soulsight®

We all know how cumbersome and exhausting air travel can be these days. From the long lines and incessant delays to the irritable gate attendants and headache-inducing neon lights. Fun, fun. Well, imagine for a moment, if you will, that you were given respite from the hideous underbelly of air travel and instead granted the gift of a truly calming and – dare I say it? – visually arresting experience. Would you believe me? I wouldn't have either, but that was before I had my first (and now certainly not my last) flight on Virgin America.

I was first aware of...

Getting ready for my college reunion got me looking at old notebooks. I came across this page...

It brought up the day a physics professor once explained to me, a student of the arts at the time, a certain phenomenon that modern day physicists believe to exist. It goes something like this:

If we take space, all space, to be a sheet of rubber, and we then keep an object of mass (M) on it, the sheet of space curves with the weight of the object with mass (M)...

Each year Soulsight evaluates the trends forecasted by leading experts in the color-prediction industry. Influences come from fashion, food, textiles, cultures and environments to form fascinating combinations of color that infiltrate our world. We have taken the predictions...

Finding out what your consumer believes in isn't always easy. Focus groups can provide wonderful insight but they also harbor the innate pitfalls of observing people when they know you are watching. But observing consumers in their element, living the brands they are loyal to, provides us with such rich data.

This past weekend, our Soulsight team ventured out into the remote wilderness of Wisconsin to participate in the Warrior Dash. Billed as the most challenging and rugged terrain in the world. The experience was fantastic...

The Daily Find is Soulsight's daily inspiration column. View the entire archive or Subscribe to the blog to receive new inspiration every day. Share your daily finds with us on Twitter using #DailyFind for the chance to be featured.

There is some debate of the virtues of Snap Tags vs. QR codes and which one will win the eventual battle for marketing dollars. It harkens back to the classic VCR or BetaMax situation. Both have innovative benefits and differentiating limitations, but there is no debate over the important era they are helping to define: The Era of the Experience Expectation. (I just came up with that.)

Consumers across all demographics are developing a taste for immediate information and experience. Smartphones have enabled anyone with one to have information on everything they can think of at their fingertips...

For many, this week has marked the end of summer, sending students back to school. The 2011 fall semester also introduces the Freshman Class of 2015 to college life, their first venture out into the real world as young adults. As brands scramble to appeal to these shop-happy students during the big-spending back to school time, they should bear in mind what this class is all about...

A recent article on Wall St. 24/7 calls out 10 brands that need to go away or will disappear in 2012. In addition to easy pickings like Sears and Nokia, they had the audacity to call out (by name, mind you) Kellogg's Corn Pops, stating that the cereal business is not what it used to be, at least for products that are not considered “healthy.” Puh-lease! There is plenty of room for all of God's creations, especially the superdelicious (one word).

They also went on about how sales of the brand dropped 18% over the year (which...

Minimalism is about simplification – removal of the extraneous down to the fundamentals, the ones that tell the brand’s story, what we call the brand “soul”. A few brands have demonstrated a strong understanding of minimalist principles, successfully embracing them as part of their genetic makeup.Read the full article

Continuing on the idea of building iconic brands, here are several more quick tips to consider throughout the journey...