Are you confused by the hundreds of printers that fax, copy, print, talk, beep and jam? I know I am.

Enter Epson’s new website that simplifies your decision process while giving you a few “chuckles” along the way. There are some great aspects to this site that make it viral and also sales focused. Epson understands that the viewer/user might not be the purchaser and also might not be ready to buy the product this instant. So, they have given the user some tools to share their findings with others and even themselves for future Epson purchase decisions. See below in the “Wish” page and a great example of a “Dear Me” reminder email.

So with an understanding of the user and the buying cycle, we might say that Epson has built an amusing site that guides us through a normally frustrating process. Well, before we jump to high praises, I would like to talk about some other key points that I would have wanted out of this decision engine:

1.) If they are talking about the quality of prints, show me the quality. I would have loved to have seen side by side examples of the same image to weigh the print resolution.

2.) If I am given options to compare the product, give me the ability to select from other manufacturers. The site is fun, but it will not stop me from going to a better comparison site like cnet to get unbiased reviews and user generated comments.

3.) As we all know UGC (user generated content) is a great feature to add validity to your products, why wasn’t a dialog started with consumers on the site that already owned these products?

All in all, Epson and their agencies have built a very creative way to choose “your” peripheral device, but they have left out some key features that could really make it more than an engaging microsite and make it a great tool.

I’ve always had a bit of a sore spot for the Anti-Smoking campaigns. Don’t get me wrong, smoking among kids IS a problem: at least 4.5 million U.S. adolescents are estimated to be cigarette smokers and nearly 6,000 children under 18 years of age start smoking every day (American Lung Association, 2003).

My contention is this: I don’t believe anti-smoking ads are effective.

Let me back up a little bit … as a part of the Master Settlement Agreement with “big tobacco“, millions upon millions of dollar$ were given to states to create anti-smoking campaigns. However, according to a recent study conducted by the University of Georgia, the ads “do very little to dissuade middle school students from smoking—in fact, they increase the likelihood of teens picking up the habit.” The idea simple: teens don’t want to be talked down to, and as a result won’t respond to these ads. The study’s lead author suggests what I’ve always suspected, that the ads “inadvertently encourage rebellion.”

This leads me to the real purpose of my post … a recent campaign produced for another organization (that doesn’t work off the $$ of Big Tobacco), The National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign’s “Above the Influence” campaign. Above the Influence is a result of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, and is aimed at youth aged 9-18, especially the vulnerable middle-school adolescents.

The specific campaign I have isolated for this post is called STONERS IN THE MIST. And it’s cool. Stoners will love to play with this site. No, really. They will. Maybe even some young person who has only toyed with the idea of using marijuana will finally be swayed by this cool site. The site is led by Dr. Bernard H. Buck, a white-bearded explorer, complete with funny accent and safari suit. The entire interface is neat… there’s tons of funny video clips that “explore” the life of a stoner and a map users can click to see even more about the social life, health and fitness, and activities of a stoner.

I’m so confused. What’s the point of these anti-drug campaigns? Is it to create fun, flashy websites for kids to play with, or, are we trying to convince them they don’t need drugs?

I guess, who am I to judge? Perhaps the greatest challenge in advertising is to develop an effective anti-drug ad.

I’d like to use this post to start a discussion about the future of the web.  While Web 2.0 is a label given to the evolution of the online medium, most of the ideas often associated with that label really aren’t new. 

I spoke about this at a recent event - how Web 2.0 is more about a collection of principles than a bunch of features.  I also mentioned that if the web was to continue to evolve, we needed to stop thinking about ideas in terms of “features” and more about creatively addressing user needs and business challenges with original thought - thoughts around architecting interactive strategies aligned with how users interact and consume information on the web today.

I’ve been in the industry a little over 8 years now, and it seems that most of the ideas that have been generated over the last few years are not dramatically new.  During the dot-com days, and its subsequent aftermath, a lot of great ideas were built up due to the newness and excitement around the medium.  But like a kink in a water hose, technology limitations prevented those ideas from flowing and there was a corporate thumb over the nozzle, blocking the ideas from getting through.  Over the last couple of years, the kink has loosened and budgets are shifting toward interactive.  As a result, many of the ideas being implemented today are ones that were fighting for existence a few years ago.

My point?  I believe this new flow of old ideas has caused the stagnation of original thought.  We got so excited that we finally pushed through an idea we’ve been passionate about that our focus shifted away from coming up with new ones.  Now don’t get me wrong.  I’m not saying there aren’t any new ideas today.  The Web 2.0 movement has caused people to start the ideation process again. But, for the most part, these ideas are being conceived by a small percentage of people.

The larger percentage of ideas being generated by companies and agencies today are either jumping on a fad bandwagon, recycled ideas from years past or the replication of a feature already being used by their competitors or the latest cool site. Unfortunately, this often results in the misapplication of the idea - either not aligned with user needs, the business objective or both.

Maybe it has always been this way and always will, but I do think the web is at a growth stage where the time is right for a surge of new ideas.

So now what?  How do we shape the future of the web without staying attached to the past?  I’ve got a few ideas, but I want to see what you think.  Discuss…

In advertising, as well as in User Experience, there’s a concept of memorability. In the case of advertising, it’s more about whether the viewer remembers your brand (as opposed to UE where’s it’s whether they remember how to use or do something). Back in the day, one of the most successful campaigns was for Charmin. You remember Mr. Whipple? He was the grocer who chastised patrons with “Please don’t squeeze the Charmin!” How about the old lady at Wendy’s asking “Where’s the Beef?” More recently, there has been “HEAD ON. Apply directly to the forehead. HEAD ON.” All annoying, yet effective, no?

Well, there seems to be a new trend – ‘Brand cheerleading’ and psychological trickery. Interestingly enough, the campaigns in question are both for meat. The first campaign is for Hillshire Farms – a very effective one since I remembered immediately what the brand was. One ad in this campaign shows a woman at her desk preparing a salad with meat on it. Her coworkers come out of nowhere – one chanting “go meat, meat – go meat, meat” while another chimes in with a cheer “That salad rocks, the best….” And another continues with “that’s crazy girl, I swear, there is so much STUFF in THERE”. Silly, yet cheerful. We all know why cheerleading exists whether we’re used to seeing applied to lunch meat or not. At the end of the commercial the whole office gang (sitting together) cheers “cuz you hungry. you hungry. you’re mama say you hungry! — you say Hillshire, I say Farm. Hillshire. Farm. (pause) GO MEAT!” WHOO HOO – I’m going out and getting me a salad (with meat on it)!

The second product is also a lunch meat product. This time, Oscar Meyer is pitching their Deli-Creation lunches with the same type of commercial - though with more of a psychological twist. Two guys driving the wiener-mobile show up in an office cube-farm with sandwiches and a microwave/backpack (complete with extension cord to the wiener-mobile). The catchy tune (Muzak version of what sounds like ‘we’re having a heat wave’) prompts the lunch-bringers to march while nodding their heads up and down to the beat. The office workers start nodding… I start nodding.  “Yes,”  I say to myself while nodding.  “Oscar Meyer microwavable sandwiches are good.”   In an apparent stroke of good timing, I had just come across an article on how shaking your head up and down while performing a task can increase your conviction that your opinion about that task is correct. SO, if you’re inclined to eat a nice, hot, turkey and cheese sandwich made by Oscar Meyer, your conviction that Oscar Meyer lunch meat is good might be increased. Of course, the study is about YOU nodding your head - not the guys on the commercial - but I dare you to watch it and NOT have the urge to do so.

So now you get the ‘Go Meat’ portion of this post… why the “thank you?” This is another part of an ad I saw that sticks with me and definitely works as far as brand recognition goes. Driving to work one day I saw a billboard for The Closer with Kyra Sedwick. It had a picture of her, the words “The Closer, New Season, TNT, Monday June 18, 9p/8c, THANK YOU.” Thank you? Hmmmm - I don’t get it. Polite, yes… Are they thanking me for reading their ad?? Ok. You’re welcome? Actually, it turns out that the main character (the Closer) says this throughout the show - it’s her ‘tag line’. Of course, I didn’t know this (nor did several people I asked). So if TNT is trying to talk to their current audience, fine. They’ll understand. However, for those of us who are Closer-clueless, this ad is annoying. It IS memorable - but not in a good way. Therefore, I’m not watching the show.

I think I’ll have myself a sandwich instead. GO MEAT! Thank you.

You are a marketer. You send a promotional email - time-sensitive, special deal - only to find that the click-through rate was abyssmal. As you begin the witch-hunt for why the message performed so poorly, you discover that Your ESP and their email server are found to be innocent. 

What if your creative piece is responsible? In this age of image-blocking, the importance of email usability is magnified. To illustrate my point, I submit these three samples:

Exhibit A:  The worst case scenario and truly the default view in Outlook 2007 (and the way this email first appeared in my inbox).

Exhibit B: What happens to the email when it is delivered to Outlook 2007 with a common preview pane size and images turned on (today’s lowest common denominator for email software due to it’s MS Word-based rendering engine)

You see who it’s from, but you’ve probably seen other stuff from them.  You’re probably still left thinking, “So what?”

Exhibit C: The designer’s intended creative execution of a promotional email.

Bottom Line:  Send emails designed like this one back to the kitchen every time. Your emails will perform better and you’ll know that you’ve optimized for usability. 

For as long as I can remember, “creative” has been one of the top 2 or 3 most important criteria for companies when selecting an agency. All the studies that Jupiter and Forrester put out on the topic of what companies look for in an agency talk about the importance of their “creative”. And rightfully so. Hard work and dedication are great, but without the creative thought behind it the work will be average at best.

I’ve been trying to determine what exactly breeds creativity in an agency. You’d think I’d know considering that Spunlogic as a whole is one of the most creative groups in the interactive playing field. Our work speaks for itself (shameless plug for our recently launched Crunk!!! Energy Drink site), but I’m constantly reminded of the creative power that the company has overall. By the way I should note that I have no problem whatsoever bragging about the capabilities of our team, since I can’t do a lick of what they do. In fact the last “actual” production work I did was some programming in 2000 on one of our earliest websites - Simmons Manufacturing. Please, hold your applause.

For example, Stephanie mentioned in a recent post our involvement with Junior Achievement and the fund raising we’re doing on behalf of the organization. One of the teams had a bake sale and Stephanie made cookies that looked exactly like our Creative Director, Wade. Check these bad boys out:

If you know Wade, you know these things look just like him. They don’t, however, work like a voodoo doll as advertised, though not for a lack of trying. But I digress.

The point I’m trying to make is that creativity comes from a culture that you can’t force or even for the most part plan. We’ve been very stringent on our hiring philosophy to make sure we bring in people that are the best fit for the culture we’ve created over time, and creativity is a huge component of the hiring criteria. And that’s across the board, from Client Services, to User Experience, to Development, etc.

Maybe the best known example of a truly creative group is Apple, but I prefer to point out what Google is doing. The Google Guys have been immensely successful hiring the best of the best in both technology and creativity. And you see that by the products they launch seemingly weekly. Take for example Google Moon. It’s the freaking moon. They’re even creative with their logo, an entity that usually only stifles creative thought because of its “hands off” and corporate guideline requirements. I mean, how often can you work with a client and say, “We’d like to take your logo and play around with it a little.” Right.

And yes, there are steps you can take and processes you can implement and purple cows you can strive for, but in my opinion it all starts and ends with a culture that breeds creativity.