K2 Bike T:Nine Alliance

Black is the new gold - T:Nine carbon fiber technology adds comfort & saves weight

Carbon fiber composite construction has been described as the “black gold” of the bicycle industry.  In addition to the promise of weight savings, its woven nature makes it possible to simultaneously deliver stiffness where needed and compliance where comfort is desired.  Also, carbon fiber disperses high-frequency, low-amplitude vibrations (that's road buzz to you and me) better than most metal materials.

Given the potential advantages in weight and ride quality, why don’t more women’s bikes use carbon seat stays?  Because smaller frame designs often don’t leave enough room for traditional carbon monostay designs to be properly attached to the seat tube.

Here at K2, we realized this when we were developing the Spire Road bicycle for our 2005 T:Nine collection.  We could have used our existing carbon seat stay technology for the T:Nine Medium size, but there was no way at the time to share this benefit with the riders who fit our Small and Extra Small sized bicycles.  The Spire Road's tapered, aluminum seat stays provide excellent ride quality and offer consistent, appropriate performance to women riders in all three T:Nine size ranges.

We immediately began new development to offer the increased comfort and performance of carbon seat stays for our 2006 T:Nine collection.  Our design engineer developed a hybrid seat stay construction that blends a sculpted, aluminum brake bridge with slender, dual carbon seat stays.  The resulting system's performance was so remarkable that we created three new T:Nine bicycles around it: the Twister and Tempest road bikes and the Jetstream triathlon model.

This new T:Nine carbon technology was eventually applied to our men's Red Zone triathlon bike, whose elongated, aero-shaped seat tube also made it difficult to use our other carbon stay designs.  So, after years of "pinking and shrinking" existing men’s cycling technology to better suit women’s bikes, the opposite has finally begun to happen!

Nokia's Postcard Marketing

Hello again, T:Nine Alliance!

Remember the Nokia phones I described a few days ago?  Well, while in Taiwan this week, I have discovered another great concept that Nokia has built into their launch of the L'Amour collection.

Have you ever been dining in a restaurant and seen a display of advertising postcards that can be taken home free of charge?  Nokia has been using this type of advertising in Taiwan since at least 1998.  By examining their postcard designs over time, you can trace the evolution not only of their marketing efforts, but also of the phones themselves.

The common threads among all of the postcard designs are: strong visuals, minimal words and never mentioning explicitly that the cards and phones are targeted towards a female audience.

Back in 1998, Nokia was solidly in the "pink it and shrink it" category of women's-specific product design and marketing.  Even back then they understood that some women are intimidated by the array of buttons and symbols on typical phone designs, and radically simplified the face of this model.  While my Mandarin skills are basic, it does not appear that the symbol for woman appears in the characters in this ad, but the imagery chosen is rather blatant, don't you think?

In 2000, Nokia had decided to do away with images of the phones entirely.  It's also interesting that they chose a short phrase in English, and cut the word count by more than half, excluding their name and corporate motto.

Fast forward to 2004, where Nokia had further refined their ideas about a simple, yet stylish phone.  Note the emphasis on design, the even further reduced word count, and the loss of the corporate motto.  The phone design also evolved, with a more slender shape and a "Levi's"-style tab branding the phone.

Here is postcard and phone design from late 2005.  Note the similarity to their original ad campaign from 1998 - is this heritage marketing?  However, Nokia has clearly learned from their experience, as the other items in the ad are far more subtle than the lipstick and perfume bottle from over five years earlier.  Also, note the leather trim on the back of the phone, and that due to the twist-open design that the phone can be used either in a simple configuration, or opened for easier access to detailed functions.

When Nokia launched the L'Amour collection as the latest addition to their Fashion (note, not specifically called out as women's-specific products) line of phones this year, they started with this card.  How about this for subtle?  You actually have to flip the card over to learn that what type of products it is promoting, and which company brought you this compelling image and design.  At an Italian restaurant in the very upscale mall at the base of the world's tallest building in Taipei, only two card designs were empty on the display.  This was one of them.

And this was the other free postcard that was "sold out" at the Taipei 101 building.  To me, this one represents the culmination of all that Nokia learned about designing their marketing story into their phone designs from the start, and then using fascinating, complimentary imagery to make you notice the ad and immediately want to learn more about the products.  If you look very carefully at the phones themselves, you'll notice design ideas that were used in previous models, yet further polished to refine the products to a new level.

In the future, I hope to make postcard advertising an integral part of spreading the word about K2 Bike T:Nine products.  Once we get the formal structure behind the T:Nine Alliance program established, look forward to receiving similar postcards from us, and finding them on display in your favorite retailers and restaurants.

Feel free to take as many as you want, and share them with your friends.  As I've stated in earlier posts, everyone interested in T:Nine bicycles, and women's cycling in general, is welcome to join our Alliance.

Warmest Regards,

T.K. Malone

3/13/06

Taichung, Taiwan

Nokia L'Amour Mobile Phone Collection

Hello, T:Nine Alliance!

My wife, Anya, is always on the lookout for new women's specific products that break the mold of traditional "pink it and shrink it" design, and more closely approach our core T:Nine design values.

On a recent trip home to Russia to visit her family, she discovered an interesting new series of mobile phones by Nokia.  Their L'Amour collection of phones is beautifully detailed, with subtle color accents, non-traditional textures and size/shape combinations unique to this series.

Some of the graphic elements on the phones are related in theme to those developed by our Alliance Team for our 2006 T:Nine bicycles.  The color scheme, with the exception of their added orange accent color, is strikingly similar to one we selected for the 2006 T:Nine Twister road bike.

In addition to offering these distinctly different phones (including an entry-level model not available in the USA) their matching web site design is equally flowing, organic and interesting in its own right.  Explore it on your own, and let us know what you think.

http://www.nokiausa.com/phones/fashion/lamour/1,8514,,00.html

Best Regards,

T.K. Malone

3-6-06

still in Taipei, Taiwan, ROC