Adventures in Candyland

Usually when we meet with prospective clients, they want to know how we can connect them to celebrities.  Can we get Lindsay to carry their bag?  Can we get Bradley Whitford to emcee their charity event?  We often wonder if this is because we’re in LA, where everyone is so celeb-obsessed (though logically it should be the opposite - Angelenos should be sick of celebs!) or if it is just our culture in general.

And, we often caution against going this route - there are plenty of other ways to raise awareness about a product, and even about a charity, that do not involve celebrities.  Why do we do this?  Yes, our connections are limited and we can’t call upon them for every client, but more importantly, celebs are unpredictable.  While some celebrities might be the perfect fit for your brand, others can tarnish it as easily as bolster it; they can be flighty; they can be divas…I could go on. 

I read this in AdAge today and was reminded of the frustration we feel when clients ask about celebs before any other strategy.  Celebrities can be a part of your communications mix, but don’t count on them to make your brand - they’re just as likely to break it.    

New feature - weekly favorite things updates. 

Here are a few of Sweet Talk’s favorite things this week:

I have to follow up on Lauren’s NextFest post with another shout out to Txtual Healing.  The concept of mass communal techno-art is totally inspiring. 

Surprisingly, in a city that is so car-centric, Flexcar is gaining popularity in LA.  And you can car-share in cities across the country.  Our fave “green” concept of the week.

The fro-yo craze continues in LA.  You’ve read Limor’s take on Pinkberry, but Lauren & I tried Sno:La last week and now we’re over Pinkberry.  Yeah, everyone’s copying the Pinkberry concept, but Sno:La actually improved it - a lot!

Fred Natual Spring Water is a hilarious and pretty brilliant case study on branding.  Fred is a bestseller in NY and is getting ready to roll out nationwide.  If you’ve gotta have it now, Fred makes house calls and you can order online. 

And finally, with the opening of a new Taschen bookstore in LA, we’re loving the Taschen Icons series - great references!

Let us know what you think of these.  Or let us know what your fave things of the week are.

This article in Marketing Week struck me as bizarre. Coke is creating a new Sprite that will launch in the UK next year called “Sprite Super Chilled” that includes a mechanism, that when opened forms ice in the drink. And how is the ice created and what is it made of? None of those questions were answered in the article. But even stranger is the fact it’s being developed for urban youth who prefer super cold alcholic drinks, particularly beer. What’s the difference between super cold and cold? Obviously I’m not an urban youth, but pray tell, who is it that likes their beer or their soda warm? What do you guys think? Wierd or cool? I think both.

Innovation never stops and never ceases to amaze. Last Sunday, Danielle and I ventured downtown to the LA Convention Center to experience Wired Nextfest, one of the coolest “tradeshows” I’ve ever attended. As we browsed the booths, we were continously awed by the creativity and cool factor of the products and technologies shaping the future of our world. We were reminded that we’re living during an amazing period of time, where interactivity is the sign of the times as well as the proliferation of communities continually being by reshaped by the technology and inspiration featured at this show. The shape of things to come is about customization, collaboration and innovation tied into entertainment and culture tied into creating a more sustainable and empathetic world.

Honestly, I could write chapters on the innovations we saw Sunday, but instead, I’ll just hightlight a few of of my favorites.

Light Harp
This is the first interactive art you experience upon entering the show. The sound coming from this thing was really beautiful.

Brainball
Are you calm enough to win a game of brain ball. I know I’m not, but it might be a good challenge for me. Brainball is a game where you compete by relaxing your brain and move a little ball across a table into a little circle using your brainwaves. The person who is calmer will get the ball in first. Seriously, who needs mediation when you can just play this game. Everyone was circled around these two players sitting their with their eyes closed while their brain waves were being charted on screen behing them. It was fascinating!

Desktop Factory 3D Printer
This is so cool and so inexpensive when you compare it to the past cost of creating some kind of prototype. The machine looks like a microwave oven and basically layers what sort of looks like sand to create a 3D model of the digital data you feed it and only for $4995.

Jukebots
People DJs may soon be extinct with the introduction of Jukebots, industrial robots who scratch, spin and mix records. They kind of dance as the decise which record they’re going to pick. Ridiculously cool!

LifeStraw
It’s difficult to imagine living somewhere without access to a clean water source. It’s painful to realize children still die from contaminated water — soooo these LifeStraws, which are shockingly inexpensive and simple( $3 )will save many, many lives.

Obviously I could chronicle every experience that seemed significant or fabulous, but I don’t want to bore you. So I’m going end this entry by illustrating the use of technology and art.

Today, text messaging is taking the place of calling, emailing and yes, talking. So I think we can all expect to see many iterations of this technology in the future. Here are two we learned about and took advantage of many times that day. So many times in fact, the guy from Nanikawa who was running the Wind and Swimming Messagesystem was either thinking we were really crazy or really annoying. The other is TXTual Healing, SMS Enabled Interactive Street Performance. Both very cool and the wave of the future. Below are a few samples of what I’m talking about, but please don’t judge me for my camera work, which is absolutely painful and pretty much unbearable - I truly apologize, but I want to illustrate what I’m talking about. Today, we actually bought a really cool handheld video camera by PURE DIGITAL, that we learned about at a PSFK conference. We’ll blog on how that benefits my awful filming ability later.

Both of the below technologies allow you to call a number they provide, enter your message which is immediately rendered into these two artistic forms.

TXTual Healing - Text Message Customizable Graffiti Art

Wind and Swimming MessageSystem - The wind blows your text from screen to screen in front of a beautiful background

Which unique technologies and products do you think will make an impact in the future?

Since starting Sweet Talk last year, we have been asked countless times, “What industry do you specialize in?”  In fact, the question is so prevalent, and so automatic at networking events, that we have found ourselves trying to formulate an answer to it.

Here’s the thing…as entrepreneurs getting started, with somewhat varied backgrounds, we didn’t plan to start out specializing in any industry.  We figured we would take what business came our way.  But we also strongly believe that our expertise and the marketing/PR/communications principles we know can be applied to just about any industry and customized a little bit to fit each clients’ needs. 

Then we had a long conversation with a woman slightly older than us, who had had tremendous success in the marketing world by being a generalist - by applying her expertise to all industries, and we felt this justified the Sweet Talk philosophy. 

But the question kept coming…”What do you specialize in?”  And we started to feel like not having an answer was hindering us.  So we took a look at our clients, our backgrounds and what we enjoy.  And here’s what we know we specialize in:

We work with clients who are trying to reach a luxury audience - either with a high-end product or service, or as a nonprofit looking for donors.  

That’s our thrust.  That’s our answer.  BUT, we still strongly believe that our expertise and our knowledge can be applied to just about any industry out there, and we certainly don’t want to close ourselves off. 

Last week, I saw this post on the Blog of Tim Ferris (author of The Four-Hour Work Week) about the Top Five Reasons to be a Jack of all Trades.  And it made a lot of sense.  

Sooo…we continue to struggle with whether or not to specialize in a certain industry, or to proudly be generalists.  What are your thoughts?  Are you a specialist or a generalist?  Let us know!  

My brain wasn’t really melted by the heat. Yes - I know it’s only September 7th, but I got your attention! The funny thing is some people love Halloween so much, they actually start their seasonal buying binge in MAY. They want the newest stuff, they want it first and they don’t care about the cost. Sort of like women and their bags - well, not the woman writing this unfortunately.

Halloween is a holiday people feel passionate about. Can you blame them? It’s really the only holiday that is truly and only about having fun! Who doesn’t like to dress up to be someone else for a day. That’s why our client, HalloweenMart , is so successful. So, if you are sick of being yourself or maybe, someone else is sick of you, I have the solution! Just go to the site and choose someone different to be. You could be another someone different 365 days a year and then some. Believe me, I’ve spent some time in the company warehouse, and I’ve done a millions costume changes - they never get old. Par example, Elton John, you ain’t got nuthin on Lauren Tarne! If you look around the site, you might even find a few more of these gems (sense the sarcasm).

But, for those who need a little more inspiration, there is HalloweenMart’s new blog, Trick-or-Treat, where people can follow the stories of a bunch of fictional (or are they?) characters whose lives are engulfed by Halloween and all the holiday encompasses. You can even follow the characters as they twitter their way to the big day. So check out Candy, Nick, Jinx and others to get yourself revved up for the season.

Remember , Halloween is only 53 days away. That’s nothing. It takes time to develop the perfect costume. And although I have a plethora of ideas on the ensemble I plan on donning this year, I’m am perfectly willing to take suggestions. And that goes for Danielle and Limor as well. Don’t dissapoint us!

If you live in LA like I do, especially in Santa Monica where you don’t have air conditioning, you would understand that it would have been impossible to work yesterday due to the suffocating and seemingly endless heatwave we are experiencing here.  Which is why I, along with the greater part of Los Angeles, fled to the Pacific to try and catch our breath.  Finally, I could actually form thoughts!

So, I was finally able to do a little work. There are really no holidays for entrepreneurs. Anyway, yesterday I came upon this post from Seth Godin where he talks about the definition of hard work changing.  How hard work used to actually mean hard work (i.e., working in the fields), but eventually it evolved into someone who spent the most time toiling away at their desk.  Thankfully, there is an evolution there as well, as I agree time really doesn’t equate to hard work.  He claims it’s not the amount of time you spend, it’s the risk you take which is the hard work.  And you know what, it reminded me what we’re doing, going out there on our own, taking a big risk and yes, we are working hard, harder then we have ever worked. We decided not to go with the status quo even though it would be a lot easier, but we are succeeding, growing and learning more than we ever could working for someone else. So even though we have some of the most frustrating days I have ever experienced, I know that the hard work is worth it and it will catapult us to a place none of us knew we could make it to.

Ok - enough of my little pep talk! Maybe the heat has melted my brain.