"Tipping Point" In Plain And Simple

You all probably know the classic product adoption curve:



Malcolm Gladwell improved this graph in his book "Tipping Point" and made it more realistic by putting a gap between early adopters and pragmatists:



The thing is that early adopters' and pragmatists' consumer behaviour is so different that there is no smooth change-over. You have to somehow overcome this gap, usually by being consistent, introducing and explaining your product to the wider audience 24/7 and having a strong belief in what you are doing. Its not an easy journey, but a highly rewarding one.

Check out this YouTube video and note, how long it takes for those two guys (one being the starter and the other an early adopter) to get the first crew of pragmatists following and how easy things get from there on.

F1 Teams vs. Haute Couture Brands

As you know, F1 is all about big money and blinding glam. When watching the Silverstone GP, I tried to analyze the image of each of the teams and match them to haute couture brands respectively.

So, here it goes:

Brawn GP - DKNY, Alexander McQueen

Team, who hasn't built a clear image yet, due to their novelty. I emanated from keywords progressive, youthful, good bang for the buck.

Red Bull - Diesel, JC de Castelbajac

Keywords are crazy, innovative and distinctive obviously.

Toyota - Hugo Boss, Jill Sander

They have piles of dough but spend it extremely thoughtfully. So the keywords are refined, civilized and non-risk taking.

McLaren - Ermenegildo Zegna, Burberry

McLaren's extremely long traditions bring the keywords like gentelmenly fine taste, heritage-aware progressive mindset and hedonism to mind.

Renault - Lacoste, Marc Jacobs

Known geezer-gigiolo Briatore has a great effect in modelling Renault's image with his vital way of living. So, refined sportiness and trendy free-living.

BMW Sauber - Lanvin, Hermes

BMW's white Motorsport car design has been always respected. Brand-awareness, minimal but clearly distinguished style and modest, yet classy appearance.

Ferrari - Cavalli, Etro

Team, who's staff makes hair gel producers rich. Italians, you see. Short-tempered, agressive, with in your face attitude.

Williams - Valentino, Varvatos

Williams has never put any emphasis on their image. Still, I emenated from modesty, quality and hardheadness.

Toro Rosso - Dsquared, Hilfiger

Red Bull's second team. Image, of course, is pretty much the same, but brands should be a little more ordinary compared to their first team.

Force India - Yudashkin, Yamamoto

Bollywood! No matter how hard they try to match European style, continuous faux-pas's are inevitable.

Style example from French nobleman, the marquess of Morocco Jean-Charles de Castelbajac:

3D Illusion

Lets talk about street art for a while. A guy named Julian Beever does incredible 3D drawings on the pavement. They are so realistic that its very easy to fall for those illusions. You don't have to be a rocket-scientist to see how your BTL campaign could benefit from these.

Red Bull's Great Nascar Event

After motocross stunts and airplane races, Red Bull returns with another media success! This time they participate in the very popular NASCAR race, America’s favorite automobile sport.
On June 11th, the popular driver Brian Vicker and his car (the most famous one, bearing the Red Bull colors) took over 7th Avenue in New York. The crowd was treated to be able to see the crazy race along the avenue. The brand pushed the concept to the very end, as there even was a pit stop where a crew changed the tires of the car before it sped off again!

The street marketing concept seemed to have impressed the spectators a great deal, and broadcasting it on the Internet allowed it to reach a wider audience. The YouTube views so far aren’t very impressive (100,000), but perhaps the real buzz hasn’t begun yet...

All in all, a campaign that amusingly plays off the energetic and extreme Red Bull image. It lives up to its saying, "Red Bull gives you wiiiiiings!"

VIA Culture-Buzz.com

Mass Marketing vs. BTL

Mass marketing is like a sledgehammer, BTL is like a scalpel. The question is, wether you want to smash your customer's head or give her a nose lift.

What do you think she likes best?

I Shot the Sheriff

Campaign against illegal firearms in Toronto.

Sixt Is In The Air

Mass media channels are getting more and more cheaper so pretty much everyone can afford to promote themselves on some kind of pillar. Therefore even Sixt, one of the largest car rental service providers, has difficulties to stand out from this neon razzmatazz. Even if the offering is as appealing as 159 EUR for a new 3-series Beemer.

So, Sixt stopped producing dumb placards and installed 5 powerful WiFi devices in Hamburg airport, naming these free networks with the names of their offerings.

Thats how it looked like: