Travel Thursday: Toronto to New York Best Options

My travel to New York for Toy Fair this year went remarkably smoothly. After traveling to and from New York in mid-February for over 20 consecutive years, I have definitely had my share of snowstorms, canceled flights, delays, and hassles.

Two things made the trip go smoothly this year, and I'm sharing my experience so that others can benefit:

1. I flew on Porter Airlines from Toronto Island Airport (YTZ) to Newark (EWR) and avoided the expense and hassle associated with Pearson International Airport (YYZ). My trip from my home in Riverdale to midtown Manhattan was an amazing 4 hours door-to-door, and my return was about 5 hours.


2. I traveled to and from EWR with Airlink Shuttle. I had a lot of luggage and wanted to avoid the many stairs and escalators associated with taking the combination of airport monorail, NJ Transit, and a cab to my destination in midtown. For $18 each way, it was a wise decision. Even though the Airlink Shuttle made multiple stops, it was still faster and easier than taking the train from EWR, and far less expensive than a $75 taxi.

Web Wednesday: What's Your Type?

A fun article in The Globe and Mail directed me to four simple questions posed in a playful video by the English design firm Pentagram, where "you can finally hook up with the style of print for which you were destined."

According to The Globe and Mail, thousands of enthusiasts have taken Pentagram's What Type Are You? test, searching for the elusive connection between human character and stylized alphabetical shapes.

Visiting the site at www.pentagram.com/what-type-are-you, I took the test and learned that my typeface is Archer Hairline, "a modern typeface with a straightforward appearance but one that has tiny outbreaks of elegance and tiny dots of emotion only apparent on closer examination."

Archer Hairline

What type are you?

Marketing Monday: Focus Group Etiquette

Had dinner this week with a friend who works in consumer products marketing for a company that sells products through department stores. The company strives to have great partnerships with their retail customers. For upcoming focus groups where consumer will be comparing competitors' products against this company's products, they have invited their key retail buyers.

I was surprised when I heard about it, and as a marketer who likes to tell the truth to retailers in a controlled way, felt that this was a foolish and very high risk way to go. On the other hand, I recognize that in today's world of social media, successful communication between companies and their customers goes both ways.

What do you think?

Little Sponges

At the Kidscreen Summit in New York today, I attended a great presentation on media development for preschoolers by Stacey Matthias from Insight Research Group. Talking about preschoolers, she accurately pointed out that "For little sponges, all media is educational."

As gatekeepers, parents control the preschool content watched by their kids, and there are three ways they do it:

1. PROHIBIT inappropriate content
2. PERMIT entertainment (to keep their attention)
3. PROMOTE education + entertainment

For success in preschool programming, PROMOTING education + entertainment is key. While a lot of this seems obvious to those of us who work in the industry, Stacey did a great job of distilling and presenting it. I'm looking forward to the remainder of the conference over the next couple of days.

Travel Thursday: Veuillez répondre en anglais

Arthur Frommer's Europe on $XX a Day got me through my Europe backpacking trip when I was in university. I still like reading what he has to say, and enjoyed his recent observations on US entry requirements for foreigners.

"The new Electronic System for Travel Authorization, which went into effect last month, requires that those desirable foreign tourists who are permitted to enter our country without a visa (mainly from western Europe), will nevertheless have to send us an e-mail three days in advance of arrival requesting the right to come (see https://esta.cbp.dhs.gov). Such tourists are presented with numerous questions they must answer, which they can access in any of 20 different foreign languages. If they click the word "French," and receive the French-language translation of the instructions, they are then asked: "Veuillez répondre à toutes les questions en anglais" (Please respond to all questions in English). If they click the words "Spanish", they are asked: "Por favor reponda todo en inglés" (Please answer everything in English). And so on."

Frommer has more to say about it in his blog post. While Canadians visiting the US are increasingly faced with more stringest security requirements, we are fortunately exempt from the need for a travel visa.

Web Wednesday: Text Message Google for Quick Results

Seems that not a lot people know about Google SMS, great service from Google.

Text message your search query to 466453 ('GOOGLE' on most devices) and Google will text message back results. There are lots of ways to get info from Google, including local search, weather, and currency conversion. For example, text "w Toronto" for weather in Toronto, and you'll immediately get a text message back from Google with the information. Google explains it all here. It's a great service, all for the price of a text message, often free with many cell phone plans.

Toy Tuesday: Cereal Maker Learns from Toy Co.

Some of the best (and some of the worst) marketers I've worked with in the toy industry come from the world of consumer packaged goods.

Those who adapt to the faster pace and creative nature of the toy industry are often hugely successful. It's interesting and gratifying to read in February's Strategy Magazine that "Recent team trips to Spin Master Toys and Microsoft [from General Mills Canada marketers] have focused on building a culture of innovation and inspiring staff. Yes, big consumer packaged good companies can learn something from entrepreneurial toy companies. I have worked extensively with Spin Master and agree that their admirable culture of innovation is definitely something worthwhile for others to learn about.

I'm off to New York tomorrow for Kidscreen Summit and Toy Fair. Looking forward to reconnecting with industry colleagues and friends.

Olympic Ambush?

Friday's National Post has an interesting article entitled "'Olympic ambush': Interlopers sideswipe makers of sanctioned Games apparel", talking about how "Lululemon, like many other non-sponsors of the Olympics, is marketing some designs that tread suspiciously close to the Vancouver 2010 theme..."

Lululemon Cheer Gear

As someone who worked on official licensed Vancouver 2010 merchandise, I find the situation very interesting, and despite my prior ties to VANOC officialdom, can't help but admire companies that capitalize on current trends and do it in an above board and legal way. I definitely would use a gentler word that "ambush" to describe Lululemon's activities.HBC Official 2010 Canadian Olympic Team Apparel

Checking official Olympic apparel at my neighborhood Zellers store last week, I noticed that they are merchandising generic sport themed and Canada themed apparel together with their official Olympic merchandise. (HBC, or Hudson's Bay Company, is parent to both The Bay and Zellers). This is definitely the type of activity upon which VANOC frowns, yet even their official sponsor is participating.

Roots is also capitalizing on interest in competitive winter sports in Canada this year with their Canada Collection.

Roots Canada Collection

The National Post concludes with a telling quote from André Richelieu, a professor of sports marketing and brand management at Laval University in Quebec:

"If a sponsor paying for the rights to be associated with the Olympics is doing a good job, then there should not be a worry about ambush marketing. You can't be complacent just because you have paid all of that money to be a top sponsor. You have to actually be a top sponsor. You have to be No. 1 in the minds of consumers."

Who do you think has the best official or unofficial Olympic inspired merchandise?

Thursday Travel Tips

There are lots of websites for booking hotels and finding discounts, but I've consistently found good deals at quikbook.com

The site is especially good for hotel rooms in big US cities like New York, and their deals are usually far superior to the mainstream hotel sites like Expedia, Travelocity, and hotels.com.

I'm constantly finding good sites for deals, and will continue to post them every week.

Web Wednesday: Readability

Spending a lot of time on the web, I often come across entertaining and useful tools to enhance my productivity online. This week, I'm sharing one of my favorites: Readability.

It's easy to install into any browser by just dragging it to your Bookmarks Toolbar. Then it lets you quickly and easily strip all but the main text out of any web page and re-formats its layout, size, and margins, creating a newspaper or novel-like page for easier text digestion. It doesn't work on every website, but it's amazing for news and magazine sites and lets you read articles with no ads, flashing messages, or other distractions.

Here are before and after shots of an article on The Value of Design in this week's businessweek.com:

before

after

To add Readability to your browser, go here and follow the simple instructions.

Toy Tuesday: Puppy Tweets

Last Thursday, Mattel announced a new toy for dogs called "Puppy Tweets" that will launch next week at Toy Fair in New York.

According to CNN,

Puppy Tweets is a plastic tag with a sound and motion sensor that you attach to your pet's dog collar and connect its USB receiver to your computer. Then you create a Twitter account for your dog and enjoy updates all day from Sparky or whatever its name is on your computer or smartphone.

The tag is set with several pre-recorded tweets that are triggered by the dog's activities. So if he's running around, you might get a tweet that says "I finally caught that tail I've been chasing and...OOUUUCHH!"

While my dog doesn't have a Twitter account, he does have his own email address. It's not far fetched to expect dog owners to adapt kids' (or adults') play patterns for their dogs.

Mattel's introduction is a great adaptation of the types of technology that toy companies use in their kids' products, but I expect that Mattel will have a few challenges making "Puppy Tweets" a success once the novelty in the marketplace wears out. The most obvious challenge is to determine where the product should be merchandised at retail. In the kids' toy department? In the pet department? And if it's in the toy department, which aisle? Toymakers often have a tough time working with big retailers to find homes for new innovations, and Mattel will no doubt face this challenge.

When I worked at Mattel Canada, I was responsible for a line of Back to School products that were sold in stationery departments and drugstores, not in toy departments and toy stores like most of Mattel's line. With a dedicated focus on the Back to School line, we were successful in getting placement at retail and strong sell through to consumers. Similarly, Mattel should be able to establish a home for "Puppy Tweets" in mass merchants and big box pet stores with a concerted sales and marketing effort.

Still, I'm not sure that I'd buy it for my dog. For families with both dogs and kids, though, "Puppy Tweets" could have a lot of appeal. What do you think?

Sandylion's Vancouver 2010 Stickers & Stationery

When I worked at Sandylion Sticker Designs in 2008, we successfully secured a license for Vancouver 2010 Winter Games. It was an interesting and exciting project to work on as a marketer, a licensee, and a Canadian. VANOC (The Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games) did an amazing job preparing artwork and product development resources for licensees like Sandylion, and the graphics for the games are outstanding. I'm proud of the work that my team at Sandylion did on Vancouver 2010 products. They introduced some innovative new formats, like laptop stickers that go on the cover of a notebook computer:



You can find some of Sandylion's Vancouver 2010 products at the Official Vancouver 2010 Olympic Store. You can see all of them at Sandylion's website -- click on "Product Catalogue" and then "Vancouver Olympics".

Marketing Monday: 20 Best Logos

Developing an effective logo is always challenging. The first step is a good brief to the designer. The brief should identify the target audience and should include communication objectives based on positioning for the brand, product, company, or service that the logo will represent. If positioning isn't well defined, it will be very difficult to create a great logo. Another important factor is choosing the right designer, who will need to consider how the logo will be used (large or small, print, online, broadcast, etc.). All these criteria are key factors to success in logo development.

I recently stumbled upon creativefan.com by Eric Shafer, who featured what he called the 20 best logos of 2009. These examples of logos he selected quickly and emphatically communicate the essence of the companies and products they represent:



The other logos he selected are here.

In a similar vein, I worked on a logo for Tyco Toys' Matchbox Action System, where our goal was to communicate that we had a complete system of connectable track for Matchbox vehicles and playsets:With coherent positioning, a good brief, and a little creativity, it's possible to design a compelling logo that meets your business objectives.