Professional Sports Have An Engagement Problem

This post is a repost of one I wrote for my other blog Preferred Walk-Ons.

BY: BRANDON TURNER

If you saw my last post, you know how the NBA and NFL are looking for ways to improve the game by changing some of the main aspects of their respective sports. They seem to think they have a problem with lack of excitement and that is the driving force behind these proposed changes. The solution? Make the sports more interesting.

But excitement isn’t the problem in sports. Sports have an engagement problem.

St Louis Cardinals fans set a record for data usage during a game.

Think about your life on a minute-to-minute, day-to-day basis. We live in a digital world and are increasingly connected to everything. You could probably tell me what most of your friends are doing right now, what your favorite celebrity is tweeting about, and which one of your friends just instagrammed their Starbucks cup for the fourth time this month (sorry, I do this… sometimes…). Hell, you probably even arrived at this blog post through a social media feed.

Now, on a larger-scale, global events like the Super Bowl and The Oscars have been huge areas for engagement. Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites have seen insane traffic during events such as these. People like to talk about things…constantly. Digitally chatting about shows, events, everything we experience, help create a community of people with similar interests, even if for a fleeting moment.

So where do sport fans learn about the stuff they enjoy? Blogs like this one, ESPN, Bleacher Report, or fantasy sports leagues. These are all avenues to hear about and discuss sports. But where can you have your input? If you take one look at my Twitter feed during a Oregon Ducks basketball or football game, you’ll see how important interaction is to people these days.

Handouts, exclusive Q&A’s, and social media integration into the night.

NBA and NFL commissioners; if you’re looking for ways to improve engagement and excitement around your sports, then get people involved.

From my experience with the Oregon Ducks in the QuackCave, I can tell you firsthand that social media draw is huge when focused on a team. During games, that draw is enormous.

People love it when official Twitter accounts interact with them. It makes them feel like they’re contributing and being heard. The Portland Trail Blazers and Oklahoma City Thunder have done a great job at that. Golden State Warriors have even gone so far to create social media nights, giving discounts and insider peaks for tweeting, Facebooking, and checking in on different networks to Golden State Warriors games. But most teams are still struggling.

This is how you make live events fun: add more information and interaction. People love information overload. Statistics, inside looks from the locker room, seat upgrades, prizes, recognition, interaction with players. You need to make sure that fans get more out of their game experience by being in the stadium than they do just sitting on their couch. That’s a tough undertaking these days – when sports coverage will give you interviews, inside looks, stats, and replays.

Bloomberg recently posted this article, Mark Cuban Wants You to Put Away Your Phone at NBA Games. The distilled version is that Vivek Ranadive, the new owner of the Sacramento Kings, is all about utilizing technology at games. On the opposite end, Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks, claims that fans want to be at games to enjoy them as a reprieve from technology. But in this day and age, you spend about half the time at the game watching cheesy game time entertainment or sitting around during media and team timeouts. That’s boring. A Wall Street Journal report said that football telecasts are only 11 minutes of actual game time. Take that as you will, but if TVs show everything going on plus commercials, replays, and interviews, then how much is just lag time at a game.  That’d be an interesting study.

Sacramento Kings team app

Ranadive is all for creating team apps to enhance the experience. These large events aren’t successful in engaging fans when they force users onto a platform. Users will gravitate to wherever they are most comfortable; Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. It’s now that teams and the league need to go to where the fans are. They need to meet them there and enhance the experience. Car salesmen don’t wait for you to walk into the office. Once you set foot on the lot, they are there helping you (more often times pestering you). The idea is that they come to you.

Second screen (utilizing a smartphone, tablet or PC while watching TV) is the way of the future. Over 44 percent of people admit to using second screens while watching TV, and of those people, 34 percent use second screens to interface with sporting events.

But people use second screens when their primary “screen” is live, in-person action. Sports journalists often live-tweet during games and you already know a ton of people who Instagram, Snapchat, and Vine while at sporting events.

If you want to be successful, NBA and NFL, you need to embrace the future. The future is digital, the future is interacting with your fans in real time, the future is creating a reason for fans to be at the game instead of watching it at home.

Real Time Marketing Recap: The Oscar’s

I’ve been wanting to do a post about the newest buzz in social media. Real Time Marketing. The idea is to create advertising that is in the moment and relevant to whatever culturally.

It started last SuperBowl with Oreo’s famous tweet.

Power out? No problem. pic.twitter.com/dnQ7pOgC

— Oreo Cookie (@Oreo) February 4, 2013

Since then, brands have been trying  to achieve that same level of success that Oreo achieved with this tweet. Every mainstream event has had brands trying to leverage the event to create some type of success.

The latest of these events? The Oscars. Here are some of the tweets sent out during the even trying to capitalize on what was going on. Some of them did pretty well, others crashed and burned. But, SPOILER ALERT, nobody really hit a home run. Except Twitter. Twitter did work, just by being Twitter and being the platform for all of this to happen.

1. Mercedes
   Mercedes Benz was one of the brands that decided to capitalize on the low hanging fruit. The Oscars statuettes are gold, we have a product that can be gold. Boom. Tweet created. Grade: D

   You can wrap a lot of things in gold: from statues to… a G-Class? Now that’s something to grab peoples’ attention. pic.twitter.com/UjigfqUIpL

   — Mercedes-Benz USA (@MBUSA) March 1, 2014

2. Lipton
   Lipton introduced a new campaign with an ad during the Oscars. They extended their brand through their social media presence, interacting with consumers and talking about the new campaign. Grade: B
3. Banana Republic
   Banana Republic capitalized on Jared Leto’s Acceptance speech. Focusing on one of his statements and relating it back to their brand. Grade: B-

   “To those who have ever felt injustice bc of who you are or who you love, this is for you” –@JaredLeto #TRUELOVE pic.twitter.com/LXGRE8vkIs

   — Banana Republic (@BananaRepublic) March 3, 2014

4. Pepsi
   Pepsi also introduced a new campaign for their new mini cans. An ad utilizing past Oscar movie lines, they extended that idea into social media. Grade: D+
5. Pizza
   This isn’t a specific brand. Ellen’s call for pizza was a easy lob for any pizza delivery brand. Unfortunately, none of them caught on quick enough. Even Digiorno’s tried to get in on it. Grade: F
6. Samsung
   Samsung was a title sponsor of the event and had Ellen using one of their phones taking selfies and ultimately the “Infamous Group Selfie.” Unfortunately, Ellen, a iPhone proponent was still uploading pics backstage with her own iPhone. Grade: B-  Here’s an article I just read from Samsung’s marketing about the placement.
7. Arby’s
   Arby continued their Grammy’s interaction with Pharrell, buying their hat back. Grade: A

   .@Pharrell You’re welcome. We’re HAPPY to support a great cause & get our hat back. Good luck at the #Oscars tonight! pic.twitter.com/2oA7qDPX9z

   — Arby’s (@Arbys) March 3, 2014

Any other “real time marketing” attempts that stood out for you during the Oscars? Make sure to comment and let me know.

Is Facebook Changing the Landscape of Tech Startups?

Facebook has employed the old Microsoft strategy. If you can’t beat your competitors, just buy them up. They purchased Instagram after realizing how important photo sharing really is nowadays, and they offered to buy Snapchat after their rival app, Poke, failed miserably. And their latest acquisition? WhatsApp a messaging app for a whopping $19 billion.

That is a lot of money.

And a lot of people will have you thinking Facebook just bought an app that people can download for free. Which is true, but after a year it costs a dollar a year to maintain your account through the app. A nominal fee, but some revenue none the less.

See where WhatsApp is desirable is that messages can be sent between cell phone numbers across mobile data networks, meaning that you can send messages internationally without being slammed with international charges.

While this acquisition has some interesting consequences coming in the tech, social media, and messaging world, I’m curious about what effect it will have on the start up culture.

Facebook has shown that if they feel threatened, they’ll offer to buy you and if they can’t buy you they’ll try to out do you. So will this change how people will approach start up ideas? Create a great idea and then sell it to Facebook? Or do you try to create an app that will compete with Facebook directly, a company valued at around $40 billion? Is that even possible?

I’m worried that if too many people subscribe to the idea that they should just create ideas that Facebook will buy, the quality of ideas will fall sharply. On the other hand, if people subscribe to the idea that they will fail to win against Facebook they will lose the courage to create awesome stuff.

I think the beauty of the current situation of tech in the US is that the entrepreneurial spirit is high. People love creating new things and trying to find out how to be the next Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. But will Facebook lead to its own demise by eating up all the people with a competitive spirit?

I guess only time will tell. Till then, I hope that people will still see how worthwhile and fun creating a startup can be. Let the good ideas flow.

Richard Sherman, Beats and “The Rant”

Now I’m not normally one for conspiracy theories. I think that sometimes people put too much stock into coincidences and  that a lot of times, things just happen. Sometimes you don’t actually know why things happen. But, conspiracy theories are fun. They’re fun to think about and fun to come up with.

So without further ado, here is my conspiracy theory.

Richard Sherman’s rant was a planned circumstance, to help market Beats by Dre. I know this sounds absolutely wild. But hear me out. I’m not saying that it is true or not. And like all conspiracy theories, I expect people to read this and go “Hmm…interesting,” and move on. I know some people who have worked on the campaign and I’m sure that this isn’t something that they would do. But here are my reasons why this could be a possibility.

1. Beats by Dre released their commercial featuring Sherman about a week or so before the NFC Championship game.
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HESJgpYYUyM
2. Dr. Dre was at the NFC Championship game. Supporting his two sponsored athletes, Kaepernick and Sherman.
   

   Credit to @SWXSamAdams

3. Richard Sherman seemed pretty calm, hugging Erin Andrews in between his ESPN Deportes interview and his one with Fox Sports. Seems like he knew what he was saying and wasn’t as “caught up in the moment” as we may have thought.
4. Richard Sherman is a smart dude. Went to Stanford and got better grades than most anybody.
5. Sherman has been called a thug before. Everyone knows he grew up in Compton and unfortunately, you’ll hear people say you can take the person out of the hood but not the hood out of the person.

So basically, my theory comes down to this. Dr. Dre told Sherman to do something crazy at the end of the game, something that would get people talking. You have to know that if Sherman does anything remotely crazy, people will automatically assume he’s being “thuggish.” And once you’ve done that, the beauty of it all is that life would be imitating art. And nothing is more powerful than a story tale coming true.

Now, why would you do this? Like I said, nothing is more powerful than a story coming true. It definitely got people talking about the Beats commercial with Sherman and had them sharing it. Not only does it strengthen the brand that is Sherman, it also strengthened the Beats brand by having it’s sponsored athlete personify the brand’s campaign slogan now, #HearWhatYouWant.

Innovation: Not building the wheel, just repurposing it

There’s a lot of talk about how people need to innovate. “Innovate or Die!” “Innovation is the only way for businesses to succeed.” And to an extent, this is true. But most people think of innovation as invention, which isn’t that far off. It’s defined as:

Innovation: 
1. The act of introducing something new.
2. Something newly introduced.

But innovation can be more than just an invention or a brand new thing. I think the greatest “innovations” come from repurposing things. Looking at how something is being used and find out how to repurpose it, that’s where you’ll find innovative ideas.

What? You want examples? Fine. Here:

1. Billboards: Billboards have always been the forgotten medium. People don’t think a whole lot about them. We see them a lot on our daily commutes. But they’ve always been just print. There’s been some use of billboards as vertical gardens and with 3D features but those have been way too expensive to become anything more than a singular market items.Where billboards have succeeded lately has been in creating digital billboards. Billboards that drop a holographic angel on your head and track airplanes as the fly by. These two ideas are awesome because they rethink how a traditional medium is used. They take something purely analog and add a digital component. They went where people didn’t even think to look. And even cooler, they took it and made it interactive. Taking a bold leap into the internet of things.
2. Print: Another area that is often thought of as purely analog. How can you add a digital component? It’s impossible right? Wrong. Motorola recently created a print ad that lights up, changing colors to help you decide which color suits you the best. Awesome idea. Great potential for earned/shared media. Great way to bridge the digital analog gap but unfortunately, this seems to be extremely cost prohibitive for something to do often. However, it’s innovation, and the best kind in my opinion because it repurposes and rethinks an common idea.
3. Doing the opposite: This kind of innovation doesn’t have the same kind of “WOW” factor as some other kinds. But I still think it’s worth mentioning. Sometimes you can be extremely innovative doing opposite of what’s expected. You know those ads that we all watch before our beloved cat videos on Youtube? (side note: I hate cat videos.) Well Burger King made some preroll ads that made fun of them. Ever listen to Spotify? Probably 1 in 4 of the ads on there make fun of Spotify ads. The latest ones I’ve heard are from Wendy’s offering a free month of premium. Bud Light’s latest teaser ads for the Super Bowl? Ads for an ad campaign? #inception Not quite as flashy in the innovation department, but it is still a repurposing in a way.I read this article, recently written by a guy I admire in advertising. In it he talks about preroll ads and the importance of making sure that they are actually engaging, especially for the first five seconds you’re forced to watch. But what’s important is his example. He talks about how Mazda had created an ad that was meant to be viewed fast forwarded, because that’s what people did in the days of VHS. This is awesome. Totally innovative. Repurposing an ad to be viewed differently.

So next time somebody says to be “innovative” don’t immediately think you have to create something brand spanking new. Innovation comes in many different forms. Think of a way you can repurpose things. Not necessarily a way no one has thought of, but a way that you can make work. Remember, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel, you can just repurpose it.

My 2014 New Years Resolutions for Brands

While writing my last post about my predictions for 2014, I couldn’t help but think of things that I hope to GOD brands start doing. At first it was just a couple of things and by the time I decided to write them down I had a full page. That’s when I knew I had to write this post. Don’t worry I knocked it down to 5 main things that brands should resolve to do in 2014. Let’s up our game as advertisers.

1. Real-time Marketing, In the Moment Marketing. Whatever you wanna call it. Let’s do more.
   Towards the end of the year, brands started trying this thing where they would talk about current events. Some failed miserably (see Kenneth Cole, SpagehttiOs) others did a great job (Oreo, Digiorno’s, Ben and Jerry’s). The jury is still out on Charmin. (see this tweet)This is absolutely nothing new. Ever try and live tweet an event the next day? By then the conversation’s dead. Brands need to be able to be on top of current events to be able to best utilize things for their brands. Oreo jumped to the top of social media for one reason. They monitored and reacted to the Superbowl last year. All you need is one moment for your brand to be the example for the year. It’s worth it.

   PRO TIP: A lot of memes and internet jokes start on Reddit. Wanna be the first to crack a joke? Wanna get props from the nerdiest of internet nerds? Make sure you monitor Reddit for opportunities to jump on an internet meme before it becomes mainstream and carries your brand with it.
   

2. Learn how to create high quality social video.
   Everyone knows that video is the next frontier for brands. Unfortunately, (or fortunately, depends on how you look at it) this is an undiscovered frontier. People aren’t sure what resonates and what exactly works. So experiment. Get out there and create different types and styles of content to find that sweet spot. You may just find the new standard and wouldn’t that be great earned media!
3. STOP with the click bait titles.
   Ok, this is more just one my pet peeves. Click bait titles are all the rage. Just peruse your Facebook feed and you’ll see a ton. Each of them follow a very specific formula: “See what happens when____, it’ll blow your mind(change the way you approach life).” Just don’t. This kind of stuff is terrible and cheesy. It’s the stuff your teacher sent back to you and wrote “OH C’MON!!” on in big, red letters.
4. Give value in your interactions.
   Social media is just that, “social.” This means you need to interact with consumers. Brands like to still use social media as another platform for them to stand on and broadcast from. The best brands on the other hand, create dialogues between themselves and their consumers, fostering relationships and creating brand loyalists. Every interaction with a consumer brings them that closer to advertising for you, and we all know how powerful word of mouth is.
5. Try something new.
   It’s a new year. Clean slate. Let’s try something new. Innovate. Trail blaze. You’re never gonna be the talk of the town following the popular kids around and mocking them. Make a name for yourself. Doesn’t matter what your business is, there is always an opportunity to be creative and ground breaking. Allow yourself to go there.

Let’s not treat these like normal New Years Resolutions and actually stick to them and make this one of the best years of branding and advertising. It will definitely pay off if you do.

Social Media/ Internet Predictions for 2014

Ahh, Happy New Year! Around this time of year people are either extremely nostalgic or  somehow gain the abilities of Nostradamus. Since 2013 was exactly the best year for me, I’ll go ahead and make some predictions now that my hangover has finally subsided.

Without further ado, here are my predictions for the world of tech, social media, and the internet for 2014. Let’s see if any of it comes true. If not, I’ll just come back and edit this post so it looks like I was smart. That’s what most people do, right?

1. 2014 will be the year the “Internet of Things” comes to fruition. 
   This year the internet and connected devices will perpetuate every aspect of our life. Yeah, they all exist now and have for a while, but we’ll see widespread adoption this year. We’ll use our phones and tablets to unlock our cars and homes, we’ll change the channel on our TV and mirror our screens, we’ll turn off the lights in our house and turn on the security systems. Our lives will get a lot more interconnected. We’ll be able to schedule appointments, move money, and a lot more that I can’t think of or else I’d probably be making it and getting paid right now.
2. Digital Currency will take off.
   This is more like 1A, but regardless, digital currency will take off. Things like Coin will end up being used. It’s already here with Starbucks Cards on smart phones, but either Google Wallet or Passbook will take off. Let’s just see which decides to partner with a bank first. Reloadable cards are great, like Starbucks, but they are too much of a hassle to see widespread use. First company to get a bank on board with it and create a digital credit/debit card wins…as long as they make sure that it can be used anywhere without extra equipment.Bitcoin? Yeah, I’m not so sure about that. Every game has their own currency, not quite sure these kinda things will take off.
3. Social Network usage will diversify.
   No, teens are not flocking away from Facebook. But they are diversifying their social media networks. Instead of just being on Facebook, they’re on Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat and Vine. This will happen with other age demographics. Instagram does a good job at what it does, pictures and video. Snapchat lets us send pictures without taking up all of our devices memory. Vine is just plain fun and easy. Twitter aggregates almost everything we care about. These networks each do one thing well and that is their claim to success. Facebook? Pretty diverse, and right now its greatest strength is its numbers. Can Google+ steal daily users away? If they can, we may see a downfall in Facebook, but I think Facebook will be fine for at least 2014. Pinterest will be an interesting site to keep an eye on. They’re making moves.
4. Social Video will be huge.
   This year we saw brands try their hand a real time marketing, commenting on current events and trying to be in the moment. Some succeeded, but a lot failed. This year we’ll see brands try out social video. Still a relatively new area for advertising, brands will learn what success and failure in this area look like. Vine will continue to grow and we’ll start to see more videos posted by brands on Instagram.
5. Mobile is the new design standard. Location, Location, Location.
   When it comes to websites and content, people will need to start developing and considering mobile devices. I feel like this year will see a huge shift to how people access pages online. Mobile will still trail desktop/laptop browsing, but sites that excel in mobile will see results in their bottom line as consumers utilize those websites inside stores to shop and browse other options. Responsive design was so 2013 maybe even 2012. 2014 will be about how websites can utilize mobile browsers and geofencing to help consumers take the next step into buying products. We’ll see a lot more usage of location based things. Foursquare? Let’s see if they can shine. There will be an opportunity for it.

Let’s hope I can go 5 for 5. But we’ll see. 2014 will be an interesting year for tech and advertising.

Foursquare Blurs the Lines between Digital and Real Life (a repost)

Below is a copy of an article I wrote for a class on January 19th, 2013. It discusses Foursquare Explore and ways for it to leverage the new feature. 

Foursquare just released a new feature called Foursquare Explore. It is a way to visualize check-ins but it does more than just that. It creates links between all of the check-ins.

What’s so significant about that? Well for starters, it helps Foursquare to realize how people act; how they run their errands and spend their evenings. It’s huge visual step in to the world of sociology.  Second, this helps Foursquare to better suit its recommendations of places to go next. This could’ve been helpful earlier this month. With all the Ducks in Glendale, AZ for the Fiesta Bowl, those who used Foursquare could have found out where the best bars, clubs, restaurants and late night munchies were at in Glendale.

In addition, this feature could act as guided tours in some of the biggest tourist cities like London, Paris, and New York. Want to see some landmarks? Just check-in on Foursquare and it’ll tell you where the next closest one is and where everyone likes to take a break for lunch at.

This could be HUGE for businesses and for Foursquare. Think of all the royalties Foursquare could get for directing people to the businesses, and think of how the popularity of businesses could be augmented. Crowd-sourced information could dub businesses THE bar, club, restaurant, or store of the TOWN.

And of course this has a huge impact on users. This new feature satisfies a couple of gratifications.

1. Information- new to the area? don’t know where to eat? what to do? now Foursquare can tell you the hip spots
2. Inclusion- you wanna be at all the hot spots, you wanna see and be seen, Foursquare will tell you where to do that
3. Connectedness- where’s the crowd? Foursquare will tell you!

Digital life and real life are being blurred and this is just one of those things that creating a more interconnected life.

Foursquare Explore can be checked out here. Users can check out their own cities and towns and also check out some of the top landmarks and cities on foursquare.

 

Information in this post taken from a Mashable article.

If I Can’t Buy You… Twitter/Instagram introduce picture messaging

Let’s start from the beginning.

Back in the early November of this year, reports surfaced that Snapchat had been offered $3 billion by Facebook. They turned down the offer expecting that 2014 would boost their value.

Fast forward to December 10th when Twitter introduced that pictures could now be sent in direct messages (DMs). The next day Instagram (owned by Facebook) announced that they now had Instagram Direct, a way for their users to share photos to individuals and groups.

Interesting. There’s been a lot of hubbub about Snapchat lately and its usage among Millennials. So much so that the major players like Facebook and Twitter have started to look to ways to incorporate picture messaging into their services. A great thing for users. We all love pictures and making them easier to share and display doesn’t harm us at all. Well except for the fact that it will eventually be used to advertise to us in some way or form. (see in feed Twitter picture previews).

I’m not sure people understand that appeal of Snapchat. It’s a way to send quick pictures, normally of things you wouldn’t want people to have or would waste the time to post. It’s the digital equivalent of walking down the street with someone and saying “Hey! Look at that!” and walking away. It’s not important enough to take an actual picture of and not quite something that should be ignored.

Instagram has become a place where, for the most part, they are pictures that we would like to keep. Pictures that we take the time to edit and filter to create something that we are proud of. And since we’re proud of it we share it with everyone we can. I’m not sure right now how much I’ll use Instagram Direct, or anyone for that matter. Maybe baby pictures? But people aren’t as worried about security of that stuff now. Dick pics to celebrities? Yeah, that will probably happen a lot.

Twitter on the other hand, has a very real use. Being able to DM pictures is another alternative to sending it in text messages, emails or even Facebook messages. But other than that, I can’t see it.

Snapchat, Facebook, and Twitter all cater to their own niche which makes them powerful in their own ways. This means that as long as they continue to be the best at what they do, they’ll have no reason to worry about the things that the other ones do. I can’t say this for certain but, when they all start doing the same thing, well that’s when we won’t be using all of them anymore.

Take a Look at the Best Starbucks Ever Built

The other day as I was walking through the mall doing my Christmas shopping, (err… well I didn’t buy any presents per se, unless presents for myself count) I walked past a Starbucks and an Apple Store. As the huge line deterred me from even walking into these places, even though I could’ve really used a coffee, I realized how both of these stores had built their success on the ideas of design and environment.

Think about it, Starbucks sells coffee, tea and etc. Any coffee snob will tell you that it really isn’t the best and any true barista will rave about how it really isn’t an actual “macchiato.” Yet, they have grown to be one of the largest coffee chains in the world. They basically invented the coffee shop and the need for a $5 cup of coffee. Before them, people just bought their coffee with their breakfast at Denny’s. Starbucks effectively transformed the idea, the environment of a coffee shop, into a commodity.

Now let’s transfer our thinking to Apple. Put any Apple product next to its Windows match and you’ll immediately see how beautiful the design of Apple is and how out of Windows league it is. Apple has been known as being ultra user friendly and of late its been known for its beautiful design aesthetics. This has translated to any Apple Store. Walk into the store and you’ll be greeted with simply tables with iPhones, iPads, Macs and Macbooks.

People think that design and experience aren’t that important but I beg to differ. Experience can take a mediocre product and put it into the elite category. It can be the basis of an entire brand. Experience is a commodity.

Starbucks has began to leverage that. They’ve started to create locations that take into account the community in its design. This is awesome. Nobody wants a cookie cutter store, especially for a corporation as big as Starbucks. The more Starbucks can look less like a corporation, the better.

This article from AdWeek disagreed though. He called it “totally absurd” and said it still wouldn’t help improve the “mediocre coffee.” I agree with the second part of that, but it’s not “totally absurd” for a corporation to try to move away from its cookie cutter design, especially a store who’s created a commodity out of the experience. I feel like his hatred for this idea clouds his judgement, especially since in the next few paragraphs he goes on to talk about how the design is actually quite pleasing.

Something I want to think about for 2014 is how brands can leverage an experience to take their product to the next level. Is there someway that brands can create or suggest an experience that can be associated with their brand?