“Ah, a sea bass repast.”

A Tasty Tweet

This spring I broadcast a Tweet expressing my unmitigated joy over a delectable dish of fish - sea bass to be exact. Moved to the point of illustration, I added a hieroglyph depicting my meal - a fish graphic fashioned from alphanumeric characters:

Turns out Paul Ocepek (@paulocepek), founder of ShirtPizza.com (@shirtpizza), was fishing in my Twitter stream just then.

An Unexpected Treat

Paul Tweeted a hint that he might add the typographic fish to the ShirtPizza product line. When he did so, he sent me a sample tee. The above video clip captures the Brainstorm “unboxing” of the unexpected gift.

A Takeaway

One-to-one relational marketing concepts are still a wise play for today’s brand marketers, but fortify them with WOM (word of mouth), Search, feeds, and a voice in the online community to bring one-to-many reach to what was once a private exchange.

In developing and launching a community-inspired product, ShirtPizza broadened not only their product line and their reach, but their customer base as well. We’ve been fishing around the ShirtPizza site, now maybe you will, too.

His mom sends oranges
(and off brand fig bars) Yum!

Our latest list of inane musings from the Brainstorm office white board:

Top 20 Reasons Why Hiroki Should Be Employee Of The Month

1. He is not data, he is action
2. His heart is not that of a procrastinator but rather a concatenator
3. He’s a real gem, a hep cat and a mod perl
4. I’m the most humble (Just a month?)
5. Because Linda declined the honor
6. It’s logical
7. He always washes his hands after using the office washrooms
8. Because he represents all nationalities
9. He’s the server savant
10. He could use the $1,000,000 bonus check
11. He’s AWESOME
12. He’s my HERO (Hiro)
13. He always fixes my computer
14. He is only 50% complete (as a person)
15. Two mints in one: He’s a programmer AND a web developer
16. He has great hair
17. He doesn’t grocery shop during working hours
18. It would make his mother proud
19. His mom sends oranges (and off brand fig bars) Yum!
20. He is “ki” to our organization

See the entire board
Image: kfisto

“No great marketing decisions
have ever been made on quantitative data.”

John Scully
Former PepsiCo president, former Apple CEO

The Tree of Knowledge

Marketers commonly use decision trees to assess features and benefits to determine what is most important to consumers. Quantitative results can be obtained by asking respondents a sequence of very specific questions that branch out using if/then methodology.

Unreasoned Response

In a focus group years ago, an outspoken man was asserting himself by speaking out of turn, disparaging the process, and scoffing at the premise that brand had any bearing on his buying decision, ultimately proclaiming, “I’m just here for the money.”

“Control” Group

Experienced focus group moderators realize if unaddressed, dominant individuals can establish control, affect the group and ultimately hinder true and useful input. The deft moderator began to ask a series of if/then comparative questions that challenged the man to reconsider his inherent assumptions. In essence, the moderator drove him through a decision-making process to help him formulate reasoned positions.

Once back on topic the naysayer became the moderator’s most vigilant and attentive advocate - offering considered and definitive feedback. The rest of the group followed suit.

“The only relevant test of the
validity of a hypothesis is comparison
of prediction with experience.”

Milton Friedman
Nobel Prize-winning economist

Overrated Ratings

Similar principles apply to common online qualitative tools such as the five-star, numerical value, or Likert scales used to value or measure a respondent’s level of agreement with a given statement. Although quick and simple for respondents to complete, unlike decision trees, these methods ask subjects to value an attribute or preference without any measure of comparison, which lacks objectivity and is prone to positive or negative bias when respondents rank nearly everything of high (or low) importance.

Minimize Error

In What Do Customers Really Want on the Harvard Business Review site, Eric Almquist and Jason Lee explore Maximum Difference scaling. An extension of the Method of Paired Comparisons where subjects select a preference from two choices, MaxDiff asks respondents to identify their highest and lowest preference from a subset of attributes or statements. Multiple subsets are tested as part of a series. Almquist, a partner at Bain & Company, talks through one MaxDiff study on the relative importance of restaurant attributes in this presentation.

Asking respondents to rate selections is helpful and informative, but requiring them to decide between selections forces them to weigh answers. It inspires considered input, and generates more defined, useful and valuable feedback while eliminating undecided responses and mitigating positive and negative bias.

Maximize Outcome

Qualitative research adds relevance and validity to quantitative findings. In brand marketing research, consider your premise and process carefully from the outset to limit risk and maximize return. Remember, research often drives strategy, strategy drives spending, and spending drives outcomes – both good and bad.

Let well-considered decision trees help you branch out in the right direction.

image: pkeyn

Wash our socks
in his oatmeal bowl

Our latest list of inane musings from the Brainstorm office white board:

Top 20 Favorite Things To Do While Bob is Gone on Break

1. Lunch, on Brainstorm!
2. Come up with 20 favorite things to do while Bob is gone on break
3. Give his XM Radio some much-deserved downtime
4. Play Baggo in the back hallway
5. Disorient him, organize his desk
6. Eat out of his oatmeal bowl
7. Sit in his chair, sleep in his bed until you find the one that’s just right
8. Enjoy coffee in liquid form, not solid
9. Bob was gone?
10. Everyone pick a red PMS chip (or hexadecimal equivalent) - whoever’s is closest to Bob’s skin tone when he returns wins
11. Call his mom
12. Movie Marathon Monday
13. Click his pen.
14. Wash our socks in his oatmeal bowl
15. Sleep in
16. Call Dartmouth, see if they still need him for that goalie position
17. Replace his MAC with a Dell
18. Unscrew the bolts on his chair
19. Guess how many pens are buried on his desk
20. Miss his smiling face and upbeat attitude
21. Whistle

See the entire board
Image: Melissa Hennessy

Unbox (tr.v.)
To remove from a box.

Unboxing my Unsleeving

Top Canadian digital marketer and social media maven Kate Trgovac introduced me to “Unboxing,” the practice of recording and sharing online the opening of a package arriving via post.

In addition to her roles as President of LintBucket Media, Publisher of Canada’s One Degree and the ever-popular My Name is Kate blogs, Kate maintains a top-ranked Squidoo lense that reviews laptop bags, sleeves and backpacks.

Inadvertent Angling

So, in the spirit of unboxed reciprocation, I’m posting this picture of the BBP Bags laptop sleeve I just received from Kate. She sent me the sleeve after reading a comment about my daughter’s penchant for the color pink and bags in general that I left on the Flickr picture associated with her Squidoo review.

For the record, I wasn’t angling for the laptop sleeve, but her generous offer will net me a number of dad points with my daughter. Here’s to that, and to Kate.

Get Friendly

Your brand marketing takeaway? Get involved. Stay alert. Reach out. Act. Friendlies can be very friendly and help propagate insights about who you are, your brand and your message.

Heck, they might even write about you.

Service or Sickness?

At a Loss

Just when you think you’ve seen all the internet has to offer, there’s IsThisYourLuggage.com.

Once airlines exhaust all means of reconnecting luggage with its rightful owner, unclaimed bags are sold at auction. IsThisYourLuggage.com purchases bags, then lays out and photographs the contents and posts it online in hopes that the owner will see and recognize their belongings.

Less Than Likely

With the content of only 5 suitcases currently posted, it may be a new venture or merely regional. Context for where the luggage was found or purchased might help the site’s credibility. But then, credibility may not be the end-goal since the site’s owner calls it “a little odd, but not as odd as stamp collecting” and invites visitors to email and chat about the project.

IsThisYourLuggage.com is in turns ingenious, creepy and fun.

via: Paul Ocepek
image: Jordan

Time on Your Hands

A Truly Functional Design

Haptica, a concept timepiece for the visually impaired designed by David Chavez, relies on a series of dials to represent military time in Braille. Users draw their finger across the tastefully integrated channel to read the time represented in raised dots.

The idea has already garnered international awards including a 2008 Spark Award.

The steely tones and stylish tech lines call to mind the abstract pattern designs of brands like Nooka—a good look on any metropolitan wrist. The Haptica is a thoughtful fusion of form and function.

What’s a picture worth?

Inline Email Insertion

External attachments are great but when you don’t have time to type a thousand words, only an inline picture will do. Until now, Gmail didn’t offer that functionality.

Google just announced the ability to insert images anywhere in the body text of an email by simply enabling the feature in your Gmail Settings under Labs. It will add this icon to your email toolbar; just click on it to insert an image:

Check out The Official Gmail Blog for more information about this and other new features.

image: adria.richards

U.S. Treasury Acquisitions

Our latest list of inane musings from the Brainstorm office white board:

Top 20 Products Billy Mays Should Advertise?

1. Wahl clippers on Wahl’s Facebook wall
2. The Ron Popeil Pocket Fisherman Bass Competition
3. A UFC ShamWow Sponsored Cage Match Between Ron Popeil and That ShamWow Guy
4. U.S. Treasury Acquisitions
5. Columbia School of Broadcasting
6. Lexus
7. Royal Palms Resort & Spa
8. NYSE
9. Godiva Chocolates
10. Colon Cleansing Agents
11. Miracle Ear
12. Apple Computer
13. Zymbalta (Cymbalta)
14. Ice-Cold Beer at Any Sporting Venue
15. Mr. Microphone
16. Vince Offer
17. Björk
18. Bjerk
19. iWörk
20. Indianapolis Raceway Park

See the entire board

Opera Vocal Chords
Re-branded as Americana

About the Interview

Dan May spent over a decade as an opera singer. After vocal chord surgery permanently altered his voice, May left the opera stage and joined a dance troupe. Three years and a new hip later he parlayed his unique voice into a successful solo career. That was four years and four albums ago.

Dan took time out of his hectic schedule promoting his most recent album The Long Road Home to chat with .think about his life, times and the re-branding of himself.

.think | 1. How would you describe your current sound / musical style?

Dan May: I call it Americana. It’s kind of a rootsy sound with Rock, Folk, Country and R&B influences with a focus on the melody.

A lot of it I like to think has that “back porch” feel to it. Like a couple of guys were sitting on their back porch playing the guitar and singing. And then eight other guys and a few backup singers wandered up and joined them. Something like that. I think I’ve become more comfortable with that sound from album to album.

I like to think of my songs as little movies, where I get to live vicariously through the characters that I write about. I’m a storyteller, I don’t write from an autobiographical point of view. I’m sure a little “Dan” sneaks into every song, but for the most part my songs are just stories.

.think | 2. You’ve described your career path as having more twists and turns than a corkscrew in a hurricane. Other than your current occupation, what’s been your favorite job and why?

Dan May: After I retired from opera, I danced in a contemporary dance piece for 3 years and that was a lot of fun. I would go up to Montreal to rehearse for a few weeks at a time over the course of a couple years, and ultimately got the opportunity to perform in St. Petersburg, Russia, in a World Premier and that was an experience of a lifetime. But then I blew out my hip and had to have it replaced and it was bye-bye Baryshnikov.

Other than that, my favorite job was cameraman for a cable TV station when I was in high school. That was a blast. I was responsible for reading the paper and getting the weather report to make the map for the newscast. Sometimes I’d forget, and I’d just come in and make it up. I’d put a big High pressure system on the map over Omaha, and the weatherman would say, “That high will be affecting our weather next week.” I’d shake my head and think, “No it won’t.”

As it turns out, I think I was right more often than the National Weather Service. People got wind of me controlling the weather and they’d call and ask, “Hey Dan, the Indians are playing the Yankees tomorrow and Guidry is pitching. Could you make it rain?”

“It’s a faithful audience.
I’m always amazed how far people
will travel to see my shows.”

.think | 3. How is your new audience different and how have you adapted your personal brand for this new genre?

Dan May: If you mean how was my opera audience different than the audience that comes to my shows and buys my CDs now, then it’s night and day. I would guess that 95% of the people that come to my shows have never seen an opera and never will. The other 5% are my opera friends and people that like all kinds of music.

And it’s a faithful audience. I’m always amazed how far people will travel to see my shows. We played a show in Toledo last year and people drove from Milwaukee, Detroit, Chicago, Indianapolis and Philadelphia to see us. I was amazed. I honestly don’t know of anyone I would travel that far to see.

But I’m certainly not complaining. My music now seems to appeal to such a wide-ranging audience it’s surprising. Young, middle-aged, old—my fans run across a lot of demographics, and that’s great. I’ve been fortunate enough to have CD sales in 42 states and 18 countries, mostly as a result of the Internet.

.think | 4. With so many social mediums available what’s worked best for you to connect with your fans? WOM, email, FB, iTunes?

Dan May: I would say MySpace has reached the greatest number of people. I have people from all over the world who’ve bought the CD as a result of MySpace. Japan, China, Australia, New Zealand, Poland, Russia, Italy, France, Spain, Brazil, Mexico, Canada, The Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Indonesia, etc.

I have a good following across the U.S., especially in certain areas. Texas, Oklahoma, and Nebraska have been good. A good following in Washington, Oregon and California. The Carolinas and Florida have been good too. And of course, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey and Ohio.

Playing live has been huge in expanding my audience. Whenever I open a show for a national act, I sell a ton of CDs to this audience that has never heard of me before, but somehow in a half an hour or 45 minutes, I’ve managed to win them over. It’s a real validation of the music, and I appreciate it. And then those people become my fans and they turn their friends onto it. And so on, and so on.

For example, I opened a show in Lancaster, Ohio two summers ago for Livingston Taylor, James Taylor’s brother, and ended up selling 165 CDs that night. These people didn’t know me from Boo, but they ate it up. That’s a wonderful feeling. When that happens, I say to myself, “Hey, I might actually have something here!”

.think | 5. Dan May: More widely know as an opera singer or pop singer / songwriter?

Dan May: Pop singer. Although I had a good career in opera that spanned a dozen years, opera is more of a team sport. The soprano and tenor tend to get the accolades, while the bass just shows up and does his job. In sports terms, basses are the offensive lineman of the music world.

I sang roles that gave me an opportunity to shine, and I enjoyed it very much, but this is far more rewarding. I never felt like I was creating when I sang opera. I was singing roles that had been done for a couple hundred years by countless other singers, and it was difficult to put my own mark on it.

“Thank God for the Internet.
It would have taken me 50 years of touring
to reach the audience I’ve reached.”

.think | 6. What’s been your greatest challenge in developing a following?

Dan May: Well, surprisingly, it has been pretty easy so far. The audience has just heard the music, liked it and come on board. Thank God for the Internet. It would have taken me 50 years of touring to reach the audience I’ve reached in the 4 short years I’ve been doing this. MySpace, iTunes, CD Baby, it’s all worked like a charm.

The most challenging part is the business end. Booking and marketing and PR. I spend way too much time on the business end, but I’ve got to keep the momentum going. I don’t enjoy that, but the creative part I love. Writing, recording, performing—I love it. Every single minute. Well almost every minute. Having a band can be tough. Personalities, egos, etc. And firing people sucks. But it’s all part of the business.

.think | 7. Have you met Mike Rowe, former opera singer turned Ford spokesperson and host of Discover Channel’s Dirty Jobs?

Dan May: Never met Mike, but I’ve seen his show and liked it. I think he sang in the Chorus for the Baltimore Opera. I think we probably have some of the same friends.

.think | 8. From the music industry, who’s been the most positive influence on your career? Performer, agent, mentor?

Dan May: I’ve had so many influences along the way, and I love the work of so many songwriters, it’s hard to say. But as an overall influence on my career, it was probably my first producer, Anthony Newett. He was the first one to take the ideas I had in my head and put them out there for an audience to hear.

When we finished my first CD, we sent it to WXPN, the big station here in Philly and they played it the next day. I was like, “Wow, that was easy.” Well, it turns out, it’s not easy, it was just good, and that was largely due to the work of Anthony Newett.

“I sure do miss the wigs.”

.think | 9. What advice do you have for anyone reinventing themselves career-wise?

Dan May: I would say go for it. But don’t go half-assed. You’ve got to put everything you have into it. You can’t be lazy, and no one is going to do it for you. Don’t be afraid to take chances or to blow your own horn.

It’s imperative that you wear a number of hats in today’s market regardless of what it is you’re doing. Also, don’t try to force a square peg into a round hole. Sometimes you just have to let things take the direction they take and not try to steer it. Sometimes you can only go in the right way if you take your hands off the wheel.

.think | 9-1/2. Do you miss wearing elaborate costumes and make-up on stage?

Dan May: I sure do miss the wigs. Anyone who has seen my head will know why. But I never have a bad hair day. I do miss the spectacle of opera, the grandeur, the big costumes and the elaborate sets. There’s nothing quite as exciting as standing backstage waiting for the curtain to go up before the opera, as the orchestra is playing the Overture. And then the curtain flies and you’re on. It’s a rush to say the least.

But this is where I was supposed to be all along, and I’m so lucky to be here.

For more on Dan May and his music visit his site, DanMaycd.com.
Or, sample and purchase his songs on iTunes or CD Baby.

Images: Lisa Schaffer