Assume that:
Hard drive space is free
Wifi like connections are everywhere
Connections speeds are 10 to 100 times faster
Everyone has a digital camera
Everyone carries a device that is sort of like a laptop, but cheap and tiny
The number of new products introduced every day is five times greater than now
Wal-Mart’s sales are three times as big
Any manufactured product that’s more than five years old in design sells at commodity pricing
The retirement age will be five years higher than it is now
Your current profession will either be gone or totally different
What then?
May 20, 2004
Free Prize Inside Contest Blog
The rules are at the bottom of the page…
PS… the contest is now open to all.
May 19, 2004
last week, I was sent important (important to me, anyway) personal emails from people at General Mills and at Citibank.
Didn’t get either one.
My Yahoo spam filter nabbed both of them.
We’ve seen cracks in the email firmament for a while, but it’s pretty clear that too many big companies are doing too much mailing to too many people who aren’t totally sure they want to get it. As a result, sometimes the real stuff isn’t getting through.
The sad thing, of course, is that the clever spam/scam artists at the little fly by night companies are agile enough to beat the filters. Boy do they have a lot of people in Nigeria with secret bank accounts!
May 18, 2004
A funny post/review.
Snark Hunting : Naming Company Names Product Names Business Branding
Godin Plenty: Seth Godin’s follow-up to the best selling Purple Cow has hit the bookstores. Free Prize Inside is about how to create soft marketing add-ons for your product or service, like getting frequent flyer miles when you use a credit card or a “free” toy inside a Happy Meal. The names of his two latest books demonstrate a sense of naming much evolved since the release of his Survival Is Not Enough: Zooming, Evolution, and the Future of Your Company.
The name “Free Prize Inside” works on multiple levels, the key to generating powerful audience engagement. Also emerging, whether consciously or not, is a Godin Naming Architecture. A naming architecture is a set of parameters that govern the naming of future products. A naming architecture can be as simple as Ford’s “begins with ‘e'” strategy of naming its SUVs — Escape, Explorer, Expedition, Excursion — Or it can be more evocative, hence more effective, like what seems to be emerging from Godin’s dome.
Classically, you need three like-minded examples in a row to suss out the naming architecture strategy being rolled out. So at this point it is too early to conclude that the rule guiding the titles Purple Cow and Free Prize Inside is: “Could also be names for a Victoria’s Secret underwear line.” If, for instance, the next title is Nut Case, the rule would be “Could also be names for a Victoria’s Secret OR Calvin Klein underwear line.”
I just finished giving a talk to a group of 400 high-powered (high-leverage, high-paid) credit card execs. As I left the hotel, I passed a much smaller room, where a seminar for local CPAs was going on.
The snacks didn’t seem as good. The booklets weren’t that interesting either. apparently. But what occurred to me is that the folks in the second room were just as smart and just as talented as the execs in the first room.
The first group was enjoying the benefits of aiming high. They didn’t get these jobs because they were arguably smarter or had better connections or had gone to Harvard. No, they were starting with the same raw materials as the group in the second room. The difference, i think, was that a long time ago, the people in the second room had made a decision about what they deserved, or what they were capable of, or what they were going to stick with. And it was a bad decision.
No, not everyone should be a banking executive. But no one who aspires to be a bank executive should sell themselves short because of a decision they made a long time ago. In a world where the past matters a lot less than it ever did before, where it’s easier than it ever was to hit the reset button, it’s sad to see someone choosing to be stuck. So, if you want to, switch.
Hey, the snacks are better.
His team baked him a purple cake.
May 17, 2004
The last stop on my tour is Marketing – The Bold Approach Method. Look for posts a little later today.
Thanks to everyone who followed along. And especially to my unbelievably gracious hosts!
Seth
This sign is right next to the escalator at the convention center in Milwaukee.
Doesn’t cost much. Transforms the mundane into the memorable. That, and you get to hear a polka for your entire ride.
May 14, 2004
There are come-ons and scams everywhere we go, but nowhere worse than Times Square in New York. That’s why this sign almost didn’t catch my eye. $2.99 for a shirt? Hardly. I figured you got a baby shirt for that price, but an adult size would probably cost four times as much.
I saw the fine print, but at my age and this distance, couldn’t make it out. Figured it must be pretty outrageous, so I got closer. Click the picture to see for yourself.
Sometimes, it seems, you can be remarkable just by telling the truth.
Yes, we’re practically illiterate. But in our tv-culture, the new thing is signs as decor, not as communication. Check out this banner from Panera. Does anyone actually read it? Did the person who WROTE it read it? Probably not (I polled people at the store and not one person I asked could tell me what the sign said… moments after walking away from it.)
