Call me Ishmael. Curious Human. Creative Strategist. Daily Dream Maker.

I have worked with tech start-ups to fortune 500 companies.

I’ve been incredibly fortunate to work with brands like Sony, Virgin Atlantic Airlines, Vice Media, Forbes Magazine, and many more. If you would like to see more of my background check out my Linkedin profile.

Ask any 20-something-year-old brand whiz-kid what thier opinion is about branding and what brands should be doing online. They will most certainly proclaim that brands should be deeply involved with their community via social media communications and use gamification tactics to connect with their current and potential customers.

Brands should be doing this, that, and everything in between.

They will endlessly talk about  brand integration, brand expectations, brand experiences, brand advocates, brand relevancy, and brand messaging.

But what does all this really mean?

There is a huge disconnect between building brand communications and building a brand.

Brands can start with the idea that the brand will be a means to an end–’brand led’ branding.

A brand with this approach will think, “if people like our communication, packaging, ads, messaging, we will be so radically different from our competitors and as a result command a bigger market share”.

This is a limited view of branding and focuses on the typified style practiced by brands who have no clue about differentiating themselves. The established usually unglamorous brands like banks, life insurance, energy companies, investment houses and airlines.

Usually their differentiating brand messaging has happy, generic people doing happy generic things with little to nothing said about the specifics of what the brand does or makes. Always full of promises and hopefulness. These brands try to convince you that, they’re people, too, and that you really ought to like them.

This type of branding works fashionably well with fashion, spirits, cigarrettes and some luxury good brands. Brands that create a sense of exclusivity and mystery. As marketer we usually have a myopic notion that this is how brands are supposed to behave–because of how heavily advertised these categories are.

90 to 95 percent of what we buy are not luxury items, but are common items like toothpaste and deodorant.

If you are not on the business of selling fashion, booze, cigarrettes and luxury good brands, it would be wise to invest on differentiating your product instead of being ‘brand led’. Easier said than done.

Apple is the usual culprit and the archetype to look at product-led branding.

Hopefully, if more brands started with the product without the babble of the brand, customers may just like you for doing something that is relevent and real.

I am fascinated with influence and creativity, and have talked about it here and here, where I rehash the argument that culture is stolen, influence, and remixed from the collective experiences of humanity.

Stumptown, please bring these awesome “stumpy” stout bottles to New York!

They are only available in Portland at the moment, but would love to see these instead of Trenta Frappuccinos in New York this summer. Great typography, great design, and stouty bottles put a smile on my face!

(via Doobybrain)

(image via Stephan Geyer)

It’s common knowledge that traditional advertising/marketing is outdated, but as much as we resonate the message through blog post, presentations, and as agencies–the noise is louder than the action. I know that it takes a long time to change but as consultants to clients and sometimes as whole agencies we don’t know how to communicate to the new consumer.

It’s easy to say that we are now in the era of cultural movements and that we need to tap into digital complex systems, understand motivation, etcetera–but am I being pessimistic to say that when movements are created without brand currency they fall flat? I understand that iterative planning and strategy is needed (include a couple of years too) to change perceptual minds.

Traditional marketing starts with the product in mind then takes the customer for a journey with a message in mind–leaving little opportunities for interaction and cultural connections with the consumer. Yes, yes you say to yourself, what’s the point are you trying to make? The point is that even when we create the anti-traditional campaigns that prioritize culture and consumer insight without trying to sell them the product, we are still lacking on the relevancy to the product.

Product perception–knowing where you stand in the minds of the public–is so important. This should probably be the first question you ask yourself as a brand. Doing an internal brand audit–knowing what your brand means, what is the quality of your product/service, and what you aspire to be as a brand are basic questions that we take for granted. It’s like when someone ask you, “who are you?” Do you even know what that means. Are you going to talk about your values, ethics, hobbies?

These are things that as brands they need to understand and really think about. And at the end of the day are people going to enjoy your product or service? I make the analogy of skin-deep beauty without substance.

I want to praise and slightly criticize a campaign that for the most part is pretty amazing–take this wonderfully done Jim Beam “bold choice movement” by StrawberryFrog. I truly love the strategy and big idea of choice as a motivator for the brand. Choice is what makes us human on all levels, but when you mix in Jim Beam, I am not sure if this resonates well. The only time when I make a choice to drink Jim Beam is when I don’t have enough money to buy Makers Mark or Jack, but never as an aspirational whiskey (even if it’s on discount). The product can not stand on itself, without taking quality into the equation. I understand that as Americans the choices we make are truly tied to the intrinsic beliefs we take for granted in this great country. The campaign has a lot of heart and tells the story well, but will that make me choose or slightly think of Jim Beam the next time I’m at a bar? Maybe not. And maybe I am being cynical that everyone thinks like me–which I know as a New Yorker is not true.

I wish this campaign the best of luck and know that it has legs in the future for iterative storytelling, but the product in my opinion can not stand on itself. The product should stand on itself and always align with the movement. We talk about movements, social interaction, but the real question is can we question the product holistically with the movement and create relevancy with the aspirational consumer?

Most people would say that you shouldn’t have long copy on a banner ad, but that is just what BMW did in this amazing banner ad. By the way, it is the longest banner ad ever created.

Just when you think and expect for a banner ad to be boring, it sucks you in by being personal and by having great copy. Give it a read and spend 4 minutes of your life enjoying great copy.

LONG LIVE COPY!

You have to respect a brand that breaks the rules and produces something amazing.

I am a huge fan of Spotify and product design, so when I came across this blog post on core77 I had to learn more about the designer and how the machine works.

For you non-nerds, audiophiles, or techies Spotify is probably the game-changer in the digital music industry and has been rumored to being sold to Apple for a clean billion. Spotify is an ultra-lightweight application that allows instant listening to specific tracks or albums, users log onto their service enabling on demand streaming of music. At the moment it is only available in Europe but there are ways to get around to that (hint *Google that —-).

Back to the product–this Spotify box was created by Jordi Parra–a Spanish designer based out of Sweden as his senior project. The device is has 192 LED nodes, which display volume levels, battery life, and Internet connectivity on the device’s minimalist facade. The device works via RFID magnetized tags: place one of the colored RFID tags, which links to your personal playlists, onto the magnetized volume knob and your music is up and ready to jam.

Check out the video for more information on how this awesome little machine works. I would love to get one of these clean Nordic designed machines!

I wrote a blog post last September called CULTURE IS A (STOLEN) REMIX where I rehash the argument that culture is stolen and is a mix of different influences creating something new.

Nothing is original. NOTHING.

Kirby Feguson has released the next installment of Everything is a Remix, his examination of remix within culture–specifically film. Featured in this second installment are two of the most extensive remixers in film–George Lucas and Quentin Tarantino. Remember that creation requires influence.

Thanks Nike for sending us the awesome again!!

I think this short film by Nike and director Robert Rodriguez will be amazing, but we have to wait till February’s All-star game before we see it. Anything with Danny Trejo kicks ass!