What’s your little cookie?

Someone brought a Potbelly milkshake to a meeting today and I had a hard time concentrating on our client’s business because of that cute little cookie hugging the straw. Finally, after the meeting I asked the four attendees, who had all had a Potbelly ice cream or yogurt drink at some point in their lives, about that little cookie. Here are some of the responses:

“I like it. I always eat it first.”

“I eat it in the middle, after I’ve had about half the shake. If you get an Oreo shake, they give you a little Oreo cookie on top of the shake – in addition to the one on the straw.”

“I eat it last. It’s the finale.”

“Once someone ordered a shake as part of a delivery order and they (Potbelly) covered the entire straw and cookie with foil so as not to cheat the person out of the little cookie.”

“Even if I don’t eat it, it’s a nice touch.”

 “Whenever I see anyone holding a drink with a cookie on the straw, I immediately knows it’s Potbelly. Then I try to figure out where the closest one is.”

“The first time I ordered one of their shakes, I thought they were a little expensive. But when I saw that little cookie, somehow I felt better about the price.”

“It makes me smile.”

In a sagging economy where businesses are begging for customers, what’s the lesson here? It’s this: Every company should ask themselves how they might deliver their own version of a “little cookie” to customers. It certainly doesn’t have to be something edible. But it should:

• Surprise or delight first-time users or buyers
• Be practiced with rigorous consistency
• Be unique and speak to the brand’s personality
• Make the customer feel positive about their purchase
• Not cost a lot or take a lot of effort – it’s better for everyone if it doesn’t
• Make people smile
• Give people something fun to talk about at the end of a meeting

We’ve all watched and suffered through the major CTA station and track overhaul these past 18 months. Work is nearing completion, in many areas, and evidence of the CTA master plan is more or less obvious. New or updated signage is a large part of this overhaul. The color coding by train line is more overt, as is the neutral base-color system. And typographically, Helvetica — the old CTA standard and the people's font — is back.

What do you think about the use of type at your station? Is Helvetica the best answer? Granted, it is the world standard for utility. But does it make your station, your 'L,' your city, seem more clear — or more generic?

Note: Sources say a long-term experiment in alternative signage is, or was, being studied by the CTA. Proposed by Monigle Associates, Denver and Frankel Brand Environments, Chicago, some of this signage has been in use at the Clark/Lake station for some time.

Where I come from, the definition of “smart” is someone who reads books. It wasn’t necessarily a compliment.

That’s why when I went to SGDP eight years ago to interview for a copywriting position, you could say they had me when I first walked in the door. There it was: a plump leather couch surrounded by shelves, shelves and more shelves of beautiful books.

There were the usual design and business books that you’d expect from a communications agency. But there were also books on travel, decorating, French and Spanish languages, cookbooks, a book on yoga art, another on Jungian psychology and even a copy of “Lake Wobegon Days” by Garrison Keillor.

It’s never an accident when people build a space around books. And when I encounter it, I know I’m among friends. So just for fun last Friday, I took an office e-mail poll to find out what my friends at SGDP are reading. Here is a small sampling:

“Kill Everyone” (a book about poker strategy) by Lee Nelson, Tysen Streib, Kim Lee

“What the Gospels Meant" by Garry Wills
 
“Three Cups of Tea” (One man’s quest to build schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan) by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin

“Heat” (part memoir, part tutorial by a follower of Mario Batali) by Bill Buford

“The Count of Monte Cristo” (a classic adventure about hope, justice, vengeance and mercy) by Alexandre Dumas

"Emily Post's Etiquette"

“Eclipse” by Stephanie Meyer, the third book of the Twilight series (teen romance novels about vampires)

 

“Flash of Genius: and Other Real Stories of Invention” by John Seabrook

“The Great Outdoor Fight” (a cult comic strip you wish you'd discovered when you were 15) by Chris Onstad

 

 

“Your Best Life Now” by Joel Osteen

 

 

“The Rest Is Noise” (historical, biographical and social context to 20th century music) by Alex Ross
— Sharon

As Chicago gears up for the Chicago International Film Festival, it's worth looking at the different forms movie marketing takes around the world. For example, check out the online Polish Posters Shop, where high-end movie and theatrical posters are sold around the world. While a lot of the work (like this, for To Sir With Love) is astonishing, beautiful and unlike anything in American film marketing, there are also some, uh, interesting marketing ideas at work.

Take, for example, this poster for the not-so-fondly remembered Eddie Murphy action-fantasy-comedy The Golden Child pictured at right. According to the film's Polish marketing materials, the movie is about a bald, goatee-wearing Spock getting zapped with a laser by a tiny golden bird. And something about New York architecture? (And this poster for Weekend at Bernie's is both troubling and fairly misleading.)

As counterintuitive an idea as it might seem to an American consumer, posters like this are a valuable reminder that different audiences are looking for different information about what they're looking to buy. And that you have to speak to those audiences in a voice that moves them — and with images that do the same.

If a small town, single-focused enterprise can’t integrate for the sake of customer experience, is there any hope for big corporations? If so, what?

Recently my husband and I stopped for a night in New Harmony, IN, to explore this former utopian village along the Wabash River. We rented an 1840s guest house that is part of the New Harmony Inn, a 90-room facility that “offers peace and tranquility in a resort-like destination.”

The Inn’s primary target audience seems to be businesses looking for a unique conference facility – or other large groups such as wedding parties. A smaller but dependable market is the couple seeking a romantic night or weekend away.

When we checked in, the woman at the desk told us there were yoga classes at the fitness center but she couldn’t tell us the hours of operation or when the classes were. She circled on a map where the building was and told me I could find out there. Apparently, the fitness center was outsourced, so it wasn’t her business to know and no one saw the need to stock the lobby with a flyer or brochure providing such information. (Is print really so dead?)

Similarly, while dining at the Inn’s famous restaurant, the Red Geranium, we asked our friendly waitress when we might catch one of the historic tours. She didn’t know, but pointed us in the direction of the Visitors Center, which opened the next day at 9:30. When I arrived, I found the tours were at 10:00 (too late – my husband was still in bed) and 2:00 (which we did but this made us very late for our other plans we had).

I am not an old crank nor am I hard to please. We had a great time in New Harmony, riding old-fashioned bikes (my favorite amenity) along winding trails, admiring the early 1800s architecture and the beautiful views of the gardens and river.

But I was missing that feeling of luxury and delight that comes from everything being just right. The problem was that the Inn, restaurant, fitness center and visitor’s center were, while individually doing a great job, operated in silos, minding their own “areas of responsibility.”

So my question is this: If a small town business with a single focus (tourism), that even has the word “harmony” in its name, is incapable of integration, what hope have behemoth-size corporations with their countless departments, multiple layers of management and complex approval processes?

I know some large companies do succeed in putting the customer first (Northwestern Medical, Jiffy Lube, John Scheepers Flower Bulbs come to mind). And I know it’s no accident. I’d like to know how they do it.

Creative block happens to the best of us. Which is why famed musician and producer Brian Eno and a series of collaborators have been working on "Oblique Strategies," a series of flash cards with ideas for new approaches to creative problems, ranging fro the practical ("use an old idea") to the personnel ("use inexperienced people") to the, well, oblique ("listen to the quiet voice").

 

Since the 1970s, Eno has issued the strategies as limited card sets. But now you can get it for free as a widget on your dashboard, downloadable from apple.com.

The redesigned Chicago Tribune has been out there for a week or so, and newspaper junkies have had their chance to check out every feature, every day. So the question is: what do you think...about the paper, and about its future?

Several weeks back, I had the chance to learn about forthcoming changes in the paper’s overall strategy, given the Tribune Company’s economic circumstances and the new realities of newspaper readership. Surveys showed that the old paper was not designed for the expectations of today’s readers: too many general or random articles, too much depth for everything, not enough encapsulation. In short, the old paper was designed for someone to spend an hour or more with it, while today’s readers want to spend less than 20 minutes. And of course, the size and weight of the actual newsprint is always a production cost issue.

The new Tribune offers more snapshots, pithy sectional headers, bite-size bits of news, more dramatic photography, and, of course, color–the ultimate crowd pleaser badge of progress. It’s smaller, handier, brighter (literally); and yes, you can tear through it long before the commute is over.

Then there’s the Red Eye phenomenon. This free little brother of the Tribune has been designed to school new readers or non-paper people into the delights of classic newsprint vs. e-news. (It is also capturing traditional readers of the Sun-Times, in the process.) The dreamscape is/was to lead these new readers to the more serious Tribune over time.

So how did they do? What does the new Tribune feel and read like to you now? Is it enough to wean you off Red Eye? If you’ve been a Tribune reader, is the new version more relevant or convenient? Let us know what you think, what you read. — Mark, Creative Director