A couple of great fake vintage ads from the Worth1000.com fake vintage ad contest.
Thanks Abi from HeatEatReview.com
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Sure it’s an old advertisement from the era that had Doctors endorsing cigarettes, but this kind of misleading information is still rife all kinds of outbound communication from ads to packaging. From telling me that a packet of chips (crisps) has two serving sizes, to saying 0% fat and then loading up with sugar or HFCS, to saying a chicken is “all natural”, to describing a petrol company as an “energy” company, it all serves to erode the “benefit of the doubt” that I will give companies and drive me toward companies that I trust. One thing is for sure my trust in companies is mostly built, slowly over time, through many interactions, across many different facets of their business. This is why the web and social media are so powerful and disruptive to business as usual, I have so many ways to interact with, companies, to experience every facet of their company in different ways, and learn through other customers experiences, companies are really laid bare.
After thinking about this a bit I searched around for “missleading advertising” stuff and came across this study from the Journal of Consumer Affairs from 1981 titled Consumer Perceptions of Advertising as Misleading
A mail survey was conducted of 314 residents of two California cities to measure consumer perception of the prevalence of misleading advertising. Information was obtained concerning the extent of misleading advertising in the various media, for 30 products and services and for three age groups. The findings indicate that over half of the sample viewed “most” or “all” mail and telephone advertising as misleading, and that 38 percent of the respondents regarded “most” or “all” television advertising as misleading.
Wow, if that was 1981 I hate to think how many people think “most” or “all” advertising is misleading. Anyone know of more recent studies?
UPDATE:
From Idris Mootee’s excellent MBA presentation on the future of marketing
A genius typeface made out of Post It Notes, I wonder if 3M would have to get a cut of this if it ended up as a font 
Via Ffffound
It’s funny, I would suggest that Apple and Google probably have very different design processes and certainly a very different culture so what is the common denominator?
I think it could well be that they both have very influential people at the executive level in the organization that is focused and passionate about the design of the customer experience, ie. Steve Jobs and Marissa Mayer.
Can you point to the one person in your organization who “owns” the design of the user experience? Do they have the power and influence to effect every aspect of the user experience?
Hyperbole? I don’t think so. I believe that social media is reshaping the business landscape and is changing, or requiring change from every aspect of the business, from business strategy, to product development, to marketing, to human resources (hey, even Microsoft is taking notice see this FT article “A revolution is taking shape”).
The Newcomreview.com just posted on a report from TNS media intelligence/Cymfony that found 50% of Marketing Executives Believe Social Media Is a “Vital Component” of Corporate Communications, that’s a pretty huge shift if is really representative of marketers across the board.
I really like the way they seperated between “wait and see” folks who are just dipping their toe in with social media and and “revolutionaries” who have embraced the change.
The survey reveals that the early adopters (“Revolutionaries”) are more advanced in their understanding and execution of social media marketing initiatives than more cautious marketers (“Wait-and-Sees”). First, nearly five times as many Revolutionaries are already implementing social media in their organizations and three times as many Wait-and-See companies are only at the learning stage. In addition, Revolutionaries are far more optimistic about the future of social media with 81% saying it will grow in significance over the next five years. Only 33% of the Wait-and-Sees agreed with this outlook.
and even more fascinating and how do they approach marketing differently?
When asked about how they would use social media to influence their marketing initiatives, Wait-and-See companies put more emphasis on using social media for new types of marketing campaigns such as viral marketing and videos, while Revolutionaries focus more on listening to consumer and bloggers’ points-of-view. One area where they were in accordance was that both Revolutionaries (95%) and Wait-and-Sees (60%) are eager to connect with other colleagues to study consumer feedback and learn from
In other words the wait and see folks are still hooked into the “campaign” big bang fire and forget model, and the revolutionaries are “participating in the conversation” and building deeper relationships with their customers. Hmm, I wonder what has a better ROI.
So which one are you? Wait and see? or a revolutionary?
This video presentation by Jake McKee is a fantastic case study for anyone interested in trying to empower a company to participate in social media/web2.0. Jake lived and breathed it there, and now has his own social media consultancy called the Ants Eye View. Thanks for sharing this Jake. I’ve pulled out a couple of quotes that I think are key, but i also recommend watching the whole thing.
“Inside Fort Business”
A great picture and an important point to take on board, the concept of “fort business” is the antithesis of the Cluetrain and is going to really get in the way of any serious attempt to “participate” in social media. You have to trust and empower “everyone” in your company to participate in social media, and I mean everyone, not everyone is going to do it, but unless you allow self selection you will stifle the people who are already helping change your company.
“Lego had different level of customer, and in most cases customer meant big box store, wall-mart, toys R us K-Mart etc. and the end user was called the consumer. Lego would often ask the big box stores what they new about the consumer, and the big box stores would say they didn’t know anything about the consumer and why didn’t Lego know.”
Very interesting point, often big companies that use rely on distribution channels sometimes miss that direct connection to the consumer. In todays landscape companies can’t afford not to have this connection, and the good news is that social media allows these direct connections to the most passionate customer base.
“we effected change on a very large, very old, very conservative company, that was also Danish. If you know anything about the Danes they are a socialist country that have tall poppy syndrome that’s everybody’s the same, we’re just as good as everybody else etc.”
Another interesting point, it is very apparent if you have ever worked in European companies that national culture has an enormous effect on company culture. I find it really interesting that Jake would call the Danes socialist but certainly closer to socialist than America where there is certainly no “tall poppy syndrome”
If you want to download the whole video to watch on your phone blip.tv kindly provides and mp4 file here.
This video is so extraordinary and strange, it essentially acts out the history of wars (from an American perspective) from WWII onward using the various foods associated with the warring nations. This kind of short form, bite sized entertainment is so ideal on the internet, and even via mobile it makes me wonder what kind of company or eco system is going to enable and capitalize on this more.
Via BoingBoing
Here are some really exciting design/UX related jobs in the Video Game Group at Nokia.
These roles will work in the product management group and will work as a team helping design concepts, visual, and interactive prototypes prior to them going into the product management process. These are really fun roles because you will be working on concepts very early on in the process, essentially helping create artifacts so the hard core development can create these features to roll out globally with a high degree of fidelity to the original vision you will help create. You can read more about our games at N-Gage here and on our blog. These jobs are based in San Francisco and we have a great location in SOMA, feel free to ping me if you do apply and I’ll keep an eye out for your resume.
Just launched yesterday Vcwear.com is a site that not only sells very funny t-shirts targeted to VC’s for $100 you can also buy the company while your at it for $100,000, just add it to your shopping cart. I can’t think of a more perfect targeting strategy for selling a company than creating a line of goods specifically targeted to VC’s, genius.
Political? Maybe, but I think if Lawrence Lessig does run for congress it will be one of the most significant political moves marketed and enabled through the internet and social media, a truly grass roots effort. He may be running for the 12th district in California but he would be IMHO the Congressman for the district of the internet, as founder of the creative commons, and being on the board of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. In many ways the amount of support I think Lessig will get from the web this may well turn into first global campaign to get a congressman elected
Go to lessig08.org to show your support, and read about his mission further at change-congress.org, you can also join his 3,300 strong group on facebook
Draftlessig.org has just noted they have raised $20,000 in the first 48 hours
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