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In praise of large type
There seems to be a recent trend of digital typography getting bigger. For many of us, this is a pleasant evolution. Squinting to read 11-point body copy on eight-page articles with 10-point sidebar captions turns too quickly into a great recipe for blood shot eyes and a headache.
But if reading this tiny type is so difficult, why was it used in the first place?
Until the past year, the number of us working on low resolution monitors offset the number of us on higher resolution displays. Of course this is no new trend. Technology gets better, as such it gets cheaper, and soon we’re all working on 20-inch monitors that cost only a few hundred dollars.
A few years ago the implications of small displays (small web browsers) forced designers and developers to work within a standard site width of 800 pixels. And not even a few years before that the standard was 640 pixels.
Yet all of our considerations were the same then as they are now. Keep as much “above the fold” as possible, make sure the vertical length of the page doesn’t go on for decades, and try not to push content too far away from navigation. This often led to 11-point body copy—less than desirable, but necessary. Fit your country estate in your new york apartment, or better yet, into your 20-foot sail boat.
When you have 1000 pixels to work with, like we now do , options grow quickly. Three-, four- or even five-column sites with 12-point body copy are no longer impossible. Sites like nytimes.com and designobserver.com are able to push seven to 10 interest items above the fold, including photography and sponsor ads.
Some sites are even increasing body copy to 13- 15-point type with lovely open leading (line spacing). Here you can see the folks at Contrast making great use of large body copy and spacey leading for both their main column and sidebar. Good.is redesigned their site a few months ago and happily stuck to their large, body-copy filled two columns—and for the most part (on a site that requires lots of reading) just about all their copy is over 12pts.
This may not qualify as front page (or homepage material), but in the world of the web, as we all read more and more and more on our screens, bigger type means more accessibility and ease of use. Even subconsciously, that larger type size may mean fewer stops to the newsstand and a second look at that tablet.
Categories: Design, Digital Media
Seven signs your brand needs a tune-up
It’s pretty clear when you need to take your vehicle to the body shop: someone has rear-ended you and your trunk is truncated; you’ve run into an armored-up SUV and you need front-end work if you’re ever to drive the car again; the neighbor’s kid (with whom you’ve always had an adversarial relationship) has dragged a key fore to aft through your metallic paint; the finish on your roof and hood are faded and peeling near the chrome bits (you could have washed it or waxed it once in the last decade). Or, you love your car (it’s barely broken in at 150k) but you’re no longer a bright yellow kind of guy…maybe maroon.
Of course, there are limits to the ministrations of your body shop: when your get-up-and-go has got-up-and-left, you need under-the-hood expertise. And when your new, but significant, other half absolutely refuses to be caught dead in a station wagon, it’s time for more significant transportation transformation.
Different problems: different, appropriate solutions. Fairly straightforward.
Why, then, when we think—sometimes only suspect—that our brand needs work, is it more of a muddle? While an organization’s brand is arguably less tangible than a middle-aged Volvo wagon or a rear-ended Prius, there are different, identifiable drivers that indicate the need to visit the “brand shop.” A quick tour:
Your operating environment has changed, and along with it, your customers’ expectations of how a brand in your space needs to look, mean, and behave. You were tooling down the right hand lane, paying a little less attention than you might have, until that thud to your rear. What you’re offering is still of value to your customers, but how they think of you (and talk about you) is not what it needs to be for you to be competitive.
You headed off in a wrong direction. Perhaps based on insufficient research, or a bad bet, you’ve moved your brand to be out of sync with the direction your industry is taking—and your customers are wanting. A brand course correction is needed.
Your competition is more aggressively managing its brand to better connect with your customers and prospects. You can only aspire to their messages, visual expression, and buzz across social networks. You’re eating their dust, but your brand foundation is sound and you can manage your brand forward.
Your communications—print and digital—just don’t look like who you are. You’re on top of your offerings and operations, but you have to apologize every time you slide a brochure across the table or give someone your URL. A re-look at how you express yourself visually is in order.
You’ve changed, but your brand hasn’t. Your organization is in the forefront. You’ve continued to innovate, but how you’re understood lags, and those out-of-date perceptions will be a drag. The good news: you’ve a vision, model, and value that can inform new messages, new visual expression—and a brand that will advance your evolved enterprise.
There are serious problems, operationally, that inform how your brand is perceived. Problems that no amount of new messaging, spruced up visuals, or a cool new website can turn around—or not for long, anyway. So there’s work to do before you hit the brand shop if your efforts there are to be well spent.
You’re transforming your organization. You’ve identified new lines of business, a new model, a new market to serve—so your brand, down to its fundamentals, including your name, needs to be built anew. While you’re not remotely a start-up, in some respects you are: you need to carefully articulate who your constituents are and what they care about so you can develop new messages; your new visual system (and name and tagline) can be invented to be exactly in sync with your transformation; you’ll need an architecture of print and digital communications—and then exciting new stuff.
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Understanding what challenges, changes, and goals drive the need to attend to your brand will go a long way towards ensuring the work you undertake on it will be both what’s necessary and effective. Not paying attention and getting rear-ended doesn’t demand the same course of thinking and action as does a decision to trade in the old wagon for a new model. Being pretty sure that the foundation of your brand is sound—and knowing simultaneously that you’re not doing a good job of communicating it—entails different work on your brand than does the understanding that you first have to attend to operational aspects of your business before spending time and money on brand-building.
Of course, good brand counsel should help you to understand where you are, where you’re trying to get to, what it will take, and what’s in the way. They should be diagnosticians first (sometimes you can repair the fender and other times only replacing it will be satisfactory); then planners (charting a course of work that will get you from here to there); then creative implementers; and finally, knowledge transfer agents—so you have the thinking and tools to keep what you’ve undertaken up and running.
A strong brand may be something that every organization wants, but there’s neither a single set of conditions driving the need for improvement, nor one way to get results. Toot toot. Beep beep.
Categories: Branding
Cool as a banana?
Last fall Chiquita bananas appeared adorned with wacky new characters on their familiar yellow and blue oval-ish stickers. A combination of childhood nostalgia (remember the jingle “I’m a Chiquita banana and I’ve come to say!”) and curiosity in the fun designs led me to a recent interview with the campaign designer DJ Neff via notcot.org.
Neff describes how the client’s open-ended directive was to, “Make bananas cool.” At the same time the campaign had to have longevity. He rightly recognized the value of the Chiquita brand—the stickers were already iconic; practically a rite of American childhood—and capitalized on more than one generation’s fond associations with the brand. In addition, the campaign and its adopters were a natural fit for a Facebook community giving Chiquita a reason to make bananas a social media-worthy topic. Neff says, “Creating a campaign to really maximize its potential creatively was a smart decision and gave added value to an already established brand equity.”
I was vaguely aware that at Whole Foods I buy something called Earth Bananas (I’m not kidding). My regular grocer doesn’t carry the Chiquita brand, but I never even noticed. Turns out as an adult I’ve never really assessed the competitive landscape and latched on to a preferred brand of banana. Maybe Chiquita was starting to notice this too.
Now that I’ve seen the new stickers I’m suddenly not only thinking about Chiquita again, I’m aware that my kid and I are missing out on some old-school, forehead-sticking fun. On top of that, I’ve actually visited the Chiquita banana website and learned about how to pick the best bananas. I’m probably not going to buy a banana USB ($20 on Chiquita’s online shop), but I will keep my eye out for the Chiquita brand so I can collect the stickers. Neff, you got me; a viral brand success!
Then again, I’m suspicious of mammoth corporate brands—it only took me a few more moments of browsing to discover Chiquita’s possible links to arms trafficking in Columbia. Hmmm… I’d better see what my friends are tweeting… maybe Earth bananas are cooler after all.
Categories: Branding, Design, Digital Media
Pay me attention and I’ll pay back interest
By coincidence or by meme, two posts appeared in my reader with the same premise: attention is currency.
Attention as a currency and noise, by Chris Brogan
Brand bank account, an idea of Huib Van Bockel, by way of David Meerman Scott
Now that we can get all the information we ask for, and gigabytes more daily that we don’t, “paying attention” begins to take on something more like real economic meaning.
Thinking of our customers’ / prospects’ attention as an actual quantity of some economic value might help us to put more clear requirements around often fuzzy “mindshare” and “ROI” goals. This idea may also point to our growing fluency with new digital media and the blurring boundaries among our private, public, social, commercial, and philanthropic lives; we know what we have to work with, now we can begin to prioritize our efforts.
Categories: Branding, Digital Media, Strategy and Management
A sway with words: does it get to you?
Words, it seems, are swirling all around us these days: flying across 65-inch LED screens, casting from pods, snaking around smartphones, crawling along the bottom of every news channel, barking from the radio, popping up online at every click… and it may feel like we can’t get away from them.
Amidst all this “communicating,” what’s really getting through? Two recent events made me think about how direct and forceful words can be when they come across as clearly spoken from the heart, plain and simple.
First, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Admiral Mike Mullen testified before Congress in support of repealing the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy:
“No matter how I look at the issue, I cannot escape being troubled by the fact that we have in place a policy which forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens.
“For me, personally, it comes down to integrity—theirs as individuals and ours as an institution.”
And just a few days ago, in a much-hyped Super Bowl commercial, footballer Tim Tebow’s mother Pam made a subtle pro-life pitch (so subtle, in fact, that the only hint of a political bent was the inclusion of the url for the commercial’s very anti-choice sponsor):
“I call him my miracle baby. He almost didn’t make it into this world. I remember so many times when I almost lost him. It was so hard. Well he’s all grown up now, and I still worry about his health. Everybody treats him like he’s different, but to me, he’s just my baby. He’s my Timmy, and I love him.”
Now you may not agree, forcefully even, with one or both of these. Both are fraught with some amount of controversy, left and right. But do you deny their authenticity? And will they change minds and hearts?
I think the cacophony of words swirling all around us makes those that come across as heartfelt that much more effective. It’s as if we’re hearing someone’s thoughts, fresh and unprocessed. And that freshness, that real-ness, is what I think makes social media—the tweets, posts, and ramblings—so potent. Those with whom we connect on Facebook, Twitter, and blogs become our friends, and sitting in front of our laptop or iPhone in the wee hours of the morning is the new “having coffee with a good friend.”
So what words get under your skin? What make your spirits soar? Share your thoughts.
Categories: Digital Media, Outside the Square
Did John Boehner just say “PWNED”? The Politics of Social Media
Yes, a press release at the behest of the House Minority Leader just used a term invented and perpetuated by gamers whenever they were on a “killing spree” in Quake 3: Arena. It’s a term I haven’t heard since my days of online competitive gaming, sessions in which I was constantly bombarded with really quite nefarious trash talk. Hearing it used by someone outside of the spectrum of adolescent-minded gamers was both amusing and somewhat unsettling; particularly given the distinctly non-gamer context of the meat of the release.
The GOP has recently publicized its prolific use of social media. The popular fact checking site Politifact confirms that the release is, by and large, quite accurate. House Republicans dominate Twitter. Nine of the top 10 most followed Representatives are Republicans, considerably more of whom use Twitter at all than Democrats. Boehner himself has over 18,500 followers. Additionally, Republican legislators are more active posters and earn more average viewers per video on Youtube.
This is a quick reversal from the popular perception of so-called “net-roots” during the 2004 and 2008 Presidential campaigns. Howard Dean was originally considered the pioneer of online tools for energizing a base, and strong social networking movements were given much due credit in President Obama’s successful run. Furthermore, the political left is more traditionally associated with youth, which is in turn more traditionally associated with the internet.
So why the shift? I hypothesize two reasons.
Many stat-processors, particularly companies like Nielsen, have been releasing studies over the past year that suggest that Twitter is not heavily fueled by the 24 and under demographic. In fact, mom and dad are far more likely than their cellphone chatting teenage son or daughter to be retweeting their favorite blogger. This, coupled with the ever broadening community of Facebook, represents a sort of coming out party for adults on the web; and adults tend to be far more polarized than youths when it comes to political beliefs. Given that the average age of a Congressional Representative is 55, an older audience is more likely to gel with their content output.
The second portion of my theory involves both ease of use and human behavior. We have a liberalized (note: not liberal as in contemporary left wing, but as in the actual meaning of the word) view on political speech in this country. It’s mostly free, as guaranteed by the first amendment. When people feel tred upon or otherwise locked into a minority, their desire to exercise their freedom of speech increases dramatically. This is only natural, we don’t like to feel as though we aren’t being heard. The internet is, if nothing else, a platform. Social media sites have defined that platform and streamlined its use into a more confined yet graspable skill-set. When the democrats were the total minority from 2000-2006, it was only logical that the internet would be an excellent place to vent and gather momentum. Likewise, in the current political climate, the right has virtually no power on Capitol Hill aside from the weighty filibuster. So it’s only logical that those on the right would be exceedingly ready to voice their grievances in the easiest and most practical way possible, online. The same goes for their constituents, who feel like now more than ever their voices need to be heard.
So perhaps if or when the pendulum of political power glides back to the right, the satiated GOP will no longer be inclined to post so actively online. It may truly be the case that the internet is the popular tool of the minority. After all, you don’t need a permit to protest on Twitter, and when all you can do is filibuster you’ve got plenty of time to kill.
Categories: Digital Media, Outside the Square
2010: The year social media settled down, had kids, and became boring (but earned a steady income)
Could you live a day in 2009 without hearing some version of the word “tweet”? (Often expressed in a tortured past participle, ouch!)
Social media and its disruptive potential—or reality, depending on your point of view—was a top subject for marketers, brand strategists, and communicators everywhere. Conferences were organized, tweets were tweeted, and there was a lot of light…but most of the heat was contained in blog posts and the digestions of communications managers.
Despite the nearly ubiquitous and constant exhortations to adapt or perish immediately, most organizations proceeded with uncertainty—and some pretended to not notice the commotion at all. And for good reason: marketers of all stripes, whether at professional service companies or in alumni relations departments, have little to gamble with but a lot to lose.
But the weather is changing. Sometime around the New Year, heat waves of panic and hyperbole began to diminish and cool rationality broke out. I think marketers will be able to act with more confidence this year, integrating social media into their broader brand and communication strategies. Certainly it will be a balancing effort that requires periodic retuning, but that’s a far more reasonable proposition than starting from scratch with unfamiliar tools.
Here’s why I think we can get back to the important work of advancing our causes in 2010:
Social media is not unlike every previous communication innovation. The Web was disorienting when it broke in the ’90s. It’s now assimilated in how we interact. Social media adds some exciting new dimensions, but it should be part of any thoughtful digital media strategy. Moreover, also like the Web and email before, we (humans) adapt it to our needs more than it changes us (though we’re all still saying ‘dot’ and ’slash’ more that we ought to). PR and marketing writer David Meerman Scott predicted in a recent trend poll, “The term ‘social media’ [will wane] as people realize we’re just talking about communicating.”
Standard practices are taking shape (pro tem). As leading platforms solidify their position (think Facebook and Linked In) and niche services achieve fuller adoption (like social bookmarking conventions), marketers are less likely to be dazzled and distracted by new options. Rather, with sure footing on the techniques that will get 80%+ of our word done, we can experiment with new options. Chris Brogan noted recently how his work habits are taking shape, even in the context of a potentially disruptive platform like Google Wave. Now, he’s a consultant and one-man show, but he uses a simple combination of services to reach many thousands each day. The lesson is twofold: marketers must evolve sustainable habits, while their constituents are probably doing the same. A little homework will reveal where the significant overlaps are.
People are asking about social media ROI—and getting serious answers. Sometimes the answer is that ROI isn’t the right model, but the level-headed among us recognize that to be worthy of our time and our organizations’ treasure our plans have to realize value. Social media prognoticators see the question of ROI waxing. Whether anyone is able to articulate a formula for ROI or not, the notion that social media’s value can’t and shouldn’t be measured is losing credibility.
Social media is taking an increasing share of marketing budget. Does this mean everyone has decided to forget their worries and dive in head first? Not quite. Yes, marketers are feeling more familiar with their options, and so acting more decisively. But it also means the technologies, communities, and practices are maturing enough for their adoption to be a compelling proposition. As more marketers shift their budgets to social media tactics, they will ask their consultants and designers to deliver results. The learning curve will level out, and best practices will emerge.
Where will you be this year? Is social media a flash in the pan, still a fringe medium, or a worthy part of your communication strategy?
Did you change or did social media?
Categories: Digital Media, Strategy and Management
Never mind the Elevator Pitch,
Here’s the Lobby Pitch
Got your elevator pitch? Good for you. But it means nothing if you never get on the elevator.
These days, you need a Lobby Pitch, too.
The Lobby Pitch
The Lobby Pitch isn’t a tagline (though it could be). It’s two simple things:
1. What you are.
2. What you do.
“I’m a __________ that__________.”
“We’re a __________ that __________.”
That’s it. That’s all you get. And If it’s well done, it’ll get you to the elevator.
Know thyself
Here’s a tip: as soon as you say, “Well, it’s complicated,” or, “It’s hard to explain,” you’re lost. If you can’t explain it, I guarantee they won’t try to understand it. And if you can’t explain it, you likely don’t actually know the answers to those questions.
But the lobby pitch is your God Particle, the thing that gives rise to all other things. It’s the “irreducible core,” that thing that, if you strip everything else away, is what’s left of who you are. It’s what would be lost if you weren’t here to do it.
What is that? Do you know?
Keep it simple
You don’t get 30 seconds anymore. You get five. Or fewer. And most people have made up their minds about you before you ever open your mouth.
I like Seth Godin’s approach: think of describing your core purpose as you would a superpower. Yes, people can see your superhero outfit (whether that’s your brand’s visual identity or your personal style…or lack thereof), but that only gives them hints. What you say confirms (or doesn’t) what they already think.
So try it: can you describe what you are and what you do in 20 words or less? Or six? Can you do it in 120 characters? Because those not-five seconds are all you have.
Use words people understand
To craft an effective Lobby Pitch, you have to be willing to categorize yourself—at least for the purpose of those five seconds. I’m not a big fan of putting people in buckets generally, but in those critical five seconds, people need a frame of reference to figure out whether to listen further, to discern whether what you are is something they need or want to learn more about.
That means your Lobby Pitch has to make sense, no matter the audience or the context. How would you describe yourself or your company to a five-year-old? Or your grandmother?
Create a curiosity gap
Social Media Journalist.
Professional Wingman.
Constructive Heretic.
Typist.
You want what you say to create a curiosity gap, that gap between “what one knows and what one wants to know.” It’s that gap that makes people ask the questions that’ll get you on the elevator. But that gap has steep edges, and it’s easy to fall in.
Your Lobby Pitch is not the time to invent new words.
New concepts, yes. New words, no.
So use words people understand, but use them in unexpected ways.
Or don’t
If you can’t come up with something truly clever, don’t try. Really. Sometimes people will want to know more simply because they need what you have to offer. If you need a print vendor, who are you going to pay more attention to: someone who introduces themselves as a print vendor, or a “pulp-based collateral production specialist”?
Unique is not necessarily the goal of a Lobby Pitch—matching what you do with what someone needs is. So don’t make it harder than it needs to be.
Don’t lie
You are what you are. Saying something that’s not true may get people to listen a bit longer, but most people’s BS meters are pretty sharp. Nonverbal communication is important, even if it’s not always as important as everyone thinks.
So, if everything about you says one thing, and your words say another, the word people will take away from your pitch isn’t one you likely included:
“Liar.”
Let it go
Think about it: you don’t respond to every pitch you hear. You don’t like every person you meet. Why would the rules be different in reverse?
You’re not going to win them all, no matter how great your pitch is, because not everyone needs or wants what you have to offer. Think about it like a casting call. If the person you’re talking to needs to cast Porgy for Porgy and Bess (a part typically played by an African-American bass-baritone), and you’re Julie Andrews, you’re not going to get cast, no matter how beautifully you sing or how wonderfully you can act.
You can’t make them love you. Let it go. Find your part. Find your audience.
Be prepared
If you make a good first impression, if you offer what someone wants, if you can explain that in a way that creates (or takes advantage of) a curiosity gap, then you better be prepared to get on the elevator. Make sure you know:
3. Why you do it.
4. How you do it.
Because that’s what’ll take you to the top.
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So what’s your Lobby Pitch?
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Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/stevensnodgrass/ / CC BY 2.0
Categories: Branding, Strategy and Management
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