kid builds company out of erector set

Don't you just love how the Wall Street Journal has shrugged off its green-eyeshade image and embraced the world north of Maiden Lane? Today's front page features a story on the (remember?) Brannock foot-measurer which is being knocked off in (surprise) China. There's a quote from someone with a job I didn't know existed--shoe historian. And an interesting tale of how the company began: Charles Brannock was the son of a shoe salesman who began developing the contraption while still a student at Syracuse University. He applied for a patent with a prototype made out of erector-set pieces. Business took off during World War II when the government contracted a version that measured both feet at once, which sped up the process of distributing footwear to soldiers. Seems like great fodder for erector-set's agency. See what you learn reading stuff besides trades?

want to sell more stuff? offer fewer choices

A book review in today's Wall Street Journal confirms what parents of toddlers already know: humans often fare better if presented with fewer options, not more. In "Art of Choosing" Columbia Business School professor Sheena Iyengar discusses research that suggests arranged marriages are, ironically, often more loving than love marriages; children play more enthusiastically when forced to choose only one toy from an array of many; and--here's where it gets interesting for marketing types--the more varieties of a product there are on the shelf, the less apt shoppers are to commit to a decision to buy it. Better pull the plug on those line extensions.

Campbell's new label ingredient: biometrics

According to the Wall Street Journal, Campbell's is changing its iconic label in an effort to (duh) make people buy more soup. They spent two years researching package and logo designs by tracking microscopic changes in skin moisture, heart rate and other biometrics to see how consumers react to them. This "neuromarketing" approach is an attempt among consumer-good companies to understand how consumers respond to marketing and advertising.

In interviews, participants said the soup pictured on the can and shelf labels didn't look warm, so steam is added in the new label. And the big spoon full of soup provoked little emotional response, so it was removed.

The company hopes the label and display changes will help shoppers connect on a deeper level to the products and boost its condensed soup sales by 2% over the next two years. Hmmmmmm, good luck with that, Campbell's.

Full article here.

adbroad IRL

Last night at the Shorty Awards, I passed out my in the real world info on recipe cards from the kitchen of Betty Draper. And agreed to be outed by The Wall Street Journal. What a scene, those Shortys. Turquoise daquiris (twitter's fail whale color), wandering astronaut in helmet, faces you're used to seeing half-inch square on a screen suddenly attached to a body and talking to you. Now that I'm outed, should I switch my avatar for my pic? But I like having a blonde wave and that 60s demeanor.

US district court judge rules websites not responsible for comments

It's a tiny article buried on a back page in today's Wall Street Journal, but its impact on the blogosphere could be momentous: The US Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Craigslist "cannot be held responsible for what its users post on its site."

In February 2006, Craigslist was sued by the Chicago Lawyers' Committee claiming that the site violated the Fair Housing Act by publishing discriminatory housing postings. Yesterday, a US District Court judge affirmed a lower court's decision that Craigslist "is not the author of the ads and could not be treated as the 'speaker' of the posters' words."

Given recent controversy on this blogging circuit regarding the parameters of socially responsible posting, this ruling should come as welcome news. Only--would that it had been instituted to protect posts worthier of defense than rental ads stipulating "no minorities."