Shortcuts on the mind

I've just been writing about the Fiat 500C playlist on Spotify which is a brilliant shortcut to some tunes that make you smile, without having to go to the trouble of making a deliberate decision about what to listen to as filter to general office background noise.

It saves me time and mental energy in the morning. Great.

That started me thinking about other shortcuts in this busy world we live in, and how brands can provide services and build affinity by providing them in the right places, in the right formats and making them accessible at the right times. I've been pondering a lot this morning on the value of context-based marketing for brands (more on that another day).

So with context and shortcuts on my mind, into my Tweetdeck popped a link from a friend of mine to Google Fast Flip.

Shortcut #1: info coming to me in 140 characters or less from people I trust

Shortcut #2: GoogleLabs taking a leaf out of the book of the sadly now defunct / due to be revamped search engine SearchMe (which I loved), by bringing out an at-a glance visual look of the news by category. Have a play. Then think about what made you choose article A over article B. Design/layout? Copywriting? Source brand? Images?

Shortcut #3: Whilst listening to said Fiat 500C playlist as I wrote this post, up popped a track by The Specials which made an instant connection in my brain to the fantastic Walkers Crisps Do us a Flavour campaign from last year. Pretty impressive given that I only ever saw their online content, TV not featuring much in my life. (Although I confess I did write a case study on it as a brilliant example of digital glue in action).

Freaky. But proof that multi-sensory cues work.