The Pepperspective

100 IDS from Silvio Teixeira on Vimeo.

They are many ways to brand yourself as a creative. Many are overwhelmed by the options and the fact that it’s quite difficult to set yourself apart or truly illustrate the extent of your creativity and talent with the minimal real estate of a business card or promo booklet.

Designer Silvio Teixeira created one of the most unique self promotions I’ve seen in a while by creating a multi-functioning self promotion. Viewers receive a large poster with interesting illustrations and designs with his logo interpreted in multiple ways. Instructions found on the back let you know that if you cut the poster, you would have 100 individual business cards and that when placed in order it goes further to create a classic flip-book animation. While I did wonder if whether many of the recipients would actually follow through with the instructions and give the time to cutting the poster, I then thought that his desired audience are those that would likely do so. And those that perhaps feel less confident with an X-acto knife can see the full execution and thought behind it with the incredibly well produced video he created above.  It’s dynamic and smart, showcasing multiple talents in one seemingly simple sheet.

Kudos Silvio. Kudos.

We don’t usually think of Easter as the most important marketing holiday of the year. But for one category, it is the mecca of marketing. Easter (or as I like to call it: “the Black Friday of church shopping”) can actually teach us several lessons beyond the baskets of marshmallow candy and hidden egg hunts (not that I’d turn down either of those things). Maybe you’ve never thought about the marketing need for present-day congregations, but I guarantee that the congregations in our communities are thinking about it. In the end, there’s more than one parallel between evangelism and marketing, and we can certainly learn things from each other.

So, what can churches teach us as marketers (especially when churches are technically selling a product that doesn’t even belong to them)?

One week ago today, amid much fanfare and loud music, we unveiled and launched our new site.

And while this fresh redpepperland does contain all kinds of unusual wonders (Beeri, anyone?), the thing we’re most proud of is something that’s not so unusual: a people section.

Right there, above the fold, in glorious and only slightly retouched perfection, you’ll see some of the finest folks in town. What you won’t see, however, is the weeks of work that have gone into this section. For the past two months, an entire team has been focused on finding the best way to shine some light on the personalities of redpepper. 

Why would an agency that prides itself in doing things no one else does dedicate so much time and effort to a people section? 

It looks like the new iPad’s overheating problem isn’t such a bad thing after all. In fact, Primary Coffee turned it into their newest, most expensive gadget – Primary Coffee HotPad. Once you’re on the page, simply lay your iPad on a flat surface and press Run. In mere seconds your processor will start to overclock, revealing heat coils on the screen – a perfect spot to place your coffee and keep it warm for hours.

It’s known that food is an innately social experience. Food is almost always shared. It’s a time that your family and friends can dedicate to catching up while providing your body with much-needed nutrition. The entire process of creating a meal, from market to table, is infused with social experiences.

In an age with technology at our fingertips, mealtimes are still a place to get back to the basics. Food has a completely tactile sense to it. It’s prepared with your hands and experienced with all of your senses. And when you share it and eat it, you’re mind is miles away from the pixels of our social devices. At least mine is.

All this to say, we are a group that loves food. We love to eat it, cook it, talk about it, photograph it, share it. You get the point. So what better way to bring a shared passion together than by collaborating with each other every other Friday to share recipes, take field trips, learn together (we’ve got a knife-skills class planned that I’m super pumped about!) and of course — eat. Food is social. We are social. It’s really a perfect fit.

For well-over half a century our nation’s best communicators have been fighting over theories regarding the influence of media in our society. Never has this question of the media’s influence been more pertinent than it is right now. It’s a time when Google serves search results incorporating input from your social circle, and Facebook optimizes your news feed based on what you ‘like’. So I ask, are we more affected by the message we absorb or by the media that portrays that message?

If you’ve studied the history of mass media in America, chances are that you’ve heard of Marshall McLuhan’s prophesies and watched them come true, even the prediction of his “global village” (the world wide web) during the 1960s. Marshall McLuhan, a very influential media theory pioneer, made famous the idea that “the medium is the message.”

But in a recent New York Times documentary called Page One, media columnist David Carr stated, “the messages are the media now.” His argument is that the same message can be found across various media, but it’s the actual original message that shapes us, not the medium in which we interact with it.

McLuhan originally taught that we, as consumers, focus so intently on the messages or content within the media, that we often overlook the actual effect that the media has directly on us. And over time, we as people adapt the structure of our affairs due to the media’s influence. McLuhan went so far as to describe the “content” of a medium as ‘a juicy piece of meat carried by the burglar to distract the watchdog of the mind.’

His was an interesting theory indeed, one that could certainly be found true when he wrote those words and before social media.

Carr, on the other hand, argues that we can read books, we can read books online, we can talk to friends, and we can tweet with friends. But what we’re reading and talking about is the same, therefore so is the takeaway afterwards. The media itself has less power than before. Carr says the message actually chooses the medium based on its need.

So which is it?

Well, I’d go so far as to say that the medium is the message is the medium. In essence, they both are right. Both the medium and the message play an integral in shaping the other as well as holding each side accountable.

Yes, if we think about the way that we interact with media, we understand that the same message conveyed through different channels can create vastly different results. If I watch a movie trailer in the theater, I can have a very different opinion than if I watch it on a friend’s Facebook wall directly next to their opinionated caption about that same movie.

At the same time, Julian Assange (WikiLeaks) was bound to create monumental impact on our society with or without the help of a certain medium. He used both traditional news outlets as well as social media in separate instances to leak classified information, and each case has seen rapid success in breaking news.

Perhaps message and medium will always have a symbiotic relationship, because one cannot exist without the other. Some messages will always be more effective than others; just as some media will be, too. But the infinite combinations of messages with media are bound to make this space exciting and experimental into the distant future.

How do you see the power shifting in favor of message or medium? 

Photo Credit: Tinou Bao via Flickr.

“The world is full of order that doesn’t necessarily deserve our respect… sometimes there’s meaning, justice and logic present in the way things are, but sometimes there just isn’t.”
 
Just this morning, I was vetting some niche blogs for one of our clients. My mission was to find some great home decor bloggers, and thanks to some good tips and resources, I was able to do so. But in the process of this project, I stumbled upon a little treasure all for myself.
 
Is it ironic that the blog post that disrupted my work zone was titled, “Disruptive Wonder”?
 
Well, I took it as a sign. And now I’m sharing it because I think most of you will agree the 16 minutes spent watching this video is well worth it.
 
Props to Kelli Anderson for this TEDxPhoenix talk. Above is her inspiring video about abandoning our rituals when they become empty gestures.

There’s a day between the Ides of March and St. Patrick’s Day, an unassuming little box on the calendar that usually gets short shrift in terms of attention.

 As lifelong fans of the underdog, we pinpointed that day (March 16th), gave it its own holiday name (DragonMaid Day), and have now focused an enormous amount of energy to making it a day we’ll never forget. 

Here’s the plan: we’ve divided the whole company into six special task forces, each commissioned to gain major headway on a heretofore secret project by DragonMaid Day. 

Let’s face it: There are dozens of things we do every day just because we have to do them. We tie our shoe strings in the morning so that our shoes will stay on for the whole day. We check our mail in the afternoon to see which bills are due. Each thing we do has a small reason why in the short term that requires us to put forth a large amount of time long-term. So what if we could find massive purpose within all of these minutia processes?

Yesterday I watched a TED video featuring Luis von Ahn which has caused me to rethink my daily processes. Luis is known for inventing a program called CAPTCHA. This acronym literally means “Completely Automated Public Turing Test To Tell Computers and Humans Apart.” More than likely, you’re familiar with CAPTCHA whether you know it or not. It’s the typing test you have to complete when you want to buy tickets on Ticketmaster, change your password on twitter and thousands of other activities on just under half a million various websites. CAPTCHA’s invention has been essential in protecting websites against bots by generating and grading tests that humans can pass but current computer programs cannot. For example, humans can read distorted text as the one shown below, but current computer programs cannot.

Above, is my story about the making of a Peugeot 103. Below is a story about the moped’s first test run. Its not just any moped, its a blend of precarious old rubber and steel that goes faster than it was ever supposed to go, even new. To see more about the moped view the blog smokingbelt.tumblr.com.

Grégoire, my french friend and mechanic, calls me to come give the moped it’s first test run.  When I arrive he grins wildly and announces that he has tuned the moped to perfection.  The 1979 Peugeot 103 was sitting in the corner of the garage, and looked about as proud as a peacock.

Every year we pack our overnight bags, grab our notebooks and slip away for a day and a half of learning, sharing and all around hell-raising. Or, as we like to call it, “pepperpalooza.”  

This year’s theme was Storytelling. 

After spending the day with a variety of master storytellers, the tables were suddenly turned. Each of us was given an hour to come up with a short, handwritten story of our own. Of course, in true redpepper fashion, there was a catch: Once the anonymous stories were written, they were redistributed to be read in-studio by a coworker. That coworker was then encouraged to enhance the story as he or she saw fit and to improv a new ending.

redpepper is the home to marketers, advertisers, brand strategist, designers, photographers, web designers and an array of other skill sets. We love building brands, so when the partners shared their crazy idea about how they wanted to create their own cigar brand we were overtaken with excitement. We decided to call the cigar brand Jane. I’m sure the story of Jane goes something like this… The partner’s are sitting around smoking a stogie while enjoying a sip of Gentlemen Jack and one blissfully says, “In a perfect world I would have an endless supply of the world’s finest cigars.” Boom. The idea was born. 

We’re proud to see Ryan has a new article on All Facebook. He writes about the new freedom developers have to customize Facebook’s Like button so they can create buttons that actually make sense to click in context – because who really wants to Like an article about a disaster? Wouldn’t you rather just Read it? And wouldn’t it be nice to express the difference in likes between products you Own and ones you Want? 

Knowing Ryan, he’ll be making buttons that say Whoa and Busted until we physically detain him.

Check out the article here:

http://www.allfacebook.com/facebook-likes-2011-12

One fall weekend every year, thousands of silver-haired couples descend on the oldest town in the state of Tennessee, crowd into five enormous circus tents, and listen to hour after hour of nothing but stories.

Of course, the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough isn’t exclusive to the older crowd, but that’s definitely the demographic that embraces it most. As a 23-year-old writer, I was ecstatic to be in attendance with them this year, partly owing to the fact that hardly anyone my age gives a damn about it. But to ten thousand people, this is the biggest thing to give a damn about each year. It’s their Bonnaroo.

Seek Growth

We take growth quite seriously around here, but even we sometimes overlook its importance.

Because it’s not easy to talk about growth without sounding like an eye-roll-inducing motivational poster. Along with other terms like “success” and “inspiration,” growth has become one of those words. Words that once held incredible clout but have become lost in the fog of overuse and misconception. Words that, today, feel as bland as the waiting room decor that often surrounds them. 

Fortunately, while the word “growth” may have lost some of its power, the experience of growth has not. 

Which is exactly why we decided to create a film about it.