Posts about my various work, side, and wishlist projects.
Here’s a simple and fun idea that we ran with at Strut recently in the days leading up to Easter. We surveyed the office for everyone’s favourite TV shows, whittled that down to 12, and then our awesome Design team set to work on stylizing a dozen eggs around those themes. This is the splendid result…
How many did you guess right?
Last week I ventured to the gorgeous Wasatch Mountains an hour or so east of Salt Lake City in Utah where I had the pleasure to partake in Field Innovation Team (FIT) Boot Camp 3.0, an exciting gathering of 30 or so eclectic folks to discuss disaster innovation. (Yes, this is a real thing.)
I wrote about the experience over at the RallyEngine blog. Check it out.
Here’s an old clip I recently dug up. It’s of my appearance on CBC’s The National with Peter Mansbridge on December 15, 2004. I’d submitted a story idea for their popular Road Stories series and – surprise! – they jumped on it. Despite my obvious nervousness in the setup with Mansbridge, I really like how the piece presented Montreal at that time and how it positioned Maisonneuve as a champion of that cultural shift in the city from old political doldrums to young creative vibrancy.
This is post was originally published in Fall 2011 on the now-defunct Warms blog. Tis the season, and it fits the theme since popularized in viral holiday videos by WestJet, UPS, and others.
In 2004 Ikea amused and impressed Swedish train commuters by handing out free pillows during the morning rush hour. Each pillow said “Better Sleep for everyone” and of course indirectly linked Ikea to beds and good sleep.
In 2007, as part of the largest US campaign ever for Maxwell House, Kraft Foods included a clever gift element along with its sampling program. They took over tollbooths nationwide from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. and in addition to handing out millions of coffee samples they also picked up the toll tab for motorists.
In 2010 popchips launched its brand of healthier snack chips using a combination of influencer seeding and gifting to friends via social shareability. Over 2000 personalized popchips gifts were sent out and the brand has risen in profile ever since. (↬Flowtown)
In 2011, Kimberly-Clark’s Kleenex brand sent over one million tissues mini-boxes as part of its “Softness Worth Sharing” campaign introducing a new softer version of the tissue. The program let people send samples to friends and family via Kleenex.com. It lifted market share at least 1.7 points (↬Flowtown).
And recently, Canadian retailer Shoppers Drug Mart has been randomly handing out to customers free surprise gift cards worth $10, $25, $50 or even $100 off a subsequent purchase. This approach employs a technique called a lagniappe – a small gift added by the merchant, in the same way a baker might throw in a 13th donut with the dozen.
Gift marketing is a combination of branding, advertising, promotion, PR, social engagement, product sampling, and customer service. It’s old in the sense that companies have long sent preferred clients calendars, holiday baskets, and perhaps some bonus reward points, but it’s new in that these activities are becoming more planned, more creative, more finely targeted and better measured (ROI), and larger in scale.
Time to let the cat out of the bag. I’m writing a book. It’s going to be awesome. I’ve tentatively titled it The Herd of Cats: How Entrepreneurs, Improvisers, and Disaster Managers Approach an Uncertain World and it’s inspired by the three very different worlds I’ve been exposed to over the past year or so with RallyEngine.
Here’s the draft jacket copy…
This is post was originally published October 26, 2011 on the now-defunct Warms blog. I thought it was worth re-sharing for this time of year.
Warms [was] a platform that bridges the surprise and substance delivered by physical gift products with the emotion and versatility offered by digital videos and e-gifts. In doing so we [paid] very close attention to the reveal because it is through a layered unveiling that we can deliver a richer and more memorable gift experience. It’s perhaps not as obvious or easy as it sounds.
Greeting card companies, florists, e-card senders, and even chocolatiers all fall short. They may make nice/funny/tasty/beautiful products but they deliver shallow, one-dimensional experiences. A remarkable gift encompasses way more than just the object – and of course remarkability is always judged by the receiver.
Here are the six essential ingredients of a great gift…
It was around two years ago that I shut down Warm Ventures, the startup I co-founded to pursue what I thought then might be a ripe opportunity in the gift marketing space. It failed, unfortunately, and this post aims to share some of my post-mortem thoughts on the experience – including some aspects that aren’t typical in more prominent startup stories.
Our main product originally was Warms, a platform that bridged the surprise and substance delivered by physical gift products with the emotion and versatility offered by digital videos and e-gifts. It consisted of a 4″x4″x4″ gift box with an elaborate unboxing experience revealing an audible heart-holding plush character and a unique code with instructions to view a video message (and, optionally, an e-gift) from the sender. “Cheaper than flowers and more substantial than e-cards, Warms have a sense of humor and are way more fun to give.” Here was the explainer video we made for them…
The physical item consisted of several custom pieces: a hinge-top wooden box with an interior elastic lever, a button-cell sound module (think audio greeting card), different versions of a small plush doll, a transparent under-lid label with a message and code (alphanumeric and QR), two brass tacks and a hemp string lid clasp with a “Be kind, please rewind” tag on the end, a card stock wrap to seal the box closed and tease to what’s inside, and all of this was mailed in a cubic cardboard box with a wax seal like sticker on top.
This is what one looked like…
