A great article on Fast Company about how an agency makes a NO-MEETING ZONE (yes please!) every Thursday morning and how a creative director took the time to learn new things she previously had no interest in.
It’s a bit like Google’s 80/20 idea but condensed into 3 hours with a bit of a twist. I’d like to see more agencies take on this dedicated learning/exploring time.
Always a big fan of FastCoDesign’s Infographic of the Day, this one delighted me for various reasons:
1. I love when visualizing data/information can add a whole other layer of emotion and resonance (here: SF is super literary and LOVES itself some distinct neighborhoods).
2. It made me think of the various ways we could depict the idea of a content that doesn’t change (a geographical map let’s say) and overlay it with dynamic content and that same set of “set content” could mean something completely different depending on that additional layer (I would be psyched to see the movie version of this map: it could be video, visuals, quotes, drawings, etc.)
3. I used to live in SF and am having some serious home sickness lately. So thanks Fast Company. Can you please remind me that it’s foggy and cold June-October?
In a series of portrait ads created for a Canadian museum exhibition: ”Star Wars Identities: The Exhibition,”, several iconic Star Wars characters’ personalities take shape. In addition to the visually-arresting posters by agency bleubancrouge, I’m loving how the museum is creating a totally immersive, personalized brand experience for visitors. They’re taking a straight-forward lesson on what makes up identity and then turning it on their audience for their take on it. Emotional, clever and good nerdy fun.
(via @fastcompany)
This article by Jacob Braude illustrates the reasons that companies need to make experiences the next frontier in marketing. At Jack Morton, we know that experience brands will lead…and it looks like the rest of the advertising industry may be ready to hop on the experience wagon as well.
This article via @FastCompany shows the importance of human contact in creating a trustworthy and lasting memory of a brand. Our brains are wired to register experiences more than passive impressions, which has an implication in our digital world. Like the water example in the story, companies have the opportunity to differentiate themselves through creating engaging experiences.
A great article in @FastCompany about how not all brands are worth reinventing. The article focuses on five critical questions that can help companies make the right decision for the brand.
Mobile phones are becoming the new credit card. What do you think this means for ATMs, retail banks and commerce in general? It means traditional banks need to rethink their customer experience, not only in-store (if we still have those) but on-the-go.
There’s an intriguing article in Fast Company on a start-up called BankSimple—their idea? Make the user experience paramount and de-couple the banking experience from the actual banks. Yet it upholds some core goals we’re all looking for: make it simple, I want to talk to a real person, design it for “my life” (aka. give me one less errand to run at lunch time)
I love the radical departure (sad to think radical is actually “make it easy”) and rethinking how we interact with banks and perform our personal banking.
A great article in Fast Company about how tiny acts, dished out in context to customers can have enormous impact…the little things that make a brand a loved, experience brand.
In other words, people don’t connect on the Experience Project based on who they know (the “social graph”), as they do on Facebook. They connect based on what they care about (“the interest graph”). (via @FastCompany)
A really great article from FastCo Design discussing how great brands LEAD users, not the other way around, and how investing too much in user-generated input will lead to a weaker, less bold product. What do you think?
BONUS LINK! The best use of the Internet/social media I’ve seen in awhile—making it easy for even the obscure communities to come together and take action.
