Evocative

Another in the series from Tom Asacker in his Opportunity Screams series. Worth the few minutes to watch!

"What happens if you don't open the door to engagement?"

Yes, I am going backward. This is the first of a series of videos that accompanies Tom Asacker's new book "Opportunity Screams".



I don't think I'll post all of them. Two should be enough to get your attention. If the 'closure principle' matters, you'll follow the links and subscribe to find the remainder of the videos as they get posted.

You may even go so far as to pick up the book itself. I plan to!

Unexpected = distinct

Insightful short video from Tom Asacker.



His concept of 'unexpected' is very much like being 'distinct' that Scott McKain has talked about.

It also looks like Tom has a new book paperback version of his book: Opportunity Screams. I'll need to add this one to my list of things to read. Put it on your listing too. You'll be glad you did.

Morgan Spurlock: The greatest TED Talk ever sold

What is your brand?

What do you stand for?

Do you have an agency to handle your brand management?

How transparent are you?

Morgan Spurlock explores these (and other related questions) in this TED Talk:




Thoughts?

Making your mark

On the fresh snow fall, rabbit tracks. Who knew how many creatures there were in the neighborhood? These are common and there are dozens of others.

Different birds, squirrels, mice, chipmunks... others undefined?

What mark do you leave when you meet someone?

Logo transition

As Stop & Shop changes over from their standard logo to their new one, the mix of products will present some opportunities as shown here:

The standard logo is on the left. The new multi-color logo is top right. The new single reddish color logo is on the bottom.

Once you start a migration to a new logo, this type of situation is inevitable. How many products does Stop & Shop brand as their own? The number must be in high the hundreds. To coordinate all of them to be on the same timeline would be a rather costly event. It is costing them enough to make this transition as it is. I assume that they are using as much of the old stock as they can to minimize the cost of the migration.

Do you like the new Stop & Shop logo?

Real actors, real sex - porn or art?

As reality continues to move to the mainstream, and no, I do not mean reality TV shows (IMHO, that is not reality). There is a trend in Hollywood movies to come closer to reality in their depiction of sex. Ty Burrs article in today's Boston Sunday Globe explores this trend and the recent move to the edge as seen in the film "9 Songs". Ty writes:

Since the breakdown of the old studio system in the late 1950s, commercial movies have danced closer and closer around representations of sexuality. Barriers to nudity and behavior have slowly fallen, but sexual activity has remained simulated, even if with increasing frankness. Marlon Brando and Maria Schneider weren't really making love in ''Last Tango in Paris," but the film was extreme enough for viewers to temporarily think so.

...

One reason for this state of affairs, obviously, is porn. The emergence of hard-core sex movies from the underground in the early 1970s, their explosion onto home video in the 1980s, and their metastasization onto the Internet in the late 1990s essentially gave Hollywood the escape clause it needed. Since the ''real thing" was readily available if you so chose -- and on increasingly private terms -- the pressure was off commercial movies to compete in prurience. In fact, the pressure was on for them not to. The dirty secret about dirty movies is that audiences feel uncomfortable watching them in a theater full of strangers (or worse, unexpected acquaintances). Home video and the Internet took porn back to the bedroom where it belonged.

...

Because it's product rather than storytelling and has to adhere to the demands of a paying audience, mass-market hard-core has a ritualistically defined beginning, middle, and end. Plus there's all that cheeseball music. Faithful only to baseline anatomy, porn is in many ways more repressive and repressed than mainstream culture.

So it makes sense that movies -- ''real" movies -- are beginning to experiment once more with real sex: If you can show it all and it still doesn't mean anything, what needs to be added for it to have any weight? Art? Plot? Theory? Believable characters? A personal perspective?

I think it needs to meet the appropriate "content in context" criteria. This draws from a story Tom Asacker told (and he references in his book A Cleareye for Branding). Tom, I am not sure if you ever considered this as a natural extension of the message you wanted to convey but here goes.

Tom's story starts with a picture. A hand written sign propped up along a country road. The sign reads: "Fresh fruit and vegetables". The country road, the hand written sign, the text about "fresh" is reinforced by the wholeness of the package. These are likely to be as fresh as they can be. The content in the context works. Second picture, similar setting, similar hand written sign along a country road. The text this time reads: "Free flying lessons". Now, is this something that would convey a warm and fuzzy feeling that this might be the best deal on flying lessons you can obtain? Or does this similar send off alarms as probably not a good thing to do? The content in the context does not work so well as the fresh vegetables.

If the content fits the context, adds to the story line, helps to deliver the message, then this is the kind of "reality" that movie directors should strive for. Otherwise, leave it well enough alone.

What are you thoughts?