Tidbits from Vista lunch
Today’s Vista Group lunch followed its usual pattern as we jumped from one idea to another in bewildering rapidity:
- Will kerning save the world? Every technical elite has its own jargon and in-jokes. Kerning is a graphic-designer term for adjusting the white space between letters. Apparently, the question is a good one to have printed on a T-shirt to wear when talking to art directors at ad agencies.
- Didn’t they read what I wrote? We all had recent examples of how some people misread even the shortest communications only taking in words to support their pre-conceived prejudices and assumptions about the writer. Of course, the use of deliberately-provocative headlines can increase that risk.
- How does Jack Yan get to be a judge in both the Miss New Zealand AND Miss Sweden beauty pageants? Being a fashion magazine publisher didn’t seem to explain it to the other gentlemen present.
- How does Chanel manage to retain its cachet of luxury and exclusiveness, while Pierre Cardin, Yves St Laurent, Gucci et al have cheapened theirs? “Expensive” does not mean “exclusive.”
- Does your market offer determine your target market, or does your target market determine your market offer? This is a chicken and egg question. You can go either way.
- Does branding only work on cattle? No, was our unanimous conclusion to the idea behind Jonathan Salem Baskin’s book. But we would say that, wouldn’t we?
You’ll have to take my word for it that the transitions were seamless and logical.
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