Dear Reader,
This weekend, the sun pulled people out of their crammed NYC homes.
I rushed to the corner of 22nd Street and Broadway everyday to relish my neighborhood’s magnolias.
As the petals sway in the slightest breeze, they taunt me with their short-lived lowery splendor.
A tree like this graced the property of my childhood home. And every year I was disappointed at the flowers’ short sojourn. On our lawn, the heavy petals created a white and pink carpet circling the tree’s trunk.
Across the city, magnolia trees extend their thin branches offering passers-by their adolescent beauty. Each flower petal has a deep magenta color that seeps upwards.
With many New Yorkers proudly getting their COVID vaccines, the sense of renewal holds a palpable sense of promise. We believe that better things will follow if we act responsibly.
The unrestrained laughter of a small girl eating in a curbside plastic tent with her family cracked through the street noise to express the lifting of this emotional weight.
When I dropped off a birthday gift for a friend’s daughter, I found her sitting on a high stool, reading by the front window of her building under the watchful eye of the doorman. Yet, with our facial masks, I barely recognized her.
At her request, I waited as she ran up 2 flights of stairs to get her father to come down and say hi. Since we’ve lost the ability to stop by unannounced when we happen to be in the vicinity.
Wearing his NY Mets mask, my friend noted that he would have walked by me on the street. Behind my ever-present black mask, he wouldn’t have recognized me.
His comment made me realize how I’ve lived incognito during the past year. Behind my protective covering, defining features on my face are obscured and my words get muffled. So we need to train ourselves to recognize others with these coverings.
Why Do We Need Art In Our Streets?
The other morning, I opened my front window curtains to see a red haired woman blackwashing one of the plywood boarded windows across the street.
Why?
Too many people had covered her prior artwork with their own designs and comments.
When commercial spaces hastily boarded their glass display windows last summer, street artists found an outlet for their visual work.
Casually dressed in a t-shirt and short skirt, this artist prepared the wood with an extended foam roller. Her supplies neatly contained in an orange plastic Home Depot workbucket.
Using the Instagram handle @TheChalkJungle, she extended her Keith Haring inspired art outdoors during the 24/7 confines of COVID. It was her way of supporting the community while getting her out of her New York City apartment.
Like the chalk drawn plywood murals created during COVID, the pop art of Keith Allen Haring (May 4, 1958 – February 16, 1990) emerged from the New York City graffiti subculture of the 1980s. Like her, he drew on blank black advertising spaces in subway stations.
As Haring gained recognition, his art incorporated social and political themes, most notably Gay Rights. Expressing what many artists feel, Haring said,
“My life is my art, it’s intertwined…”
In 1986 Haring opened his Soho (NY) based Pop Shop to make his work accessible to the widest possible range of people. (BTW, I have a Haring designed t-shirt purchased in 2018 at Uniqlo through a partnership with MoMA.)
When asked about the commercialism of his work, Haring responded:
“I could earn more money if I just painted a few things and jacked up the price. My shop is an extension of what I was doing in the subway stations, breaking down the barriers between high and low art.”
@TheChalkGarden’s art has evolved to include found objects such as a bicycle chain. Like Haring, she’s learned to merchandise her art. She frames her work and photographs them in context so clients can see how it will fit in their homes. Instead of a physical store, she uses Instagram to showcase and sell her art.
Actionable Marketing Lessons:
- Merchandize your products to inspire your audience to purchase them. Help buyers to visualize how your product will work in their lives.
- Tap into the power of naming your products to increase their value. Don’t underestimate the intangible value names and stories add to your products.
RECOMMENDED READING:
How Do Businesses Experience a Place’s Renewal?
New York City is a place of continual rebirth and change. Located where the Hudson River meets the Atlantic Ocean, its geography defined its attraction and commercial importance since the arrival of the Dutch almost 5 centuries ago. So while some areas may age, others rejuvenate.
Last week, I walked across 33rd Street at Fifth Avenue. Freed of its street level scaffolding, the art deco Empire State glistened in the sun. And I felt like a tourist in my hometown.
This storied intersection had been the original home of the Waldorf Hotel. Built on the razed site of William Waldorf Astor’s Fifth Avenue house, the hotel cost about $5 million to construct. When it opened on March 13, 1893, it was one of the first hotels to target local patrons seeking to go out to dine and be entertained.
Unlike other temporary lodging for travelers, George Bondt and Oscar Tschirky designed the hotel to meet the needs and whims of the newly monied social climbers of the time. Together they tailored the hotel to cater to their clientele’s desire for social visibility.
While, his affluent neighbors correctly anticipated how the hotel would change the neighborhood from elite residential to commercial, Astor and his advisors didn’t foresee the economic bubble of 1893; it was brought about by over-indebted railroads and subsequent bank failures.
As businesses and/or buildings change over time to meet people’s evolving needs, major cities like New York remain vibrant and adapt.
From a marketing perspective, decide how to take advantage of your physical location, since place is one of the 4 Ps of Marketing.
As the real estate adage goes “Location, location, location”.
While working for a recognized clothing brand during its infancy, I learned that the cost of a poor location extends beyond the raw real estate expense. In addition to tarnishing your brand, it may cost more to attract buyers.
Translation: Smaller profit margins combined with increased work.
Actionable Marketing Tips:
- Determine the audience you want to attract. Then, take the time to understand their needs to adapt your offering to meet them.
RECOMMENDED READING:
Voice and Conversational AI Marketing
Based on Speechmatics’ 2021 Industry Report, Trends, and Predictions For Voice Technology in 2021, voice use cases with the largest potential 2021 commercial impact are:
- 44% Web conferencing transcription,
- 37% Customer experience and related analytics, and
- 27% Subtitling and closed captioning.
What’s under-rated by these global executives?
Use of chatbots and related apps since it has existed via websites and its use continues to expand.
Chances are most of the executives interviewed didn’t realize that, at its core, chatbots involve conversational AI. As a result they didn’t consider it as a voice use case.
Want to Get Up To Get up-to-speed quickly and efficiently on Voice technology?
Attend Project Voice Worldwide virtually on Wednesday, April 15th and Thursday, April 16th.
FOMO Alert: Don’t miss Mark Cuban’s closing talk. He’ll be answering questions for a ½ hour. Will yours be one of them?
BTW, did I mention that it’s free?
RECOMMENDED READING:
Register for next week’s Voice Den with my friend, Dr. Teri Fisher (BTW—he uses doctor since he practices sports medicine by day.)
It’s an open, virtual Q&A session with 4 voice experts. Includes a lively chat and follow up conversation on Clubhouse with 50 – 100 of top voice practitioners.
Welcome new subscribers: Katherine, Teodora, Carol, Larissa, Michael, Jason, Gareth, Christina, Mohammad, Hassn, Ib, Dennis, Al, Lerato and Kinza.
Please stay healthy and safe.
If you enjoy reading the AMG Newsletter, I would appreciate it if you forwarded it to your friends and colleagues.
Happy Marketing,
Heidi
P.S.: Want Heidi Cohen to contribute a quote or other commentary to your next article, presentation, video, research and/or book? Then hit reply to this email and ask.
P.P.S: Did you miss last week’s AMG Newsletter?
Previous newsletters can be found in the AMG Newsletter Archive.
FEATURED ARTICLE: 100+ Free Blog Post Title Ideas That Will Not Tax Your Inspiration
While it’s tax season, you don’t need to tax your brain for blog and content marketing inspiration.
Use these Mad-Lib format titles to inspire your next piece of content. Even if you don’t use the suggested title, it will get your creativity cooking.
RELATED READING:
FEATURED ARTICLE: Content Marketing Spring Cleaning: How To Improve Your Results
Use your first quarter results to guide you to improve the performance of your most important content.
So it continues to spark joy for your audience, employees, customers and you.
RELATED READING:
Heidi Cohen Around The Web
► Hot off of the presses: New Headline Research via BuzzSumo
Headline still matter a LOT!
This hasn’t changed since David Ogilvy quipped that only 1 in 5 readers go beyond the headline. AND that was back in the glory period of the Mad Men Days before marketers had to contend with micro-sized attention spans across a variety of platforms and content formats!
To write headlines that hook readers and pull them in across platforms including Facebook and Twitter, BuzzSumo’s updated “100M Posts Analyzed: What You Need To Write The Best Headlines”. BTW, Heidi Cohen weighed in along with 5 other digital marketing smarties.
RELATED READING:
► 3 Ways To Make Your Startup Seem Like An Established Business
Margie Zable Fisher tapped Heidi Cohen to show you how to make your small business cast a big shadow.
Want more tips to improve your small business resources?
Of course you do. (And yes this includes you regardless of the size of your business!)
RELATED READING:
Welcome Mat Photo via Mabel Amber – https://www.pexels.com/photo/jetty-feet-sign-wooden-128299/ cc zero
The fine print
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Unless noted otherwise, all photos are ©2021 by Heidi Cohen
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