John Drake

Ford: Better

Here's a great piece of work from Ford. Better MPGs = more miles to explore. It's wonderful when music, motion and product all come together so nicely...

In addition to being Marketer of the Year, 2010 was a great year for Ford with sales ending up +19% (vs. 2009), the largest of any full-line automaker.

I also like their 24 hour rule.

Music Videos

As an 80s kid I've always had an affinity for music videos. I learned more about music from MTV than I ever did on the local radio stations. November Rain was always a favorite. Back in the day I remember the production was just way over-the-top for its time.

But I haven't seen a lot of videos recently. They're still being made, of course, just for a lot less money:  what used to be $600k - $1 mil. per video is now $75k for an established act or less than $10k for a new artist, according to Univeral Motown Records. I'm sure there are some that cost more than that these days though...

But they're still fun to watch--the new ones and the old ones. And that's why it's fun to spend some time at Vevo.

Going Back

This is a card catalog. When I was in college I remember using such a thing. Nowadays it's put aside as a relic for "nostalgic inspection" in the corner of the library at the university I used to attend...

Reading the sign on top made me feel old. Then I had to laugh. It's amazing how things change...

 

College. Remember that "going back to college" experience?

As a student when you were home on summer vacation, or somewhere fun on spring break, you probably often delayed going back to school until the last possible minute. If it was a six hour drive you left at 3pm on Sunday in order to be back to class on Monday morning. We didn't necessarily want to go back yet... we wanted more holiday, naturally.

But then a funny thing happened... the moment you arrived back at school you saw your friends. And it was great to see them. You were more than excited to be there and you immediately went about tackling whatever classes and activities you were expected to. Before you knew it time was flying by again and things were pleasant.

I bet many of us had a bit of that "going back to school" feeling last Sunday night... Perhaps a wanting to stay home and extend the holiday even longer. But once we arrived at work and saw our friends and started doing what we do it was quite nice.

I hope your first week back was excellent.

Cheers to 2011.

How Can Two Different Ads Be Nearly Identical?

Here's an interesting series of events: In 1984 an American author published a series of children's books about an orphaned boy wizard named Larry Potter. Six years later a different author, Neil Gaiman, wrote a comic book about a twelve-year-old english boy--with dark hair--who surprisingly finds out one day that he's a wizard. Later, in 1991, someone else wrote a story about a magical school for young wizards where one boy student is tasked with overthrowing an evil wizard. Three years after that The Secret of Platform 13 was published about a railway platform that leads to a magical underworld. In 1997, J.K. Rowling released Harry Potter.

Five Harry Potters? Or Harry Potter-ish ideas? As it turns out, yes. Over a period of 13 years five different authors came to similar areas.

We are all part of the same culture. And the goings on of that culture is experienced by all of us. Given that, what are the odds that out of the six billion+ people on the planet several of them would end up in roughly the same area at roughly the same time?

A look back at patent filing history confirms that most of the major technological breakthroughs of the 19th and 20th centuries had multiple inventors filing similar ideas around similar times. It just takes that extra driven and gifted individual to see it through and maximize its potential. Like J.K. Rowling did. (More examples on this point can be found here.)

But the 'Five Harry Potters' is why in marketing we can get very similar ideas. Like this from Spanair:

and this from KLM:

...around the same time. Different but similar.

Maybe somebody copied something from somewhere. But I doubt it. Out of all the dynamic creative thinkers I've worked with over the years one commonality they all have is that they each wanted their work to be unique.

I like both these ideas a lot. They're called "Random acts of kindness". And Trendwatching.com predicted they would be happening.

My Five Things

At the beginning of every year I like to sit down and think about some general topics and questions that I'm personally curious about and want to understand better. Things to track and pursue in-depth exploration of in my own time in addition to all the other stuff I try to keep up on. If possible, I generally like the topics to tie to business in some way but in previous years I've had some that didn't. This year, five things are on my list...

Gen X: I'm a proud Gen Xer. The youngest of us is 30, the oldest is 47. We're now reaching an age where Xers will be making up the majority of leadership positions. And think of the span of development we've seen and will champion? From pre cable TV to interactive TV. From rotary dial phones to smartphones. From holograms in film to holograms in life. I love the unique balance that Gen X has. It's different than Boomers and Gen Y. I was reminded of this again last week while reading Decoded (terrific). So how does this unique position of Gen X affect our world and what do we do with this balance of experience?

The Mix of Mass Media and One-to-One: I still believe that the most successful marketing ideas are those that embrace some form of mass media promotion and some form of one-to-one engagement, all integrated together. Examples of success are everywhere. It works for big enterprise and small business. I'm continually fascinated by this: Who's doing it well and why does it work?

The Adaptive Web: I know that people report that they don't like that the web knows what they want. But what people say in surveys and what they really feel can be quite misleading. A tool that knows what we want is helpful. And finding ways to attract those who will truly find value in a product or service is good for everyone. How can this best work for consumers without being creepy, annoying and invasive?

Social Culture: Now that we're all on Facebook and participating and sharing in culture it begs the question, what is culture and how does it travel throughout the world? Why do some things trend and not others? How do we define culture--from those who create it to those who adapt it?

Us: I'm currently reading The Comfort of Things. It's about our stuff and what it means to us. Everything from family hand-me-downs that we display on our shelves to body tatoos and digital photos. It's lovely and interesting and has way more to do with anthropology than marketing. As we get more and more digital how do we make sure that we keep a healthy dose of analog?

Delicious makes exploring these questions easier to do. Sure glad they're not shutting down.