I was on my way home tonight and decided to take the subway from Harvard Square. As you can see from these pictures EA games went all out on the marketing of their latest game, Spore. In these 4 pictures there are more than 55 unique ads. What is interesting, only a handful actually mention the product.
This is a very good case “shotgun marketing”; but it also shows how an advertisement can make the consumer stop and wonder, “What is all this about?” You can’t ignore them, there are too many. But you find yourself reading all of them, trying to figure out what you are being sold.
At very least, it caught my attention.
The take away, catch the attention of your consumers. It could be in an ad, or in your final product. Innovative products get noticed.
*I apologize for the photos. I was in a hurry and didn’t have a camera, so I had to snap them from my iPhone. The iPhone does well in some light conditions; unfortunately, subway is not one of them.
- What is this product trying to do? Am I trying to change the world, or is this just something to pay the bills?
- Is this product new, or an iteration of a pervious product?
- What determines the success or failure? At what point am I done; at what point do I give up.
Most people will ask themselves at least one of these questions at the start of a new venture. But it is important that we ask all three. A combination of these answers can reveal a lot about your business model.
You might have one approach if you are “trying to change the world” and your product is new; however, if your product is just an iterative idea, things should change. New products often take longer to make a serious impact. You cannot expect a new product to catch on overnight, so your failure point should change as well.
Define your product, design your product, deliver.
Be creative.
Seth Godin brings up a great point on patience and points out that often the people who stick it out are the ones who succeed.
…the strategy still takes forever. The strategy is the hard part, not the tactics.
Seth Godin
They were saying the right words, but I don’t think that Chrome is really all that “different”.
Recently I wrote an article about Google Chrome. I think it’s important to point out that I was not blindly supporting Google Chrome; being a Mac user, I had to run it through Parallels. However, I thought it a positive step towards the approach of modern browsers. I feel that it is important step back and create something new; so I gave it a shot.
Over the last few days I have played around with Google Chrome, and have found it to be “ok”. Being a web developer, I was excited to see that they included some developer tools. I was surprised to find that Google pretty much copied Safari’s web developer tools:
Safari Right Click:
Google Chrome Right Click:
Safari Web Inspector:
Google Chrome Web Inspector:
This is not what I had in mind when Google said they had a “fresh take on the browser”. It seems, all they did was put the address bar under the tabs, emphasized the base URL in a domain by graying out the rest, and created a custom home page with your most visited items?
I’m just not sure it’s worth as much hype as it received and would love to hear your thoughts on the subject; please comment below. What are your impressions of Google Chrome?
I am happy to say that due to the interest in my previous post 21st Century Excuses, I have launched a new site:
http://modernexcuses.com/
Modern Excuses will post a daily excuses for the 21st century, as well as excuses used in current events, news, media and politics.
If you have an excuse, feel free to submit it at http://modernexcuses.com/contact.
Thanks for reading!
-Shawn
Google announced yesterday that they would be releasing a new web browser, Google Chrome.
Because we spend so much time online, we began seriously thinking about what kind of browser could exist if we started from scratch and built on the best elements out there. We realized that the web had evolved from mainly simple text pages to rich, interactive applications and that we needed to completely rethink the browser. What we really needed was not just a browser, but also a modern platform for web pages and applications, and that’s what we set out to build.
This is the driving force behind innovation, as well as the goal of Project Rethink. There are times when you need to step back and times when you need to start from scratch. I encourage you to examine your products, or business models, and ask yourself the question — “Has this product evolved beyond our original intent?” At what point should you rebuild from scratch to better meet the needs of your consumers.
I am not saying Google Chrome will be perfect. But there is something to be said about having courage to stand up and rethink something as large as the “modern” web browser; to stand up and say–”Maybe this really isn’t that modern.”
From the Google Comic:
