Bagel Tuesday

I second that emoticon

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 14:31:50 -0500

I’m not sure what it is about emoticons and acronyms that rub me the wrong way but it seems as if these amalgamations of characters are now becoming a necessity when sending text messages, emails or social media updates.

I recently sent a text message that was meant to be sarcastic and as always chose to omit the use of an emoticon. Well, in the place of hilarity an apology ensued…mine. The messages original intent was totally lost on the recipient. We live in a world where technology creates needs; I know I cringe every time I see someone break out a non-smart cellphone. Doesn’t that person need to check their Facebook timeline twenty times a day? In today’s 140 characters or less digital environment, brevity is king and the ability to express oneself in a concise manner is quickly becoming a prerequisite skillset. Yes, emoticons can hinder the severity of your content, but if used correctly, they inject personality and ensures against the dilution of the message's original intent.

As most of my friends will attest, I’m not the most masculine guy out there, I sew, bake and love my man purses like a fat kid likes cake, but something about putting a :) or an “lol” at the end of a statement makes me feel like I should be debating if I’m on team Jacob or Edward (let me not get into the whole laughing at your own joke thing). It may be hard to do but it seems as if I’m going to have to either embrace this new way of communicating or go the way of the dodo. We shall see. ;)

Enter the SnapTag

Wed, 04 Jan 2012 10:42:29 -0500

By now you’ve had to have encountered QR codes (Quick response codes) and possibly even Microsoft Tags and just when you thought you understood how to incorporate these scannable codes into your brand marketing a new player enters the fray.

SpyderLynk, which describes itself as a mobile activation and marketing platform company, recently developed SnapTags, which incorporate your logo into a code that can either be scanned using their proprietary SnapTag reader or by taking and sending a picture of the SnapTag to a designated short code using any standard camera phone.

With SnapTags, SpyderLynk is attempting to accommodate the high number of mobile phone users who aren’t able to utilize scanning apps on their current mobile device. They attest that 88% of mobile phones have a camera whereas utilizing other technologies, such as QR codes, require a scanning app on your iPhone or Android device. Another benefit of SnapTags is the ability to receive content directly to your phone whereas QR codes typically take you to a Website thus requiring Web access.

Partnering with SpyderLynk, Toyota Motor Sales recently created what they are calling a ToyoTag and incorporated it into all of its marketing communications. They are hoping to foster interactions with its customers at all points of contact with its products. Michael K. Nelson, interactive communications marketing manager at Toyota stated, “The ToyoTag allows customers to engage with us wherever and whenever they want information.” Toyota isn’t alone in their implementation of SnapTags as Glamour magazine, Orbit gum, Coke and Bud Light have all dipped their toes in the pool of early adopters.

With the ability to instantly receive exclusive content, grow social media, allow for social sharing and build brand awareness, SnapTags seem to be the next big thing in marketing. The need for new methods of engagement and the ability to track and measure consumer interest is something that is important to all brand marketers when creating integrated campaigns. The possibilities for scannable codes seem to be as endless as they are exciting and I for one can’t wait to see what the future holds.

The no-exit bakery

Mon, 28 Mar 2011 10:30:00 -0500

There's a bakery in our neighborhood that — like many businesses in New York — puts up a temporary vestibule to keep the winter winds out. It's easy to get in: pull the handle to a flimsy fabric-and-aluminum door, take two steps and open a glass door.

But getting out of this particular vestibule stymies people. There's no clear cue showing which of the three walls is the door. I've seen people hesitate, look confused, push against the walls — one guy even did a full mime-feeling-an-invisible-wall routine.

As I watch these trapped people, I'm inevitably reminded of issues that arise in web design:

Navigation obviously takes more than casual use to learn. (Every customer entered through the vestibule minutes before attempting to leave it).
Users don't want to try and fail. (They could quickly press each of the three walls to find the door but many don't.)
Frustration happens in seconds.
Clear messaging is a must for navigation. (A simple solution, like putting an "Exit" sticker at eye level, or adding a traditional door handle, would probably work well. The equivalent on a website would be to name a section "About us" instead of "Ingenuity.")

The Best Law Firm Holiday Card of 2010 is...

Thu, 09 Dec 2010 14:44:27 -0500

We try to help our clients stand out from the competition. And earlier today, we found out that one of our legal clients - Manatt, Phelps, and Phillips - was recognized in a big way. The Wall Street Journal's Law Blog calls the holiday eCard we created for Manatt the "the best law firm holiday card of 2010."

As the WSJ describes it:

It’s clever and a bit meta and, we’re best off not describing it anymore, but just linking to it, here.

Everyone talks about being different, but Manatt worked with us to creatively push their holiday message to a place that many firms would have shied away from. This kind of collaboration is something to look forward to in 2011.

Living in a content-centric world

Mon, 11 Oct 2010 16:00:00 -0500

With all the fuss over social media these days, a lot of people are ignoring the content that makes it work.

It’s the insights and ideas of your practitioners that define your advantage in the marketplace. A successful social media strategy will draw on that intellectual capital to start a conversation and build your brand.

Until recently, you could easily leverage your thought leadership through a content-driven website strategy: putting your commentary, white papers, blogs and other thought leadership front-and-center on your corporate dot-com (as in this diagram of user flows on asset management websites).

But that dot.com-centric approach is no longer enough. In today’s content-centric world, not everyone comes to your content through your corporate site. Users now bypass your home page and access content directly from a constantly changing landscape of search engines, email links, blogs, Twitter feeds, Facebook pages and the like.

In some cases, your content is even being removed from your site and delivered to users in other applications such as RSS readers, mobile apps and content aggregators. Your content is going viral as financial advisors and other intermediaries pass it on it to their own clients. And you might be providing your own multiple points of access through microsites, campaign landing pages, targeted channel-specific sites and other specialized destinations that ultimately draw on much of the same content.

All this requires a new way of thinking about your online presence: It’s all about creating and distributing content. So the first step to a successful social media strategy is creating an engine of timely, relevant, differentiated content.

Usability comes first - especially when death rays are involved

Mon, 04 Oct 2010 12:10:09 -0500

This story about a new Las Vegas hotel got a lot of mileage last week on Facebook, Twitter and the blogosphere. In case you missed it, guests lounging at the pool at the Vdara hotel

reportedly are getting burned by concentrated sun rays strong enough to melt plastic drink cups and plastic newspaper bags.

Obviously, the big story here is cost-cutting. Had the Vdara Hotel spent more money on a reflective film for sun-facing windows, the "death-ray" wouldn't exist. But an underlying issue is putting a priority on form, rather than function. The building's placement in the path of the sun, and the concave facade, combined to produce the death-ray effect. So even though the design is aesthetically pleasing, the hotel has an ugly usability problem: a swimming pool area that is more of a danger than a luxury.

It's a funny story. But there's also a valuable lesson here. We've learned, particularly on digital projects, that a great design is wasted if the application doesn't work. As Barack Obama might say, that's just putting lipstick on a pig. But the point is that design decisions have real-world consequences, whether you're talking about a digital space, brick-and-mortar or, in this case, glass and steel.

The most common mistake in asset management

Wed, 29 Sep 2010 10:44:08 -0500

Too many brands.

I just don't understand why so many asset managers think they need a separate logo for each line of business. One for institutional. One for the fund family. One for their high net worth accounts. One for each foreign subsidiary. Sometimes even one for each investment vehicle! No wonder they suffer from unclear, muddled brands.

I think it must be because asset managers hire more lawyers than marketing professionals. The lawyers tell them they need to do business under a variety of legal names. So they think that means each name should be its own brand — and there's no one around to explain otherwise.

In fact, the exact opposite is true.

If you design a logo around the name of one legal entity, it can't be used for any of your other entities. You're better off creating a single brand name that doesn't correspond to any legal entity at all — so it can be used for all of them.

Over and over again, we find ourselves simplifying a client's brand architecture by consolidating logos into a single brand that's consistent across all businesses and product lines. Take Matthews Asia. It called itself Matthews Asian Funds in the retail market. For institutional investors, it was Matthews International Capital Management LLC. Each name had its own logo treatment. (Yes, it even put "LLC" in the logo — a not uncommon mistake.) And sometimes it was just Matthews.

Our recommendation was to consolidate around a single brand name. Why Matthews Asia? Because "Matthews" has the brand equity, and "Asia' is the simplest possible way of defining its unique value proposition. Dropping the "n" from Matthews Asian Funds was a subtle change that made a big difference. Now Matthews uses "Asia" consistently in its publications, new products and other ways it communicates.

A more common approach is to add the word "Investments" to make your brand broad enough to encompass all your different products, markets and lines of business. Think Fidelity Investments. Or Putnam Investments. That was the direction Ariel chose when it consolidated Ariel Capital Management and Ariel Mutual Funds into Ariel Investments. Some variations on that approach are to use the words "Investors," "Capital" or other broad words that don't align with any existing products or subsidiaries.

Or if you're really feeling brave, you can drop all your descriptors and just use your "real" name. That's what Oaktree did. It came to us as Oaktree Capital Management LLC (in the United States). But in Japan, it was Oaktree Japan. It was Oaktree Capital Management Limited in the U.K. And it used other names for its investment funds.

We suggested that it consolidate and streamline its brand. We gave it two choices: Oaktree Capital or just plain Oaktree. Most companies would have chosen the former. But Howard Marks & company took the plunge and went all the way to Oaktree. The risk? That most people wouldn't know what business it was in. But Oaktree didn't care about most people. It only cared about specific target audiences that already knew very well who it was.

Pretty gutsy, in my book.

What advisors do online

Mon, 20 Sep 2010 17:54:00 -0500

I had the pleasure of appearing on a live interactive webcast sponsored by BrightTALK and kasina last week. I was a little nervous because the last time I was on live TV was back in 1982—to somewhat disastrous effect—but the great folks at BrightTALK and the TV technicians at the studio made it easy for me.

The subject was "what advisors do online," based on new research by kasina. In my presentation, I supplemented the kasina research with some tips for asset managers in making the shift from a "dot.com-centric world" to the "content-centric world" we're in now, where users no longer reach your content only through your home page but access it directly from a constantly changing landscape of search engines, email links, blogs, social media, RSS readers, mobile apps, content aggregators and more. I also used our new AAM site (which just happened to launch that morning) as an example of how asset managers can make their content one of the main pillars of their value proposition.

You can see the whole webcast below (it lasts about an hour). I also plan to discuss this idea of the content-centric world some more in a future post.

What do they know? A lot.

Wed, 04 Aug 2010 12:15:26 -0500

There's a phenomenal series running in the Wall Street Journal about digital privacy (or the lack thereof) called What They Know, which found that:

...the tracking of consumers has grown both far more pervasive and far more intrusive than is realized by all but a handful of people in the vanguard of the industry.

Today's article is about the extensive information some websites have about you even before you tell them anything: "On the Web's Cutting Edge, Anonymity in Name Only." It's pretty powerful stuff -- or alarming, depending on your point of view. Previous articles explored the range of tracking technologies (the Journal calls it "spying") installed on your computer by popular websites, and how Microsoft chose not to include strict privacy features in its latest version of Internet Explorer.

It also includes some nifty interactive features like this Tracker Scorecard showing which sites use which tracking technologies. It turns out that dictionary.com, of all places, is the worst privacy offender of the 50 most popular U.S. websites.

Everyone who browses the Web (which is to say, everyone) should know about this. It's outside the Journal's firewall so you don't need a subscription.

Content strategy on and off the Web

Mon, 02 Aug 2010 02:15:08 -0500

I'm a big fan of Kristina Halvorson and content strategy. Her book Content Strategy for the Web is redefining best practice in web development and restoring content to its rightful place at the center of the online universe.

In fact, we consider it vindication. Wechsler has always emphasized content. We renamed our content leads "content strategists" four years ago to recognize their central role in the process — and our unusual approach to developing content. At Wechsler, content strategy isn't just about the Web. We take a strategic approach to all content.

What does that mean in practice?

Online or off, it's about structuring content. The goal of persuasive communications (unlike creative or narrative communications, like fiction or journalism) is to change how the reader (or user) thinks about something. Elements of verbal and visual information must be delivered in a way that engages, informs and ultimately leads to a new way of thinking.

To achieve this goal, Wechsler's content strategists take responsibility for content from start to finish of a project. They are jointly responsible for the development process with either the experience lead (on a Web project) or the design lead (on a print project). They interview clients, decide what content to include, collaborate on creative concepts and architecture, assign projects to writers (or write it themselves), edit drafts, review proofs, process client changes, ensure consistency, answer proofreader queries and perform quality control. They are, in fact, our in-house experts on each client's business, products, marketing goals, style preferences, compliance guidelines and personality quirks.

We used to call them editors. But that didn't come close to capturing their range of responsibilities or centrality to our process. So we think content strategy is a great idea. We're with you all the way, Kristina!