You just got a spiffy new job as a customer service rep at online shoe retail giant, Zappos. During training you quickly realize that the company is fanatic about exceeding customer expectations. You find out that your word is gold, when you tell a customer their shoes will arrive in four days they’ll get them in one. Maybe that’s not the gold that interests you. That’s where the company’s fanaticism really takes an interesting turn.

They offer you an ‘opportunity cost’ hypothetical straight out of your high school economics book. If you are dedicated they invite you to stay on as a hard working, problem solving individual. No scripts, ultimate authority, just make the customer happy. Or take $1,000 cash and walk out the door.

Bill Taylor at Harvard Business Publishing explains why: “If you’re willing to take the company up on the offer, you obviously don’t have the sense of commitment they are looking for. It’s hard to describe the level of energy in the Zappos culture—which means, by definition, it’s not for everybody. Zappos wants to learn if there’s a bad fit between what makes the organization tick and what makes individual employees tick—and it’s willing to pay to learn sooner rather than later. (About ten percent of new call-center employees take the money and run.)”

They define themselves as a customer service company, “that happens to sell shoes.” It’s hard to fulfill that mission if it’s workforce isn’t completely committed. It will be interesting to see if they’ll up the ante. What happens at $5,000? $10,000? One thing is clear, this innovative company is sure to negate its largest cost: negative customer experience.

So, you’re so sick of advertising you could puke. You’re sitting in a café, look up and see an ad on the back of someone’s laptop. Two things may be running through your head. “Why didn’t I think of that” and “I wonder if they’ll pay me too.”

Well, if you’re a student in Germany you may just be able to turn your notebook into a shameless billboard. Company Smaboo (combination of “smart” and “notebook”) will shell out up to €150 in a few months for the unused space on the back of your computer.

The concept is simple. You turn people who would already buy the product into a walking billboard. This new type of targeted marketing is referred to as “embedded branding.” It’s an innovative advertising technique that is being developed by the startup.

Don’t worry, you’re not going to be bombarded with even more unwanted advertising yet. At the moment it’s limited to universities.  But don’t be surprised if a similar concept catches on. It’s guerrilla tactics at it’s finest and it might just have you spilling your latte before you know it.

Thanks to Connie T. for the recommendation.

From time to time I mention this blog when I’m out among friends. So naturally, I went to make a business card to pass out so they’ll remember what to type into their browser after our drunken conversations. But just how do you get an innovative message across in a business card?

After searching far and wide, I found a few unique designs that were noteworthy. Yet one stuck out as being the most memorable. Designer Jamie Wieck created an innovative card that will really grow on the people you hand them to. Literally.

It’s essentially a small seed pack filled with alfalfa sprouts. You dip it in water and a few days later, viola!, it’s a small plant. As it’s sitting there in water you can be sure that the people I handed them out to will remember to type in the URL that’s printed on it.

That just goes to show you, simplicity with a dash of creativity can push even the oldest of traditions up out of the daisies.

Armed with a headset that can sense breathing patterns, heart rate, blink rate, temperature and motion, San Fransisco based Emsense says it has your thoughts down to a science.

Their technology centers around an electroencephalography sensor (EEG) on the forehead and an algorithm that has been built upon three years of market research. Metrics are analyzed in real-time while participants watch ads and play video games.

One of the biggest problems with market research is being able to track the visceral responses that consumers will have during an ad campaign. When asked to rehash their experience of any sort of stimuli they often frame it differently from how they emotionally reacted. As Emsense puts it, “consumers do not make decisions in a purely rational, linear fashion. Emotion has a huge and predominant impact. [Our technology] provides a complete second by second mapping of viewer response.”

But if consumers aren’t logical what suggests that a map of responses will yield to a purchase? Sure, you can see the exact moment when a participant is responding positively. Yet is it possible to gather enough data and change the ad to invoke a sale?

Skeptics counter that this approach may not be much better than self-reporting. Even with all those metrics and a great algorithm it may just be another tool to use during the formulation of a campaign. They also complain that this type of technology has not been properly researched and the data needs to be peer-reviewed in journals before it’s taken seriously.

While the naysayers gather, Emsense and its army of MIT graduates soldier on. They have twenty two patents to date and repeat customers. By the time peer-reviewed research is available for scrutiny they may already be deep into profits, but only time will tell.

You may have noticed that the music industry hasn’t exactly been doing well lately. Fans fail to see the value of purchased music when they can go online and download albums for free.

Smashing Pumpkins has released their music for free via website. Radiohead recently released its new album, In Rainbows, for whatever price you chose to pay. Nine Inch Nails uploads their music via torrents, offers free downloads and calls record companies thieves.

The business model is not only dead, it’s decaying. The Recording Industry Association of America was voted the Worst Company in America. Profit driven, traditional marketing campaigns are no longer effective for releasing music.

After signing with a label most bands only receive their signing bonus and never see any residual profits. In turn labels are looking for hits, the next big thing, and they can’t afford to be wrong. The entire industry survives on the top 10% of the bands they sign that become mega stars. When they do get it right they provide distribution, marketing, live touring schedules and press releases.

Anti-marketing is cutting the industry out of the equation while generating a buzz that provides all the before mentioned benefits of a label. It’s so intimate that everybody’s talking about it.

Technically speaking, bands could potentially earn more by developing a direct relationship with the community they foster than with the big check that’s cut when signing a deal. Perceived value can be leveraged with live performances, merchandise and donations.

This is an industry with fans that don’t want to be marketed to. They want to share. Why not just let them have their way?

Picture this, you’ve been on a flight for the last few hours and your restless as you land. Like most people you are looking out the window to take a look at the city you are flying into. But wait, what is that on the ground? If British based Ad Air has their way it will be a giant 5 acre sized billboard. That’s about the size of 4 football fields.

The concept is an interesting twist on the growing field of outdoor advertising, where we are seeing ads on everything from car wraps to coffee cups. They say that it is unlike roadside billboards that are seen by a large field of people day by day. Air Ad advertisements are to be seen by a much more unique demographic. Reasoning suggests that very few people fly on a daily basis and thus it will make a much lasting impression on them.

The company has the go ahead in a handful of major airports, including Heathrow, Dubai International, Charles de Gaulle in Paris, Hartsfield-Jackson in Atlanta, Denver International, Los Angeles International, Suvarnabhumi in Bangkok, Haneda in Tokyo. Ad Air is still negotiating so that they will ultimately have 30 ads placed in the world’s busiest airports. Next month an ad in Dubai will debut as the first site.

Costs for one of these big boys range from $80,000 – $150,000 a month. They will be printed on plastic mesh and will sit on metal frames.

Is this just a desperate attempt to utilize every possible space that isn’t already being used? Ad Air makes claims that the viewers will be drastically different in demographics, which may be true. For the first few times I look down at a huge billboard I’m going to remember what I see. But will this become a novelty? Another buzz in the sea of noise that constantly surrounds us?

I want to see gorilla campaigns come to life by using these ads creatively. Very edgy marketing would work well with this type of product. For instance, instead of boring crop circles you could always step it up to make people believe aliens really have landed there. Don’t worry, two weeks later you can tell them it was all a hoax, but to still go see the next Alien movie out in theaters.

[International Herald Tribune]

We are flooded with enhancements such as satellite radio, Internet radio, HD radio and podcasting. Yet terrestrial radio continues to broadcast at the same medium and with the same lack of features. Not only do we crave niche artists in the long tail but we want recommendations and individualization that social networks provide.

Here in sunny San Diego I have a choice between a few types of FM music stations, one news FM station and three AM talk radio stations. The music is often not my taste, the news channel gets old and unless I want to listen to 3 minutes of talk radio followed by 7 minutes of ads I don’t dare turn to the AM. So where did I go? Audio books, podcasts and Internet radio.

I, like most of my peers, just simply want to be entertained. Radio is losing significance in our lives because it lacks choice and hinges its industry on invasive advertising. Interactive options based on past experiences and social trends may be off for FM/AM technology but the permission to market to it’s audience isn’t.

Seth Godin in his book Permission Marketing would say to stop interrupting us. Don’t be the guy to walk up to us in a bar and ask for marriage. Get to know us first. Offer us a drink, gain our trust and with our permission we’ll eventually get in bed with you.

EDIT: Jay Ehret, the Small Business Marketing Guy at The Marketing Spot just wrote an excellent article about how radio may have the ability to innovate and why it has gotten itself in such a slump in recent times.

[Mashable]