The Pepperspective

Actor and comedian Seth Rogan’s recent organization of an effort to fight Alzheimer’s disease, not surprisingly, has a funny name. And it points to an ever-growing trend in marketing we’ll call Advotising, a mash-up of the words advocating and advertising.

Rogan’s project is part of a larger effort that’s all about “raising tons of money for charity and having the most fun in the world while doing it.” Which is why the Alzheimer’s campaign doesn’t sport some banal monicker like “Actors Against Alzheimer’s.” No, it’s much more fun and a bit more aggressive than that, and it goes like this:

Music Villa is a local music store in Bozeman, MT that provides us with a perfect example of how to brand using social media. These two YouTube shorts done in a documentary style format bring uniqenesses to the forefront in a cheeky sort of way while projecting company values. Nothing salesy about these, but the next time I buy guitar strings, I might just order them from these guys.

There are two kinds of brands in the world. Brands who seek to bond with their customers and brands who don’t.

For the former, forging a meaningful, long-lasting relationship with customers is easier said than done. The economics of marketing have been turned upside down by the emergence of social sharing and the ever-growing presence of the voice of the consumer. Share of mind through reach and frequency is being replaced by share of [consumer] voice.

You know those classic cartoons of a snowball rolling down a mountain, gaining size and speed by the second?

That’s a great metaphor for the way a brand grows. We call it a Katamari, which is Japanese for “clump.”

Once a Katamari starts rolling, it picks up whatever it touches. Good and bad, true and false, planned and unplanned.

On April 18th, 2011, Kirkland’s appeared at the top of Media Logic’s top 10 list of fastest growing brands on Facebook for the week of April 10th.

It’s no secret, the stresses of daily life can, indeed, poke a hole in your happiness tank.

In 1988 recording artist Bobby McFerrin told the world “Don’t Worry, Be Happy. ‘Cause when you worry your face will frown, and that will bring everybody down.”

Fly forward a couple of decades, paying close attention to what whizzes by along the way, and you’ll find plenty of evidence that suggests people got the message. All aboard? Here we go.

If you’ve ever played the limbo game, you know that the bar can only go so low before it becomes impossible to get under it. The amount of space beneath the limbo bar eventually becomes so compact that it is impossible for any human to pass under it without other body parts besides their feet touching the ground.

Now let’s look to a different bar.

This past Monday, an American trend in food service with relatively young roots sprouted yet another branch that could bring out your medieval side. (That is, if you have even a sprout of one hidden in the recesses of your contemporary shell.)

On March 28th, food trucks hit the streets of L.A. and NYC selling cuisine inspired by HBO’s upcoming series Game of Thrones.

Client: Jane Cigars

Project: Brand Launch

Objective: Create wardrobe for upstart cigar brand targeted at wealthy Chinese businessmen.

Result: Cigar becomes an anonymous mistress men frequent during the afternoon. More on Vimeo.

Client: HTMS, an Emdeon company, works with organizations in the health industry to innovate, solve problems, and improve performance.

Project: 12 custom illustrations to use across a variety of brand platforms.

Objective: Illustrate common business concepts in a fresh visual style.

Result: redpepper teamed up with talented Illustrator Carl Wiens to execute the project. The contemporary illustrations that emerged provides the client with a hybrid of hand drawn and digital elements that supply a powerful variety of visuals to make their brand memorable and unique.

A good number of those who follow us seem to eventually wonder, and often ask, “Do you guys ever get any work done?” and/or “What kind of work do you do?”

So, we thought we’d try to take a (small) step back from our culture and put our work, our passion, in the forefront. After a few hours of curating and exactly three Kernel Panics, we present to you some of our recent “work” and in under 2 minutes.

Take five cars identically equipped, give them different paint jobs, put them on a race track and see how their drivers behave. That’s what Boston College Caroll School of Management professors S. Adam Brasel and James Gips did according to a recent entry in the Journal of Consumer Psychology.

A few days ago, an article in the New York Times gave us a peek inside latest in advertising spokes figures. A talking nut. Which is really not a big deal if you consider what’s possible using today’s 3D animation technology. So, why did it make headlines in one of America’s most prestigious newspapers?

While change is everywhere and happening all the time, few experiences foster more change in a shorter period of time than attending college. For most people, college is a transformative experience that remains unprecedented (parenthood notwithstanding) for the whole of their lives. And one US university in particular provides a certain experience that is perhaps more transformative than any of its kind. We’ll get to which university in a moment. But first, let’s talk about change.

“I searched into myself.”

- HERACLITUS

When customers think of your company, they subconsciously relate to it as though it were an individual. They attach attributes to it that can range from “smart” and “reliable” to “ignorant” and “immature.” Attributes that are also ascribed to people. You can be sure of it.