Dunkin' Donuts gets more* of my love.

Those who don't live in NYC may be unfamiliar with HopStop. It's a web site that tells you how to get from point A to point B in the most efficient way possible via walking or public transportation (bus and/or subway). It takes all soooorts of things into account when figuring out the best route to take, like time of day, transfers and construction work. I could sing its praises for hours and hours and pages and pages (and so could nearly everyone else I know), but what really blew my mind this week was something I noticed Dunkin' Donuts do on the site.


At first glance, pretty standard display ads, right? I like the placement, though, since there are tons of Dunkin' Donuts locations all over New York, and this is a site about getting all over the place in New York.


Now let's scroll down a little...


Here's a closeup:

Normally, I would be pretty annoyed to see an ad in the middle of content I'm trying to read; but look at what they did! They saw where I was starting my trip and told me where I could get coffee for the ride just two blocks away. Let's scroll some more...


There it is again! In case I was running late and hadn't wanted to walk an avenue out of my way, here is another Dunkin' Donuts smack in the middle of the next station and my meeting. I know that the algorithm used to generate these locations wasn't thinking about it in this way, but advertising the presence of more than one location gives options, which (to a point) can be a convenient thing.


Reading up on Dunkin' Donuts early last year taught me a bit about their rebranding efforts: they de-positioned the "fancy coffee" market and played the "efficient for people on the go" card (quick in-and-out, "just give me my coffee" service vs. the "relax in a big comfy chair and pull out your laptop" culture surrounding Starbucks). To me it fits pretty perfectly with someone looking up directions to get somewhere in the most efficient way possible. As Dunkin' Donuts says in their most recent ad, "We don't work around our schedule, we work around yours."


So, yeah, this isn't the sexiest looking thing in the world:


But it's the smartest placement I've seen in a while; it just works & makes sense.


This week's NY Magazine quotes Twitter co-founder Biz Stone describing straightforward web advertising as feeling "tacked on." Definitely not so in this case, and telling someone where they can grab coffee on-the-go is pretty straightforward. Dunkin' Donuts didn't just stop at the "two brands relevant to New Yorkers" part; they went deeper to a) make sure that they were giving people something they could use; and b) made sure that it made sense for what their brand stood for. Good work, guys.

*The "more" part of this post's title references the fact that I've mentioned Dunkin' Donuts one two three four five six times on this blog so far. Yeesh, I should cut it out, shouldn't I.

[x-posted to House of Naked]

Ghostly Swim

I know, I know, I know. After a few days there will be dozens of blogs written about this. But I have to. I found out about Ghostly Swim initially through a Twitter of Sanithna's (I was much less cool before I met him, I think). It's a free album of beautiful electronic music brought to you by one of my favorite record labels (Ghostly International) and one of my favorite things on television ([adult swim]).

Keep in mind: this isn't this type of music:


It's dynamic and surprising; I have listened to it twice today and it's very quickly grown on me. The album art is nice, too. It reminds me of late 2004, when I started really listening to this kind of stuff. I only recognized four or five of the artists on here too, which is really exciting.

Check it out and let me know your favorite; I think mine so far is Squirmy Sign Language by Ben Benjamin.

I was not pleased.

After buying a concert ticket a few nights ago, I was taken to this message:


Well, that's nice. The partnership seems to make a bit of sense. And for once - Ticketmaster doing something nice for me? Even though I didn't really like any of the bands in this sampler, it was free. I clicked on the link, typed in my iTunes password and came to "Sorry, wrong password, try again" or something to that effect. I tried again, and it was wrong again (PS no it wasn't). It told me to call Apple if I couldn't remember my password.

I signed onto AOL with the screen name and password, and I was right: I had the correct password all along. I knew that, because I regularly shop at iTunes (but just wanted to double check that I wasn't out of my mind). So I try to get the free album again, and what happens? Oh yeah, this.


How convenient. Who wants to bet that wasn't an accident. Although on the other hand, Andrew told me that it worked for him and he was able to get the free album. In any case, I was less than pleased, but also not surprised (pretty sad to be unsurprised by a terrible annoyance from a brand, right?). As if I - or anybody else - needed any more reasons to hate Ticketmaster, right (or is it iTunes? or both?)?