Oh those clever, clever Swedes. Some smart folks from a Swedish think tank (I think–my Swedish is not strong) devised a way to motivate people to take the stairs:
I really like approaches like this, where we use natural human behaviour to motivate better outcomes. I wonder, though, whether the piano stairs have long term stickiness. Won’t the gimmick wear off and people will return to taking the escalator?
We were in the McNally Robinson bookstore in Nolita yesterday. It’s an excellent store, full of great books. As it turns out, it’s Canadian-owned (other stores are in Winnipeg, Saskatoon and Toronto) and shares a space with a tea house owned by Moby.
Inside, I noticed a couple of book-selling ideas that were new to me. Neither was particularly original, I guess, but they struck me as clever ways to repackage the dead tree tome.
The first was a series of tree thematically-linked books, pre-wrapped as a ready-made-gift. Very handy for the lazy gift buyer (and wrapper):
I also spotted these attractively-packaged bundles of a DVD and the book on which it was based:
Neither idea is earth-shattering, but if I were a book seller these seem like to handy ways to sell more product.
This, incidentally, is an ancient but still very useful marketing tactic. I’ve written about it before: visit country X, steal clever ideas and implement them in country Y.
I don’t know how widespread this is, but check out this remarkably creative approach to wayfinding in a parking lot:
In Melbourne I developed a way-finding-system for the Eureka Tower Car Park while working for Emery Studio. The distorted letters on the wall can be read perfectly when standing at the right position.
Very clever, eh?
This already has about 250K views, so you may have seen it, but I thought it was pretty charming:
Here’s a little interview with the actress, Amy Walker.
This is a personal bias, but to me this woman has that prototypical ‘actress’ look: big eyes, expressive face, long brown hair and nice cheek bones. I have several friends and acquaintances who are actors who fit this description. Do casting directors favour this type? Maybe, but it seems like they self-select to some degree. Peculiar.
Maybe every linen supply company does this, and I’ve never noticed it, but I thought this was pretty clever. They put their fax number on every napkin:
This ensures that, even if a restaurant fires its entire staff and hires new people, it’ll be easy for the new floor manager to order more napkins. The lesson here is an obvious one, I suppose: make it expectantly simple for your customers to contact you.
Further to foreign inspiration, I saw a cool bag which could sell well to tourists in any urban market. Maybe they’re already in Canada, but I’ve never seen them.
It’s your basic cheap-and-cheerful, unisex black satchel bag. However, there’s a city map printed on the vinyl flap that covers the opening. There’s no branding, or cheesy writing that says “VIENNA” in Comic Sans. Just a straightforward map of the city centre.
It’s not only a cool aesthetic, but it’s downright practical. You’ve always got a map with you, and it never tears or gets soiled in the rain.
Plus, when you return home, you’ve got a non-tacky, practical souvenir on your shoulder that’s liable to start a few conversations.