If you’ve been on our homepage this week, you may have noticed our new banner, which illustrates our competitive advantage message. If you’re interested in how the image of Frank and his giant prize winning marrow was created, here’s the photographer Stephen Shepherd’s account:
“I had to source a giant marrow, so instead of getting a model maker to mock something up, I went to the Royal Bath and West show. They have a giant vegetable competition, where I managed to talk to the winner of the Giant Marrow category. He’d grown it purely for the show and was more than happy to sell it.
At this size they are not good for eating and this way he didn’t have to worry about transportation and disposal.
Because the marrow has very heavy, we had to lighten it up a bit by cutting a large section from the back and hollow it out, so what you see in the picture is a prize winning, giant marrow shell.
My feeling is that although hollow, it still looks heavy. A light polystyrene model (and I have seen them) just doesn’t look right because the human model finds it hard to make us believe the object is heavy and real.”
I especially like the glint in Frank’s eye! He certainly knows something we don’t, and that’s his competitive advantage.
Bringing amendments in-house can be more costly, not less
In this challenging economic climate, we all want to cut costs. So when companies find the cost of author’s amendments on marketing projects mounting up, they often think that bringing elements of design and artwork ‘in-house’ is the answer. Marketing executives and IT workers are expected to pick up the work in the absence of a proper creative studio. Companies may see this as a logical way to cut costs, but they don’t understand the potential risks. Nor does this approach address the real issues at hand such as time wasting work practices.
Poor work can damage your reputation
It’s true that given enough time and effort, an able person can learn how to use design software. However, creativity, design know-how and the technicalities of producing artwork are very specialist areas. Handing these responsibilities to an unqualified marketing executive or IT worker invariably leads to poorly designed and badly executed work, which can seriously damage a company’s brand and reputation.
The wrong template
Even artwork that has been ‘templated’ by a professional designer doesn’t guarantee a high quality end product. Designers and artworkers do a lot of work behind the scenes making sure final artwork is good enough to print correctly. Their experience of print and working with printers ensures that the finished item is of the highest quality. Having to reprint work because of artworking mistakes can have huge cost and business repercussions. Also, when the content doesn’t fit the template, non-designers struggle to find the best layout solutions, resulting in naive errors.
Don’t distract your marketing department
Designers have the enviable ability to make the difficult look easy. They’ll come up with brilliant ideas on the spot and implement them at breathtaking speed – valuable skills that are the result of talent and many years of experience. They do this day-in, day-out because it’s their job, and they take great pride in it. Marketing executives and IT workers also have important roles, which require their full attention and commitment. Expecting them to become professional designers and artworkers only serves to distract them from their priorities.
Address the real issue – amendment management
The decision to bring author’s amendments in-house without qualified creative resources doesn’t address the real reasons for amendment costs racking up. We all expect some degree of changes on a job, but many author’s amendments can be avoided if the client’s internal processes are well planned and managed. Timescales should be agreed and adhered to. Ground rules and working methods need to be established before any work commences. All contributors, be they content creators or proof readers, need to be well managed. The project manager must employ the same single-minded approach to both the tiny details and the big picture. Marketing agencies have had to become very good at managing these sort of processes internally in order to maximise their profit. We can share these methods with our clients to help them reduce costs and secure relationships.
Play to people’s strengths
By ensuring that all the elements are as close to being right before the designer starts the job, amendments can be reduced. Author’s amends that are straightforward and easy to understand (marked-up PDFs or clearly typed instructions, not unreadable hand-written scribbles please!) can be made quickly and cost-effectively. Plus, they can be carried out by the professionals, which means they are done right, allowing everyone to get on with what they do best.
Well, it’s finally here. Google is now integrating real-time results from Twitter, Facebook and Myspace into it’s search, giving users the most update information on any given subject. This is sure to give social media a real awareness boost amongst those yet to embrace them, especially Twitter.
Watch this short video about Google real-time search:
What does this mean for brands and marketers?
Although in constant use by the technorati and celebrities galore, Twitter has yet to fully enter the mainstream. As marketers we know the potential of Twitter to reach out and engage, but for most people, its still an unknown. At MTD, we look to create innovative ways of integrating Twitter into our campaigns. Our recent Christmas campaign for Jarlsberg allows anyone to post a message about their best bit of Christmas on the Jarlsberg Sweet and Nutty Season website via Twitter. This encourages a deeper interaction with the brand and keeps the website fresh and interesting.
Real-time search will also encourage brands to start using Twitter more as a channel in its own right to promote products and services. Twitter, of course, knows this. It’s soon to launch a set of paid for business services which should hopefully make it a more professional tool for marketers.
Can MySpace Music innovate to avoid being overtaken by Spotify
I’m always on the hunt for new music. It’s what fuels me. When I discover a new band I normally track down their MySpace page and check out their tunes. MySpace band pages let you listen to a few select tracks, although quite often the latest single is limited to only thirty seconds or so – pretty annoying.
But now I use Spotify. Lovely Spotify allows me to listen to all the tracks available by the artist, in their entirety, for free. What’s more it’s fast, uncluttered and very easy to use.
If Spotify can secure its future via subscription based mobile apps (most importantly that of the iPhone) it will not only challenge MySpace Music but other internet-radio services such as Last.fm, Blip.fm and Pandora. They’ll have to rely on their social networking attributes to stay in the game. More traditional niche internet-radio stations such as NME.com could also be affected and they’ll need to maximize their original content and new music credentials to retain listeners. The other potential loser in this is, of course, Apple’s iTunes – although a significant number of people will always want to own the music they listen too, rather than just subscribe.
I’ve always been a fan of MySpace, but if it’s to survive, I believe it needs to offer better integration with Twitter and Last.fm type services. This would help the pages achieve more repeat visits by making them a hub for everything related to a band. Improved design and a good clear out of the clutter that plagues the artists’ pages wouldn’t go amiss either. But the most pressing issues such as access to more music and shorter load times would vastly improve what is increasingly looking like a tired web format. MySpace Music could also do more to help break new bands through a ‘new music’ streaming service – now that’s something I’d listen to!
Erik Johansson from Sweden creates these incredible images by digitally modifying photographs that he took himself. Some great examples of what can be done with carefully composed photographs, Photoshop and a lot of imagination. I particularly like the ones that are in real life ‘normal’ settings. My favourite is the ‘punching your own face’ one.
We had a lot of fun putting Brown in the duck house, but we’re not alone in comping the PMs face into humorous situations. The web is now full of budding political commentators making the most of their Photoshop skills to send Brown the message he doesn’t want to hear.
Nice to see Viagra taking a humorous approach. Not only a great use of a Touchpoint, but also a potent email viral. The simplest ideas are always the best.
In a display of true Apple bravado, the crowds at WWDC 09 were treated to an inspiring display involving 20,000 of the most popular iPhone apps. When an app is downloaded it pulsates, creating a ripple effect over 20 Apple Cinema Displays. This real-time effect (albeit with a 5min delay) is designed to demonstrate the volume and frequency of app downloads across the world.
For me, it’s true value is as an art installation, rather than a mere display of technological prowess. Must be quite mesmerising to stand and watch it…
This amusing re-imagining of the new Pepsi logo just highlights the positive and negative effects of the digital age on brands. Today, anyone can take a company’s brand, mess around with it and redistribute it in a instant.
When people embrace a brand and make it their own, that can be a good thing. However, not everyone is that loving as the image above brilliantly demonstrates. Pepsi may be getting viral exposure, but not the kind they really want.
That’s why brands need to be aware and seek to influence where they can. If the kids are skate boarding on your car, why not build them a ramp to keep them occupied?
If you’ve ever fantasized about staying inside a dog or a concrete pipe, then here is a list of fifteen crazy hotels for you to indulge yourself. I’ve included 3 of my favourites…
