It’s amazing what people get mad at.
Two weeks ago I wrote a post about Chick-fil-A, and I tried to focus on their poor handling of public relations instead of picking sides. While the post got one of the highest click-thru rates we’ve seen, it also ticked off some people. One credit union even let me know they saw the post as a smear against the company and its owner, and unsubscribed. So I read it again, just to see where I crossed the line, but I still don’t see what they apparently did.
I have to carry an electronic device with me at all times. It’s expected, isn’t it? After all, my office and family needs to be able to reach me by phone, text, email or tweet at all times. I have to be able to upload photos and status updates to Facebook so my friends all know what I’ve been doing, or check-in to places so they know where I am/have been, and I don’t want to think about how much time I spend playing games.
Read more on No social media? People will think you are weird….
Meet Sam
Fresh from a semester in Barcelona Spain, Kent and Janet’s son Sam is sitting in with iDiz for a couple of months until heading back to Indiana University in the fall to finish degrees in English and Spanish. As a multilingual 21 year old college student, Sam is a fine specimen of a demographic lots of credit union marketers are eager to reach. Since we’ll have him in captivity for a little while, we’ve asked Sam to blog about what he and his generation want and need from financial services and the world in general.
If there’s anything you’d like to ask Sam, or if you have ideas for blog topics you’d like to see Sam take on, just post a comment or email sam@idizinc.com .
Read more on Five things credit unions need to know about my generation…
As Lisa mentioned last week, many of the financial and business pundits are calling JC Penney’s recent rebranding and “Fair and Square” pricing strategy an epic failure.
The idea behind “Fair and Square” pricing was that consumers were tired of sales, gimmicks, and the associated drama and uncertainty, so from now on, pricing would remain pretty much steady — you could drop in any time to buy socks and shirts without wondering if your goodies would go on sale next week. Now, of course, with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, everyone is calling this an obviously stupid move, the CEO has stepped down, and the sales, coupons, and gimmicks are back.
I know way too much about some of my friends’ opinions on politics, sports, and cute kittens – all because of Facebook.
And pretty soon I may not be able to escape their thoughts on any topic.
Read more on And you thought your friends already over-shared….
Have you noticed that the more upset some people get, the louder they become?
I was at lunch the other day and someone at the next table started talking about what happened at work, including recounting the conversation she had with her boss. The more she spoke, the more upset and louder she got, until her companion finally had to “shush” her — but not before everyone in the dining area was frowning at either her or their own food. Her bad mood went viral in that restaurant within just a few moments, and it was several more minutes before the conversations around the room returned to a normal buzz.
Band-Aid. Kleenex. Google.
These three very different items have something in common. Can you guess what it is?
All have fallen victim to “genericization,” or when a brand becomes so popular, so engrained in our brains that the name becomes synonymous with the product. At first blush, you might think this is a great thing. All tissues are known as Kleenex! How great is that for the makers of Kleenex? After all, no one ever says “I need a Puffs for my nose.”
As a Wordsmith (that’s the official title I put on my business cards, anyway), I’m a big fan of new words. I recently ran across a doozy: skeuomorph.
Briefly, a skeuomorph is an object or element of design that serves no real purpose, but only echoes some past object. For example, many calendar applications on modern-day computers and mobile devices mimic paper calendars. This is useful because it’s instantly understandable to most people.
From the department of “What are they smoking over there?” comes the story of Mazda using the Lorax to advertise its latest small SUV.
If it’s been a while since you watched after-school specials, the Lorax is a Dr. Suess character famed for his frantic attempts to save the truffula trees from the Once-Ler’s thneed factories. Ultimately, the last truffula tree is cut down, the air is polluted with smogulous smoke, and the barbaloots are forced to trudge away seeking cleaner places to cavort in their barbaloot suits.
Anyone that follows basketball knows about the “hot hand.” That’s when someone gets on a roll, making several baskets in a row. Teammates pick up on it and start feeding him the ball. Defenders start double teaming. The audience gets louder with each consecutive basket, and everyone expects him to make his next shot.
Actors, athletes and politicians aren’t the only people that should be careful with what they tweet.
IBM is taking every public tweet since Twitter’s inception in March 2006, mapping it to Wikipedia, tagging it with sentiment (saying something good v. something negative), then digitally archiving it in the Library of Congress.
Indianapolis is hosting the Super Bowl this weekend, just in case you have been living under a rock. Or maybe it’s just been so all-consuming around here that I forget other people perhaps don’t follow the Greatest Game Ever Invented every Sunday. Or perhaps I just wanted to brag that Indy has been receiving kudos from all over the world for being so organized and friendly and building a Super Bowl Village right downtown next to the Stadium where the game will be played.
Following are a few random Picks and Peeves I need to get off my chest — all the stuff that’s probably too short to make a proper SharediDiz article. Put your Rants and Raves in the comments!
Are you a Starbucks lover or hater? There don’t seem to be a lot of people in the gray area on this subject. I happen to be a Starbucks lover even though I hate coffee. I’m addicted to their tea – both hot and cold – and their lemon bread.
OK, so I was relaxing over the new year holiday, flipping through the hundreds of channels of nothing-worth-watching when I stumbled on Oprah’s new OWN (Oprah Winfrey Network). In her ongoing attempt at world domination, Oprah has started her own network, filled with programming aimed at helping each and every one of us “lead our best life.” (How could I not check this out?!)
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