Customer Crossroads

Marketing in a recession: Indigo MBA

During difficult economic times, lots of people take the opportunity to "reboot" by going back to school. Of course now, you need serious dough to do that.

Book retailer Indigo is positioning to tap into that trend by offering "the 12 month MBA" featuring  "24 books, 12 months. $0 student loans."  The additional pitch is an opportunity to discuss the books on the Indigo Community.

Very clever idea. And not a bad selection of books, either. (With the exception of Who Moved My Cheese, which surely must be added by way of contrast.)

Who else do you see that is doing some clever recession marketing?

Data visualization as a path to insight

I write a lot of large-ish reports for clients to capture the work I do for them. And I work hard to make them interesting, but at the end of it all, there's still A LOT of reading to do. And the clients are already swamped. Panic ... what if they never glean the amazing insights???

Solution: In the last few years, I've been trying to condense more and more of the insights into compelling graphics that condense and distill the key ideas into something memorable.

I was truly delighted to find a fellow traveller in this regard, Barbara Egel, a quallie based in Illinois. I attended a really great conference presentation with Barbara about a year ago, and she has recently written an excellent article on the same topic -- what she calls "the one page debrief."

Here's the link to the article: Meanings, Metaphors and Maps, the Power of the Visual Summary.

The challenge with this kind of thing is that you need a really great metaphor to link together your ideas. For example, I'm into a report right now where I'm using an iceberg as a metaphor.

 

I've used hills and valleys. I've created giant pipeline diagrams with whirring things at their centre. When unable to find a fabulous metaphor, I've used simple timelines or arrows between bits of stock art.

Finding a good graphics tool is of course tremendously helpful. I often use SmartDraw, which is not perfect, but it does simplify the process. You can do a lot with PowerPoint, but my advice is to stay away from the canned diagrams and figure out your own thing with boxes and arrows. Stock art can be helpful, too.

But I kneel at the feet of the graphic brilliance you can find here, the

50 most stunning examples of data visualization and infographics

A few of these are incredible, either for the information (like #22 about PETA), or for the graphic brilliance (like #6, the human subway map), or the great metaphor (#32, The Periodic Table of typefaces)

Kulula Airlines (#9) takes infogrpahics to the outsides of their planes. Makes me wonder what other businesses could do with murals, for example.

Need an edge in a competitive job market? You could try showing your stuff as an infographic, which is, let's face it, a lot more fun than reading a conventional resume (#13).

Thanks to @CBWhittemore on Twitter for pointing to the data visualization and infographics link

By the way, if you are interested in qualitative stuff, you can get our magazine Views free. Yes, free. Sign up here, or just read it online.

Violent sports in difficult times and how to find insight

"I think during difficult times where people are uncertain, frustrated or angry about things they feel they cannot change, structured forms of socially acceptable violence become more popular. Roller derby itself was born from the Depression. To watch individuals engage in an event that is so dangerous I think commutes a group's collective rage into something slightly safer."

This fascinating comment comes from Susan B Agony, the skate name of a retired roller derby skater for Atlanta Rollergirls Apocalypstix team. Yes, I was investigating roller derby, and found out all about it on HowStuffWorks (of course!), where Ms. Agony was interviewed.

If you want to understand consumer behavior, you need to be a student of all human behavior, and of human culture. It's useful to remind ourselves of a few truths:

1 - There is wisdom to be found everywhere when you open your mind to it
2 - We live in a culture that is filled with rich subcultures, and whatever might look like mainstream culture does not begin to cover the richness of activity that surrounds us.
3 - There's a lot of weird yet cool stuff going on out there. These are the true long tails of humankind and we need to keep connected with those tails to truly see what's happening in the middle

I get a lot of people who want to know how to find insights, how to be innovative, and questions of that nature. Well, here's how: cultivate an interest in everything.

Toronto Roller Derby is here. There's probably a league near you.