Published on 22.10.2010 by Daryl Woods CategorySocial Media
When it comes to Twitter, I certainly wasn’t an early adopter. Count me among the many who just didn’t get it. What, of any value could be communicated in 140 characters or less. Who cares what people are having for breakfast! Every mention of Twitter began to annoy me. I couldn’t wait for it to go away. But it didn’t.
I started seeing articles on business use of Twitter. At first I still thought it wasted too much time. When a respected colleague joined in, I decided to give it a chance.
Published on 29.09.2010 by Daryl Woods CategoryTips
You read it everywhere. “Content is king.” In the age of the blog with so much information available to be consumed, attracting readership is highly competitive whether in print or online. You can’t afford to make your content difficult to read due to poor typography.
I hate Men’sHealth magazine. It’s not the articles, I find those quite informative. It’s not the direction. I get it. Young target market. It’s not their relentless fixation on scantily clad models, that’s…um, tolerable. My problem is reading it. Or rather, the challenge of reading it. There are parts of the magazine I can’t read at all. Yes, I wear glasses and even with a new prescription, I find much of the content unreadable. I don’t have this experience with other magazines I read although I’m sure Men’sHealth is not alone in straining the eyes of its readership.
Ever notice article headlines can have multiple meanings. That’s the case here. My client, Pace Productivity, has the website url getmoredone.com. I’ve recently revamped that site to make it more social. I’ll talk about that. The headline is also intended to suggest that enhancing your website with social features can make it work more effectively for you. I’ll talk about that too.
Published on 09.07.2010 by Daryl Woods CategoryAdvertising
This video for HP printers is a fascinating reinvention of what is essentially flip card animation. What I love here is the story line and how well it is executed. The viewer becomes emotionally engaged with this tale without words. Consider the challenge. How can you make printers interesting? How do you take the mundane experience of sending a document to a printer and create a compelling narrative? HP has done it brilliantly.
Published on 20.05.2010 by Daryl Woods CategoryAdvertising
This series explores advertising messages that employ specific strategies for success. Part 1 of advertising messages that work focused on special offers. This installment is about making the ultimate claim about your product – that it is the best. All things being equal, consumers want the best products. Best is a powerful marketing statement.
Published on 03.05.2010 by Daryl Woods CategorySocial Media
This video produced for Rogers Communications in Canada contains some mind-boggling statistics and presents them with great style. I’m not a big fan of the company but great work is great work. Kudos.
“Next is Now depicts the human connections empowered by rapid changes in communications technology in Canada and around the world. Next is Now was produced by Rogers with support from 76design (www.76design.com) and Thornley Fallis (www.thornleyfallis.com)”
Music by Young Galaxy (www.myspace.com/younggalaxy)
Published on 15.04.2010 by Daryl Woods CategoryAdvertising
Last week Apple unveiled a developer preview of its forthcoming iPhone 4.0 software. As expected, many new features were introduced but none of the others will have the impact of iAd, Apples’s mobile advertising venture.
As I watched the live event feed on Engadget, the significance of iAd didn’t hit right me right away. Perhaps the text plus photo stills just didn’t do it justice. I was impressed however with the sample ads Apple had produced for Toy Story 3, Nike and Target. At this point I was content to mentally file it under interesting and follow the news leading up to its release. Then I read a tweet from @TheRiseToTheTop’s David Garland who panned the strategy and suggested any online ads were doomed to fail. I disagreed. The debate was on.
Four years ago today, I traveled to Verona, Italy in the Veneto region for the first time. I was there for Vinitaly, a massive international wine industry trade event. Several of my clients are Italian wine producers and the show provided the opportunity to meet with many of them in one place. One winery, Cantina di Negrar is just outside Verona.
The Veneto region is famous for Valpolicella and Amarone. It has also been the inspiration for a great deal of my work.
I wasn’t there for long but in a matter of days, I fell in love with Verona. Not surprising perhaps given the most renowned love story of all time, Romeo and Juliet is said to be based on a true story of feuding Veronese families. The “Juliet Balcony” (above) extends from the home of the Capuletti family, said to be the historical, real life family of Juliet. But this tourist attraction is to me, the least of Verona’s charms.
The iPad lands in two days. I thought this would be a good time to share one of the most creative demo offerings I’ve seen. It’s hot, sexy and beyond expectations. If you find yourself asking, “How did they do that?”, you must see the making of video below. Equally astounding.
Published on 04.03.2010 by Daryl Woods CategoryAdvertising
Woody Allen once said, “Eighty percent of success is showing up.” Advertising works in much the same way. Show up in popular media and you stand a chance that people will recall your product when they’re making a purchasing decision. For successful brands, this image building strategy is often enough to sustain and increase sales without a specific call to action. It’s a long term approach and it’s costly. Most of the marketers I deal with are looking for a more targeted approach.
This series will explore advertising messages that employ specific strategies for success.
Last week Apple unveiled a developer preview of its forthcoming iPhone 4.0 software. As expected, many new features were introduced but none of the others will have the impact of iAd, Apples’s mobile advertising venture.
