3/9/2019 3M's PopNotes: How to squander a brand in one easy step

3,260 views | Aug 29, 2011, 02:54pm

3M's PopNotes: How to squander a

brand in one easy step
Bill Barol Contributor
Combine pop culture and technology. Stir. Delicious!

Post-it PopNotes is a classroom-ready case

study of a company (3M in this case) utterly
failing to grasp the allure of its iconic product.
The product, of course, is the Post-it note, which
users numbering in the zeroes have been
clamoring to see translated into an iPhone app.
Here are just three of the ways Post-it notes are
perfect, and the corresponding ways in which Image via Wikipedia

the app version takes that perfection and does

its best to stomp on it.

1) They're simple to use. Formally and functionally, a Post-it is simplicity itself --

a square of paper with an adhesive backing. That's it. Write on it and stick it to a
surface; boom, you're done. PopNotes require user registration and login, followed b
a three-tab, eight-step sequence of options including visibility, expiration and
location. (Don't try turning off geolocation, by the way, or PopNotes will rap you
across the knuckles with this über-friendly error message: "Failed to place note. If
latitude and longitude are zero, shareType must be Phone!" I have to admit I like the
exclamation mark. It sort of says: "Come on here, pal.")

2) They foster focus. The limited real estate of the Post-it note forces a user to
keep its content narrow. One reminder, one phone number, one quick to-do -- that's
about all a single Post-it can handle. You want to write a novel? Get something
besides a Post-it. Or, alternately, get a whole lot of Post-its. One Post-it, one data bit
That's what you get. It's a system that's self-enforcing with regard to brevity and
clarity.

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3/9/2019 3M's PopNotes: How to squander a brand in one easy step

3) They go where you stick 'em, and they stay there. About that geolocation
feature: A Post-it is location-specific. On your dashboard, on your refrigerator, in a
book... Wherever it is, that's where it is, to paraphrase Buckaroo Banzai. The
developers would tell you that PopNotes are location-aware, but what they really are
is location-promiscuous. If you allow them to, they'll pop up unbidden when you
drive past the supermarket or hardware store, nagging you to stop whether you want
to at that moment or not. A Post-it sits and waits for your attention; a PopNote jump
up and gets in your face.

I yield to nobody in my love for new apps, and the sillier the better. (Right now I'm
fascinated with PopBooth, which mimics the output of those clunky old analog photo
booths, requires the use of US Mail to fully exploit, and makes you wait days for the
results. Talk about swimming against the tide.) But PopNotes is more than silly: It's
baffling. In its blind rush to appify its signature product, 3M has negated everything
that makes it great. Some ideas should stay the way they started: Short, sweet and
sticky.

(Via Adweek.)

Bill Barol

I'm a freelance writer in Santa Monica, CA, and the author of the novel Thanks For Killing Me. I
spent some years at Newsweek and some more writing for TV. My journali... Read More

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