We love this new camera from Ikea....very cool:
http://mashable.com/2012/04/26/ikea-cardboard-digital-camera/
We’re 2012 HealthCare Advertising Awards Winners
HealthCare Advertising Awards celebrated its Twenty-Ninth year with over 4,000 entries. We won six awards and are especially proud of the recognition we received for our digital work:
GOLD New Media
WakeMed 50th Anniversary Airport
GOLD Radio Adv/Single
WakeMed App Say Hello
SILVER Newspaper Adv/Single SILVER Magazine Adv/Single
GHS 3D Mamo intro
- MERIT Special Event GHS “Keeping the Arts Healthy”
- MERIT Special Event WakeMed “We’re Pumped”
- MERIT Total Adv Campaign with TV App intro “EDs and MDs”
Creativity At Its Best
The web has changed the advertising landscape forever. Today we can do things that the admen and women of the past couldn’t have possibly imagined. How would their ideas change if they had the technology we have today?
This is the idea behind Project Re: Brief by Google. The project seeks to showcase Google’s advertising capabilities through the reinvention of four classic ads for the web. Google partnered with the creative minds behind Coca-Cola’s “Hilltop,” Volvo’s “Drive it like you hate it,” Alka-Seltzer’s “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing” and Avis’s “We try harder” to come up with ideas on how the web could enhance their original concepts.
Google brought Amil Gargano, Paula Green, Harvey Gabor, Howie Cohen and Bob Pasqualina to Google’s New York offices to work with the latest technology to bring their most famous ideas to life online. The project’s website has videos of the process behind the execution of the new concepts. It is amazing to see people, who were only used to working with traditional media, take on the challenge of using online advertising, a concept they admit they are not very familiar with.
Coca Cola’s “Hilltop” commercial became a display ad that keeps the original song without any changes, but allows consumers to give someone across the globe a coke and send a video message along with it. The receiver gets the coke from a special vending machine, which displays and records video allowing the receiver to send a thank you message to the sender. They literally made it possible to give the world a coke. This is an awesome way for Google to showcase its functionality in a fun and innovative way.
For Volvo, Google found a guy named Irv, who has driven his Volvo 2.9 million miles. Through a timeline and a series of videos, Google takes viewers through his journey. Google does a great job at explaining how its technology works in this ad. It lets users see Irv’s real-time location, interact with Irv through Google+ and get directions to landmarks from the various stories. What’s more, Google uses the context of the webpage to determine what story to show to each user. On mobile devices, this is determined by the content of the app being used. The “re-imagined” ads for Alka-Seltzer and Avis are still on the works, but I for one can’t wait to see them.
It is amazing to see what technology has made possible, but one thing that is clear by looking at the new versions of the ads is that while media have changed tremendously, the principles of branding and powerful storytelling remain the same. Brands need to tell stories that connect emotionally with people. Empowering people to give a coke to a stranger across the world, going through a 2.9 million mile journey with Irv and sharing his passion for driving do this to perfection and are what make these ads so great and what made the originals stand the test of time. Technology can only go so far as to engage consumers; it is how you use technology to enhance your story that makes the difference between an ok ad and a great ad.
For more on Project Re: Brief, watch the documentary directed by Doug Pray, which will come out later this spring. Until then, look at Coca-Cola’s and Volvo’s “re-imagined” work at projectrebrief.com.
If this doesn’t inspire you to work in advertising, I don’t know what will.
Glyph Interface Fuses Creative Muscle With Digital Depth And Innovation
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Charles Upchurch
919-395-1588
In the Age of the Interface, a New Marketing
Collaborative has Evolved in Chapel Hill
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (March 1, 2012) – In the 19th century it was the novel. In the 20th century, the cinema. In the current age of the digital interface a new cultural shift is underway, radically changing the ways we communicate, connect and conduct business.
Glyph Interface, a full-service marketing collaborative launching today in Chapel Hill, was created to help brands thrive in a fluid marketplace of personalized content, social networks and real-time information.
Award-winning creative director Craig Jackson and his marketing firm have teamed with interactive boutique Pathos/Ethos, led by principles Sam Park and Isaac Park, to form a hybrid company with a one-two punch of elite creative talent and in-house digital innovation.
Jackson formed Craig Jackson & Partners in 1994 following tenures at DDB/NY, Northlich and Price-McNabb. Campaign work for clients such as WakeMed and the Carolina Hurricanes placed CJ&P among the ranks of North Carolina’s top independent marketing firms. Pathos/Ethos was founded in Durham in 2009 and quickly earned a reputation for smart, effective digital marketing solutions.
With prodigious depth in web-based applications, Glyph Interface helps forward-looking brands leverage opportunities within the evolving and often disruptive media spectrum. Customized digital tools enable interactive content to engage individual targets in two-way conversations. What was once a one-way flow of information has become a push-pull dynamic where consumers have a voice and brands can respond.
“Traditional media is still important, but brand strategies must include formats that converse with the individual,” said Jackson, Glyph Interface CEO and chief creative officer. “The message must be meaningful and memorable, but also integrate effectively across an array of platforms.”
In a nod to Marshall McLuhan, the Glyph Interface moniker is a reference to both message and medium.
“Glyph refers to meaning and context,” said Sam Park, Director, Digital Experience. “Interface refers not only to technology but also to human connection. All the tools we use to facilitate interactivity are nothing more than technology unless we are making authentic connections and building relationships.”
In addition to comprehensive marketing and digital development services, Glyph Interface also offers full-service strategic media planning and buying, including interactive, mobile and social media.
About Glyph Interface
Headquartered in Chapel Hill, N.C., Glyph Interface is a full-service marketing collaborative specializing in fully integrated advertising, branding and multi-platform digital development.
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NCAA’s Big Dance Available On Small Screens
Great story from NPR’s Morning Edition about the massive focus on mobile for this year’s NCAA Basketball Tournament.
http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=148435490&m=148435682
Posted in Communication, Marketing, Mobile Technology
Tagged Advertising, Android, communication trends, iPad, iPhone, Marketing, NCAA Tournament, social media
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Interesting Insight Into iPad Users
Mom Will Be The First In Line For The Newest iPad
The Emergence of the Mobile Wallet
Your phone has replaced your alarm clock, radio, camera, landline and GPS, even your computer is being pushed away, but can it replace your wallet?
The mobile wallet has been around since early 2011, but consumer adoption has been slow. The main reason is that not all establishments take mobile payments, and if we are looking to replace the wallet, shouldn’t your mobile phone contain everything that you have on your wallet? Consumers will be more likely to adopt a mobile wallet if it can hold multiple credit and debit cards, loyalty cards, insurance information and your ID. The whole point of the mobile wallet is making payments more efficient and giving you the ability to replace everything your wallet holds.
However, having a mobile wallet that can combine all these aspects seems somewhat far reach. With the biggest challenge being integrating your government ID to it. Government has struggled with creating one universal ID. Having them create one that can store your information in your smartphone is not realistic, at least not in the near future.
Despite these shortcomings, Time Magazine sees 2012 as the breakthrough year for mobile and the reasons are plentiful. According to Deirdre van Dyk’s article, “The End of Cash,” the mobile wallet is predicted to be worth $12.5 billion this year and more players are entering the mix. Google Wallet has been around since May 2011, PayPal announced 20 partnerships to allow for self-checkout using your phone number and pin. Isis – a Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile wallet with Visa, American Express, Discover and MasterCard partnerships – will launch midyear in Salt Lake City and Austin, and Visa has its own virtual wallet called V.me. Along with them are countless apps like Moneto and Square Card Case.
Mobile also gives retailers the opportunity to improve loyalty programs and give out coupons in real time. Using geo-location, retailers can send coupons to their customers as they are walking by their establishment, allow them to save them to their phones and redeem them automatically when they make a mobile payment where the coupon applies.
Another convenience provided to consumers is the ability to pay by just tapping their phone or preordering and paying using their phones (see Chipotle’s and Starbuck’s app). This reduces the time they’ll wait in line, and at busy lunch hours this could prove very efficient for restaurants too, allowing them to serve more customers at a faster pace.
While consumers are still somewhat concerned in terms of privacy of their financial information, an article in Forbes reported that NFC-based mobile wallet users are expected to grow to 594 million by 2016. And this Christmas season saw a sharp increase in mobile shopping. IBM reported that sales from mobile devices doubled reaching 11 percent versus 5.5 percent in December 2010.
How do you feel about mobile payments? Will you be tossing your wallet soon?
For more on the topic of mobile, check out my last two blog posts: Mobile Shopping: Opportunity or Threat? and Why Mobile Marketing is a Must.
Posted in Communication, Marketing, Mobile Technology
Tagged Advertising, advertising agency, Android, Apps, communication trends, Facebook, iPhone, Marketing, smartphone, social media
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To Pin or Not to Pin?
It’s only February and already we’re witnessing a new social phenomenon begin to take shape. The verb “Pinning” is starting to stand alongside “tweeting” and “liking” in social media discourse. What is “pinning” you may ask? To get an answer, you may want to ask the females between 25 and 54 in your office or family, as they appear to be driving the 429 percent increase in unique visitors between September and December 2011!
Pinterest is a website where users build virtual “boards” upon which they “pin” any variety of things they find while surfing the web. For example, you might have a “Recipes” board and a “Things for the Home” board and a “Travel” board and whenever something fitting one of those themes catches your eye, you just “pin” it to the board. You can also upload photos and graphics from your computer. The really cool thing is the sharing aspect of this site – you can search other people’s boards and “repin” things you like. “Pinning” isn’t limited to material items – you can pin quotes and colors and pretty much anything you want. As Brad McCarty writing in The Next Web puts it, “You could easily define Pinterest as a way for people to “window shop” for anything that interests them, whether that’s a physical object or something as intangible as quotes. They can then show off their “purchases” (pins) to their friends, and even re-pin and create discussions around what they’ve found. It’s a social shopping experience, disguised as a website full of interests.”
This very visual way to communicate and interact is clearly catching on. Since July 2011, referral traffic from Pinterest has grown from 0.17 percent to 3.6 percent in January 2012 with growth from 2.5 percent to 3.6 percent from December to January alone! In January, Pinterest drove more referral traffic to sites than Google+, Reddit, YouTube, LinkedIn, and MySpace combined (Digital Trends).
As a result of the strong referral traffic they’re seeing from Pinterest, brands are heading to Pinterest to launch and advertise products. Etsy and Whole Foods are two great examples of brands that are cultivating a powerful presence on Pinterest. One could argue that the more visual the brand and its products, the more success it will have on Pinterest. Having only 5.3 million active users, the invite only site drives more traffic to Real Simple than Facebook. (Mashable)
Perhaps the best argument for a brand to start thinking about Pinterest is this observation from John Doyle, writing for Mashable, “As an example of the power of human curation, just compare the results of a Google search for gloves with the same search on Pinterest. Now ask yourself which search makes you want to buy something?”
I certainly managed to find a couple of pairs of gloves to pin (and buy).
Mobile Shopping: Opportunity or Threat?
As I was shopping for textbooks this semester, I had some options: go to a bookstore to buy or rent them or buy them online from Amazon or eBay. Looking to save as much as I could, I went to the bookstore, looked for the books I needed and used my smartphone to compare prices. I ended up renting one, buying another one and ordering two books from my phone as I was still in the store.
The smartphone is a powerful shopping tool, but it can be a liability for retailers too. A study conducted by ForeSee, a customer experience analytics firm, showed that one in five online shoppers (19 percent) use a mobile phone to compare prices or products while shopping in a retail location. This also shows the importance of delivering a good mobile experience for your consumers. Products must be easy to see, prices need to be readily available and checkout needs to be seamless. Amazon is the leader in this category, pioneering one-click shopping. Its app also facilitates comparing prices by allowing you to take a picture of a product or scan a bar code to find the product online. These features have resulted in consumers identifying Amazon as delivering the best mobile shopping experience, after Apple, according to the study reported by ForeSee.
With 55.9 million mobile shoppers in 2011, retailers need to meet consumer’s expectations, especially when the number is forecasted to grow to 117.7 million by 2015, according to eMarketer. Even though consumers are still more likely to purchase from a computer when they are shopping online, they are becoming more comfortable with mobile shopping. Sales over mobile devices during December doubled from the same month in 2010, according to a survey by IBM. About 11 percent of total online sales in that month were on smartphones and tablet computers, up from 5.5 percent a year earlier. IBM’s study also showed that consumers are willing to share personal information in exchange for a more personalized online shopping experience. Out of 28,500 consumers, 75 percent were willing to talk about their media consumption, 73 percent about their age, race, gender and income and 61 percent about details of their lifestyle, such as hobbies.
Mobile shopping is now a reality, and retailers need to embrace this opportunity before their competitors do. Retailer John Lewis is a good example of integrating mobile in an innovative way. The Guardian reported that during its clearance sale, John Lewis displayed bar codes next to the items on display on its windows allowing passersby to scan the code and be directed to its website to purchase the item without having to enter the store. Ideas like this one can help stores generate revenues without incurring high costs for implementation.
What other innovative use of mobile technology have you seen lately?
Context Will Be King
Back in 2010 when bloggers ruled the universe, we heard the catchphrase, “Content is King” all the time; so much so, that it really started to get annoying. Fortunately, we believe that in 2012 the story is changing; we believe that relational context will be as valuable, if not more valuable, than even the content which one consumes. In other words, a trusted friend or a targeted community is going to (and might always) have more influence over a consumer’s behavior than any direct message from a vendor. For example, a Jane Doe might shop online at Gilt over MyHabit because all of Jane’s best friends shop there too, even if Gilt is more expensive than other stores.
Practically, this means that we’re going to start seeing technology really play a larger role in helping users develop different kinds of contextual relationships by creating smaller and smaller networks of like-minded people. In fact, we’ve already started to see this trend take place.
Posted in Communication, Mobile Technology, Social Media
Tagged advertising agency, communication trends, Facebook, Marketing, social media
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