19 December 08
Over the past few weeks the new Pepsi brand has been gaining critical mass on the streets of New York.
The clean, minimalist design aesthetic gives the product a futuristic look that, I feel, successfully supports their youth-focused, Generation Next positioning.
If you’re wondering whether the mass market is ready for a design like this, just put it next to a picture of the ubiquitous iPod and I think you’ll find the answer is, “yes”.
For such a high profile brand, it’s not surprising that there’s been a lot of criticism. Some even believing there’s an intentional connection to the Obama campaign.
In the context of their last identity, I think this new move is a major leap for Pepsi in the right direction. I for one feel it’s refreshing — pun intended.
Update: 01.29.09
Pepsi executive Frank Cooper addresses the Obama allegations directly in this 3 Minute Ad Age video. While he denies the connection, he also makes it clear that Pepsi is looking to take advantage of the conversations that have arisen around this topic. Peter Arnell, who’s agency created the new logo also explains the clear differences in the concepts behind each logo.
17 December 08
In a move to position themselves as a critical strategic partner in these tough times, Ogilvy has launched a SEO-challenged Flash website with PDF’s as the primary content.
No, you are not reading The Onion.
01 December 08
Pownce was a once-hyped micro-blogging competitor to Twitter. I say “was” as today Pownce announced that they will be shutting down their service on December 15th.
While the demise of Pownce and other social media sites during this recession seems like dot-com bust déjà vu, there’s one key difference. We the users feel the loss as well. Our connections with long-lost friends, geo-tagged photos, witty and pithy comments, and moment-by-moment recitations of the best days of our lives are lost — forever. Along with all the countless hours invested uploading them to the world.
It’s not just the start-ups that are shutting sites down either. Yahoo! shut down Yahoo! Mash, their MySpace/Facebook competitor. AOL shut down AOL Pictures, their flickr competitor. Google shut down Lively, their Second Life competitor. Some have been kind enough to help you port your content to a similar service, but not all.
The lure of these services has been strong over the past few years. My wife and I opted to use Tumblr for micro-blogging about our newborn — fully aware that we were entrusting our efforts to a start-up service. Why? It was free and really easy set up, customize, and maintain.
Next up, Facebook. Just about every article you read about this social media darling mentions that they still haven’t announced how they’re going to make real money. With the recent market downturn some are suggesting that they figure out a way to start charging users. Others feel like that would be disastrous.
Now as some of us are counting ourselves among the web 2.0 casualties and learning the true price of “free”, it will be interesting to see what 2009 holds for start-up and user alike.
