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Wanna Buy A Hat?

…otherwise known as “marketing with both eight barrels.”

Rachel Lyra Hospodar is a ridiculously talented artist across a number of media: paintings, prints, clothing, hats, you name it, she does it.

She creates.

One of the challenges in making a living being truly creative, however, is that if you are creating something that is novel, no-one knows to look for it. If the world has never envisioned “an emotionally informative and yet strangely accurate street and transit map of San Francisco and its environs,” no one will ever Google it. That’s where the “getting the word out” part of the process needs to begin.

So, what’s Rachel doing? How about…

Are you using all the tools at your disposal to get the word out about the cool stuff that you’re doing? You could be. None of the tools and techniques that are being used as part of the Medium Reality global microbrand are expensive, or difficult to do. None of them require any arcane knowledge. They just require a dollop of commitment, week in and week out.

Now, go buy a hat.

Bonus scene:

Nigel Tufnel: [on what he would do if he couldn’t be a rock star] Well, I suppose I could, uh, work in a shop of some kind, or… or do, uh, freelance, uh, selling of some sort of, uh, product. You know…

Marty DiBergi: A salesman?

Nigel Tufnel: A salesman, like maybe in a, uh, haberdasher, or maybe like a, uh, um… a chapeau shop or something. You know, like, “Would you… what size do you wear, sir?” And then you answer me.

Marty DiBergi: Uh… seven and a quarter.

Nigel Tufnel: “I think we have that.” See, something like that I could do.

Marty DiBergi: Yeah… you think you’d be happy doing something like-…

Nigel Tufnel: “No; we’re all out. Do you wear black?” See, that sort of thing I think I could probably… muster up.

Marty DiBergi: Do you think you’d be happy doing that?

Nigel Tufnel: Well, I don’t know – wh-wh-… what’re the hours?

source: IMDB

(disclosure: rachel is not a client, is a friend, and this post is uncompensated and unsolicited. however, i think the smarts and energy that are being put into making “medium reality” a real reality are phenomenal.)

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Go Vote

Heinlein said it best:

“If you are part of a society that votes, then do so. There may be no candidates and no measures you want to vote for … but there are certain to be ones you want to vote against. By this rule you will rarely go wrong.

If this is too blind for your taste, consult some well-meaning fool (there is always one around) and ask his advice. Then vote the other way. This enables you to be a good citizen (if such is your wish) without spending the enormous amount of time on it that truly intelligent exercise of franchise requires.”

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Hello. My name is Squidy.


My name is Squidy.
Originally uploaded by christophercarfi.

The seduction starts simply enough, as soon as you sit down at the table. It starts with a spiral-bound menu, a roughly-drawn caricature, and a simple statement: “My name is Squidy.”

You look around, and realize there are more pictures on the walls, framed as if they are fine art.

You open the cover, and find the first page of the menu. It says:


Tawan’s menu
Originally uploaded by christophercarfi.

My name is Tawan. That means “The Sun” in Thai, and this is my restaurant. My parents opened the restaurant in 1997, and named it after me. You may see me hanging around at the back table sometimes, studying, playing, drawing, or maybe eating. If you see me at the table, be sure to say hi.

I love drawing and creating my characters for people to see. You will find many of my drawings on the menu and some are available on t-shirts that you can buy. I hope you enjoy my mom’s food, it’s the best, just be sure not to order hot unless you can handle it.

The Tawan’s menu is a fantastic example of “social currency.” Or “ooze,”as Hugh McLeod and Johnnie Moore refer to the concept. (“Ooze” standing for “objects of sociability.”)

Deb thinks the menu is pretty cool, too.

So, why am I writing about Thai food? There are really two things at work here:

  • Thing 1: The product itself.
  • Thing 2: The vector that helps the message about the product propagate.

Now, sometimes the product is so different, or amazing, or visible/portable that the product itself is the vector for the message. The iPod is a great example of this. Since the iPods themselves are everywhere, they provide the vector.

In other cases, there is a second thing that provides the vector for the product. In Tawan’s case, the caricature menu is the vector. It is the thing that carries the Tawan’s message from place to place. Through the menu (the vector), folks learn about the food (the product).

So. You have a great product. What’s the vector that will carry its message?

Added later: There is another important concept at work here as well. The vector in this case is more than a catch phrase, or a tchotchki, or an abstract ideal. It actually is a human introduction that starts to broker a relationship between the customer and Tawan himself. It is almost a calling card, in the Victorian sense of the phrase.

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Hey, Look Over There!

Ga. It frustrates me when people do this.

Seth writes:

Picture_10

“Check out this chart of the traffic of fotolog.com. They’re now 33 in the world. What’s neat is that the progression from one place to another was pretty linear. No miracles, no interventions, no tipping point or inflections.”

Now, that’s just flat out false as soon as you pull back from the picture a little bit. The picture above shows a six-month window.

Here’s their graph over the last year.

Fotolog1ayr

And the last two years.

Fotolog2byr_1

There actually is an inflection point. A significant one.

So…does anyone know what Fotolog did in on March 1st of this year that fueled the rocket ride? It looks like the site took a hit for a couple of weeks, then came back with a vengeance. Site redesign? Easier-to-use tools? New awareness campaign?

Now the funny thing is, I totally agree with Seth in principle on this point he makes:

“The mistake bloggers often make (actually, all marketers make sooner or later) is the believe that being popular is its own reward. That once every one does their line dance or visits their restaurant or wears their fashion or reads their blog, then it will be popular for being popular.”

A great customer experience, combined with a product for which those customers have a need, will fuel the sustainable, steady, solid growth. It’s unfortunate the example that was chosen doesn’t support that concept with facts.

UPDATE: Per my response to Seth’s comment below, I added the red circles in the charts to highlight the point where something appears to have changed in Fotolog’s business, moving the trend from “flat” (which it had been from 2002 – February 2006) to “growing” (which it’s shown from March 2006-November 2006).

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What’s Next For MySpace And Facebook?

A few theories…

Andrew Hargadon:

“Is it the next media platform–a new company with the reach and influence of an NBC? Does its phenomenal ascendance and enormous population of demographically perfect users mean it is the platform that will usher in a new golden age for marketers. What they last saw in the 1950’s with television and its ability to reach 75% of the viewing audience at a single moment? Is MySpace the next television?

Or it is not the network but rather the hot show–the Mickey Mouse Club or Davy Crockett that sold millions of mouse-eared hats and coon-skin caps. The kids across America who watched these shows were the canaries in the marketing coalmines (pardon my own metaphors), giving advertisers a glimpse into the power of that new medium to create and drive buying behavior from the ground up. Before then, kids were an elusive target and, a few decades later, were so bombarded with advertising that no one message carried as much weight. Is MySpace a glorified, 24/7 Mickey Mouse Club?”

Mike:

“Why hasn’t MySpace bought up LinkedIn or launched a competing service with better features? How about kids.myspace.com, teen.myspace.com, and college.myspace.com? Where is the corporate instances of social networking? Why not turn it into a CRM tool to compete with industry products? These things will happen eventually.”

Further reading: Social Networking for Businesses and Associations