by Miriam Hara | Apr 15, 2015 | Advertising, Branding, Business Success, Interactive, Latest, Social Media
Every day we see brands entering the world of brand publishing. Having a content marketing strategy is a must for any business, no matter what industry they operate in. Have you ventured in yet? If not, why not? The terminology may be different. How it gets distributed may not be the same – but brand publishing has been around for many years. It used to be called PR.
Today, with the internet (or should I say Google) being the go-to source provider of information, many purchasing assessments are started on line – and referred to time and time again during the customer journey. If you are a business owner or a marketer, that fact alone should trigger thinking about brand publishing as a viable marketing initiative.
At this time, a large part of marketing carries a component of brand publishing – whether it be a blog post of 350 words, a Facebook update of 30-50 words, or even a tweet that’s only 140 characters. Brands and businesses have entered the publishing world to develop more intimate and authentic connections with the buyers of their products or services. In order to do this effectively, developing a content marketing strategy is essential in garnering the results necessary. In fact, without rolling up your sleeves and developing a content marketing strategy you may be just spinning your wheels.
A content marketing strategy allows your business to:
- Define the objectives of brand publishing
- Establish the success metrics with specific time intervals
- Set the parameters for the scope of the content that will need to be created
- Determine what properties it will be shared to
- Timing as it relates to frequency of content deployment
- Identify the different communities that your content will resonate with most
The marketing of editorial content is exactly what your brand or business needs to be doing in order to get found. Good editorial content will resonate with your target market – and that’s what it’s all about. Establishing a content marketing strategy has become hugely instrumental towards the success or failure of brands and businesses. It is time to embrace brand publishing and truly understand the value of how creating content can impact your business in the long run. Are you there yet?
by Miriam Hara | Mar 12, 2015 | Advertising, Business Success, Creative, Latest, Marketing
In order to maintain creative integrity when discussing concept ideas with your client, it’s paramount to listen to what they are not saying. The art of listening has long been deemed as the key to success in any sales situation. And that is very true. The same is also true when selling creative and conceptual approaches to marketing professionals.
Developing creative concepts and advertising campaigns makes creative professionals part of the marketing profession. Although, there is a basic difference between marketing professionals and creative professionals. I’d like to be clear before going any further. Being creative or being a marketing professional, are not mutually exclusive. All professions need creative thinkers. However, in the context of this discussion, I am referring to creative professionals who are mandated on a daily basis to develop “creative” approaches to marketing challenges and initiatives. For all you creative types out there, you know that your creative mind works a little differently than most. It operates by thinking in visual and conceptual terms. This does not come naturally everyone. Creative thinkers are able to fit many subtle nuances and pieces of a puzzle together into a cohesive message that resonates to a core audience – all the while, making it easy on the eye!
Far too often when presenting creative concepts and programs to brand and marketing professionals, it becomes increasingly difficult to maintain the creative integrity of the program. Here are a few tips to help that process:
Don’t take feedback at face value: Often when receiving changes to the creative from a client, feedback is given in the form of direction. For example: Move this up, or move this down. Try to determine what is at the source of that direction. What does the client actually want to achieve?
Be prepared to educate: It’s important for those of us who sell and more importantly, develop creative, to have an educational mandate as well. I have found the best results occur after I illustrate or “show” the client direction requested. This is when I show a different creative solution that resolves the issue.
Speak frankly: Far too often, the selling through of a creative takes over the creative integrity. When the creative goes into a direction that it was never intended to, it’s success is in jeopardy. The program may also be in risk of not resonating with the intended audience. Clients expect your frankness. In fact, that is why you’re at the table.
I invite you to download our design and marketing ebooks found here. Are there any tips that you can add? Please do!
by Miriam Hara | Mar 10, 2015 | Advertising, Agency, Branding, Business Success, Communications, Latest
How do you determine if your branding and advertising agency is your true soul mate?
In today’s fast-paced market conditions it’s important for your agency to be part of your marketing team. What makes a branding and advertising agency a true partner? In order to come up with a good answer, what needs to be established is: What are your expectations of an agency? Is it great creative? Is it thinking outside of the box?
It goes without saying that every relationship takes two parties to come together and it’s based on both parties’ willingness to make it work. The basis of this article however, is about the degree of difficulty to making the relationship work.
Here are a few indicators to determine if the branding and advertising agency you have on board really is your business soul mate.
Adding value: The sign of a good agency is that it acts as your partner. Your agency should also always have the brand’s or business’s best interest at heart. In order to do that, they need to anticipate the needs of the brand and bring forward any issues they foresee. They need to take the brief you provided and expand on it – adding alternatives that you as a brand manager may not have thought of.
Attention to detail: When time is of the essence and turnarounds are quick, team players must all do their part to make sure that details are accurately addressed. Regardless of the relationship you have, “My bad.” shouldn’t cut it as an excuse.
Meeting budgets: Your agency needs to be in control of projects and their budgets, not the other way around. One sure way of knowing if an agency does exercise control, is if they have the ability to raise a flag at the precise time that a project’s budget starts going north.
Delivery on timelines: Let’s face it, an agency’s role is to help make the brand team look good. One of the easiest ways to do so is by meeting timelines. The agency world is all about deadlines, does your agency meet yours?
Creative relevance: It’s important for any brand initiative that the communications set forth have creative relevance. It’s not about pretty pictures, or creative awards. It’s about strategy and resonating with the consumer base. If you find that you constantly have to wrestle with your agency about what your brand is about and meeting requirements, maybe they are not the “one”.
Do you agree? What are some issues you have come across when dealing with your branding and advertising agency?
by Miriam Hara | Mar 3, 2015 | Advertising, Business Success, Latest, Marketing
In today’s business environment it is increasingly difficult to carve out an edge. So it’s understandable that when something works, one might continue to do it on an annual basis – and that’s a marketing pitfall prevalent in many businesses. Marketing complacency is a sure way to lose your business edge and start down the slippery slope towards total oblivion. In order to survive and make a mark for your brand or business it’s imperative to create excitement and provide momentum for consumers. This can only happen if you develop engaging marketing initiatives. It’s always the better ideas that require some measure of risk. However any marketing program, from a sweepstakes to an annual event comes with risk. But remember, it’s a calculated risk.
Not so long ago, consumers anticipated the Christmas season simply because the cosmetic counters in department stores would become jam-packed with great manufacturer offers and value-add packages. Consumers would wait to purchase their “product needs”, just to make sure they took advantage of the best value. Eventually cosmetic manufacturers’ caught on to this and now tier their giveaways or value offers throughout the year.
For those of us in Canada, Tim Hortons’ “Roll up the rim to win” is a reoccurring campaign. The first year it was launched was 1986. Now granted it has evolved and grown. For the first decade, when it was continuing to evolve, I believe it was exciting – even the advertising slogan was fantastic. Now, decades later they are still running it. And every year my reaction is, “Oh, that again”. Mind you, I’m sure that the reaction of the winners is quite different! But I would really like to know the uptake of this promotion after all these years. Is it still garnering the same results? Maybe the objective has also evolved? Perhaps it now acts as a reward program to existing consumers rather than one to increase trial?
Marketing complacency is a result of marketers pressing the autopilot button.
Think about what the premise is of any marketing promotion or advertising campaign. When a new marketing program is launched, it’s the result of many different factors. These include current market conditions, competitive landscape, creative brainstorming, research and timing – to name only a few. Consider this: Doing the same thing year after year may result in missing out on the next big idea that could make a huge impact for your brand or business.
When the same successful campaign is repeated over and over, the impact becomes less and less – or worse yet, expected by consumers. Many programs when repeated on an annual basis end up subsidizing sales, not increasing them. The result is that what was once fresh and exciting becomes old news. When marketing complacency sets in, there’s no win for the brand or business.
What do you think?
by Lindsay Sleightholm | Nov 21, 2014 | Advertising, Creative, Design, Latest
“Getting” creative
Let’s start at the beginning. Long before you decided to get into a creative industry, at some point you discovered that you were good at it. Something just clicked and it made sense to you. You enjoyed it. Sometimes you’d even get excited about it. And if you were lucky, the people around you would encourage you to keep at it. There was no doubt about it: you were headed into the business of being creative.
Doubt creeps in
Somewhere along the way from point A to point B you encountered something that made you doubt yourself. What that is varies from person to person. But most of us know what it feels like. We change from being happy and excited about what we’re working on, to thinking we’ve made a mistake. As creatives, we sometimes feel a little vulnerable about what we produce. Although we are working for our clients, our work speaks partly about who we are as people. And it can be hard not to take criticism personally.
Self-doubt is any creative’s worst enemy
What happens when you don’t have confidence in your ability? Well, it makes it very hard to be creative. A lack of confidence can actually be creatively crippling. Any idea you may have is inevitably thwarted before it can be realized because you don’t think it’s good enough. That’s only if you actually get any ideas. More often than not, if you don’t feel confident, ideas just don’t happen. Some refer to it as being “blocked”. Unfortunately for any creative, we really can’t afford be blocked.
It’s okay to question yourself
Let’s face it: the creative industry is a competitive one. So you’d be right to question your ability from time to time. I’m pretty sure that if you didn’t question it occasionally, you wouldn’t fully realize what you’re capable of. For instance, sometimes questioning what you can do leads to improving your skills or taking the time to learn about a new subject. It’s actually a good thing.
Don’t compare yourself to others
The problem comes when you question yourself in a detrimental way. One of the biggest ways to do that is by comparing your work to the work of others. This never ends well. It’s okay to be inspired by others and let that inspiration guide your work. But comparing the value of your ideas against the ideas of others is not only detrimental, it’s inaccurate. Everyone is different. Each of us experiences the world and thinks in a different way. That’s what makes being creative so exciting in the first place. By thinking that someone else’s idea is better than what you would have thought of, you’re actually making the assumption that everyone thinks the same way.
Validation builds confidence
Creativity needs to be nurtured. As creatives seeking confidence, we also require validation. Referring back to the beginning, we need acknowledgement from the people around us to encourage us to keep at it – no matter how long we’ve been doing it – whether it comes from those in our personal lives, our peers or our superiors. Ultimately, everyone needs a second nomination. Lastly, and the most important thing, is self-validation. Because no matter how anyone else views you, if you don’t believe it for yourself, it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks.
by Felicitas Ritter | Feb 19, 2014 | Advertising, Latest
So we put all this effort into creating the most informative and watchable online ads in the market, but is anyone paying attention? According to the Goo Online Advertising Survey conducted in January 2014 the answer is… not really. Unless they are especially entertaining.
The survey focused on 2000 U.S. households of users over 18 years of age. While there was a certain amount of inattention to ads across the board, with an average of 36 percent uninterested in either TV, radio or newspaper commercials, online advertising fared the worst by far, with 82 percent of users ignoring them.
One of the biggest problems with online ads is the sheer volume.
Viewers are so inundated that they feel compelled to just scan quickly past. Gone are the days of novelty and glitzy flash animations, intrusive sounds and pop up online ads that garnered healthy click-through results. Online ads came on the advertising scene as an accountable and measurable media. Now, it has gone the way of selling its channel like all traditional media, speaking to impressions and not real traffic building results.
So what can we do to attract more attention to online ads that would ensure to some degree, the same results as seen in the past? Be more entertaining? Works for all other medias, so why not this digital media that has grown exponentially? Using more interesting graphics to draw viewers in is also a must. Telling a story in short succinct visuals that are quick to load isn’t easy, but it is definitely doable. The research cited showed that 42 percent of respondents suggested that interactive online ads were the most engaging. The reasons provided for this preference was that these online ads didn’t really look like ads, were more interesting, and more high-tech looking.
With all the excitement over the Olympics on now, I couldn’t resist clicking on a few online ads that featured our amazing Canadian athletes. Here are a couple of my favourites:
