For a second I thought he was asking me to stop breathing. This is what went through my panic-stricken mind:

Wait…you’re suggesting I intentionally cripple my email client to prevent it from automatically retrieving new messages every two minutes? That’s a terrible idea! How will I know who demands my attention right this very minute?

Oh…wait a second…

I see where you’re going with this.

Getting a near-real-time stream of emails is, for most of us, a bit like being hooked up to a Coke machine intravenously. Look no further than the “CrackBerry” for evidence of that fact. We need email and we need it now.

There’s nothing wrong with needing mobile access, it’s the “now” factor that I’m questioning. Whether at the computer or on a smartphone, that little “message waiting indicator” elicits a Pavlovian response every time.

You obey Inbox.

I’ve had my email client set to automatically retrieve new messages for as long as I’ve been using email via a desktop client. But for me, it’s nearly impossible to stay on-task for a long period of time while new emails keep rolling in. Inevitably, one of those messages, brandishing an urgent subject line, takes control and I’m off-track for an hour.

I obey Inbox, too.

But, isn’t responding quickly good for business, you say? Well, sure, for the most part it’s good to be responsive. But have you noticed that email has taken on the same instantaneous expectations previously restricted to instant messaging? At Agency Fusion we tend to respond very quickly to customers and, as a result, we have clients who will call and ask why we haven’t responded to an email they sent five minutes ago. We’re baffled by that behavior until we realize we’re the ones who trained them to expect such responsiveness.

In addition to problems resulting from creating a real-time expectation for email communications, there is another reason that letting Inbox be your taskmaster is a recipe for mediocrity.

It’s nearly impossible to set goals and accomplish them when you’ve invited Inbox to hijack your plans at-will. Inbox is anti-goal. Inbox wants you to think that a worthwhile goal is to respond as quickly as possible to as many emails as you can, as if you worked for a big email-generation factory whose revenue is directly tied to the number of messages sent each day.

On the contrary, success comes from identifying great things and then doing them. Inbox hates it when you do that. It’s time to take control and remind Inbox who works for whom.

Julius Samann Ltd is the trademark holder for the Little Tree® design used in car air-fresheners. Evidently they feel like their trademark is being infringed upon often enough that they’ve placed ads in HOW Magazine warning designers against using their trademarks.

Am I baffled that they want to protect their marks? Not at all. The shocker to me is the approach they’ve taken.

Did they really think this through? Creatives are going to be flipping through HOW looking for inspiration (something that usually feels good) when they hit this page which will scold them for abusing the Little Tree marks (and that will feel bad).

Creatives are always talking about how a brand feels or the emotional response it elicits. I don’t think there will be any positive feelings had by those who view this ad. I’m not even a designer, which means I’ve never infringed on these marks and never will, but I still felt bugged after viewing this ad.

Now, I’m sure I don’t know all of what’s behind them running this ad or what kinds of infringement they’re battling. They certainly have a right to protect their IP. But, they could have handled this better.

Here are a few ideas:

1. Use humor. The design of this ad looked pretty casual, and I was reading HOW after all, so I wasn’t expecting the punch-to-the-face closer on this ad. They should have played to my expectations and used humor to get their point across.
2. Use a carrot, not a stick. They should have enticed designers to work with their legal team, rather than alienate designers. I’m certain that they get some positive benefits from that tree shape being used in non-competing situations. They should encourage appropriate use, not focus on inappropriate use in such a wide-reaching ad as this. The message would still be clear that they care about appropriate use of their marks.
3. Test the message. I’ll be shocked if I find out they ran this ad by a group of (external) designers before submitting it. Had they done a little test with this message, they could have saved themselves some negative publicity by taking a better approach.

What do you think? How could they have better communicated their message? Leave a comment and we’ll discuss.

Update: Apparently HOW isn’t the only mag they’ve advertised in.

View the new site now and let us know what you think!

Unilever is doing a four-week mobile coupon pilot in New Jersey. Having read the details of their pilot, I’m not convinced it will work as well as it could. Shoppers will be required to visit a third-party site to find and send coupons to their mobile devices. I think that’s too much effort for most shoppers, but at least Unilever is trying.

In fact, we suggest wearing your new t-shirt while showing your clients our Make My Logo Bigger Cream video.

Let us know how that goes.

Google is now extending the feature beyond the first result although they’re using a more compact, single-row method of displaying additional links. Here’s an example screen shot from the Google post that shows what the new sitelinks look like:

I haven’t seen many queries yet that have included more than one result with sitelinks. It took several tries before I was able to find one so I’m guessing this hasn’t fully rolled out just yet.

It’s also worth learning about hybrid apps before you sign off on that device-native app.