Candy as Customizable Communications Medium

OFD reported a missed opportunity at Red Envelope recently. While its printed collar stays won a prestigious award for marketing audacity, buyers are unable to personalize the message upon this otherwise ingenious communications medium.

m&ms have seized the opportunity and are executing it flawlessly, as a trip to their website reveals. They see candy as communications medium, with a wide variety of occasions suggested to commemorate with the brand. Furthermore, they enable the visitor to add up to two lines of text to each of two m&ms as well as pick two colors.












The digital rendering on the m&m's is superb, particularly the application of a chosen color which drips down the face of each candy shell as if it were liquid paint. The three dimensional perspective along with the terrific sheen makes for an incredibly motivating presentation.

Of course, there are limits on what is fit to print, especially on candy. Any words that are deemed inappropriate do not appear on the candy canvas and the visitor is advised why the request has not been met. Our intrepid researcher found two words which had slipped through the editorial net - shag and wank - though it's hard to imagine how either would be welcomed sentiments for expressing a valentine's message.

People want to be more involved in their purchases today, they want to create and collaborate in what they buy and what they give. Red Envelope could take heed of this timely advice.

Duel insights fuel smoking cessation campaign

A current effort by Nicoderm CN uses two different but complementary ways to get its message to resonate with smokers.

The first is the addressing the sense of guilt that many smokers who want to quit feel simply because they can't. Endured several failed attempts only deepens the shame. People are frequently harsh and disproportionately blame themselves for situations that are not all their own doing. As the compelling on-line banners point out, the brain has a mind of it's own. Realizing this and accepting it invites would-be quitters that it isn't all their doing, and that there's a formidable force to overcome with the right help. It's encouraging and one imagines a welcome perspective.























The second approach recognizes that we are all to some degree vain and care about our looks. By linking smoking to the effects it has on the beauty overall and the face in a variety of specific ways, it seeks to connect with the audience on an issue that they have strong interest and motivation for, rather than trying to persuade people to stop smoking using the rational appeal to health.

Psychology and anthropomorphizing to keep the pest problem down

Clearly someone at the SF Department of public works has taken some time to think about how to modify people's behavior in the interests of the public good - even when this is pursuit to keep the pigeon population down.

A notice on the window of an area restaurant delivered the following heartfelt plea from one of its kind: "Please don't feed us. You're killing us with kindness. When you feed us our population explodes. Our nests become overcrowded and our babies get sick. Help keep us healthy. Let us find our own food."

At the bottom of the page, noticeable but whose visibility is over-shadowed by the compelling picture and associated sentiment above it, is the warning "Feeding pigeons is illegal. Violators may be cited and fined."

Hats off to the author of this, a great example of well-thought out and sequenced communication to modify behavior:

1. People are unwilling to change behavior (or attitude) unless they have a reason and understand why. (The TSA posts the question "Why the plastic bag rule for carry-on liquids per passenger? at security screening points. It goes on to answer "To limit the amount of liquids each passenger can board a plane with"....which unsatisfactorily begs another question, but the approach was sound).

2. Delivering the over-population reason from the beak of the pigeon softens the likelihood of rejection and positions it as being in the best interest of the pigeon - which one presumes people feeding care enough about, at least in the (misguided) notion that it helps them).

3. An anthropomorphic tactic only makes readers more likely to be emotionally engaged. It cleverly recognizes the act of feeding as being of good intent while rebutting it (You're killing us with kindness")

4. It addresses the core motivation and diffuses concern over the consequences of discontinuing feeding behavior - that birds will starve instead, without referring to it directly: that merely the population will be kept down is the assuring alternative outcome (though without some kind of perishing somewhere it is hard to imagine how). The additional plea "Keep us healthy" provides further artillery to fully neutralize the motivation for the behavior

5. And as if that all was not enough, the poster ends with a threat, which if the reader has made it all the way through the notice to get to is probably unlikely to evoke a rebellious reaction having understood this is first and foremost in the interests of the birds themselves.

An eloquent and persuasive piece of communication.

It brings to mind a Tom Lehrer parody "Poisoning pigeons in the park". Once presumes it is an offense to either kill or try to kill pigeons already born, though adding clarification on either matter might have seemed to contradict the general spirit of the missive which is to see the reduction of their number.