Archive for January, 2009

Gotta love the internet: vol. 1 issue 1

Wednesday, January 28th, 2009

Videos of skateboarding dogs, faces imposed on dancing elves, subservient chickens… When {fill-in-the-blank} invented the internet, something tells me this is not what he/she/they had in mind. Exchange of scientific knowledge from around the world, introspective essays, intellectual debates, yes. A quiz to determine your secret stripper name? Probably not. But, I suppose the power of diversion, the healing qualities of humor and the perverse satisfaction of schadenfreude can not be underestimated. So in that spirit, I will periodically post a random finding from the internet. In this installment, apparently people love to watch other living creatures fall asleep.

Okay, I must admit I am partial to Sleepy Puppy 13.

Tips for building a successful email campaign

Tuesday, January 27th, 2009

Emailing can be an effective way to inform your audience of important news, product announcements, or special offers. If done correctly you can increase customer loyalty and brand awareness. However, if done poorly, you can do more harm than good.

Here are some tips on how to create a successful email campaign.

Give value

The purpose of the email should be to give the recipient something of value. Ask yourself if they will care about it or not. If the answer is no, then reevaluate the purpose. Offer discounts on products or services, provide monthly tips or special events are some examples of good value.

Appropriate subject line

This is one of the most important parts of the email that is often overlooked. You need to give the reader an idea of what the email is about, and should convey the value of the email. It is illegal to use deceptive headlines.

Have a clear message

Be clear in your message, include as much of it as you can in the subject line and only give the important points in the body of your email. If you want to get into more specifics, then link to a web page with more information.

Don’t send too often

Sending email too frequently can easily annoy your recipients and cause them to remove themselves from your list. Make sure that you only send when you have something of value and not too often.

Best practices

- Make sure not to include addresses of other subscribers in the recipient’s field.

- Only send to your email to people that have opted in. Also include a way for them to opt out at any time.

- Keep track of your lists — especially of those who have opted out so that you will not send them future mailings.

- Proofread and test your email before sending it out to your list. There is nothing worse than sending out something that has typos or broken links.

If you follow these tips, you’ll be on your way to a successful campaign.

Sidestepping the Super demand.

Monday, January 26th, 2009

LA ad agency Cesario Migliozzi made news when it was reported they were planning to combine eight advertisers into one Super Bowl ad.  The Super Bowl will air on NBC this year and media costs for a :30 second spot are hovering around $3 million.  This “shared” concept has not been tried before and with the ever-increasing and seemingly-astronomical rates for Super Bowl space I am surprised it has taken this long to be proposed.  The agency planned to buy one of the last remaining spots and charge each of the eight clients $395,000.  They also planned to create a support website for the ad that would host viral videos for each client.  On its face, this seems to me to be a great piece of salesmanship on behalf of the agency, and would benefit many advertisers who would not otherwise be able to buy space on the big game.  I thought it was a win-win for all.  But, shortly after the proposal was made public, NBC  stated they would not allow the co-op spot to run. According to Adweek magazine, the proposal was causing grief with some of their other clients. It doesn’t look like NBC is worried about selling all their inventory. I guess even in today’s economy there is no sidestepping supply and demand with regards to these Super ads.

Bad design gets you lost.

Tuesday, January 20th, 2009

Have you ever been driving somewhere unfamiliar and found yourself in a “turn only” lane by accident? I have, and while it can be frustrating, I find it even more exasperating to find out – after getting out of the lane – that it was really a *straight* only lane and I was already on the right path.

The largest number of the “only” lanes are for turning lanes, but there is a small percentage of ONLY lanes that are for straight travel. The problem I have with this is that while in the lane, looking forward, the word ONLY appears first, and then closer to the intersection there will be an arrow instructing you on the mandatory direction in question. If there is traffic in front of you, you may not see the arrow and are left to assume that the lane you are in falls into the majority turn only category. More often than not, you’ll assume correctly, but every now and then it’s going to be the wrong lane and there you’ll be almost in the intersection, throwing on a blinker and trying to wedge into another lane because you’re in the wrong place. Now you’re on a path that doesn’t lead to where you were going, it will involve turning around, extra time, wasted gas and possibly a lot of swear words and rude hand gestures from your fellow motorists.

I wonder why they couldn’t just paint the arrows first, then the ONLY closer to the intersection, so you’ll have a clue before you are too far into the intersection to change direction safely? Well-planned design knows where it’s going and how to get there, but bad design gets you lost. Does this drive (no pun intended) anyone else nuts? Or is it just me?

Another reason to love iPhone

Monday, January 19th, 2009

I am currently sitting outside the Fancy Food show in San Francisco, taking a break from walking the aisles; thought I’d try out my shiny new app — WordPress for iPhone. It’s super simple and fast. My kind of technology.

Adding a little color to the creative’s uniform

Sunday, January 18th, 2009

When I was a young art director in NYC, you could see someone from our department coming from a mile away. The uniform was jeans, some sort of cool shoe or boot (Chuck Taylors, Justin Ropers – am I dating myself?), thick rimmed glasses, and of course, the  black t-shirt. We might throw on a blazer if a client was coming in. So I was pleased to see that The Gap (the only place we’d dare buy our beloved black t-shirts) has just teamed up with Pantone to create a plethora of colorful t-shirts that we creatives can really get into (pun intended).

According to the New York Times, The Gap has opened a new pop-up shop next to their store on Fifth Avenue and 54th Street. It features crews and v-necks in a wide range of cheerful Pantone colors that is certain to make even the coolest of the cool art directors think about updating their uniform.

If a tree falls in the woods… or why blog.

Sunday, January 18th, 2009

As we (finally) launch our agency blog, I couldn’t help but wonder*, why?

I think we can collectively agree that a blog is a place to expose thoughts in a written form and in a public forum, for other humans to read (or not) and/or respond to (or not). Okay, that is all well and good. As an agency, our bloggers will be putting forth their viewpoints and interesting information related to our industry, as well as random anecdotes and observations. We hope our entries will cause our readers to learn, smile, think, groan or scratch their heads. But why? And if no one reads it, will it matter?

Don’t we communicate enough? We have email, texting, Skype-ing, Twitter-ing, Facebook-ing, and of course, those old-school faves – the phone, the fax, and the meeting. With all that communicating, wouldn’t you think we would have run out of things to say? Speaking for myself, despite reading and writing hundreds of emails, having countless conversations and sending quite a few text messages every day, I still find myself with more to say, and I suspect I’m not alone. (As I look around our office at our energetic and verbose team, I know I’m not alone.) And thank goodness. It is our opinions, curiosity, thoughts (deep or otherwise) and pointless babble that make us interesting.

So welcome to our blog; I hope that you find something you’ll enjoy reading. If you come back and read more, wonderful. If you respond once in a while, even better. And if you don’t ever come back and our words just end up living in a cyber no-man’s land, so be it. We’ll still have more to say.

*for you S&TC fans.