kungdesign’s posterous

Brandweek's provocative headline "Marketing on No Money" (Oct 12 2009 issue) makes the argument that social media and web 2.5 tools are enabling companies to get their "marketing costs down to zero".

It's an interesting look at the mathematics of marketing, but equates advertising to marketing, and while that makes for great headlines, it's not just fuzzy math, it's wrong.

The article profiles Mint, a personal finance site that was just purchased by Quicken for $170 million. "Marketing on $700 a Year" leads the article in 30-point type.

If a brand manager reads no further, that's the number that sticks in the brain and that becomes the war cry: $700! Brandweek says why spend more?

The trouble is, the actual cost is closer to $1 million dollars a year: a $700 advertising spend and the true cost of creating and running an effective marketing campaign are far apart - in this case, $999,300.

What do you get for your million bucks? Buried in the article is the answer: "Salaries for marketing staff and out-of-pocket expenses like hiring an outside PR firm."

So you still have to pay for people to determine strategy, define the right mix of social media tools, write the blogs, post tweets, maintain Facebook pages and monitor the results.

In other words, the tools might be cheap but you still have to do the actual work.

Let's recap: it cost Mint $999,300 a year to create and manage a successful marketing campaign that had $700 in hard costs for off-the shelf services. And that's really different than 'no money'.

"Marketing on $1 million a Year" doesn't make a sexy headline, no matter how true it is, but still - some clients are going to expect million dollar results for $700.

So thanks for nothing Brandweek - you've armed the masses with mis-information and devalued the contribution of the bright minds that develop campaigns, create the imagery, wordsmith the blogs, program the widgets, respond to consumer emails and make the YouTube videos. Nice work.

Read the article here: http://bit.ly/ygrlH

http://bit.ly/lsCkd

After just hunting down a corrupted font on my computer this was particularly timely.

I was just recently at MOMA in NYC. While there I took in the Ron Arad exhibit entitled No Discipline. His work is a very interesting combination of complex form and function.
Here function follows form. A few images and video that say it all.

                   

I recently came a cross an article at TechCrunch that really has me thinking about how Web 2.0 services and the current recession may help to destroy design innovation.

 http://uk.techcrunch.com/2009/08/10/buildabrand-offers-startups-high-quality-branding-for-the-price-of-a-domain .

 This article is about a web based service that provides brand identities, collateral, and swag with the use of a design wizard. You answer a few questions about your company and chose some images that summarize the tone, character, outlook, style, senses, and approach of your company.
Buildabrands "algorithm" then takes these parameters and produces a logo - presto.

 The fact that the CEO and design director Justin Champney ,of this upcoming service is the former head of brand innovation for McCann Worldwide.
Makes me really wonder how they go about creating brands at McCann. On the buildabrand blog they do attempt to address there critics, like myself, by stating that they are " trying to lower the barriers to entry for startups by providing them with accessible and affordable tools".

 But come on guys lets call a spade a spade this service has nothing to do with branding and is more like clipart roulette.

 The buildabrand blog states that their service is a starting point to inspire companies to build the foundation of a brand. That they don't want to replace traditional agencies.

 What I worry about is that this service, and the ones like it, will attract small to midsize businesses that would have traditionally looked for help from a design firm. I see services for logos, websites, business cards and so on popping up everyday, and admittedly some of these services are very compelling. see www.wix.com. We all know garbage in garbage out.

 I can see a new chasm in design services is being established. Large enterprises that have complex branding issues to solve will hire large firms to solve them and smaller and mid size firms will start using free/cheap services. I fear this may wipe out a lot of work for boutique design firms. I am already seeing some potential clients lured in by the promises made be these new services. This is also being fueled by the flames of the current recession. Really cheap or free is hard for perspective clients to resist no matter how much you try to educate them. Of course there will always those who get it - but now we are setting our fees compared to free.

 Another problem I see is that innovative design solutions brought on by having to be clever with small budgets, the realm of the boutique design firm may slowly fade away as HAL takes over. Never mind the art and solutions that include wordmarks, calligraphy, illustration and truly clever design solutions that get excluded in these approach's.

I have been developing web sites for awhile now and I came across a new, to me, Gotcha.
 
I was simply adding some social networking icons to the bottom of a site, I gathered the jpgs of the icons
and created a file directory called "icons" in my root folder. When I checked out my masterpiece
the icons did not show up. I instantly thought - ok I have addressed them incorrectly or made some other silly mistake.
 
Well I checked the coding all was good, still no images showing up. On a whim, and because in the back of my mind
I thought I had come across directory name issues before. I changed the name of the directory to "myicons" - tada
all was good.
 
After a little digging I found out that you can not use the directory name "icons" on a Linux server as it is a reserved directory name.
(you can I guess change that if you feel like digging into it).
 
But as a cautionary tale, and especially given the popularity of linking to social network site with icons. Don't use the directory name
"Icons".

I recently upgraded my Photoshop to CS4 11.0, I know .. but better late than never. I started to have all sorts of
crashing problems. I was getting the "could not complete your request because of a program error" and the always lovely
"An unexpected and unrecoverable problem has occurred. Photoshop will now exit".
 
Well after spending half a day reloading the app, trashing preferences all the usual stuff nothing helped.
I then realized that all this started after I loaded some fonts supplied by a client. So I removed them and all seems to be good.
 
I have discovered that a corrupted font can bring down the mighty Photoshop. I did notice that the latest update 11.0.1 states that it fixes
this know issue. So if you are having these problems, and I know your out their, judging by my google searches on the subject.
 
I have updated to 11.0.1 so far so good. I hope this helps someone out there from having to spend hours try to resolve this problem
 
my work rig - MAC OSX 10.5.7 PPC dual processor

Close your eyes.
 
Imagine that three-quarters of your company's value is intangible. You know, the things that accountants don’t count, like knowledge, culture, brand recognition, trade dress, customer service, research, reputation. The things that consumers really connect with (not the steak, the sizzle).
 
Open your eyes. It's true.
 
So, if intangible assets - human talent, trademarks and brand equity, innovation capabilities, institutional knowledge and skills, databases and information systems, reputation, goodwill, proprietary knowledge - account for over 75% of a company's value….
 
And, wealth creation in the 21st century is driven by talented people converting intangibles into tangible goods and services that have financial value….
 
Then, why are the core sources of intangible asset development - design, marketing, advertising, R&D, talent development and training - often the first 'expenses' cut in an economic downturn?
 
The question has several possible answers. One is a fault in the way assets are counted and valued: if intangibles can't be counted, are not reflected on a company's balance sheet and can’t be valued, there is a perception that they have no value.
 
The other is that there truly is a lack of understanding in business about the value of intangibles, and by extension, those who produce them and convert them to tangible outcomes.
 
But the real value of intangibles isn’t a new idea: a 2001 report from the Brookings Institute notes "It is widely accepted that intangible (knowledge or intellectual) assets are the major drivers of corporate value and growth in most economic sectors…"
 
And Kaplan and Norton based their 2004 book Strategy Maps on the fact that "intangible assets - those not measured by a company's financial system - account for more than 75% of a company's value."
 
The British Design Council's 'Value of Design' report found that:
- Shares in design-led businesses outperform key stock market indices by 200%
- every $100 spent on design increases revenue by $225 and profit by $83
- companies that maximize return-on-talent realize a 5-fold increase in average profits (compared to a one-third increase in return-on-capital)
 
So there is overwhelming evidence of the measurable value of design and creativity to a company's bottom line.
 
We're in the intangibles business and we wanted to get the word out.
 
To thrive in a downturn and beyond, hire back your designers, get your researchers and scientists back in the lab and stoke the marketing department's engines.
 
And don’t just take our word for it…pass these along to the unbelievers you meet:
 
Reporting Intangibles
http://www.athenaalliance.org/apapers/ReportingIntangibles.htm
 
The Value of Design Factfinder report
http://195.157.47.227:8080/design-council/pdf/TheValueOfDesignFactfinder.pdf
 
Intangibles: Management, Measuerment and Reporting
http://www.brookings.edu/press/Books/2001/intangibles_book.aspx