Blog – Page 10

The Singular, Slow Tour: Slowing Down the Images

Do you ever feel that images are rushing by you? There are so many that come into our space, onto our screens, in our reading material, on our Facebook feeds.

I had the opposite experience recently: one where I could focus on one image for a while. I have to tell you, it was majestic, rejuvenating, and refreshing.

I had the pleasure of visiting the Detroit Institute of Arts. The DIA is truly one of the jewels in the crown of the cultural legacy of Detroit. Indeed, the DIA is chock-full of amazing, world class art.

I go a few times a year to the DIA, usually to see a new exhibition or sometimes to bring out-of-towners. When I come, I sort of mentally check off the “biggies” that I want to see or show off: the Diego Rivera courtyard, the Van Gogh paintings, the multiple Picassos, the Chapel from the Chateau de Herbeviller that overlooks the Kresge courtyard, Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s The Wedding Dance, and so many more.

This past week, I was aware that there was a special guest at the DIA. The Musee D’Orsay in Paris has loaned the DIA one of their stars: Claude Monet’s Waterlily Pond, Green Harmony. The painting, part of Monet’s ouevre of work that he painted at Giverney, France, will be shown at the DIA until January 4, 2015. (I believe that the Musee D’Orsay loaned the painting to the DIA as a way of showing solidarity with the museum and to demonstrate to the Detroit community that a solvent, major museum has the “swat” to bring in big, important art. The DIA and its collection was part of the “Grand Bargain”, Detroit’s bankruptcy proceedings.)

What I didn’t know is that the Monet painting was installed in a very special way in a gallery adjacent to the Diego Rivera courtyard. As you approach the gallery, there is a directional sign indicating that you are about to see the “Guest of Honor”. Then you walk into a lovely space…and the only artwork shown is the Monet, hung right in the center of the room, lit perfectly. There are no other images, and pretty minimal information posted nearby. I was practically alone with the Monet (and the security guard). Nothing distracted me at all. I lingered, and I lingered a little more and then I turned away to leave, and I came back again. I had a question about how we got the piece and I sought out the docent nearby. In total, I probably spent about 15 minutes interacting with one painting, an eternity for my typical Type-A quick, sometimes frenzied forays through the DIA and other museums, too.

You should note that this image of the Monet doesn’t even begin to do the painting justice, but it is posted here for your reference.

As I left the museum, I pondered how we perhaps need to find time to simplify, to engage with a message or an image without distraction, how we overrate multitasking. I also began to contemplate how the DIA accomplished something so singular: they advertised a special exhibition and they truly made one painting its own star. I have to thank the DIA for allowing us all to slow down for a moment and to linger with Monet’s Waterlilies.

For more information about the Monet exhibit:

http://www.dia.org/calendar/exhibition.aspx?id=4744&iid=

Marketing and Procrastination: A Bad Combination

image by dreamstime

Procrastination is something many of us struggle with.

Some of us make lists, moving unpleasant or difficult items regularly to the bottom of the lists. Some of us never make lists; we just conveniently keep forgetting to deal with things that we find bothersome.

If you are doing your regular work, often times the “marketing tasks” get pushed down on your to-do list. Marketing tasks somehow don’t feel as urgent as the client who is coming to your office in five minutes or the patient who needs immediate attention.

But, the truth is, that putting off marketing decisions, marketing tasks or even delaying budgeting for or paying for marketing is really like leaving money on the table.

You cannot depend on all of your clients to be your clients forever. Moreover, you cannot assume that their fees and costs of doing business with you are going to be constants. Very few companies and practices can really ignore the reality that obtaining new clients, customers or patients is the most important component of a solid business plan.

So it’s time to quit procrastinating. Start with following these steps:

Move a marketing discussion to the top of your to-do list.
Engage a marketing professional, and at least begin the conversation. Try to be sure that whomever you hire “gets” you and your business.
Be sure to state what you feel are your most pressing marketing needs, but allow the marketing professional to also give you some advice to what they see as your most pressing needs.
Be sure to follow through with what is asked of you, whether it is reading copy of revised website materials or engaging staff to get their opinions as to what marketing materials work best in your office.

The Life of a Logo

You may not always be looking at logos, but we are. We are often asked to craft a new logo, or tweak an older logo, or just to update the look. Colors go in and out of fashion (do you remember avocado kitchen appliances?), fonts grow a little fusty, and logos are a central part of brand identity.

But, don’t be fooled. Logo work is hard. So much information has to be represented in a logo: an idea of what your company does, and how you view yourself and how you wish your clients and customers to view you.

There are iconic logos out there, ones that when you see the company logo, even without seeing the company name, you can readily identify…think of the Nike “swoosh” or the golden arches of McDonald’s.

In the news recently is the logo change of Major League Soccer. Here was their original logo:

Is this original logo perfect? Probably not. Maybe the ball and cleated foot are a little too “icon-y”; maybe the colors are looking a touch dated. But, what does the logo show us? It reminds us what MLS stands for, and it is a logo that stands out nicely on uniforms, because of the predominance of white in the logo (which is actually somewhat unusual). I am sure the designers of the original logo chose to enhance the whiteness, in order to keep the soccer ball as the element in the logo that draws in your eye.

Here is the (fanfare!) newly released MLS soccer logo:

Hmmm.

What have we here? The new logo designers have taken away the somewhat cartoonish soccer boot and ball and replaced it with the letters MLS only on a shield, with a protruding slashed line. The colors are completely changed as well.

Here are some initial thoughts about the redesigned logo and ways to think about your own branding:

The letters MLS mean something to fans of Major League Soccer (and their attendance at matches is now eclipsing numbers-wise those of certain NBA and NHL franchises). But, for lots of people, MLS doesn’t yet have the same “brand letter recognition” that the NFL and NBA have. It’s a reminder that our logos might be clear to us, but they have to be doubly clear to the public.
Because MLS is not spelled out on the shield, it may have been premature to remove any indication as to what MLS stands for (i.e., the imagery of the boot and the ball).
The change in color scheme is not necessarily a bad thing. MLS is comprised of American and Canadian teams, so having red, white and blue is perfectly acceptable. Change is ok!
The officials from MLS say the bottom half of the shield represents the goal. And you can see what they are talking about, as the area is shaped like an exaggerated goal with empty space. But is a logo that requires explanation an effective logo?
What’s with the protruding line? Really I have no idea. But MLS has released this explanation: “The slash refers to soccer’s speed and energy. The slash begins outside the perimeter and drives upward at a 45-degree angle to illustrate both the nonstop nature of our game and the rising trajectory of our league. It bisects the crest to create a ‘first half’ and ‘second half.” I like the explanation, but from just a purely graphics perspective, the protrusion of the line feels “off”.
Major League Soccer is feeling grown up. The league is turning 20 and it is now a profitable enterprise with teams all over the U.S. and Canada, in cities as diverse as Chicago and San Jose. One can sense that the corporation wanted to project that maturity into a more stately, less brash logo. Logos do need tweaking and updating as the nature of businesses and entities change.
Clearly, MLS was influenced by the the NHL and NFL, both of which sport shield logos. In addition, the team with the best record in the MLS is awarded the “Supporters Shield”, although there are still league playoffs. The NFL logo also is red, white and blue with stars, but it still shows the football. NHL, interestingly, has a shield logo with no indication as to what NHL stands for; the owners assume the strong brand recognition of the letters only.

A Tale of Two Library Branches

I live in a town that has several library branches. Of course, we have our regular branch, of which I am a fairly regular customer. I read a lot and I don’t like paying for books, either on my bookshelves (which are overflowing) or my Kindle, which I’ve sort of grown apart from.

Libraries are changing. The nature of people’s relationships with the printed word is changing. In addition, libraries and their free access computers are serving all sorts of customers, particularly those who now need a computer to apply for jobs and manage other aspects of their lives that a smart phone isn’t quite up to. Librarians’ tasks are different than they used to be. They have to help with online searches and resume builders, in addition to helping find and reserve books, both print and electronic.

But, truth to tell, I went to the library for a very ordinary, not 21st century task. My daughter’s English class now requires that all of the students read 20 books of their choosing (with faculty approval), some of which must be of specific genres. My daughter had completed her book on a Thursday night and didn’t get a new one checked out at school on Friday (English class didn’t meet that day). She wanted to be ready for Monday morning with a new book. So, off we went to the library.

The tale of the two library branches began when we arrived at our “regular” location to see that the library was closed due to a planned fundraising event that night. OK, this was a little bump in the road; We can deal…off we headed to branch #2, a few minutes away. I have been to branch #2 before. Admittedly, I didn’t like it as much, but when I would go there, it was because there was something I needed there that day (a DVD, a book title that I didn’t want to wait to get shipped to my branch, etc.). I never really did a compare and contrast as to why Home Branch and Further Away Branch were better or worse than one another.

We arrived at Branch #2. It wasn’t great and it wasn’t because of us. We were in a good mood, ready to check out good books.

I discovered why I love my home branch. My home branch knows how to market books to their customers. They make me want to read their collection, to check out their DVD’s, to peruse the magazines that they get that I don’t get. So, what was missing at Branch #2 that I thought every library had?

My home branch has big displays of all of the new books and DVD’s, easily visible and in a prominent place. They also display (laminated so you can pull it down to read it) the New York Times bestseller list. And it’s right next to the computer so you can reserve a title while you’re thinking about it.
My home branch always has used books for sale. It’s a fundraiser for the library and ends up being a regular impulse buy at $1 per title right by the check out station.
The children’s librarian is visible to all and the adult librarians know a heck of a lot about all literature. At Branch #2, my daughter had to find a librarian to ask for some recommendations for a fantasy book (she’s already read a lot and wanted a new idea). The librarian recommended The Hobbit (OK, not the most original suggestion) and then showed us how to see suggestions on the library computers. But when we went to the library computers, none of the pull-down menus worked.
The children’s librarian at the home branch has all sorts of stuff to hand out to kids: recommendations for middle school readers, new series to try, all the Caldecott and Newberry winners, etc. All of these are printed, so you can carry the list around to see what’s in the collection or go reserve it on the system. (Sometimes, printed is ok.)
My home branch rents out tools (you need hedge trimmers, an edger, a chainsaw…free at the library!)
The home branch keeps its computers in tip-top shape. Somebody there is always making things function.
The staff at the home branch either know me or pretend to know me, either of which is fine, by the way.

It’s interesting that there are lessons in good customer relations and good marketing wherever you turn. You know when you as a customer or client feel valued and when you have been well-served. Perhaps that is the strongest marketing component any business or non-profit possesses, and one that should be regularly assessed and tweaked.

The Anti-Nielsen Family?

We were talking about “Must See TV”the other day in our house.

Our house is atypical and typical at the same time. It’s a mother and father and three teenage daughters. Everybody has their own smart phone and there are multiple computers and tablets. We have a Netflix account for actual DVD’s and for streaming. The oldest teen (who now is away at college) also keeps a Hulu account. Everybody has a lot of work to do in the evenings, either from homework load or extracurriculars or actual work. That’s the typical part.

Here are some atypical parts:

one TV
no cable (and no, we are not Amish)
the TV is rarely on, never during the day; occasionally on late on a school night, more likely on the weekends

And now, here are some outcomes:

Nobody watches sports. (We didn’t grow up in Detroit if that makes this statement more palatable.)
Exceptions to the no sports: certain college football games, maybe the World Series, the Super Bowl depending on who the halftime performer is, pieces of the Olympics and lately the 15 year old thinks Rory Mcilroy is “so hot”, so we’ve seen more PGA action than ever before.
Nobody watches the news. We still get a weekly newspaper and the parents get online news. Truly, the kids might be getting their news from their friends. Another example of how we’ve failed them as parents.
We are unaware of TV schedules for the most part. Because of Hulu and Netflix and other ways to find content, everybody in the family is divorced from any set tv schedules.
We still binge watch and various members of the family “crowd around”the family computer. There will be times when I have seen a daughter watch dozens of episodes of “Say Yes to the Dress”. We all binge watched “Arrested Development”…and then we watched it all again. When Joan Rivers died, we found every performance we could find and the documentary “A Piece of Work”and watched that. One daughter is obsessed with Elizabethan history, so we watched all the seasons of “The Tudors”. “House”was a project during the summer, as has been “Bones”. The father watches comedian performances ad nauseum. The mother and oldest daughter are obsessed with”Orange is the New Black”, partly because the mother was a huge fan of “Weeds”, a show that she binge-watched, having never seen it on Showtime (back to that Amish thing).
We still can’t wait for “Downton Abbey”. Perhaps because we have a historical fiction gene going in the family, and because it’s on PBS on Sundays, and it was so easy to get all of the earlier episodes, we do seem to know when it restarts every year and we rearrange our lives for that.
We rarely see commercials and when we do, they really bug us.
When we go on vacation, the kids attack the cable television like it’s Halloween candy.

The lessons from the above ruminations: We are still searching for content, and we continue to find things that amuse and entertain us; we are hard to reach for advertisers, but not impossible, we do spend money on getting content, although it may be “atypical”, and we do represent the “nichification”of the viewing marketplace, where we create no water cooler talk about shows.

First, define your audience.

It seems to be such an easy concept: define who is likely to receive your message.

Yet, so many people get it wrong.

How many times have you been a captive audience for a presentation, whether it was parents’ night at school, or a sermon in a house of worship or a conference for your profession, where you were flabbergasted by the speaker? Countless times is has happened to us: a speaker who had done no research or preparation for her presentation on either the topic or more likely the specific needs or viewpoint of the audience. One time we actually heard a speaker say, “I was working on this during the ride here.” And we were offended…offended that he probably received a speaker’s fee for clearly minimal or no work and offended that he valued us, his audience, so little that he thought he could wing it and we wouldn’t notice. (We noticed; it was a really lame Power Point.)

We’ve seen speakers who were oblivious to the time constraints or room conditions and had no notion that they weren’t connecting to the audience and sometimes were even alienating them. We’ve seen speakers who dumbed down their message and underestimated how offensive that would be. And we’ve seen speakers who used insider lingo and sometimes even spoke in foreign phrases, unintentionally (or was it intentionally?) excluding those who didn’t understand that portion of the message.

How many times have you seen an advertisement on TV and thought to yourself, “I may not be the target audience for the show I’m watching.” There was a famous newspaper story entitled “My Tivo Thinks I’m Gay” (not that there’s anything wrong with that), which detailed a writer’s regular TV watching suggestions from Tivo. Apparently, his Tivo had extrapolated from his watching a couple of HGTV shows that he was gay.

One of the first steps in any marketing process is to understand your “audience”. Who is your audience?

Your current customers and clients
Potential customers and clients
Those who are seeking the services or products you offer
Those who engage with any of your marketing materials, whether they are clients or not, employees, family and friends

You may have different audiences for different sectors of your marketing plan and even for different aspects of your business. A full service small bank has to market to those who are arranging financing for a house as well as high school kids who are setting up their shared checking account with ATM cards with their parents for college.

The key to all of the messages that we put out “there” is that we have to find ways to connect with all of the members of our audience in all of their complexities and nuances.

When Somebody Offers You a Product You Want

It’s college move-in time. For the past two weeks and all the way into mid-September for California students, lots of parents are moving their kids into college dormitories across the country. The experience includes planning, organization, and shopping and spending money. We discovered as we worked with our 18 and 19 year-olds that often times we were quite ready to spend money when we received information about a service that was a perfect fit. If you have already sent kids to college, this is old news. For those of you who have not gotten the chance, this is a preview of things to come. But for all of us, the salient lesson is this: We spent money on products and services that got the word out to us and that met our needs.

Here were a few of our highlighted purchases and some we declined to buy:

Getting in line at the bookstore is so old school. Not when there’s Amazon Student. Amazon Student is cheaper than Amazon Prime and offers free 2-day shipping. And for expensive science and math textbooks, the prices were better than the bookstore. And offered more used inventory. It’s even cheaper to buy a new calculator here and have it shipped.
Shipping packages to colleges is happening with regularity. Now, in many places, the student gets an email when a package arrives at the package pick-up and has seven days to go get it. There needed to be a system for all these Amazon Student users. It seems that package pick-up gets used more than the old fashioned mail boxes. Students forget to check those!
But the college bookstore is still not dead. That’s where you have to pick up your lab packs, chemistry goggles, and all of your university swag. And last minutes (overpriced) items.
Bellhop move-in service. Not every university has this and we almost declined its usage. Essentially, members of student clubs band together to offer curbside move-in service. No need to wait for carts, elevators or worry abuot physical exertion. The money raised is a major fundraiser for the student clubs. We found that the bellhop service seemed a bit overpriced to students and maybe even mothers, but the dads, when they got the email, were ready to type in those credit card numbers and make it happen at warp speed. Cost: $125. Time for entire vanload of dorm materials to get from the curb into the room: 5 minutes. Money well spent!
Care packages sold through the university. Essentially, these were collections of junk food that you could pre-pay and would be sent out during the 1st week of school, on Halloween, Valentine’s and during exam week. Seemed overpriced and students have access to food all of the time, and are not starving. Declined.
Target Takeover. Target stores have teamed up with college campuses and offer a shopping student only party in their stores after hours with buses. They advertise to shop with your roommates and make communal decisions. Awesome marketing and works really well for parents who worry about last minute things that were forgotten (I know my daughter needed a USB drive, but did the room really need a blender?)
Dorm Room Displays. Several retailers have consolidated all sorts of dormitory items in one place at the front of the store. Comforter sets, bed lifts, desk lamps, storage options all in one place and enticements to other things deeper in the store. Sold.

Lessons from the Detroit Flood

photo by AP

It has been a tough week for residents of Detroit and suburbs including Warren, Royal Oak, Huntington Woods, Berkley, and Pleasant Ridge, among others.

For those of us who run small businesses and own homes and have kids and partners, we have learned lots of lessons, some painful. Here are just a few:

Social media is really helpful. We could post on Facebook or Twitter when our contractors were great and getting ready to be done on a job and get them instant referrals. We could ask questions of our neighbors about how to proceed or seek advice.
Sometimes social media isn’t helpful at all. The contractors (plumbers, restoration people, furnace and a/c repairmen) aren’t necessarily 24-7 operators. They are not using text messages and email, but instead utilize one lady in an office somewhere to facilitate all of the calls and all of the questions and she doesn’t know everything (who does?) So, we were back to being stuck to our phone and stuck at home.
We can’t find all of the answers online. We delude ourselves into believing that if we search in just the right way, we can find “the answer”. But the questions we were asking like “How much is this going to cost me?”, “Will insurance cover anything?”, “Who is the best person to repair this problem?”, “What tasks are the highest priority?” were really complicated and were on a dreaded case by case basis. We still have questions, are forming partial answers and none of it is a result of search engine optimization.
We needed our land line. The cell phone would die or we would be waiting for a call on it, and the land line came in handy. Truthfully, we were thinking of ditching the land line. Need to rethink that one.
Our home office was neither. We tried to gather around in the kitchen with our computers and get work done, but the basement was destroyed, so all the kids were up here too, and the contractors kept calling and nothing was easy. So, the office wasn’t an office and the home wasn’t a home.
We all cried about different things. We cried about wedding dresses ruined, while the boys cried about losing their xbox man caves and the kid whose clothes were on the floor cried about that, and the parents fought about the money while the sons and daughters did internal calculations as to which of their belongings were not going to be considered essential anymore.
It is just stuff. We know that it’s not life and death. And we are trying to keep some perspective. But it is disruptive, and it was smelly, and it makes our homes more chaotic, and decreases our personal space, and the multiple decisions that we already make as parents and homeowners and workers and citizens are now dizzying in number and scope. And our family and friends are awesome and we’re all in this together!

Back to School? We Protest!

Back to school musings…

We know…we know…everyone is titling their stuff “back to school yada yada yada”…but here’s the thing—it’s been going on since June! We were stunned to see back to school ads in newspaper circulars just two weeks after most schools let out. Larger stores were offering specials on back to school clothing and school supplies in between the bathing suits, towels and pool floaties.

So, what’s the deal? Halloween sales begin in September, Christmas in October, Easter in January—what does this mean besides that stores are desperate to get your attention and sell before the competition? We notice that it affects our culture.

True story: At a friend’s house there was a discussion about what main course dish should be prepared for a particular event. This friend makes an amazing family recipe stew-like dish. We suggested it as a meal. We were rejected outright. Why? It wasn’t the right season for that recipe. Even if it were a chilly night, that dish is deemed an autumnal recipe only in their home–a house that is wedded to the calendar and its events and holidays. To our ears the rejection seemed arbitrary—and kind of annoying. Good food is good food, right? Who really cares when you make it or eat it…?

On second, third and fourth thought, however, we get it. Would chocolate bunnies hold the same allure mid-August? Would roasted pumpkin seeds make us ecstatic in May? Would fruitcake be a welcome hostess gift in October? Would latkes be as delicious in July? Well, maybe yes to the latkes—a fried potato by any name….

There is something to be said for respecting the calendar and the cycle it perpetuates. We won’t sell you any rulers, scissors or glue in June and we suggest you abstain from buying them. It may indeed even add to your quality of life. In our friend’s house, the excitement of a holiday-trussed-entrée is palpable. The scents and visuals cue a certain emotional response and bring on anticipation and pleasure in its resolution. In our homes, kids get to be off for the summer without being bound to their backpacks full of supplies and heavy books. They forget some of the burden of school and get to be excited by the new pencil smell and fresh white pages of a new notebook (do they still use those?).

So, here’s our quiet protest…we’ve held out until now…didn’t buy one school supply. Now the sales are even bolder and there’s still almost a month to go. We’ll take our kids in a week or two to get their supplies….perhaps they’ll have a few fewer folder covers to choose from, but they’ll hold on to their summer breezes a little longer, and perhaps our homes will enjoy summer’s more relaxed quality a bit longer as well.

Tales from the Crypt: Mostly Dead Websites

In the past few weeks, we at K2M have been utilizing lots of what we call inbound marketing in our own personal lives. Inbound marketing is marketing used by a business in order to be found by potential customers or clients. It is what people find when they are looking for you or the service your provide, whether it’s phone book listings, internet listings or your own web pages.

There are more kids around us this summer and more need to find things to keep them busy, places to go, new restaurants to try, movie times to check on, pool schedules, local attractions for day trips…you get the idea. In our quest to keep our kids entertained and to save us from their constant cries of boredom and need to be fed something new and different, we, like you, have been slaves to our electronica, desperate for WiFi wherever we go, and exploring lots and lots of websites. Regarding those websites, we know that a decent website is not the sum total of a good inbound marketing plan, but A LOT of the websites we have encountered have been, as they say in The Princess Bride “mostly dead”.

What are the components of mostly dead websites?

Non-existent contact information with no phone numbers or addresses, so you can’t tell if the establishment is real or fantasy.
Contact information that indicates that the restaurant near the DIA is still in business, but when you go there, it is boarded up (Yes, it really happened).
Outdated information that has been contradicted by your friends who are “in the know” and who assure you “just ignore their website”.
Stock photos that have been around since the Clintons were in charge the first time.
Clunky, nonresponsive menus and tabs that take you to error messages or unfinished pages.
Sites that are not compatible with mobile devices or tablets.

Argh! Don’t fret…our children have been well-fed and entertained, despite the cyber-detritus we have encountered. But it has strengthened our resolve to make sure our clients’ inbound marketing makes people pleased to find their companies.

BTW, if you have a mostly dead website, your own strategic marketing plan could use some help, too. “Miracle Max” and his abilities–that’s from the world of fiction. But maybe we can help you revive your mostly dead.