Marketing Monday

This week's column celebrates Apple, an incredibly innovative company from advertising to technology to industrial design.
The Evolution of Apple Advertising by LinkedIn.

Marketing Monday is a column devoted to innovation in the world of commerce. It celebrates companies, products, packaging and campaigns that swim against the current and find creative ways to stand out. Got a suggestion for the column? Send me a comment.

Marketing Monday

Double Entendre

Stripped-down advertising, no graphics (or clothing) required. Love it! Proof that good writing is important in an advertisement so appreciate your Writers!


"double entendre" at Wikipedia

Marketing Monday is a column devoted to innovation in the world of commerce. It celebrates companies, products, packaging and campaigns that swim against the current and find creative ways to stand out. Got a suggestion for the column? Send me a comment.

Marketing Monday

Scratch 'N' Sniff
Brilliant use of old-school marketing in a technological age. 'Nough said.


Marketing Monday is a column devoted to innovation in the world of commerce. It celebrates companies, products, packaging and campaigns that swim against the current and find creative ways to stand out. Got a suggestion for the column? Send me a comment.

Marketing Monday

Trilo"bike" stand
This Summer I visited the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. Anyone who reads my blog knows that I love this museum. Even on walking to the museum you know you're in for a treat when you come across bike stands shaped like trilobites! This ancient arthropod is just one of the fossils that you'll encounter in the Paleozoic Era displays inside. I think it's brilliant to, 1. encourage bicycling to the museum, and, 2. show walkers-by a hint of what they're in for. It's a very smart way to lure visitors. Kudos!

Marketing Monday is a column devoted to innovation in the world of commerce. It celebrates companies, products, packaging and campaigns that swim against the current and find creative ways to stand out. Got a suggestion for the column? Send me a comment.

Marketing Monday

'Passion' for Selling Soap
In the mall recently, my niece needed to make an emergency pit stop. As the devoted Auntie, I made the obligatory overtures to my sister who was more than busy enough with my nephew, then hurriedly carried the leg-pinched little lady to the potty.

With great relief that the timing worked out (anyone who's ever rushed a kid to the bathroom knows what that means), but a new anxiety to complete our shopping before our window of opportunity was lost (anyone who's ever shopped with a kid knows what that means) we exited the stall for a quick hand-washing at the sink. Here's what we found there...

Brilliant! Fruits & Passion had filled the soap dispenser with lovely, fruity suds that made all my worries wash away.

I was so impressed that I sought out the Fruits and Passion store in the mall, let them know how much I liked their idea and left the store with their product as a reward (for me as much as them). This is smart marketing: their product in a room that almost every shopper is going to visit and they didn't even have to pay rent for the space. Kick-ass idea.

Marketing Monday is a column devoted to innovation in the world of commerce. It celebrates companies, products, packaging and campaigns that swim against the current and find creative ways to stand out. Got a suggestion for the column? Send me a comment.

Marketing Monday

Necessity the Mother of Invention
The late inventor of the ATM, John Shepherd-Barron, was locked out of his bank one day and couldn't withdraw money from his account. It struck him that there ought to be a way to get money from your account at any time and decided that a chocolate bar vending machine was the perfect model for a money dispenser. The first Automatic Teller Machine was installed in a small bank branch in a little north London suburb on June 27, 1967. 40 years later, they're found in almost every convenience store or restaurant the world over.

Associated Press via The Toronto Star

Marketing Monday is a column devoted to innovation in the world of commerce. It celebrates companies, products, packaging and campaigns that swim against the current or find creative ways to stand out. Got a suggestion for the column? Send me a comment.

Marketing Monday

Some Indian call centres resorting to trickery - thestar.com

'This is Warren on the line from Calgary' — India, that is. Some Indian call centres lie about where they're calling from to reduce inhibitions. "Accent neutralization" classes also taught.

Clever or deceptive? It treads a fine line that I'm not comfortable with. But it seems to be driving sales so I don't imagine it will stop any time soon.
Some Indian call centres resorting to trickery - thestar.com

Marketing Monday is a column devoted to innovation in the world of commerce. It celebrates companies, products, packaging and campaigns that swim against the current or find creative ways to stand out. Got a suggestion for the column? Send me a comment.

Marketing Monday

New Doritos "Collisions" chips a direct hit
Love the packaging, love the idea and love the two kinds of chips they've put together. Perfect for parties where you know some people like it hot and some not. What a smart, new way to sell two old flavours.

Marketing Monday is a column devoted to innovation in the world of commerce. It celebrates companies, products, packaging and campaigns that swim against the current or find creative ways to stand out. Got a suggestion for the column? Send me a comment.

Marketing Monday

Entrepreneur Elliott Atkins liked what he saw when he looked into buying Canadian rights for washroom marketing mirrors... Mirror ads are in your face - thestar.com

Marketing Monday is a column devoted to innovation in the world of commerce. It celebrates companies, products, packaging and campaigns that swim against the current or find creative ways to stand out. Got a suggestion for the column? Send me a comment.

Marketing Monday

Even the Biohazard Symbol Needed Design & Marketing

Charles Baldwin, a retired environmental-health engineer, explains his role in developing the biohazard symbol from colour and shape selection to test audiences and "selling" it through scientific journals.

Marketing Monday is a column devoted to innovation in the world of commerce. It celebrates companies, products, packaging and campaigns that swim against the current or find creative ways to stand out. Got a suggestion for the column? Send me a comment.

Marketing Monday

ROM is the Bomb
I've always been in love with the Royal Ontario Museum, their identity included. Today's column covers their exciting logo which incorporates an icon (the visual or graphic component) and a wordmark (the text or company name component).

• the ROM acronym is in solid, authoritative letter shapes but with a very slight serif to indicate refinement
• they've used full-intensity blue, gold and red; indicative of a regal colour palette
• funky shapes jut out from behind the letters to mimic the building's exciting architecture and comment on its modernity
• and it uses a wordmark component to spell out their full name so there's no mistaking what and who they are


So simple. So good.


Marketing Monday is a column devoted to innovation in the world of commerce. It celebrates companies, products, packaging and campaigns that swim against the current or find creative ways to stand out. Got a suggestion for the column? Send me a comment.

Marketing Monday

Volkswagen's TheFunTheory.com
An initiative of Volkswagen, TheFunTheory.com is dedicated to the idea that making a task fun is the easiest way to change people’s behaviour for the better. For example, if you want to encourage people to walk more by taking the stairs instead of an escalator, turn the staircase into an operational piano keyboard. When you walk on the steps, you make your own tune! By making the task fun to do, people will change their behaviour and choose the healthier mode of transportation.

Submissions like that have been sent in from all over the world. They published over 700 ideas a few months ago and they've whittled it down to 11 finalists. Go vote! The winners will be announced on March 29, 2010. They will each receive 2500 Euros in prize money as well as have their idea produced by Volkswagen. Cleverly, the VW logo will appear on all of them!



Marketing Monday is a column devoted to innovation in the world of commerce. It celebrates companies, products, packaging and campaigns that swim against the current or find creative ways to stand out. Got a suggestion for the column? Send me a comment.

Marketing Monday

Small Shop, Big Idea
Originally posted on January 26th as "Give-aways that I will never qualify for...", Pretty Pots Flowers & Gifts' advertisement deserves to be in this column. Read the sign below.

Honestly, in a small town, who doesn't know a Carol or a Cindy? This ad makes the complete town its audience. How many ads can you say you've seen that have found a way to address all age groups and all audiences in an entire town?

Plus, it was done at no real cost! They're using their already-installed marquee sign (clearly visible on Main Street) so the only investment is the cost of the roses. This is significantly cheaper than a media buy.

Small-town thinking made this a brilliant advertisement that, in my humble opinion, a big-city ad agency could not have come up with. Kudos, Pretty Pots Flowers & Gifts!

Marketing Monday is a column devoted to innovation in the world of commerce. It celebrates companies, products, packaging and campaigns that swim against the current or find creative ways to stand out. Got a suggestion for the column? Send me a comment.

Marketing Monday

Keeping Printed News Current

“Mobilize This Digest”, by Financial Post’s paper edition, allows you to receive up-to-date information on an article on your smartphone.

If a paper-edition article includes a barcode, photograph it with your smartphone and immediately be taken to an expanded or interactive (a music video for an article on a musician, for example) article online.

Instructions on how to do it at Nationalpost.com/scanlife



Marketing Monday is a column devoted to innovation in the world of commerce. It celebrates companies, products, packaging and campaigns that swim against the current or find creative ways to stand out. Got a suggestion for the column? Send me a comment.

Marketing Monday

Staff, managers drive retailer green policies
And why not? There’s one Environmentalist in every bunch who is willing to champion the cause. That means that owners don’t have to have the know-how or interest but can gain green policies through staff. Not to mention that recycling/reducing often results in a cost savings. And, marketed effectively, the bottom-line stands to gain. Consumers that find a store with environmental practices that complement their own are going to become devoted shoppers of that store.

It’s win-win all around.

I believe it should be taken one step further. Staff and managers are front-line and are exposed to consumers’ requests — information that an Owner can’t get from their sales spreadsheet. Staff and managers should have a say in green products sold, too.

Reuters via National Post

Marketing Monday is a column devoted to innovation in the world of commerce. It celebrates companies, products, packaging and campaigns that swim against the current or find creative ways to stand out. Got a suggestion for the column? Send me a comment.

Marketing Monday

Practice online investing with pretend money
RBC Direct Investing has created a practice area on their site where all your trading is pretend. That's a very smart way to get people started. Zero risk. Zero worry. 100% clever!

www.Rbcinvesting.com/practice

Marketing Monday is a column devoted to innovation in the world of commerce. It celebrates companies, products, packaging and campaigns that swim against the current or find creative ways to stand out. Got a suggestion for the column? Send me a comment.