The world of today is about working longer and faster to get ahead and the energy drink category has answered a huge calling. The popularity of Brands like Red Bull are based on a beverage with the ability to give you amazing energy boosts or “wings” as they call it. During a long drive in Quebec, entrepreneur Lino Fleury asked himself “What do people drink if they want to relax?”. The ability to wind down and relax the mind and body is essential to keeping ourselves healthy (mentally and physically) and to not burn out. Fleury says “I came to think that there is no beverage to help people slow down when they are stressed. Energy drinks are full of caffeine and they tend to increase anxiety, not reduce it”.

Introducing Slow Cow the drink that relaxes and helps in the improvement of concentration, memory and learning capacity without causing sleeplessness. Made up of 8 natural plants, amino acids and vitamins, this beverage promises many benefits including: relaxation, improved brain capacity and concentration, increase cerebral levels of dopamine, insomnia treatment, reducing nervousness and a decrease in fatigue during exercise.

The biggest and smartest aspect to Slow Cow is the brand strategy they have adopted to catapult them into the media. They have packaged and branded the drink to look like the calmer, little brother of Red Bull (right down to the use of bovine imagery in the logo and the 8 oz can). This mirrored, polar opposite strategy has created an opportunity for Slow Cow to be directly compared to Red Bull, instantly creating additional media attention and a new category within a category that is rapidly growing.

Every business and category out there has competitors. Sometimes it takes looking at everything that your competitors aren’t to see what it is you might need to become.

Bhautik Joshi (aka captain nod), a research engineer that works for Industrial Light and Magic in SF (my favorite city other than Vancouver) has used some of his free time to research optical couplers. The captain describes these as “A system to transmit light from one optical device to another to make an image” and has used this knowledge to attach an 18-55mm SLR lens to the built-in camera on an iphone! If you want to try it yourself he has added step-by-step instructions.

Check out the test shots on his flickr page and some of the other cool experiments he’s been working on too.

Today’s economic climate has forced all businesses to start thinking differently. Owners are tightening belts and strapping on thinking caps to come up with solutions to slowing sales and cash-flow woes. Unfortunately, more often than not, it’s marketing and quality promotional efforts that get the axe first. Although initially this cost-saving idea seems like a brilliant one, any successful entrepreneur will tell you that this could be the long and slow kiss of death. The good news is that you don’t need really deep pockets, you just need to plan smart.

All things heard and seen by your clients are inevitably linked directly to your brand, market reputation and more importantly the way that clients associate themselves with your service or product. This means that for almost every business there are competitors and you always want to look and be better than your competitors. Right? In these times customers are afraid to spend money on mistakes. Marketing efforts featuring positivity, strength or humor will typically be most successful, try not to focus on any negatives, even your competitors. When these messages are shown consistently they can create a feeling of confidence in your product, service or business as well as confirm to the customer that they made the right choice. Write down as many positive things as you can about your business. What are the ones that stand out the most?

The creation of a well thought-out marketing plan and the budget to maintain it should be step one. Planning a realistic budget is very important in insuring that any plans created can be consistently carried out for periods of at least 3 months at a time.  If you are unsure, consider hiring creative professionals to build and tailor your plan and insure that your marketing dollars are being used to the best of their ability. Just like you wouldn’t allow your plumber perform surgery on you, the promotions of your business should not be left up to the secretary taking your calls or your friend’s nephew who knows Photoshop. A professional will no doubt be more expensive but well worth the investment when quality work is produced and money is saved. Most creative teams will have multiple contacts and partners that they have long standing relationships with. These relationships will almost always make a difference in the price, value and the overall outcome of your project.

Through regular contact, it has been reported by Warner Creative’s clients that owners who have maintained a consistent marketing budget are seeing the financial benefits. Less voices in the market mean less competition, which means more unchallenged exposure for the business owner brave (and smart) enough to keep up appearances.

How are you making sure you are at the top of your customers list when they make their choices?

Welcome to the Warner Creative blog! Here you can find articles, news, links, opinions and other things related to being creative in the world of design, art and business. All written from a small graphic design studio located in downtown Vancouver, B.C. Canada.

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