Below the Line

Three ways to stand out

Sometimes to make your message stand out, you need to think big, think outside the box and take risks. Here are three ideas to get you started:

Beautiful but temporary. This guy creates massive sand art at low tide, and it's gone by high tide. Just watch the first 10 seconds of this video as it shows a few clips of his work. While the physical work of art is ephemeral, it lives on online. It’s like a cooler version of crop circle advertising.

Tacky but attention getting. Advertise your product with body art – just make sure it’s appropriate for your audience.

Big and bold. Who could forget the Sony Bravia ads: the bouncy balls, the paint explosion and the foam bubbles? These were developed to illustrate product features in a totally new way. The viral aspect included watching the ads on you tube, and the 'making of' videos had as many or more views than the ads themselves.

Discover the better e-mail copy

Going through my e-mail in box, I discovered something unusual: two e-mails, from two travel companies, sent within hours of each other, both with “discover” in the subject line. So which is better? Here’s a quick analysis.

Hilton’s subject line is “Discover Eastern Europe, USA shopping bargains plus new Luton Garden Inn”. It’s hardly inspiring. Unless you have a predisposition to visit Eastern Europe or the U.S. (or LUTON – seriously!), it doesn’t give you much of a reason to open the e-mail. Speaking of inspiration, instead of carrying through the discover theme into the body of the e-mail, they lead with last year’s inspiration theme. The word “discover” is not used once in their copy.

Expedia’s subject line is “Discover the friendliest place in the world”. Where is the friendliest place in the world, you wonder? There is only one way to find out – open the e-mail. The theme is then continued with a reiteration of the headline and an immediate payoff in the copy: “Lonely Planet voted Ireland the Friendliest Destination 2008.”

Expedia is a clear winner on copy alone. Design is another matter.

Internet Silverpreneurs: the next big thing

In the past couple of years, social networking and other web 2.0 advancements have brought about rapid change to the face of the internet. Many of the innovations came from dorm room developers – typically a couple of young guys with no overhead, lots of free time, tech savvy and an idea. I have no doubt that future innovations will come from this demographic, but I think the next big thing could be silverpreneurs.

Silver surfers, variously described as internet users age 50 plus, 55 plus or 60 plus, make up a growing percentage of internet users. As the number of silver surfers grow, so too will the need for sites and services that cater to their needs. Who better to develop an offering for silver surfers, than someone who is in their age group?

Most internet startups have very little overhead, and as silver surfers retire from their day jobs, they will have more free time to devote to nurturing new business ideas. While tech savvy may have been a limiting factor in the past, the increase of over 50’s online increases the chances for a silverpreneur with the right skills to have the right idea at the right time.

Already, there are several niche social networking sites dedicated to silver surfers such as eons.com and the UK-based Saga Zone. Eons.com CEO Jeff Taylor, founder of 90’s internet success story monster.com, estimates that there are 49 million online boomers.

In Britain, one quarter of people online are 50 or over, accounting for 30% of the total time spent online. Silvers surf a lot. UK communications regulator Ofcom has estimated that the over 65’s surf for 42 hours per month – four more than those in the 18-24 year old demographic. This increase in silver surfers cuts across income levels.

Over 50’s have already been shown to be entrepreneurial. More than five million American over 50 are self employed, according to the AARP. This accounts for 40% of the self-employed workforce in the U.S.

With the current economic climate and more people looking for ways to earn money into their retirement years, it’s only a matter of time before silverpreneurs bring on a new generation of successful internet startups.