Wish You Were Here

Our national parks are a treasure. They are some of the most beautiful and awe inspiring places in our country.

Yosemite, Yellowstone, Zion, Grand Canyon, Arches, Sequoia, Grand Teton. The names alone spark visions of splendor in almost everyone who has visited one.

Almost everyone.

With more and more people’s travel limited by Covid - our national parks are experiencing massive surges in visitor volume.

Now, if I know one thing about marketing, it’s that people write more product reviews when they hated something than when they loved it.

When people love something, the last thing they usually think about doing is going back and a writing a glowing review. They’re too busy being happy.

But, when people didn’t have such a great experience, the chances are pretty good they will look for a way to vent their displeasure.

Here are some reviews from our national park websites:

Sequoia National Park: “Terrible. There are bugs - and they will bite you on the face.”

Grand Teton National Park: “All I saw was a lake, some mountains and some trees. That’s it.”

Yosemite: “Trees block the view and there are too many rocks.”

…and my personal favorite:

Grand Canyon National Park: “A hole. A very, very large hole.”

So if you - or your clients - are getting some rough reviews or less than glowing comments on your content, products or services, take heart:

There are many, many more people who loved it than will ever make the time to write about how happy it made them.

You Think it’s a Mistake but it’s Actually Perfect

At the beginning of my entrepreneurial journey perfection was my goal.

I wanted to create perfect logos and websites. Upload perfect videos. Publish perfect blog posts. Send perfect emails.

But it was paralyzing.

And because of that, nothing was getting done.

Five years ago this month, when my finger was finally hovering over the “send” button for the very first issue of this newsletter, I was sweating.

What if I made some grammatical error? What if one of the links goes to the wrong page?

What if something is inaccurate and makes someone, somewhere, somehow irritated at me?

But it turns out I had it wrong all.

Since the 16th century, the Japanese have practiced an aesthetic concept that they call “Wabi-sabi”. It celebrates the slightly flawed, the not-quite symmetrical, the unrefined.

It can be seen in pottery with rough uneven edges or intentional chips, in architecture with off-center roofs, in the patchwork robes worn by Buddhist monks.

It embraces the idea is that imperfections are where the beauty lies.

That the true value resides in the flaws.

We should all remember Wabi-sabi when we go about our marketing work, design work, project work, our conversations with clients.

Because perfection isn’t the goal, it’s the enemy.

It’s the imperfections that make us relatable, interesting and authentic.

And they also help us get things done.

Shedding Some Light

There’s a star at the very tip of the handle of The Little Dipper.

Its astronomical name is Polaris. But, we call it The North Star.

The North Star sheds a lot of light. In fact, it’s 4000 times brighter than our sun.

The really cool thing is that when you look at it, the light you are seeing was actually generated in 1587.

Its light has traveled for 434 years to reach us.

To fill us with wonder and to help travelers navigate.

When I was reading about the North Star I was reminded of a video I did 4 years ago called “9 Things Your Brand Design Must Have”.

When I shared that video on YouTube I didn’t really know what would happen.

I just posted it and hoped it would help someone.

Time passed...

Then someone watched it. Then another and another.

Now, 4 years later it has 382,000 views. And it still gets about 7,000 views a month.

That video sheds light on a topic that has helped a lot of people navigate brand design.

As marketers and creatives we do this stuff all the time.

We produce creative work, content, media, share valuable information. Then we post it out there in cyberspace.

We don’t know who it’s going to help. Or when it will reach them.

But we have to remember that providing value takes time.

And that it will continue to shed light for years to come.

The Wrong Ingredients

There is a marina in Lahaina, a small town on the western coast of Maui, Hawaii and it's home to one of the best scuba diving sites on the island, Mala Wharf.

Mala Wharf is a collapsed pier that extends hundreds of feet into the marina. The submerged slabs and pillars of concrete create an artificial reef teeming with tropical fish, eels, rays, lobster and octopus.

The wharf didn’t collapse with age. It didn’t collapse because of a hurricane or some natural disaster. The wharf’s demise was the result of a bad recipe.

You see, when you make concrete with fresh water the material essentially becomes stone and will last for decades.

But when you cut corners and use salt water instead, the concrete seems OK for a few years, but then it begins to crumble.

Unfortunately, they used the salt water recipe for Mala Wharf.

After the wharf collapsed it was going to be far too expensive to clean it up. So they just left it there - and let the marine life take over.

Building a successful brand is like building something out of concrete.

You need to use the right recipe.

You need a solid brand strategy, a stunning brand design and to create an impeccable brand experience.

If you cut corners, before you know it things will start to crumble and cleaning up the mess gets expensive fast.

But if you use the right ingredients and a proven recipe, that brand will last for decades.

Create Your Wonder Wall

A couple years ago they made an amazing discovery in the Colombian Amazon. They call it Serranía La Lindosa.

It’s an 8-mile-long rock wall. A “canvas” completely covered with ice age drawings of mastodons, giant sloths, geometric designs, human figures in hunting scenes and nurturing plants and trees.

The ochre pigment has lasted for over 12,000 years telling the story of the indigenous people who painted it.

Now let’s be clear...

These people didn’t paint an 8-mile mural in a day.

It started with a single drawing. Then the first tiny scene. Then, over hundreds of years it became a vast panorama of images crowded together, mile after mile.

But what if they’d decided after the first mile that it was enough. That it had all been said. The wall was already so crowded. Who would see their pictures? Why bother adding to it?

We’re glad now that they resisted that impulse.

The stories they used to document, to educate and even possibly to entertain, are still informing us now.

Fast forwarding to today. Many of us are creating content to communicate, to build authority, to make our presence known.

We need to take a lesson from these Amazonians.

Don’t be intimidated by the vast crowded canvas of the internet.

Don’t think that your story is just adding to the noise.

Make your mark. Build upon it. Invest time, effort and intellectual capital.

Build a body of work that speaks for you. That works to tell your story.

You Need a Megaphone

You wouldn’t think tree crickets have a lot to do with marketing, but they do.

You see, female tree crickets like two things in their mates: size and loudness. If you’re big male tree cricket with a really loud song, you’ve got it made. You get all the attention.

But the curious thing is there are a lot of smaller, quieter male tree crickets out there too. You’d think that their stature would have doomed them in the cricket gene pool long ago.

But if you thought that, you’d be wrong.

That’s because these smaller dudes figured out that if you find a cone-shaped leaf, chew a hole in it, stick your body through and sing your cricket song it’s like using a big-ass megaphone.

In fact, scientists have recorded song volume increases of up to 3x.

Which tends to get the attention of their target audience.

So if you’re a small player and you can’t compete with the marketing the big guys are doing what can you do?

You just take a lesson from the crickets. You find the right amplifier.

The good news is that there are plenty to choose from: LinkedIn, Twitter, Clubhouse, Instagram stories, YouTube.

Megaphones just waiting to make you seem bigger and sound louder than you actually are.

You just have to chew a hole and start singing your song.

14 Trends in Graphic Design for 2021

I want to share with you 14 trends that I've seen in graphic design moving into 2021 that are exhibiting themselves in the marketplace. 

The thing you want to remember about trends is that trends aren't seeing into the future, they're not some sort of crystal ball. They are movements in design that have gained enough traction and enough usage to actually be recognized as something that is “trending”.

Trends aren't always brand new, in fact, very little has never been done before. I recommend you use trends to stay inspired, take them and make them your own. Take them to a different place in your creative work, or you can consciously react completely against them if that's what you choose to do. But knowing what is trending is critical either way.

#1: A.I. Design

Everything you're going to see on this slide was actually designed by a computer. This is machine learning. This is artificial intelligence designed, created by computers. Now it's not great design, but it's important because even though it's clunky and it's primitive, so was Microsoft Paint back in the day, so were the first Macintosh's right. It will only get better. It will only get more sophisticated over time. Yes, these look kind of surreal and deconstructivist, but they are something that you have to pay attention to.

#2 Electric Fade

Electric Fade has been around for a while, but it just keeps getting deeper. Electric Fade is characterized by electric turquoise and cyans and purples and magentas, being used in curvilinear blends. It's being used in tech and in sportswear and in print and in environments, it's even being used in political ads. Two of the graphics on the right side of this slide are from the Biden-Harris campaign. It used to be really cutting edge, but now in many ways it's going much more mainstream. This is a classic definition of a trend. It is something that's been around for a little while and gaining momentum and used to be a little low on guard, but now it's definitely getting mass usage.

#3 Environ-mental

This is topography that's being used in physical environments. It's used in wayfinding and interior design, art installations, retail stores, and museum display. These are single letters or blocks of text or numbers that are much like a trend that's going to come later in this presentation called singularity. It's stacked topography, it's often in all caps. Often it's wrapping around three-dimensional objects or surfaces or around corners. And it uses elements of force perspective, that's optical illusions that are making elements feel closer or farther away than they are now.

#4 Figure isolation 

These are human figures where the background has been removed and they've been placed on open, airy, or blank environments. This creates a juxtaposition between the 3D of the figure and the flatness of the design element's colors and texts that surround them. There are graphic elements, texts, shapes wrapping around through and over the figures. This gives it the design of focal point or an anchor to these more abstract elements. The figure kind of grounds in the abstract composition in reality, and it gives the eye a place to rest and orient itself in terms of the picture plane.

#5 Redline

Red line is characterized by red, black, and white compositions. Red, black, and white are one of the most striking color combinations. It's an emotional spectrum. Color red is angry and powerful environment. In fact, when psychiatric patients are given colors to work with in art therapy, red and black always run out first. This color combination is often used with black and white photography, and it shows up in outdoor advertising, active wear apparel, print, packaging, transportation, and even retail. There's almost no way to go wrong with black, white, and red.

#6 Sliver of Light

Sliver of light isn't as much of a trend as it is a graphic technique to draw the eye into a composition. It's mainly used in illustration and text layouts where the illustration is the primary storytelling device. It's characterized by a Ray of light that acts as a visual pathway to pull the eye into the composition. It's often used with a human figure as the focal point of that light. It's used in things like movie posters and book covers and editorial illustration, and it really creates an intense sense of drama and mystery in the composition.

#7 Architext

This trend is characterized by text blocks that are used as the main design elements. They're used as whimsical shapes, circles, curves, asymmetrical building blocks. These can be paired with photography and illustration, but generally text is the primary focus. Headlines and subheads can sometimes be put at right angles to each other. In this trend, the legibility or the ability to navigate the reading order of these paragraphs is of very little importance. This trend is arty, it's pretentious, and in it topography becomes the main design element in and of itself.

#8 Decontextualize

This trend is characterized by topography in a state of mid destruction. It's traditional elements of designs, topography, graphics, photos, shapes, and elements that are put into a kind of a visual blender. The result is abstract design, design for design's sake. It's used in design publications, in the music industry, in print and magazine work, and in event announcement posters. It's reminiscent of David Carson and Raygun magazine. It breaks all of the rules of design, graphic design that skirts the edges of fine art. Communication in this trend is of very little importance at all.

#9 Bright Geo

This trend is very similar to the Geo Max trend of last year, except the difference lies in the icon and the block shapes. It's characterized by Tetris-like building block shapes that are bisected and quartered circles, simple color palettes of reds, blues, oranges, and greens, also muted tones of gray, and they're all grounded in black or dark navy. Bright Geo is used in brand ID systems and web icons and editorial. It's even used in Google's G Suite icons. It's usually used in flat color compositions only, but it can be used in combination with photography and natural textural elements.

#10 It's All a Blur 

One of my favorite trends for 2021, It's All a Blur is a very popular trend and it's characterized by kind of an overlaid scrim of plastic or Mylar or just elements that are plain out of focus. We're seeing it everywhere, it's in video media, in animation, in signage, in editorial, in print. It's being used with figurative elements, typography, numerals, photography, and it creates a depth, a sense of mystery. It sparks curiosity and creates a level of visual movement that brings a real level of interest to a flat graphic picture plane.

#11 Chiseled Type

Chiseled Type is retro typography that's really historically anchored in the sign painting industry. It's a subset of the Sign Painters trend from my 2020 Graphic Design Trend video on YouTube. It's been adopted by art, graffiti, street culture, tattoo culture, and modern sign painters. This trend is characterized by fonts that are crafted to look 3D, as if they were carved out of or into stone or wood. Type designers have really adopted this style and are putting really interesting new twists on it. Single letter forms take on a monolithic life of their own and really become sculptures in their own right.

#12 Singularity

Singularity is characterized by composition that uses a single letter or number or a symbol as the main abstract anchor of the composition. It's a celebration of the abstract beauty of a single letter or number and its forms and shapes. It's often dramatically cropped and often used as an abstract element to wrap text around or intertwined with other forms, or it can be treated texturally in brushstrokes or in patterns. It's being used everywhere from editorial print to packaging, to illustration, and promotional posters.

#13 Wavy Gravy

Wavy Gravy is an offshoot of a trend from my 2019 Graphic Design Trend video on YouTube that I called Warp Speed. In this trend, topography is warped to create a wave shape. Sometimes they're regular waves, like an optical illusion to impede legibility of the text. Sometimes it's visually faithful to the text, but it's printed like it's on a waving fabric, like a flag or a banner. It's often used in black and white, but not exclusively. It's used mainly in print, and animation, and posters.

#14 Bee Yellow

Pantone announced its Colors for 2021. The colors are Illuminating Yellow and Ultimate Gray. This is not a graphic design trend in and of itself, it's really more like a dominant color story trend of yellow, black, white, and an injection of gray. I feel it's a psychological reaction against the difficult year that we've had in 2020 with the political upheaval and the Covid-19 pandemic, all of our financial struggles and the negativity overall in the world. It's kind of forecasting or encouraging a brighter outlook for 2021 and it's already being heavily adopted and used everywhere. It's showing up in product design and web design, sports apparel, editorial, print, the financial industry, promotional marketing, travel, and even entertainment.

How Can We Help Your Business Succeed?

Is your brand rockin' like nobody elses? Or is it a little tired? Maybe it's just being born. You want to do it right. That's where we come in.

We create new brands from scratch. We fix broken ones. We have all the brainpower, creative chops and marketing magic you’ll ever need and a ton of loyal clients to prove it.

You want nimble? We're the new agency paradigm. We scale up and down depending on your needs so you never pay for resources you aren’t using.

We’ll put the power of brand strategy, design and the most contemporary marketing techniques to work for you. Let’s talk.

So You Want To Go Viral?

When I was in college I worked on an archeological dig on an island off the coast of Crete, drawing the ruins of Minoan buildings built in 1450 B.C.

It sounds very exciting and exotic when you talk about it back in the States at a cocktail party.

But the thing I learned about archeology is that what sounds exciting and exotic is actually a shit-ton of monotonous work.

Hours spent in 105 degree heat dripping sweat/mud onto your drawings because you’re downwind from the dirt sifting guys.

Days hunched over a table sorting through buckets of gravel with a tiny paintbrush looking for 3500 year-old mouse turds and fish bones.

People just think of archeology as the spectacular tiled floors we discovered. The frescos. The bowls adorned with octopuses. The drawings in the Library of Congress.

The same thing happens when clients want to be YouTubers, podcasters and bloggers.

People only see the end product and think how profitable creating content can be.

All the site traffic they’ll get when their stuff goes viral.

What they don’t see are the days that must be spent brainstorming ideas, writing, revising, shooting, recording, editing, documenting, promoting and analyzing data.

So if your clients want to publish content, have an impact on social media, get thousands of subscribers. Just make sure they are prepared to go the distance.

Because it’s not all exciting and exotic.

And they’re going to have to sift through a shit-ton of mouse turds to get there.

We Have Lift-off

It was 1960 and we were in a race with the Russians to put a man into orbit.

Project Mercury was the name of our program that was eventually going to do it.

The operative word here is “eventually”.

The first Altas-type rocket exploded. So NASA switched to the Redstone rocket that had taken our first satellite into orbit.

The test flight of the new spacecraft and its recovery systems was scheduled. They wheeled the rocket onto the launch pad...3, 2, 1. Ignition!

There was an incredible roar, the rocket disappeared behind a huge plume of smoke. The technicians thought the rocket had accelerated so quickly they didn’t even see it go.

That’s because it didn’t go.

It lifted off a full 4 inches and then dropped back down on the platform. Thankfully, still upright.

But then the escape rocket did take off. It shot up 4000 feet then fell to earth. Then the re-entry parachutes deployed and fluttered down beside the fizzling rocket.

It was a comical failure. But it was a start.

As marketers, entrepreneurs and business partners, whenever we have out-sized dreams fueled by a desire to surpass strong competition, we have to start. We have to pick the best rocket we have and begin testing.

Things might not go as planned. We might not get into orbit on the first try.

But a four inch flight is better than standing still.

Because eventually we’ll accelerate so quickly they won’t even see us go.

5 Big Branding Mistakes And How To Fix Them

"It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently." -Warren Buffet

If you are like most professionals, you’ve put many hours of hard work into your brand. Building a brand is important, but even more critical is focusing on the right aspects of your brand building. Focus on the areas that have a huge impact on buying decisions. Zero-in on the things that will 2X your business. Most importantly, avoid eroding your hard work by doing things that can hurt your brand. 

Let’s zero-in on five things that may hurt your brand without you even knowing. Fix these, and you’ll be ahead of the game.

Number 1: Lack of Consistency: An inconsistent brand image can do more damage than you may know. It sends the message, “We care, but not too much,” or “Some details slide by us.” This perception will force you to leave money on the table; your clients will be confused and unwilling to spend more.

Brand Fix: A consistent brand inspires confidence and trust. It will cultivate client partnerships that easily bring in cash because people will know what to expect and gladly pay for your services. 

Consistent brand presentation across all platforms increases revenue up by up to 23 percent Forbes.com

Build on these main design elements first:

• Color

• Fonts

• Logo

• Photography treatment

• Layout style

Gather all of your marketing and branding assets and check that each is consistent across all brand touchpoints: social media, website, content and media artwork, newsletters, emails, etc. Frequently it is a good idea to engage an outside partner, such as a branding firm or consultancy to provide you an unbiased opinion and fresh pair of eyes on your visual assets. 

Wherever your brand is, create a plan for how and when your branding elements will be used. Create a brand book that allows everyone in the company to know the guidelines and rules for usage. Showing up in the same way every time someone encounters your brand will build brand equity over time. 

Consistency breeds loyalty.

Number 2: Poor Website Design. Your website is usually the first place people look for your brand “heartbeat.” Unfortunately, some big mistakes can turn potential customers off. 

Studies show that people judge a brand as good or bad in as little as 0.5 seconds (Behaviour and Information Technology, 2011).

You have about half a second to look as professional as possible. 

If you’re not putting your best foot forward, you are losing money. Here’s proof:

• 38% of people will stop engaging with a website if it is unattractive

• 59% of UK consumers “would not use a company that had obvious grammatical or spelling mistakes on its website or marketing material” (cnewcomer.com)

• 75% of consumers admit that they judge a business’ credibility based on their website design (business.com)

Brand Fix: The design elements that erode credibility when executed badly are: 

• Overall visual branding and layout

• Navigation

• Content

• Customer journey/content/messaging

Some things to consider to improve your design and usability: 

• Add an easy contact form 

• Add a straightforward scheduling app like Calendly or SimplyBook.me 

• Create a visible, uniform pricing structure to avoid customer confusion

• Add social links to other channels so customers can find you where they hang out online

• Create links to quality content that is valuable or meaningful to your audience

• Fix all typos or broken links and make sure your site is free of 404 errors (One entrepreneur increased his Google ranking for one page by 486% after fixing all typos)

Number 3: Low-Quality Content. Inferior content is worse than no content at all. Customers want to see content that reflects their specific problem or circumstance. Let these statistics inform your content choices:

• 56% of marketers attribute higher brand engagement to personalized marketing content. 

• 45% of people say they would unfollow a brand on social media if it spends too much time talking about its products.

Brand Fix: If you are publishing articles and blog posts, high-quality means information that is valuable to your target audience. Be sure to represent your brand’s unique point of view so you stand out from the crowd. 

If you are posting video or audio files, consider things like sound quality, video quality, lighting quality, and editing. Get the best your money can buy, and your brand is on its way to being seen as a leader.

Make a commitment to posting and updating regularly.

There is a great quote by Chad Pollitt who said, “SEO is not something you do anymore. It’s what happens when you do everything else right.” Frequent posting of quality content will do more to boost your Google search results than  any back-end SEO metadata trickery will do these days. Keep in mind, a site that is not updated regularly looks “abandoned” to Google algorithms and is consequently downgraded in search results. 

Number 4: MeMeMe. Avoid the trap of talking all about yourself. Small businesses, entrepreneurs, and creative professionals do this frequently, and I understand. Talking about the product or service you built from the ground up comes naturally, but it doesn’t attract ideal customers. It turns them off.

Brand Fix: Businesses that have a line out the door have one thing in common: they are consumer-centric. They turn the spotlight on their customers and they keep it there. Here’s how you can put your customer center stage:

Get clear about your customer’s problem and how you fix it. 

Articulate it plainly, in a voice that resonates with your audience. Ask them problem-focused questions in your copy such as:

•  "Are you looking for a new logo and don't know where to start?"

• "Need a video production company but you have no contacts or resources?"

• "Are the prices you're paying for website design too high?"

•  "Is your SEO failing and you don't know exactly how to address it?" 

These all pique the interest of a potential buyer because they focus is on the problem they are trying to solve. If customers have that problem, they will quickly read more. 

If you’re having trouble writing customer-centric copy, listen to what your customers are saying. Go where they hang out, online or in person, and take note of their problems or pain points. Mold your content and story around their needs, wants and desires. This is called mirroring; because you are “reflecting” what the customers see or say to themselves in their mind. 

Mirror how customers talk about their problems.

Mirroring draws the customer in and makes them want to know more. It helps them know that you understand their problem and you are the one to fix it.

(Read more about the art and science of mirroring and this Forbes article)

Number 5: Master of None. Trying to be everything to everyone is a brand-killer. Creating too broad an offering or having too vast of a target audience diminishes your ability to market effectively. If you're trying to address too many different customers or needs, people won't know how you're going to help them. Instead, they'll buy from someone else whom they feel better understands their problem.

Brand Fix: To create irresistible copy, be as specific as possible. There's a saying, "The riches are in the niches;" you can have a successful, money-making business if you focus on one specific target. The internet has made the business community global, which means there are almost limitless places that your potential clients can get the services they need. 

Position yourself as the “exact” service provider to solve their distinct problem. The more specific you can be about who your target customer is, the problem you solve, and how you can help them, the more successful you’ll be.

Building a brand takes effort over time, but with effort in the right areas, you can make your brand shine brightly. Avoid the pitfalls and you’ll be well on your way to having a line of clients out the door.

Become a Great Public Speaker With These Quick Tips

If you want to reach the next level of your career, you can’t gloss over your public speaking skills. Successful designers, entrepreneurs, and creative professionals must present their ideas effectively and defend their work convincingly to an audience. 

Honing your public speaking skills exponentially increases your chances of success in your career. 

The opportunity to directly influence an audience is invaluable and is certainly worth the effort to improve.

If you are afraid of public speaking, you are not alone. 25% of people in the world rank public speaking as their number one fear. As Psychology Today explains it, there are myriad physiological reactions, negative thoughts and false beliefs that instantaneously paralyze you with fear when you take the stage.

Even if you’re not paralyzed with fear, you’re bound to get a little nervous before you present. You need to accept the fear. Quietly acknowledge, “I’m feeling nervous.” If you try to fight it, it will make it worse. 

Use these tips to feel more confident about your preparation, presentation, and follow-up.

Preparation

Watch and Learn: Watching great speakers and deconstructing their presentations will help you understand the important components of an outstanding speech. TED has some amazing videos from some of the best speakers in the world. Watch as many as you can and ask yourself: 

• How do they start their talk? 

• How do they engage the audience? 

• How do they tell a story? 

• How do they walk and move? 

• How do they present the slides that are behind them? 

• What's the cadence of their speech? 

• Do they tell jokes or are they serious? 

• Are they quiet or loud? 

Here’s a list of the 25 Most Popular TED Talks Of All Time to get you started. If you want to go even deeper, this video from Chris Anderson, TED Curator, explains the one secret ingredient of all great TED talks.

Rehearse: Knowing your material is the most important preparation step. 

Write diligent speaker notes and know your slides cold. Memorize everything until your presentation is mistake-free. Many people find mnemonics are very helpful with memorization. 

Mnemonics are based on pictorial memory, so if you are a visual person, it may be the right solution for you. This video from Mike Michalowicz, author of the business cult classic, The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur, teaches you the basics of mnemonics memorization. 

Assess: Observe yourself, either in a mirror or on video, to perfect your presentation. Notice and correct any distracting habits like:

1. Using filler words like "um," "ah," “like,” and “so.”

2. Long pauses or a very slow speech cadence. This will make it difficult for the audience to stay with you.

3. No pauses or rushing your words.  This will make it difficult for the audience to absorb what you have to say.

4. Using your hands too much.

It’s easy to lose perspective when you are watching yourself, so get constructive criticism. Invite your friends and family to watch your presentation. Ask them for their impressions and tell them not to hold back. They will tell you what you can’t see. 

When You're In The Room

Always Be Early. Ensure that you have a few quiet moments before everyone arrives. When you first get to the room, take a moment to collect your thoughts and breathe. Relax and release any feelings of being rushed. 

Next, make sure everything works. Gather your visuals, laptop, projector, and anything else you’ll need during the presentation. Make sure your laptop is charged and has the right plugs for the projector. Laptops have been known to crash the second you're about to start your presentation, so make sure you have a backup presentation and note cards or printouts so you can present without slides. 

Preparing for a disaster is very important. 

When I was presenting to Disney years ago, I brought my laptop that had my presentation on it in my backpack. When my colleagues and I arrived, the Disney executives gave us bottles of water. I took a sip, then put it in my backpack and went on a tour of the corporate offices.

When I got to the presentation room and opened my backpack, it was filled with 3 inches of water. My laptop was literally dripping as I pulled it out. It was soaked and destroyed. Luckily, I had a backup of the presentation on a thumb drive and was able to use someone else's laptop. 

Stuff happens. Have backup.

Setting The Stage: As speaker, you set the tone and mood of the presentation. 

Here’s a home-spun proven formula to start a speech and keep audiences engaged:

1. Tell ’em what you’re going to tell ’em

2. Tell ’em

3. Then, tell ’em what you told ’em.

Set your speech up with a very clear introduction about what you're presenting and why. 

This creates anticipation for the audience. After that brief intro, launch into your presentation. At the end, briefly review the key points in a concise conclusion. This structure grounds people in the beginning, the middle, and the end of a presentation. 

Own the room: This is the one time in your life where you want to be the center of attention. To do that, begin by asking the audience a question and then get them to respond by raising their hands. Some speakers even have people stand up, or tell them to clap or shout, “hell yeah!” They're taking control by forcing people to do something. That control makes them the de facto director of everything that’s happening in the room.

Avoid “Death By Powerpoint:” Keep your slides simple. Too much text, also known as "death by PowerPoint," makes it tempting for the speaker to just sit there and read through it, which will bore the audience to death. It also takes your face away from the audience which means you can’t control the room. 

Keep your slides super simple with minimal text so you aren't drawn to try to read them. 

Once Upon A Time: Stories are incredibly engaging. Tell a story or use a metaphor to make a point. Stories help people remember and internalize what it is that you're talking about.

Where’s Waldo: Be animated and lively when you are presenting. Walk around - don't pace frantically, but periodically move across the space. This keeps eyes on you and attention on what you are saying.

Make ‘em laugh: Have fun with your presentation and others will too. Don’t be afraid to tell a joke or put a funny or quirky slide in your presentation. I like to show a slide that is a red herring or doesn't fit in with the rest of the deck because it wakes people up. 

Having fun with your material is a great way to make sure the audience won’t be working on their phones or reading through their laptop during your presentation.

As You Are: Be human. Be vulnerable. People identify with the person who's presenting to them. They will, more often than not, give you some leeway to make mistakes or to say something that doesn't make sense. 

After The Presentation

Leave the last 5 to 10 minutes of your presentation for conversation and questions. This is where things really happen because you are interacting and connecting with the audience in a more genuine way. Speaking off the cuff forges a deeper connection; your audience can get a better sense of who you are with just a few minutes of candid discussion. 

If things don't go well - and it happens, don't make excuses but don’t get down on yourself either. Know you did the best job you could and move on. Don't admit that it didn’t go well when you're in the room. Always thank the audience for their time and attention and leave with your head held high. 

Perfecting your public speaking skills requires practice and patience. If you’re like most people, you’ll want to get better at it quickly, but be patient. Get practice by speaking regularly, either in an informal group of friends with public speaking goals, or through a formal organization like Toastmasters International.  If you are ready for the next level, this article from Inc.com will get you started with apps that can improve your public speaking skills. 

When we can all gather in person, someday soon hopefully, I hope to see you presenting at the next industry conference!

7 Ways To Get More Brand Awareness Right Now

Building a brand has three important stages: being recognized, remembered, and revered. This article is going to cover the first of the three stages.

When your brand is recognized it means you’ve done a great job of creating a shortcut in people’s brains That shortcut is called brand awareness, and it’s what drives clients right to your door when they have a problem you can solve.

Brand awareness side-steps the need to explain your brand values or mission; your branding is so effective that people are already familiar with you and how you stand apart from your competitors. Potential clients know what you do and how you can help as soon as they see your logo, hear your company name, or see your brand colors. 

Brand awareness can always be increased with a few simple yet effective strategies. Here are my 7 trusted methods for building brand awareness:

Number 1: Partner with Other Brands. It's beneficial to establish partnerships with other brands, especially when you're starting out. It’s mutually beneficial to expose your audiences to each other’s work, and you're both growing your audience.

Mature brands partner too, and for the same reason: it adds value to customers’ lives. Some examples of this are Red Bull and GoPro, Apple and Mastercard, Pottery Barn and Williams Sonoma, and Spotify and Starbucks. 

“Partnerships are definitely very important,” says Adidas Originals’ global director of digital and retail marketing, Swave Szymczyk. “As long as they are not only strategic but also reflect who we are as a brand and what we believe in, it really drives authenticity.

“You can talk about who you are as a brand all day long but having those partnerships to authenticate that message is really critical for every brand.” ‘(marketingweek.com)

You can partner with other like-minded brands to co-publish blog posts or articles, create videos or do podcast interviews. Share space in a trade show booth, or at a special event to add value to each others’ audience. Great partnerships add rocket fuel to your brand recognition and create terrific allies for your growth.

Number 2: Guest Post. While most people think big and want to pen an article for Huffington post right away, that probably won’t happen. But if you start small and build credibility over time, you will get the chance to write for larger and larger publications. Start by researching brands that have similar audiences and then create some outlines for original, juicy content you know the publication’s audience will love. 

Pitch your content via email - your pitches will go easily if you’ve done your research well. Include a sample headline of the type of content you would write or links to previous content that you've written for other brands or for your blog. Keep your pitch brief and be very clear. Because editors get dozens of pitch emails a day and make decisions in a matter of seconds, you need to put your best foot forward.

Number 3: Social Heft. Create brand recognition like a social media ninja. This is done by frequently developing  shareable content like:

• Graphics

• Infographics(see #4)

• Quotes

• Memes

• Videos

• Guides

• Lists

According to vennage.com, original graphics are far more engaging than stock photos, memes, videos, and charts, so create your own visuals as often as you can.

Focus on hot topics in the industry and always ask people to share your content -  they won't share unless you ask. There are other well-known triggers to getting people to share your content, and you should explore them all to see which works best for your brand. 

“See” your audience and engage with them. Once you’ve got the hot content, links, and shares, you have to engage by answering comments, asking questions, celebrating their good news, and giving advice if needed. 

Number 4: Infographics. They are so powerful, I had to reserve a spot only for them. Everyone loves infographics. They are easy to digest and you don’t need to be an expert in the field to get value from them. 90% of the information that's transmitted to the human brain is transmitted visually, and we process images 60,000 times faster than we process text (news.mit.edu). Visual representations of information are easier and faster to internalize. The added plus is, they’re also entertaining.

You can repurpose articles, blogs, statistics, processes, strategies, and plans into infographics. Anyone can do it. Free services that make it easy to create infographics are Visme,  Venngage, Canva, and Piktochart.

Your infographics should promote the type of work that you do, showcase your innovative ideas and display the resources and data that would be helpful to your potential customers. Push it out to the category of business that you help.

Be sure to brand all your infographics.  A common mistake is to omit your branding, which means you won’t get credit for your brilliant content. Include your logo, URL and contact information to increase brand awareness. 

Number 5: Publish or Perish. Publishing content is probably one of the best ways to increase brand awareness because it's shareable and evergreen. Be sure that you get the most out of your hard work and repurpose your content across a range of platforms. For example, by writing an article and turning it into a podcast or a video, you can leverage the different ways people prefer to consume content

Publishing also increases your credibility, establishes you as a thought leader, and promotes your industry expertise. Publishing gives you a platform to champion trends and innovations, and allows you to easily share valuable resources like apps, services, and tutorials. 

Number 6: Leverage Friend Referrals. People are much more apt to follow recommendations from a friend than they would from any kind of brand advertising. My good friend and founder of Youpreneur.com, Chris Ducker, calls this P2P, or people-to-people marketing. 

There's a geometric progression of growth in asking for friend referrals. For instance, if you have a tribe of 10 people and you ask them to share the good word about your work with four of their friends, suddenly, you've turned that into 40 brand impressions. That’s a fantastic way to land very trusting, yet inexpensive leads. 

P2P marketing needs to be done in a very open and honest way that makes it easy for people to refer you. Create valuable content like a “How-To” guide or “Top 5 Features of Top-Performing Websites,” for your friends to share with their friends and colleagues.

Dropbox used P2P when they were starting out. They offered free disk space to anybody who recommended them to a friend. They gave 500 megabytes of disk space, capping it at 16 gigabytes. While that’s a huge giveaway, their referrals grew by 60% and they doubled their users every three months for some time.

Some irresistible incentives you can try include:

• Downloadable resource lists 

• Checklist

• Guides

• Common mistake list (don’t forget the fixes!)

You can even use your lead magnet as an incentive.

When asking for referrals, be brave and go beyond close friends. Ask your audience to share your incentive with a network connection and see how much exponential growth you can create for your brand awareness. A bold move here could pay off handsomely.

Number 7: Use consistent visual and verbal branding. Consistency is probably the most important thing you can do to increase brand awareness. Logo, colors, fonts, imagery, layout, photography style, and thumbnails need to be aligned. It helps you with the 3 R’s: being recognized, remembered and revered. 

Brand equity is achieved in steps and it all begins with awareness. You must be recognized before you can be remembered. Once you're remembered, and you deliver real value with your brand over time you're on your way to being revered. And being revered is the gold standard of any brand.

14 Trends in Graphic Design for 2020

Let’s look at some trends for 2020.

But first let’s set some ground rules.

Trends are to be defined as movements in design that have gained wide enough usage that they can actually be recognized as a "trend". They're not necessarily always brand new or the newest thing out there. In fact, very little has never been done before. Some styles go back decades, some go back hundreds of years, but styles are always morphing, they're always being revisited. There's always new "takes" on them, new variations on them. So graphic designers, I encourage you to be inspired by these trends, not necessarily to copy them directly. It's important that you know what they are because you can choose to be inspired by them or you can choose to consciously react against them.

Or if you choose, you can completely ignore them and focus on your own vision or your own ideas. But knowing what they are is critical. And for entrepreneurs and small business people, being aware of trends is assuring that your brand stays contemporary, it stays relevant and that's important to brand perception.

And with that, let's jump right into it and look at some trends.

#1 Betamax

Betamax is to be recognized by rainbow ribbons of color. It references late seventies early eighties video cassette boxes and California surf apparel like the Ocean Pacific brand. It's clean, it's bright, it's has a level of positivity to it and also is reminiscent of Morris Louis, the 1950s American abstract painter who painted color field paintings. It also has references to sixties and seventies home furnishings, a really fun, bright and interesting trend.

#2 1890's Ornate

This trend is to be recognized by deeply detailed, ornate type, borders, frames, ornaments, fluid flourishes of shapes, gilding and gold leafing. The kind of thing that you'd see in pubs and bars and the windows of restaurants. It was revived by Stranger and Stranger, a packaging design firm that's done a whole lot of work in the spirits category and it was also been revived and seen a lot in tattoo culture. It's a reaction against minimalist design. In itself, it's kind of "maximalism". It's linked to the resurgence of premium handcrafted products, craftsmanship, leather goods, IPA beers, woodworking. It's a high-touch, high-attention to detail design style. It's seen also in chalkboard culture where it's like a dichotomy of ideas: super labor-intensive work versus the impermanence of a chalkboard.

#3 Double Exposure

Double Exposure is seen frequently in motion design. It's recognized by combining imagery: using imagery as masks, masking imagery with imagery. It creates feelings of mystery and romanticism and poeticism. It's used in video and motion, but it's also used in static design. Typography can also be used in masking video. There's increased usage of this style because design applications have made it simpler and easier to produce this effect and it was popularized a few years ago in an HBO special called True Detective in that series trailer.

#4 Electric Gradient

This can be recognized by hyper bright, high-chroma illuminated gradients of color, multiple smooth gradients overtaking the entire image area. It's a reaction against material design and flatness and simplicity. It's being used in illustration and design layout, framing, and typographic treatments. It can be used as a major idea or just as a small element in a larger design. In brand identity, there's a resurgence of complexity and the use of gradients. Historically, gradients had been very hard to produce in print, in physical print, but now that everything is digital, there are no barriers to using gradients. Nothing is holding us back from using them anymore.

#5 Fruitopia

Fruitopia is recognized by fruit being a major visual design element. Fruit being used as a symbolic reference to something else. It can be a great vehicle to leverage color and shape and a design can be linked to a product or just as humor. Fruit is fun. It's sensual. Taste is a key physical sense. It can be used as a complex design tool, as it operates on multiple levels, visual, color, with psychological links to taste memory. It adds a level of humor and whimsy to a design or layout.

#6 Paper Cut

Paper Cut is recognized by hand cut paper or torn paper using realistic shadows to create physical 3D space. Again, it leverages that handcrafted trend, a level of high-touch labor-intensiveness. Again, this is an act of physical creation. It's being used everywhere, in books and posters and illustration and typography. It can be used as abstract shapes or realistic depictions of something sculptural but made out of paper. It can be clean cut or it can have torn edges. It's a very, very versatile trend. It commands a longer and a second look due to its complexity. It's an intention grabber.

#7 Sign Painter

Sign Painter can be recognized by vintage sign painter fonts and hand-brushed hand stroked letter forms, cursives paired with sans-serif block letters. Again, it's a reaction against clean modernism and computer generated design. It embraces the handcrafted design traditions brought into a modern context. This sort of sign painter design requires skill and training because not just anyone can do it and in a way it gives homage and reference to a simpler time when design was not commoditized or computerized.

#8 Geo Max

Geo Max is recognized by super clean, simple geometric abstract shapes, tubes, circles, bright colors. It's a continuation of Neo Geo, a trend from 2019, but it's even simpler. It references Peter Max's illustrations from the 1970s or yellow submarine, the Beatles cartoon movie done by artist Heinz Edelman, who was considered to be the German Peter Max. It's emotionally fun. It's modernistic, it's clean. You can use abstract figures and human forms that have been radically simplified. It appears in posters and food packaging and web design. Some of these images are from the Bloomberg financial report, which shows that even some super conservative companies are using it.

#9 Tactile Type

Tactile Type is recognized by using unusual materials to create typographic designs. Things like cocoa and cheese and plastic tubes, rolled paper, toast, even rusted hardware. Again, it's more of that high-touch, handcrafted time intensive design. Again, a reaction against computer generated design. It commands attention. It's visually complex. It's visually intense. It's used on book covers and posters and editorial illustration, events and promotions. It bridges the gap between sculpture and design.

#10 Stacked & Packed

Stacked & Packed is to be recognized by all type layouts, jigsawed arrangements of typography, interlocking shapes. It can be hand drawn or it can be computer aided design. There's a long thread of historical design references here from vaudeville posters to music posters to boxing match promotional design of the early 20th century. It's used in motivational posters and greeting cards, fine art editorial illustration. Again, this is high-touch, high-concept, time-intensive to create, which seems to be a recurring theme for 2020.

#11 Isometronic

Isometronic is a mashup of the words isometric and animatronic. Isometric projection is a method of visually representing three dimensional objects in two dimensions in technical or engineering drawings. It first made its appearance in gaming apps from the 1980's QBert, Marble Madness, Sega's Zaxxon. It's recognized by non-vanishing point illustration. It's been popularized in mobile phone gaming apps, adventure apps, strategy, building apps. It's not particularly new, but the moving GIF animated versions of isometrics are trending. They're used in websites and email newsletters and digital editorial illustration. They're being used heavily in business categories and business categories are historically slow to take up trends.

#12 Essentialism

Essentialism is another mashup of existentialism and essentials. It's recognized by hyper minimalistic black and whites sans-serif type in broken layouts with truncated letter forms, creative cropping, creating abstract shapes. It's being used in pharma and beauty and health and beauty aid categories. It's also being used in books and in literature and in poster design. It's the exact opposite of handcrafted. It's cold, it's distant, it's non humanistic. It feels computer generated.

#13 Bad Flyer

Bad Flyer is characterized by what looks like a colored paper Xerox with distressed type textures, haphazard collage layout, unusual amateurish font pairing choices. The history comes from band posters and rock 'zine culture and has roots in Ray Gun magazine and David Carson. It's been used in club and music posters, editorial layout, new 'zine culture, design magazines and educated design resources like the AIGA. It's fun, it's inventive, it's gutsy, it feels anti-design establishment. It's kind of the "bad is good" design aesthetic concept. It's handcrafted design but with basic tools, things like colored paper and scissors and glue and a bad Xerox machine.

#14 Throwback Pixels

Throwback Pixels is characterized by bright garish, high chroma color, heavily pixelated, like bad computer painting app, like MacPaint or MS Paint back in the day. It's like a computerized version of the bad flyer trend. It's visually violent, in a way it almost hurts the eyes. Abstract collages of random images and random shapes and random cropping. It's eye catching and it's attention grabbing. Again, it's this "bad is good" design culture. It's computer generated to the extreme in patterns and in texture. It's being used in design magazines and editorial illustration and that image in the lower left is actually from the New York Times special section on streaming, so even news outlets are using it.

After last year's video, people kept asking me, "Philip, how do I create the things that are in this video?"

Well, let me introduce you to Daniel Scott of Bring Your Own Laptop.

I met Daniel when he was a guest on my Brand•Muse interview series on YouTube. Dan's a certified Adobe trainer and a regular speaker at the Adobe Max conference and he has some of the best video training programs out there to learn design applications like Photoshop and Illustrator and InDesign. And if you use my affiliate link you can support my work here on YouTube and I'd really appreciate it. I get a small percentage for sending you to his site. He works on a subscription basis, a very low subscription fee and I tell you it's absolutely worth it. He has incredible training programs.

5 Biggest Mistakes Startups Make and How to Fix Them

Being an entrepreneur takes a lot of guts, grit and business savvy. The “mental game” can be hard, and the odds are stacked against them. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, nearly half of all startups fail after five years. That is a daunting statistic, and my goal is to help change these odds, one entrepreneur at a time.

I’ve worked closely with many startups and seen them make the same mistakes over and over. By preventing some critical business errors, startups have a greater chance of making the change they wish to see in the world. 

Entrepreneurs can go farther by not stepping in theses potholes:

Big Mistake # 1: All product and no brand. Tech companies especially can get blinded by what their app or product does, making them completely forget about the brand. They get stuck in the quicksand of its features.

The functionality of the product is important, but without a solid brand strategy, you can’t clearly define the problem you are solving and who will use your product. This is painfully felt when you are ready to market. 

Without a brand strategy, many companies are chasing customers rather than attracting customers. 

Without a brand design, you are not instantly recognizable (which means you are instantly forgettable), and there is no way for customers to understand who you are and how you relate to their lives.

Larry Alton, of Entrepreneur.com explains, “Without that core identity, your company is virtually indistinguishable from your competitors, and even with a solid business model, it’s unlikely that your customer acquisition and retention programs will succeed.”

Big Mistake Fix #1: Evolve your brand and product in tandem. When the brand strategy is thoughtful and clear, it naturally leads to smart brand design, which leads to memorable naming for the brand and products, leading to breakthrough marketing. 

These “seeds” of a strong brand make it successful. In my mini-ebook, 9 Design Elements Your Brand Absolutely, Positively Needs, I explain how to create these seeds. As you go through this book, don’t be afraid to be bold. 

Yes, you may create brand concepts that “suck” at first. Don’t be discouraged. 

It will get better. Express your brand authenticity. Stand out and keep iterating.

Big Mistake #2: Be the perfect brand. Building a solid brand takes time. Famous brands took years, if not decades of iteration to become the icons we know today. 

In this article, Business2Community reviews some iconic brands and how they have changed over time to adapt to the needs of their customers. 

Not one brand I know started out perfectly. 

It’s got to evolve.

Big Mistake Fix #2: Take the phrase “building a brand” literally. The keyword is “build.” Don’t waste time thinking it's going to be perfect right out of the gate. Going for the unattainable will delay your progress. 

Instead, have your partners agree on a cohesive brand idea that's good enough; a minimum viable brand. The software industry creates excellent minimally viable products (MVPs), and you can take a cue from them. They get the MVP out in the world and see how consumers respond. They observe what customers like and don't like, then alter the product as they go along. 

Startups have to do this with their brands. Develop a MVB (minimum viable brand). Iterate and evolve it over time. 

You can't hesitate, wait, or be frozen by the fact that you don't have the perfect brand right out of the gate. 

Begin building your MVB now.

Big Mistake #3: Keeping your head down. Entrepreneurs running startups are notorious for tunnel vision, which can be an asset. However, when it comes to knowing your competitors, you have to pay close attention. 

“While obsessing over the competition is not healthy, ignoring them was also a recipe for failure in 19% of the startup failures,” reports CBInsights.com. You must know your market and all the players. 

You would not believe how many brands and companies have a discovery call with me and can't name their top three competitors. If you don’t know your competitors, you can’t possibly know how to compete with them or where there is an opportunity in the market. You need to know how people will perceive your brand in relation to the others in your arena. 

Big Mistake Fix #3: Marketplace audit. You have to be aware of your competitors in order to be different and better. I recorded an information-packed video on how to differentiate your brand and created a downloadable audit worksheet to help you gather all the important information you need. 

In addition to the competitive audit, make sure your brand has a role model. 

Find three or four aspirational brands; brands that you want your company to be like when it grows up. They can be in or out of your category, it doesn’t matter. The key is that they exemplify the type of behavior, look, and success that you want to emulate. 

Aspirational brands will help you define where you are going, which will help you drive your brand to success.

Big Mistake #4: Chasing the wrong channels. One of the best and worst things about marketing is the number of channels available to market your brand. 

It can be easy to get hung up on a channel without thoughtfully assessing them all and choosing the best one for your brand. 

There will probably be more than one channel that is right for your brand. How do you pick?

Big Mistake Fix #4: Your Target Audience Has The Answer. Two simple questions will lead you to the most profitable channel for your brand:

1. Who are your customers?

2. Where is the best place to get their attention? 

This is why the brand strategy is so important. Once you define your customer avatar (Mistake Fix #1) you can determine where they “hang out” (e.g., social media, sporting events, trade shows, charity balls, etc.). This will inform you of where you need to show up - in other words, your channel. 

Here’s how to get started in marketing channels:

Spend a minimum amount of money on several different channels, and check your analytics over time. See where you're getting the most engagement and the most traffic, and grow your presence in those. Once you find one or two channels that work, leverage them. 

Showing up really well in just a couple channels is always better than showing up half-assed in a dozen of them. 

You don't want to be everywhere. It takes too much time and money. Start out small and build from there. Focus on what works for you.

Here is a short article from Hubspot that will help you start thinking about the channels that may work for your brand. You can also look at your competition. Be informed by what they are doing, but don’t copy them.

Big Mistake #5: “Et Voila” Thinking. We all love the stories of VC-funded startups with a hapless founder who sketches out some brilliantly simple app, and then months later cashes out for millions of dollars. 

The truth is that this rarely happens. 

Building a brand takes a lot of time, courage, and tenacity. There is no recipe to follow. You don’t add a little of this, a dash of that, pop it in the oven, “et voila! Success!“ 

It takes time to see the return on your investment. It doesn't happen overnight. 

Big Mistake #5 Fix: Don’t let ideas of overnight success rent space in your head. Instead, focus on evolving. Understand that it takes sweat equity. Remind yourself that success is a long game. Ultimately, there are two things a startup must do to be successful:

1) Start

2) Don’t stop

Your entrepreneurial success depends on so many factors, both internal and external. My advice and encouragement to most entrepreneurs is to be bold, start simple, iterate over time and learn from the mistakes of others. Let’s make our world just a little bit better. One startup at a time.

Your Atomic Reaction

Alfred Gilbert made some pretty cool toys. His company focused on those that nurtured children’s interest in science and engineering. Gilbert was the man responsible for one of the most popular toys of all time, the “Erector Set”.

Science experiment toys were very popular in the 1950’s. So, Alfred capitalized on societies arrival into the nuclear age with the “Gilbert U-238 Atomic Energy Laboratory”. A set capable of over 150 “magic show” experiments kids could do for their parents.

And it came with something special: 4 vials of actual radioactive samples.

Oh, and a Geiger counter...you know, just to be safe.

In 2002, Radar Magazine published a list of “The 10 Most Dangerous Toys of All Time”. The U-238 Atomic Energy Laboratory ranked number two. Just after Lawn Darts.

There’s a fine line between brilliant and crazy, between innovative and stupid - and between engaging and dangerous.

In marketing and design, have all have to walk that line. Trying new things. Taking chances. Experimenting to see what works. What doesn’t.

What if we try IGTV? TikTok? How about paid LinkedIn ads? A lead magnet on a pop-up? That new Photoshop filter? That kind-of-out-there font?

Because, if you don’t take the risk of making your own “U-238 Atomic Energy Lab” - then ultimately, you’ll never end up creating your “Erector Set”, either.

That's Genius Stupid

I’m trying to drink more water.

I have a tendency to sip coffee, Diet Pepsi, Red Bull, all sorts of terrible-for-you, caffeinated things all day long. Because unless you are in a sweat from exercising or something, water is...boring.

So I found a new product to help me, Mio. It’s a water “flavor enhancer” that makes your water more tasty - so you’ll want to drink more of it. I love the stuff (which means it is probably also bad for me in some way, but I digress...).

There are times in a marketers life when you come across something so incredibly stupid, it’s genius. That happened when I got an email from Petsmart the other day.

Petsmart is launching a new product, Nulo. Which is....a flavor enhancer for your dogs water. I literally laughed out loud. Stupid, no....genius!

It comes in assorted flavors: Lamb, Rotisserie Chicken, Beef Brisket. It’s got vitamins, electrolytes and amino acids. Undoubtedly more good stuff than my Mio has.

Everyone knows we pet owners anthropomorphize our companions. But Petsmart’s innovation team took it to the next level.

When I run brainstorming sessions with clients, I have one rule: “No poo-pooing”.

Meaning no editing, shooting down, or poo-pooing ideas. EVERY idea is a good idea when brainstorming. The editing and rationalization comes later.

Because you never want to throw out ideas too soon. Ideas that on the surface seem totally stupid.

But in the end, turn out to be genius.

The Sunny Side

What Do You Need?

I used to work near Union Square in San Francisco.

Within a couple blocks of the square are a half dozen large tourist hotels. The Marriott, The Westin, The Grand Hyatt. On my way into the office, I used to watch the tourists emerge from their hotels in shorts and t-shirts looking forward to the warm weather they expect in California.

The only problem is that half the year San Francisco is freezing. The fog rolls in and let’s just say it’s not shorts and t-shirt weather.

So the first thing thousands of tourists do is desperately search for where they can buy a sweatshirt.

They don’t have to look very far.

Almost every store around Union Square has warm apparel for sale. CVS has a whole hoodie section right by the front door. So does Walgreens. Even Starbucks has sweatshirts.

Why? It’s because they know it’s good business to give people what they really need - right now. You can make good money selling hoodies even if that’s not what you usually sell.

Maybe you design logos. Maybe you’re a videographer or a 3D animator. And maybe business is a little thin right now because of CoVid-19.

So, ask yourself two questions: What do people really need to help their businesses - right now? And...Can I provide it to them?

Do they need a Facebook ad campaign? Some new blog posts to boost their SEO? A fresh email template for outreach to prospects?

Because you can make good money selling this things. Even if it’s not what you usually sell.

Guess What? You’re Drafted

Did you ever wonder why in the Indianapolis 500 race cars follow each other so closely? Or why in the New York Marathon elite runners run right on the heels of their opponent?

The answer is “drafting”. Any object uses energy to move quickly through air. That object then creates a vacuum of air behind it that “pulls” along anything that’s behind it - drastically reducing the amount of energy the follower needs to keep pace.

By using these aerodynamic truths, a Brazilian bicyclist recently reached an incredible 77mph on a highway by drafting behind a semi truck. A feat that would be totally impossible otherwise.

A couple weeks ago I started a private Facebook group called Brand Design Masters.

One of the amazing things about it is the broad range of experience and skills the members have. Some are seasoned industry vets with serious credentials. Some are just starting out - or making a pivot in their careers and starting fresh in a new direction.

But the best thing about mastermind communities like this is that it is rare that you are the most accomplished person in the group. There are others more knowledgeable, better connected or more experienced that are moving at a greater speed than you.

Why is that the best thing?

Because by using the power of drafting you can make faster progress in a shorter period of time than would be ever possible on your own.

A New Playlist for You

The corona virus has everyone stressed out. Now, in week 4 of the lockdown everyone is getting a little stir crazy.

Everyone except our dogs that is.

That’s mainly because they’ve been jammin’ to a new Pandora playlist.

Let me explain.

Before the corona virus when we left the house we used to put on classical music for the dogs to keep them company.

That’s because we’d read that past studies showed dogs were more relaxed when they listened to classical music.

But the folks at the Scottish ASPCA observed by day 7 their stressed shelter dogs got habituated to classical and returned to restlessness. Just like us, they get bored.

So they did their own study. They wanted to know what genre of music dogs actually like best. So they used a playlist featuring 5 genres of music including classical, Motown, soft rock, pop and reggae.

Then they recorded the dogs heart rates, cortisol levels and behaviors that measure stress levels, like barking, panting, yawning or lying down.

It turns out dogs like...reggae. Bob Marley in particular.

When you have been operating under the same assumptions for a while. Serving up the same products, the same strategies and processes - talking about them in the same way. Your message might be falling on deaf ears.

You might want to switch things up. Try a new message, a new look.

Try jammin’ with a new marketing playlist.

When To Keep Your Distance

There is a place called North Sentinel Island off the coast of India that’s home to a tribe of people who are completely isolated, virtually untouched by civilization.

Of course that hasn’t been for lack of other humans trying.

Humans seem to have a deep-seated need to connect. To communicate. To engage. To convert.

A few people have tried to make contact with the people of North Sentinel Island over the last 100 years.

It doesn’t usually end well.

I usually ends with that person being on the pointy end of a spear.

Recently a modern religious missionary, who despite repeated dire warnings was steadfastly convinced that if the tribes people heard his message they would welcome him and be converted.

He spent incredible effort, travelled thousands of miles and spent thousands of dollars to get there.

But they didn’t want to hear his message.

They killed him the moment he set foot on their beach.

As marketers we can locate our target, over-spend our budgets and ignore the analytics warning signs.

But no matter how convinced we are an audience will welcome what we have to offer, no matter how much we want to expand our influence and connect with a certain group…

…Sometimes we must accept that not everyone can be converted.

Find a warmer audience, or your brand might just end up on the pointy end of a spear.