Visual communication brings another dimension for engagement.

Today it seems we could all use a brain chip implant to process the on-going, never-ending multiple data stream.

Instead of pitching products or services, try delivering information that makes your buyer more intelligent. Content is what drives the Internet, and consumers are looking for information that solves a problem, not an immediate sales pitch. Interruptive, “tell and-sell” marketing is a thing of the past. You can’t expect busy consumers to listen or care when you interrupt them with marketing and branding messages. Brand evaluation is now on their terms. But you can influence a new relationship of engagement.

When promoting a product or service, provide content that filters, edits, informs, organizes, inspires… this will give your customer a refreshing break and leaves room for individual evaluation, feelings and thoughts.

The trust, credibility, and authority that content marketing creates knocks down sales resistance, all while providing a baseline introduction to the benefits of a particular product. The communication in the pre-purchase evaluation moment is a critical point for engagement. This is the moment that can increase brand comprehension and help consumers make a “feel good” choice.

The individuals and businesses that are having the most success online tend to take an approach that involves a high ratio of valuable content that seems to have no sales agenda, mixed in with periodic promotional messages. And this way of communication is expected off-line as well.

It’s not the size of your megaphone that matters; it’s the size of your customers’ megaphones.

You can say the right thing about a product and nobody will listen. You’ve got to say it in such a way that people will feel it in their gut, while preserving the freedom of each person to experience something that may differ from the experiences of others. Creating captivating, compelling and useful content forms an essential springboard for your customers and audience to do the marketing for you.

It’s not just the words. Open their minds.

With so much confusion, and the abundance of incoming messages, a good approach for engagement is providing visual elements in your content. Sometimes it’s the clarity of an infographic that can capture the greatest levels of interest in what you offer and the problem you can solve.

And sometimes It’s about finding a position that challenges the customer to look at something in a new way or providing a newer, better solution to meet their needs…engaging them in the learning process. Some of the best marketing messages ever created open minds. Our brains are actually on the lookout for new information, new thoughts and ideas.

Learning something new or discovering an eye-opening fact can really make a message stick.

Exploring the New Consumer Moments

Tapping into their Power-Reach

Shifting Mindset and Strategy for Social Promotion and PR

The networked consumer knows more than companies do about their own products. And whether the news is good or bad, they tell everyone. There is a new class of consumer, a population that is in constant contact with friends and peers and trusts them more than branded messages. And you can’t ask them to follow YOU…yet. This about ways to tap into THEIR power and reach.

Real-Time P.O.V. and Reviews

The live-dispatch from the influencer. The instant seal of approval. Interest in things sanctioned by someone they follow.

Mass-Mingling

Social media and mobile communications are fueling a Mass-Mingling that defies virtually every cliche about diminished human interaction in our ‘online era’.

More people than ever will be living large parts of their lives online in 2010-11. Yet, those same people will also mingle, meet up, and congregate more often with other ‘warm bodies’ in the offline world.

Ironically the same technology that was once seen to be—and condemned for—turning entire generations into homebound gaming zombies is now deployed to get people out of their homes. Basically, the more people can get their hands on the right info, at home and on the go; the more they date and network and twitter and socialize online, the more likely they are to eventually meet up with friends and followers in the real world.

Why? Because people actually enjoy interacting with other warm bodies, and will do so forever. Social media is all about other people to begin with. via Twittersearch: “the coolest places to hang are the ones your friends tell you about..”

Turquoise, hosts monthly meet-ups at choice design shops around town. Playstation GameMeetups.

We will be seeing even more impromptu, temporary meet-ups of strangers, mobs and crowds with similar interests, tastes, hobbies, causes and grievances. Many of these (temporary) meet-ups will revolve around generating public attention, or getting something done. And here too, Twitter will lead the way.

The opportunity is obvious: Anyone/Brand/Venue involved with anything that helps people get and stay in touch; that aligns with similar cause/interest; or that accommodates those people before, during or after meeting-up with others, should not only rejoice in Mass Mingling, but make it even easier for customers to meet up in any possible way too. via Twittersearch: “Nothing alienates communities more than businesses that alienate them and try to exploit them. If local community groups want to hold their meetings in your bar, don’t charge them for a private room; if the football team wants you to be a sponsor, do everything you can to oblige, you will most probably be the center of any celebrations for the fans and team afterwards. Donate to local causes within reason and your business will be held in high esteem locally.”

Tracking/Alerting

Tracking is the new searching, saving consumers time, making it impossible to forget, or miss out, and thus ultimately giving them another level of control. Count on everything being tracked and alerted on.

Sharing, Collective Intelligence.

2010 will mark the end of the Age of the Individual and the emergence of a new form of collective thought – a Global Brain.

With people sharing, in real time, everything they do, buy, listen to, watch, eat, drink, attend, wear and so on, and with even more search engines and tracking services making it easy to find and group these ‘live dispatches’ by theme, topic or brand, this year will see ready-to-buy consumers tapping into a live stream of (first-hand) experiences from fellow consumers. Instantly.

Augmenting the interplay between scent and human emotion.

Within an hour of waking, many Americans interact at least five times with company brands. Coffee, tea, shampoo, soap, toothpaste, skin cream, hair gel…sunblock… More often than not, they have chosen the brand based partly on the product’s scent. Significant studies have been done on sensory stimulation and consumer behavior. It has been positively shown that behavior is influenced by not only sight, but sound, touch, taste and smell. The more senses that are incorporated into an environment, the more influential it is.

When we think of scents we love, many are tied to an emotion. As marketers run out of ways to target perspective clients, scent technology leads the way. The psychological and physiological effect of using scents is the new frontier in branding business. The power of scent makes content extremely immersive and compelling. It creates mood, such as foreshadowing or ambiance; intensifies emotions, such as love and establishes place and season. What scent identifies and blends with your business model? An increasing number of companies today aim to attach aroma to their brand identity. Thinking of it as an aromatic logo.

Interplay with Technology-enhancing the mobile interface.

With so much of life based on electronic representations of reality, digital media not only represents our physical reality but has changed the way we perceive and interact with the world. In more than one way, technology has simplified human experience but sometimes it seems to miss out on triggering the emotional and human quality.

The recent interest and innovation in scent technology intends to change the interactive entertainment experience. Understanding that smell reaches out into a new, visceral dimension, transporting viewers, gamers, music fans and consumers into the realm of the senses. Atmosphere, mood, emotion, and products can all be enhanced with scent.

What if communication could open now on the sense of the smell? Odor in fact is so closely linked with memory that people would communicate more effectively with each other if using it.

Smell as the new layer of communication could become a new revolution of a kind.

Mobile communication has so far succeeded in transmitting audio and video, stimulating two of our five senses. One possible evolution of telecommunication could be to enhance the multi-sensorial experience of the user.

Digital Scent Technology aims to scent-enable movies, games, music, animation, or any digital media to create a more immersive and captivating environment for the audience.

Scentography promises a vast extension of sensory space, with profound implications.

New devices such as artificial noses which can capture and playback the smells in digitized format are on the verge of becoming a commercial reality-moving into food, beverage, medical, and environmental applications.

Some more examples:

Jenny Tillotson, a researcher at the University of the Arts in London, has produced the world’s first interactive scent outfit. She called her prototype dress ‘Smart Second Skin’. Just like the scent of the skin changes with emotion, the Smart Second Skin fabric interacts with human emotions whereby the aroma dimension is an integral part of the wearers wellness sensory experience. “Just as people store different genres of music on their iPods, this method offers a new sensory system to collect and store a selection of fragrances close to the body: a modern iPod of the fragrance industry embedded in fashion”.

In the near future, beside text, audio and video, communication will integrate an additional layer focusing on the sense of smell, which will help trigger memories and emotions. You may be able to capture a fragrance snapshot of your environment and send it attached to a text message or email.

On the horizon:

-Engineers at the Tokyo Institute of Technology have developed an odor recorder that can analyze scents and reproduce them by combining the 96 chemicals packed inside the device.

-Redefining the home theater experience with the sense of smell is what the SMELLIT concept is all about. So, next time a chef’s cooking a meal on TV, you know how it smells if not how it tastes.

-The latest trend in food packaging: Jars and boxes lined with “smell technology” emit molecules that push against their contents, infusing the items with different flavors.

-Researchers at the University of Southern California in LA has patented a project that would allow US Army officers to use coded smells to give orders. These can be delivered silently, in the dark and when loud noise is drowning out speech.

-An upstart called ScentSational Technologies, founded in 1997 in Jenkintown, Pa., is working with a number of food companies to harness the science of smell. The aim: to produce tasty products without sugary additives like corn syrup or expensive ingredients such as heavy cream.

-A group of Savannahians have teamed up to produce the world’s first scent-enabled music album. The first CD equipped with scent-technology is UNLEASHED by ZAN, who lives and records in Savannah. As the computer plays songs, the teapot-sized Scent Dome releases different fragrances triggered by code embedded in the CD.

Innovation Inspired By Nature. A Powerful Stage.

Though technology and nature could be perceived as two opposing forces, you might be surprised to find out how much scientists learn from the animal kingdom. It’s nothing new for designers and inventors to look to nature for creative solutions and ideas. What’s changed is that this science and design practice is now recognized as a field in its own right – Biomimicry – and it’s gaining momentum. A discipline that studies nature’s best ideas and then imitates these designs and processes to solve human problems. It revolves around one basic principle: to emulate, rather than reinvent, systems that nature has spent around four billion years perfecting. “Biomimicry is basically taking a design challenge and then finding an ecosystem that’s already solved that challenge, and literally trying to emulate what you learn,” said Janine Benyus, the American scientist who coined the phrase biomimicry around a decade ago.

If you’ve ever tried to pick a mussel off a rock you’ve likely noticed that they sure know how to stick. Columbia Forest Products looked at the natural adhesive abilities of the blue mussel and came up with a way to use soy-based formaldehyde-free technology in the construction of hardwood plywood products.

While this relatively new field may seem very scientific, it is of great use and importance to today’s designers. Both in solving problems as well as providing an endless wealth of creative visual inspiration. Biomimicry operates on the principle that in its 3.8 billion year history, nature has already found solutions to many of the problems we are trying to solve.

Form fits Function

Nature optimizes rather than maximizes. One of nature’s fundamental design principles is optimizing shape or form to best suit or fit the function. The reason is efficiency; shape is less expensive than material.

English mobile operator Orange, known for introducing new eco-friendly devices every year during the Glastonbury Festival, has recently presented their vision for the tent of the future. The tent could be purchased for style alone, but it has many benefits. Made from photovoltaic fabric capable of storing solar energy, charges mobile devices and is equipped with LCD-screen. You can also activate it via sms or RFID-technology, and it will light up with a soft yellow light.

Asking the Planet- Evolution meets Creation.

Biomimetics brings in a whole different set of tools and ideas you wouldn’t otherwise have, looking at nature in new ways, as model, measure and mentor to fully appreciate and understand how it can be used to help solve problems. The Biomimicry Institute developed a process created especially for designers. Their ‘Design Spiral’ is a guide which helps ‘biologize a challenge, query the natural world for inspiration, then evaluate to ensure that the final design mimics nature at all levels—form, process, and ecosystem.’

Speedos FastSkin Racer pushes buttons.

The shark, a creature that is fast in water but not naturally hydrodynamic, was used as a model for LZR Racer. A shark’s speed is attributed to V-shaped ridges on its skin-dermal denticles.  Dentricles decrease drag and turbulence around the shark’s body allowing the surrounding water to pass over the shark more effectively. Due to the drag effect that occurs when an object travels through water, Fastskin fabric was constructed with built in ridges emulating sharkskin.

Nissan Eporo car aids in avoiding collision by mimicking schools of fish.

What do a bumblebee and a school of fish have in common? Both demonstrate extraordinary anti-collision abilities, navigating instinctively and intelligently through challenging terrain by detecting and avoiding obstacles.

Coloration by Light

Many colors in nature result from light reflecting off structures, not the use of pigments.The metallic sheen and dazzling colors of tropical birds and beetles derive from optical features: neatly spaced microstructures that reflect specific wavelengths of light. Such structural color, fade-proof and more brilliant than pigment, is of great interest to people who manufacture paint, cosmetics, and those little holograms on credit cards.

Fluorescent proteins discovered in Glow fish

Inspiring Electroluminescent Packaging: Ballantine’s new electroluminescent label for blended scotch whisky; TyKu’s sake bottle with LED light source; J&B’s “Mix Light” bottle.

Design is intuitive, working on the non-verbal levels of our experience, sometimes triggering our most subversive emotional states; this makes it difficult to evaluate empirically. Lacking an analytical vernacular, design is labeled subjective, when it is actually the agent of universal truth through form.

Form has meaning; it can touch us at such a primal level that our mind is left scrambling to rationalize our emotional reactions. Bio-inspired designs/forms are elegant, functional, and not surprisingly, sustainable as well. Benyus says in her book: “The core idea is that nature, imaginative by necessity, has already solved many of the problems we are grappling with. Animals, plants, and microbes are the consummate engineers. They have found what works, what is appropriate, and most important, what lasts here on Earth.”

It seems that the more we learn from nature’s mentors, the more we’ll want to protect them.

Some great links to leave you with: Treehugger National Geographic

Creating compelling magnificence and intrigue. Looking into the enchanting, elegant and grand world of escapism as it is encapsulated in art, design, fashion, creating a dream like hope for the future.

There has always been a place and a need for distraction in our lives, but today, in the face of anti-consumerism, the idea of escapism seems particularly relevant.

What if you treated your product/brand like a theater and users like the audience?

A great story has a tight plot and holds everyone spellbound. Thinking like a director during the design process is a great tool for helping guide the user’s attention. Give out the popcorn and raise the curtain!

So what’s your story?

“Narrative” becomes a key theme for the future; the creative art of storytelling is no longer window dressing, but a means of appealing to the consumer and supporting their cause, their  identity, and their values. Does this indicate a need to find a whole new brand identity or simply find a tale worth telling?

Consumer spending is at an all time low as the economic crisis continues, and so it seems that designers and producers are now looking towards fantasy and entertainment to inspire consumers...

…be it the decadent grandeur of the stage, the vivid kaleiscopic experience of the circus, or the timeless elegance of the ballet; and bringing fashion and design into the realms of fantasy and creativity, mystery and imagination. This need for narration, nostalgia and the exploration of intrigue is being felt in many artistic disciplines, ranging from music to art.

Fashion is certainly taking a leap into escapism. Retail and runway collections are beginning to absorb the influences of dance and circus.

Italian designer Salvadore Ferragamo has embraced the world of ballet, uniting primo ballerino Roberto Bolle with and super model Claudia Schiffer in a recent campaign.

Prestigious ballet companies are partnering with architects, encapsulating fluidity and movement, renowned fashion designers are taking a position at the heart off the theatrical arena.

Theater provides the audience with a window though which to escape the troubles of today focusing only on the enjoyment of the stage.

Micro-blogging service Twitter and London’s Royal Opera House may not be seen as birds of a feather. Founded hundreds of years apart, one represents a stronghold of traditional high culture, the other the fizzing surface of contemporary communication. But the tendency of culture to respond to new technology should never be underestimated—over the past three weeks the ROH has been using Twitter to crowdsource the libretto for a new “people’s opera”.

What story allows for the experiences and memories of the viewer, (as in a good mystery), to ‘fill in the blanks’? And what can Brands give to the consumers through their product personas/features as stimulus for the “discovery”? The challenge lies in that our society is saturated with ‘reality’ how can we take products and refresh them into an alternative reality? Maybe that magical capture is in the consumer becoming involved with the storytelling.

In the collective imagination, great ideas take flight.

The space between the Symbolic and the Concrete.

Browsing through a cooking magazine, overhearing a conversation about the latest design trend, spotting an ad for a new Hybrid; it is all too clear that those qualities we refer to as symbolic (those not literally part of product appearance), take on increased importance in today’s market. In design and marketing literature, this trend is often traced to the fact that many (or most) products appearing on the market are very similar in function and price, making it hard or simply irrelevant for people to differentiate products on such primary criteria.

As a result, products are ever more evaluated in terms of their experiential benefits: ‘What does this product say about me?’. ‘Is this really me?’…and so they need to have multiple solutions, each with its own revealing, value expressive quality.

A recent study by Creusen and Schoormans confirmed such speculations by revealing that consumers’ preferences for product appearance are by and large motivated by symbolic meaning. Many people will pay more to wear designer brand. Of course, a designer outfit doesn’t keep you any warmer or dryer than an unbranded one, but functionality is only part of the story. Designer products say something about you – you are a trendy, sexy or sophisticated person. Brands help us to express who we think we are and who we want to be. Whether its jeans, or phones, we know the brands we like. These are more than products; they are symbols, or in other words, they are objects carrying meaning.

Symbolic attributes of products affect their adoption and evolution. The idea that goods and services hold symbolic as well as functional value has been recognized for decades, but often, management practice tends to focus on business processes: the most efficient and economic way to deliver good quality, functional products. Branding is just one way of endowing products with meanings. But there are others, such as good product design or even process innovation, design that goes beyond ergonomics.

Redesigning, rethinking.

The mere redesign of the outer shells of hearing aids – introducing sleek lines, translucent plastics and a range of colors and patterns instead of the usual flesh color – helped Oticon, a Danish leader in the production of hearing aids, relieve hearing-impaired children from the psychological burden associated with carrying a hearing aid.

Shoelaces Not Needed.A more perfect fit, designed for runners but this simple concept could easily translate into any footwear. This shoe uses a single strap that wraps around the entire width of your foot’s arch. By simply tightening or loosening a velcro strap, you achieve the perfect fit.

Cultural Captital. Infusing products with symbolic meaning.

In food and beauty, the products’ origin and specifically local origin (“teroir”) has become  a factor of differentiation and added value for companies. The so-called “terroir” indication can enhance the perceived quality and the inferences from the regional image on the product’s image. Perfect examples  are the Ahava products from the Dead Sea in Israel. The reference to a special “know-how”, “tradition” and “recipe” is important. A terroir product must not be produced elsewhere because it is linked to the history and culture of the region: something that needs time, experience, tradition that cannot be produced everywhere. Consumers try to find out products with a special origin, because they think the origin gives sense to the products.

The Dead Sea region is shrouded in mystique and is a study in contrasts. Far from reflecting its name, the Dead Sea thrives with life-enhancing ingredients with proven regenerative properties.

The role of “cultural capital” (a special knowledge that some companies have about how goods are embedded in cultural conventions and expressions, and how they relate to consumers’ lifestyles.) seems to play a critical role in how businesses can understand the connections between objects and their meanings. You can encode meaning into products through careful design that will elicit certain interpretations in people.

Some questions to think about:

What are the business processes that could enable this encoding to happen? And how can we increase the likelihood that certain forms will be decoded in particular ways? Can cultural capital be accumulated or deployed in organizations when designing new products?

What do you think?

Drivers and Vision for a New Era of Luxury.

From Excess to Stealth.

In the contemporary marketplace, what is the new Glamor? Is there a new luxury ideal? The debate surrounding luxury is far from new. The traditional definition of luxury as ‘anything unneeded’ is neither helpful nor relevant in today’s markets. New luxury is being part of things, having experiences that deepen ones understanding, connection and appreciation of life. Events, brands, products, places, services and moments all will find emotional resonance with consumers with participatory communications.

BEING PART of a participation flow gives a feeling of connection, of ‘oneness’ with the world. It’s not what you got; it’s what you know.

In terms of mood and lifestyle, there has been a shift from rank and badge, to discovery and knowledge.

According to French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu there are three types of capital: economic, social and cultural. Cultural capital refers to knowledge, skills and taste, and is increasingly important as a form of self-expression and definer of identity.

Consumers now have a greater emotional involvement in premium products and want a compelling brand story. Customers must be welcomed and nourished. Luxury brands need to offer products and experiences which are more profound, more unique, more valuable. Glitz and glamour isn’t enough. We need to replace hollow with deep.

This era of luxury is bringing back the Artistes. The juxtaposition of objects and styles creates a PERSONAL SIGNATURE. An artisanal approach is a compelling aspect of authenticity. Drivers are commentary and remix. In terms of design, imagery, and packaging–I see experimental, playful, and irreverent being the new luxury acoustics.

ReLuxe is a hybrid of personal acquisitions and accomplishments.

A reflection of our own unique tastes, our own worldview on display for others to see, appreciate and enjoy.

The conversations that drive and define Social Media require an authentic and participatory approach. Social Media is about sociology not technology.
The future of communications introduces sociology into the marketing strategy. Technology is just that, technology. The tools will change. The networks will evolve. Mediums for distributing content will grow. The tools will change, but in most cases, people don’t.

This new conversation is about the transformation of business and communities through ideas, design, technology, integrated media.
Right now there seems to be a lot of confusion between social media and the definition of community.

Community as data hub, the new pulse of conversation.

Communities have the following characteristics:
- They are continuous, not temporal - this is not to say that people don’t drop in and out but there is a core membership that interacts together over a long period of time.
- Communities gather around a concept or common goal not around a collection of content (although content does plays a major role, it is not the impetus for the community).

Social Media is driving the communication evolution with VERY active global participation that needs to be LISTENED to.

The difference is that by listening, reading, and participating, corporate marketing will be smarter and more approachable than ever before. In this listening economy, the lines disappear.
By listening we humanize brands and form communities, create loyalty, and earn customer’s trust and business. To build a dynamic and conversational community that increases participation and response, make results open to the community, and cross platform.

To engage in community, you have to move in, not just visit. You don’t build your community; you need to find your community. Community built around consumption is fairly transitory. This is about person to-person activity. Not about speaking as “the company”, but as a person. Most companies don’t know how to do this, and it takes a lot of practice and experimentation to find that voice and feel comfortable with it. MAKE IT PERSONAL, community centric and multi- channel.

In the era of the attention deficit and social network fatigue, it is critical that we step back to realize that we are the communication bridge between companies and people.

However, we also must realize that in the era of social media, people also have amplified voices and are now a powerful channel of peer-to-peer influence. Transforming a company might take one person at a time.

Be collaborative. It’s time to shift from a mindset of monitoring and mining to one of collaboration, leadership, and justified adaptation.

And especially…give them something to talk about…”It’s not what you say that matters… it’s what they say that counts.”

Inspiring Fashion and Style. Fascinating culture, beautiful people, exotic scenery, inspirational music everywhere.

This summer Cuba is pushed in to the spotlight as  one of the first countries to radically combat the  global economic situation. The Caribbean island will introduce an austerity program to try and offset the financial crisis and reduce energy use. With the majestic tropical island set to become more accessible to the masses, an even bigger surge in inspiration arrives.

After an astounding presence on the spring/summer 09 runways, styling with a touch of 1950’s la dolce vita (seen at Louis Vuitton menswear) and spicy, tropical collections (Gucci women’s ready to wear) take center stage for high summer. On the global city streets many are adopting the look; from New York to London, everyone wants a touch of old time Havana.

50’s Havana represents a counterculture spirit that can be seen across the region, inspired by the vibrant local music and dance.

In an age where capitalism is king and the bedrock of consumerism looks set to take a tumble—radical ideologies suddenly have a renewed appeal.

Natural But Enhanced Flavors. Innovative Color.
Color is one of the most important attributes of foods and beverages. As it is often said, we eat with our eyes first. Understanding sensory differences is critical for understanding the product, and ultimately, consumer preference. Consumer demand for more ‘natural’ foods and beverages has sent ingredient developers back to nature to unearth a broadening spectrum of naturally derived food and beverage coloring options.

IFT trend tour: Color and flavor innovation
At the IFT trade show in Anaheim, Jess Halliday followed the Flavor and Color Innovation trend tour, and spoke to some of the companies showing their latest developments at the show. Watch the video podcast here.

Highlights were:
Blending taste modulation technology with traditional real fruit flavors, especially exotic berries blended with spices and herbs and on going color innovation. Current research conducted on different sources—from fruits and vegetables to plants and marine creatures—shows promise in developing new naturally derived colorings/attributes or enhancing ones already in use.