GrooveLab

Color Photography from Russia in the Early 1900’s

2009-10-22T13:28:51-07:00

Russian chemist and photographer Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii is known to me only because my father, a professional photographer, mentioned on more than one occasion how Sergei’s work with color photography really changed not only photography, but also motion pictures. While not exactly “color photography” as we know it today (a single emulsion of film to display color in one single exposure), or in pre-digital days, I should say his work, technique, and results are still valid.

His process used a camera that took a series of three monochrome pictures in sequence, each through a different-colored filter. By projecting all three monochrome pictures using correctly colored light, it was possible to reconstruct the original color scene. Any stray movement within the camera's field of view showed up in the prints as multiple "ghosted" images, since the red, green, and blue images were taken of the subject at slightly different times.

Because there were very few of his prints still surviving back when my father would mention him, or any I could see myself in person, I never gave Mr. Prokudin-Gorskii much thought.

But then I saw them. These beautiful, gorgeous and stunning photographs. In 2004, the Library of Congress contracted with computer scientist Blaise Agüera y Arcas to produce an automated color composite of each of the 1902 negatives from the high-resolution digital images of the glass-plate negatives. He applied algorithms to compensate for the differences between the exposures and prepared color composites of all the negatives in the collection.

The Denver Post has a beautiful collection online. Not only are these stunning photographs, but they're an impressive technical marvel as well.

More images can also be seen here.

A fun video shoot

2009-10-15T13:56:09-07:00

Recently Groove had a video shoot at studios in the Presidio for our client, Citrix. We're developing and producing a fun game for them around the topic of desktop virtualization and it stars one of the foremost gurus in the space, Brian Madden. The game has turned out to be a fun mashup of modern technology meets Gene Rayburn [remember him? the host of Match Game...with the long, skinny microphone, bad jackets, and self-conscious leer].

Brian was a great sport, and because of his experience shooting his own virtualization-related Web show, he breezed through what could have been a very long day and made it quite enjoyable. The most difficult part was getting his tacky jacket and tie to stay in place the way they were supposed to. Luckily, our stylist extraordinaire and former Groover Loretta Hintz was on hand to deal with the problem.

Here are a few more pics from our shoot day.

Building a Better Brand Relationship

2009-10-14T14:08:34-07:00

It's no secret. A shared quality of great brands is their ability to build relationship with their customers. Now, the relationship I'm talking about is more than doing business together. Transactions do not guarantee a relationship. Relationships are built over time. They require care and nurturing, and are the product of continual dialog based on shared interests. When you think about it, it's no different than the relationship advice you get for your own significant other(s) in your personal life. And while brand relationships can flourish and evolve over time, they require ongoing brand engagement to keep things interesting and relevant. Engagement can come in many forms. Today, with the new consumer culture that social media provides, we can engage with customers in truly innovative ways. What’s more, often the engagements are led by customers themselves. Take a cue from these notable brands and see how they are engaging customers.

Kettle Chips

Kettle Chips kicked off its fifth annual “People’s Choice” awards with a new twist. This year, they launched a national Create-a-Chip Challenge, engaging audiences to enter their own inspiring flavor creations. Groove 11 brought the concept to life with a website and virtual chip kitchen, allowing users to get inspired and whip up their own flavors. Audiences can then vote in the flavor gallery. The campaign wound up last week with more submissions then expected and more votes, hands down, then previous years. Kettle turned the flavor creation to audiences and they came out in force to engage with the brand. See the winning results.

Dawn

Dawn dishwashing soap gives us a great example of cause marketing. Only this time, the cause chose the brand and not the other way around. In 1978, Alice Berkner, founder of the International Bird Rescue Research Center which helps birds recover from oil spills, discovered that Dawn dishwashing soap actually worked better than any other major dish soap. According to the Center's Executive Director, Jay Holcomb, it cut the oil faster than anything else. It took Dawn several years before they actually championed the cause. But by that time, consumers were already keen to the gentleness and effectiveness of the product and, of course, the images of all those cute baby birds splashing around in suds. Today, Dawn is actually highlighting decades of saving wildlife on their packaging and in their ads. And they are engaging like never before – donating $1 to wildlife groups each time a bottle of Dawn is purchased and the consumer visits the website.

Mobile Apps provide a whole new arena for engagement (more on this later). One notable app that has caught my eye and which I've downloaded is Kraft Foods iFood Assistant. This app is rich with video, suggestions and several appetizing features. It goes way beyond pushing a brand – it engages users to actually use the app frequently – and it goes further by getting users to interact with Kraft online.

The audience is listening. How will you design engagements with your brand?

Getting ready for Brand ManageCamp

2009-10-04T17:33:08-07:00

In an ideal world all of my clients (and potential clients) are at the MGM, Las Vegas with me for the next two days of Brand ManageCamp. The real opportunity here is, of course, to connect the dots. The dots between the power of a well-branded organization; the decentralized and fragmented transformation of media communications; the way conversations (two-way dialog happening in real time), are forever changing traditional advertising and marketing (and even WOM); and how my clients' ability to capture the effects/mood/results of those conversations and to react/respond/re-engage will determine their ultimate success. The dots from my brand (who I am) to my customers (who I'm in dialog with) to our meaningful, measurable relationship (loyalty and advocacy) will be discussed over the next 48 hours. It's going to be juicy.

Advertising, marketing and PR organizations are finally being asked to put some skin the game - to get paid by the success or failure of their work. And many are resisting. They do so at their own peril. Because in the new media communications environment, where everything is two-way, real-time dialog, advertising, marketing, and PR firms need that data to help their clients survive. They need to know that what they're saying matters to the people with whom they are conversing. If not, those people will let them (and everybody else) know about it. By that time it's too late. How can these firms be in a conversation and not care about how the other person is feeling, what they're thinking, who they trust, or what they need? I don't know. And neither does anyone else at this conference.

I'll be doing my best to connect the dots with you. Hang on. It's going to be an illuminating ride.

Sean

Two Brands finding their way back…to their customers

2009-08-12T15:12:21-07:00

Starbucks & Bud Light are fighting back. These two iconic brands lost their way and as a consequence sales slipped. Check out these articles Business Week, Ad Age and Wall Street Journal.

So how did they get here and how do they get back?

Both brands forgot why people liked (bought) them. Starbucks became the McDonald's of coffee, and Bud Light stopped making people laugh. This is important, because people buy beer to share in good times with others and laugh. People went to Starbucks, not for a quick drink, but because of the relationship with the barista. Starbucks and its customers shared a value set, and it wasn’t to be the next McDonald's. When Starbucks began to churn out as many drinks as possible per hour (efficiencies), they lost their soul. When Bud Light left “funny” and went to “drinkability,” a much more rational approach, they lost their soul. When brands stray, customers don’t stay.

Four areas to help make their way back into the hearts and wallets of their customers:

1. Know who you are. Get back your soul ¬– and quickly. People have many choices of beer and coffee, so you must be about something bigger than the product. You must make an emotional connection; regain your soul and talk about it. For Starbucks it’s in the experience of the third place. For Bud Light, it’s in good times, laughter, and friendship.

2. Stand for something. Keep the principles you share with your loyalists close. For Starbucks it is best articulated in its Ethos water product, which takes a percentage of sales and funds efforts to bring safe, clean, running water to impoverished areas around the world. Do more of that. Your loyalists want to be perceived as helping change the world. Give them that. For Bud Light, it’s about the funny bone. People drink beer not because they are thinking, but precisely for the opposite reason. Give them something to laugh about and share with their buddies, and they’ll buy Bud Light again.

3. Consistency. People like comfort. Don’t change too much or too quickly. Be the coffee company that does well around the world, every day and in every interaction, never moving away from that core essence. Be the beer that people count on to laugh. Be funny, every time a message for Bud Light touches a customer, that message should reward them with a smile.

4. It’s the relationship stupid. It’s ultimately about the relationship your brand has with your customers. Without the relationship, you don’t have a brand. Treasure it, respect it, value it, and nourish it. Break the promise, and the relationship deteriorates – the brand loses value and you lose market share.

Change comes to the Event Industry (for the past decade)

2009-08-04T14:51:40-07:00

Change is the only constant. So you can imagine my disappointment when I attended an event industry summit recently where change was talked about, but oh so slow to come. The same topics were being discussed that have been on the event industry’s radar since the late 1990s. Here’s a sample of hallway chatter:

“We must change the exhibit floor to be more customer-centric.”

“Customers are looking for more engaging environments.”

“Getting people to come to an event (audience acquisition) is/has become more challenging.”

...Really...?

When you move away from the term “event,” what you have is a gathering of like-minded people coming together to share. The desire to gather is strong; note the increase in social networking platforms. The problem in the event industry is that folks are anchored to the traditional way people have communicated: face-to-face. That’s not going away, it’s simply been enhanced by the tools most of us are now using to stay connected. That’s where my colleagues in the event industry fall apart.

We must embrace the paradigm shift that has occurred in communications. An event is simply one part of the communication cycle we all live in. Thus, the value proposition for someone to attend an event must be increased from years past. The event must deliver tangible, actionable return-on-effort. To do this well, we in the event industry must take a user-out view of our prospective attendees, sponsors, media, speakers, etc. Content no longer rules the day, as content is pretty much free. Information from sponsors may be found in numerous places, and gathering with like-minded folks can be done virtually 24/7.

So, what should the event industry do? Embrace the change and lead. How about an event that begins online, and continues online, after the actual gathering? How about speaker teasers pre-event, and speakers answering questions post-event? How about marketing an event via Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn? How about bringing sponsors into the fold early? What are they looking to garner from an event? How about customization verses one size fits all?

To do this well, get to know who you serve – customers. It’s no longer about getting people in and out of a conference room with ease (though that’s still important). It’s now, more than ever, about delivering value that matters in the new communication cycle.

Amazon pays $800M for the Customer Experience (and leadership, culture, and some shoes)

2009-07-23T11:15:04-07:00

It’s good to get that amount of money for building a culture of excellence, straightforward leadership, putting the customer first (always) and moving some shoes. Check out the letter from the Zappos CEO to his employees – and be sure to watch the video from Jeff Bezos. http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2009/07/22/zappos-ceos-letter-to-staff/

In today’s business world, how you treat two key stakeholders – your employees and your customersis – is crucial to your success. In decades past, without the bullhorn folks now have at their figuretips, a company could last much longer not paying attention to these two groups. Case in point: it took GM three decades of poor performance to go bankrupt. Herb Keller, co-founder and former CEO of Southwest Airlines, once responded to a reporter’s question about how he takes care of his customers this way: “I don’t, I take care of my employees, and they in turn take care of my customers.”

Your employees represent your brand. Your customers confirm that your brand promise is being kept by continuing to do business with you. This is a simple concept, lost in the go-go times we’re now on the mend from. If done well, it will reap the type of employees who want to work for you (bringing recruiting costs down), customers who do advertising on your behalf via word-of-mouth (bringing marketing costs down), and repeat business (bringing client retention costs down). And if you’re lucky, a payday of $800M.

This ain't your Daddy’s hotel

2009-07-21T21:54:43-07:00

Hotels used to be about “putting heads in beds.” (and automobile manufactures about butts in seats, but that’s another post). Not anymore. Hotels are now about the “Customer Experience.” They have a brand personality, much like magazines once did, and automotive nameplates. They’re designed to reflect a certain vibe, a certain cache.

If you stay at a Marriott, you’re a business professional; stay at a boutique, you’re an artist. Stay at a W, you’re a hipster/post dot- commer. Stay at the Hard Rock, as I did this week, you’re a rock star – or at least you want to be one.

What’s cool about the Hard Rock is they’re going out of their way to give you an Experience. From the moment you check in, they’re making you feel unique. When you check in, they ask what kind of music you want in your room, and via their network it’s playing when you walk into your room (Country for me). The overarching theme is clearly music, although it’s not overtly in your face, but rather “around” you. If you choose to, you can get deep into it by reading the art pieces or letters written by musicians. Or if not, you’re just at another high-end hotel, but w/ the advantage of the coolest rock star vibe around.

What’s interesting is that mass customization brought on by the Web is moving to stale businesses like hotels. In this environment getting your overarching brand right is crucial, and to expand that brand without diluting it becomes the challenge of the day. How best to do that? Branding from the inside out. More on that later.

Keeping Your Brand Virgin

2009-07-21T21:27:32-07:00

Have you flown Virgin America? If you haven’t, make a point to book your next flight w/ them. I just flew the airline for the first time, San Francisco to San Diego. It’s refreshing to see an organization innovating and living their brand promise.

When you do fly Virgin, you will experience brand management at its best. We’ve seen this before. A decade ago w/ JetBlue, “bringing fun back to flying” and with Starbucks two decades ago, “bringing the third place into our lives.” With the Westin Hotel chain, “heavenly (white) beds “– a first in the hotel industry. All of those changed their respective industries. Virgin has done it here, and even better. The innovation, the customer experience, the consistency of the brand, and the timing – the worst recession since the 1930s, makes this a real stand-out.

The planes are hip, without being too W Hotel-ish that it turns off the under-30 crowd. The ease of ordering food, listening to music, logging on to the Web, and the interaction of the employees with the guests, make for a pleasant experience beyond anything anyone is doing at this moment, not just in the airline industry (notorious for being a horrible business w/ many uncontrollable elements – think oil prices and thin margins), but in any industry. What makes this such a standout is how Virgin has coordinated all of the touch points to work together to reinforce the brand. Beginning with the staff (solid training) to the décor of the planes (simple design), to the check-in and website (consistent look and feel), it works seamlessly. All of it maps to reinforce a brand that is authentic and delivers a Customer Experience above anything in the marketplace. It raises the bar on the entire industry, effectively highlighting just how bad the other (United) airlines are.

Well done, Virgin!

Not “Getting” the Customer Experience

2009-07-17T15:25:47-07:00

This week I visited AT&T and Starbucks. Report back - Customer Experience subpar. Organizations universally accept that good customer service needs to be delivered (notice I said good, there’s a difference between good and great, and very few aim for great). Customer Experience is a step above Customer Service – and customers, or to put it more directly, guests – are demanding a GREAT Customer Experience.

Let’s start with Starbucks, who’s all about the “3^rd place” a welcoming environment to relax, log on, or read a book with cool tunes in the background. While in line, I heard a Latin tune, taking me back to fond memories. By the time I reached the counter, I’d decided I was going to purchase the CD that had that song. Now, buying a CD takes a lot. But there I was, ready to give Starbucks a share of my wallet (which, after all, is the holy grail of any business, to reach into my wallet and take my hard-earned dollars in exchange for service and/or product.) So I ask the Starbucks “partner,” "Could you please direct me to the CD here on your counter that has the song that’s playing in your store at this moment?" Response: “I have no idea, Sir.” Are you kidding me? That was it, I have no idea Sir, and she turned elsewhere. Attention Howard Shultz, lost sale! But beyond that, and this is worse than not hearing the cash register ring, Starbucks just broke its brand promise: the Customer Experience fell flat.

Come on, Starbucks. If you’re going to get into the business of music, don’t just do it in a “good” manner, stacking CDs on the counter. Do it in a great manner. Train your staff; create a welcoming music kiosk w/ downloadable tunes, partner w/ Apple for easy access to iTunes. This is typical of a retail environment that has moved far away from what it once was, from its brand promise of creating an inviting Customer Experience. It’s moved onto pushing as many drinks as possible, and forgotten who and why people came through its doors in the first place. And guess what? It was never about the drinks (it wasn’t designed to be); it was about the Customer Experience. Get back to it, Starbucks, and your fortunes will once again turn GREAT.

This week I became an AT&T customer, via a new iPhone. I went to my local AT&T outlet to get assistance with my new device. Here’s an opportunity for AT&T to “wow” me w/ an excellent Customer Experience, one that puts a friendly and helpful face to a conglomerate with a less than stellar reputation for the manner in which they treat their customers. For starters, it was noon; the store was packed (which they should be prepared for with extra help on the floor). They asked me to manually sign in on a clipboard. I couldn’t believe it. In one had I held the most advanced technology piece ever made and in the other I had a pen and paper. Here’s the company that promises to connect you to the digital world, using pen and paper to connect you to a customer service rep. The wait was long. The help was short and not friendly. Rather condescending. The environment was designed to ensure I didn’t steal any handsets or to encourage me to buy another one, verses taking care of the current customer, literally standing in front of them.

I never have this experience walking into an Apple store. Get with it, AT&T. Design stores that are welcoming and provide an inviting Customer Experience that reinforces the brand you tout. Train right, live your brand. A brand that connects customers to the digital world.