Brands and Static Electricity

For the last year or so, I’ve been playing around with various forms of static electricity, exploring ways in which to use the Artefact Cards more fluidly with vertical working.  The best thing I’ve found to use them with are Stattys, the most available in the UK is Magic Whiteboard (which is considerably worse than Stattys, but cheaper, accordingly).

This isn’t a post about that though (this from last year is).

I bought the above book, Electrostatics, to try to get a better understanding of how the science works.  I also found a very useful page here on the Triboelectric series, the different sorts of materials that cause static electricity when brought together.

My brain being the analogy-generating machine that it is, I started thinking about all of this in terms of how we work with Brands.  Because much as people who work on brands wish to believe otherwise, brands never become part of people, built into the fabric of their being.  They just stick to them for a set period of time.  And then they’ll slip off, as the charge dissipates.

So reallty, the job is about making sure the conditions are right to keep generating that static bond between people and the things you’re working on.

Make sure you’re rubbing the right materials up against each other; if it ain’t sticking, you may have material problems.

Make sure you’re generating static often enough; brands may look stuck on, but the slighest nudge when then charge is weak will make them slip right off.

And, of course, work out what your balloon and jumper is; what’s the most fun way you can get people generating the static themselves…

(thanks to Phil for kicking this around on twitter when he was meant to be writing a tender)

• Category: design, marketing, rivetings