Know your market. Know your meat

Arriving in Beijing jet-lagged and confused after a long flight I did something bad. I ordered a KFC. But it wasn’t the same! Instead of white chicken breast it was gunky and brown.

After questioning this with a friend I discovered that in China they value the brown meat much more than the white. An example of the importance of knowing your market and adapting to their needs.

Good for business, terrible for lazy foreigners.

Tagged as: Marketing, b2b, Business,
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Jog off until it's finished

In a world of proliferation and abundance no wonder people expect design in an instant. The other day I was going about my morning when my ears pricked up to 'yeah I like it, just do it quickly!

How very dare you - I understand the pressures of a b2b agency and the commercial reality - but surely - more haste, less speed gets the preferred outcome.

Design in my mind is a passion, you don't just knock it up and have done with it. Yeah sure you can throw something together, but you can't find a balanced thought provoking piece of design in an instant can you? - I can see it in the future through my crystal ball (number 003 in 101 Clichés), DESIGN-A-DISC, just load up your images type your wordy things and hey presto - 0800 DESIGN. Yeah whatever.

Anyway, during my formative years as a designer, I spent most of my time lurking in a dark and stuffy basement hunched over old fashioned printing presses and screens - an enchanted land in distant memories. It allowed me a freedom of expression that formed my way of thinking and secured my un-devoted interest for 3 whole years.  Ahhh, sunny Salford, this is where the passion formed. I remember my first lecture pretty much being formed around the wrapper of a Wrigley's spearmint chuddy wrapper, an hour passed and we were still transfixed by this seemingly futile piece of printed foil. 1 whole hour unfolding the beauty of something so simple, time had no meaning, there was a task in hand. That was the start of the love affair (officially). I had been collecting (GOOD) flyers, stickers and labels for years and never really understood why, I knew they looked good and hid the pea green paint job in my bedroom, but i didn't know why they looked good.

Now I know why said collection looked so good - because someone has taken great time and effort to ensure that they were crafted to there best.

I promise to DO MY BEST.
To do my duty to Gutenberg, and to VAG Rounded,
To keep the Law of the Sans-Serif Pack, and to do a good turn to some type every day.

Tagged as: Misc, Marketing, Design,
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The hottest b[r]and in the world...

A couple of months ago I was in Verona to see KISS at the arena, and something struck me, the absolute range and diversity of the 20,000 plus people with me. And I thought how on earth have these pensioners from the USA continued to remain relevant to such a large and varied demographic.

You know what, it's simple and a lesson to many a B2B and dare I say it B2C marketer. All that KISS have done is give their market what they want. They haven't continued to release new music or try and go off in some new fangled rock/rn'b/dance/jungle/hip hop/folk hybrid direction, they listened to their fans and brought back the facepaint, pyro and spectacle which if the 3,000,000 or so people who saw their last tour is anything to go by was the right decision.

So there's the paradox - everyone's searching for the next big thing and hoping that the market wants it. When in fact all we need to do is listen, adapt and be relevant to those you want to reach. We call it Brandialog - KISS call it Rock n' Roll!

Tagged as: Misc, Marketing, Brandialog, Research,
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