Fictional views of a dehumanized future reveal a lot of insights into the frustrations your customers are experiencing every day. One of the most common themes in popular science fiction is the feeling of technology and/or corporations squeezing the humanity out of...
To understand what's going on in your customers' heads, sometimes you have to get back to basic human psychology. Let's skip all the high-concept marketing talk, and get back to basics for a few minutes here. Branding and marketing isn't about fluff, or trickery, or...
It's tempting to jam your corporate identity full of bells and whistles, but the strongest identities are still the simplest ones. When designing a logo, it's easy to go overboard. There are so many great elements you can work with (colors, textures, patterns, shapes,...
Sometimes being "first to market" means you're doing all the hard work for someone else. Maybe it's time to slow down and reconsider. The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing by Al Ries and Jack Trout is undeniably a classic text and should be read by anyone in this...
The birth of Agile In February of 2001, seventeen software developers with an interest in lightweight development methods gathered at a resort in the Rocky Mountains in Utah. As they talked, they discovered some recurring themes and ideas, which they eventually...
In our line of work, effective project management is absolutely essential. At any given time we have 15-20 projects going on, all with dozens (if not hundreds) of individual tasks involved. We’ve tried countless project management applications, trying to find one that...
The basic elements of highly successful online videos are really just fundamental principles of human interaction, and you can apply to nearly any form of communication (especially marketing). While there's no way to guarantee that anything will "go viral," studying...
When people talk about their company’s target audience, you typically hear things like “individuals between the ages of 13 and 25 who enjoy playing video games and have a mobile phone,” or “active consumers between the ages of 25 and 45 who like to hike and rock...
Are profits and productivity hiding right under your nose? Here's how to take advantage of scent marketing.Regardless of your work environment, it's usually obvious that its appearance (lighting, paint colors, etc.) and sound (background music, noise, etc.) can have...
When a company isn't catching enough fish (especially in a tough economy), the CEO's instinct is often to cast a wider net, hire more people to cast nets, or simply cast the net more frequently. Unfortunately, they seldom consider the most obvious solution: mending...
If your team was the last surviving band of humans in a city overrun by zombies, you wouldn’t let just anybody through the door would you?
When designing a logo, it’s easy to go overboard. There are so many great elements you can work with (colors, textures, patterns, shapes, borders, typography, gradients, icons, etc.) that it’s tempting to include a little bit of everything to get your point across. In...
As much as our work at Forty is about “touchy-feely” stuff (psychology, emotion, metaphor, experiences, etc.), I’m still a numbers guy at heart. That’s why I get so frustrated every time I hear someone recommending crowdsourced design services like 99designs. The...
We’re naturally attracted to people and brands that stand for something, and we’re suspicious of those that try to mold themselves around our preferences. Imagine this. You’re on a blind date. You: “So, where do you want to go?” Date: “Wherever you want to go.” You:...
Archetypes are based on the idea of universal, reoccurring characters or personifications that represent something fundamental about the ways we identify ourselves and relate to the world around us. A few years ago, we began the process of gathering raw archetypes...
A cultural metaphor is strong because it references cultural icons shared by a brand’s consumers. Of the three types of brand metaphors, this one has the most potential to slide into “themeiness." But when it’s executed well, it can also be the most useful as a source...
Once you’ve sorted out your company’s roots (purpose, values, style, etc.), you’ll find yourself faced with the challenge of trying to hold all that information in your head when making a decision. One of the best tools for dealing with this situation is a metaphor: a...
One of the great dilemmas in marketing is whether to trust your instincts over what the research is showing you. Both the agency (“we know how people think”) and the client (“we know our clients”) have important insights that might not show up clearly in the research,...
Business is historically a male-dominated endeavor, so it’s no surprise that the stereotype about what it takes to succeed in business involves traditionally masculine characteristics: aggression, tactical thinking, bravado, ruthlessness, objectivity, ego, pride,...
Screenwriter William Goldman once wrote of the movie industry that “Nobody knows anything. Not one person in the entire motion picture field knows for a certainty what’s going to work. Every time out, it’s a guess…nobody, nobody–not now, not ever–knows the least...
Every year, Inc. magazine ranks the 5,000 fastest-growing companies (privately held) in the United States. They just recently released their 2011 list, providing a fresh set of data on the movers and shakers across all industries. We’ve compiled...
The biggest mistake people make with website redesigns is thinking that it’s just a website redesign. They see the new site, everything seems to work, and they call it done. Meanwhile, their SEO juice is leaking all over the floor. Their rankings are going...
Over the years, we’ve found that there are three foundational elements to almost any brand: purpose, values, and style. BRAND PURPOSE Research cited in Built to Last (by Jim Collins and Jerry Porras) indicates that purpose-driven companies can outperform the...
We now live in a world where almost everything is abstracted and over-processed to the point of barely being real. Take hamburgers, for example. What once referred to a thick, juicy slab of minced beef flavored with regional spices now typically refers to a thin,...
The typical modern consumer generally assumes quality and functionality as given, so what they’re really seeking are experiences that help them to fulfill their psychological needs (affiliation, aspiration, and identity). A key way to satisfy all of these needs is to...