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Archive for October, 2009
MINDdrift: Nando Parrado Talks Survival and Success
Check out David’s latest blog post on MINDdrift:
“What would you do if the plane you were on crashed into the snow-covered Andes, you survived the crash with an injury, but then you had to figure out how to survive a night in horribly cold and treacherous conditions? Imagine what that would be like–not having food, enough clothing, perhaps even injured, and never having seen or felt cold snow before.Now imagine having to face those conditions for 72 days.”
Read the rest of “Nando Parrado Talks Survival and Success“
Ally: New Bank or Diet Pill for Women?
So GMAC decides to rebrand and move away from its association with General Motors and create a simple, straightforward online bank similar to ING Direct.
Great.
Their ad agency, BBH, creates hilarious commercials that couldn’t be more on point.
Perfect.
They name the new brand “Ally”, choose purple as the primary color, and go all minimalistic on us.
Wait, what?
Does GMAC not realize that their new brand identity is better suited for a diet pill or cleaning products targeted at women? That their minimilistic magazine ad designs miss very important concepts needed for an online bank called “trust” and “security”?
MINDdrift: Learn how to fund a web app startup from nothing to $170M acquisition
Check out David’s latest blog post on MINDdrift:
“If you’re in the web app startup space, no doubt you’ve heard the big news during TechCrunch50 that Mint was acquired for $170M. That’s a very high return on a company that did a great job visualizing data from Yodlee. What is Mint? It’s a great service that allows you to track all your accounts, expenses, budget and more. Many people, even ones that use the service, didn’t know that Mint actually gets their data from Yodlee, which preforms all the heavy lifting and connecting with financial institutions.”
Read the rest of “Learn how to fund a web app startup from nothing to $170M acquisition“
Does 160mph Wind Make You More Creative and Fuel Growth?
You’re brain is tired, but your body wants to go. I find this to be the typical sensation following one of our quarterly off-site planning sessions for Grasshopper. I’ve looked at data, talked for hours, and at the end of it all, it’s nice to give your mind a rest and find an outlet for that pent-up physical energy.
So, for all of the quarterly planning sessions at Grasshopper, I’ve tried to find something fun and different to do at the end of the day. My goal is to give people a release and also build group interaction based on something other than talking about Grasshopper.
In the past, the team has gone snowmobiling, go-kart racing, and brewed beer together. For our latest post-planning session activity, we decided to go indoor skydiving at Sky Venture in NH.
Not So Interesting Anymore – Dos Equis’ Rebrand Falls Short
When I first saw Dos Equis’ “The Most Interesting Man in the World” commercials a year ago, I knew it was going to be a hit ad campaign. The beer industry is saturated with either cheesy college beer brands or labels that only die-hard beer enthusiasts will touch, and hardly anything in between.
That’s left plenty of room for a witty, aspirational brand with dimension to come along and serve the beer drinkers who don’t fit into either of those demographics. With the success of the Dos Equis ads, it seemed like the brand was poised to fill that void. After all, no other brand of beer had arrived on the scene and suggested that if James Bond, James Dean, and George Clooney were to have a beer – even if it was just once in a while – theirs would be it.
