Seven Macro Trends That Will Shape Product Design and Innovation.

Had this one stored in my Evernote account for a week or so. The FreshFuelBlog reports that "global brand consultancy Dragon Rouge has released the results of observations made by an "internal group of trend watchers across their worldwide offices ." They look for macro-societal shifts by looking for key changes in what they refer to as early-adopting industries including fashion, cosmetics and entertainment, and design."

Here's what they suggest:

THE MACRO SOCIETAL TRENDS
1. Re-act - Consumers are now focusing their ethics around the idea of 'meaningful consumption'. They believe that any purchase occasion gives them an opportunity to make a clear statement about the values that are meaningful to them, and help re-build an environment, whether it is their own body, their family, their community or the world at large. 'Green activism', which represents a sub-set of this trend, has evolved to incorporate technological cues (e.g. new Method refills).

2. Me and My Ego - "Ego-spirituality" drives consumers to build mysterious personal rituals to help them
manage their fear of the unknown and accelerate their way out of an economic and moral crisis. They look for products and services that deliver multi-sensorial experiences, and avoid materialism. From a design perspective, this gets expressed through a combination of dark undertones and deep, mysterious imagery and color schemes.

3. Foundations -Fundamental societal values (restraint, heritage) and historic symbols and personalities (such as Abraham Lincoln) give consumers the means to counter greed, extreme individualism and perceived decadence, which are seen as the root causes of our current issues. That's why many innovative products are now re-inventing history by combining modern and classical design cues.

4. Euphoria -Consumers increasingly resort to irreverence and respectful disobedience to carry their hope for abetter tomorrow. Their attitude towards life and consumption is tongue-in-cheek, and they look to bold colorful offerings to help them escape. For instance certain brands increasingly feature the root of the problem rather than the expected benefit on the front of their packaging, or use unexpected design cues to provoke a sense of irreverence.

5. Simply Better -Simplicity has become a new standard of perfection. Consumers are turning to offerings that help simplify their lives (functionally and emotionally) because simplicity helps them regain control in their lives.Simplicity has also become a guarantee of quality since it is perceived as a symbol of objectivity and transparency.

6. Schizophrenia -Virtual tools help people escape while they encourage them to experiment and reinvent themselves. This sense of freedom fuels a desire for personal recognition, customization and instant gratification. Successful innovation will therefore continue to invite consumers to experiment on their own terms their relationship vis a vis a given product.

7. Yes we can - Consumers perceive that societal turbulence is announcing a new world order that will
challenge uniform globalization. This new phase will be about co-existence, re-interpretation of local cultures, with transparency and accountability.

What does Google think about Americans? You might be surprised.

A recent post on the PositiveSharing blog pointed to a little experiment where one types in a phrase and allows Google to make suggestions for finishing based on other searches. His initial quest was to test the notion that Denmark is the happiest nation on earth ... by typing in "Why are Danes so" and the search engine filled in the rest. Based on this approach, Google agrees.



He also tried "why are americans so" with interesting results



Here's some I tried.
















Try it yourself. See what Google comes back with.

Ford using bloggers to launch new Fiesta

Adage reports that Ford is lending 100 bloggers a new Ford Festia for six months to use and review in the hopes of building buzz with its target audience.

"The 100 "Fiesta agents," chosen from 4,000 who applied online, will share their experiences behind the wheel, completing monthly, themed missions from travel to social activism; posting videos; and updating their friends and followers on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and elsewhere. The participants begin training with their Fiestas in late April, and they will begin receiving the cars in the first week of May."

Ford realized that the message is increasingly out of our their control and that they have to roll with it. Talk about having faith in the product.

"Early signs indicate a ripple effect from simply signing agents to the Fiesta Movement. Mr. De La Garza said several of those selected have already gotten interviews with regional newspapers or TV stations based on their acceptance into the program."

I love this concept and is a gusty move by Ford. Should be interesting to see how (or if) Ford reacts is there is negative feedback about the vehicle from the bloggers. The fact that they are doing this... I'm sure they will handle it the right way.

If they bring this concept to Canada - count me in.

Read more of the Adage article here

Visit fiesta movement

Update - Domino's Responds

Patrick Doyle, President, Domino's U.S.A., responds to video of (now former) Domino's team members who did disgusting things to peoples food. Contrary to earlier statements from a Domino's spokesperson, they are now addressing the issue head-on -- in the medium it was created (YouTube). I think Mr. Doyle has struck the right tone and the message is exactly what it needs to be to address the issue. It might be overkill that they are totally sanitizing the offending store - but it certainly sends the message of how seriously they are taking this.

Well done.

What would you do if your employees did what these Dominos employees did?

If you haven't heard yet... a couple of Dominos employees posted a YouTube video doing gross things while making a making a sandwich. One inserts pieces of cheese into his nose and waves pieces of salami behind his backside. Both the salami and the cheese are placed on the sandwiches. Every customer's worst nightmare realized.

Apparently the employees have been identified and terminated.

According to Adverting Age, Dominos spokesman Tim McIntyre, the affected franchisee has filed a criminal complaint, and Mr. McIntyre said Dominos is examining its own legal options, including a possible civil action against the pair for defamation of the brand

"Any idiot with a webcam and an internet connection can attempt to undo all that's right about the brand," he said, adding that Dominos has 125,000 employees in 60 countries and a loyal following. "In the course of one three-minute video, two idiots can attempt to unravel all of that."

Mr. McIntyre said the chain is looking into what can be done to prevent this in the future, but there's only so much a marketer can do. "You can be the safest driver, you know," Mr. McIntyre said. "But there's going to be that Friday night someone's drunk and comes from out of nowhere. You can do the best you can, but there's going to be the equivalent of that drunk driver that hits the innocent victim."

He said the company decided not to issue a press release or post a statement online. After all, he said, the company can deal with tens of thousands of impressions, but a strong response from Domino's would alert more consumers to the embarrassment and the company decided that such a response would be akin to "putting out a candle with a fire hose."

So did Dominos take the proper action? Of course firing them is the right thing... but basically it seems they are trying to keep it quiet. I wonder if this approach will backfire? Once this story gets wider attention (and it already is based on a Google news search) would they have been better off "bringing the fire hose out"?

What do you think?

Read the entire Advertising Age article here

Seth Godin: How to make money with SEO

Great blog entry from Seth Godin talking about how to make money from Search Engine Optimization. He always has a unique perspective and easy to understand approach.

Read it and other thoughtful entries on his blog here ... or just keep reading:


How to make money with SEO

There are two ways to use SEO to help your organization. One is reliable and effective, the other is a glorious crap shoot that usually fails but is wonderful when it works. I'll start with the second.

The most common way to use search engine optimization is to find a keyword (like "plumbing") and do whatever you can to 'own' that word on Google. This is Google as the Yellow Pages (with free ads).

The Yellow Pages are terrific for plumbers, because if you need a plumber, that's where you're going to look. Buy the biggest ad, be the first listing, you get calls. Google is a revelation because it's a super Yellow Pages and it's free! The problem: how to be the first listing, because being the 40th listing is fairly worthless.

The answer: You probably won't be. There are 14 million matches for Plumber, and no, you won't be #1 or #2. You lost. In fact, in just about every keyword worth owning, your chances are winning are small.

(To the .00001% of the people reading this who win--congratulations. You can ignore this post.)

This method is so appealing because it's all about converting the non-converted. For free, you show up in front of people who didn't know about you and you get your shot to convert them. This is the marketer's dream.

Am I saying it's not worth trying to win? Of course not. If you can give it a shot for the right set of keywords and not spend too much or count too much on winning, then go for it. But the other method is a lot more compelling (and, yes, you can do both at the same time).

The other way to use SEO is a bit more organic. (Let's call it the White Pages approach). It involves owning a keyword that you already own. Do a search on ShoeMoney in Google and you'll find 340,000 matches. Wanna guess who's first? ShoeMoney. Why is this surprising? After all, he invented the word and he owns the domain.

Someone hears about Jeremy's site from a friend or from a blog or from some other source. They want to visit his site and they type it into Google. He told me that he gets five times as much traffic from this search term as any other on Google.

The power of this technique is that with determination and patience, you will certainly win. It requires inventing a trademark and then building a business or service or organization around this trademark that people actually talk about. You want to be able to say to someone, "just type ____ into Google."

Obviously, the only people who will do this have heard about you in some other way. So this is an amplification and word of mouth strategy, not a blue sky conversion play.

Here's the math:
If you are lucky enough to 'win' at traditional Yellow Pages SEO, you might convert a few percentage points of the traffic you get into customers. On the other hand, if you win at White Pages SEO, if you win because people talk about your unique take and use your name, you convert just about everyone. Think about that... if someone types Seth into Google, they're probably looking for me, and so when they arrive here, they stay, because they found me. If, on the other hand, they type in Cow, most of the people who end up here aren't looking for my book, so they leave.

David Meerman Scott owns the word 'Meerman'. I have no idea if he uses his middle name in real life, but it sure helps him online. Scott Ginsberg owns the term 'nametag scott'. You get the idea. It's like owning the perfect domain, via Google.

When you start to win at the White Pages strategy, it turns out that this helps you win at both. Your blog or site gets more organic traffic, which will organically raise your Google results for other words and phrases.

Step by step:

1. Make an incredible product, offer a remarkable service.

2. Associate a unique term or trademark with it. (Something that isn't generic, and preferably, not a crowded search term already).

3. Assuming that you do #1 and #2, you'll end up owning that word in the search engines. If you don't, revisit the first two steps.

The hard part, of course, is making something people choose to talk about. The good news is that this is under your control, which is better than the alternative.

From Seth Godin's blog