✨ Your next ad idea may be sparked by iconic packaging.
📈 Your next eCommerce growth tactic could be birthed by listening to a podcast with an oil tycoon.
You get the point.
And so I was thinking,
If inspiration comes from adjacent places, then Foreplay should be curating broadly.
Welcome to the AD&P Newsletter.
The goal is simple.
Share the most inspiring, & interesting content content across Advertising, Design & Product AD&P (see what I did there?)
With the hopes, it can be a meaningful drop in your bucket of inspiration.
Here’s what we’re getting into this week.
- Lewis Hamilton’s level 10 art direction for his fake tequila
- The OG Kickstarter that might cure my ADHD
- Insurance Fraud, Hair-Loss & Death By Cruise Ship
Okay, that’s enough Foreplay. Let’s dive into it.
Lewis Hamilton’s Level 10 Art Direction
Scrolling Twitter last week I stumbled across a post from Harley Finkelstein (President @Shopify) announcing the GOAT himself Lewis Hamilton was launching his non-alcoholic tequila Almave.
Product and concept aside (I think the non-alcoholic trend is here to stay) what really captured my attention was the outstanding branding & art direction for their product photography.
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What stands out:
- Incredible storytelling through imagery
- Aligning their product color pallets with the aligned recipes.
Take a look at their Website & Instagram to get your visual juices flowing.
The Cure for My ADHD?
This past week I spent a few days in Arizona at Sam Parr’s Hampton retreat. I met a super groovy entrepreneur Adam Leeb who is far and away taking the title for product of the week.
I have tried and failed repeatedly to keep a journaling practice and have been aggressively seeking a new product to build the habit around.
After Remarkable tablet failed me, I found my new piece of outstanding though unnecessary hardware.
Freewrite - The slickest hardware designs I have seen this year, with a rad, inspiring licensing play with their Ernest Hemingway Freewrite Signature Edition.
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FreeWrite has 5 products now and Adam originally launched the Freewrite on Kickstarter.
In a world where Kickstarter projects often leave founders in the grave, I asked Adam to share his top five do’s and don’ts when leveraging Kickstarter for your brand.
Here’s what he had to say;
✅ Build an email list from scratch
✅ Use pre-launch advertising results to determine creative and ad copy that resonates. Refine and iterate. Use learnings to refine the landing page and incorporate them into the campaign page.
✅ Dig deep into landed costs if launching a physical product. Shipping, duties, taxes, and fulfillment fees, can all add up quickly. Also, work out Bill of Materials (BOM) by close collaboration with the contract manufacturer.
✅ Have as much development done as the budget can afford prior to launching.
✅ Know how much you can spend on marketing before starting
❌ Rely on your house email list to launch the product - if you build it, they will not come!
❌ Underprice product - 2x landed cost is the absolute bare minimum. 3x or more should be targeted.
❌ Over-invest in a campaign video, it's far less important than it used to be.
❌ Get suckered into spending money on bad channels such as crowdfunding-focused newsletters - these are terrible converters
❌ Rely on hopes and prayers - the best campaigns are carefully designed and planned for many months. It's never too early to get started!
Insurance Fraud, Hair-Loss & Death By Cruise Ship
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Finally, I am joining the ever-growing group of internet bros with a podcast. In all seriousness, the first episode of my podcast Done This Week is live with my friend Stephen Hakami a fellow bootstrapped software founder.
We dive into the behind-the-scenes of bootstrapping software, insurance credit scores, and some ad-hoc business banter about what happens when you die in international waters.
Thanks for reading this week’s issue of AD&P.
If you thought of someone when reading this, you would be the coolest if you forwarded it to them.
As they say, sharing is caring.
Until next time, stay hungry & get creative.
P.S. We also launched our mobile app this week into public beta. If you love saving ads as much as me it’s a must-have and would love to hear your feedback.
Founder of Foreplay.co
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