Pillow Ideas

Here are some pillow ideas sent to us by Anime Guild of the Philippines president, Jitri Tan. It sure would be nice if we could make those cloud pillows.

Milk Dog

Anchor approached us to do a toy giveaway for their Anchor 1+ milk and we finally finished the sample today. If they like it they'll order a lot from us, if they don't then we'll order a lot for ourselves (because look at how pretty! haha).

Cell Phone Txt

i just want to ask if you also manufacture teddy bears? i Like the "beanies" inside the stuff toy so i enjoy hugging it =)

Packaging Update

We're experiencing some great packaging momentum this week. It looks like we're gonna be able to give out some sweet looking gift bags on top of our recently acquired unembarassing plastic (see previous post). The pics on top show you the semi-final version of the bag.

It's exciting. We feel like this will contribute to a better buying experience and may even have a good shot of helping education a little bit.

Thanks to Jemai Ty and his sister Pauline for being so consistently spot-on in the design work they've been doing for us.

Plastic Upgrade

Most people outside the company will not appreciate this news, but we finally have good plastic for our toys!

For the longest time, having ugly wrap was a strong source of shame and frustration for us. People would say to us "Why ruin such quality toys like that?" and they would say it in different languages. The international community was united in their displeasure for our plastic. Some of our own competitors even donated their wraps to us out of a deep humane sense of mercy.

In the grand scheme of things it's a minor detail, but emotionally for us it's major. Strange world this retail business.

Customer Email

i happened to buy a chick stuff toy as a
baptismal present for a co-worker's daught. in sm north edsa. it seems that
you don't sell jelly-made items anymore w/c i often & like to buy in your
outlets.what happened?? also, i tried to browse your new site & it's
interesting,fun & attractive. in lieu of the above, i would like to make the
ff. suggestions:

1) to open more branches 2) to sell more cute stuff
3) to have a survey-questionnaire re: feedbacks/comments/suggestions about
the products & servs. being offered by yours & will be tallied annually
4) to give disc./privilege cards for freq. shoopers
5) to give complimentaries for those who purchase dur. holidays & special
occasions like birthdays,anniversaries,Easter

,etc...
6) to have an org./assoc./club wherein there would be lots of
acts./events/progs. about var. subj. matters/topics held
regularly/occasionally in diff't. venues,scheds.,etc...

hoping that the above stated will be carefully reviewed & be considered in
the future!!

God bless.

Movie: Little Miss Sunshine

Oscar awards are going to be handed out tomorrow and the movie we're rooting for is Little Miss Sunshine.

It's a feel-good movie that's based on family dysfunction, bickering, failed suicide attempts and beauty pageants. Here, the bright sides of life come in the most unexpected places as well as in every single scoop of ice cream.

Ad Inspiration 6: Gloss Hair Salon

The transparent umbrella says "Hair you want to show off." Umbrellas like this were given away for free by Gloss Hair Salon.

Okay, first of all, you've gotta love the non-linear creative thinking behind this. How do you come up with connecting hair cuts with umbrellas?! Second, it's an ad campaign that simultaneously rewards customers and uses them as walking broadcasters of the brand (the salon is based in perpetually rainy Vancouver).

This was actually conceptualized for free by an Ad agency called ReThink that wanted to make a name for itself (talk about a good deal!). Thanks again to Ad Goodness for being a source.

Ad Inspiration 5: San Miguel

The screensaver campaign always intrigues us as a great alternative to budget breaking video ads. These days, everyone wants to do a video and post it on YouTube but we think that a fun screensaver that helps us cope with computer stress can still create buzz with mileage.

Apparently, in Hong Kong and China, a character for San Miguel beer called Sammy has been created by the marketing department as a strategy to sell more beer. OgilvyOne then created a screensaver starring Sammy.

It's amusing to see how radically different San Miguel looks outside the Philippines. Actually, it kinda looks like what San Miguel would look like if It's Cool was marketing beer.

Ad Inspiration 4: Accessorize

And now for a real advertising gem by Saatchi & Saatchi. It's one of those "why didn't I think of that?!" kind of ideas. It'll make anyone smile (especially the people behind the business because of how low the cost of doing this must be).

Once again brought to us by Adverblog.

Ad Inspiration 3: Lego

If you are going to do giant outdoor advertising, don't just go big for the sake of going big. Context is key so your message doesn't end up looking obnoxious and desperate.

Here's a perfect example by Ogilvy & Mather. They used giant Lego posters on buildings to transform the look of the whole area surrounding them.

It's toy advertising that an entire city can have fun with. Thanks to Adverblog for spreading the word.

Ad Inspiration 2: Jobsintown.de

"Life's too short for the wrong job!". Simply brilliant visual summary of an arresting message. This shows that witty placement of an image beats a screaming oversize billboard any day. And so much cheaper too.

Scholz & Friends did the campaign. Ad Goodness gets the credit for letting us know about it.

Ad Inspiration 1: Virgin Atlantic

We absolutely love this branding campaign by Crispin Porter + Bogusky for the airline company, Virgin Atlantic. The best part of this campaign is that they took the plane ticket, this dull piece of hard paper that everyone takes for granted, and actually used it to enhance the sexy flight experience that Virgin Atlantic wanted to promote. They took it one step further by branding each flight based on the take-off time. For example, the last flight is for rock stars and one of the earlier flights is for the business executive on a secret mission to take over the world.

Bonus points for making effective use of copy (actual words that people want to read). Here's a sample taken from the 5:30 pm flight which they've dubbed "The Lo Pro":

Departure time on The Lo Pro is strategically set for mid-afternoon to attract the least attention. Everybody is somebody but nobody wants to know. Sweats, jeans and baseball caps are the norm and frankly, recommended. "Understated," the theme again tonight.

Wouldn't you want to hang on to a ticket like this?

This is the campaign that inspired us to make better use of our packaging, which like the plane ticket is a widely used and distributed potential branding space that's already there and that almost nobody uses.

Developing an Ad Campaign

We're presently trying to work out how to do advertising that will fit our low budget and at the same time communicate who we are in a high impact way. In preparation for this, we're going to post some recent creative campaigns that we've learned from (we'll probably do a lot of ripping off also haha). This will also serve as backup for ideas in case we lose our notes.

Pathways Comic

We looked at all the paper bag packaging that we were distributing and we realized that putting such a plain vanilla design on it is wasting space that could be used to communicate more meaningful messages with our customers. We've decided to use our packaging to promote sponsoring college education for those in need. Click on "Hope for Nerds" at the top of this page for more information.

This comic is just a rough draft that we posted so you guys can get a quick preview. We've still got some editing to do (for one, there's too much text on it), but we'd like to get some of your opinions on this direction that we're going for.

Artists Wanted

We're in constant need of artists who can offer us design concepts for future toys. Anyone who's interested can email us at itscoolclub@gmail.com or text us (no calls please; we're screening out an increasing number of crank callers haha) at +63 917-8962600.

Fantasy Celebrity Endorsers

We can't afford it and honestly we're not even sure if it's worth the money, but it is fun sometimes to think about who our ideal celebrity endorser would be. It's about coming up with one person to summarize your whole company. It's a little tricky though since you'd want to find someone who is both widely recognizable and yet not overexposed.

Here are the top three we dream about:

1. Hello Kitty - for being the undisputed queen of kawaii (Japanese obssession for cuteness) and for being larger than life while being in 2D.

2. Karen O - for being unpredictably stylish and for leading an army of zombie kids on the Yeah Yeah Yeah's Y-Control video.

3. Sofia Coppola - for her dreamy films and for having canned wine (as in wine in a can!) named after her.

We'd love to hear more suggestions of celebrities we can hire with our make-believe budget =)

On Pink Magazine's Store We Adore

We got picked as one of Pink Magazine's "Store We Adore" in their latest issue. Actually, Pink has been quite supportive of us. They've been giving us some pretty decent exposure with very little cost to us.

We met with Robert Duazo, their marketing guy, and he had a really positive philosophy on it. His perspective is "If we help you grow when you're young, then you can advertise with us when you're big." Gotta love working with people who always keep the win-win in mind.

An Exploration of Cute

Here at It's Cool we only have one design directive for our toys: keep it cute. The fun is in exploring the different shapes and forms that can create this sense of cuteness. Apparently we can even make rodents and devils cute.

When you think about it, cuteness is quite the mystery. Every other emotion we feel seems to have an evolutionary purpose. We feel fear to avoid danger. We feel anger to protect what's important to us. Even love - long proclaimed to be the most magically mystical of emotions - serves to perpetuate the species in an organized way (since it groups us into families). But why in the world do we need to feel cuteness? Why this strange bubbly urge to hug it out?

We are all born cute. Babies are instantly loved and protected because of how cute they are. This peculiar warmth that unexpectedly breathes inside us may just be a hint of the kind of truly unique stuff that makes us human.

Devils Are Hot

We ran out of devils this week! Who would've thought that there would be so many devious gift givers this past Valentine's? Don't worry though, more are on the way.

We also got some really positive feedback on what we did with the small size devils: glow-in-the-dark eyes and mouth. We're happy that the idea was well-received. In the future, we'll turn all of them into cutie true creatures of the night.

Music: The Bird and the Bee

If we were a music act, The Bird and the Bee is the duo we would dream of sounding like. In their MySpace page they describe themselves as "A futuristic 1960's American film set in Brazil." They're a refreshingly unique blend of cheerful and are melodic in a cute carbonated way. And Inara George is one special kind of beautiful.

We also like the fact that they innovate the heck out of their limited resources. It's just like what a young upstart company that's trying to make it in this city should do.

We want this album to be the soundtrack of our business. Our goal is to offer you products that will give you the same feeling as when you're listening to The Bird and the Bee. If we do that, we know we'll be just fine =)

YouTube videos:
1. Music video for "Again and Again" (we challenge you to play this song only once)
2. Live recording for "Again and Again"
3. Performing the Bee Gee's classic "How Deep Is Your Love"

Some other music that sounds like what we want to be:
1. Beth Orton
2. Feist
3. Sugar Hiccup
4. Imago
5. The Shins
6. Air
7. Sheila and the Insects
8. Jolie Holland
9. Apostle of Hustle
10. Rinocerose

Jelly Vs. Plush

Customers who have been shopping with us since we opened our first store in October of 2005 will notice that we have been shifting our product focus lately from liquid-filled jelly novelty items to plush pillow toys.

We believe we owe our loyal customers an explanation for this and so here now are the reasons behind our move:

1. Pricing - while we loved Jelly for how unique it was, we were worried about increasing costs for the product which the factories pressuring hard for. worrying about money meant less room for innovation and value creation for our customers. we didn't want to compromise.

2. Small Niche - we have a group of loyal customers who share our love for Jelly but because of the price, we believe that a lot of people who wanted the product could not access it. we could not keep product variety as fresh as we wanted and we foresaw that we would have difficulty raising our hard working employees' wages in the future at the pace we were running on. in the end, we decided that a change was needed to keep product development constant, business expansion sustainable and employees properly rewarded.

3. Variety Limitations - it's then logical to ask: well, why not just sell both jelly items and plush toys? we really wanted to but here's the thing: because we're so young (and thus low on budget haha), most of our store outlets come in the form of humble little kiosks and carts. mall regulations state that we can only display one item category to sell. we had to choose.

Now we'd like to know what you guys think? Do you think we made the right move?

Cell Phone Txts

"I bought a product of 'it's cool', it's really nice and trendy. I just want to ask if you sell the raw materials which is used to stuff your products? We need it in school po kasi."

"Hello! I love its cool. Pls email me ALL the pictures of your products and where can we find your stalls (what malls). Thank u."

"I like your beanie stuff toys, i got one frm my gf. and planning to buy one 4 her. =) tmi. Tnx a lot!"

"go its cOol!..kip up thE guD wOrk!..grbE!..ung mga coLeksiOns q!..purO its cOol!.."

On GMA7's Unang Hirit

Hope everyone had a great (or at least heartbreak-free) Valentine's!

We certainly had a blast while giving ourselves a bit of self-promotion on Unang Hirit this week. Everyone on the set was extremely nice and we left the studio with a lighter load because they bought almost everything you see on the table. Thanks guys! Thanks also to all those who messaged us during and after the show!

It's amazing how much improvisation goes on in the show actually. While we were there we noticed how all these guys frequently go off the script and create their own memorable lines on the spot (and it's a live show). You rarely notice it because it's so seamless.

Lucky Pig + Lucky Cat

These are plushed up versions of some old school Chinese figurines that are meant to bring luck and fortune into the home. They should be available in stores about a week after the start of the Chinese New Year.

Comments please =)

Introduction: Post Categories

A quick rundown of what this blog will cover:

PRODUCTS: new product releases.

BEHIND-THE-SCENES: a candid glimpse of operations and a chance for you to have a say in how we're running things.

CULTURE: what's shaping, influencing and inspiring us.

FEEDBACK: your text and email shoutouts.

Introduction: Image Categories

Alright, there's only a few kinks left to work out here so we can finally start posting on this thing =) Very excited to bring in the content for you guys and hopefully you'll leave a few comments to join in on the discussion along the way.

So let's begin with a quick overview tour starting with the image categories on your right side:

TOYS: you'll find our latest products and greatest hits in this space.

DOODLES: the starting point of all our products, stores and branding work. click here to take a look at the 2D drawings that make us who we are.

DAYDREAMS: a visual listing of sights, images and art that inspire us. we put your submissions here as well =)

SPOTLIGHTS: mementos of media coverage and outside promotion.

LUV: photos of customers and friends hugging it out with our stuf.