DR4WARD

Nature's Lesson on Design

Day 5, Friday and my last day here at the Cannes Advertising Festival. I started off the day with yet another great workshop. This workshop was called designing naturally and was presented by Frederico Gelli of Tatil Design.

"As design makes its debut in Cannes, this seminar takes advantage of the new ground to discuss the role of simple, clean, intelligent design in the industry. In this context, nature is the best place to find stimulation and perfect ideas for low impact solutions that maintain high sensorial impact. Why not observe how the atmosphere packages the earth, or how the rind of fruits protects their insides, in order to create more clever packaging solutions?"

This workshop was really interesting. Frederico discussed natures strategic design and how it must inspire projects in the future. As designers we have the ability to integrate design and nature. We need to start thinking like nature and create solutions out of the problems.

He discussed natures way of packaging. These are things that i had not thought of, like the way a woman's body packages a baby in the womb, the way a peel protects the fruit of an orange.

As designers we need to take the problems and develop solutions out of them.

Lessons from nature
• Optimum-conserve the most amount of energy.
• Cycles—everything that goes in must come out (waves)
• Interdependence (birds living on other animals)

Federico also showed photography by Peter Menzel
Peter photographed families with all their belongings outside of their houses. Americans, on average have 10,000 items in their homes.

a couple other artists were also discussed.
Justin Gignac , Justin sells garbage in air tight containers.
Brian Jungen , Brian creates art out of everday material, such as white plastic chairs.

The engineering of flowers was then brought up. I never had thought of how complex and important flowers were to our being. Architecture is now becoming heavily based on the principles of flowers. There structure and strength provide a great amount of information on how to build. Using shape, texture and color to ignite all senses and alluse the consumer. An example of this is the design of an apple store on fifth ave.

Attached our my notes from the day. Hope they are informative!!

Download cannes_friday.htm

also...please check out Tap Project

until next time...

Kayla

Environmental advertising!!! Cannes Lions

well...after all the anticipation I am finally here in cannes, france at the 55th annual international advertising festival. it is so amazing and overwhelming! so much to do, see and hear. this is the best of the best from all over the world so of course as a creative your going to have your mind blown! i had a long day of seminars, workshops, commercial viewings and rows upon rows of the best print ads i've ever come across.

What stuck out to me as my favorite part of the day was the print advertisements in ACT responsible. (a building located in the back of the main one.) here I found powerful print ads communicating messages of discrimination, disease prevention, anti-drugs, health care and environmental causes. its really great how influential designers can be in a world with so many problems. my favorite section was the one dealing with animal rights and saving the environment. I hope to someday be able to design and work with an animal rights organization and create powerful messages, like these in the future.

these are links to some of the organizations that had powerful print ads here at the festival

WWF
IFAW
Fundacaoticario
Chile Eco Education

I took plenty of pictures, but for some reason its not letting me post them right now. I will make sure to get them up later!

--Kayla

MARKETING SKEPTICS RESISTANT TO BRAND MESSAGES

The degree of marketing skepticism and resistance to brand messages was highlighted this week when a student asked me in class if the brand examples used in the text book and discussed in class were paid product placements. I think this student has a future in marketing because the thought never occurred to me to sell my lectures in class to a captive student audience. Instead, the brand examples and case studies that I use are to demonstrate a concept or make a point about a company that does a particularly good or bad job at marketing. Where does this level of skepticism and resistance to brand messages come from?

Millennials is the label given to those born between 1982 and 2000.  They have grown up with instant and continuous multi-media communications, entertainment and social networks and are more dependent on technology, their peers and parents than previous generations. Millennials are continuously plugged into their iPods, mobile phones, video games, PC's, televisions, and social networks and multitasking. They consume so much media and entertainment through so many different channels that they receive over 3,000 distinct advertising messages daily.  This bombardment of sales messages and fragmentation of media use make Millennials difficult to reach and highly skeptical of marketers messages.
Image from www.matrixbusinesscoaching.com

This level of skepticism about information and communication is not unique to Millennials as consumers in general have become more suspicious and resistant to marketers messages.  This is a challenge and opportunity to marketers as the traditional brand marketing approach is no longer working.  Instead marketers are turning to new interactive models that give the control to consumers to create and share the marketing message with their peers through word-of-mouth. Brands are using consumer-created content and social networks to create and transmit something that is entertaining or helps to facilitate communication with others and make their lives better or easier. The best marketers understand that consumers do not need brands interrupting their lives and instead must be invited in.  Do you have examples of brands that you have invited in to your lives and shared with others?

I look 4WARD to your feedback.

Keep Digging For Worms!

MARKETERS REACH EXCEEDING SCIENCE FICTION

As I was reading the April issue of WIRED I was reminded again that marketers reach is exceeding science fiction and that marketing ethics will become even more important in the future.  In the Steven Speilberg sci-fi film Minority Report starring Tom Cruise, criminals in 2054 are caught before the crimes they commit courtesy of some future viewing technology.  The question the film asks is : can someone be arrested for a crime they have not yet committed?  In George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four the threat in the future is that you are being watched and listened to at all times thus controlling your thoughts and actions through fear.  In sci-fi the escape from marketing and the government is impossible as video cameras, brain scans and eye-scanning technology allow an individual's every move to be tracked. 

Clive Thompson's article in Wired titled "It's All in Your Head - Why the next civil rights battle will be over the mind" discusses a new advertising medium called hypersonic sound.  This technology allows a focused beam of audio sound to be projected so that only a person standing directly in it's path hears the message, giving the effect of a speaker coming from inside your head. A&E has a creepy billboard for their new show "Paranormal State" that uses this "audio spotlight" technology to get inside the heads of people that pass by the ad with a message promoting the show.  What other ways are marketers getting inside our heads?

ALCOHOL MARKETING SAILS BLISSFULLY INTO PERFECT STORM

Alcohol Industry marketing is sailing blissfully into a perfect storm.  Before we look at the signs let's quickly review:  unlike the highly regulated Tobacco and Pharmaceutical Industries, the Alcohol Industry basically self-regulates to avoid marketing's reach and appeal to children and underage consumers. 

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) does have limited jurisdiction over alcohol marketing but mainly promotes industry self-regulation to balance concerns related to children and the interests of adults.  You can read the complete FTC Guidance Documents here. You can also read the 1999 FTC Report about the benefits of self-regulation in the Alcohol Industry and the Alcohol Industry Advertising Codes regarding advertising placement, advertising content, product placement, online advertising, and college marketing.   

First Amendment issues are given regarding FTC lack of Government restriction on marketing but one only needs to look at the Tobacco and Pharmaceutical industries to see where alcohol marketing regulation is heading if the industry does not change course.  The Alcohol Industry stated goal to minimize the extent to which underage consumers are exposed to and attracted by alcohol advertising is impossible in practice. The "drink responsibly" messages and concern for children are lost in the rough seas of competitive marketplace pressures.  These pressures compel the alcohol industry to attract new consumers and grow consumption with current users.  Let's look at Alcohol Industry initiatives in the past year and the collision with the self-regulated industry code to see the Perfect Storm...

PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANIES ERODE MARKETING TRUST

Drug maker Merck and Shering Plough delayed reporting their clinical trials showing that their cholesterol drug Zetia, and a pill that contains it, Vytorin, did not benefit patients and may even put the patient at greater risk.

While drug safety is of primary importance I believe the greater harm of this recent scandal is that it questions the ethics of pharmaceutical marketing and erodes the public's trust for truth in all marketing.

Another Merck drug, Vioxx, was withdrawn in 2004 after it was shown to cause harm in patients after being heavily marketed.  Here is the ethical question (not legal) regarding pharmaceutical marketing:   Does it provide necessary information or does it manipulate physicians and consumers by creating demand and record profits in a rush to gain market share?

To regain credibility, pharmaceutical direct-to-consumer advertising will need to address trust and the seriousness of prescription medicine and stop treating their drug marketing like a fast-food or beverage brand.  What do you think pharmaceutical marketing needs to do to regain consumer trust?

I look 4Ward to your feedback. 

Keep digging for worms. 

DID RAMBO HIJACK THE SUPER BOWL?

My wife and I were sitting in our Lazy Boy recliners in our living room when we were possible victims of RAMBO hijacking the Super Bowl. I was working on some new blog posts on our Apple MacBook Pro and my wife was surfing the web on our Dell Inspiron while we simultaneously watched a Hollywood gossip show on TV.  (Look for future blogs on the impact of multi-tasking on integrated marketing communications.)

While looking between screens I heard the word "Super Bowl" and quickly popped my head up to see the word "SUPER BOWL" superimposed across the television screen for an ad promoting the new RAMBO film.  I hit rewind on the DVR to take it in a second time and hear the words "RAMBO - The Super Bowl of Action Movies."  (I am sure some of you are wondering why the steroid fueled senior citizen Sylvester Stallone felt compelled to revisit his action hero glory days with new Rambo and Rocky movies.  We can only hope that there was compelling market research demonstrating consumer demand.)         

As I write this I cannot confirm if RAMBO is an official Super Bowl sponsor and has permission from the NFL to use this word in their advertising prior to the game or not.  We will have to watch the big game on Sunday to watch for a RAMBO ad.  If RAMBO does not have official permission then RAMBO marketing is guilty of ambush marketing and runs legal risk for Super Bowl infringement.

The practice of ambush marketing of being around an event or trying to be associated with event but not paying for it will be getting a lot of attention this year with the upcoming Super Bowl and the Summer Olympics in Beijing. 

KFC did not pay the $2.7 million run an ad in this years Super Bowl but did offer to donate $260,000 to charity in the name of the first player to do a chicken-dance in the end zone.  Significant cost savings for KFC if they get can get their name in front of the Super Bowl audience.  Needless to say the NFL is not pleased when marketers try to gain advantage by being associated with the Super Bowl without paying for it.   

The World Cup Soccer Championship has been at the forefront of this debate internationally and courts have upheld FIFA'S  legal trademark rights to control the use of the licensing of the name and preventing others from using the name or logo without permission. 

It is understandable that marketers would want to use ambush marketing to save money.  It is also  understandable that the promoters of significant events would want to protect and enforce their legal trademarks. The bigger question beyond the ethical debate and legal issues in marketing practice is do consumers perceive the distinction between an official sponsor and an ambush?  Do consumer perceive ambush marketing as deceptive is this issue even on their radars? 

The only reason I paid attention to the RAMBO ad was because I heard the word Super Bowl.  If  consumers find out that the marketers of RAMBO were drafting on Super Bowl interest and were not official sponsors will there be any consumer backlash or is it purely a legal question for the courts? 

When Best Buy and other brands use the words "The Big Game" (completely legal) in their advertising to allude to the Super Bowl without paying for the use of the official words do consumers view this negatively? 

I am betting that the Chinese government will be cracking down on ambush marketing very severely during the Summer Olympics.  They will want to demonstrate their seriousness on the world stage with the larger legal issues of international copyright and trademark infringement in China.  Keep your eyes out this summer for more serious attention on Ambush Marketing and potential consumer backlash if China clamps down too hard on offenders.

I  look 4WARD to your feedback.

Keep digging for worms.