I toured the Moscow-based design studio Art. Lebedev yesterday and fell in love with these “Russian Doll” style tech measurements on display in their offices. Find more products and a bit more about them (they are really cool) at their site.
Posts Tagged ‘Products’
The End of Green?
In Branding, Brands, communications, Consumers, culture, marketing, strategy on March 3, 2008 at 9:53 am
The green trend and the recession trend seem to be on a collision course and something is going to have to give. It’s no secret that brands have been pushing green as a way to appease customers as well as clean up their corporate image, but what will happen in a down market?
All the research that I’ve seen says the predictable. Customers want to buy green products and they want corporations to be green as long as they don’t have to pay more for the product itself. We’ve been calling this “values added” marketing but it could just as well be called “holy shit.” Now you have corporations who are pushing green, most without maintaining a price point, and you have customers who are becoming increasingly mindful of their pocketbooks.
My prediction is that green will continue to move in upscale categories and categories like automotive where there is a bottom line benefit for customers. In the mid and lower markets it will move back to corporate image and away from products since customers don’t typically cough up the money right away to help a corporate image. Longer term the future of the trend is anyone’s guess. Make yours in the comment section below.
Polaroid Fades To Black
In Brands, Consumers, photo on February 11, 2008 at 11:26 am
The Washington Post announced today that Polaroid is shuttering its factories…
“Polaroid, based in Waltham, Mass., is shutting down factories in the United States and abroad as the company abandons the technology that made the instant photo possible, the Boston Globe reported yesterday. The company will cease production of its film by next year.”
This essentially means that I have to start stocking up now. Polaroids, while environmentally unfriendly, are little bits of pleasure to me. Whether by livening up a party or bringing smiles to the faces of kids I meet in places like Ivory Coast, Polaroids have long been a big part of my photographic life. Somehow printed snapshots just don’t do justice to the spontaneity of life captured through the plastic lens.
When Product Accessories Become the Product
In Branding, Brands, Consumers, innovation, market research, marketing, strategy, trends on January 21, 2008 at 1:11 pm
What happens when that cool new thing that you got suddenly becomes the cool new thing that everyone has? Trend Setters (god I hate that term) either move on to the next new thing or redouble their efforts to bring personal ownership to their products. Creating an accessory culture around new products may prove to be a way to keep these early users engaged.
Steve Portigal has an interesting post on Crocs culture and the emergence of charms in Japan and the UK (see picture above). Apple has also inspired a ton of secondary markets for its products from the useful iPod Skins to the scary-but-true Taser/iPod holster that was displayed at CES.
My personal favorite are the iColour modifiers which allow you to take that boring old glowing Apple logo and modify it to your own liking, gaining the ire of your IT dept. at the same time.
thedistillery 