The 1/2 Bottle Project

Quite intrigued by the 1/2 Bottle Project. You pay what you normally pay for a bottle, but due to its unique design, you get only half the stuff. The other half goes towards a charity of your choice which will support people in developing countries, which you can specify when you make your purchase. You can pick from 7 causes: vaccines, HIV, water, education, food, sanitation and apparel and a set of linked charities including Save The Children, UNICEF, Tear and Pump Aid. No extra money is required for operations; the 1/2 Project packs and sells the products through a charity contract after paying the beverage companies their due. I like the idea, and the design.

Of menus and ideas…

Yet another set of useless leaflets and menus came through the door today. I don’t know why people really bother. During the Seth Godin talk a couple of weeks ago, one of the thoughts that flitted through my mind at some point (I can’t quite remember what set it off) was related to this issue of leaflets. Menus are the sole useful thing that gets sent through the door that way, in fact there have been a couple of times when we’ve actually looked for some restaurant menus we use often. Now I know the internet is always there, but many people (especially older ones) prefer having a menu to look at in their hands when they want to order in. Plus, you know, sometimes broadband may be down and you may be starving. So what if you had a book or booklet that contained menus from all the local restaurants in your area, that you could place neatly in a corner rather than collecting multiple bits of paper and stuffing them in a draw? That way, you’re saved the bother of receiving daily copies of the same thing, and you also know where the menus are when you need them. Providing, of course, you could convince the restaurants of the very rational fact that they could be using the money they spend on printing hundreds of copies of their menus on things that could be much more profitable for their business.

Tracking their way to more customers

Via Drew’s blog, take a look at Domino’s Pizza Tracker which tells you at which specific stage of baking your pizza is at, before it is delivered. Somewhat similar to the tracking service offered by shipping companies like DHL, Domino’s tracker is unique because the product we can track is a consumable, and because it really mollifies you, in a sense, to know that you can actually see (or know, to be precise) what is happening to your pizza (and therefore your money), while you wait for it. Technically, Domino’s didn’t need to do that, because they already provide a 30-minute delivery guarantee for their pizzas. But this additional service will motivate even more people (like me) to order pizzas from them because it will strike them as a pizza brand that is serious about customer service and shows that in their actions. In other words, Domino’s is walking the talk. Good stuff. 

No dearth of creative ideas

This is another idea I think is totally brilliant. To introduce Oasis’ new album Dig Out Your Soul, BBH New York came up with the idea of getting buskers in Manhattan to give the songs’ debut performances, instead of releasing them in stores or performing them themselves. Similar to Radiohead’s stunt of releasing In Rainbows purely online (the Creative Director at BBH New York admitted that that was an inspiration), the group had a private rehearsal with street musicians before they performed three songs from the album at key New York City locations like Grand Central Station, Times Square, Penn Station and Astor Place last Friday. The album releases only on October 7th. More here and here. Also, take a look at the happenings behind the scenes of the Friday event: