Toniq

There are perfectly legitimate reasons for a blog to exist. It brings people to the website. It gives us something to share. It helps with search. It demonstrates expertise. It keeps the content calendar from developing abandonment issues. All good reasons. None of them explains why I write this the way I do.

A category of one sounds like one of those marketing phrases someone came up with in a conference room because saying, “Be different” didn’t seem expensive enough. But the idea is actually pretty simple. A category of one is a company that has made comparison difficult, maybe even pointless.

According to an article I just read, knowing how to sew a bit could be considered a “useless skill” because, in the real world, people make their living sewing buttons and fixing ripped Joe Cool T-shirts. So, I don’t need to know how to do this. It’s useless, so they say. But I have to ask: is any skill ever useless?

We’ve all done it, and we’ll probably do it again. We buy in and fall for the great deals, but these won’t last. My favorites are the ones I’ve seen recently for pants. These are the type of pants for older men. Easy to wear, the ad says, and I think, how can pants not be easy to wear? I mean, seriously, you put them on one leg at a time, zip up, button up, belt up, and you’re on your way.

Here’s the problem with my decision to let Nabisco off the hook: I assumed they already knew. Surely someone else had complained about the package. Surely someone somewhere inside the vast Nabisco empire had attempted to reseal a package of Fig Newtons, discovered that the sticky little flap had roughly the adhesive power of a Post-it note found at the bottom of a swimming pool, and raised the alarm.

Sure, have a placemat, have a pen. Buy a T-shirt or a bracelet and start a collection of Van Gogh charms; collect them all, don't forget the ear. The transition from showing to shop was glaringly awful. There was no downtime, no transition from the dim rooms of exploding colors to the harsh, naked fluorescent lights of the merchandise section.

Somewhere along the way, working hard, which is a perfectly reasonable and admirable thing to do, became something else. Work became a measure of worth. Being tired meant you were committed. Being busy meant you were important. Rest required justification because apparently sitting on your porch for an hour doing absolutely nothing is now an act of rebellion.

We treat dictionaries like wise tomes that have settled everything. We go to the book, open to the word, and say, there, that’s what the word means. Except that dictionaries tend to miss the fact that language is a living thing.

Words matter in marketing because we ask them to carry enormous weight. A carefully chosen word can tell someone what a company believes, what a product promises, or why any of it should matter to them.

These lists are annoying at the very least and frenzy-causing at best. But they’re too obvious. Let’s be honest, does anyone really open an English Muffin wrong? Do the English have a muffin board that traverses the world, spying through kitchen windows in early morning light, seeking muffin defilers, the breakfast deviants who need to be taught a valuable muffin lesson? I don’t think so. So, telling me that I’m opening an English muffin wrong is pointless.

If you're in marketing or branding, a copywriter or an account manager, then you know this business thinks of brands as people. We think about brand personality and brand quirks. Wants and needs. All the human qualities we often attach to brands. So, I was wondering about a brand's time in high school. Do they get bullied, do they get pantsed? If brands are people, then we can assume that some brands are outcasts.

I want to be grounded and real, and for the most part I am. But when I get on my high horse, I’m an actor, an artist; I can become an insufferable egomaniac. And I can live in that state until my best friend, Heather, pulls me back into reality. “Look, your high-and-mighty artistness, you’re dribbling barbecue sauce all over your shirt.” And firmly I land on my ass on the ground.

The second discovery, like my drive to make movies, has stayed with me ever since. The second thing I discovered was that I love diners. Love them; however, I love a very specific type of diner. I love the diners that remind me of that film set. The weathered feeling, the age on the walls and counters. The close feeling, the image of the stools along the counter full of guys smoking and drinking coffee.

The website hero is usually the first substantial thing a visitor encounters. There may be a logo and some navigation above it, perhaps an announcement bar telling you about free shipping or that somebody has won another award, but the hero is where the website really begins talking. It’s the opening scene.

In marketing, we know it is vital to identify a villain a brand truly fights. Now these villains are tricky because they don’t wear all black, they don’t ride around in flashy cars, and they don’t make threats like, “You have ten minutes to stop the timer on this bomb, save the girl, and give me the briefcase full of money (or the secret codes or the plutonium), or the world will be destroyed.” The villains that marketing heroes like ThoughtLab fight are more subtle and less flashy.