Joe: “Kurt, check this out, someone dropped a wallet.”

Kurt: “No way, is there an ID?”

Sure enough, there was an ID. And money. And a gift card. Not to mention a dry cleaning receipt, a business card and a map. All of which pointed straight to Burger King.

See the wallet was a guerilla tactic for the new Reverse Pickpocket Campaign. We actually found The King’s wallet.

We laughed and looked for a camera (like the Whopper Freakout campaign), then tucked the wallet in our pockets to show the clients. It was a very apropos find.

Kudos to you, Crispin Porter + Bogusky for turning the dial a little farther. And if you were one of the 5,000 wallet-finders in Chicago, be happy that you got to be part of a great experiment. Spend that cash and gift cards, so more marketers will take advantage of alternative media.

Some iPhone images:

These two tips easily doubled the run time on our batteries.

1. Back up and restore. The ROM that ships installed on the phone is not the same as the one available for current download.  The restored ROM seems to be newer, with better power management.

2. Drain the phone all the way and recharge. Twice. Or three times even. You can run movies to make this happen faster. But the key is that it needs to be all the way dead.

Thanks, Gary. You’re a lifesaver.

While attempting to park in a garage sixth street, we couldn’t help but talk about poor signage design. Probably because the Stalelife-mobile (hybrid, naturally) was all over the place.

“Why must we search for tiny signs that don’t appear until the last minute?”
“Why are they all the same color?”

Seems like the folks running Eureka Tower in Melbourne, Australia thought the same thing, because they hired actual artists to create their signage. True, trained professionals who put together the most incredible design of parking garage signage known to man. They look distorted now, but when driving and approaching them they are completely legible. The design even won an award, and I like to think that’s because the design is founded in smart.

Can you think of other places that could benefit from smart environmental design? The Chicago “EL” system is one…

While few people the have amazing skills to keep us entertained AND educated, we’ve found that a little comedy can go a long way.

Like these presentation graphs from GraphJam.com, a part of the iCanHasCheezBurger family. They’re spot on, as far as graph design goes, and the content depicts facts and figures of well-known pop culture songs, TV shows, news and other items in mainstream culture.

Here is an example showing stats from a famous B-52’s song.

From GraphJam.com

Imagine playing Love Shack while showing this before you present the quarterly sales figures to the board. Or making a point about the need for product placement advertising with a graph that shows how the movie Office Space helped sell staplers. You’ll see your audience relax and come to ease with your presentation.

We’ve also found that the site is a great place to roam around if you’re suffering from creative block. Nothing beats humor to get you going.

The idea du jour was that the brand far outweighed real benefits. It was always pure justice when our measurable creative was tested versus a heavy brand approach and won (a good 100% of the time, seriously).

Enter the mid-2000s and now marketers are starting to see, the WIIFM (What’s In It For Me) theory has reached epic proportion. Social networking allows customers to talk and give their opinion, just like your neighbor telling you about a great oil change joint, or the horrible service at the local greasy spoon.

There’s no place to hide these days, and there’s no way to “counter” bad news except with superior service.

Here’s an example – Son & Heir clothing, a boutique sports t-shirt shop. We recently ordered and the package contents looked like this:

The shirt arrived on time. It was exactly as ordered. AND they gave us a Dum Dum Pop and a note to say thanks:

Small things, sure. But the small things lead to much more. For instance, we’ve already told many sports-nut friends who might be interested in their sweet design offerings.

Transparency in the modern age is real. If you rely heavily on advertising to sway opinion – or your company is constantly seen in a negative light – it’s time to re-direct your funds and your attention to your customers. Make sure the user experience is something worthwhile, and you will be rewarded time and again.

After all, your customers are talking to anyone who will listen (and read), because nowadays it’s easier than ever to do.

Like this one that came to Stalelife Austin:

It’s a news clipping in an OE with a Post-it note – not exactly new tactics.

Combined, however, is a different story. Especially when you add no sign of a return address, a unique handwriting font, a full-priced stamp and no printed barcode – suddenly this resembles the articles that Aunt Suzie mails.

We passed this one around, trying to figure out who sent it. “Who calls me Joseph? And lives in Santa Clara? What is this all about?”

In all, we held onto the package for a good three or four minutes – beating the pants off the known DM readership of two seconds.

Right out of the gate, a win. Sure the match mailing will cost a little more, but something tells us that the cost is recovered in new accounts for Grande.

Think fresh while looking through your samples – there’s a new idea in there somewhere.

Speaking of ideas generators, our friend Robert at Adomatica recently received the same mail and blogged about it, too. Great minds… His blog is a good source for industry news and quips.

The creator was a conscientious objector from WW2, a designer by the name of Gerald Holtom. His logo has been replicated millions of times, and it’s use even reached commercial proportions. As a true symbol of freedom, he never registered it as a trademark, so it could remain free for all.

We design logos all the time. Most inspiration comes the actual company or service that we’re depicting through the logo. But true passion from personal experiences is the key, and if you want something to stand the test of time, you have to believe in it.

Peace.

Here at Stalelife, we prefer to keep it real. We acknowledge the buzzwords and define them with simple strategy.

But nobody beats the job that Nokia did to explain Web 2.0. Click away, you’ll be happy you did.