January 2010
1 post
October 2008
1 post
4 tags
March 2008
1 post
Still Toughing It Out
Columbia is still airing its “Tested Tough” series of television ads. A 30-second spot during the Daily Show last night showed Tim Boyle in a floppy hat abandoned by his mother in the desert. These ads, while funny, do an odd job of positioning the brand. They were developed a few years ago by Portland ad agency BPN as an alternative to product focused ads that touted the toughness...
September 2007
1 post
Pitching Instructions
REI’s most recent marketing email tries hard to fill the void between back-to-school and holiday shopping. Too early for winter sports and too late for summer camping gear, October is not a great month for hard goods. To drum up excitement, the retailer has landed on one of my favorite come-ons, the create-a-category marketing initiative. This season’s newest category: the...
August 2007
3 posts
There are a few perks for outdoor industry types. Pro deals. Bringing your dog to work. And making fun of mainstream marketers’ horribly misinformed use of outdoor imagery. A perennial classic is the motivational poster. So, when I saw the new MasterCard ad in the back of this week’s New Yorker, I was ready for a healthy dose of self-righteous mockery. On second glance, though, it wasn’t...
Green Brands vs. Green Products
Greenness is not goodness. While green motivated consumers will be influenced by products with sustainable attributes and brands with green credibility, greenness is no substitute for the tried and true differentiators of style, color, quality and feature set. For even the most ideologically driven fleece top buyer, the desire for a cozy, good-looking top comes first. In most instances, a green...
Green Teens
Promo magazine reports on a Jupiter Research study on the intersection of American teens’ concern for the environment and their use of the internet. Interesting tidbits include: 38% of teens are concerned about the environment.
15% consider themselves hardcore environmentalists.
Green Teens skew slightly female.
They’re more likely than the average teen to shop online.
...
June 2007
4 posts
It's Not Brain Surgery
Satellite Design continues to push the boundaries of neuroscience. Well, sort of. Last week, we released our quarterly white paper on a model for developing marketing messages. We call it “Lustify and Justify.” It’s something we’ve developed to help sort out how to create brand and product messages that appeal to consumers on both a rational and emotional level. It’s...
The Red Menace
There’s an article in this month’s Harvard Business Review on the widespread environmental degradation of China and the impact it may have on American companies who do business there. The piece, Scorched Earth: Will Environmental Risks in China Overwhelm Its Opportunities?, is worth a read, maybe even the price of a subscription for brands heavily dependent on Chinese factories.
Basically,...
Local Favorite
Big retailers have learned that positioning themselves as an information resource is good for business. Helping consumers understand the products they carry and how to use them builds customer loyalty, keeps the retailer top-of-mind and often makes their store the first stop in a consumer’s quest to buy new gear.
Budgets and economies of scale allow larger retailers to create extensive...
A Convenience Truth
Twenty or thirty years ago, product innovation was all about quality. Rich, vibrant FM replaced tinny AM on the radio. CDs edged out albums in the record stores. Products got better and better and it looked like the cycle would go on forever.
And then something happened. Over the past ten years, the pursuit of ever increasing quality has faded into the background. Today’s innovations...
May 2007
6 posts
Bags Within Bags Within Bags Within…
OK. The gear-organization obsession of the outdoor market has got to stop. Here’s a small survey of things to pack things in before you pack them in your pack:
1. 89 Stuff Sacks at REI.
2. One of many organizers designed to fit inside other organizers. REI now devotes a whole category to such products.
3. And a close cousin, the cartop version of boxes within boxes.
4. Thule’s...
Take this jacket and stuff it.
Patagonia has thrown us a curve ball. The same brand that asks us to recycle our underwear is including a nylon stuffsack with a sport coat. Don’t get me wrong. Patty does good works. And this is a sweet jacket. But more junk is more junk and a stuffsack seems a pretty unnecessary accessory for a blazer. The outdoor industry’s fascination with stuffsacks, cases and ”Pack-Its”...
Participation Obfuscation
Every few months, I get a press release from an industry organization like the Sporting Goods Manufacturer’s Association (SGMA) or the Outdoor Industry Association (OIA) touting new research numbers. Most often, these are attempts to quantify the sporting goods and apparel marketplace by indentifying the number of sports partcipants.
What’s interesting is how the figures differ from study to...
Explaining The Mac Attack
Business Week ran a short article this week on the 36% jump in Apple Macintosh sales in Q1 of this year. While this isn’t exactly an outdoor sports story, a tech industry analyst’s misguided take on the increase reminded me of marketing misconceptions in the outdoor and bike worlds.
The anaylyst attributed Apple’s growing marketshare in the PC market to its new Intel...
Use and Abuse of the Icon
Icons are everywhere. From packaging to advertising, marketers make extensive use of graphic symbols to communicate brand and product attributes.
Do they work? Well, sometimes. Our design firm has a white paper all about it. Read all about the good, the bad and the ugly in “Combating Icon Overload” at brandchannel.com
or on the Satellite Design website.
About this tumblelog.
Mucksack is a scrapbook for outdoor and bike industry marketing messages and marketing related ideas. It’s designed to help marketers and creatives make better decisions about what to say, how to say it, and who to say it to. For more information on Mucksack’s author and to access a library of marketing articles visit the Satellite Design website.