A few weeks back, as a way of celebrating the launch of the new Writing projects on crowdSPRING, we invited the entire community to submit their best work to be published as a guest post on the cS blog. We received over 70 entries, including tons of really great submissions, and ideas on some really fantastic topics. We’re very proud to present the winning entry in it’s entirety here. Enjoy this post by Josh Tavlin…
The world of advertising is full of taglines that stink to high heaven. I should know. As a Creative Director at a Global Advertising Agency, I’ve had to bear witness to some of the emptiest, word-playiest pieces of jetsam the industry has to offer.
And even then, there are levels of bad. There are the taglines that are so misguided they make you run from the brand screaming. There are the taglines that are so boring you barely even notice them. And there are the taglines that are so grating you wish someone would gouge your eyes out so you didn’t have to see them ever again. How do you avoid producing one of these rotting corpses? Check the checklist below for some answers…
1) How long is it? That’s too long. Keep it short. As information gets processed faster, attention spans are getting shorter. “Just do it.” Three words. “Got Milk.” Two words. “Yo Quiero Taco Bell.” Four words and half of it is the friggin company name! Say it fast and get the hell out.
2) Does it sound like a cliché? The world doesn’t need more, “Designed for You” or “Simply The Best” taglines. They’re boring, say absolutely nothing — basically a complete waste of ink.
3) Does the tagline capture an emotion? I’ve always loved “We’ll Leave The Light On For Ya” for Motel 6. It’s like a warm embrace, and it says volumes about the company behind it. A tagline should capture a feeling or emotion; if it doesn’t, it’ll only graze your audiences’ skull, not penetrate it.
4) Does it embrace a “truth?” “Get Met. It Pays,” set MetLife apart from other insurance companies by getting to the heart of what customers want. Sure, it’s nice if insurance companies come across as a warm bosom in your time of need, but when your house has burned to the ground, you need fast money, not a fast bosom. MetLife knew this and owned it.
In our 12 Questions blog series, we feature interviews with someone from the crowdSPRING community. For these interviews, we pick people who add value to our community – in the blog, in the forums, in the projects. Plainly – activities that make crowdSPRING a better community. Be professional, treat others with respect, help us build something very special, and we’ll take notice.
We’re very proud to feature Anna Nadler (crowdSPRING username: SamFox) today. Anna lives and works in Staten Island, New York.
1. Please tell us about yourself.
I came to the US from Russia when I was 13. We settled in NYC, and I have been a NY girl ever since. I just don’t feel at home anywhere else. Right now I live and work in Staten Island, NY, with my family – my husband Alex and my son Sammy.
I have been drawing since the tender age of two. My mom gets credit for encouraging me; she is an artist with a degree in architecture. Formally, I studied art starting from high school, on to college, got my BFA in Illustration.
Every year thousands of newly minted MBAs will earn their degrees from over 165 graduate business programs in the US alone. These bright folks will walk through those gates with training in finance, accounting, marketing, economics, strategy, supply chain management, entrepreneurship, statistics, research, business law, negotiating, ethics, and leadership. Many of the young MBAs have personal experience with using the social media and are active on Facebook, Linked-in, Twitter and various other online tools.
My suggestion to some of the best marketing programs in the country? Get on it! Start teaching the social media in your marketing curriculum, start leveraging the web in your strategy classes, and start training MBAs in the ins and outs of SEO and SEM. Stop teaching advertising courses that focus on TV, print, and the “old” mass media, and start teaching students how companies are using Twitter to get their message out and to provide great customer service. Stop teaching supply chain management that focuses on trucks and warehouses, and start teaching them how Zappos has built a virtual supply chain by leveraging cutting edge technology and customer-focused strategy.
There is a brave new world of business out here and case studies from the 1990s do not prepare students for the new paradigm we face every day. Where is the NEW curriculum that needs to be taught?
College graduates graduate into the real world and most of the time the business world so it’s only natural that they learn how to effectively graduate from Facebook to LinkedIn. This is exactly what Melissa Giovagnoli and John Fowler set out to do in their book Graduate to LinkedIn. Melissa posted a print designproject on crowdSPRING for you guys to design the cover of the book and got some really great entries! Congratulations sangueblu!
Melissa has authored 11 books in the last 15 years with four of them being best sellers. So when she met John Fowler, (tweeting of all places!) someone who had used her Networlding process and found success, she decided to write a book using both of their expertise that would help young business professionals start using LinkedIn and social media marketing.
We all know how important social media has become and to get anywhere in the world these days you have to know your way around a tweet or two…
I got a chance to ask Melissa a few questions about her experiences and what she recommends and this is what she has to share with all of you..
1. How did you get things designed before crowdSPRING?
This is my fourth project on crowdSPRING. Before I chose to use the site I used other designers.
2. Why in the world did you decide to use crowdSPRING?!
The cost is certainly very reasonable but, primarily, I use it because I love the creative collaboration that results. There is no experience like it and I am now a huge fan.
3. What’s the single best small biz resource that you’ve found (magazine, website, blog, etc.)?
I honestly could answer crowdSPRING. For me it has delivered every time. I also love Chris Brogan’s blog and LinkedIn of course.
4. If your best friend told you they were going to start a business, what’s the ONE piece of advice you’d give them?
Get help. I work with the SBA and SCORE – Service Core of Retired Executives. I also would get a coach who has spent five to ten years doing what you want to do. You will save loads of time and even more money.
Every day on the crowdSPRING Twitter account and on my own Twitter account, I post links to posts or videos I enjoyed reading or viewing. These posts and videos are about logo design, web design, startups, entrepreneurship, small business, leadership, social media, marketing, and more! Here are some of the links that I’ve liked and shared this past week!
Logo design heresies: A Devil’s Advocate look at The 10.5 Commandments of Designing a Logo – http://bit.ly/azNlF2
Everyone knows that the music industry is struggling, right? Pirating, reduced concert ticket sales, and fair use issues have combined to send record company execs scurrying for solutions and scrambling to figure out new revenue streams.
NPR’s On The Media (with our friend Bob Garfield) recently devoted an entire episode to a great discussion of the issues and challenges swirling around our beloved music biz. Take a listen to their exploration and let me know your thoughts.
Many are obsessed with trying to develop effective ways to measure ROI (return on investment) from social media marketing. For some background, you can read Brian Solis’s recent article about measuring social media ROI.
ROI from social media is important, but if your product or service isn’t relevant – ROI is meaningless. Here’s why:
Do you believe that relevancy is as important as ROI?
Most people agree that great design more easily captures attention than poor design.
For example, when Apple originally released the iPod – the iPod didn’t have the features of the Creative Labs MP3 players, or even the Microsoft Zune. In fact, many MP3 players today have more features than the iPod – but only a tiny fraction of the iPod’s market share. Yet Apple quickly swallowed up most of the market share for MP3 player sales.
There are many reasons for Apple’s success with the iPod. Among those reasons – it’s a great product that works really well. It’s also simple and elegant to use.
Apple’s iPod design carries through to its packaging design – very simple, coordinated, and focused. At a time when it’s competitors were touting FM tuners and lots of bells and whistles, Apple made its case by minimizing the marketing noise and focusing attention on the product itself – including in its packaging.
Most other companies would have marketed the iPod very differently. For example, here’s an interesting look at possible packaging for a Microsoft iPod:
As you think about your company’s products and services, consider whether your message is pure and simple or complicated and confusing. As the video shows – the difference is enormous.
In his book “The Goal,” Eliyahu Goldratt tells the story of a Boy Scout troop out for a hike. The goal of the hike is to cover 10 miles in 5 hours, in other words to keep the troop moving at an average speed of 2 miles per hour. As the troop works its way up the trail, gaps begin to appear between the scouts, and the slower hikers find that periodically they must go double-time to shrink the gaps. The scout leader observes how the gaps between the kids are magnified the further down the line he looks, and it becomes clear that the fluctuations in each individual hiker’s pace are impacting those behind. As the hike proceeds, the process gets less efficient, because the hikers must expend more energy to close the gaps, and by the time the group reaches the half way mark, they have fallen behind by almost 2 hours.
One scout, Herbie, is the slowest of the hikers and so his speed governs that of the entire group. Putting Herbie at the end of the line does nothing to speed the group’s overall progress, but instead further limits the group’s speed by effectively reducing the pace for everyone. It is only after the scout leader comes to a key realization, that he finds the way to improve the overall speed of the troop. The insight? If the efficiency of an entire process is governed by it’s most inefficient operation (Herbie), then, to reduce the fluctuations (along with the extra “energy” expended), change the order of operations by putting that one before the others. Next, improve that least efficient operation (Herbie) to increase the overall speed of the entire process.
So what does the scout leader do with this new realization? First he moves Herbie to the front of the pack. This has the effect of removing much of the variation in each hiker’s speed (eliminating the gaps between the hikers) and with the fluctuation reduced, the hikers don’t have to struggle so much to “catch up” when they fall behind, nor must they expend as much energy as they perform their individual roles. Next, the troop leader decides that he needs to find a way to help Herbie speed up, and by doing that, speed up the entire hike. How? He asks Herbie for his backpack, empties it and divides all of the heavy equipment between the other (faster and stronger) hikers. By lightening his load the scout leader has given Herbie the ability to walk faster. The result? Herbie is still the slowest hiker, but he is faster than he was before and so then is the rest of the troop. Bingo!
There are so many great organizations out there helping third world countries but I’ve always thought the best thing we can do for third world countries is to help give them the means to educate. Afritee.org, (Join their Facebook group!) is an organization started by Daniel Michalczyk from Oslo, Norway! Their mission is to sell 1000 t-shirts on the website designed by you! Once 1000 t-shirts are sold all of that money is used to build a school in Africa and all of its startup costs. They will partner with another organization who will finance the school’s day to day costs and make sure it can offer education to everyone around it for a long time.
They recently just finished their web designproject on crowdSPRING and once that’s up and running they will have their first t-shirt design on crowdSPRING! So designers, make sure you’re on the lookout for that and you will get your chance to contribute to something truly great! I’ll make sure I post that update when the project goes live. While that project is up on the site you’ll be able to vote on their site for the style of the shirt (v-neck, round neck, etc.)
I had a chance to talk to Daniel and see what it takes to start a not-for-profit because I know it’s no easy feat and this is what he has to say to all of you small business out there…
1. How did you get things designed before crowdSPRING?
Before when we had this kind of projects it mostly involved local agencies, which we always thought was kind of expensive for what you actually get. There is definitely a use for local ad- and graphic agencies, but if you more or less know in which direction you want to go crowdSPRING is simply the best site you can use.
crowdSPRING is the world's #1 marketplace for entrepreneurs, small businesses, nonprofits and agencies who need custom logo design, web design, a new company name or other writing and design services. Over 115,000 designers and writers work on crowdSPRING. We are trusted by more than 29,000 happy clients around the world.
