Right-Half Chow

Old mail new channel

PixelLetter allows you to send them your letter by email, upon which they will print it and send it in prepaid envelopes, Europe only.

I wouldn't be surprised if it's a success, after all: who's got envelopes and stamps lying around these days? It would be really great (but kind of perverted) if they'd really write them out by hand. You could shop around when looking (for example) handwriting for sollicitations: I'd like the stable, mature, well rounded one please...

On Insights (again)

I just ran through this presentation by Simon Law (which I was pointed to by Russell and Pink Air). There is no substitute for sound observation, and this slide seemed to make a whole lot of sense to me.

Insights are a good (probably the best) route to great ideas, but there so rare that it might be more interesting to start looking for brand ideas right away...
Check out the discussion on Pink Air and do follow the links to the good stuff.

Oh, and this one's pretty important too:

One last thing (because the link is too important to be left in the comments on Pink Air, even thought they are a valuable source themselves): Jeremy Bullmore's 'Why is a good insight like refrigerator?'.

Happy Hummer Links

Scamp points to this post on the MacDonalds blog, about the complaints they received for putting little toy hummers in their happy meals... reminding me that I should check back more often at Dan Germain's (of Innocent fame) blog, where the link was originally put up.

Private Labels done right

We've been having discussions using different commercials for the whole afternoon, and the Meijer private labels spot really stays spot on when it comes to communicating around store brands.

Contrary to what a lot of people (especially in retail) believe, I don't think most people want to buy the cheapest alternative on the market. Sure, Aldi and Lidl and notably Colruyt (in Belgium) have made it up to "the intelligent choice'. The hard discounters even gave people a reasonable anti-major brand argument. But even there you can find a lot of other arguments which might be just as important to consumers (simplicity, anti-capitalism, speed, anti-spending therapy,...).

Yet the price issue is often treated as the default starting position. Logical, since private labels don't really have any other arguments (except for a few notable exceptions with retailers who pull the quality card). So, working with what they've got, Meijer takes the price argument and makes it relevant again, in a very human and down to earth way.

Makes a change from the usual 'you'll be able to buy more', 'save up to blablabla at the end of the month', ... arguments.

Web 2.0 in under 5

If you've ever felt a desire to know why XML changed the web, this is your chance... even if you didn't think you'd want to know, like I did.

A fab mountain day

If this doesn't recharge your batteries, I don't know what can... I'm physically exhausted but had a wonderful day freeriding through the valley.

Getting of in the Metro Alpin (tunneling under the glacier), where a lot of people are wondering why the sub stops halfway instead of going all the way up (the guide asks the lift people to make it stop in the middle).

Step through the tunnel towards the light.

Out of the tunnel, above the glacier:

A view of the Alallin glacier, with the express warning that we need to stay close to his tracks because of the crevasses.

Underway:

Lots of treeruns at the bottom, quite exhausting because we lost track of the guide and ended up in the wrong (ie too many trees) side of the woods:

Following it up with a few new runs on the glacier and in the middle of the domain itself, a bit rocky though, with the following result:

A nasty cut in the middle, the guide told me it could be repared, but It'll cost me (and I just had it serviced two days ago). Anyway, one more day and normal service will resume...

Footprint Musings

I'm picking up a few faint wi-fi traces from a nearby hotel in Saas-Fee, but it's just enough to post some pictures. Not that I'll have a lot of time because the snow is fantastic and the scenery, especially the glacier, breathtaking (pics from my mobile).

We took an anchor lift yesterday (it's hard to dig into the glacier so big installations are often impossible to place) and saw a crane next to the lift's trail, digging into the glacier to free the way for the dragging lift and all skiers and snowboarders moving up the mountain...

Pretty sad, but we're as guilty as the next person (especially when we go skiing several times per year). On the other hand, we try to enjoy the mountain without impressive infrastructure whenever we can. There's probably a big market for nature friendly skiing domains the coming years. Not that I'm saying that domain operators here aren't aware of the impact of tourists on the mountains (probably more than every visitor, they live here after all). But I meet a lot of people that are willing to trade in the vast domains (like Trois Vallées in France) for smaller ones where you feel a lot closer to nature. At the speed things are moving post-Inconvenient Truth I wouldn't be surprised if ecological concern was one of the biggest brand assets for the coming years.

Anyway, it's snowing at the moment and we reserved a mountain guide for friday (sun predicted after 2 days of snow), so that's pretty promising. And we won't need heaps of lifts to get through the day either.

And again

This'll be the last one for the season, for reasons I might divulge more about in the coming months... There's the slight possibility of internet access, but I'm getting used to being cut off in the snow so I won't get my hopes up.

Thanks to Plannerliness for an excellent pic, I'm glad to hear you've got the bug too...

Oh, and meet our new agency mascotte Harry, who is being carried up the mountain by a certain individual (he's still scared of lifts). We had a great agency trip, a big thank you for your company to all those who were there!

The Bloggers of Oz

Iain Tait of CrackUnit fame has started a rather nice project called the computers behind the blogs. Here's mine (which moves around a lot, but currently at my desk at work).

Cell Shaded Hotel

I like cell shading as an effect in games, but this really takes the cake. The Arte Luise Kunsthotel in Berlin has several rooms that are decorated in a particular style, and number 306 is cell shaded. It's very well done, but I'm not sure I'd like to sleep in it. It distorts your depth perception completely and it must have been quite hard to get it right too.