i [love] marketing.

Sina Weibo integrates Alibaba's payment service

Chinese Twitter, Sina Weibo, did something very smart: it integrated Alibaba's e-commerce capabilities into its service. Imagine Twitter where you could buy anything you wanted with a click, and you get the idea. "Weibo Payment" is that click, and it connects users Alibaba accounts (called Alipay) with their Weibo accounts. It's as if Twitter and PayPay banded up and allowed us to buy whatever we want in our Twitter streat. Why on earth Twitter hasn't already done this, beats me. 

Be brand disloyal, get rewarded (but just this one time)

Here's what one does if they really, really dislike Starbucks. Two baristas created DC Disloyalty Card. The benefits, according to the founders, are too many to count. First, by acquiring a disloyalty card, consumers firmly put themselves in the "let's support the local coffee shops" team. Then, they express their anti-corporate sentiment. Then, they probably also feel good about themselves because of the above two. And finally, they enjoy some damn good local coffee.

So how does the disloyalty card work? Apparently, one needs to buy a coffee from the six participating local shops, and their seventh cup will be free. Get it? By being disloyal to one single coffee shop, consumers get rewarded to a free drink. They also get to know their local coffee joints, taste different kinds of coffee, and try something new. Disloyalty = diversity.

How would you look if you weren't photoshopped? Aerie finds out.

This is something more of lingerie brands should do if they had the balls (um...). Featuring real-life, non-skinny women so far has helped only Dove to become an iconic brand with its "Real Beauty" campaign, but lingerie industry seems slow to respond. 

Well, until now. Aerie (an American Eagle company) launched "Aerie Real" campaign showing non-Photoshopped models. They look amazing. The effort is even more meaningful knowing Aerie's audience: adolescent girls between 15 - 21 who are still figuring out their body image. There's also #aeriereal social component to the campaign, where girls submit their own photos.

I'd really love to see sales this campaign generated. Hope it was more than the usual one would, giving this brand a financial incentive to keep doing great stuff like this.

The next level of contextual advertising: Mood-based ad serving

Very rarely any of us likes to see an ad on our mobile phone. But what if the mood is right? That's exactly what Apple is experimenting with. The next-gen ad serving will look at things like time of the day, location, current activity, mood, heart rate, blood pressure, adrenaline level, body temperature and other parameters and determine our emotional state. For this, of course, we need  a wearable tech device, but Apple's already working on that too.

Advertisers should be thrilled, but then again, knowing Apple, it's probably going to be a pricey, closed system.

Fashion Touchdown: A misstep in branding or a great idea?

For anyone who lives in the U.S.and works in advertising, there is no bigger annual event than Super Bowl (Personally, I have little idea what's going on in American football and advertising bores me). But, it's the time when brands go crazy, on the TV-screen and off-. And when I say that brands go crazy, I mean all brands. Even those that - for all intents and purposes - have nothing to do with either football, men or beer. But, brands are all about in-the-moment relevance, it comes as no surprise that Bloomingdale's wanted to jump the Super Bowl wagon. The retailer created a fashion/football auction where the lucky bidder can win one of the helmets exclusively designed by one of the 48 designers ranging from unknown rookies to Cynthia Rowley. All proceeds are going to NFL Foundation. Is the idea of fashion touchdown a branding faux-pass or a great opportunity? I'd need to see how many people actually bid on, in all truth, very neatly designed helmets to know the answer. 

Benefits vs. features: the secret of digital marketing

A bit obvious for anyone working in digital space, but I enjoyed reading this article nevertheless.

Pinterest gets a cyborg-like upgrade: Rich Pins will blow your mind

There are article pins, product pins, place pins, recipe pins and movie pins. And all of them contain information that is just what you are looking for. Retailers, hotels, publishers, CPG brands are somewhere rubbing their hands in delight. This is contextual advertising at its best, mixed with a heavy dollop of utility. The sexiest of them all are product pins, clearly, as they are the perfect outlet for relevant product information: price, availability, shopping and, of course, the opportunity to shop. And all of this without ever leaving the Pinterest universe. Make no mistake: retailers benefit plenty - once user decided to buy a product, the rest of the transaction is completed on the retailer website. The bottom of the funnel is the same - it's its top that has gotten more complex, and for the better.

Warby Parker for mattresses? Sure, why not.

In the domain of online shopping, there are some things that are thought to be off-limits. Like sunglasses. Like shoes. Like mattresses. Apparently, this perception all wrong, as Warby Parker, TOMS and now Tuft and Needle have demonstrated. The latter is the foam-mattress business that sells its much-loved products exclusively online, through their website and via Amazon, bypassing distributors and all the hustles that go with them.

What's the next industry to be disrupted? Hair-coloring, perhaps?

 

 

 

 

Visual clues, attribution theory & brand affinity

This is a great example of attribution theory. Facebook did A/B testing to determine in which scenario would users attribute slow speed of loading to Facebook vs. their iOS. What do you think?

Answer: in the first case, users blame Facebook. In the second, they blame iOS.

black & white

I was in Belgrade this past week and my photographer friend Sonja took some pics. It was fun. 

Neighbors help neighbors, and TaskRabbit helps you

More great things are coming from crowdsourcing plus brands-and-startups-partner-together department. In the latest installation of this inter-species collaboration, Walgreens banded up with TaskRabbit to quickly and efficiently deliver cold and flu medicine to those who pressingly need it.

The program goes on during what's known as the high flu season, lasting from January 7th to February 18th (thanks Gallup). Best thing yet is that the program is promoted and conducted through existing Walgreens app, which a lot of its customers already have. This is a great example of "build onto existing infrastructure" approach. Those who opt in to get their meds delivered, can select their delivery time and then just wait for someone to bring in the goodies.

Doing something good for your customers is brand creativity at its best. 

Human-centered innovation comes to postal delivery

Parcel is the new online service that *finally* solves the problem of all of us who order inordinate amount of things online. Some of us don't want their co-workers to know about their shopping addiction, and some of us just don't have a doorman to sign for everything that comes through the door. So we are left with chasing our coveted future possessions between delivery slips, always delightful USPS, and "did my neighboor took my parcel or did she not" dilemma. 

There are certainly ways that Fedex or UPS could have think of this. But they didn't, simply because they are focused on their business innovation more than they are focused on their consumer innovation. Make no mistake: in ideal scenario, consumer innovation is business innovation, which means that one can build a business around consumer insight. Parcel is a proof of this. 

Now, the only thing I have to wait for is for them to start delivering to Brooklyn ... 

Car, meet the 21st century

Cars-as-media has been going on for some time. More than any other connected device, connected cars make sense in a way that was not imaginable 10 years ago. A roadblock? A traffic jam ahead? Fastest route to somewhere? Check, check and check. 

Truth to be told, the pressure's been building up for car companies to modernize their dashboards. Today's drivers, used to touch-based, interactive interfaces get in the car only to discover an old-fashioned tech dashboard staring back at them. Not a turn-on for driving.

To bring cars into 21st century, Google set its sights on integrating Android OS into vehicles of car manufacturers like Audi, Honda and Hyundai. Aside of making the dashboards look better, this integration would allow the apps and music on Android smartphones to also work more smoothly. Another benefit are traffic overlays over Google maps, which inform commuters about road issues and traffic jams ahead as well as car diagnostic info, sent directly to car mechanics when needed. People are already using their phones in their cars, so why not make it actually better and safer for them?

Talk about creating a closed information system. No wonder Apple's in the race, too (it has deals with BMW, GM and Honda).

Brand loyalty test

I can't decide if this is a successful brand stunt or a completely unnecessary monkeying with a brand's Facebook page. 

Burger King Norway opted in for a ballsy move to find out. In order to see which ones among their FB fans really, trully love Burger King, BK gave them a loyalty test. Or, rather, they offered them a Big Mac via BK's FB page. Those who decided to go for it, got a goodbye letter and a voucher for a Big Mac.

30K fans decided they'd rather have a one-time Big Mac than the lifetime of BK FB updates.

8K of those who stayed are, however, ready to die for BK. 

(and McDonald's marked an unexplained surge in traffic during the stunt)

Looking Understanding Making

Source: Luma Institute 

Why aren't more brands solving more problems like this? And why aren't more agencies suggesting this sort of solution?

Innovation often comes from unexpected places, as the saying goes. This time this unexpected place is Comcast, one of the not exactly most beloved brands in America. If you have any doubts about this, just google "Comcast hate" and compare the number of results it with "Comcast love."

Regardless of the quality of the service it provides or what we thinking about it, Comcast has done something really forward-thinking. It partnered with notorious Khan Academy to bring free education to those who can barely afford cable service. Comcast’s minimum offering called Internet Essentials, priced at $10, is now equipped with access to Khan Academy.

This is a good brand move. First, it expands both of the brands’ markets. Second, it’s responding to a real customer need. Third, it shows a combination of the old and new technological, educational, economic and cultural establishment. 

Partnerships like this should become part of every brand’s marketing playbook, and of every agencies’ creative problem-solving toolkit.

BikeStock keeps you rock'n'rolling

It was definitely a matter of time before someone made the vending machine for bike parts a reality. BikeStock is just that someone. This vending machine (currently just one, in Bushwick, Brooklyn) offers everything from tubes, locks, tools, ponchos and drinks.

Here's an idea for bike brands: jump on this trend.

What should it cost? Economic value vs. social values

How do we calculate the value of a product or service we seek to purchase? Most of us do some sort of price comparisons, gain management analysis or choice framing based product quality, design and other factors. Some of us to this add their brand loyalty. Yet some of us go even further and add sustainability and social responsibility info to their mental calculus.

For this last (and growing) group, JUST provides exactly this information. This organization details six criteria evaluating things like a company's safety, diversity, or worker benefit, with subcriteria like gender equality and animal wellfare.

This is interesting, and not only because it rewards companies with sustainable business practices.

JUST has the potential to deeply upset the established economic model where monetary price is, traditionally, the sole indicator of a good's value. The consequences are huge. Prices of various goods correlate; prices are set as the outcome of a company's various costs (production, operations, distribution, overhead) and profit projections; and prices are an indicator of brand equity and value. 

Once all of this becomes not the ultimate, but just one of the ways for companies to set the value of a product, what happens then?

Consumers are already getting there: they actively seek out the corporate business practices information and demand transparency. This means that the ways they make decisions are radically different than in the past, bounded rationality notwithstanding. It also means that economic factors of pricing are going to become critically intertwined with the social responsibility ones. Social values are going to become the core of the price, forcing all other pricing factors to adjust. Our economy may as well become social. 

Or at least forced to be more responsible. 

Flexible distribution against poverty

Coming on the heels of ColaLife idea, Avon Ladies are working their high heeled legs to close the last-mile gap to the remote African villages. Well, not exactly the Avon ladies, but some other men and women who use the Avon's flexible distribution model to sell and deliver necessities to those in need. The flexible distribution model idea comes from The Paradigm Project, who currently employs 25 salespeople walking the grounds in Africa. Once they prove the model is viable, hopefully more brands will join. 

Good brand utility grows from the brand mission

The thing I like even more is a simple direct line between the utility and the brand mission. (Yes, no more silly gadgets!) Coke's mission is to deliver happines. Christmas is the time of happiness, often wrapped up in a festive holiday paper. To deliver happines, one actually needs a wrapping paper. So Coke put it everywhere it possibly could, in the format of outdoor posters. A pretty good brand awareness/utility combo idea.

This campaign comes from Belgium, and is done by Duval Guillaume.

words to live by

by IDEO.

Happy New Year.

 

I've always loved good fireworks. Happy New Year!

FreshMoves.org is a bus with fresh food, coming to your neighborhood

Think grocery store in a bus, and you'd be imagining FreshMoves.org. It's a mobile fresh produce market, that comes to the neighborhoods without fresh food option. Unlike other mobile stores like Starbucks Train or Burberry Gifts or Meat Subway, Fresh Moves isn't a matter of luxury and convenience.It's about necessity and education of consumers who have been raised on fast food and haven't had a green produce as an option before. Most of these customers don't have access to fresh food, mostly because grocery stores are too far to get to without a car (which most of these people don't have) and carrying tons of groceries on the bus or two isn't exactly the activity of choice for most people. Fresh Moves aims to overcome this obstacle by making greens easily accessible even to the most impoverished and cut-off neighborhoods. Its targets are community centers, schools and other busy locations. Kudos.

Operation Santa: Success

One additional thing from the successful holiday promotions department: my favorite online retailer, Zady.com, partnered with Vespa to deliver the very last minute gifts on Tuesday and Wednesday. This super-important operation was enabled by messengers dressed-up as Santas, and it delivered gifts all the way to the Christmas evening.

A very smart idea that combines superior customer service with the push for promotion and awareness (the effort was promoted on Zady.com, and their Instagram, Twitter and Facebook feeds). This initiative joins Zady's La Guardia holiday pop-up store, and is another example of an online-first retailer gone offline.

Insight leads to strategy leads to market share ...

Chinese rarely drink coffee. 

This fact makes it strange to think that Starbucks wants to make China its second-largest market. There are, of course, secondary goodies and localized products that can attract customers, but without a strong caffeine addition, Starbucks value proposition becomes shaky, at best.

This is why Starbucks' primary value prop in China isn't coffee. It is space. 

Some 25 years or so ago, Starbucks helped invent the concept of the "third space" - a place that's not a home and it's not work either, but it's in between, offering ability to do work within comforts alike those at home. Now this brand is brining the same premise to crowded Chinese metropoles.

Starbucks is keeping the steady flow of traffic to its bars with the promise of a well-lit, comfortable, pleasant-yet-not-intimidating space where one can hang out with friends, do some work, read a book or have a meeting. The latter is increasingly common among Chinese fast-growing class of business people, who prefer meeting in Starbucks instead of their cramped offices.

A comfortable setting can be a powerful habit-forming situation. While the primary reason to visit Starbucks for Chinese right now is not coffee, the entire setting of Starbucks may nudge them into coffee-drinking direction. Something like: meeting a need you didn't know you had. 

#BurberryGifts

 

 

Angela Ahrendts on its helm or not, Burberry is great at digital. The latest is Burberry Gifts initiative, spread wide and far across social media by both Burberry and its fans. 

 

The promotional campaign started on December 2nd, when Burberry Twitter fans in London were invited to enter to win a Burberry gift from the London Exclusives collection. This call to action ended on December 13th, and that's where the real fun started. 

 

The real fun started in the form of the Festive Van that's still roaming the streets of London. The lucky-to-be-winners are copiously following its traces, all along posting the sightings of the van on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. Burberry is keeping fans abreast of van's whereabouts via its social media channels, too, in combination with brand content, and the number of replies and RTs is insane. 

 

The van looks truly festive, and it's great that the campaign features such a great element of surprise, in combination with content strategy and social media. That's the holiday spirit (and some very smart promo strategy).

Walmart does crowdsource

First, Google got into same-day delivery service, and now Walmart is using its own customers for speedy online shipments. Apparently, the new delivery program from Walmart enlists shoppers in Walmart's physical stores to deliver goodies ordered by Walmart's online shoppers. 

This sounds super-weird, but in fact isn't much different from TaskRabbit or Relay Rides or any other crowdsourcing-based model, for that matter. It's about creating a new marketplace by connecting supply and demand in a simple, cost-effective way.

Walmart's always been a big saver, so it probably figured that it can cut its transportation and delivery costs by employing its own customers. Second, economically disadvantaged customers will probably show up at stores more often for the prospect of earning a discount. For everyone else, the result may be increased brand affinity due to sustainability and efficiency factors of this solution.

Besides, retailers big and small have started a race of the fastest possible delivery to customers, as they understand that, in the midst of product commoditization, this can be the source of their competitive advantage.

I'd love to enjoy this idea for a bit more now, before starting to think about everything that can go wrong with it (tardiness, fraud, regulations, insurance).

 

How design thinking inspired ColaLife

ColaLife is amazing idea that didn't come from Coke. It's result of a very smart hacking of Coke's gigantic distribution system. Simon Berry, an aid worker in Zambia, noticed that availability of Coca-Cola in very remote areas is greater than that medicines that can save life. This sparked an idea: why not use Coke's distribution system to deliver life-saving anti-dirrhoea kits? Coke's incredibly vast network of local distributors penetrates nearly every corner of Earth, and getting medicines to remote areas can be very costly and often frustratingly slow and irregular business.

The real insight, however, was not utilizing Coke's existing distribution system. It was creating a way to transport the medicine within it, as seamlessly as possible. The solution came in the form of an AidPod container that can be perfectly wedged between Coca-Cola bottles, so it can be distributed at no additional cost. 

Great example of creativity under constraints.

Your next same-day delivery shopping service is ... Google

 

Google's in the retail business again. This time around, it offers a very fashionable same-day delivery service in the Bay Area for retailers like Target, REI, Whole Foods, L'Occitane, Toys'R'Us and the like. Called Google Shopping Express, it launched just in time for the holiday madness and it sports a gigantic Google logo on the delivery truck.

My guess is that Google, once it figured out that it hasn't exactly figured out demands of the retail market (remember Google boutiques?) decided to get into retail delivery.  It's a great way to be first in the same-day delivery market and to create both customer- and retailer-lock in via its monumental data services. Once switching costs become too high, Google can monopolize the demand and expand its delivery market. It's not a bad idea, even if at the first sight it seems as an unlikely one for the Google brand.  

Why buy it when you can print it?

 

To promote its Cayman S model, Porsche gave car lovers access to its 3D printing data. The idea was that those 50 people who actually own a 3D printer can now print their own Porsche, customize it, color it, play with it and share it with their social graph.

The idea has a limited potential, if only because the consumer market penetration of 3D printers is so small today. But, once (and if) 3D printers become a commodity likely to be found in any home, this line of brand thinking can become major. 

Social objects, like 3D printed Porsche, are an amazing proxy to real thing to aspirational luxury consumers. What keychains, small leather goods, iPhone cases and the like do for luxury brands today, 3D printed objects can do for those same luxury brands in the future. Want a Balenciaga bag? Just print it, until you can afford the real thing. The ways brand affinity can grow just multiplied.

 

I want a sandwitchbike

 

Actually, I probably don't, knowing how  much pain it is to put an IKEA furniture together. Called "IKEA for bikes,"this two-wheeler gets to your door in a box and it's up to your engineering skills to put it together.

Truth to be told, there's nothing ordinary about this bike, in addition to its non-traditional distribution model. It's made of beeck plywood and its parts are made of cylinders, instead of welding. Once you accept the fact that you are about to drive the wooden bike, you can order it online and it arrives flat-packed with the assemly instructions. Orders begun in Europe on December 1st and about to being in January for the rest of the world. The bike price is $1,092.

 You can check out the whole thing here.

The next level of content and commerce integation

Is there a better shopping context for Leica camera than Instagram? Leica clearly thinks the answer is no. Instagram is place of budding photographers, photo enthusiasts, and just those in love with a good photo (among others). All of them can now purchase this camera right there on Instagram, without ever leaving their newsstream. 

Actually, it's not as simple as that, but smart people will probably find a way to make it better. As of now, purchasing is enabled by Arco (a tech startup) in combination with following Leica Brazil's Instagram account. After this, all it takes to become a proud owner of the LeicaC is to comment "purchase" on one of the account's photos. 

Fashion brands, jump on it!

And finally, paying with your talent is here

I doubt NYC landloards will buy into this idea, but it is nevertheless pretty amazing in its humanity. After all, didn't Michelangelo and Picasso and many a writer payed for their everyday existence with their art? 

The idea of The Merit Shop comes from Daniel Soares and Pedro Sampaio, and is based on exchanging one's talents for goodies. To win a Christmas Ball, for example, all you need to do is sing a song, draw something, or tell a joke and upload it en route of YouTube or Instagram.

I can see many a charity using this form of exchange for their donations. It's a more fun way of giving, anyway.

Can one have too much of a frictionless experience?

The ultimate goal of a good user experience design is to create as seamless and as frictionless way to fulfill a task as possible. The less pain points there are, and the less roadblocks, the better. The ideal scenario is when an action or a behavior can be served with a single click or a swipe. 

But what happens when a seamless, simple and easy design starts to enable too much of a behavior? In other words, what if some friction is good?

Think food. Seamless, true to its name, designed such an easy and simple food ordering system that in fact end up ordering more (orders become 15% more complex and 6% higher in calories), and paying more for it (21% more, to be exact). The study where those numbers came from links the "freedom to order" to anonymity that online ordering offers.

Undoubtledly, social factors play a role. But the more interesting problem here may be one of design. What if experience design made it harder for us, and not easier, to fulfull our food cravings, unhealthy diet choices and instant gratification? 

The challenge here clearly is that a service that is less seamless is going to lose in the competition against those that fulfill our needs better, faster and easier. Simply put, consumers won't use it. Solving this problem ironically requiers a seamless design of friction (or obstacles) into behavior that, if facilitated, is detrimental to our health. 

That's a pretty new tought. I'd love to see Seamless that fosters healthy choices, doesn't respond to our food cravings, offers postponed gratification and still stays in business. It's a pretty neat design problem.

 

Goodreads heading over to Amazon

Something's broken with Amazon recommendation system. To fix it, at least for book lovers, Amazon purchased GoodReads, a community of people passionate about books. Book lovers also discover books, recommend them and discuss them in book clubs, creating a lot of very useful data in the process. In one swift move, Amazon got itself a rich repository of information that comes very handy with tailored book recos. Expect some very, very good suggestions from your Amazon account soon.

Starbucks ... train?

This is a pretty great example of solving an unserved need or. Best design solutions recognize pain points in people's experience journeys and offer solutions in the form of their products or services precisely at those moments. 

Starbucks, already present at every urban corner (just to make sure to be there should a need arises) now ventured into transportation department. In Switzerland, Starbucks repurposed a double-decker car of a train servicing Geneva Airport. The challenge was not just to put a Starbucks counter in the train and call it a day; Starbucks in fact designed the entire car, together with the sound-proof floors, comfy seats, and a wooden bar.It's a pretty great idea for commuters in need for coffee, which is practically everyone on the train.

Hope Acela is next.

 

Katz Deli Pop-Up

Pop-up stores - digital or physical - are all the rage. After all, who doesn't like a little surprise, exclusivity and curation? Katz Deli, another thing that's all the rage, partnered with The Hundreds to celebrate its 125 anniversary via future memorabilia: t-shirts, beanies, an apron and a turtleneck, all Katz Deli branded and designed by streetwear legends. The pop-up (at Katz Deli) will be live  December 17 - January 5th 2014.

Coke, meet Banksy.

Uber got it right last night

Last night, Uber charged 8 times its regular price for its car service. Controversy ensued.

The popular argument was that a brand, especially an emerging, sharing economy-based brand, could sour its customer base by a move that can easily be viewed as predatory. After all, sharing economy emerged to fill in a void created by the tight grip that predatory corporations hold on supply, which allows them to charge premium for access. Last night, some may say, Uber uncannily looked like a corporation it was created to overturn.

And yet. Think again. Last night, lovely snow storm gave way to slushy, wet streets filled with brawling Santas (yes, NYC had a priviledge to host yet another SantaCon). If you were an Uber driver, you were faced with the following situation: 1) damage your car by driving in snow/slush or 2) damage it by a puking Santa. Unsurprisingly, most Uber drivers hung their car keys and decided to stay at home.

Now Uber was in a tricky situation. How to provide supply that matches Saturday night demand? It found the solution in creating an incentive to drivers to go out. "Every man has his price," the saying goes, and Uber discovered that that price is exactly 8 times the usual. Sure enough, there were more Uber cars on the roads, the reward overrun the risk, and Santas got home safely. 

The question here isn't one of corporate behavior, but of human psychology. And Uber got it right.

The image above is from the now notorious Santacon Brawl Video.

 

it's all about how you feel

Excerpt from the new book on Jony Ive: “When we are at these early stages in design, when we’re trying to establish some of the primary goals—often we’ll talk about the story for the product—we’re talking about perception. We’re talking about how you feel about the product, not in a physical sense, but in a perceptual sense.”

Person as an interface or, when your shirt becomes hardware

"As our worlds become smarter, and get to know us better and better, it becomes harder and harder to say where the world stops and the person begins," said the famous Andy Clark.

And indeed, the ultimate act of disappearing interface is when it becomes a person. Andy Clark spent a lot of his time doing research on cognitive hybridization, and concluded that it's only natural that we are able to mix neural, bodily and tech ploys. Mindware is just as integral part of problem-solving that makes for human intelligence as are the brain cells. In other words, our brain is only part of our mind.

If we got mindware covered, why are we lagging behind with bodyware? Road to our body is currently paved with ugly wristbands, clunky heart-rate monitors and chips that never seem to work. It should be paved with fashionable clothing, instead.

It's time for fashion brands to wisen up and realize that very soon, they will find themselves in the hardware business. Some of them are getting there. Under Armour recently bought MapMyFitness to capitalize on popularity of biometric measurement. Nike sneakers track how high you jump. Sony designed vibrating wig.  Athos equipped their entire sportsgear collection with sensors. Bike riding will become the safest thing around thanks to gadgets made for every part of cyclist's body.

Right now, these developments are significant more for their potential than for their reality, especially if we disregard gimmicks like dress changing its color for no particular reason or wearing a level of sexual arousal literally on one's sleeve. Garments turned into hardware is going to force retail companies to think and behave like tech companies (and to adapt their value chains accordingly). Consumer targeting will reach a completely new and unseen level (something like, if I know what you do, and how you do it, I will also know which products and services to offer you). And there is definitely be those who will claim that our clothes will become our autobiographers, and idea which can, stripped of its poetic halo, actually be useful in giving a more comprehensive picture of an individual.

Fashion is the future of bodyware. Equally true is that bodyware can be this industry's next big thing. Instead of owning the product, fashion brands can own the entire interface that is a person. And this person is connected to other people, devices and interfaces. Our experiences, that is at the very core of the fashion brands offering, can be augmented by what we wear enhancing things we love and automating things that bore us. Fashion pieces can be, thanks to technology, more tailored to us who are wearing them. They can fit our individual bodies better. They can solve a problem for a diabetic person by alerting them to take their shot. 

If the code for cognitive hybridization has been cracked, we should be able to figure out the fashion-body hybridization, too. Bodyware is just as integral part of presence in the world that makes for human experience as are our bodies. Our bodies are just one part of our physical presence.  

Wantful helps you choose

When it comes to personal recommendations tools online, they vary from boring through dreary to simply off. Wantful is the exception. It uses lifestyle data, combined with occasion and budget and spits out things that look like something I'd pick up myself for the person I know well. Check it out! 

Everyone wants to know how their neighbors are faring

Everyone wants to know how their neighbors are faring. And this provides an incredibly useful context to help people make better decisions. It narrows down the gap between decision and action. We recycle more if we have information on how much our neighboors recycle. Apparently we also eat better. In a recent experiment at Lowe's supermarket, researchers displayed information on the carts saying how much fresh produce the average customer buys. Apparently, there's a strong impulse to conform to the norm, and besides, who wants to fall behind the average? The result? 10% sales increase in produce in one week. 

 

Brands are cool, it's branding that sucks

What are brands good for? The most recent incarnation of this question comes from the startup world. In the event they are successful (and 3 out of 4 are not), startups excell in their products. But what about the story, or the narrative, around these products? That's where startups fall short, at least according to the popular opinion. 

And then, there's this. Most people around the world would not care if "more than 73% of brands disappeared tomorrow," says Havas Media study. In Europe and the US, the figure is even higher, at 92%. Only 20% of brands worldwide make "a significant, positive effect on people's well-being."  

So which one is it going to be? If startups invest their brainpower and money in building a brand around their products, will they reach a point where they get to struggle to remain meaningful?

This scenario is not every likely. The very core of being meaningful is baked in the startups' core. Their products either add value/make people's lives better or simply disappear from the public view. Design economy made sure of it. A startup brand is a simple answer to the question of how this company help people lead easier, more fulfilled, more sustainable lives. It's the "how" that is a startup's purpose and a reason to exist in the world. 

The 20th century brands lack this "how." Driven by science and tech innovation, and not by design, they had to invent their "how." They then poured marketing, communications and PR into making their invention believable. But, offering an actual, tangible proof that goes beyond accumulating profits is proven to be increasingly difficult (see above). If the meaning isn't already the core of a brand, people will see through it.

But. The real challenge here is not one of the brand, actually. It's the challenge of branding. Our branding manuals are out of date. Marketing, communication and PR are not the most productive way to tell the story about our products, to convey the purpose of our company, or to provide rational of what we bring to the world. Just look at what Uber is doing. Look what AirBnB is doing. Look at Net-a-Porter. Look at Amazon.

Brands are useful, no doubt. They provide focus, differentiation, and a filter for everything that comes out of a company, be it a product or a social media update.

It's just that branding sucks. 

 

Digital design is behavioral economics made tangible

Behavioral Economics is "about helping people to avoid making a decision that they themselves would consider a mistake" and "…the most interesting and innovative tools are those that make it easier for people to do what they already want to do — to realize their own good intentions."

Studying behavioral economics helps us understand the gap between intention and action. Our intention can be to eat more healthily, to exercise more, to save more money, to be nicer to people - and the learnings and tools of behavioral economics help us stick to this plan. It helps us stick to something, because it understands that we are highly influenced by context of our decision-making; and it helps us because it offers a model for this decision making that enriches economic models with human psychology.

And that's where digital products, from running trackers to commerce websites, fit in.

Have a look at this article about the misconceptions about behavioral economics. 

"Our Website is Our Flagship Store" or, Warby Parker does it again

Warby Parker does it again. More specifically, its founder Jeff Raider, does it. Yesterday, he opened The Corner Shop, described as the "modern neighborhood barber," over at NYC's MacDougal street. The shop offers haircutting and shaving services along with plethora of locally sourced products like pajamas, toolboxes, notebookes and other things needed by a modern man who likes to be well-groomed.

The Corner Shop is a real-world embodiment of an e-commerce site named Harry's, where one can buy everything mentioned above. The Shop aims to offer the full grooming experience that Harry's hopes to become synonymous with. To get there, it adheres to the same principles of social responsibility and locally produced, artisanal products. The Corner Shop is a destination where one can not only buy products, but learn from master craftsmen how to use them, too.

This model, "build online, then build offline" seems to be working great. But the core of Warby Parker's, and now Harry's, innovation isn't only this model. It is the ability to achieve wide market reach while cutting out the pricey middlemen - be it resellers, wholesellers or expensive mass-market shaving gadgetry - from its value chain. Failing eyesight is a simple need. Shaving is a simple job. Knowing how to do it well shouldn't be expensive, only fun.

Dine out, do good

Best solutions to social and economic problems are those that don't require any behavioral change. The Spring is exactly such a solution. This app provides a monetary incentive for people to eat at places that support local community projects. More specifically, The Spring gives diners 3% cash back and 3% of the bill donated to a project supported by a restaurant.

Best part of this dynamics is that it utilizes the already existing behavior of a person choosing a restaurant. They just provide a frame for customers to make this choice in a way that maximizes their social and monetary gain (feel good + 3% off dinner). 

The mechanism of seamless donation that the app supports is equally simple. It boils down to four steps: 1. register your credit card info on The Spring's website, 2. download the app, 3. select the local restaurants doing social good and 4. opt-in for alerts about supported social initiatives.

This sort of creating a positive social impact by using the simple principles of behavioral economics is something that was hard to do before digital media. But now, we have no excuse to bail out.

 

A party to celebrate what you already own

Patagoria remains consistent with its focus on sustainability. Thoroughly aligned with the values of its customers, Patagonia has already unleashed their Common Threads Initiative (an eBay program where Patagonia customers can sell their Patagonia stuff) and number of ads advising against conspicuous consumption.

This year, from Patagonia comes with Worn Wear initiative, launched just before the notorious Black Friday. The title of the campaign is "The Stories We Wear," which is meant to remind us that clothes we already own become only more valuable with time, as they become part of the narrative of our life.

The campaign is taking place in 14 US cities (and at two places in New York City) and features a movie "Worn Wear," a repair clinic, limited-edition beer, life music and food.

Sounds like a wonderful party.

Wish List Granted, a Kistarter-like idea from Peter Bengtsson

With WishList Granted, your friends can now contribute to things you really, really want for Christmas. It's like Kickstarter, but for Christmas gifts. This is wonderful - and it would be even more wonderful if brands partnered with Amazon to make sure economically disadvantaged people get their wishes fulfilled. Or, if we could do the same thing we would do for our friends to some kid who needs it more.

Amazon, get on it!

Made by Peter Bengtsson.

Meet FiLIP, parents' new best friend

 

More from the department of wearable technology: welcome FiLIP, potentially parents' new best friend when it comes to their kids' outdoor activities. FiLIP is a wearable smart locator and phone for kids. Kids can wear it on their wrist like a watch, and parents can know at EVERY CONCEIVABLE MINUTE where their kids are and send them text messages. The device is also equipped with five pre-set phone numbers for a kid to dial if the need arises. 

In addition to real-time location information and text messaging, FiLIP sends notifications to parents if their kids leaves a designated safe zone, like playground. This is pretty smart, even if it doesn't entirely solves the challenge of kid's supervision.

You can see more here and get one for your kid here.