The newly designed SBucks cups are here - in LA

I'm down in LA on business and looks like the new Starbucks logo branded cups have landed. I had seen the new design online and of course read lots and lots about the new look. It is something else when you see, experience, and actually use the cups and sleeves with the the new branding on them.  This serves as a good reminder to us all to see and hold mock ups of the creative/design work. Look at the work in situ - with consumers eyes, versus your eyes on a computer screen. 

As a consumer, the new cup feels a bit naked, bare and minimalist. I do really like the evolved Starbucks logo, the marketer in me feels that it is a tad understated and the "starbucks" could be dialed up. Especially as the branding in the Tall, Grande and Venti sizes are covered by sleeves... which leaves them with lots of white space..or almost generic looking cups. 

AAhhhh sweet nectar - my double espresso macchiato - in the newly branded cup.

12,000 posts a month - really?

With the festive season upon us and in Canada a variety of new upstart wireless carriers on the market, I am sure there will be lots of smart phones, plans and related products under the "tree". I was in a Bell store the other day and overheard a mother with her teenage daughter talking with the sales consultant about a mobile phone plan.

She proudly said that she needed the unlimited text plan as her daughter sent 12,000 texts one month. She said this loud enough for me to hear.. to which I said something like wow that is pretty good. It turns out that this 12,000 was achieved in the summer time and now with school her daughter is down to a meager 4,000 a month. That might seem like lots but that is only slightly above US average according to some stats recently released. See mashable story here  The Average Teenager Sends 3,339 Texts Per Month [STATS]

I played with the 12,000 summer time text number. This means that across 31 days in the month, assuming 16 waking hours our prolific texter was rattling out 24 texts a waking hour.  I googled world record for text messages and found a number of 187k a month. Other people commented that they had sent/received 35,000 or 20,000 a month. All of which are staggering numbers.

Texting and other mobile/smart phone related activities have always been fascinating to me. I will be sharing more on this space soon as there is massive opportunity and I think that most marketers are missing a trick or two - or just just being tactical in the mobile space at best.

update: Seth recently  blogged on a similar topic and offered a solution (freedom)

Am-Bush Marketing Defined

I was reading about Decision Points - George Bush's newly released book. Aside from the expected controversy there is an interesting "protest move". There is a Facebook group going which asks people to go to their bookstore and move the book to the crime section or some other section, take a photo of Decisions Point in situ and then publish to FB. Below are some of the photos uploaded.Quite amusing!

The exact copy on the FB group reads:

"George Bush's memoir Decision Points releases this Tuesday, November 9. Join Waging Nonviolence in helping bookstores around the country correctly shelve and categorize this book. Move Bush's memoir to the Crime section of the store (the Fiction, Science Fiction, and Humor sections are also applicable), take a picture of your handiwork, and post it to the wall of this event page on Facebook.

If you prefer not to inconvenience the store's staff, just reshelve the book long enough to take a picture and then put it back.

This nonviolent action is inspired by the recent movement in England where thousands of people reshelved Tony Blair's memoir, A Journey, to the crime, horror, and dark fantasy sections of book stores, and even the toiletries aisle of supermarkets. 

So come out on Tuesday and put Dubya where he belongs."

And the Winner is...

The results from the Crowd Sourcing Experiment are in. I had about 60 designs submitted for my company ID project. I have been pretty lucky to have worked with some top designers in my time so I have some high standards. BTW my little experiment made for some interesting conversations with them this past weekend. 

Overall, I thought the designs submitted were pretty basic - some even cheesy but one stood out as being simple and feeling pretty right. And I am happy to report that there will be no massive market research to test it. I am just going to roll with it. That is unless there is a Eustress logo uprising in the social media world - like GAP saw this past week.  I don't think they crowd sourced their new logo.

My takeaway from the crowd source experiment is that is is really a volume play. You get lots of designs and get them quite timely. You just have to hope that you get lucky and one design stands out and sticks.

The Flipping Buzz Around F Cancer

I got a call from the press to comment on this the other day. Seehttp://tinyurl.com/29e25fm . Ever since I have been following the story. I was taken by the emotion and opposing comments being posted by readers in the Province online under the story when it ran there. I was less impressed by some of the moronic comments.

As the father to a couple of young boys, I completely understand some of the sensitivities that some have to the f- bomb. That being said, given the audience and cause I think F cancer is entirely appropriate. It is a rallying cry for those and their loved ones who have and are battling cancer. It is an alert to those younger people who don't think that cancer could get them because they are too young. The simple fact is that cancer does not discriminate. It is ruthless but early detection can go a very long way.

There is much more than a bad language in a tagline going on here. Check out the social media activation. http://tinyurl.com/23nnr5r

Anyway, I hope and think we will hear lots more on F Cancer . 

Cover your ears kids.

Crowd Source Experiment has Started

My design friends are not going to be happy with me. This morning I posted on one of the design crowdsourcing sites that are out there a project for Eustress branding. You write a brief put a little reward money up, set a due date and then voila a few days later I am supposed to have all these designers submit work to me. All for a few hundred bucks. I am waiting for the catch...

I will let you know how it goes. And apologies to my design friends...just be thankful I did not mooch my logo off of you. (image from the crowdsourcingblog)