Starbucks Spelling #Fails

Yesterday, TIME magazine named “Starbucks Spellings” the Tumblr of the week. The blog was not created by Starbucks, but rather by Jenna Livingston, a freelance copywriter. It highlights an eccentricity unique to Starbucks and every one of its chain establishments:failed name spellings.

No matter what you order to drink, Starbucks asks for your name and writes it on your cup in an aim to A. give you the correct drink later down the production line and B. appear to be your hometown coffee shop who cares who you are. However, more often than not, the employees at Starbucks misinterpret customers’ names leaving consumers with comical cups filled with caffeine. From Hei-Wei to Highway, Christian to Kris Chin, Lacey to Lazy, Katy to Heini, the Tumblr is packed with daily uploads. Even Buzzfeed found the collection hysterical and created their own piece about it which has already collected over 12 thousand views since yesterday.

The takeaway for brands? Sometimes earned publicity and content creation come in the form of owning a quality that is unique to your brand and can be identified by the majority of your customer base… even when it’s slightly embarrassing.

Originally posted here:http://fwd.mbooth.com/post/7312686905/yesterday-time-magazine-named-starbucks

Consumers Give CPGs Stars

Watch out “like,” there’s a new social currency in town and it’s name is “star.”

Today, Advertising Age broke a story about the new Yelp! for consumer packaged goods (CPG) that launched today in beta: Consmr. Want to know which detergent is best for you? Which brand of microwave popcorn you’ll enjoy the most? What type of glue will hold your art project together best? Other consumers will answer all of your grocery/drug store questions.

Packaged goods account for $12 billion in e-commerce, which is why Zagat’s former head of mobile Ryan Charles and entrepreneur Noah Zitsman put together Consmr.com.

“Product discovery hasn’t really changed yet because of the social web,” said Mr. Charles.

Apart from hastags, twitter followers and facebook fans, it can be argued that this is the first information source of it’s kind in the social world to organize brand affinity in a way that translates to consumer reccomendation and behavior changes in the consumer packaged goods category.

The site provides benefits for brands and journalists: brand profile pages, allows magazine sites like Men and Women’s Health to provide brand reviews, incentivizes bloggers to cross promote their reviews wtih them. And the site provides benefits to fans/consumers: it borrows from the old Facebook idea of “flair” and allows brands to distribute badges of sorts and reward consumers for checking into products. Consumers can also share their purchases, reviews on twitter and Facebook — in case you REALLY want people to know how much you love your brand of toothpaste.

Consmr provides the soapbox — that didn’t exist in the social world — for people who like to voice their opinion and share their brand experiences, in one place. It’s like the Google of consumer packaged goods (currently with a catalog of 50,000 products) with Bing’s feature of telling you what your friends like.

They plan to open their API in the future so developers and third parties can tap into Consmr’s data. And, with Charles’ past in mobile, brands can expect to be a part of a mobile app soon.

The makers are counting on self-population and consumer reviews to get off the ground, so get to starring.

Originally posted on http://fwd.mbooth.com/. Can also be seen: http://theli.st/post/6527010824/consumers-give-cpgs-stars.

NYC Style

Yesterday, along with the sad, gloomy skies, I too was sad and gloomy.  Realizing I had nowhere to habitually go in this big city (since I'm a newbie), I wandered the  streets letting my tears blend in with the drops from the clouds.  It's a very unsettling feeling to pass so many people and know noone and feel alone.  [I know it sounds dramatic but telling lies is much more dramatic.]  

Anyways, after finding more mom-and-pop convenience stores that I know what to do with and passing many swanky Upper East Siders, watching my first movie alone (Julie and Julia is a must), and reading a book I already purchased in the cafe at Barnes&Noble (Starbucks had no seats), I eventually ended up in a place only two blocks away from my house.  

THIS will be MY place: The park along the EAST RIVER.  It's gorgeous and the view changes with every position of the sun and moon.  I just stared and walked for at least an hour in awe of the gigantic beauty that buildings and nature, in harmony, produce.  THIS is why I love NYC, it's never all or nothing, it has something for everyone.  You just have to have the energy to find which part makes you happy.    

(Excuse the phone-quality pics and take in the content.)