That plane is really an infographic

This airplane is really an infographic. And, for that, I salute Kulula Air (a low-fare, small airline out of South Africa), despite the fact that I’ll probably never get to fly on a single one of these planes.

From the Fast Company article:

With the help of local branding agency Atmosphere, Kulula launched this new look, called Flying 101. It’s more proof of the ubiquitous cool of infographics, I guess–everyone loves a good labeled diagram. And what a way to stand out on the tarmac, amidst South African Airways plain-Jane fleet: white, serifed type, and the most predictable logo possible, the South African flag.

They may not have Jet Blue or Southwest level service and support, but they certainly have an extra level of awesome. Nice work from Atmosphere.

(via/ Fast Company)

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Twitter as a commitment

Social media, social marketing, e-commerce, Web content, online anything, whatever you’re calling it today. The name doesn’t matter. No one cares about that.

The attention you give it, however, does matter.

Because we all know that every business is looking to jump full steam ahead into social media, regardless of need and viability, and we know that it’s totally the thing to do.

In many cases, that’s true. As long as you focus on the “to do” part of the equation. The “keeping up with it” portion.

An example, from right here in our dusty little village: The City of Sioux Falls, and its SiouxFallsSnow Twitter feed.

The goal of @SiouxFallsSnow is, naturally, to let people know when a Snow Alert has been announced, allowing residents to get their vehicles off of the roads and save them from possible ticketing.

Awesome idea. Seriously.

As long as you keep up, that is. Yesterday’s snow alert went silent on the Twitter feed. This morning, a “reminder” of the snow alert was posted. And, just 15 minutes later, a fellow ad twitterer, who relied on @SiouxFallsSnow for updates, was ticketed for being in a snow zone.

The issue: when you offer up a service – in this case, vowing to let people know when a Snow Alert has been announced – some people will keep you to your word. They will rely on your service. They will look to you for the information they need. And when it’s not delivered, they will wonder what happened, turn away and express frustration.

Nothing against @SiouxFallsSnow – on the contrary, I still think it’s a great idea. It’s just that this small incident highlights the importance of keeping up with a Twitter feed. Or a Facebook page. Or updating a Web site with new information. The content you offer doesn’t exist in a vacuum – it’s followed by real people, who look to you for information just as they would in real life.

It only takes one slip. From there, one errant situation. One frustrated follower. One mass message to the Twitterverse.

If you are going to promote social media or social marketing, make sure you’re doing it right. Similarly, if you are going to offer a service, even if it’s for free, make sure you back it up. Because whether you’re selling candy bars or letting us know about the snow alerts, we’re depending on you.

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A Quick Grammar Break: Brought to you by The Oatmeal.

It’s no secret that Post Haste is written, for the most part, by copywriters.

So, it should come as no surprise that the brains behind Post Haste are really into punctuation and words and things like that.

That being said, if you’re a copywriter, or if you’re into words, or if you have an excellent sense of humor that doesn’t mind a little randomness, you should be checking out the cartoon charts at The Oatmeal, especially the ones about grammar.

Need to learn how to use a semi-colon? An apostrophe? Want to know the 10 words you should stop misspelling? Done x3.

15 things you need to know about coffee? Also done.

It’s worth checking out, if only because you’ll actually learn something and you’ll have some funny things to post in your cubicle.

That’s all. Carry on with your work week.

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A Creative Legend In Our Midst

So, we have this guy who works at HenkinSchultz. He’s been here for 12 years, but it seems like he’s been in this business for at least three or four decades. He’s the voice of a billion spots, and you know his work by heart. He’s the solid rock our production team is tethered to, the radio expert, the guy so filled with puns and groaners that he often strains to keep them locked up.

And, after those three or four decades of service to the regional advertising and marketing community, he’s being brought out from behind the microphone and honored.

Ladies and Gentlemen, we proudly congratulate Mark Johnson – producer, voice talent, videographer and industry stalwart – on being named the 2010 South Dakota Advertising Federation Creative Legacy Award recipient.

It’s been a long road, Mark. Now, you can rest assured your name will adorn our ADDYs programs for at least three or four more decades to come.

Congrats, Mark!

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Mini’s Trash is Advertising’s Treasure

Great advertising is absolute trash. At least, it is when it comes to Mini and their insufferably cute Mini Cooper.

Click on image to see full size

Good Ol’ CP+B continued a tradition of great non-traditional advertising for the Mini Cooper line with these fantastic trash piles, adorned with a Mini-sized cardboard box. When it comes to marketing automobiles as a logical holiday gift, Lexus could learn a lot from Mini’s lead.

Via Ads of the World

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On How NOT to Request Attention on the Internet

One of the first marketing mistakes I ever made happened early. It had to do with this blog, Post Haste. And, it had to do with my naivety in regards to other people’s time.

I had convinced our partners that we should develop a company blog. Very few other marketing agencies in our area had blogs, and it was time to take a dive into the ever-expanding world of Internet marketing and social media.

Searching for an audience – and looking forward to a jaunty dialog with our naturally intelligent readers – I developed a “Look At What We’ve Done!” e-mail. I sent it to every marketing and advertising blogger I could find. I said, essentially, why I thought our blog was great.

I gave them a look at something new. But I failed on one major level.

I never told them why it mattered to them.

Of the 100+ e-mails I sent out, I received only a handful back. Some were congratulatory. Some were dismissive.

One really stood out. The name doesn’t matter – I can’t remember it, anyway – but the tone was distinct.

It chastised me for asking people to care without offering a benefit. It hounded me for blindly grasping for attention - not by participation and discourse, or by giving anything of substance (because, at this time, there was very little on the blog), but by the assumption that I deserved it.

It taught me an important lesson: no one cares until you give a reason to care.

Fast forward to today.

A magazine I’ve never heard of sends me an e-mail. They assume I’m willing to help them pre-promote an upcoming issue. They open with a salutation of “Dear Blogger.” There is no mention of what I’m getting out of the deal, or why I should care.

I see this e-mail, and I see a little of myself that first time around, when I was promoting Post Haste by sidestepping relationships and blindly throwing darts, hoping some would stick.

It’s the same as sending out press releases that make more work for a journalist, or – even worse – assume a store promotion is real news.

It’s the same as blanket spamming a thousand Twitter users with a new e-commerce site.

It’s the same as knocking on my door, asking me to tell all of my friends about your product, and then leaving without even acknowledging my time.

And I know from experience. It’s not impressive. And it doesn’t work.

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The OFFICIAL 2009 Gingerbread Man (Or Woman) Decorating Contest

The Great Gingerbread Cookie Decorate-off is over, and with a bevy of bejeweled bakery goods scattered amongst our break room tables, we have made our difficult but oh-so-satisfying decision.

But first, the cookies. Be warned – there are a lot of images after the jump.
Read more

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The heart of search: marketing Google

When it came to marketing, Bing went with humor. It went with the assumption that users couldn’t handle the amount of information they were given, that the Internet commoners wanted something more attuned to their thoughts. That their algorithm was better than Google’s, despite the difficulty in proving it.

Google? Well, they simply went for the heart.

We use search every day. It’s as much a part of our lives as the car we drive, the restaurants we frequent, the people we meet. Except for one thing: search leads us to those cars, those restaurants, those people; in a way, it’s so much more.

(Via Make the Logo Bigger)

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David Feherty’s Veterans’ Hunt

David Feherty, former PGA Tour golfer and current CBS Sports analyst, loves the United States. And, he loves the troops that help defend it.

While this may come as a surprise – after all, he is Irish – it only takes a look at his feverish progress at becoming a United States citizen (and his adoption of Dallas as his official hometown) to understand a passion as foreign to the ex-pat lifestyle as grasping American football.

He simply loves this country.

It’s this love – and his undying support for the country’s military personnel – that prompts Feherty to reach out to injured and disabled troops year after year with a once-in-a-lifetime pheasant hunting trip in South Dakota.

Our own Kirby Schultz was fortunate enough to tag along and document this year’s trip, and it was nothing short of monumental. Sure, there was emotion. But there was also a feeling of accomplishment.

And, there was a hidden agenda – one that strikes at the heart of what a disabled veteran goes through: offering a slice of normalcy to someone who now lives life differently, all in the name of defending freedom.

The goal wasn’t to treat veterans with kid gloves. On the contrary – Feherty wants to treat these veterans like real people, offering the roughness of hunting without holding back, challenging the vets to work hard, just as they did before, just as they’ve always done, giving them a reason to feel strong again.

The trip is designed for fun. It was created to give back to vets who laid their lives on the line – and left a little behind in the process. But it’s also a way to dispel any feelings of hopelessness. To put control back in a disabled veteran’s court.

To feel human. To feel free. Which, at the center of it all, is one of the things our country strives to offer every day.

No wonder Feherty has adopted this place as home.

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Another batch of Wolff Olins snake oil

AOL (or, I guess, Aol.) revealed a new logo treatment today.

You can look elsewhere to see what the overall consensus is. (My take: What. A. Joke.)

That being said, there’s a bit of inconsistency that proves Wolff Olins’ ability to b.s. their way through a logo design.

From AOL’s press release:

“Historically brand identity has been monolithic and CONTROLLING, little more than stamping a company name on a product. AOL is a 21st century media company, with an ambitious vision for the future and new focus on creativity and expression, this required the new brand identity to be open and generous, to invite conversation and collaboration, and to feel credible, but also aspirational.” said Karl Heiselman, CEO of Wolff Olins.

Their solution, naturally: stamp the company name onto a handful of stock images.

Come on, guys. After the London 2012 debacle, don’t you think we should be trying a little harder? I mean, THE LEAST YOU COULD DO is make sure the fluffy, inspirational quote defending your work isn’t at odds with the nature of the work itself.

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About HenkinSchultz

HenkinSchultz is an agency. An advertising and marketing and branding and design and production agency. All of those things, and then some.

But, underneath all that, we're really a bunch of thinkers. As in, we think about stuff, both pertinent and not, with and without boundaries, as if our lives depended on it. And this right here, Post Haste, is where we write about it.

Visit us at http://www.henkinschultz.com.

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Most alcohol companies hire brand ambassadors to help further merchandising. New Belgium does it too. And very well. http://bit.ly/bLKAJS

Recent Posts

• That plane is really an infographic
• Twitter as a commitment
• A Quick Grammar Break: Brought to you by The Oatmeal.
• A Creative Legend In Our Midst
• Mini’s Trash is Advertising’s Treasure
• On How NOT to Request Attention on the Internet
• The OFFICIAL 2009 Gingerbread Man (Or Woman) Decorating Contest
• The heart of search: marketing Google
• David Feherty’s Veterans’ Hunt
• Another batch of Wolff Olins snake oil

Recent Comments

• Sharron: Great article about Cami. And-Congratulations to Mark; a well deserved recognition.
• David Mays: Congrats Mark! Do you know how we’ve all grown REAL tired of hearing “Our people make the...
• DON RASDAL: HEY DUDE! I REMEMBER BACK IN 1980 WHEN I MET YOU WHILE WORKING FOR KELO RADIO. I SAID TO MYSELF, I WANT...
• Paul Farmer: Congratulations Mark! Legacy? I remember when you were just a legend. As Burt would say...
• Korena Keys: Congrats Mark! The award is long overdue.

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