June 2010
1 post
2 tags
With the iPhone 4 release, Apple doesn't leave out...
There’s been lots of buzz about all the cool new features in Apple’s new iPhone 4, but one of the things I especially appreciated about how Apple promoted the launch was the section on their site devoted to Developer Stories.
The star of the show with the iPhone 4 is clearly the technology, with lots of cool new stuff that has many current iPhone users checking the status of their...
April 2010
1 post
2 tags
There are no throwaways
There are many unofficial act3 mantras, but one that has been gaining significance and relevance with repeated use is the title of this post: There are no throwaways.
By this we mean that everything is part of your story. You might think that if you spend the majority of your time producing beautiful, elegant work that it’s okay if one small thing you produce is sloppy and half-assed, but it’s...
January 2010
2 posts
3 tags
On the death of Flash (and the importance of...
There have been rumblings for a while that Flash is dying, a perspective that is starting to get louder and louder with the announcement of the iPad. Nobody’s quite sure what the alternative will be or how long it will take to figure it out, but people seem to be losing faith in Adobe’s ability to keep Flash from an untimely demise.
This chunk of Jeff LaMarche’s rant from a...
4 tags
There are numbers in the record books, and then...
Speaking Tuesday on ESPN about Mark McGwire’s completely unshocking revelation that he did, in fact, take steroids, Tim Kurkjian was asked about whether Roger Maris’ single-season home run record, which McGwire shattered in 1998, should be restored.
Kurkjian suggested the record should stand, citing some of the other questionable numbers and statistics that still stand in baseball’s offical...
December 2009
3 posts
3 tags
Tiger Woods, failed storyteller
Over the weekend, Accenture dropped Tiger Woods as its spokesman, stating that he is “no longer the right representative.” Gillette will scale back Tiger’s face time in their campaigns, saying “As Tiger takes a break from the public eye, we will support his desire for privacy by limiting his role in our marketing programs,” and watchmaker Tag Heuer says it is “examining its long-term relationship...
2 tags
Do you appreciate Google (as much as you should)?
Is there anyone who doesn’t appreciate having Google in their lives? Maybe it’s because I remember writing documents on a green-screen word processor, but I often pause to wonder how we ever did anything before Google. I’m equally amazed that the gifts Google gives — search, Gmail, Google Maps, YouTube, and beyond — all come to me free. So I figured I fully appreciated Google. Until...
3 tags
The truth, the whole truth, and the stories we...
My friend Kyle called me up the other day. He was feeling adrift, and was hoping I could provide some “life coaching” advice. After graduating from college in May of 2008, Kyle took a job working for the Obama campaign. For three straight months, he knocked on doors, made phone calls, planned and organized events and rallies, and generally ran himself into the ground to get Obama elected. Like...
October 2009
2 posts
3 tags
Stories: Unfortunately, guilty as charged
In “Be a Better Investor,” from the latest issue of Kiplinger’s Personal Finance, Senior Editor Bob Frick takes a look at the emotional reasons that fueled the irrational behavior that led, in part, to the economic morass from which we’re still attempting to extract ourselves.
Describing the past few years as an emotional roller coaster rather than a financial one, Frick fingers stories as a key...
4 tags
Goodbye, Saturn
General Motors announced last week that talks with the Penske Automotive Group to purchase Saturn had broken down, and that as a result, the brand will be closed down next year.
This is not surprising news, considering the state of the auto industry and the economy.
Still, it’s sad news, at least to me. I drove a Saturn SL2 from 1994 to 2006, but more than that, for those 12 years, I was a...
September 2009
6 posts
4 tags
The Ken Burns effect
This week marks the debut of the Ken Burns’ The National Parks: America’s Best Idea, airing on PBS. While the series features stunning footage of the titular parks, there’s much more to it than just “nature porn” — in his signature style, Burns tells the unlikely stories behind how the parks came to be.
In “10 Questions for Ken Burns,” the filmmaker...
2 tags
A story to calm their fears
Last night was Parents Night in my mom’s second-grade classroom, and as usual, the parents who have never had a second-grader before were nervous about homework.
What if my child doesn’t know how to do it? What if my child won’t do it? How do I deal with this traumatic new development in my child’s life?
You think I’m being sarcastic, particularly with that last...
5 tags
Overcoming too big and too vague
A couple recent Seth Godin posts have story implications worth exploring.
In Enormity, Seth writes:
The problem with enormity in marketing is that it doesn’t work. Enormity should pull at our heartstrings, but it usually shuts us down.
Show us too many sick kids, unfair imprisonments or burned bodies and you won’t get a bigger donation, you’ll just get averted eyes.
If...
4 tags
Every angle tells a piece of its story
Stumbled across this cool quote from Vicki Karp on True/Slant, which is “an original content news network tailored to both the ‘Entrepreneurial Journalist’ and marketers who want a more effective way to engage with digital audiences,” currently in Beta.
Anyway, the quote:
Best thing ever said to me by a sculptor — walk around it, look up and down and through it; every...
4 tags
A story geek's dream
I am so geeked.
While doing a bit of procrastinating this morning on ESPN.com, I wandered into the Sports Guy’s World — always a great place to get lost, and a dangerous place to go if you have something you need to get done — and the headline “The Sports Guy on 30 for 30” caught my eye, so I clicked.
What I found was the Sports Guy, Bill Simmons, telling the story...
4 tags
Walgreens flips the script on flu shots
I don’t like shots, and I’m generally healthy, so I have never seen a need for a flu shot. I suspect I’m exactly the kind of person Walgreens is targeting with this poster, which I spied in the waiting room of the Walgreens pharmacy:
The poster banks on the understanding that while many people don’t take good care of themselves — and like me, can probably convince...
August 2009
5 posts
Dude, it matters everywhere
So Ben sends me an email:
Subject: amctv.com
Their new tagline is “Story Matters Here”
I email him back:
Dude, it matters everywhere.
He emails me back:
Sounds like a blog post to me.
:: Posted by Eric Ratinoff ::
4 tags
When CITIZEN KANE was simply Citizen Kane
Was Citizen Kane always CITIZEN KANE? Because we tend to look at the pillars of modern culture — the music, paintings, and films we exhalt as “classics” — through our present-day lens, we often assume the mythology surrounding them was a foregone conclusion, that they were widely acknowledged as classics from the start. But all classics were once notions sketched on...
4 tags
The downside of mythology: trying to live up to...
Does Citizen Kane suck? That’s the question my old friend Chad Schneider at movingstillpix asked, prompted by friends of his who had been telling him lately that the film classic was boring.
After watching it again for the first time in a decade, Chad concluded it definitely did not suck. In fact, he says …
IT’S TERRIFIC! It even says so on the movie poster.
So, what’s the deal? ...
8 tags
How to bake the story in from the start
Chris Brogan had an interesting post yesterday in which he outlined a few ideas for what his ideal hotel would be like. He’s not interested in the hotel being fancy as much as he is in having a customized hotel experience — in other words, developing a relationship with a particular hotel so that they know who he is, that he likes thick down pillows and the room set at 70 degrees, and...
2 tags
Harley Davidson: Every rider has a story
I’ve never been a fan of motorcycles. This antipathy no doubt traces back to my traumatic first motorcycle experience, in which my parents’ crazy friend Steve (who has since legally changed his name to Stephon — seriously) rode over to our house and parked his motorcycle in our driveway. I was 2 or 3 at the time, so all I knew about motorcycles was that the tailpipe was shiny,...
July 2009
2 posts
5 tags
An issue in need of a story: drivers on the phone
The New York Times’ Room for Debate blog has been looking at the issue of drivers talking (or texting) on their phones, asking, “Should Cellphone Use by Drivers Be Illegal?” and examining “What to Do With Drivers on the Phone.” They’ve also run two disconcerting stories on the topic this week, “Drivers and Legislators Dismiss Cellphone Risks” and...
2 tags
Short attention spans? Not so fast
A piece in the July 5 New York Times entitled “Rise of Web Video, Beyond 2-Minute Clips,” comments on the increase in length of the average online video — a trend the article suggests is driven by both improved technology (faster speeds online), which increases people’s tolerance for longer pieces, and our habituation to longer pieces cultivated by people watching full TV...
May 2009
3 posts
3 tags
When Zettwoch and Horton get together ...
We’ve had the pleasure of working with two great visual storytellers on two of our favorite projects: the Scott Smith Photographer video game, which featured the 8-bit genius of Dan Zettwoch (see this post for a behind-the-scenes look at its development), and the McCormack Baronland poster, which showcased the skills of Will Horton.
Both projects were a blast, and both projects, not...
2 tags
The truth behind a good story
Some say the devil is in the details. Now forensic scientists are saying that’s where the truth lies, too.
According to a New York Times story, researchers are looking into ways to tell fact from fiction in criminal investigations.
Kevin Colwell, a psychologist at Southern Connecticut State University, has advised police departments, Pentagon officials and child protection workers, who...
2 tags
Candor is “in”?
In “Angry Ads Seek to Channel Consumer Outrage,” New York Times advertising columnist Stuart Elliot asserts that advertisers are sharing our frustration with the economy by making ads that “echo consumer anger” and
take an outspoken, provocative tone that is unusual for mainstream marketing messages, which typically try to avoid aggrieved attitudes for fear of alienating...
April 2009
1 post
2 tags
One good post ...
Our good friend Dan Zettwoch just wrote a great post about the work he did with us on the Scott Smith Photographer video game. Dan talks a little bit about his process, and how the game is different from most of his other work (which is also pretty great; you should poke around the blog and check it out).
Two of the coolest things about the post are how Dan shows Scott’s building (and the...
March 2009
1 post
3 tags
Yeah, What's Your Story?
We have used the question/tagline “What’s Your Story?” in various capacities over the last few years; it once was featured prominently on our website, but it is less prominent on the site now.
Lately, though, “What’s Your Story?” seems to be popping up everywhere.
Certainly, act3 can’t take credit for pioneering the use of “What’s Your...
February 2009
6 posts
5 tags
What an advocate looks like, disgruntled edition
The Tropicana orange-juice carton never struck me as an iconic package, like the Coca-Cola bottle or even the Heinz Ketchup bottle. (I’m guessing you can picture both of those without a photo, but needed the photo at right to remind you of what the classic Tropicana carton looks like.) However, for the Tropicana true believers, the orange with the straw sticking out of it was iconic — and...
4 tags
Putting a price on a good story
I ran some calculations last week, and determined that at least in one situation, a good story is worth $12. My wife had been openly drooling over red patent-leather Dansko clogs for months, eyeing them wistfully whenever we went past the Walking Company, professing her love for these hand-made shoes, and declaring her intent to own a pair “someday.” Being the attentive listener (read: I can take...
4 tags
When the story everybody knows is the problem
What story do you tell yourself when you hear “urban drug dealer”? Do you imagine a blinged-out thug driving an SUV with tinted windows and spinning rims? What story do you tell yourself about the most effective way to deal with urban drug markets? Do you think about armed police breaking down doors and making undercover buys to nab dealers? If so, you’re not alone. But according to David Kennedy,...
What an advocate looks like
“Excuse me,” the man said. I was pecking at my laptop in a Jacksonville Starbucks, earbuds in. I looked up. “I’m sorry to bother you. I just have one question and then I’ll let you get back to work.” Maybe it’s because I was in the South (and being in north Florida, Jacksonville actually is the South; most of the chatter I heard in that Starbucks that morning had a drawl), or maybe it was just...
3 tags
Coffee: A love story
Christoph Niemann’s Abstract City Blog post from Monday, I LEGO N.Y., was the most emailed story on the New York Times website early this week. Using only LEGOs and a few scribbled words and labels to identify the sculptures, Niemann cleverly captured images of New York City in a few simple plastic blocks. My favorite is this one:
Speaking of coffee, Niemann’s previous blog post,...
4 tags
Software doesn’t have to be a pain in the ass
Basecamp, the simple, subscription-based project management software application from 37signals, turned 5 yesterday. I know this because act3 uses Basecamp, and at the top of our Basecamp homepage yesterday was a notice about Basecamp’s birthday, with a link to the story about how Basecamp was born.
Even though it’s a story about software, the Basecamp story is incredibly personal...
January 2009
1 post
6 tags
Don't freak out, okay?
I thoroughly enjoy Gregg Easterbrook’s Tuesday Morning Quarterback column on ESPN.com, for both his insightful football analysis and his insightful social commentary. TMQ, as Easterbrook tastefully calls himself, is the master at skewering commonly-accepted assumptions, be they about the “need” to punt on 4th and 1 (he’s against it), or the “challenges” Detroit...
December 2008
10 posts
2 tags
Need a last-minute gift? How about a great story
What if I told you that for your Hanukkah gift, I gave twenty bucks in your name to a charity that’s important to me?
You probably wouldn’t complain too loudly, because you’re not a complete Grinch, but I’m guessing you wouldn’t exactly be thrilled, either. Perhaps you’d second-guess the gift you gave me, and reconsider my place in your future gift-giving...
4 tags
“It’s like an analogy of a metaphor.”
We were trying to explain the value of telling a comprehensive story, and how it’s different from simply unleashing a media splattering campaign. Having just blogged about Southwest Airlines for two straight days, I had Southwest on the brain, so I pulled them out as an analogy. Yet as soon as I uttered “analogy” and “Southwest Airlines” in the same sentence, the client rolled his eyes. The...
7 tags
Do you have a “get it” problem?
The client was confused. Are you telling me that despite the fact that our PR firm is going to send invitations to everybody in the industry, and press releases to every major media outlet, and that it’s going to be covered in all the newspapers and on all the TV stations, that people aren’t going to know about it? Well, no, not exactly. People will know about it. However, I’m not sure that people...
3 tags
Southwest storytelling, Part 2
A quick update on yesterday’s post:
When I checked in for my flight online, I was reminded of a storytelling tool Southwest is using to help people understand their boarding process: Boarding School.
Even before they went to the assigned-numbers system, Southwest’s unassigned seat policy (which some people derisively tabbed a “cattle call,” but which I would describe as...
1 tag
You are now free to tell a better story
Three reasons I’m excited about my flight to Philadelphia on Southwest tomorrow morning:
It’s a free flight. There’s something strangely satisfying about using a frequent-flyer ticket. It’s like it’s a reward not only for loyalty to one airline (and in my case, one airline’s rewards card), but also for suffering through all those security lines.
Drink...
4 tags
On "failure" and transparency
A little while back, we decided to post some of our “failed” ideas — ideas that we loved, but that for one reason or another the client didn’t.
In every project, we present a number of different directions and concepts before determining the approach that gets used in the finished product. Since clients often opt for more conservative looks and ideas, some of the more...
5 tags
A bad economy calls for better storytelling
In response to the economic crisis, many companies are cutting back on advertising, cutting their prices, or both. In an NPR story that aired yesterday on All Things Considered, Brad Linder suggests these strategies aren’t the answer.
Linder spoke with Bill Madway, who teaches marketing at the Villanova School of Business. Said Madway:
“The traditional way of calculating a marketing budget is,...
8 tags
What does your audience want?
The other day I suggested that your audience doesn’t care about you, but that instead they care about themselves, and their wants and needs. Though this is hardly a revolutionary thought, its simple truth doesn’t stop our egos from letting us imagine that everybody cares about us, what we’re doing, what we’re saying, what we’re selling, and the story we’re telling. We imagine this because we care...
4 tags
What Apple gets about storytelling
I like to think that I’m not particularly materialistic, but I must confess, I’ve been eyeing the new aluminum unibody MacBook lately. I suspect I would be looking longingly even if I had one of the white polycarbonate MacBooks from the previous generation, but I’ve got a PowerPC iBook G4 that is now four years and several generations old, and on its second motherboard, second...
4 tags
Why do experts still tell stories?
Over at the Joel on Software blog, Joel Spolsky gets a little cranky about the new Malcolm Gladwell book, Outliers:
This [New York Times review of Outliers] captures what’s been driving me crazy over the last year … an unbelievable proliferation of anecdotes disguised as science, self-professed experts writing about things they actually know nothing about, and amusing stories...
November 2008
4 posts
3 tags
Your audience doesn't really care about you
Magic Johnson has a new book out, 32 Ways to Be a Champion in Business. (If you’re wondering how he picked 32, that’s his basketball number.)
This exchange from an interview with him in the Wall Street Journal caught my eye:
WSJ: What was the single most important lesson you learned after the failure of your first retail venture, a licensed sportswear store called Magic 32 in...
7 tags
It's not a ghost story, but . . .
… it’s still pretty scary.
This American Life has been doing some great reporting about the economic crisis, using stories to help explain what’s happening, who made it happen, who’s affected, and how.
The first installment came in May, in an episode titled “The Giant Pool of Money,” in which
This American Life producer Alex Blumberg teams up with...
5 tags
Who are your storytellers?
In the November issue of Fast Company, Melanie Warner writes about her frustrating experience trying to actually purchase the eco-friendly products touted by retailing giants like Wal-Mart, the Gap, and Toys ‘R’ Us.
At the Gap, where she was hoping to find clothes made from organic cotton, she discovered her local store had only regular cotton.
At Wal-Mart, where she asked about...
1 tag
The story of the act3 logo
It can be dangerous to read too much into a logo—that sort of thing can easily veer off into pretentious grandiosity and navel gazing—but when you’re in the process of coming up with a new image that’s going to represent you to the world, you invariably think about what it is, exactly, that you want that image to represent, and those sorts of thinks can get, well, kinda deep.
As we worked through...
October 2008
4 posts
1 tag
Barack Obama, storyteller
When I heard Barack Obama was going to be purchasing a half hour of airtime on the major networks for an infomercial, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Would it be like a speech, but with pictures? Would he get into policy details, with charts and graphs?
He didn’t really go in either of those directions. Instead, he told stories.
In fact, stories were right there in the title of the...
12 tags
Fatty or Lean: A Grandson Dishes
In my family most stories are told over food. Hell, most stories are told about food. “Remember that great pastrami sandwich you got at Katz’s,” “Steak-n-Shake makes the best fries, remember when we went there during the blackout?”, “Who makes the best cheesesteak, Pat’s or Geno’s? It is all about the bread! No, it is all about who uses the most...