Cards Against Humanity - for Branding?
We have all invested time and energy developing our branding resources to use when working with clients on their brand identity. Now Scott Thomas of Simple.Honest.Work. in Chicago has maybe come to our rescue with what he believes is the ultimate tool to make it even simpler and more effective.
With the help of Mark Temkin, one of the people behind the game “Cards Against Humanity”, Thomas has created a deck of cards with adjectives used by many of us to help clients define who they really are and are not. Each team member gets their own deck to sort through and then as a team decide what really applies to them and what definitely does not. Pretty simple.
Instead of funding the project on their own, they turned to Kickstarter.com to crowd source and have so far raised more than their goal. They are now also working on a “Not safe for the workplace” version, again with the “Cards for Humanity” people (I wouldn’t want to accidentally mix those decks up).
This venture will be interesting to follow and although I believe we will stick to our own tried and true methods, I can see these cards showing up in some branding agency boardrooms, or more likely, the “not safe” version being played every Friday afternoon in the lounge. Check it out!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/simplescott/the-brand-deck
Laughter is the best medicine.
I am going to blame my lack of witty subject matter on the fact that our “summer” has been messing with my brain. We all depend on the months of May through August to bring us tons of sunshine and hot weather that in turn equips us to survive the long bitter winter. Not so much this year. More the reason to head outside into the sunshine and catch some Fringe activity. The Winnipeg Fringe Festival is all about unconventional creativity and a large portion of the performances are comedies. Perfect!
There have been countless studies done on the benefits of laughter, most recently by the Loma Linda University School of Medicine. The results show that laughter has an effect on lowering serum levels of cortisol, epinephrine and dopac, all stress hormones. Stress hormones are shown to block creativity and reduce productivity levels. Certainly this is not something you want happening in the Advertising business.
So what better way to reduce stress, get over feeling sorry for ourselves that we’re not the ones on holidays and build up that store of great summer sunshine (that’s the forecast) than by heading to Old Market Square in the Exchange District and have a few belly laughs. Tell the boss you are doing this all for them.
To read more about the Loma Linda University study go to: http://myllu.llu.edu/newsoftheweek/story/?id=16173
For more information about the Fringe Festival go to:
http://www.winnipegfringe.com