Is crowd sourcing the future of retail?

Everyone has heard of Threadless - but were you aware that Threadless has been partnering up with various well-known retail brands (such as Havaianas to crowd-source out the design for other products as well?

I found this infographic a few days ago and imagine that other companies will be following suit (if they aren't already):



Some companies I can think of right off the bat I'd like to see embrace this idea:

Nalgene or Sigg (water bottles)
Chrome/Timbuktu (bag companies)
North Face (or some other winter jacket company)
and any company that makes iPhone cases. Most of the designs are always horrendous.

Grumpy Bear, Volume 1

He does not like his travel arrangements:

OK Go is at it again

After their amazing Rube Goldberg machine video, they come out with this (as always, gotta pop youtube out - thanks blogger):



Specifics about the video: "The fastest we go is 172,800x, compressing 24 hours of real time into a blazing 1/2 second. The slowest is 1/32x speed, stretching a mere 1/2 second of real time into a whopping 16 seconds. This gives us a fastest to slowest ratio of 5.5 million. If you like averages, the average speed up factor of the band dancing is 270x. In total we shot 18 hours of the band dancing and 192 hours of LA skyline timelapse – over a million frames of video – and compressed it all down to 4 minutes and 30 seconds! Oh and don't forget, it's one continuous camera shot."

Star Wars meets Adidas

Polaroid's Comeback

Recently Lady GaGa was named the 'chief creative officer' or something of the sort (she evidently has given some 'quite good' suggestions for the brand).

I just wonder if anyone in today's society could produce Polaroid images that look like these.

Tropicana Commercial

nice commercial from Tropicana that brands their product pretty well

Fashion Foto Friday - Two Days Early (or Five Days Late)

iPad dress (or, the first step toward the human race becoming cybernetic whores):



at least it's not this:



though i would consider a pair of these pants:

Repurposed building facades

very cool idea for projecting onto building facades

Projection on Buildings from NuFormer Projection on Vimeo.

Not usually a fan of beauty contests

...but it looks as though the Miss USA contest is updating it's image for the 21st century by featuring the contestants in lingerie.

This might be the smartest thing Donald Trump has ever done.

Music Video - "Darling, It's Alright" - Francis and the Lights

great use of lighting here

Cupcakes!

I'm not a huge fan of cupcakes, but I'd buy them if they came with a cannon:

Ray Ban Commercial

here's another commercial, this time for Ray Ban, via YouTube (once again, embedding doesn't really work here).

Inspiration in a Bottle?

Interesting commercial from a consumer goods company. It's a Thai advertisement, and I guess that they run a little long over there (perhaps there's a different TV format over there). Not sure how good this will look embedded here, so you might want to watch it in YouTube.

Beautiful commercial though (I won't spoil it)

Superhero Fashion

Lot's of Google images here, though some seem to originate from the Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibit circa May 2008

Logos and Che Guevara

I recently finished a book on the famous Alberto Korda image of Che Guevara - and how it became a globally recognized icon. I won't get into the politics of Che (except admit that I have a Che poster in my closet) - because he means something different to everyone. However, the commercialization of the Che brand is an interesting narrative. And he wouldn't be the icon he became without Castro's fantastic branding/public relations machine.

Korda's original photo:



Notice how much more powerful it becomes with a little cropping:



Jim Fitzpatrick's famous poster version of the image might be just as well known (if not more so). It's interesting he renounced the intellectual property rights to his work, unlike most of the other opportunistic 'communists' who use[d] Che's image for their own gains (notice the "F" for Fitzpatrick in the lower right corner):



I own Naomi Klein's No Logo - and it's gathering dust on my shelf since I haven't read it yet (but I should get around to it). It's leftist and anti-globalization too (much like Che) - so it should be interesting to get a different POV on branding/logos. Here's another rendition of the famous Che image, but with a little corporate commentary:



And just something to keep everything in perspective:

Lady GaGa

It's no secret that I love Lady GaGa - so when I found this piece in the NYTimes blogs I naturally checked it out and fell even more in love.

Check it: Lady GaGa + MOCA + dance = love.

Additional profits for Parker Bros and Milton Bradley

In my previous post I mention closure, and so I went Googling for images that represented the visual concept. During that process, I stumbled upon the following image:



The design reminded me of a Scrabble board - so I wondered if anyone had tried out this idea before.



Yes,



But inspiration seemed lacking. Though these two bags might be nice for a travel/game bag/tote - I thought someone would've done something better.



This is a Scrabble box that has been repurposed. They get more points for creativity, but the rigid design seems a little impractical.



Something like this seems a bit more expressive, and originally I thought the letters were attached but if you look closer - they're little plastic sleeves. It looks like they go around the entire bag (not sure what the full count is though). It's an interesting idea, but it still feels a little lazy - you're essentially just paying for someone to sew letter holders onto an otherwise ordinary bag for you. Some handy do-it-yourself'er could replicate this fairly easily.



Whoa! Now this (but with Scrabble letters instead of keyboard ones) seems like it could be a fantastic idea! The wood tones of the letters would make it look a little softer - you'd just have to go through quite a few pieces to cover the entire purse. But with the number of Scrabble nuts and quirky teachers out there - I think you'd have a nice little product.

Anyone have thoughts on how to attach the letters though?

Monday is for selling out

images stolen from the creative criminals blog



m&m's now offers customizable candy - ad by FHV BBDO amsterdam



this one looks like it was done with microsoft publisher or any other generic word document maker - i like the tutu effect the tear-off phone numbers create.



ad by BBDO dusseldorf

this last image reminded me a lot of the concept of 'closure' that we discussed in my graphic novels class during college (yes, i took a comic book class, and yes, it was awesomer than you imagine). so i went looking on Google for some other closure images to use for a follow-up post, but instead walked away with a totally new idea for an additional blog post. maybe i'll come back to closure, or maybe i'll leave that up to you... (no? the pun doesn't work?)

the photo blogging stuff is definitely here to stay - which should add some life and color to the blog and hopefully continue to inspire future posts.

Sunday Inspirationals

(as with the previous YouTube videos, I can't get the embedding to look just right at the moment - it seems I'm going to need to adjust the template or switch over to wordpress)



this second one might need to buffer a second:

Nike Music Shoe

seen at ideas are awesome (for some reason, this blogger template doesn't like youtube videos - will need to click on the video and watch on youtube for full frame).

Fashion Foto Friday - Girls on Bicycles

Here's the first installment in a new "series" (which in this blog's case, typically means one or two posts before I forget about the blog again), Fashion Foto Friday. I'll take fashion photos that I find appealing for whatever reason, talk about them a little (try to be clever), and post links to some sources for further viewing. This week, girls on bikes!

Girls on bicycles, is probably most embraced by the blog Copenhagen Cycle Chic. A wonderful photo blog of girls on bicycles, it features everything from artistic images like the one above to more everyday photos like these:

Though most people probably think of girls on bicycles to be the hipster's domain, this next photo suggests otherwise:

I think it's an interesting juxtaposition.

The next two are photos I took myself of a bicycle parking garage in Amsterdam. It was a surreal experience seeing a structure like that filled with bicycles. They also have dedicated bike roads, separated from the street by a small median (I guess for cyclist safety). My friend was standing in one and was almost hit by a woman because he wasn't paying attention.

I hope that eventually the bicycle becomes more the most popular fashion accessory, talk about sustainable fashion! I did read recently that the Department of Transportation would like to make urban areas in the United States more bicycle friendly - so let's hope something comes out of that!

Start Blogging

Not too long ago, the FCC ruled that bloggers would have to start disclosing when they received compensation for a product/service review. Why did they do this? Partially to protect the public from greedy bloggers out there in the blogosphere ready to talk about whatever someone pays them too. And partially because the practice of paying bloggers has become so prevalent (I have spent thousands on promotional campaigns for clients via blogs - and it is money well spent if you know where and how to spend it).

There are multiple other streams of revenue you can generate with a blog - such as CPM advertising models (for banner ads and such) or just Google Ads. There are services like BlogAds, but unless you're running a giant blog network - there's no point in giving them a cut of your ad revenue - when your blog is good enough, advertisers will come to you.

Then there's affiliate marketing. Talking about a particular industry? Most retailers and e-commerce sites offer affiliate programs. You'd probably have to carry some legitimacy to make money of it - just linking to lots of products doesn't add much value for the reader. But if you can describe an honest experience with it (and get that blog post some traffic) then you can create an extra source of income.

Of course, before you attempt to monetize a blog - you should have something authentic to blog about. You won't succeed at forcing yourself to blog about something you don't care. But if you choose something you actually enjoy, regardless of how crazy that thing is, you can find people who enjoy it just as much as you do and will become loyal e-Pals.

Quick SEO Tip

I consistently encourage my clients to embrace Google Webmaster Tools for their SEO campaigns. It provides a great deal of free information, and makes bringing SEO work in-house a lot more feasible (from the get go or eventually down the line).

Here's a blog post from SEOMoz that talks about some of the stuff you should be doing with it.

SEOmoz | SEO Health Checks - Regular Housekeeping Tasks for Your Website's SEO

MBA Update

Hi Folks,

Now that life has started to slow down a bit (well, not so much 'slow down' as 'fall into place' I suppose - I'm actually a bit busier than normal) I'll hopefully be back on the blog grind. I'm going to shift the focus of this blog away from pure SEO and more a holistic view of marketing and advertising, and some intermittent thoughts on design.

Oh, and I was admitted into Vanderbilt's Owen Graduate School of Management. I currently plan on enrolling there this fall - they have a great blogging community already (Owen Bloggers) that I'll probably get involved with, depending on how much free time I end up having (despite the fact I anticipate very little free time).

In the meantime, here's another great blog that serves as a pretty good source of inspiration for me. I'll probably put them first in the blog roll, once I get around to updating it.

Ideas Are Awesome! Very visual, which makes it easy to breeze through.

-Dan

Profile Posting

One way to create links for free is to create links within profiles. For example, you have a Google profile that has 'dofollow' links - which means you can get a link from Google.com/howevertheysetuptheirprofiles. That'll pass some value, right? Sure!

There are also plenty of niche sites where you can set up an account/profile and link out from there as well. Whether you're linking to an interest, your company website, or just blatantly padding your profile with links only for SEO purposes - they'll still count as long as they're dofollow (so sorry all you Twitter & Facebook fans).

For example, I set up a profile on this page that has to do with medical/health issues because my client I link to from that profile page is in the medical field. It's a pretty easy link to get - and as long as the profile page is read/indexed by Google - it'll pass some value. How much value is a matter of debate, but we have seen rankings go up from profile page links alone.

But it is a great, white-hat way to obtain links (so long as you aren't spamming the profile links). It's even more white-hat if you actually participate in the forums or the site you sign up for, but then you're starting to get into the realm of internet marketing instead of just generic SEO.