Are you ready for the Winter Olympic games? You may have noticed that Coca-Cola® has been gearing up.
You might have seen the Coca-Cola®
snowball commercial or the collectible cans…but have you checked out the
website? You can get into your own snowball fight or go snowboarding. Pretty
cool.
Over the last two years
Insight Marketing Design has created a series of campaigns for Sioux Falls’ own
Howe Heating and Plumbing. One of the most recent projects was
an e-newsletter that has received national attention.
Insight’s use of piping as
graphic images and fun retro conventions earned us a spot in the Campaign
Monitor’s email design gallery. This gallery showcases some of the great
designs that Campaign Monitor’s customers come up with.
See Howe’s and other
awesome campaigns at: http://www.campaignmonitor.com/gallery/entry/2904/howe/
Or sign up to receive
Howe’s e-blast at: http://www.howeinc.com/newsletter/subscribe.php
It’s SWELL!
Insight Marketing Design is excited to sponsor the October 15th program for South Dakota Advertising Federation with guest speaker Jeff Hayzlett, CMO for Eastman Kodak.
Jeff's keynote is "Redefining the Kodak Brand through Digital and Social Media." Here's Jeff to tell you more.
Looking back on August and September, we've launched some outstanding websites. Here's a peek:
Henry Carlson Company
Henry Carlson Company (HCC) asked Insight to create a website that would instantly communicate to visitors that HCC is the premier general contractor in this region. Insight developed a design direction that was unique and cried out CONSTRUCTION. The site features silhouettes of workers engaged in many aspects of building construction. Flip around the site to see different actions. (Also note that the figures are all wearing proper safety equipment.)
Chicagoland Community Church
The Chicagoland Community Church wanted a fresh, new look that would appeal to 20- and 30-something urban church-goers. Insight created a number of pieces for the church, including this awesome website. The site incorporates the church blog and features a rotating flash navigation at the top.
Ask the CEO
Security First Bank wanted to start an online conversation with customers through an "Ask the CEO" column. Insight suggested the use of a custom formatted blog to not only allow for question submission but also to create a gallery of the answers. Posts are arranged in categories for organization and search-ability. It is our hope that in the future this blog could serve as a search-able FAQ section for the site.
What do you think? We'd love to hear your feedback!
I've been spending a lot of time lately on Facebook. At work. Yes, I'm admitting it! Don't worry though, it was all work-related. OK, maybe not ALL. Anyway...IMD has started a Facebook campaign for one of our clients - KODAK. If you're not one of the half-million plus that saw them pop up in the ad column next to your profile, here they are!
Of course, there are all kinds of stats to show that users are clicking through, that they're getting viewed, etc, but I can tell you from my own experience that Facebook ads DO work! Why? Because they're targeted to each viewer's interests and activities, as reported by you - the viewer- in your profile.
I have clicked through on numerous ads, and have become aware of products that I didn't even know existed! (Pazzles, a custom cutting machine being the most recent. How AWESOME is this for a graphic designer!!! If only I had $600. Merry Christmas to me?)
From time to time I come across interesting websites and apps in my searches for new trends and ideas.
Lately I've discovered a number of items related to music, so I thought I'd share them with you.
First, my old standards. I've used Pandora and Blip.fm for quite awhile now and really like both.
Pandora works like so: you enter the name of a song or band, and based on the information about that item, Pandora suggests other songs that sound similar. You give songs thumbs up or down, perfecting your "station." You can also add additional tracks or artists to your station to broaden your station's range.
Blip.fm is what I use when I have a particular song in mind. If I need to hear Piano Man I can go and "blip" that song, meaning that I get to listen to that particular track right now. My blips are collected in my "station" and others can choose to follow my station and if they so choose give me props (I'm not really sure what I do with them, but really, who doesn't want props?).
Recently I discovered Last.fm, and was impressed. Last allowed me to sync my entire iTunes library and play count numbers to the service. It then created a station with my entire music library, meaning I can now remotely listen to my tracks. It also provides feedback and statistics on my listening history and suggests new music I may enjoy. Other features include iPhone apps for listening on the go and notifications of when bands you enjoy are performing in your area. I've only begun to uncover what this site can do, but I'm sold. Check out my music profile.
TidySongs is an amazing little app. It costs $30 but is totally worth it. The app goes through your iTunes library and updates all of your tracks with the proper titles, artists, albums, artwork, track number, date, etc. You can use its automated system or go through your tracks one by one. The best part is that for each track the service checks it gives you a percentage telling you how confident the service is in its answer. For example, common tracks typically have a score of 90% or above. But that bootlegged copy of Swedish techno may only score a 5% because the app struggles to find info about it on the web. I think it's great and I'll definitely be investing in the app.
Go try these out for yourselves! Tell us what you thought of each in the comments!
Ideas for new email functions:
Pressure sensitive keyboard - instead of hitting the shift key to capitalize, just press hard...if you press exceptionally hard the font size will actually go up. It should make it easier to know if someone is really angry when reading that email about:
RE: THE COVER SHEET ON YOUR TPS REPORTS!
Automatic emoticons - utilizing your computer's webcam, your facial expression is automatically analyzed and inserted as an emoticon at the end of each sentence. LOL ;-)
Pay-per-email - perhaps this would limit the number of people who receive concepts for approval, thus vastly increasing the chance that the campaign will ever happen.
Just some random thoughts that a high-school buddy and I contemplated while enjoying a sit in the hot tub last night.
On our way home last night my wife and I stopped by HyVee to stock up on some essentials ($.88 hot dogs). While there we decided to grab a movie from the Redbox. For those of you who have done this before, see if this sounds familiar:
There's a line. Some people waiting to return movies, others waiting to grab something new. I wait my turn. When I finally get to the Box I go through the exact same process that the person who was in front of me just went through. Yes, I'd like to view the list. I flip through the screens looking for: titles I've heard about, movies I've been waiting to come out, anything with Nicolas Cage, etc. This takes about 3 minutes. Once I hit the end of the list, I go back and make my selection. Swipe my card and I'm out of there. Next up.
It sounds really slick, but while I was waiting, I wondered how it could be better.
After pondering that for a while, I was still in line so I started to think of other movie-related problems, and I had an idea that I think would answer a number of my concerns.
I'll lay it out for you. One of the problems that I have with movies is that there are just too many of them coming out all the time. I can't remember if I thought a movie looked good or not, and there are plenty of movies that I really wanted to see, but totally forgot about.
Dear Redbox, here is what I'd like: When previews for a new movie are running, I want to be able to: A.tweet, B.email, or C.go to your website and request that when the movie comes to Redbox I get notified.
But please don't stop there. Put up a listing of all of the movies you have circulating through the Boxes, let me go through them and create a "to rent" list.
Here's where it gets really slick. The next time I come up to the Box, make the first step be to scan my credit card. When I do, pull up a list of the movies that I have on my "to rent" list that are currently available in the Box. No more scanning through 10 pages. I've cut my browsing time down to under a minute.
Also, when I return movies let me review them. Display these reviews under each movie in the list and on your site. Then based on the movies I have rented and my reviews, suggest a few titles I may enjoy.
If this system were in place, I think the lines would shorten up and I know I'd rent more movies. What do you think?
Many people in advertising are looking for jobs.
No -- and sorry -- we don't have any openings right now. But if we did, we'd be looking first at resumes like these, at Web Designer Depot, via Quipsologies.
The folks who created these resumes clearly thought about the design as though it were a client project. What is the purpose of a resume? Who's the target audience? What does it need to communicate?
The results are unique and delightful.
In general, it's tough to know anything about a person by looking at their resume. Especially in the case of recent graduates -- all the resumes say pretty much the same thing. Given the huge volume of resumes, it's important to provide a compelling reason why yours should receive special consideration.
In other words, it's just like the marketplace. You've got to create a piece that stands out and delivers your message in an engaging and memorable way.
Most important of all, don't forget the needs of the target audience. I've seen so many cover letters that focus entirely on the applicant. Remember to consider the employer's point of view. What do you bring to the table? What can you offer?
And as with all communications, if you can show it, not just tell it, you're ahead of the game.
I recently read a story over on the consumerist blog - Bridal Gown Vanishes From US Airways During Flight To Wedding
To sum it up quickly, a bride-to-be was flying home with her wedding dress. Somewhere along the line, her dress was stolen from her checked luggage leaving her sans dress for her wedding in eight days.
Of course, you can imagine how the rest of the story goes.
Overall, it ends with the bride about $1,000 down with a dress she is not happy in, putting a severe damper on a day that should have been one of the highlights of her life. Oh yeah, one more thing...she's telling everyone she can about how terrible her experience has been with the airline and how much it ruined her big day.
Which gave me a thought...could someone have turned this situation around? When you think about it, yes, quite a few things could have gone differently.
First let's look at what the airline could have done better. With millions of bags and items traveling through their system it's not surprising that a couple of items get lost (or in this case it sounds more like stolen). So I'm sure the associates have dealt with this before, but couldn't they have done more? Make some calls, check with her departing airport...it seems unlikely someone could hide a wedding dress easily, let alone walk out with it.
But let's say that it's gone. What should the airline do now? Get some details. Assign someone to find the same dress. Where was it purchased? Who was the designer? Get in contact, get the dress over-nighted, and have it re-fit. Give the bride the cell phone number of the person who is tracking it down for her and give that person the bride's cell phone. Let them update each other on progress. This may seem like a lot of work, but look at the outcomes.
So let's assume there are 400 people at the wedding. How much would you be willing to pay for 400 people to hear the most positive reviews your company can get from someone they trust? How much would you pay to keep them from hearing the worst review? Probably a whole lot more than the cost of a dress.
But there is still a bigger opportunity here! What if the store the bride bought the dress from was on Twitter and was following her updates and learns of this situation? They fly a tailor down to her wedding with a replacement dress. How impressed would that bride be? How many people would she tell that story to? She’d probably mention your company in her speech! And of course when she goes back home she’ll be telling everyone about you.
How good would your company feel if you were able to turn a bride's nightmare into a dream fulfilled? How many future brides would want to work with your company after hearing this story?
This is the power of social tools on the web and we'd like to help you use them. Give us a buzz.
