes a fundamentally different approach to how we share information that more closely resembles the offline world and pays attention to justified concerns about not wanting to share everything with everyone all the time.
Paul Adams, the man behind much of the research and social strategy of Google Plus, published a presentation on the subject that gives a great deal of insight into Google’s revolutionary approach.
“I believe that the web is being fundamentally rebuilt around people and the world of advertising will fundamentally change because of the emergence of the social web.”
His blog also goes into a battle with Google over the publishing of his book on the topic.
“Our social strategy is to take our current products, get users to give us social information and make our current products better.” - Eric Schmidt (via @AdAge).
In the age of “what’s the next twitter, foursquare, facebook?” sometimes the smarter road (and often less traveled) is to use the data and behaviors that are out there and improve the platforms and tools we already have.
If you haven’t spent hours on Historypin.com yet, well…I’m sorry for what I’ve just introduced you to. It’s another example of the wonderful mashup of new, digital technology and old fashioned photo-sharing. It also literally marries old and new by overlaying a current snapshot over the original scene.
I love that you can take it one step further and upload your story about the place, location and what’s happening in the photo. It’s like an online version of going through old photos with your Grandma—what’s not to like about that.
Pirate Branding
What is the most enduring logo? Not the Apple or IBM’s iconic logos, but the skull and crossbones. According to the New York Times it’s the “Jolly Roger” skull and crossbones that first appeared in the early 1700s and was rapidly adopted by most pirates.
“The key to its success was clarity of meaning, which is an essential element in every effective branding project, and any other form of communication design. Just as Nike’s ‘swoosh’ logo makes us think of speed and the horse-drawn carriage in Hermès’s identity screams posh, the sight of a skull and crossbones on a ship’s flag signaled one thing to 18th-century sailors like those on the Poole or the merchant vessels they were protecting: terror.”
The pirates’ strong brand caused the ships that they targeted to surrender out of fear, so the pirates used less ammunition, incurred less casualties and could pillage their victims more quickly, then they could presumably attack that many more ships, increasing their profit margin.
Evidently the Jolly Roger was also a very adaptable logo like the Nickelodeon and Google logos are today.
“A black flag signified that the pirates would ‘give quarter’ or spare the lives of those who surrendered, and a red one signaled ‘no quarter.’”
“Wynn’s hourglass declared that time was running out for his victims. Other pirates added macabre motifs such as skeletons, daggers or spears. One of Black Bart’s flags sported two skulls, each representing an enemy against whom he was plotting vengeance.”
Alas the power of the Jolly Roger logo waned quickly. By the mid 1700s the skull and crossbones had moved from being a icon of lawlessness to being adopted as a British regimental emblem and later the symbol for poison. It’s still a icon of the rebel and outlaw, but more cheeky than fearsome as it can be found on biker’s jackets and infant’s onesies.
