]]>Even a casual glance through this year’s winners reveals a significant number of Flash based websites, which leads once to wonder - what are the awards awarding? It is common knowledge that with the exception of a PC, Flash runs quite poorly on many devices. This is particularly evident under Safari on Mac OS X. This being the case, many of the websites in receipt of Webby awards provide a sub-standard user experience on a number of platforms. This is not to detract from their undoubted design credentials of course, but haven’t we now reached a point where web design is more than just - ‘pretty animation’?
]]>Whilst it’s important to avoid gaps between perception and reality (cognitive dissonance), there’s nothing wrong with having a little fun with marketing communications.
This is superbly demonstrated by Rory Sutherland in an amusing and insightful TED lecture called - Life Lessons From An Ad Man.
]]>The essence of reality marketing is to remove the ‘corporate’ entity from the equation at the onset, and in so doing, liberate the viewer from preconception.
Without this burden the viewer is watching for pure interest alone. When the reveal is made the viewer is intrigued by the curious juxtaposition of the natural content and the novelty of it actually being an advert. The YouTube example below is from the Sony Twilight Football Campaign.
Of course the obvious question is - “Is this not just like any other advert, filmed using a camcorder?”. The short answer is yes, but as it’s not delivered by conventional mass media and instead quietly seeded across the internet in an entirely non-commercial way, it’s not immediately clear - and this is what creates the intrigue.
The concept keeps the primary features of a viral, in that the novelty, interest and perhaps comedy value are compelling enough to tell your friends about it. The clever twist of corporate affiliation has people saying things like ‘have you seen the really cool Sony video for their twilight camera’.
This is a far more potent force than, ‘have you seen the advert for that camera’, which for the most part invites a ‘no’ and ‘I’m not that interested’.
For a more in depth look with examples head over to Campaign website and look at the article From Branded Content to Reality Marketing.
]]>Unfortunately, each tends to have several drawbacks and quite often cost is a biggy. Server infrastructure, administrator skill, specialist hardware, co-location - all carry with them a big cost burden.
There are turnkey, quick fix solutions using file synchronisation services and such, or you can opt for a local system and take media home each day - but come one, are these genuine disaster recovery strategies?
Things were made a lot simpler when Amazon announced S3 and gave the world cheap as chips data storage in the cloud. Okay, so it’s a little techie to get to grips with but the folks at JungleDisk took the heavy lifting out and gave us a really neat way to use S3 for automated data backup.
Well they just went one better…
]]>internet marketing; the place in which PR and marketing become so intertwined as to be almost inseparable
Perhaps the biggest reason for this merging is the growth of internet marketing; the place in which PR and marketing become so intertwined as to be almost inseparable.
Nevertheless, the infrastructure of the web and the different nature of consumerism online bring unique challenges which must be approached with an unconventional strategy.
Several hundred years ago the world gave birth to the printing press and in so doing, for better or worse also came the newspaper. For a monochrome, 2D, low resolution medium the de facto method of grabbing attention became the headline. It’s no different today. The average news stand has a seemingly infinite number of papers and magazines, each vying for your attention.
Print has always used the headline; ergo the goal of the journalist is to produce eye-catching, clever headlines which, in an instant, turn that casual glance into an insatiable need to find out more…. and hence, make you part with your money.
A computer algorithm can’t unpick the nuance of a metaphorical headline.
The human brain has a limitless capacity to invoke symbols and images, play with metaphor, debate irony, double entendre and the word play. This offers the average journalist an enormous catalogue of potential when crafting those wonderful headlines. On the web things are very different. Very different indeed.
]]>Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and Twitter create the perfect conditions for a marketing virus
It just so happens the world of social networking and video sharing using applications such as Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and Twitter create the perfect conditions for a marketing virus.
Unfortunately many organisations fall foul when embarking on a viral marketing quest. They do so because they fixate on the concept of the virus (the vehicle) rather than the content (the payload). In other words, marketers think the following: Facebook is cool. Therefore my message will be cool. Therefore Facebook users will think my company is cool.
If there is one thing users of Facebook are not going to think, it’s that you’re cool for using Facebook
Not true. If there is one thing users of Facebook are not going to think, it’s that you’re cool for using Facebook. In much the same way as someone using a telephone doesn’t think you’re cool if you are using one as well.
To truly go viral you need to ‘not’ think viral and instead take your product, service, company or brand and make it look completely different to anything that’s come before. You need to turn things on their head and present them in such a way that people are genuinely surprised, even for just a few seconds.
]]>Both have been exemplary and more recently Heart have demonstrated rock solid uptime and great customer service. However, our client’s are becoming more demanding, or rather our client’s websites are becoming more demanding and to work effectively we require a far more scaleable solution.
Our requirements are maximum uptime and speed, flexibility, complete control and rock solid scalability. If a client finds themselves lucky enough to appear on the front page of Digg - it’s our job to ensure their website can sustain the bludgeoning it will receive. If we fail to deliver a service capable of this the client loses out big time - which means so do we.
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]]>They don’t do it on purpose, they do it because they make unfounded assumptions about their market.
Make conclusions not assumptions.
It’s so easy in business to draw unsubstantiated conclusions about what we do. Perhaps borne out of a desire to impress, to demonstrate we know our market, or maybe naivety. Whatever the reason you should always try to justify your claims. Make conclusions not assumptions.
]]>There is already legislation in place to ensure businesses maximise the usability of their website for those with disabilities.
It stands to reason that your website, the digital representation of your business, should abide by the same laws and ethical codes as your bricks and mortar namesake. And not surprisingly it does. There is already legislation in place to ensure businesses maximise the usability of their website for those with disabilities.
]]>“Hey Guys, we make ‘this’ and we think it would be great for you. It does x,y,z and is available at this discounted price for a short time. If you’re interested - do this!”
In fact there are organisations who fail to deploy an adequate marketing channel with a succinct call to action.
Sounds very straightforward? It is quite staggering how many people don’t actually utilise such a basic approach to developing their business.
Some would argue they send out their glossy brochure with a business card. Or invite people to look on their website. This is not the same. This is asking people to look. It’s not asking them to buy.
]]>As any web developer will tell you, making the decision to jump from static content to managed content has always been a pained one.
On the one hand there are enormous benefits from having control panel access to all of your editorial content. With a plethora of plugins and modules you can add just about any functionality you need to a system - so the benefits can be significant.
As any web developer will tell you, making the decision to jump from static content to managed content has always been a pained one.
But then there’s the cost. Not financial per se, but the time it’s going to take you to shoehorn your elegant design into some strangely constructed theme system.
]]>Usability is not a huge problem for many publicists since most mainstream media is published through highly standardised mediums - such as televisions. A news reader does not have to concern himself with how his jaw will look on a variety of different TVs since the world’s televisions behave in a very similar manner.
The world’s browsers perform in a variety of ways, that are often so peculiar as to render a website entirely inoperable
Unfortunately this is not true for web designers. The world’s browsers perform in a variety of ways, that are often so peculiar as to render a website entirely inoperable - even though it looked fine when you designed it.
]]>According to CSS2, adding quote marks to any blockquote automatically, should be pain free. The spec handles it in such a way as to be entirely language independent - negating hard coded quote marks and allowing simple style sheet changes.
It would appear there’s nothing really simple about it at all however. So, standing on the shoulders of giants I did some searching and found a great explanation, and functioning code on David’s Kitchen.
I would heartily advise your read the full article to understand what’s happening but for those impatient developer’s out there, as we all are - click read more for an easy to drop in code sample.
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After much work the transition to evodesign has been completed.
The change marks a consolidation of evo’s service portfolio and an improving of the brand styling to better reflect the evo way.
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