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Quirk

The troubled corporate identity folk at Quark have unleashed a new logo - the second in five months. The redesign (I imagine) was prompted by the unforgivable identicality of their new Quark logo with the Scottish Arts Council.

Given the short-ish redesign time, I’d say that this ‘new’ logo was probably the second best (first loser!) in the original logo redesign exercise. It is certainly egg on Quark’s face that a company that makes a design tool can’t seem to nail an original design. As for the logo itself…subjectively I think the drop shadow debossing is too deep/dark, and darned if the ‘Quark’ word doesn’t seem centred under the circle. I wonder if they will PR spin the redesign as “another example of Quark listening to its customers” (ha!). (Thanks to the evercurrent Frederik Samuel for the link). And for those who bemoan the apparent vacuum of innovative logo design, take a deep, deep design breath and visit...Web 2.0 LogoFest. It's astonishingly refreshing.

Pecanland

At Pecanland between meetings
Treoshot by me.

Badda-bing!

Is it just me, or is the idea of a TV show sponsoring a commercial just a little warped?
AOL Best Super Bowl Commercials 2006.

The Force is not with PowerPoint

The serenely intuitive Presentation Zen.com hits it out of the park with this fab 'what-if' spoof of how not to PowerPoint.

Whinosaurs, the Experience Vacuum and The Brand Crutch are killing direct marketing!

There’s a painful lack of innovation in direct response today. Traditionally, clients get the bum-end of this argument, as countless creatives belabour the lack of 'risk-taking' and 'courage' of today’s Marketing Managers. These same creatives pine for ‘ye good olde days’ of bigger balls, seven figure budgets and longer lead times. Oh please. Grow up. We're here to entice customers to buy something. Nothing more. If you still need 12 weeks and $3.50 a package to do that, you're a whinosaur. Yes, it does take time to craft a great headline, and build an original design. But any longer than 48 hours and you’ll start second guessing yourself and losing focus. So suck it up and get to work. Life’s too short, and reputations are shorter still.

OK, now let's look at the client side of the equation. Today's ‘shareholder-value’ reality is driving more inexperienced marketers into roles that frankly, they were never fully trained to master. Need some job shadowing, training, mentoring? No budget/time/desire. Need to know what strategies and tactics worked before? No IT resources to build the knowledgebase. Talk about being set up to fail! This Experience Vacuum results in useful historical learning and invaluable anecdotal data being obliterated. Can you really expect a Marketing Manager fresh from accounting, sales, or university to ‘go out on a limb’ for some creative idea she hasn’t been trained to effectively evaluate and nurture?

The salve to this pain has been to institute ‘The Brand Crutch’. You know what I’m talking about: the bible that standardizes the look and feel of all marketing initiatives to build brand consistency. Which is actually quite a worthy ideal. In the face of more advertising messages in more media than ever, a little familiarity through repetition will certainly build comfort and preference. But it won’t close a sale…it’ll only open the opportunity for a sale. This is a critical difference. A consistent brand message will get your foot in the door, but you’ll need some well-crafted sales messaging to persuade the customer to buy now. Think of brand as the logo on the nametag that a door-to-door salesman wears. If it’s a company you know and trust, you’ll be more likely to invite him into your home to receive his full sales pitch – which is all about offer, value positioning and urgency.

So, back to the premise at hand: direct response creative is in the doldrums due to slacker creative types and unsupported marketing managers with little experience or training. How to fix it? Start stripping. Peel a few layers off agency structure and process (or hire a smaller, hungrier agency), hire or train-up more qualified marketing managers, acknowledge the differences between brand awareness results and actual product sales. And yes, make sure you’ve got the right creative people on board.

SoHoCold

Not that I'm complaining or anything about standing in New York on a Monday morning...

A cold day in SoHo
Treoshot by me.

The First Rule of Fight Night is...

...don't believe professional fighting is glamorous. A Friday night 'kick-off' launch party for The Fight Network was a sweaty, rowdy, and very non-glam brouha down at Koolhaus. Wonderfully skimpy shirts and crotch-crack shorts were the style for the Hooters-style staff, designed to distract the eyes from the broken noses and steroid wrinkles of the over-the-hill boxers and slicked-back promoters. Yes, Fight Network is everything you would expect of a pro-boxing, pro-wresting, pro-kick boxing channel. Not surprisingly, the launch party was an absolute blast.

Picture272_21Oct05.jpg
TreoShot by me.

U2, Air Canada Centre, Sept 12, 2005

When you increase elevation you sometimes get vertigo. And so it was Monday night at the Air Canada Centre as U2 unleashed their fall North American Vertigo tour, their first since 2001’s Elevation tour. It was both a spirited and spiritual event, part vaudeville, part awe-inspiring spectacle, and always a rock show. Are U2 the world’s greatest rock & roll band? Probably not, but there haven’t been any better contenders over the last 15 years.

Bono has always walked the fine line between preacher, teacher and huckster. Last time around it was about terrorism and the ills of war, this time around it’s Africa (The ONE campaign), Katrina (with a fine adhoc rendition of Old Man River) religious co-existence, Human Rights, and yes, the ills of war. He can get away with it because it’s so beguiling — wrapped up in terrific music and stilted personal monologues rather than slick, practiced speeches. Or so it all seems. Bono was literally at a loss for words many times, stumbling as he tried to build bridges between causes and songs. He even forgot his own lyrics occasionally. Good thing the sunglasses never came off.

The Edge was on lead guitar, and was never really close to any edge of skill. Clearly he was enjoying himself and kept his guitar tech busy with 18 guitar changes. Larry Mullen on drums was as stoic as ever, venturing out from behind the kit once to play on the catwalk and once to play keyboards (uncomfortably). Adam Clayton on bass stayed close to stage left for the concert, only once walking out around the catwalk in the two and a half hour show. The ACC ravaged the audio performance, as only a venue nicknamed ‘The Hanger’ could.

The fifth member of U2 gave last night’s music an unexpectedly kinetic dimension. Willie Williams, the show designer has worked on most U2 shows, including ZooTV, the POP flop and the heart-shaped intensity of Elevation. His work on Vertigo is nothing short of spellbinding. Much more than the usual eye candy rolled out to shine coloured lights on most performers, his pixilated, fluid colour swashes bring the energy and emotion of the music to the forefront. Always the innovator, he has taken the best aspects of previous tours and reinvented them. The world’s largest projection screen from POP has been sliced into five shower-curtains of pixel baubles that roll up and down like a motorized fishing net. The heart-shaped catwalk from Elevation has been outfitted with running LCDs that allow light pulses to literally chase each other around the perimeter. And the static TV tubes from ZooTV are reborn above the stage in an inspired graphic redesign of the songs Zoo Station and The Fly. You can see some collected audience snaps of the entire Vertigo tour production (North American and European legs) here.

Monday’s opening act was Dashboard Confessional, a young US band that proved once again that second rate material can be forgiven simply by being passionate about what you do. Their thundering basslines, jangly guitars and soaring lead singer amply set the stage for the real deal.

The secret of U2’s continued popularity (50 sold-out shows from now until December 19) is in their continued reinvention. The mulletted rebel rockers of the 1980s transformed into the power-chord epic ballad-writers of the 1990’s, and then into the middle-aged realists of 2000’s Kite and Walk On. Today they stay relevant by being transparently open about their maturity, their causes, and their immodest intentions. With Vertigo (the single) they are trying to reclaim their rock roots, while with Vertigo (the tour) they’re reclaiming their kings of rock status. An elevated aspiration indeed.

Set List
Main Set: Vertigo, I Will Follow, The Electric Co., Elevation, Beautiful Day, In a Little While, I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For, City of Blinding Lights, Miracle Drug, Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own, Love and Peace or Else, Sunday Bloody Sunday, Bullet the Blue Sky, Miss Sarajevo, Pride, Where the Streets Have No Name, One / Ol' Man River
Encores: Zoo Station, The Fly, With or Without You, All Because of You, Fast Cars, Yahweh, 40

Ottawa

Chateau Frontenac
Treoshot by me.