WavyBrainy

Foldit is an addictive interactive game that mimics the way complex protein molecules fold up, and allows users to find new configurations. It’s really fun, and four-year olds have already found solutions that have led to new vaccines. So when you disappear for five hours at the family dinner, you can tell your in-laws you were conducting scientific research. Unlike the hugely complex massive multiplayer online games, Foldit represents a trend in easy-to-use and snap together applications that offer great entertainment and learning environments.

If you don’t live in New York, this bit may seriously bum you out. The Dulcinea bakery marks a growing trend of new personalized businesses that serve small niches. In Dulcinea’s case, that would be serious foodies. Every Wednesday, Dulcinea delivers six, hand-crafted baked goods to the doors of its patrons. The selections are based on seasonal produce and ingredients available that week. All ingredients are organic and locally grown. All goods are ordered in advance which all but eliminates waste and spoilage. So you want fresh muffins in November. You better hop on it. Orders are due October 30!

Real time search engines are multiplying like rabbits — Collecta, Topsy, CrowdEye, TweetMeme, OneRiot, Yauba. Never fear, we have a favorite from the crowd. It’s called Spezify.com. Type your search term into Spezify, and it will return a melange of related images, posts and news items pulled from Twitter, other real-time media and the web. The search results look like a random display of notes and pictures. Click on key terms to branch out into new topics. Works kind of like your brain. Looks like your messy – I mean “our” messy – desks. It’s a great creative tool.

New studies in neuroscience are demonstrating the power of color to influence behavior, decision making and change perceptions.

An analysis of shirt colors worn by competitors in the 2004 Athens Olympics showed that 55 percent of the winners wore red. And, in closely contested matches, 62 percent of the competitors wore red.

A recent article in “New Scientist” explains how color twists your mind. “In nature, red is often used to signal dominance and aggression, and in humans this is reinforced by cultural symbols such as warning signs and stop signals.”

Neuroscience helps explain the biological underpinnings of color in ways that could be very valuable to marketers. For an in-depth look at this topic, see The New Scientist.

The Bell curve provides an excellent metaphor for why unusual ideas make us uncomfortable…and why they work. That big meaty section at the top of the curve is where all the C ads are clumped. Deviate to the left, and you’ll find the screamers, the juicers and pocket anglers, and to the extreme right are marketers like Target, Apple, and Hebrew National Hotdogs. In idea land, the center is where we naturally expect our advertising to reside. It’s comfortable here. Unfortunately, your customers are very comfy, too. So much so that they’re probably asleep. So if you want buzz, quick awareness, changes in behavior, you better plan on deviating from the mean.

Back in the good old T-Rex days, our reptilian brains were trained to react to the biggest boom. After all, thumping away from the most vivid threat, say an erupting volcano, was just good survival sense. Millions of years later, our brains still have this cognitive programming. It causes us to remember and react to whatever most strongly stands out from the background noise, and rapidly forget stimuli that don’t. For example, a beautiful waterfall with motorized nymphs in the lobby of your lawyer’s office may give you a more positive impression of his legal skills than his win/loss record warrants. So what’s this mean to you? If your marketing doesn’t stick out, your terrific product could just fade away in the memories of your potential customers.

You may have noticed that “Consumer: The Next Generation” is much more concerned with the social, philanthropic and environmental values than its predecessors. This explains the rush by some companies to align themselves with non-profit organizations and causes to “get me some of those values.”

Consumers are becoming increasingly cynical about cause related marketing, especially when there’s a disconnect from the cause and the company’s actions. For example, a company that manufactures toys that contain carcinogens supports breast cancer. Level of engagement counts, too. Donating 25 cents of every cereal box sale to the disease du jour is great, But, without educating employees, suppliers, and website visitors, the involvement, consumers may perceive the involvement as being purely utilitarian.

For a different perspective on cause related marketing and how it may actually harm the cause of philanthropy, see Angela Eikenberry’s article, “The Hidden Costs of Cause Related Marketing” in the Stanford Social Institute Review.
http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/the_hidden_costs_of_cause_marketing/

The light bulb, the very icon of innovation, was invented during a recession. And as its inventor, Thomas Edison, claimed, it was a more a product of sweat and hard work than genius. Search for “innovation and recession” and you’ll find hundreds of other examples. The barrier to profitable new products and ways of work is usually not talent or money, or kumbaya techniques for brainstorming and creating culture- friendy idea incubators for workers. It’s motivation. For some it’s intellectual curiosity, a personal burning desire for knowledge, but it’s sure hard to beat a hot injection of fear, the threat to survival, or $4 gasoline. So use your fear license to act boldly and swiftly; to make the tough decisions; create inspired, timely solutions; and get back to our cushy jobs as soon as possible.

Hot dog too hot to handle for Cincinnati Reds

The Cincinnati Reds, like any private company, has the right to censor certain types of speech. So when our Empower Aviation hot dog poster, which we love very much, got the axe, we were left with that oily, angry, sad break-up feeling, but no recourse. Though the banner, designed to hang near a concession stand, was rejected we were told that a modesty protecting bun might gain weenie approval. Get real. Someone with clout thought hot dog man looked too much like a penis. Maybe it was the hat. All the penises are wearing them these days. 0r its 15-story ginormousness. Note to Reds Management: if you think penis every time you see a hot dog, you better remove them from the concession stand. Afterall, we can’t allow naked hot dogs, not a hat to be found, being twirled on cookers and smacked around by minimum wage (sex) workers. But, we could be wrong. So take the poll below and let us know what you think.

In the prologue of Tom Wolfe’s “I Am Charlotte Simmons,” he outlines a fictional experiment that illuminates our inescapable drive to belong, and how it can drive catastrophic decisions.

Surgeon’s removed A test group of 30 monkeys had their amygdale, an almond-sized portion of the brain, which regulates higher emotions, removed. The monkeys were placed in a central area where they promptly became hypersexual. Meanwhile, a control group of monkeys, brains intact, watched from locked cages.

When a control monkey inadvertently mixed with the amorous group, it immediately hopped on the band wagon (so to speak). Wolfe’s point, which is borne out ad nauseum in history is that an individuals genetic predispositions and learning can easily be overcome by environment.

This may explain why groups sometimes bring out the worst in humans. And why group think is so dangerous and pervasive. The fact that “everybody’s doing it” doesn’t make it just. Just as the notion that communication, new products, or political concepts that test well with a group will necessarily lead to success. They don’t. Breaking out of the norm, getting noticed, a critical aspect of all communication, takes courage and a risk in social standing. But not to do so is to sacrifice the uniqueness of a brand. Just like the “daisy-chained” monkeys on the floor of Starling’s lab gave up their personal freedom for an orgy.