How to write an (inspiring) creative brief

How to write an (inspiring) creative brief. This is really good. Trust me on this one. Created by Nick Emmel.

Sell your by-products

Thought this idea was interesting.

Jason Fried, founder of 37signals wrote a book called REWORK. He talks in it about the fact that when you make something, you always make another thing. There is always a by-product. Sometimes you can also sell the by-product. His book itself is an example of a by-product from creating something else - his company. And I suspect the book will create another by-product in the form of seminars, workshops and consulting perhaps.

Dave Trott did something similar. His (wonderful) book is a by-product of blog posts. His blog posts are a by-product of all the teaching and advertising he has created over the years.

You don't persuade people through intellect

Bill Bernback "You don't persuade people through the intellect. You do it through the passions". You'll enjoy this.

Found via Drayton Bird.

Economics explained simply

Thought this was brilliant. Apologies to whoever originally posted it. I truly can't remember what blog I found it on.

Youtube - musicians wanted

Youtube have launched a partner program for musicians. Artists upload original videos to youtube and get a cut of any money from advertising that youtube (Google) make. Good for unsigned bands. Not so good maybe for Myspace. Only available in the US so far.

See article in wired.

More templates for blogger (and other stuff)

Blogger team have come up with new templates and other stuff. So if you use blogger, you might want to play around with it. I changed my template background while checking it out. No doubt I'll get bored of it and change again soon. More info here.

Free ebook on pricing

Pricing gets less attention on this blog. It is fascinating and I read about it a fair bit but clearly am no expert. Todd Slattersten, however is. He has written an ebook on pricing strategies. It is short and well written.

I particularly liked the bit about how pricing is by far the most effective lever that managers have in affecting profit. He refers to how a 1% increase in pricing can translate to 11% increase in profits. (It is also the easiest lever. I wouldn't advocate just upping the price to hit a quarterly target. Customers are not stupid and will eventually vote with their wallets).

Anyway, worth a download and read. Here. I found it via Seth Godin.

And if you like it, you'll probably also like The Art of Profitability too.

Brand recognition v Brand recall

Often both 'brand recognition' and 'brand recall' are needed for brand awareness. But they are different. And you might do different things to boost either. Understanding the customer purchase decision will help.

If customers decide which brand to buy while in store, then brand recognition is pretty important. You want the consumer to make the link between the battery brand they saw on TV and the one on the shelf. Clearly, packaging, logos and cues from the TV campaign are worth sweating over here.

Brand recall is a tougher gig. You want consumers to think of your brand when they are thinking about the category. To recall from memory. If your customers make their decisions outside the store, then recall is the thing to focus on. First anyway.

Online stores and anybody selling a service generally need recall first and foremost. Which is why the advertising for comparison shopping websites focus a lot on their name and website address. They have failed if they expose you to an ad for moneysupermarket.com and you head over to confused.com.

Of course, all the ads for these comparison websites seem a bit the same, with no differentiation - with the exception of comparethemeerkat.com which is proving very popular.

A good book (about digital)

danah boyd and several others wrote this book. If your work involves understanding teenagers, and how they interact with social networks, you could do worse than reading danah's blog, papers or presentations. As the book title suggests, 'Hanging Out, Messing Around and Geeking Out' describes different ways teens are interacting with digital. They describe "different levels of investment in new media activities".

'Hanging out' is mostly about friends being together. They just happen to do this online, but the focus is about being with their friends.

'Messing around' is a notch up from this. Teens use online to find information. Using search engines, wikipedia, forums etc. Their experimentation and playing with music, images, videos and photos is also included under 'Messing around'.

'Geeking out' is a step up again on this. And is some of the more intense activities teens get involved with online. This might include media fandom around stuff like Harry Potter or the Japanese Anime comics. And also includes gaming.

'Geeking' should not be confused with 'geeks'. The authors explain that these are not "geeks" as we might know the term - but rather kids very enthusiastic about a particular hobby. For example, they could even be sports nuts. And this is not really about digital for the sake of it. It just happens to be their way to get into their hobby and the online communities around it.

Like I said, if understanding digital and teenagers is important to you or your job, you'll learn stuff in this. It is research-led and allows you to get up close into the homes of the teens and their families. Here at amazon.