Bully Free Zone.

Facebook is going through more IA and design changes to make its self a bit more 'real time', like Twitter. The last Facebook layout update (which most people still hate) really put the emphasis on your Facebook status, clearly a response to the popularity of Twitter, even at that point. So here we are again, Facebook is trying to overtake what Twitter has carved out for its self in the social networking arena.

See the posting at techcrunch

Interesting stats.

Super Sweet from Tumblr.

As you may know Tumblr is a social site that allows easy personal blogging of video, text, photos... etc. I noticed that you can also call in audio and have it posted to your blog page. I'm sure this feature isn't for everyone, but for those with some flair and personality, it could be a hit. If you come across any audio blogs, please post them in the comments.

Skittles.com : Interesting take on information architecture

Skittles.com has a new online experience to check out.  This is the 2nd time i've personally seen this type of information design in place, the other time i saw this was on Modernista's web site. I guess imitation is the best form of flattery.  In short it's using social sites on the web to host their content. So friends of Skittles are on Facebook, videos are on YouTube. The main page their navigation sits on is Twitter. It's pulling in everyone who's talking about Skittles, which is pretty cool. Products are hosted on Wikipedia.   This is still an interesting approach.  Outside of this you can't help but realize that there are many ways for a brand to utilize social sites (Other than the obvious ways) and utilize their benefits.

Wow. Jaguar, Land Rover Make $1.6 Million Mobile Buy

Huge mobile marketing buy here and big news here from Jaguar / Land Rover. Interestingly they see the medium as not just awareness, but direct response. I'd agree completely. Even on a very basic mobile level it is super easy to interact and get information on basic information like weather/news and just as easy (and convenient) for appropriate branded messaging. I can't wait to see how this mobile marketing campaign comes to life in the marketplace. I'm also really curious about it's success.

Read the ad age article here >

Oldie but a goodie, What if Microsoft designed the iPod?

Tropicana pulls back new packaging after a few weeks.

So Tropicana redesigned their packaging and put it into market just a few weeks back.  Here's the thing, they promptly pulled it off the shelves after just about a month and went back to their original package design.

Did sales plummet?  Was the shift to an entirely new look and feel just too much for consumers?  To the left you can see the 2 designs, on the left he classic orange with straw inserted into it and on the right the new design.

Personally, i'm glad they went back to the original design.  It's a classic brand and classic design that everyone knows.  The new creative feel too much like a generic orange juice brand.  It's contemporary and attractive, but It just doesn't hold onto any of the brand equity or frankly, the heritage that has been established over the years by Tropicana.  So hit your local super market for this limited edition Tropicana packaging, get them fast, because they'll soon be gone.

What's Ping?

I came across this very cool site which allows you to manage all your social networks from one place. Most of us are on Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, LinkedIn, AIM or Delicious, Flickr. But, you can also manage your accounts on Plurk, Tumblr, Identi.ca, Brightkite, friendfeed, Jaiku, Plaxo, Bebo, Hi5, Mashable, Xanga, Wordpress, Blogger (hey that's what this blog uses), yammer, Vox, typepad and about 15 other social networks out there in the world.

Realize Ping doesn't give you "full" access to manage these account, but gives you in many cases the ability to update a status on particular social network, or All statuses on all your social networks that accept statuses. I actually could have posted this blog post from Ping, but wasn't sure how to add the nifty Ping logo above, next time i will.

Million Dog Mosaic in Brandweek.

Nice case study from Brandweek on Pedigree's Million Dog Mosaic below.

Case Study: Pedigree's Million-Dog Mosaic
Feb 21, 2009
-By Kenneth Hein

The Challenge
Every year, more than four million dogs end up in shelters. Pedigree decided to do something about it by creating the Pedigree Adoption Drive Foundation last year. The charitable organization is dedicated to helping shelters and rescue groups find homes for dogs. Now the issue was how could the Mars Petcare division raise awareness and money for its cause.

The Plan
The foundation and the "Million Dog Mosaic" were promoted at Pedigree.com, Dogsrule.com as well as at Milliondogmosaic.com/pedigree. Each time a consumer uploaded a photo of their favorite dog onto the site, the Pedigree brand donated $1 to the foundation. The mosaic was promoted via a custom Facebook application, the Westminster Dog Show Pedigree Pop-up dog store as well as integration with its advertising campaign, which features the hero adoption dog, "Oliver." Oliver is featured on the site comprised of consumers' uploaded photos. It was featured on a nonprofit channel on YouTube and targeted e-mails sent to an in-house database also got the word out. Catapult Action-Biased Marketing helped put the effort together.

The Results
In one month, there were more than 1 million page views of the mosaic. To date, more than 55,000 photos have been uploaded. It set the record for user-generated mosaic participation, beating American Idol. "It signified that Pedigree is a company that walks the walk when it comes to fully aligning with the values of its consumers," said John Anton, director of marketing at Pedigree. "A million dollars was raised for the Pedigree adoption drive. [The campaign] brought together dog lovers in a fun place where they could be entertained, do research on the best way to feed and treat their dogs, join a like-minded community and be rewarded for their engagement."

Mobile hotel bookings on the upturn.

Mobile hotel bookings rise

In an economy where the hotel business is on the downward trend there is one thing they are doing that's working. It's mobile hotel reservations. As users get more comfortable with mobile devices the convenience of making a reservation seems to be too much to ignore. It's clear that instances like this will be popping up all over, instances where the mobile option just makes it easier to communicate with the brand.

What's in store for in store marketing displays?

How about digital signs that actually read customers? This display knows whether customers glance at the signage, stops to read it or ignores it all together. pretty interesting stuff. See the full article on the CScout Japanese site here

very small game

Pouring BudTV down the drain

According to this AdAge article Bud TV is ceasing to exist.  I'm a little surprised that it lasted as long as it did.  I think we all remember when it launched, it was a big deal, but it's had a lot of competition in the video space. The production of original content was just too much.   In comparison, It's funny that Hulu had press about it that it could never succeed in this pace and it's a great site.

Txt your revelation

If I could get a few of my twitter statuses on a coffee cup, I'd be a
happy man. Txt cup to 30241 to share your revelation.

The future implications here are huge. The opportunity to interact
with a brand like green mountain while doing something as simple as
drinking your morning coffee.

My revelation. "I need to get back to my work".

I love Wordle

If you have a moment check out Wordle.net. It's a really fun app that allows you to add text which in turn creates some really cool typographic layouts. The text you place can come from anywhere, like another website or perhaps your favorite song. Heck you could even paste in the lease on your apartment. The sky is the limit. The layout options are very cool too, change colors, type and composition of text. Give it a whirl.

Crayon Physics

Let's rethink gaming for a moment here.  Crayon Physics is a problem solving game that is not just fun, but also quite relaxing to play with.  Do all that you can to get the little red ball to touch the star.  Using physics, things you draw will fall, roll or draw a hinge to have another item you draw swing. This game is probably best played on a tablet or with a mouse, but they also have an iPhone version.  I like this app a lot, (although my fingers seem to get in the way.)

In the mood for something different?  I'd definitely recommend checking it out.

Breaking the desktop paradigm

For so long we've all worked within some pretty traditional constructs of what we call our desktops - whether on a Mac, PC, Linux or Commodore 64. We've all worked with the basic file structures and architectures that compose our virtual working/living world on our computers and how we interface with them.

With advancing web technologies and continually evolving interface design we've certainly seem some breakthroughs but they have mostly been at the site or application level, not on our day-to-day computer desktops. Neither OS X or Windows Vista have evolved things that much. That is until now (or soon hopefully).

Check out Bumptop. Designed by Anand Agarawala. BumpTop represents a paradigm shift in how we can think about our virtual desktops and allow them to become more intuitive and more important productive. Not to mention it's about as cool as you could imagine! While this is in beta now, follow it's development and sign up for a beta as the developer gets closer. I for one am hopeful to get a sneak peek!

Help Us Help Dogs

Our client Pedigree(R) Food for Dogs is on the 5th year of it's campaign to support dog adoption. This year, it is supporting it in a big way with a superbowl spot which you can see here. To amplify this traditional marketing activity, we've created an online extension of this work, featuring "behind the scenes" back stories for the crazy pets and their crazier pet owners featured in the Super Bowl TV spot. And to mark Pedigree's commitment even more explicitly, we have built in the benefit to the user that each video watched will result in additional donations by Pedigree to support dog adoption through their charity, the Pedigree Foundation.

Funny stuff, great cause.

Add Ballista Blog to your RSS reader

Add Catapult Marketing's
Ballista Blog to your google, yahoo or other RSS reader. It's easy and the fastest way to keep up on the postings.

http://marketingballista.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

Twitter related apps and websites.

Not sure where to begin, so many twitter apps and sites and just not enough time. Between location based, the ability to set groups, delay tweets, search tweets, the options seem endless. Twitter is turning out to be pretty awesome and the technical problems from early 2008 seem to have gone away. If you're not into twitter now, i'm sure you will be in 2009.

Article here

See what's happening -- right now.
http://search.twitter.com/

Sling Media to bring live TV content to iPhones

We met these guys last week at CES in Vegas. Sling media is the company that brings your cable tv to your computer. And now they bring it to your mobile device too. iPhone support is coming very soon in the next few months. A little birdy at CES told us that although the they officially support the product on AT&T's 3G Network, it will still work for us "original iphone" owners.

Here's an article about what Sling Media is up to these days.

The Shorty Awards

Check out some of these tweeple if you have time
The best producers of short* content in 2008
*140 characters or less, on Twitter
Finals voting is open! The finals will last from January 12-23.

http://www.shortyawards.com/

NEW URL for Ballista!

http://marketingballista.blogspot.com/

Samsung Flat Screen.

This may be my final CES 2009 posting. I got scolded for taking a picture (or two) of this Samsung flat screen. Apparently the only ones able to take photos of it were those from the press. None the less, here we are. Hit the press for detailed specs, but this 50+ inch flat screen was no more than a half inch in depth. You may get more visual detail by clicking on the 2nd photo.

Clearly moving forward we'll be seeing a whole new world of flat screens. larger, thinner, lighter and using less power. The way these will impact our homes and shopping environments will be huge, no doubt.

Take a wire and make it flat. What do you get?

One of the coolest things I saw at this year's CES was something rather basic in a lot of ways. It's called Flatwire and no surprise, it's wire that's flat. lol

What's genius about this is that from speaker wire to 120v wire it all is manufactured like, impossibly thin.

From what i could tell, rewiring could take on a whole new life as you essentially apply this flatwire to the outer surface of your wall, a little adhesive, Spackle and paint and you are in great shape. Perhaps for a real edgy look, you leave it exposed. Either way, no more snaking wires through your walls.

FlatwireReady.com

Major media in the shopping aisle

Great article named "Major Media in the Shopping Aisle"
A pretty comprehensive overview of in store marketing today. Definitely worth checking out.

Digital Signage Secret.

We came across this very attractive digital signage at the show. It featured a simple dissolve between content and specifications. It was clean and quite effective.

Upon closer observation, we realized that this shiny little object was just some simple, almost store bought technology fabricated to be a bit more useful.

I think the picture below speaks for itself, a basic digital picture frame, but modified. Just upload it with images and walla! Instant in-store digital signage.

Hitachi frames flat screens.

At CES this year Hitachi spent a lot of time showing the public exactly how flat screens will integrate with their homes in the future. I touched on this in a previous post, but here you'll see another nicely designed stand and monitor frames. In theory we should be spending time choosing the frame of our flatscreen, just like we do when we hang nice art work in our homes. This also speaks even further to how technology integrates and blends with our home & work lives.

Consumer design leads to line of limited edition Sony Vaios

The Sony booth showcased custom designed Sony Vaio computers. The
designs were created by consumers and entered into a contest. There
were upwards of 20k entries and you can see below the final winning
designs which were priducednin limited quantity.

These custom designed computers were only available through their
website. Cool stuff!

Eco friendly. Design friendly

Here is a small fan running on solar power. As u can see the solar
panel is designed very nicely, resembling a tile. Perhaps solar would
be accepted more widely if it simply looked nicer, who knows.

Keep your coffee off my table.

I came across this gem in the NBC booth. I don't have much info on it, unfortunately. I know i've seen this before somewhere. This digital coffee table is so interactive and easy to use. It's really impressive. You can see me sorting thru different cards there, each one with videos that can be played simultaneously, either full screen or small.... In short, I want one! If you know what this table is, please let me know. thanks....

i7 processor racing simulator

Intel had a very interactive booth at CES. It showed the many ways that the i7 processor is pushing the limits of computing. This is a video of a racing simulator and all the processing power is being handled by just on i7. That includes the 3 huge LCD monitors, the game itself (the refresh rate was amazing) and also the interactive motion cockpit. It's like driving a real formula race car, bumps and all. Amazing.

Areaware high end design

Areaware had a small booth with some amazingly designed products.  There is a large influence of green, environmentally friendly products scattered throughout the show.  We see a touch of that here with this very old fashioned, yet very contemporary bicycle. You can't help but notice it's unique lines, antique style seat, handle bars, tires pedals, yet it's got front and back solar powered lights built into it's aluminum body.

check out more at Areaware.com

Impressed by Hitachi

I was really impressed with the Hitachi display.  A lot of LCD prototypes, which i'll address in another posting.  The LCD below was just beautiful to look at.  50 inches and you can see how slim this unit is, in person it's amazing.  Hitachi is spending a lot of time doing something that others aren't, which is designing monitors that actually fit into the interior design of homes. 

No big black brackets with big black LCD's hanging off them.  Once you see a nicely designed LCD you realize that the black ones we're all buying really only deserve to be in sports bars.  More on this soon.

One hundred and what inch LCD?

This 108 inch monitor from sharp was pretty impressive until I came across the 150 inch from Panasonic.  The impact these displays can make for a marketer and for a brand is pretty impressive.  They get noticed.

S1 shoulder headset?

Not sure what you'd call these, but it's a pretty cool idea. A speaker
set that airs on your neck. It allows u to listen to music while also
being socially open to talk while u listen. Office setting, perhaps?

The biggest drawback foe me was the most important one. Poor sound
quality, no bass to speak of.

LG wrist cell phone

A fully featured cell phone on your wrist. Bluetooth enabled or
speakerphone. Europe only! Bad luck for us in the states. Launch date
still TBD.

Intel i7 processor powered workstation

An awesome ergonomic workstation that is adjustable to you. Full access to the most powerful processor, 3 huge LCDs and amazing comfort.

http://www.iclubby.com

Who stole my freaking pint??? (Of ice cream)

What are people saying out there, what are they willing to confess?

Here is a site where people can anonymously vent, tell their secrets their dreams and more. Give advice, get advice on this free site. (But remember the advice is worth what you pay for it.)

http://www.answerjam.com/

10 Ways Twitter Will Change Blog Design in 2009

Learning about tweeting? See how twitter can change things.

http://mashable.com/2009/01/04/twitter-blog-design/

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Sent from my iPhone

Brothers In Arms iPhone Game Review - AppVee.com

Every time I think I've seen a great iPhone app, another appears. It's
amazing to see the capabilites of these small devices and to imagine
what's to come. Gamer or not, see where brothers in arms takes gaming
to a new level on the iphone.

http://www.appvee.com/t/brothers-in-arms

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Sent from my iPhone

Becoming A Power Twitter User With New Firefox Addon Power Twitter | Social Media Vision

This may be worth checking out. A twittified firefox add on that keeps
you in touch with all your tweeple.

http://socialmediavision.com/social-media/blogs-social-media/twitter/becoming-a-power-twitter-user-with-new-firefox-addon-power-twitter/

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Sent from my iPhone

Retailers Brining SalesPeople Online

Traditional Brick and Mortar retailers have begun to recognize the opportunity to extend the value of their trained consumer facing sales people into the online space, leveraging their expertise, and their branded recognition, to offer valuable information and service to shoppers. One case in point is Best Buy who has launched www.askablueshirt.com to allow consumer electronic shoppers to take advantage of the expertise of the trained Best Buy sales force to build shopping preference and drive instore traffic.

Additionally, they are using the distribution power of this environment to generate buzz around events like Black Friday, in this case, showing photos of people camping out prior to the big holiday sales event. It shows that Best Buy, and other leading retainers, are starting to experiment with online well beyond their e-commerce and general brand building activities online.

Ask ChaCha

Nielsen reports that ChaCha, launched less than a year ago, is the fastest growing mobile search service to surpass Yahoo! and Google. ChaCha's 300% quarter over quarter gain is tremendous, but also a result of an increase in mobile search supported by the latest hardware options.

Personally, I like the concept. Users text a question and get a reply in minutes. With so much content out there, it's useful. Users must, however, be specific or the relevancy in the results are lost.

Big brands including McDonald's, Coca-Cola, and even the Obama campaign, have leveraged the tool for marketing purposes and have reportedly seen response rates up to 5% which well exceed mobile industry averages.

The Obama campaign specifically, used the service to urge early voting. Folks using ChaCha received a prompt that offered the option of getting more information on how and where to vote early - and of course there was a plug for Obama.

This will be one to watch - although it might be hard to miss.

www.chacha.com

A Weekend In The Life of Today's Shopper

To help illustrate how digital technology is changing the way shoppers shop, we introduce you to a Young Gen X family and their digital shopping experiences over one weekend with the holidays appraoching.

Meet Bob and Sarah and their 4 year old son Zac. This dual income family lives in the suburbs of New York. Bob works full time in Manhattan at an advertising agency and Sarah works part time at a prestigious marketing services agency in Westport, CT. Their lives get crazier by the day.

Friday afternoon

·Sarah has picked up Zac from daycare and is back home. She needs to plan her grocery shopping list, so to keep Zac busy, she sets him in front of the computer and fires up the toy section at Amazon.com. Watching him, she chuckles, 4 years old and he’s creating his own holiday wish list. Dragging and dropping items…his total is over $10,000! Sarah uses this time to get organized. She checks the mail and remembers how her mom used to get those over-sized Val Pac mailers and store circulars. Now Sarah gets alerts on her cell phone to download new coupons in her pre-selected categories.

·The holidays are approaching and Bob is behind on his gift shopping. He’s walking down 6th avenue in New York City and wondering where he can get the best deal on a digital camera without having to pop into store after store. Bob opens the Slifter application on his cell phone and researches deals and product reviews within a 5 block radius. Bob’s turned 6th avenue into the main aisle of an electronics store.

Friday afternoon is turning to Friday evening

·Bob is rushing to Grand Central Station to catch his train. He gets a call from Sarah with a plea to pick up some dinner. Wanting to avoid the after work lines, and trying to eat healthy before the holidays, Bob goes to his favorite sandwich chain’s WAP site and places his order right from his phone. He’s pretty sure Sarah likes Banana Peppers.

Its Saturday morning and the family is up early.

·Bob and Zac decide its time for a little video gaming. They fire up the console and a welcome reminder tells them they have earned enough loyalty points to download a free, new adventure for their favorite game – Life is good!

·Sarah still needs to do her grocery shopping. She goes to her iKan unit in the kitchen and reviews her personalized, recommended shopping list based on purchase history. She presses the Buy Now button to have her groceries delivered. Check one chore off the list!

·Bob decides to go to the local electronics store. He’s shopping for a Tablet to go with his new digital camera. When he comes to the aisle the screen on his cart instantly changes with a list of Tablet suggestions personalized based on his previous purchases. The loyalty card in his wallet is embedded with an RFID tag, so he’s greeted by a sales associate ready to answer questions. The sales associate uses the screen on his chart to pull up the chain’s custom social networking site so Bob can check out consumer reviews.

·Sarah decides its time to do a little holiday shopping for herself. With Zac in tow, she heads out to her local department store. In the dressing room she uses the virtual shopping assistant to see what her outfit would look like with different color matches. She goes with Fuchsia on Black.

Sunday night, Bob gets a text from his boss

·Bob still can’t believe his boss is making him travel last minute! He’s racing to catch the flight and instead of stopping at a kiosk to print his boarding pass, he simply shows the QR code on his phone at security. This leaves him enough time to go to the self-service kiosk at the gate and download a movie for the flight to his laptop in under a minute.

·Sarah, missing Bob, thumbs through an Esquire Magazine for gift ideas for Bob. She comes across a Ralph Lauren Ad for a Cashmere Sweater and special offer. She scans the QR code on the page with her cell phone to get more details before she decides to make the purchase.

•Zac, missing daddy, grabs a photo from The Target Shutterfly site and posts it to Daddy’s Facebook page


These are just a few of the touch points that marketers can use to drive incremental sales with Bob, Sarah, and Zac. Technology makes their shopping experience more intuitive, personalized, convenient, which drives a stronger value proposition overall for shoppers.

As demonstrated by this family, technology has dramatically accelerated the sophistication and variety of shopper touch points. This will become more pervasive over the next 5-10 years. Availability and adoption will increase and scale will drive implementation costs down. Shoppers will have access to products and services anytime and anywhere.

Axe, Eat Your Heart Out

Because nothing will get the girls knocking down the door to jump your bones like the scent of freshly flame-broiled beef.

Burger King has released its own fragrance: Flame. For when you want that just-got-off-the-night-shift fast food employee smell. Irresistible.

Of course, this works as a formidable PR stunt. But will anyone buy it in its undoubtedly short lived life?

Fostering Not Just Innovation, But Intellect

The campaign around Herman Miller's new chair, Embody, does more than what it sets out to do - foster innovation. It also fosters intellect. It is a site that is emotionally soothing, mentally stimulating, and seemingly an innovation in and of itself. I highly recommend perusing with a coffee and bagel tomorrow morning.

Check out TODAY'S THOUGHTPILE now

That's Not What It Was Supposed To Look Like!

We have all been under the gun to launch a new site... and realized in final testing that things are looking stellar in one browser but nothing like what you designed in another. And those last minute panic questions of "what happened" and "why" start to run through your head. There may be an explaination... beyond that of the "it's the client firewall!" Curious? Read on...

Audio Bones: Lame or Worthwhile?

Apparently, some of us have "deformed" ears. In other words, we complain about the iPod ear buds' failure to properly fit into our cartilage. Well, lookey here.

So, it's sound that's actually conducted through the bones of your ears, leaving the eardrum open to hear all the background noise. Clever, but kind of pointless at the same time...

Paul Newman, We Salute You

We simply had to make the first post of the week one that honors Paul Newman and the more than $250 million dollars in profits from the Newman's Own line donated to charities. A truly remakable man, remarkable cause, remarkabe products and a remarkable website that I referred to many times as best in class for staying true to the voice of a brand and for pushing a brand to a higher emotional ground.


I encourage everyone to visit newmansown.com


Although the main site is unavailable due to heavy traffic there is a simple page live that has a wonderful retrospective video thats well worth the 4 minutes to seel

For the Shameless Exploitation in Pursuit of the Common Good WE SALUTE YOU!

Cool New Banner Ads

In the recent "I'm a PC" campaign, Microsoft takes aim at the Mac ads that have reigned for more than two years. After a brief run with Jerry Seinfeld, the ads are now featuring ordinary folks who profess their devotion to PCs.

I caught the latest in the series of ads on the MSN home page... a very cool banner execution where a mosaic of images filled the background behind the homepage. And as you click on each image, it feeds a video of that person into what I think is a 300x250 video player. I think this would look even better filled with dog images and adoption videos... don't you?

Wholefoods.com Site redesign

Whole Foods has followed the trend of retailers relaunching their web-site to add more value to the consumers and enhance the shopper experience.

Secet Ingredient Videos & Podcasts, store locaters, store specials and a huge assortment of recipes with new search tool,high impact photography and flash as wells as social apps (rate and post recipes and freshly picked blogs).

Check it out at

wholefoods.com

Internet Killed the Newspaper Star

Google has just taken up the arduous goal of bringing all the glory of paper-press-periodical humanity to the Interweb.

Soon, you'll be able to view billions of pages of archived newsprint from the comfort of your cubicle.

Pretty neat, and you don't even have to get your hands all inky.

AdAge Article on mobile advertising

Not sure if this will load up correctly. If it doesn't, then use your
mobile devise!

http://adage.qwapi.com/site?t=FnTlaZuPXsZiMMsVa.wgJw&tsid=QWS5E80C78A14BCF5E93D0F38C05D18F5161367e40&tcid=84d03862b23e4fa0a9e4ac7c7c59e03e

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Sent from my iPhone

Get inspired:
http://creativebureau.blogspot.com