When should you consider developing a web designed to meet the needs of mobile users? The answer is in your current web analytics. If mobile traffic to your website exceeds, 5 to 7%, it’s time to go mobile. Ideopia just passed that magic number, so we launched a small mobile site that delivers the essentials about our company, shows off our work and offers access to our blog. Take a look with your smartphone at Ideopia.mobi
Marketing
Ideopia Goes Mobile. Should You?
Jan
25
2012
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Healthcare
Mechanical Heart Mess
Driving down the interstate in another city, let’s just call it South Park, a hospital billboard appeared that proclaimed “Mechanical Heart Bypass.” It was so wrongheaded, I almost swerved off the road. A mechanical heart bypass is scary business, and why would such an esoteric procedure be advertised on a billboard? This represents two common #Fails: 1. The failure to communicate a benefit that a consumer can understand and 2. a strategic blunder that’s splintering a marketing budget to sell stuff rather than build a brand. Chef says, “change the chow.”
Marketing
Meet the Millennial: Your Brand’s Future
Are you marketing to the 18-34 set? If so, you need to know that conventional marketing strategies and tactics will not work. And, with a combined spending power of $306 billion, it pays to get to know them.
They don’t use traditional media, their values are based on a strong orientation, and they are the most brand resistant generation ever. Let’s peek inside their heads.
- Most educated generation yet
- Closer to parents than previous generations
- Strong social orientation supported by social media
- 85% have MySpace and/or Facebook accounts
- Only 2% interact with companies only online
- They only open email if they’ve opted into a list from a brand or store
- Ignore online and offline ads, including social media, use DVR to scoot past commercials, unless they are creative
- Effective content includes videos, contests, and short articles that relate to their interests
- Must be approached on their own terms on the media they use, e.g. Facebook, MySpace
- Deeper brand relationships cultivated through through opt-in email and events
Creativity
Got a Big Head? You might be Stupid.
The British philosopher Bertrand Russell once wrote: “The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.” Once again, Bert was prophetic.
Justin Kruger and David Dunning from the Department of Psychology at Cornell University tested subjects about humor, logical reasoning, and English grammar. One of the key findings confirmed that “Incompetent individuals, compared with their more competent peers, will dramatically overestimate their ability.” The reason, in part, is that the low performers, in general, don’t have the skills or knowledge to recognize superior performance, and thus their own deficiencies.
In his post on the subject, blogger Allan Bellows compares the syndrome to Adams’ Dilbert Principle, which tells us that the most ineffective workers are systematically promoted.
The moral of the story: Beware of blustery, self-described mavens and experts, and find out what the quiet neurotic have on their minds.
Branding
Chicken Sexing and Your Brand
It’s possible that determining the sex of a baby chick is more difficult than branding your company. Oddly enough, they both work in similar ways.
At one day old, the male and female chicks look exactly alike. While scientists can explain the minutiae of wing color, and where to find the BB-sized ovaries of the female chick, these observations don’t fly down on the farm.
The Zen Nippon School of Chicken Sexing in Nippon, Japan is known for training the most successful chicken sexers. The curriculum is simple. The student stares at the rear end of the chick and announces whether it’s male or female. The master standing nearby says “yes” or “no” and the chick is tossed in the appropriate bin.
Over a period of weeks the student gradually becomes an expert. This isn’t garden-variety deductive logic at work. It’s our unconscious mind learning through pattern recognition, colors, shapes, textures and associations. Sound familiar? It’s the same way we’re reminded by a glimpse of a shape, color or font. While you may remember the plot or the headline of an ad, great branding communicates a powerful message that the unconscious brain deciphers. There you go, chicken sexing and branding, now we all have a backup plan.