The Kmiec Ramblings

What a blast.  Cora, at 18 months, got to get dressed up (as a monkey) and do some serious trick or treating.  We hit about 7 houses in total and Cora collected quite a booty of candy.  There were no tricks to be had this year, just treats.  You can see the full gallery here.

It was really amazing to see how much she’s grown since last year’s Halloween.  Honestly, you can’t even compare the two.  For a trip down memory lane, click here to see photos from 2007.

Last year, we let Cora in on the fun of pumpkin carving. It’s not that she wasn’t “good” at it, so much as she wasn’t old enough to really understand and enjoy the experience. A lot has changed in a year as these photos will attest.

We’ll have photos up from Halloween this weekend.  Check back for those.  You won’t want to miss it; Cora is going to be a monkey.

Don’t know why, but I’m shocked that The Huffington Post is killing MSNBC.com, but getting insanely trounced by CNN.

Nothing more to add than the title, well, besides the fact that a very cool, long-running, powerful show like the Simpsons chose to parody a flying under the radar show like Mad Men.

Rare is it that I’m overly impressed with a CPG food website, but this is freaking amazing. I won’t even explain what it is other than to say it let’s you create this:

As someone who worked with M&M Mars on one of their earliest versions of the personalized M&M e-commerce platform, I’m really impressed with the evolution. The avatar above is cool, but avatars aren’t exactly new news. What is new news is your ability to put this photo on actual M&Ms. That my friends is personalization.  And, yes I just spent $40.00 for 21oz of personalized Cora M&Ms.

Ok, so that was clearly designed to get you to read this post.  However, there’s a lot of truth to that statement.  I’ve been around long enough to have heard agencies, clients, brand managers, keynote speakers, and the like spout how we need to simplify things for our consumers.  We need to treat them like children.  We need to follow the K.I.S.S. model of keep it simple stupid.  I was in a meeting last week where an idea was killed by the client because, “it’s just too complex and requires too much effort; we need to keep it simple.”

I whole-heartedly disagree.  What we aim for when we spout simplicity is convenience.  I’d like to take it a step further and say that what we really need to do is create value.  Yeah, I know, that sounds a little too preachy.  It sounds a bit too pompous, as if I’m trying to sound smart.  But, just walk a little further with me and let me share with you 4 great examples of how a company has made their consumers’ lives more complex, but in doing so succeeded.

1. Nike+.  If you’ve used Nike+ you know what I’m talking about.  Let’s say you were a runner before Nike+ ever existed.  This is how simple running was; you picked out a pair of shoes, you grabbed some clothes, you looked at your watch, determined a distance or time, and ran.  Then you came back, stretched, took a shower, and kicked back.  Maybe you had a runner’s log and jotted down times or distance.  But, that’s pretty simple.  With Nike+ you needed to buy a special pair of Nike shoes, purchase a certain type of iPod, setup some playlists, establish an account at NikePlus.com, train your Nike+ chip, and deal with iPod crashes.  For some people they literally had to switch shoe allegiances, buy music on iTunes, and learn how to sync them all together.  Nike+ is a bitch of a tool to use.  It’s not simple.  Yet, it is wildly successful.
2. Guitar Hero.  How popular is Guitar Hero?  Well it spawned 4 sequels, convinced a competitor to come forward, and got Gibson guitars to sue the game’s creator and the retailers.  But, think about this for a second, in order to really experience Guitar Hero, you needed a $250.00 game system (Wii, XBOX, Playstation), $60.00 for the game, and $75.00 for the guitar.  If you already had the system and wanted to buy the game, you still needed to drop $75.00 for a “special” controller, just to play 1 game.  So great, you have the game system, game, and controller, but now you needed to LEARN how to play the game and use the controller.  This isn’t exactly an easy task; if you’ve played Guitar Hero or watched others play it, you know exactly what I mean.
3. Nintendo Wii.  Speak of the Wii, let’s talk about Nintendo’s amazing creation.  For years, decades even, video games have been centered around a joystick or controller.  The controller contains some buttons that you can press and a stick to control movement.  Really, the only evolution in the joystick has been the number of buttons you can press, the shape of the controller, and the number of sticks.  That all changed when Nintendo launched the Wii.  The Wii uses a special, never before seen, controller that includes built-in accelerometers and infrared to determine its position in 3D space. This essentially allows users to leverage physical movement as a means to control the game instead of buttons. Talk about a learning curve. And the learning curve, wasn’t just limited to adults, check out this video to see what happens when a baseball bat meets a TV.  There’s no doubt the Wii has been successful in spite of it being hard to come by in stores and revolutionary method for playing.
4. Apple iPhone.  What you say?  I’m picking on Apple?  Yes, I am indeed.  Google “iphone difficult” and you’ll see a litany of comments, posts, and review talking about how difficult the iPhone is to use.  People are frustrated with the auto-spell-corrections, keyboard sensitivity, mail syncing-setup problems, etc., etc., etc.  People complained about the activation procedure, random lockups, and the list goes on.  Yet, despite all these frustrations, problems, and difficulties the iPhone accounts for 40% of Apple’s revenue.  The iPhone was sexy, unique, and positioned itself as 3 tools in 1: computer, iPod, and cell phone.  That is VALUE; that is convenience created from a difficult and complex product.

There are several more that come to mind, but in the interest of “space” I’ll spare you.  The interesting thing with the 4 above scenarios is that while each product isn’t simple, we’re willing to make investments in: time, money, and effort for them.  Why?  Because we derive value from them.  Value can be vague and it can certainly be unique to each individual.  However, it’s something we all crave.

What we don’t need is to treat our consumers with kid gloves.  They aren’t dumb.  We don’t need to treat them like 5 year olds.  In fact, our consumers are smart and want to make an effort.  They’re willing to invest time in learning and even willing to put up with buggy and sometimes problematic products.  Well they are, if we’re willing to make the investment in them.  That investment means providing them VALUE.

Is it me or does this new Pepsi logo look just like the Barack Obama campaign logo?

The new logo was rumored to have cost over $1,000,000 to create.  Look, I’m not saying they are exactly the same, but c’mon they do look like very similar.  For what it’s worth, I’ve always been a fan of the logo introduced in 1971.

Just came back from Severs Corn Maze in Shakopee, MN.  These guys totally understand the concept of the experience economy. Severs does a great job of making little things seem BIG. The petting zoo has monkeys and zebras. Seriously, I’m not joking. They offer state fair style food, covering:

• Fresh grilled corn on the cob
• Cheese curds
• Mini donuts
• Fresh squeezed lemonade
• And so much more

The maze, itself, is amazing.  The really did a fantastic job with the concept and design.  Here’s a picture of the grounds and the maze.

How freaking cool is that.  That covered area to the left is a “pit’ of corn kernels.  Think of it like a ball pit at McDonalds, only a hell of a lot more fun.

We had a blast as you can see from these photos.

This is the 12th year they’ve done this, and I’m genuinely looking forward to next year.  The directions to their location are a little out of sorts.  Here’s a Google map of where they are; in case you were going to plan a trip to this fantastic experience.

View Larger Map

This post by the Fiery Irish Rose is fantastic.  I always love her no bullshit approach to writing.  She outlines what titles really mean.  My personal favorite quip is “Executive Director: You’ve been with the company forever. But, you suck at managing people and haven’t come up with an original, trail blazing idea, in well, ever. We can’t promote you to VP, but after so many years, we had to give you something.” This holds true for Sr. Director and Sr. Manager on the client side.

Me, I’m not concerned by title. I care a lot more about the role. For example, if you called me “Head Janitor,” but paid me $1,000,000 a year to run the operations of the company, I’d be perfectly fine with that. In my career, I’ve held the titles of:

• QA Analyst
• QA Specialist
• QA Manager
• Producer
• Sr. Producer
• Interactive Producer
• Sr. Engagement Manager
• Interactive Account Supervisor
• Interactive Marketing Manager
• Interactive Account Director

Dwight Eisenhower had the title during WW II. He was essentially in charge of not only the U.S. troops, but the troops for our allied nations. That’s responsibility. No, I’m not suggesting I want to join the military, but I am suggesting that his role is the type of responsibility I want in my career.
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As wikipedia states, “Trunk Monkey is a concept originally created in January, 2000 by Sean Sosik-Hamor, for the automotive group of Subaru enthusiasts in the New England Subaru Impreza Club, or NESIC. The original concept of a “Trunk Monkey” was a small stuffed animal placed in the trunk of a vehicle which came alive and jumped from side to side to help distribute weight during “spirited driving maneuvers”.

The Trunk Monkey television ads, loosely based on this concept, were created in 2003 by the advertising agency R/West in Portland, Oregon. Originally created for the Suburban Auto Group of Sandy, Oregon, the syndicated commercials are now the primary source of revenue for the agency. The series of commercials has been licensed to at least 45 car dealerships around the United States as well as New Zealand.”

You can make something local become something national.