For designers, our bible of colour has always been the long established Pantone matching system. These colour swatch books are universally accepted as the industry standard for ink. In fact, Pantone is so popular, it is used as the global standard for choosing and matching colours in every country. It's almost like a universal language for designers.

For years, Pantone has been expanding their reach beyond just ink. They have evolved into other markets such as web, fashion, home, paints and interiors. And now, it seems they are getting into the hotel business.

Yes, you can now find all your favourite colours prominently displayed at the Pantone Hotel, located in Brussels, Belgium. The hotel offers you a variety of Pantone matched rooms, just choose a colour. In addition, they have used Pantone colours in almost every feature, from the exterior of the building, right down to the room key.

Now, not only did the hotel go so far as to use Pantone colours and the Pantone name, but they also stayed true to the Pantone brand itself. Everything from the familiar colour blocks, to the font itself, look EXACTLY like the Pantone products. The only question is, will designers want to sleep in a room that reminds them of work? Next time you're in Europe, a mere 89 euros will get you a beautiful Pantone 186 room. Hmmm, I wonder if the room numbers match the ink colours? If you go, let me know!

Check out the hotel: http://www.pantonehotel.com/

For those of you that don't know me, I'm not a fan of Facebook. I like to keep my personal information private and only share it with the people that are important to me. I don't want friends of friends knowing that I'm going out of town for a week, that i was born on some day of some month in 19xx, or that I have a child that goes to a certain school. Now, I'll admit that the concept of Facebook is great and the execution has been a huge success, but at the end of the day Facebook is a company looking for new ways to generate revenue, either by selling advertising space, or sharing private account information with third party companies.

Apparently I'm not the only one who feels this way. Upon browsing the vast waves of the internet, I stumbled upon a very ambitious project called Diaspora*. Their motto: "The privacy aware, personally controlled, do-it-all, open source social network."
For those wondering the meaning of diaspora: "diaspora ("a scattering or sowing of seeds") refers to any people or population who are forced or induced to leave their traditional homelands, the dispersal of such people, and the ensuing developments in their culture."

Not slated for release until September 2010, they've managed to acquire over $200,000 from over 6000 backers on kickstart and have been diligently working on the project all summer.

The initial release will include the following:

• Full-fledged communications between Seeds (Diaspora instances)
• End to end GPG
• External Service Scraping of most major services (reclaim your data)
• Version 1 of Diaspora’s API with documentation
• Public GitHub repository of all Diaspora code

It'll be decentralized, allow end to end encryption of data, pull all of your social media content back into one place, and allow members of the community to expand and build upon the core ideas of a private social network.

I'd recommend checking out their faq, blog, and media page if you're interested in learning more, and I'm hoping for a huge reception to the newest social media concept from those that are fed up with privacy issues.

As I patiently await the release of the iPhone 4G, I couldn’t help but contemplate the great marketing machine of Apple. A few months ago I wrote that I didn’t really want an iPad, until, last week, I stopped to see one at the store. It was, I admit, kinda cool. I might even…want one. I might even be able to convince myself that I need one. Yes, I will admit my apparent weakness for Apple anything, I’ve had it since 1989 actually. And, as I toss my Blackberry to the curb, in favour of adding an iPhone to my ever growing collection of Apple products, I thought I’d make fun of myself just a little, content in the knowledge that I’m not the only one out there with a soft spot for Apple.

For example, you can date other Apple fans on a Mac-inspired singles dating site: cupidtino.com

Or, you can join a church of Mac: www.macgeniustony.com/thechurchofmac.html

Watch a movie about Apple fanatics: www.macheadsthemovie.com

Dress (or undress) Steve Jobs: www.geekculture.com/joyoftech/joyarchives/692flash.html

Read a blog dedicated to the cult of Mac: www.cultofmac.com

Make fun of us Apple owners: theoatmeal.com/comics/apple

And, last but not least, shop for Apple online: http://store.apple.com/us

Oh come on, I’m not the only fan out there, who else has some fun ones to add?

Am I the only one who is addicted to Apps, preferably free? I enjoy finding new little things to keep me entertained, but often don't keep them for long (although somehow the Cat Piano has survived the monthly sweep). Blame it on my short attention span. One of the rather frivolous reasons I'd love to upgrade my iPod Touch to an iPhone is so I can get the Shazam app that helps me name songs.

Recently I came across a rather cool app from Pantone, which I thought has the potential to be a very useful tool for anyone who needs to go out and meet clients, and who often find themselves without a famous Pantone swatch book close at hand. The only thing holding me back from trying it out is the rather steep $9.99 price tag. Is anyone else using this yet?

This week I thought I'd throw it out there to our readers to give me some new app suggestions, I'd love to know, what are some of your favorites? Leave them in the comment box!

When I first heard of Mattel's Mindflex last year, I knew I had to get my hands on one. A toy that uses EEG technology to read brainwaves, looks like magic, and comes with a fashionable headset? What's not to love? Unfortunately, it proved to be a long, cold, telekinesis-free winter, with the coveted game sold out everywhere. Finally, just this month, with the Christmas season over and outrageously overpriced eBay sales waning, the game is back in stock, and the Studiothink team got a chance to put their brainpower to the test.

The idea behind Mindflex is relatively simple. According to their website, it "uses a variation of EEG technology to 'read' the intensity of brainwaves via sensors positioned on your forehead and ears....Once the headset recognizes your brainwaves, it transmits a signal to a fan within the console. This fan controls ball levitation. Your brainwaves, in turn, control the power of the fan. The more effectively you concentrate, the stronger the fan blows and the higher the ball floats. Relaxing your mind relaxes the fan's airflow, which lowers the ball."

So how did the team do? Mike and Rob proved to be instant masters with the device, and were quickly able to kill the fan or push it to its highest level after a bit of practice. Sherry, with a steely look of concentration on her face (see above) was also able to move it quite well. Being the highly-organized one of the group, it wasn't surprising that Sarah had a hard time shutting her brain off - the ball rarely left the maximum height of the device. Finally, the more serene Caitlin had a bit of trouble getting the ball floating, and struggled to push it to the higher levels.

Sherry's considering getting one for each team member in the office so she can keep tabs on how much brainpower we're using throughout the day. Of course, in the interest of helping the team achieve a more zen-like state of mind, we could always turn the machine into an evil ectro-shock device...

How does it happen that some brands are considered cool, while others are stuffed into lockers or teased about pocket protectors? I think we can all see the inherent benefit to being one of the cool kids, but how do you get there? It's easier than you might think, but many companies have tried and failed.

The Nerd
For years, the automobile company Volvo has pushed one core competency over all others - safety. They pinned their marketing on the safety band wagon, and have stayed there ever since. I distinctly remember family friends of ours purchasing matching Volvos after they were involved in a serious car crash. By pushing the boundaries of technology, Volvo's original innovations (such as side curtain airbags) have been copied by every major car manufacturer in the world.

But are they cool? Hardly. And boy, have they tried to change their image in previous years, unveiling numerous new marketing campaigns to update their stodgy image. Cutting edge mobile campaigns, campy ads featuring LL Cool J, and cross promotions with XBOX are just a few of the attempts they've tried to add to their coolness factor. With Ford dropping Volvo from its portfolio and sales plummeting, I think it's safe to say that the campaigns haven't worked.

The Kid Next Door
Once upon a time, it was legitimately cool to own a Ford, particularly one of their famous muscle cars like the Mustang. But somewhere along the line, probably when they started specializing in family sedans, the luster fell off of Ford.

The iconic American brand wasn't going to take this lying down, so they initiated new strategies to update their image. One of the most prominent expenditures is their sponsorship of the annual American Idol contest. Among other tie-ins, the winner of the contest becomes the defacto sponsor of Ford, recording jingles and appearing in commercials.

Unfortunately, the sponsorship hasn't been nearly as profitable as Ford would like. A famous study done by Martin Lindstrom for his book Buyology proved that the campaign is a flop as far as consumer recall goes, resulting in no imprint on the American pop culture grid. The Ford brand continues to languish at retail, demonstrating that they are still far from regaining their "cool" status.

How to Get in the Clique
Okay, so you want to be one of the cool kids, how do you do it? Well, following VW's example would be a good way to start. They evolved from being a quirky European car company, to a cool European car company almost overnight.

The process was simple. First, they started building better cars. Not that the previous vehicles were lower quality, because they weren't, but they started producing cars that outclassed their current offerings. Instead of producing lower-end vehicles that were attainable by almost anyone, they started to build cars that were status symbols of sorts - if you drove a Passat it said you were a cut above the Tempo driver.

But that wasn't enough - you can't become a status symbol just by raising your prices. The big coup came with the launch of the retro-infused New Beetle. Not only was this the right car for the right time (right at the beginning of the North American retro movement), but they also started innovative cross promotions with their other vehicles (like giving away free Trek bikes with the purchase of certain Jettas). While other manufacturers were trying to win consumers with gas mileage and horsepower data (or British racing green colour options), VW was giving its market segment something they actually wanted.

The Right Time and the Right Tool
The VW lesson is really about being bold, but also about timing. VW management was very hesitant to build the New Beetle, but the work of a few believers inside the company managed to push the car through to the prototype phase, where consumers saw it and fell in love. But, the Beetle would've been for naught if it wasn't for the retro movement which was sweeping the country. It was the perfect convergence of opportunity and execution.

At their foundations, this is really the problem of both Volvo and Ford's strategies. Volvo had the right idea with their promotions and ads, they were just too late in attempting to refresh their image. In Ford's case, they have an outmoded strategy that has been proven to be ineffective, even if their timing is optimal.

Be bold, be cutting edge, and make sure your market is ripe for your campaign, and you'll find your inner Fonz.

At a recent networking meeting, amidst a flurry of business card exchanges, I found it interesting when one person proudly announced, "I don't have a business card, my office is paperless." Sure, I'd heard of these new paperless types, but I'd never met one before. And the topic got me wondering, how paperless can an office really be?

In the marketing world, we have already witnessed the paperless attitude of the new digital age, with newspaper readership in decline, Yellow Pages being a tool of the past, and let's not even talk about how getting letters in your mailbox are all but an ancient memory. But when I look around the office here, I wonder how much paper can we really do without?

Okay, I'll admit we don't need a phone book. But we need business cards to give out to our non-paperless clients. And proofs need to be marked up, how would we do that without paper? Clients need to send us sign off, and lets face it, not all of our clients have mastered the art of scanning their signatures. And, to tell you the truth, I'm not sure I could ever live without sticky notes.

Paperless around here seems almost...well, wrong. I love seeing a printed sample of our designs. I love it when Caitlin and Dave bring me printouts of their concepts. I love it when we pick out cool new paper for a print project. I respect the paperless office, but, I confess, I am a paper lover. (don't send me hate mail, I recycle!)

Studiothink is seeking a hyper-organized control freak with a personable personality to fill our full-time Project Coordinator position.

Your job entails organizing multiple projects, establishing project timelines, and managing the subsequent work flow. You will be responsible for tracking all projects, both internally and externally, ensuring that jobs stay on target with deadlines, and producing weekly Excel reports on each jobs status.

On a daily basis you will be communicating between the client, suppliers and staff, which is why your organization skills are not enough, they must be paired with a great attitude and a demonstrated ability to communicate clearly and effectively, not to mention a high tolerance for airborne Nerf weapons. You will also perform general office management tasks such as ordering supplies, sending invoices and couriers, filing, and answering phones when needed.

This is an entry-level position within our company, and marketing experience is an asset, although not mandatory. We are offering $35,000 per year to start, along with extended benefits and three weeks paid vacation.

Qualifications:
- Extensive organizational skills with a focus on solutions
- Highly-developed customer service skills
- Personable verbal and written communication are crucial
- 2-3 years experience working in an office admin role, demonstrating clear organizational skills
- Extremely competent on the computer using email, databases and MS Office
- Able to confidently communicate with clients, suppliers and internal staff
- Interest or experience in the field of marketing, graphic design and website design is an asset

Job Duties:
- Working directly with the Marketing Director and Creative Director, you will generate project timelines and schedules for all our projects, and be responsible for ensuring internal staff, suppliers and clients adhere to the project deadlines
- Creating job dockets and notes on necessary revisions and proofs
- Obtaining records of client approvals on project quotes and final sign off
- Work closely with external suppliers to obtain quotes and send out materials
- Closely track projects at all times, internally, to printer or other supplier, to final delivery to the client
- Acquire all information and materials needed to complete projects on time
- General office management including filing, invoicing, couriering, supplies, phones, etc.

If you are highly organized and personable, and enjoy being in a marketing, design and interactive environment, then communicate with us and demonstrate your skills! Send us a PDF or MS Word document that includes your well-written resume and cover letter to careers@studiothink.com

Studiothink is a creative agency located in Surrey, BC. To find out more about us, visit our website at www.studiothink.com

Ah Super Bowl Sunday, a chance to kick back, relax, and enjoy my yearly maximum intake of pork rinds. But, to some, the enjoyment of the big day comes not from the action on the field, or even the (prosaic) half time show. No, there is a huge cadre of people for whom the Super Bowl is appointment television simply for the ads.

While there have been some classic campaigns to come out of the weekend, there have also been some super-stinkers. And what else would WTFriday cover if not the absolute worst of the bunch.

Just For Feet: Kenya Mission, 1999

Do you feel slightly icky after watching that? Perhaps, ashamed that it would ever air on North American television? So too did the advertiser, Just for Feet, who turned around and tried to sue their agency, Saatchi & Saatchi, for malpractice after spending $7 million dollars on the spot. In the end it didn't really matter as Just for Feet went out business later the same year.

McDonald's: Mc D.L.T., 1986

"It was the 80's". That excuse bails out a lot of corporate mistakes (The DeLorean, Members Only Jackets, New Coke), but it's not nearly enough to explain to us how McDonald's thought they could possibly tie in Shakespeare and beef. Maybe the Merchant of Venice would've been a better choice.

Apple: 1984, 1984

Sorry for the confusing headline, but somehow I'll bet the actual ad was far more confusing than anything in this blog. Now, it's hard to knock 1984 because of the reverence which many advertisers hold for it. But, viewed today, it simply comes off as awkward, overblown, and corny. In other words, like a Window ad.

For most of the office the newspaper is the equivalent to a Walkman - an anachronism. But if there's one thing that might potentially get us to open one up, it's the funnies. Unfortunately, most of the strips in the comics section nowadays suck - Cathy is still bikini-less, Hagar is still browbeaten, and Dagwood is still not funny. I can't be bothered to read past Get Fuzzy.

Thankfully, webcomics have filled the void in bold and creative fashion, producing strips that are infinitely funnier than anything in hard copy. Here's a few of Studiothink's favourites:

Rob: XKCD
A web comic rooted in science, love, math, and comedy, started by a former robotics researcher at NASA's Langley Research Center in Virginia. Smart and funny at the same time.

Dave: Dinosaur Comics
Some webcomic Canadian Content! A comic where the panels, artwork, and characters are the same in every strip. And yet there is something hilarious about these talking dinosaurs that keeps us coming back.

Mike: Garfield Minus Garfield
Garfield hasn't been funny since 1988. But somehow when you remove every mention of Garfield from every strip, it becomes a strange brew of depressing and funny, all at the same time. It's just Jon's slow descent into madness, and it's fascinating.

Caitlin: The Oatmeal
A webcomic for design folk, but really for anyone who enjoys a cynical laugh now and then. I'd post a sample strip, but they're like 3000pixels long, and would probably crash the blog.

These are our picks, but we love to find new ones - please post your favourites in the comments section!

On October 29 this past year, geeks worldwide (including some of us here at Studiothink) celebrated the Internet's 40th birthday. Today marked another moment in history when it was announced that NASA has finished an upgrade to the International Space Station that will allow its astronauts to connect to the internet. Yep, the World-Wide-Web is now in orbit, and the first cosmic internet communication came in the form of a Twitter post. It's only a matter of time until Colonel TJ Creamer starts getting stellar spam emails selling him Viagra, discount watches, and membership to prestigious "Who's Who" lists.

There's nearly 2 billion people using the internet and that number now includes residents of the International Space Station. We've come a long way. For a bit of perspective, we bring you a good ol' Canadian broadcast from 1993, discussing this mysterious phenomenon called simply, "Internet."

In 1985, Mitchell & Ness Nostalgia company began producing authentically reproduced baseball jerseys from iconic teams like the Yankees and Phillies. After being mentioned in Sports Illustrated in 1987, the company quit producing other lines of apparel, and threw all of their resources behind producing authentic retro jerseys. By 2002 M&N had the license for each of the four major sports, the same year sales crested $25 million dollars.

They were not alone; over the past decade numerous companies have cashed in on the retro craze, with everything from Pacman, to the VW Bug, to swing music, to Pepsi getting a rebirth in retro form. The nostalgia craze is as strong today as it was 10 years ago.

Rumours of its death...
But, as early as 2003, manufacturers and retailers were impatiently waiting for the fad to die out. They were convinced that consumers would tire of the vintage trend, and would cry out for innovative and new products. Obviously the push for nostalgia is as strong as ever, so the question is - why didn't it die?

Did We Invent Retro?
The first thing to consider is that "retro" is really a creation of Gen Y (and maybe a little bit of Gen X). My parents version of nostalgia is going to an old car show, or watching an old movie - they certainly don't buy Aquanet or Lifebuoy for kicks.

Why is it so Popular Now?
My theory is that our generation eats up nostalgia because we're the first generation to have our so-carefully-preserved memories at our fingertips. The on-demand nature of the Internet allows us to instantly relive any moment we want.

Want to see the Fonz jump the shark again? Search YouTube.
Want to watch an old episode of Fraggle Rock? Try Hulu.
Want to play old Nintendo games? Nintendo8.com.
Can't remember who played the French Canadian goalie in Youngblood? It'll be on Wikipedia (for the record, it was Keanu Reeves).

Corporations took note of our continued fascination with the media of our youth, and they have responded by releasing products designed exclusively to put that nostalgic smile on our face.

My point? This trend is not going to die. As long as the Internet and other on-demand mediums allow us to experience happy memories of our youth, we're going to continue to buy products that bring us back.

(credit Kym MacFarlane at http://kraftykym.blogspot.com for the top image)

Quite frankly, the concept of YouTube is brilliant. Humans love to share their creations; whether we're scrawling woolly mammoths on cave walls, or pasting our kids' construction-paper collage to our fridge, we want to put our art out there for others to see. Social Media sites like YouTube have allowed this innate need to expand globally.

But, sometimes, someone comes along that make us question whether this is a good thing. In YouTube's case, it has to be CONRADCIGARSPIPES. The standard post from Conrad is simple - he smokes his pipe listening to music. Sometimes he describes the clothing he's wearing, other times he just sits in silence glowering at the computer screen. Either way, there's not a lot going on.

But it's not his videos that make him so bizarre, it's that they're so prolific. Over the span of one year YouTube viewers have been treated to over 10,000 clips of Conrad's gruff mug. Do the math: that's 27 videos per day.

My only guess is this is some kind of absurdist or neo-surrealist art that I just can't appreciate. Either way, I give you PIPE TOBACCOS:BUTZ-CHOQUIN PRELUDE EXTRA, SMOKING, WITH BLUE JEANS HAT; AND " VAMOS CARIÑITO by CONRADCIGARSPIPES:

*credit goes to Michael Swaim at Cracked for first sharing the wonder of Conrad with us all.

Try to remember, when was the last time you clicked on a web banner ad? In the last few months? In the last year? If it's been a while, don't feel bad. A recent study by ComScore and Starcom shows that the number of people online who click display ads has dropped 50% in less than two years and, what's more, only 8% of internet users account for 85% of all clicks.

It seems the days when flashy animated banners would successfully lure browsers to websites are officially over, and banner ad click-through rates have become useless. Does that mean it's the end of the banner ad?

Not at all. We simply need to change our perspective. While click-through rates of banner ads have dropped significantly (and those who do click seem to be primarily lower-income young adults), banner ads can still successfully deliver your branding and its message, and are still a strong component of our online marketing strategy. ComScore found that online users exposed to a particular brand's display ads conduct more searches on that brand's name, and there seems to be strong correlation between banner ads, higher interaction times on brand sites and better-performing paid search.

Don't start an online advertising campaign with clicks as the main goal, otherwise the data suggests that you'll be sorely disappointed. Instead, figure out how display ads fit into your larger marketing plan. Focus on building your brand awareness, or sending a particular message rather than enticing others to visit your site.

Okay, so you've signed up for Google Analytics, and now you can see exactly how many people visit your site everyday. If you read my previous blog, you can also analyse your bounce and exit rates (if you missed that post, you can read it here).

But, sheer numbers aren't everything. Sure, lots of people have looked at your site, but what are they looking at? It's vitally important to consider where users are going for two reasons:

#1: The pages users are most interested in (i.e. the pages they hit first) could give you insights in how to market to them better.
#2: Users could be bypassing content you consider important, which might point to an error in your site design.

How Do I Follow Users?
Thankfully, Google has been thoughtful enough to give us the tools to track how visitors navigate through websites. This great information is accessible in the Content directory, cleverly labelled "Navigation Analysis". There are two options to choose from, but we're only interested in the navigation summary.

Clicking navigation summary brings up a rather confusing looking screen, but what it's really telling you is how users came to this page, and where they went after. By default Google will display the index (home) page, but you can change which page you're looking at by using the drop down menu beside "content".

What Do I Look For?
The Navigation Summary tells you how many people looked at the site, but this isn't the vital portion of the page; instead we want to pay attention to the data underneath.

Entrances
This gives you the percentage of users who entered your entire site from this page. It's normal for the entrance % on your homepage to be quite high, as most people will enter a site from the index. You might also see high numbers on other pages like a blog, or news - its not always a bad thing to see. However, if your home page has a low entrances figure, but another page has a higher number, it could point to poor SEO , or poor home page design.

Previous Pages
This shows you where users were right before they landed on this page (presuming they didn't enter the site as above). I use this metric to ensure that users are travelling through our site as we designed. For example, if I had installation instructions for a product on my site, I would want to make sure that most of the people on the "step 3" page were coming from the "step 2" page.

Exits
As discussed in my last blog; exits tell you how many users left the site from this page. Generally, a high number here is a bad thing, unless it's at the logical "end" of your site (the contact page, for example).

Next Pages
The counterpart to previous pages, this will tell you were users went after visiting the current page. This is particularly relevant on the home page, as it shows you exactly where users tend to go once they arrive on your site - critical information if you're trying to guide users to certain pages off the index.

From here, it's just a matter of playing around, analyzing percentages, and massaging the data. You can learn all kinds of weird and wonderful things about your users, but be warned - it might not all be good news. Be prepared to take steps to improve the browsing experience, and you'll be better off in the long run.

This flew a little under the radar for me today, but apparently it's Digg's 5th birthday! Hard to believe how far we've come over 5 years. The concept of users promoting or denigrating content would've been unthinkable even 6 years ago.

Think about it - at the turn of the century content was basically considered sacrosanct. You put up web pages and users were expected to digest that content and move on. Today, we're commenting, collaborating, creating, and most of all sharing content. It used to be that your site belonged to you, but more and more what you put up on the web is meant to be molded and interacted with, as opposed to just experienced.

Digg was a pretty revolutionary concept, not just that users could submit content to be shared, but that it actually gave them an opportunity to vote with their mouse buttons - users could control what content was considered popular. Unlike traditional media where corporate dollars dictated what was seen most prominently, all of sudden if you wanted to be noticed, then your content needed to be as good as your balance sheet.

Digg certainly played a role in the overall emergence of Social Media, and, even with RSS and Social Media providing new ways to deliver interesting news, they have managed to fill an important niche by allowing the general internet population to decide what is relevant, instead of corporations.

Congrats on your 5th birthday Digg. No matter what the future holds for you, we won't forget what you helped all of us achieve.

http://blog.digg.com/?p=1195

"Make it more red." I've heard that request more than a few times in my design career, and everyone means something different. You could be looking at a colour comprised of 100% yellow and 100% magenta (the two colours that combine to produce red in process printing) and you'll still hear that request. "I can't," you plead, "it's as red as it can be!"

The problem lies in the fascinating (at least for designers) world of the colour spectrum, and different people's perception of colour. We each have an image in our head of what the ideal shade of red looks like, and that can lead to a lot of confusion when working on a design. Rob, our programmer, considers absolute red to be the RGB value FF0000, which is correct on an RGB backlit screen. I consider absolute red in printing terms - 100% yellow, 100% magenta. My old design director from a newspaper considered absolute red to be Pantone 186C. The average person would consider absolute red to be the same colour as an apple, a fire engine, etc.

Consider our language as well. A quick lookup of red in the thesaurus yields about 26 usable results, 11 of which could be considered primary shades: Falu Red, Scarlet, Carnelian, Venetian Red, Sangria, Maroon, Carmine, Vermillion, Burgundy, Persimmon and Magenta. A few years ago my wife bought a lovely red coat that was a wonderful scarlet. Now, a few years later, red coats are back in style, but in a slightly darker, understated Venetian red. Lucky for us, she cares more about literature than fashion or colour, so the (slightly) unfashionable red will continue to be worn for some time. Extra money will continue to be spent on books rather than the latest season's fashions.

Now add to this the fact that as many as 50% of women and 8% of men may have a genetic condition called Tetrachromacy, giving them four photopigments rather than three, and thus allowing them to see 99 million more colours than the average person.

Take a look at the two different reds above for a visual example. To many people they look exactly the same, however they're different by 4 dE (Delta-E) and specially trained or gifted eyes can perceive the difference.

Red is very seldom red.

"When life hands you lemons, make lemonade". Trite? Yes. Cliche? Yes. Delicious? Also yes. This phrase, repeated by business professors and mothers everywhere, definitely falls in the "easier said than done" category. Ask anyone who has backed their parent's car into a lamp post - kind of hard to find the lemonade in that one.

But, the overarching lesson is to always look for ways to find a positive outcome in any potentially negative event. Here's a couple of great case studies that illustrate how this can actually happen, if you combine your marketing acumen with a little old-fashioned creative thinking.

RBK Snake Grip

In 2004 Reebok launched their new line of hockey equipment, including the cash-cow of any equipment manufacturer - one-piece composite sticks. One of the highly touted features of their new sticks was the innovative "snake grip" texture; a series of tactile lines that allowed players to better grip their sticks.

Was the snake grip a brilliant technical innovation? Hardly; it was actually the result of a manufacturing defect. The story goes that the development team had a batch of test sticks made up to show the marketing department, but there was an error in the process that caused raised lines to form. They told the marketers not worry about the defect, and that it would get worked out in the next run. The marketing team stepped in and said forget it, we can sell this, and snake grip was born.

Vulcanized Rubber

Charles Goodyear struggled most of his adult life to simply stay out of debtors prison. His children survived by begging for food from farmers, while their father worked days and nights trying to perfect the process of making temperature stable rubber.

After many fruitless experiments, Goodyear was stumped. One day, after another experiment went awry, he set down his concoction on a hot stove. Soon flames and the acrid smell of burning rubber conspired to make his day even worse, that is until he inspected the burning specimen. Turns out, his original formula combined with the heat served to cure the rubber, thus making it temperature stable. Vulcanized rubber was born, and Goodyear's kids could finally eat whenever they wanted.

Post-it Notes

Probably the granddaddy of all mistaken-successes, the iconic Post-It note. In 1970, 3M employee Spencer Silver was charged with making adhesives. Obviously the point of adhesives is to create something sticky and strong, so when Silver came up with a glue that was actually less sticky than his other attempts, he didn't exactly know what to do with it.

And so the glue sat for four years, until another 3M employee, Arthur Fry, started looking for a solution to his hymn book problem. Mr. Fry used a bookmark to keep the correct place in his hymn book, but the damn thing kept falling out. He remembered Silver's glue, and found that it would allow him to move the bookmark around the book with out damaging the pages. In 1980, Post-Its hit the world, and desk tops have never the same since.

Hopefully these stories inspire you to do something great, even if your Monday has started out a little rough.

Often we come across companies who absolutely refuse to change their logo. Even if their cousin Fred scribbled the logo on a cocktail napkin in 1974, they feel deeply attached and committed to that logo. And rightly so, a logo is the frontman of marketing, it gets all the glory, and proudly shows itself on signage, letterhead, hats, cars and even the occasional tattoo (I'm still waiting for someone to get a Studiothink tattoo).

As a branding company, we sometimes cringe at the logos we get from clients. A client will want a brand new, cutting edge website that will bring them up to date, and yet want to keep their outdated logo. And really, I can't blame them. In a recent refresh of our own Studiothink logo, I found myself torn and deeply attached to a logo we have had for the past 12 years. I hesitated (for only a few agonizing seconds), pondering on whether it should be changed at all. In the end, my marketing brain got the best of me, and I knew without a doubt that we would be hypocrites not to move with the times.

We aren't the only ones that modify their logos to keep current, it's been done for years by the corporate giants. They too realize the importance of keeping a logo fresh and current. They may retain elements of their old logo to avoid confusing the consumer (as we did as well), but they don't bury their head in the sand and hope for the best, they are proactive in making sure their logo reflects the time period and what is popular in the marketplace.

So my challenge to you is—if Pepsi, Apple, Nike, Starbucks, and even Studiothink can do it, you can too. Discover the secret they have known all along—a logo update is a great way to show your customers that you embrace change, and will be able to adapt to consumer needs and trends. As I discovered, the decision to do it only hurts for the first few seconds—before excitement sets in.

It's supposed to be one of the cold hard truths of marketing - sex sells. Need to move some beer, jeans, burgers, or snacks? Just put the product next to some sexy chicks and take a few photos - the ad copy will write itself.

Stay Classy, George
That was obviously the plan with the latest ad for Octane Energy Drink. Have an NHL'er play road hockey with some models, and get ready to fill orders:

The only problem? The NHL has a slight issue selling sex, caffeine, and alcohol to a family-friendly audience. After some apologies from Mssr. Lararque, the ads were pulled and online banners were taken down. But, Octane sales won't even miss a beat, and it won't be sex that sells them.

Sex Doesn't Sell
Sex isn't going to move a single can of Octane. In fact, had George just been an actor instead of hockey player, Octane might be totally forgotten. That's because sex appeal on its own doesn't sell.

Noted branding expert Martin Lindstrom set out to study this, along with some other common marketing misconceptions, in his book Buyology. Martin hooked a bunch of consumers up to complicated neuroscanning devices, to get a close look at how exactly their brains reacted when shown a number of ads.

Guess what? Sex didn't trigger any kind of buying impulse in the area of the brain that controls purchases. Asked later to recall the ads they were shown, there was incredibly poor recall of the sexy brands, and average recall for plain vanilla ads. The sex appeal of the ads actually interfered with the messaging.

So What Sells?
If sex doesn't sell, why does Octane (amongst others like Calvin Klein, Candies etc.) find success using it? Because, as Martin points out, controversy does sell.

I could list probably 5-6 energy drinks off the top of my head, out of the seemingly hundreds that are out there. Each one has its own reason for being memorable:
- Redbull (the market pioneer)
- Amp (because they're backed by PepsiCo's big marketing dollars)
- Cocaine (due to the controversy over their name)
- Octane (thanks to the controversy over the sexy ad)
- Beaver Buzz (a shout out because I'm a sucker for Canadian-centric marketing)

Both Redbull and Amp had to spend millions to get the brand recognition they've received. Cocaine and Octane only had to introduce a little controversy to get the same top-of-mind awareness.

The lesson here is that sex doesn't move product - marketing strategy moves product. Putting a sexy guy/girl in your ad won't help your sales, but a strategic dose of controversy might. As always, it's how you use the marketing tools available that will dictate your success.

"Google Ana-whatta?" If that was your initial reaction to the blog title, then you need to read this.

Google Analytics is the premier program for tracking and analyzing traffic on your website, bar none. If you're not using analytics to understand how users are navigating through your site, how they're finding your site, or where they go when they leave, then you could be losing out on hundreds of leads.

Adding Google Analytics is a simple process - if you're interested in using it on your site simply contact us and we'll walk you through the process.

Tip of the Day
Today's blog is directed towads people who already know and love their Analytics. It's a simple tip for understanding your "Bounce Rate" and "Exit Rate". While they might sound the same, they actually refer to completely different metrics.

Bounce Rate really only applies to your homepage (or in some cases Pay-Per-Click landing pages). The bounce rate lets you know how many people visit your homepage and then leave without clicking on anything else. In other words, they see your homepage, but they don't see anything they like, so they hit the back button and leave.

The Exit Rate can apply to any page on your site. A page's exit rate is the percentage of visitors who left after viewing that specific page. If I visit your homepage, then click on products, and then go to directly to another site after that, then I would be adding to the product page's exit rate.

What Does It All Mean?
The information you can get from both rates can be really helpful in analyzing users' behaviour on your site. Obviously no one wants a high bounce rate because it means visitors aren't even bothering to learn more about you. What are the reasons for a high bounce rate? It could be you're not communicating appropriate, relevant, eye-catching information on the homepage. Or, it could be that your navigation isn't easy to find, and people just get frustrated and leave. Whatever the reason, it's critical that you take steps to improve the browsing experience to lower your bounce rate.

This becomes particularly important if you're paying for SEO or Adwords - you're literally paying for every hit on your home page, and the only way to get your ROI back on those visits is to ensure that people use the site as you intended. You wouldn't use advertising to drive people to your showroom and then not keep it clean and easy to shop - your website should be the same way.

A high exit rate is not always a bad thing, depending on which page people are exiting from. For example, if you have a contact form and you find that most people are exiting the site from that page, then it's probably okay - people are likely just getting your email/phone number, and then leaving the site. But, if the main exit page is a seemingly critical page (like a product or service page) then it probably makes sense to do some research to find out why people aren't continuing onto the rest of the site.

There's a lot more information Google Analytics can tell you and in future Blogs I'll be sharing other useful tips to help you get the most from your Analytics results.

Have questions, or want to talk Analytics? Leave a comment below and we'll respond to you!

One of the most fascinating concepts I learned at Kwantlen was the 80/20 rule. Basically, the 80/20 rules states that 80% of your business comes from 20% of your customers (and vice versa). It's not a hard and fast rule, but anecdotal evidence combined with some actual formal studies have shown that it's true more often than not. Our experience at STUDIOTHINK seems to follow this pattern as well.

How can you apply this rule for the benefit of your business? Well for one thing, it's just common sense to identify your 20%. If you're not sure who your core repeat customers are, then it's vital to identify them. Once you know who they are (and what they buy) it becomes easier to identify prime targets for growth.

But, one of the best ways to use this knowledge to fuel your company's success is to create product evangelists. The term borrows from religious evangelists, those spiritual enthusiasts who get fulfillment by spreading the good word. Consumers can be evangelists in their own way, broadcasting to their friends and family about products they've used and love. This is the root of generating buzz and word of mouth advertising.

Think of your own life - do you have friends that are quick to recommend new products, or like nothing better than to wax poetic about purchase they've made? In my small circle of friends, we're always swapping info about new gadgets we've tried, movies we've seen, or websites we're visiting. This type of product evangelism occurs all across the world, and in many cases this is how a small phenomenon grows into the mainstream.

Okay, so you know evangelists are out there, and you know they're valuable - how do you capitalize on them? First of all, make information about your company and products easy to share. Let your consumers connect through social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, even YouTube. You may consider hosting a message board, where users can communicate back and forth. A blog like this one may also be a great way to talk directly to your core customers.

Let's examine two major corporations, and how they encourage evangelism about their product. The NFL drives its marketing directly to their core audience. Whether it's supporting tailgating and fan parties, or setting up favourable league policies for small market teams so those with historic backgrounds can thrive, the NFL wants its core fans to be loud and proud, and share those experiences with others.

Contrast that with the NHL, who's marketing strategy for over a decade has been to pander to the "casual fan". The NFL's marketing says "hey fan, support your team with gear and apparel, get your family involved, and show your team pride everywhere". The NHL says "hey guy who knows nothing about hockey - come give us a try!". Can you see the obvious benefit to the NFL's strategy? Their core fans actually work to grow the game for free, by bringing their family and friends together in support of their team, thereby reaching more people with less dollars. The NHL tries to find those non-core customers, but ends up with a less efficient "shotgun" approach.

Just look at the way each league handles its Fantasy Sports offerings. The NFL hosts blogs, articles, games, and inside information for its Fantasy Sports players. The NHL doesn't host anything, and relies on Yahoo! to host their Fantasy Hockey game. Fantasy Sports is an ever-growing market, filled with the most dedicated fans possible, and the NHL can't even be bothered to talk to them. You only have to look at each league's revenues to see which strategy is paying off:

NFL 2008 Season Revenues = 6 billion dollars (not including media contracts)
NHL 2008 Season Revenues = 2.4 billion dollars (not including media contracts)

The numbers speak for themselves. The lesson here? Support your core customers, and they'll bring you more business than you could ever hope to reach on your own.

PS For those who are interested, here's my Fantasy Hockey team for this year; let me know what you think my chances are:

C - Sidney Crosby
C - Marc Savard
C - Michael Frolik
LW - Dany Heatley
LW - Vaclav Prospal
LW - Sergei Samsonov
RW - Alexei Kovalev
RW - Bryan Little
RW - Peter Mueller
D - Brian Campbell
D - Tomas Kaberle
D - Ryan Whitney
D - Tobias Enstrom
G - Pekka Rinne
G - Ryan Miller

It's been a busy week, and on top of it all, we are hiring for a new designer, which means tons of resumes are coming in. Is it politically correct to say that some of them.....are well, a little more than odd? Now, I understand that it's hard to know what a company is looking for, and that it may be hard to get the attention of the person who is reading through the resumes, but why are so many just plain WRONG. So, as a Friday rant, here are some of my top pet peeves, straight from this weeks resume pile:

1. If it asks for a PDF, why send a MS Word file? And since when does a designer use MS Word anyways?
2. Creepy pictures and drawings are not a selling feature.
3. Who asks for $100 an hour? I mean, I don't even get paid that. Delete.
4. Saying you need to stay in the country is not a good enough reason for an interview.
5. Um, a little too much personal information. See a counselor.
6. I hate those emoticons at the bottom of Hotmail emails. And hate is a pretty strong word.
7. Cover letters that start with the words "Dear Sirs" are not cool. Even "To Whom it May Concern" is pushing it.
8. Commuting from Squamish probably means this won't work out.
9. Why would someone from Wisconsin apply? Is the job market in Wisconsin that saturated?
10.Hello, it's 2009. Spell check.
11. One good portfolio makes up for any lack of education. What amazes me is that so many educated people submit the most god awful portfolios. Time for a career change.
12. Five days at a company is not really "work experience".
13. If you've already submitted a resume, and you've just read this, feel free to resubmit.

Here's looking forward to next weeks resume pile!

We're all pretty news-savvy people in the office (at least that's what we tell the bosses when they catch us browsing the web), and we like to stay up to date on current events. When this news item was sent around the office by Dave, we knew we had to share it with our blog readers.

Ladies and gentlemen, can I please have your attention. I've just been handed an urgent and horrifying news story. I need all of you, to stop what you're doing and watch this:

On my recent trip to San Francisco there were a few places I knew I absolutely needed to visit: the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, and 826 Valencia. Not many people have heard of that last one - heck, the people at our hotel just raised an eyebrow when I asked if they knew how I could get to what's billed as San Francisco's only independent pirate supply shop.

Yep, you read right. And if piracy paraphernalia wasn't enough, the story of 826 Valencia made it a must-see for me. Founded by Dave Eggers (author and McSweeney's editor), 826 Valencia is a nonprofit tutoring centre with a twist. The team found the perfect location for their writing workshops but were told that, due to zoning, they were required to also have a storefront. The team decided that a pirate supply store would be best, and all proceeds from the sales would go directly to funding the free student programs!

To clarify, this is not a store that sells pirate toys. This is a store that sells supplies to pirates, like glass eyes, "scurvy begone", eye patches and leeches that cure gangrene. What's more, a local SF-based design agency was given the enviable task of designing the packaging for each product! Pirate supplies, literacy AND great packaging design? Now you can see why 826 Valencia HAD to be on my itinerary.

The shop has been so successful in raising money for the kids, they've since opened other centres in cities across America including Seattle (space travel supply) and New York (super hero supply).

You can learn more and even buy your own pirate supplies at their website: www.826valencia.org

This week I was suckered into something completely different - we really need to hire some more women around here. All the guys wanted to take their gun training, my husband included - and well, I'll admit it, I hate to be left out. I had never handled a gun in my life, so really, the whole experience was fun to do. We spent two, five hour sessions learning our gun safety and handling, with a written and practical test at the end of it all. The gang included Mike, Dave, Rob, myself, Dave's dad, and my husband Brent.

All of us passed our test, with scores in the 90's, although I thought I was going to fail when I couldn't find the right bullets for any of my guns! We are now all eligible to apply for our unrestricted and restricted gun licenses. I'm not really sure what I'll do with mine, perhaps some target shooting? I won't kill anything, as I strongly believe if I can get it at Safeway, I don't need to see any eyeballs. So, you might see me at the local gun range killing some of those vicious clay skeets.

It's Friday. The week has passed by so quickly, and we've been busy lately, but I just want everyone to know how much I hate those Mac Ads. Creative, and ingenious at first, those clever marketing people have everyone convinced that a PC must run Microsoft's Windows Vista. This is false. Most people I know run Boot Camp and have Windows installed on their Macs. Seems strange to me, if they're advertising that Windows is Evil(tm). Now I'm not saying Windows is good or bad, there are many options out there if you dislike Windows; Unix, Linux, and OS X are the main alternatives, but there are others such as Haiku (for those that remember BeOS back in the day).

Now imagine if all future robots ran on a defunct version of Windows? The good people over at Cinematic Happenings Under Development (CHUD) have come up with their list of the 5 top robot kills. Go have a look, and if you have any other suggestions, let me know.

I stumbled on a great research tool a couple of months ago that I thought was really cool. The Way Back Machine is located at http://www.archive.org/index.php, and it allows you to view archived editions of many websites. Simply enter the website URL your choice, and the Way Back Machine will spit out all the old iterations of that site, sometimes going back over ten years! Not just a source of preserved sites, it's also a really good time-killer, allowing you to get a laugh over how some sites used to look:

- http://web.archive.org/web/20001109021600/http://www2.cnn.com/
- http://web.archive.org/web/19961225114023/http://www.nhl.com/
- http://web.archive.org/web/19981202230410/http://www.google.com/
- http://web.archive.org/web/19990421044406/http://www.hamsterdance.com/
- http://web.archive.org/web/20000817000029/http://www.studiothink.com/

Adobe Flash livens up websites with eye-catching animation, and adds a new level of user enjoyment with interactive interfaces and games (like the pong game on the new Studiothink website), but it doesn’t usually come to mind as a way to animate an entire feature film.

But that's what director Ari Folman used with his 2009 Golden Globe-winning film, Waltz with Bashir. A documentary about the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, the film was shot with three DVCAMs, then painstakingly transformed into animation by a team of eight animators, four illustrators, one After Effects artist, and one editor, thus creating a very artistic, original and creative production from a very limited budget.

I managed to catch the film shortly after its appearance at the Vancouver Film Festival, and was blown away; It's great to see the same tool we use to give your website a competitive edge on the web can be used in such a powerful way. It's out of theaters now, but set to be released on DVD on Jun 23, 2009. So if you're a fan of foreign films, documentaries, or creative animation, I highly recommend taking a look.