Beethoven’s 9th Symphony presents four of Deutsche Grammophon’s legendary recordings, collected in one exceptional app to give you unparalleled insight into an iconic piece.
This companion app for the popular new exhibition Creatures of Light: Nature's Bioluminescence offers a close look at some of the extraordinary organisms that produce light. Enjoy interactive animations, photo galleries, and videos that reveal the beauty of this amazing natural phenomenon, how it works, and how scientists study it. Each chapter of the app, which is adapted from the iPad content featured throughout the exhibition gallery, is set to a symphonic soundtrack composed exclusively for Creatures of Light.
From the rock paintings of prehistoric times to Pixel art of the 2000’s, solve all the riddles by riding the most popular fonts and characters (Garamond, Helvetica, Times New Roman, Pixel, Comic Sans...) in a very captivating musical and visual environment.
Explore the surprising side of color with Color Uncovered, an interactive book that features fascinating illusions, articles, and videos developed by the Exploratorium.
How is Monet like a honeybee? What color is a whisper? Why is it so hard to find your car in a lamp-lit parking lot?Color Uncovered features a wide spectrum of cool color-related topics to explore. Learn why friends shouldn’t let men buy bananas.
Did you ever wonder why the periodic table is shaped the way it is, what gives each element its own unique set of properties, or even how elements combine to make everyday objects such as a cup of coffee? With “NOVA Elements,” explore an interactive periodic table, play a game hosted by David Pogue, or watch the two-hour NOVA program, “Hunting the Elements.”
The Sonnets presents William Shakespeare’s immortal collection of love poems in an interactive digital edition that allows you to explore, appreciate and understand this great work of literature as never before.
All 154 sonnets are performed to camera by a star-studded cast including Sir Patrick Stewart (Star Trek, X-Men, Royal Shakespeare Company), David Tennant (Dr Who, Hamlet), Kim Cattrall (Sex and the City), Fiona Shaw (The Waste Land, Harry Potter), Stephen Fry (The Hobbit) and Dominic West (The Wire). These performances – all specially filmed for the app – are synchronised to the text, which highlights line by line as each sonnet is spoken.
Of all the periodic table apps, there is only one which Stephen Fry described as “Alone worth the price of an iPad!”. The Elements is not just a reference app, it is a rich and engaging love story of the periodic table, told in words and pictures, and allowing you to experience the beauty and fascination of the building blocks of our universe in a way you've never seen before.
How does the brain work? Does space go on forever?
How can you outrun a cheetah? How big is the ocean?
These are just some of the intriguing questions
you’ll get answers to when you enter Brainfeed’s
world of knowledge-rich videos built to inspire.
Geo Walk is a world fact book about animals, plants, historical events,famous people and inventions. All articles can be explored in a fun way by traveling across the globe and learning where the building is, or where the natural habitat of an animal is, or where a famous person lived. Each card has a picture and text, you can share it on the social media or read a wikipedia article. After reading and exploring you can test your knowledge by answering the quiz.
Buckley’s cough syrup is nasty and they are proud of it. They aren’t trying to hide it. Instead, they made the bad taste the focus of their advertising campaign by comparing it to trash bag leakage and sweaty gym socks. The tagline is “It tastes awful. And it works.” However, the implicit message is that it works because it tastes awful.
Obviously, this approach won’t work with everyone. Kironmoy Datta, senior brand manager for Novartis Consumer Health, says that “Buckley’s isn’t for everyone. . . We made a conscious choice to not be everything to everyone.”
It takes courage to call attention to existing weaknesses, but takes even more courage to make those weaknesses worse, to exaggerate them.
Source: http://onwardmag.com/how-flaunting-your-weaknesses-can-build-trust/
Years ago Alex Bogusky and his ad agency, Crispin Porter + Bogusky, were the creators of many well-known and successful advertising campaigns. Among those successes was the introduction of the Mini car to America. It's success was based on amplifying weaknesses of Mini, not minimizing them.
“Instead of hiding qualities that may seem negative – such as Mini’s tiny proportions – Crispin exploits them. ‘It’s part of your job as a marketer to find the truths in a company, and you let them shine through in whatever weird way it might be.’ Naturally, that risks pissing someone off.”
It takes courage to call attention to existing weaknesses, but takes even more courage to make those weaknesses worse, to exaggerate them. That is what Hardee’s did and it saved their company.
Here is a letter from Andy Puzder, President of Hardee’s, on the back of the bag for a Philly Cheesesteak Thickburger.
“A few years ago when I became president of Hardee’s Restaurants, we were selling so many things that we had truly become a ‘jack of all trades and master of none.’ Unfortunately, in today’s competitive fast food world, that wasn’t cutting it.
The chain needed to become known for doing something really well again . . . So I challenged my menu development folks to come up with a new line of burgers that would make people say ‘Wow! I can’t believe I can get burgers that good at a fast-food place.’ And they did. They came up with ‘Thickburgers.’”
It is important to note that Hardee’s was going out of business and closing many of their stores before developing this new line of burgers. Even more importantly, most other fast food companies were furiously adding healthy options to their menu. In response to criticism about the negative health effects of their offerings, fast food outlets were offering water, fruit and salads. Hardee’s moved in the opposite direction.
In essence, they were saying, “our food is fat and nasty and will make you fat and nasty.” And it worked.
They succeeded by amplifying the weaknesses of fast food while everyone else was busy trying to moderate those same weaknesses. They took fast food, which was already tremendously unhealthy and made it unhealthier. They took fatty foods and made them fattier. They took nasty food and made it nastier. And it worked.
Source: http://onwardmag.com/how-flaunting-your-weaknesses-can-build-trust/
Apple released the new version of the iPhone 5. Drumroll please, it’s plastic. To steal a line from a famous Breyers ice cream ad, its POLY, POLY CARBONITE Jony.
To Apple’s SVP of Design Jony Ive credit though, he doesn’t mince words. He doesn’t lead with polycarbonite or another fancy word. He says 42 seconds in that “the iPhone 5c is beautifully, unapologetically plastic.” He was celebrating the phone being flawsome.
Flaunting a Weakness Into a Strength
A portmanteau is a combination of two (or more) words, and their definitions, into one new word. The word comes from the English portmanteau luggage (a piece of luggage with two compartments), itself derived from the French porter (to carry) and manteau (coat). Think blog (web log), infomercial (information commercial), or email (electronic mail).
I came across a portmanteau a couple of weeks ago that knocked my marketing socks off. Flawsome is a combination of Flaws and Awesome. I came across an article by Claire Dunn that talked about the concept of being flawsome.
The core message of the article is that today’s consumers are empowered. They know more than ever before. Therefore, don’t hide your flaws. Honesty is truly the best policy. Dunn states,
“We no longer buy ad campaigns that are too good to be true. Consumers now want honest conversations about products and appreciate brands that show some maturity, humility, and humor.”
Source: http://www.purplegoldfish.com/apples-new-iphone-is-unapologetically-plastic-are-you-flawsome/
You can even use this approach with your personal branding. Jimmy Vee at Gravitational Marketing calls himself “The Five-Foot High Marketing Guy.” He doesn’t try to hide or minimize his short stature. He celebrates it and it makes him likable, memorable and interesting.
Source: http://onwardmag.com/how-flaunting-your-weaknesses-can-build-trust/
What is Flawsome behavior?
Kraft food launched a campaign for its Miracle Whip brand titled “We are not for everyone” and then went on to make videos featuring celebrities who expressed their love or hate for their product.
FLAWSOME sits as part of a bigger trend towards HUMAN BRANDS.
So, while HUMAN BRANDS might not be a ‘new’ theme, four currents are now converging to make consumers more focused on brand attitude and behavior than ever before:
“...human nature dictates that people have a hard time genuinely connecting with, being close to, or really trusting other humans who (pretend to) have no weaknesses, flaws, or mistakes”
Consumers’ disillusionment at corporate behavior has (finally) spilled over into outright disgust. As a result, any brand that can show business in a new light will be (deservedly) welcomed with open arms.
Nearly 85% of consumers worldwide expect companies to become actively involved in promoting individual and collective wellbeing; an increase of 15% from 2010 (Source: Havas Media, November 2011).
Yet only 28% of people think that companies are working hard to solve the big social and environmental challenges (Source: Havas Media, November 2011).
Consumers are more and more aware that personality and profit can be compatible (think Zappos, Patagonia, Tom’s, Ben & Jerry’s, Michel et Augustin, Zalando and more). With every business that succeeds while remaining reasonable, helpful, fun or even somewhat ‘human’, consumers will become increasingly disenchanted when dealing with traditional, boring, impersonal brands.
Most people would not care if 70% of brands ceased to exist (Source: Havas Media, November 2011).
Online culture is the culture, and inflexible, bland ‘corporate’ façades jar with consumers who live online where communication is immediate, open and raw (also see MATURIALISM). What’s more, people openly broadcast and share their lives online - flaws and all - and thus brands are increasingly expected to do the same.
Last but not least: human nature dictates that people have a hard time genuinely connecting with, being close to, or really trusting other humans who (pretend to) have no weaknesses, flaws, or mistakes - don’t assume brands are any different.
BRANDS increasingly monitor the Internet for negative product reviews, and contact reviewers to remedy complaints, persuading some to revise reviews with higher ratings.
But when Tim League, the chief executive of Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, a movie chain based in Austin, received an irate voice mail message from a young woman recently, he did not want to change her opinion.
He wanted to publicize it.
The caller had been ejected from a movie for texting, violating a prohibition against using mobile devices underscored in videos shown before movies, and Mr. League decided that the phone message was fodder for yet another public service announcement.
From an Alamo Drafthouse YouTube video, "We do not tolerate people that talk or text in the theater. In fact, before every film we have several warnings on screen to prevent such happenings. Occasionally, someone doesn't follow the rules, and we do, in fact, kick their asses out of our theater. This video is an actual voicemail from a woman that was kicked out of one of our Austin theaters. Thanks, anonymous woman, for being awesome."
Source:
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/24/business/media/24adco.html
#778 - Gentle Giant Moving Company
Submitted by Mitch Curtis:
I was intrigued by the Green Goldfish Project, and wanted to tell you about a unique Wellness benefit Gentle Giant Moving Company http://www.gentlegiant.com/, a small business based in Boston, provides for its employees. We have John Zimmer, an in-house chiropractor and renowned Cross Fit trainer that works every day with movers, office staff, and executives in the custom built Cross Fit gym right inside of our warehouse. Our company has always focused on strength and fitness, but over the past few years, John has helped ingrain it even further in our company culture. Everyone here finds his services to be a HUGE benefit, as everyday gym access with a personal trainer can be quite expensive.
The Green Goldfish Project is a quest to find 1,001 examples of companies that put "Employees First":
#1 - HCL Technologies
Recognition for added value. Vineet Nayar
developed a clear point of view on compensation
and recognition during his twenty years with
HCL. “The industry used to pay 30 per cent
variable compensation to the employee linked to
the company’s performance. We found the idea
quite ridiculous, because if you are a software
engineer you have no meaningful influence on the
performance of the company. So we said we will
turn all that into fixed pay – ‘trust pay’ as we call
it. Now, having established that, we switched to
value: We said now we will start measuring you on
the value created for the customer.”
Source: http://www.managementlab.org/files/u2/pdf/case%20studies/HCLCaseStudy.pdf
HBR video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJrBq-c5QYE&feature=fvwrel
#2 - Google
According to Jonathan Strickland in ‘HowStuffWorks: How the Googleplex Works’, the company allows its employees to use up to 20 percent of their work week at Google to pursue special projects. That means for every standard work week, employees can take a full day to work on a project unrelated to their normal workload. Google claims that many of their products in Google Labs started out as pet projects in the 20 percent time program.
YouTube video on 20% time:
