Personally, while perusing the displays I was drawn to one particular device, the Braun SK4, a device I knew nothing about. After staring at it for about 20 minutes, I took note of it and decided to learn more about this fascinating piece of design. Apparently this device has a long and storied history along with it’s designer Dieter Rams.

The Braun SK4 – AKA Snow White’s Coffin.

While the accomplishments of the designer Dieter Rams and his design team at Braun are too numerous to list here, continued research on the history of this design and the designer have reveled a set of principals that all designers should know and help to shape their design decisions.

• - Good design is innovative
• - Good design makes a product useful
• - Good design is aesthetic
• - Good design makes a product understandable
• - Good design is unobtrusive
• - Good design is honest
• - Good design is long-lasting
• - Good design is thorough down to the last detail
• - Good design is environmentally friendly
• - Good design is as little design as possible

While these principals are directly related to design, in particular for Tiko our web design division. Thinking about these principals when designing advertising campaigns and conducting analytics, is something we will doing to help us think about our work as a complete entity, with many consequential parts that have meaning beyond the individual tasks required to complete projects for our valued clients.

-gw

More on Dieter Rams and The Ten Principals of Good Design.

Deiter Rams Wikipedia Entry

Interview With Dieter Rams

The 10 Principals of Good Design

A short video for a client on how to a pdf in a Wordpress 2.7 plus post or page.

Note 1 : We mean dull in the not-flashy sense. (I wish i had of worded this question differently –gw)

Note 2: He calls us T.K.O Marketing incorrect name but we like the TKO theme maybe roll into a tagline. Free copy idea from an expert.

The Art of Marketing held March 1st 2010 at the Metro Toronto Convention Center was billed as an opportunity to hear discussion of relevant, contemporary topics presented by world class speakers. The conference was well presented, production quality was top notch (despite some forgivable tech issues) and some nice pieces of swag, a porcelain coffee cup and I am not sure if it was just me, as I bought the ticket very early a free copy of Dan and Chip Heath’s book “Switch”.

On to the matters at hand:: As the conference started we were introduced to our host comedian / marketing guy Ron Tite, I won’t say too much about him, other than he showed perfect pitch for the crowd, clearly a talented guy who could think on his feet during some delays adding wry humour before and after each presentation.

Quick pitchy introduction from Microsoft exec and a Queens university rep, the title sponsors, both were kind enough to keep it short and sweet and let us get on to the speakers.

The Speakers

Mitch Joel, Twist Image, Digital Marketer
I will admit I am a fan of Mitch Joel, I follow his blog, thoroughly enjoyed his book Six Pixels of Separation and generally find his thoughts on social marketing important. His presentation was professional, he is an excellent public speaker and he mentioned he had worked in music in a previous life. I am guessing he played in bands and is well aware of how to be on stage.

The key points I retained from this presentation was the concept of group exchange and the evolution of social media as a true game changer. His discussion of how a negative review can drive sale was spot on. Particularly because my choice to stay at the Super 8 Chinatown was driven by a negative review on expedia.ca, I remember it said it was clean and convenient but not very luxurious; I just need a hotel for one night at a reasonable rate. Spot on, added some stats and anecdotes that helped painted his picture of social media. Gold Star presentation…

Seth Godin, Marketing Guru
This talk was a huge disappointment. I have read several of Seth Godin’s books, including the excellent “Small is the New Big” and “The Dip”. I had followed his blog for nearly a year but over time found the same points to be rehashed repeatedly, essentially the Nike pitch, “Just do It”. While I find “Small is the new Big” a book full of actionable items, early call to blogging, discussion of his unique Squidoo idea and great thoughts on personal branding , his latter books all seem to be more motivational than full of actionable items. His talk today essentially boiled down to “be an artist, I won’t tell you anything I have learned over the years that helped me but just be an artist”.

Godin’s story about a sock company that makes mismatched socks, sums up how I feel about Godin’s presentation, a company that makes mismatched socks has a cute and marketable idea. He stated something like ‘why don’t you make these socks, they are better’ sometimes we just want white socks that I can throw in my gym bag, sometimes the unremarkable fits. Does everything have to be remarkable? Do I really want remarkable socks? Maybe I expected too much but my feeling was he shoehorned in a “be an artist” theme simply because of the conference title and extended his presentation to fill the allotted time with anecdotes. I have gained some good insights from Seth Godin over the last two of three years, so with respect, I wonder if our paths have now diverged, and he is no longer a voice I will continue to engage.

Sally Hogshead author of Fascinate
I am completely torn on this presentation. Hogsheads presentation seemed tight early but her reliance on gimmicky presentation elements watered down some great points. The author of a book called “Fascinate” Hogshead is clearly a talented copywriter and excellent public speaker. Her section on 7 elements that make up fascination piqued my interest; I was glued as she gave insight on 7 elements of fascination and how they relate to message.

On the other hand, two things bothered me about the actual structure of her presentation, I found her to be an excellent presenter and speaker, but she had some rich media elements to describe her seven elements of fascination. These sections included produced elements that played with music and slick visuals. I don’t think they were needed, she speaks well, and the rich media elements served to take attention away from the presenter. I would bet her presentation would flow better without these elements as the presenter had more than enough stage presence. Where I would have liked to see more content was her creative showcase section showcasing some work she has done with D&G sunglasses and her agency promotional pieces, it would be nice to see how she would use her 7 elements by changing copy and creative and showing how that affects overall message. She had a section where she played with the audience offering Jagermeister shots, I could take it or leave it but many audience members thought it was a winner.

I am torn on this presentation, I may even order her book, there was some very relevant content but the structure of the presentation may have actually taken away from the message. I wonder how many in the audience remember the 7 elements and how many remember the Jaggerbombs. (check of the twitter hashtag #toam is evidence of the latter.)

James Othmer, author of Adland.
He seemed quite nervous. Technical problems may have hampered is efforts. He started strong, has a unique delivery and showed signs of an appealing humour early but never really put the pieces together to form a complete message. He talked a bit about gaming how it’s new storytelling but didn’t take it anywhere. I even saw a typo or two on his slides, unprepared? I won’t trash him too much as we all have bad days. If he could harness some of his wit and play off some natural awkwardness on stage I bet he could become an engaging presenter. (I have heard his book is excellent)

Max Lenderman, author of Brand New World
I thoroughly enjoyed his presentation, an interesting travelogue and marketing presentation. He discussed four key points about Engagement, Authority, Big-Think and Goodness. I write this from memory; I am not sure if those were the exact wording used by the presenter. The section of engagement was the most interesting, discussing how mobile companies in India get advertising to an audience that consumes no mass media. Creating performance stage trucks that drive deep into the country and explain the use of mobile devices to a largely illiterate audience using Bollywood style skits is truly amazing. For me it evoked a recent Economist section of how mobile operators are providing service to clients who spend less than $2 a month on cell coverage. Marketing on that tight a budget by its nature drives innovation.

The sections on Authority, talked about piracy and knockoffs in china. I lost the plot there but a humorous section on the Russian brand “Russian Standard” which at first was a vodka brand that when faced with advertising bans due to Russia’s “little” alcohol problem opened a bank of the same name to extend the brand to a space where the advertising was allowed, with clever results.

The last section on goodness received the most response from the audience, the example of Tide detergent providing laundry services was thought provoking. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Proctor and Gamble sent a heavily branded ‘Tide’ mobile laundry truck to the neighborhoods of New Orleans providing free laundry services to the affected. While most in attendance seemed touched by the story and accompanying video, for me it brought thoughts of leveraging good PR versus altruism and charity. Interesting talk filled with examples, well researched and interesting.

Dan Heath, co-author of Switch
My favorite presentation of the session, the best was saved for last. Dan Heath has a great southern accent, a Steven Colbert and Ed Helms quality added to the appeal of the presenter. Evident is the wealth of research that acts as the cornerstone of the presentation. The presentation focused on change, why change is difficult, overcoming aversion to change and creating contexts where change is possible. An anecdote that appears in his book “Switch” revealed a saying that will be added to my vocabulary. T.B.U. (True but Useless) – A simple but powerful gem relevant in so many situations. How when we cannot solve all the problems in a context we should focus on the things that work and not be overwhelmed by the environmental factors that pile up to create seemingly insurmountable obstacles.

One presentation note, technical problems popped up that made the screen flicker dramatically leading to a section where Heath had to speak without slides. I actually found this section the most engaging, when a speaker is strong, the content is robust and the audience is eager are visuals required? I believe that this speaker would be even more engaging without any visuals; he was forced to describe a funny solution to an unpleasant problem using some descriptive language, if you want to know read the book . The description brought robust laughter and was generally well received. Gladwell does it this way, I bet Dan Heath could pull it off.

Positives:

• It was fun to follow the #taom hashtag during the speeches to see the points others were taking away. What would make this better would be some actual on stage twitter interactivity with the speakers, maybe make the conference even more interactive.
• Clearly effort was made to bring in top-notch speakers. Price was appropriate, it wasn’t cheap but $395 was the correct price point for what was produced. Just fix those tech issues.
• Appropriate swag level, few nice little items available if you wanted to redeem coupons, nicely this reduces waste. Many times you get a fat bag of promo material that just ends up filling convention center dumpsters.

Critiques

• I could not believe that in a day long presentation on marketing, there was almost no discussion of search marketing and metrics.
• There was only one mention of web analytics, from Mitch Joel shouting out his friend and one of my personal favorites Avinash Kaushik who has a book that should be on the desk of every marketer, everywhere. He would have been a great addition.
• The tyranny of creative can be tiring at marketing events, showing funny commercials often gets a laugh but really do we learn anything? There are four P’s in marketing; promotion is not the whole picture.
• Found some of the presentations over produced, audio/video should be conservatively, particularly when the speaker has to stop to play audio/visual elements. Total flow killer.

Final Thought : Overall, I leave Art of Marketing Conference pleased. I was exposed to a few new voices, learned a few new things and was glad to see firsthand the vibrant Toronto marketing scene. While I did not enjoy some presenters, it seems others did. Generally, anytime you can get out of the usual routine and get a few takeaways, it’s all good.

EXTRA NOTE: The facility the Metro Toronto Convention Centre seems to be smack in the middle of a Toronto’s dead zone. It just seemed odd; again nothing I can fault the organizers as it’s a modern venue. Just found the building to be oddly placed, I am probably stepping in some municipal matter I know nothing about.