andydidyk.com

Well. Wow. I’m still in a bit of shock. Philips launched the “Shave Everywhere” campaign last summer, and mercifully it looks like I missed out on it back then. It’s a site that unabashedly describes the benefits of, well, shaving everywhere. They’ve even coined a new phrase, which may be creeping into our everyday language as you read this: “Second Puberty”, or the process by which men begin growing hair in undesirable places as they age. A marketer’s dream.

Tasteful or distasteful? Appropriate or inappropriate? Bravo for broaching a taboo subject in mainstream media, or Shame-on-Philips for assuming men are so base and unintelligent? Everyone may draw their own conclusions, but in the end the site has definitely accomplished its goal: to gain brand awareness by being disruptive.

While I don’t personally find the campaign to be in good taste, I have to tip my hat to Philips for being willing to try something truly creative and potentially dangerous. I think I would echo a lot of creative people in agency jobs in saying, “Wow, I wish the clients I work for would be willing to do something that crazy…looks like fun”.

What could your company do if you weren’t constrained by traditional social mores or accepted advertising tactics? I guess the only way to find out would be to give more marketers and agencies permission to fail while trying out new ideas. Looks like fun.

Thanks to Steve (sort of) =) for the link.

Valeria Maltoni at Conversation Agent posted an article today that also contains some interesting perspectives on consumer pricing. Evidently, according to a study reported on by the Economist, people who pay more for something enjoy it more. Imagine that.

But what’s really interesting is that if you tell someone something is expensive, even if it isn’t, they will enjoy it more than if you tell them that it’s something cheap. My guess is that Freud would have predicted that, but it’s still interesting to see a legit study that backs this concept up.

So, if I were a seller, I’d immediately do three things.

1. Raise all prices on any goods that are not staples and/or have percieved value aside from necessity
2. “Precise up” all prices and eliminate all round numbers
3. Hire some really good marketers

And as a buyer, I’m going to immediately do three things:

1. Disregard an exact price and haggle anyways
2. Ignore most marketing that I didn’t sign up for
3. Look for social media and user-generated content to guide my purchasing decisions

On a side note, I just recently found out that the Economist isn’t about the economy. It’s about a bunch of different topics economized into one magazine. It’s well written and a good read, too.

A recent study completed by the Social Science Research Network confirms another quirk of human behavior that is sure to get marketers’ attention. Evidently, if something is priced with an exact dollar amount (e.g., $1174 vs $1100), people are much less likely to debate the price. Indeed, the study found that if the price were “precise”, retailers and sellers could raise the price and people would be more likely to pay it without debating than if a round number were selected instead. People will actually pay more and ask fewer questions if the price isn’t a round number!

This, however, is my favorite part of the study (which, by the way, could benefit greatly from a table of contents and a better layout…ahh..science):

“These results have important substantive implications for buyers and sellers (and their agents). Buyers (and their agents) should be more cautious in their price magnitude judgments in light of our results. Sellers (and their agents) can strategically “precise up” their prices, i.e. choose a higher precise price rather than a lower round price.”

Behold the power of the information age. This is one case where knowing more will really pay off. I know that I certainly won’t look at a price of $150 the same way again.

High-five to these guys for bringing the study to my attention. Thanks!

David Armano of “Logic + Emotion,” the quintessential web 2.0 blog, has a great post today about what he calls reducing the “signal to noise” ratio in his life for 2008. He cites an example of someone leaving Facebook due to the unwanted complexity it has added to his life. The burden of the “noise” outweighed the value of the “signal” he was able (or willing) to consume.

This is precisely why I do not have a MySpace, Facebook, or Twitter account. I love how the social and information revolutions have dramatically impacted the way in which people can communicate with each other, but the information and relational overload that I experience at times leaves me wanting to unplug my life from the constant din of information and to return to a slower pace. I did this last weekend while camping with some very close friends; it was wonderful.

Here’s the deal: human beings were never designed, whether you believe they evolved or were created, to maintain so many relationships as are possible in our current situation. Excluding the past 90-100 years of the history of humanity, people more or less could only maintain relationships within their geographical boundaries. Then the telegraph, telephone, radio, and television allowed individuals to maintain their social networks over distances, but with the exception of some uber-geek Ham Radio operators, no one could create a new social network that didn’t directly correlate with their geographical location.

I have a hard enough time keeping up with the people in my life that I can actually see and touch, let alone maintaining meaningful relationships with those I care about the most. I like LinkedIn’s signal to noise ratio, because it’s a less intrusive networking tool and not something that really encumbers me with too much data.

Is this approach right for everyone? No way. But we each have to choose what is most important us, and use our “bandwidth” for information appropriately. I’m a pretty outgoing guy, but I’d much rather have 10 real relationships with people I can truly connect with than to waste my time trading micro-bits of information with 100 people.

What works for you?

What will Gates do next?

So, if you were the richest man in the world, knew lots and lots of famous people, had virtually unlimited resources, and had spent the last 50+ years of your life being completely serious, what would you do with your last keynote speech at the company you started? Check out what Bill did (or rather, Bill’s PR and Marketing departments?)…it’s pretty funny.

And yes, for the grammatically inclined, you do place an apostrophe “s” after singular nouns that end in “s”. I looked it up.