Studio Opolis

That doesn’t sound delicious…

October 6, 2011 — 1 Comment

I was in a meeting with copywriter-extraordinaire Mimi yesterday when we found out about this:

Now, when it comes to breakfast cereal, I’m normally a huge fan of Canada. After all, they still carry Alpha-Bits up there, and most packaging is in both English and French, giving it extra flair. But a cereal called “Holy Crap” just doesn’t work for me, and I can’t imagine it working in Canada, either.

There are so many things wrong with this.

In the first place, who wants to put something NAMED AFTER EXCREMENT in their mouth? For BREAKFAST?! Nobody, that’s who. The name itself is a fail.

I could maybe (MAYBE) justify it if they were using crap as an acronym. The cereal does contain dried Cherries, Raisins and Apples … but that’s where it stops. They could have added Prunes (extra fiber!) to complete the acronym, but they didn’t. Not an acronym, just unappetizing.

Next, that “OMG YUM” kid on the home page with the, uh, “crap-eating grin” on his face? Nothing appetizing about that either. No better is their other splash page, featuring an older woman hiding behind a spoon with the words “have you had your holy crap today.” Nope, still don’t want to buy it.

There’s more! Since we’ve ruled out the acronym, they must be using the scatological reference in a misguided attempt at high-fiber humor (or “high-fibre humour” for you Canadiens). They could have played off this unappetizing name by reassuring me that the product at least looks appetizing. But nope! Completely opaque black packaging. I can’t see the product. Maybe this is to show me what color my poop is going to be after digesting all that fiber?

I’m left with this feeling that somewhere, somebody thought they were very clever.

They were wrong.

Less is … less.

September 1, 2011 — 1 Comment

Today begins life insurance awareness month (who knew?). And, since much of my family is in the insurance business, I decided to help them out by creating an info graphic about life insurance. The idea was to give people (mostly prospective clients) a number of life insurance-specific things to think about. If you’re curious, you can view the whole thing by clicking on it below.

Now, the idea behind an info graphic is to cram a lot of relevant information into a clear, usable format. But apparently, at least according to the family, the above info graphic has TOO MUCH information. They requested I make a few changes, which I did. The result?

This is certainly “less information.” In fact, there’s no longer enough information for it to qualify (at least in my mind)  as an info graphic. By changing the headline and focusing exclusively on one statistic, you’ve changed focus from informational/conversational into sell, Sell, SELL. Their full post (which includes a link to this graphic) can be found here.

Now, I hope this revised graphic works well for them, I really do.

But here’s my concern. Marketing is storytelling. Too often, marketers, advertisers, designers and pundits give people just enough information to elicit an emotional response (usually something primal, like fear, greed, hunger or lust). They then present the recipient with an easy solution that will either eliminate or enhance that emotional response—or so the claim goes.

All too often, however, their solution isn’t the best solution for you—it’s the best solution for them.

Deserve a break today? Go to McDonalds.

Hungry? Grab a Snickers.

Sad? Open happiness (with a Coke).

To be fair, I enjoy McD’s, Snickers and the occasional Coca-Cola. But I rarely feel like any of these have given me a break or made me a happier person. And though I have grabbed both McDonalds and Snickers to sate hunger pains, afterwards I’m more likely to feel sick, not satisfied.

Less may sell more. But it tends to satisfy less.

Winning (easy for me to say)

June 7, 2011

To answer the big question, I believe I won. I was ahead by a decent margin (12+%) at the end, which generally means victory. However, as I haven’t received an official “you won!” notice yet, nor are final results up on the Internets, anything is still possible. Once I know the votes are certified and official, there will be an announcement and a ton of “woo-hoos!” Until then, I’m trying (and mostly failing) to stay mellow.

That said, a huge thank you to everyone who voted and to everyone who encouraged other to vote for me as well. The outpouring of support was unbelievably fantastic (I got votes from as far away as Paraguay!), and I can’t even begin to express how much I appreciate it.

I did want to take a moment, however, to say something about the contest. I found a message board post by another finalist (and I genuinely like their design—I would have voted for them were I not involved) who was disappointed that the vote was a popularity contest, rather than, say, awarded by a panel of experts.

To which I respond, you kind of missed the point.

As a designer/marketing guy, I recognize that the goal of the contest isn’t to reward the “best” design (though I think mine is); the goal is to sell shoes. The big winner here isn’t me (assuming I won), though I do look forward to knowing officially that I did win and I so totally want the rewards for doing so. But no matter who won (and this is easy for me to say because it was likely me), the biggest winner is John Fluevog shoes.

There were a number of people who emailed me (or emailed those who were helping get out the vote) and said something like “I’d never heard of Fluevogs before you asked me to vote, but I went and voted and then looked at their shoes…there are some cool shoes there!” That’s the point. The design (or the designer) that brings the most eyeballs to the Fluevog site (that’s the most “popular”) wins, because more eyeballs means more Fluevog exposure to more people.

I think it’s a brilliant idea, frankly. So does the Globe and Mail. And, as an added bonus, they published my art (click to enlarge).

Yay!