Run To Fly

My personal collection of lessons learned about design, life, being a dad and anything else.

[thomas-hutton]

A new way to use re-targeting ads

Having recently done some shopping through Zalando, I’m now unable to see anything else other than Zalando re-targeting ads. The ads cleverly showcase the merch that I left behind, begging me to come back. 

But I’m not interested in another pair of black sneakers. I’m interested in the ones I’ve bought! As a result, the poor fellows over at Zalando who run their re-targeting business are doing themselves no favours. Their ads are dead to me. For now.

As a service designer, I have a rule of thumb: operations as marketing and marketing as operations. What that means is for operative actions by a business should be considered as marketable, and marketing assets should be helpful and be something I can use.

Let’s frame that for these re-targeting ads. What these ads should ideally be telling me is:

 “Hey Thomas. Thanks for shopping with us, your goods are on the way. Here is the latest tracking update for your shipment: dispatched from X. Estimated arrival: Tuesday.”

This way, Zalando would be reassuring me of where my package is as I browse the web, taking the pain away for me as I would otherwise have to find the tracking link from a cluttered inbox.

Yes, the ad could then go on to give me a link to look at what I left behind. 

The lesson? Win my trust by being useful, do me a favour even with your re-targeting ads.

[thomas-hutton]

Lately, I've been focusing on the theme of embracing exploration in the face of uncertainty. I've been a big fan and practitioner of the lessons posted by Google ventures, and I'm happy to have this book handy for future work. It's fun to see that the approach is intuitively embraced by co-workers and clients alike.

[thomas-hutton]

Here is a link to Spikes Asia awards. There is some incredible work there, especially among the Grand Prix winners. I’m especially captured by the Grand Prix winners of the following categories: Design, Digital, Grand Prix for good, Innovation, and Mobile. They go far beyond crude brand messages and combine technology, innovation and creativity and deliver a holistic experience. 

A big thank you to the winners for producing such amazing work and inspiring me today and beyond!

[thomas-hutton]

Agencies don’t chase problems anymore

This headline is borrowed from Joe Petyan, Executive Partner of J Walter Thompson in his open letter to the creative industry and published online by The Guardian. 

Read the full story here.

This quote sums in up in my opinion: “We’re too scared to take the troubled business. Instead, our ideal solution is to take on the famous brands and continue their famous work.”

So why am I reacting to this? Partly because as a service designer in an ad agency, my beliefs are quite the opposite. I believe in making a sincere difference, and that needs to be done through service design, not more ads. Ads generate awareness and engagement, but this is only the beginning of the typical customer journey. Then comes purchase, use, continued use, advocacy and finally disposal. Ads are great at funnelling people to the cash register, but it is only then that the promise made in the ad needs to be delivered.

Great services advertise themselves through advocacy loops: successful startups have always known this. The mechanism is built in: just look at mobile gaming as an example. H&M are amping up the total experience of the recycling/disposal initiative, where you bring in clothes for recycling for a small gift voucher. Read about it here. This isn’t green washing anymore, it’s conscious, for profit, recycling and something that meets the needs of conscious shoppers and a conscious company.

If you feel like Joe, and flat out bored in the advertising business, just reconsider your options and join the service design community!   

[thomas-hutton]

Lessons learned about class

[thomas-hutton]

Get noticed, think different.

[thomas-hutton]

Chief Experience Officer... Chief Omnichannel Officer... all new job titles in a digitally driven world. It must have been a huge shift to bring the offline and online teams together and actually design meaningful touchpoints that drive sales. 

"Our goal is to provide our shopper with the best experience in whatever way she chooses to interact with us: mobile, desktop, store, or all of them together."

—R.B. Harrison, Chief Omnichannel Officer for Macy's

[thomas-hutton]

Experience the Withings Pulse O₂

Check out the new Withings Pulse O₂, the most advanced & versatile activity tracker!

The activity bracelet is steadily making itself known, as we increasingly look to quantify our lives. I recently bought one for running as it tracks my pulse from the wrist. One thing struck me while researching this field: it’s all features and functions. Battery life, programs, customization, design etc. but no brand considered the emotional fit. Until I found this website.

This is a beautiful narrative and website design that takes into consideration how a piece of technology fits in with day to day life. The watch is seen as a companion here, and the brand wants to speak to me as a person, not as a consumer. There are enough chances to get to know the watch better, function by function, but first and foremost the design and experience of this website answers my question: do I really need or want a smart watch? 

I’m sure people will have usability problems, but I think serious buyers and those interested in the subject are motivated enough to look past that and just enjoy the experience.

[thomas-hutton]

This is the saddest remote control I've ever seen. It's a true Minimum Viable Product: there's nothing wrong about an MVP, but a remote control to a speaker system could be so much more. It made me think about the sensory possibilities for controlling volume and experiencing sound and music through it. Kind of like a musical vibrator, that would interact to the beat, pitch, volume level etc. That would be something you would love to feel as you hold the remote. Gestured movements would change levels, making you a composer of sort. Undoubtedly there are already products like this on the market; do you have first hand experience of them? Tell me about it!

[thomas-hutton]

Run to fly

Today marks a fresh start to my writing. The inspiration struck me on a sunny Sunday morning when everything just felt perfect. I saw a boy with a kite, and I felt sorry for him because A) there was no wind whatsoever, and B) it was a poor kite. But the boy would have none of it, happily ignorant of what my adult instinct was judging. He was just happy that he had a kite, and he wanted nothing else but to fly it. So he yelled to his dad "Look! I'm gonna make it FLY!" And he shot off down the road, running as hard as he could. The kite followed 1 meter behind him and reached a dizzying shoulder height. And the boy was overjoyed as he peeked over his shoulder at full speed. That moment of joy, innocence and sense of achievement rubbed off and here I am, running to lift a kite of my own just to feel and share those three things. Joy, innocence and sense of achievement. This is part portfolio, part information hoarding, part sanity check, and part creative exercise. Thank you for tagging along!

[thomas-hutton]

Shaping brands & products

Today I learned a good lesson on branding and product design by watching a video of Michael Conrad speaking of the importance of culture in shaping brands, products and advertisement. Here's an extract from his talk;

"A product or a service provides a function. Culture shapes a brand.

In shaping, building, and growing a brand's culture of creativity, values, authenticity, origin, heritage, and differentiation as well as inventing and innovating its gestalt and voice,

think loca before global,

dig into genius loci — the spirit, the experience of the place,

dig inside peoples lives, wants, and needs,

dig into customer behavior,

dig into markets,

dig for the inherent drama,

dig for the truth.

Make culture your strategy. Discover it, create, re-create, adopt, apply, merge, re-discover...

for the sake of creating value."

[thomas-hutton]

[thomas-hutton]