Design on a Dime

Producing ads and graphic design to solve business problems for clients can be rewarding. Not just financially rewarding but spiritually as well. Knowing that the work you do can help sustain a business, create jobs, or facilitate growth for your clients is a great feeling. Even better when the work produced touches or elevates the creative sensibility of clients and consumers. We recently re-designed the website for our local art museum. On occasion we work pro-bono for clients and causes that go beyond our day to day workload. The Burroughs & Chapin Art Museum is a wonderful respite from the typical entertainment venues in Myrtle Beach. Like so many art museums they are a bit of a hidden jewel within their own community.

Everyone involved with the art museum would agree that the community could truly think about the art museum as "their museum" When you visit the site www.myrtlebeachartmuseum.org the first thing you'll probably notice is a simple play on the word museum, a simple reminder to visitors that they can think of this place as their own. Producing work like this is indeed rewarding for us. We hope it's rewarding for you too.

If Content is King, Customer Service is Queen.

Positive word of mouth advertising is more important today than it has ever been. As important as useful content is to your web presence, consistently good customer service is just as important.

Disney believes they don’t have customers, they have guests. Walk around Disneyworld and you see that they believe this. On line retailer Zappos quickly became the most talked about shoe seller on the web. A recent story from the New York Times features a new campaign from Zappos starring puppets, styled after actual company employees, interacting with customers and demonstrating their patience. There are countless stories shared everyday between people about brands they deal with. Smart brands are rigorously managing the conversations taking place by engaging with their customers in meaningful, helpful, and sincere ways prior to, during, and after the sale.

So much time, money, and effort are spent on selling to the consumer prior to a purchasing decision, but how much is being spent after the purchase? Zappos “gets it” the customer rules our destiny. They now have the bully pulpit that can make us or break us.

Is there still room for art?

Jeff Goodby once stated that he indeed believes that "advertising is art"

I think he has it right. Advertising (and graphic design) IS art. Granted it's art for commerce but it's still art. The creative solutions to business problems that we create have an element that goes beyond the factual, the literal, the practical. There is the visual. The artistic sensibility that telegraphs to the viewer or reader that what our clients have to say is worthy of craft and therefore worth their time.

New media allows executing and changing communications practically in real time. A client can view an on-line ad minute by minute and see what is working and what is not. Agents need to be able to react in real time. "Change the headline" "Try a new visual" "Change the color"

So where does a Brand's visual identity fit in a world of selling and communication that changes so quickly? It may be as simple as the words we choose. Artful language may just have to do the job of conveying the promise and story of a brand. We've all relied pretty heavily on visuals to help convey emotion and trust in what we have to convey.

Perhaps now, words are the new ART.

"I'll Call You"

I promise.

I have like so many become reliant on e-mail, Facebook, and Twitter for most of my correspondence with friends, relatives, and co-workers these days. On average I get anywhere from 50 to 60 e-mails on a typical day. That's just my office e-mail account. Add another dozen or so with G-mail. Our technology has allowed for more communication but it is often hurried without the proper niceties. Voice mail is another form of communication that clogs up our days. We stare at the blinking light and wonder if we have enough time between all of our other daily responsibilities to return a few calls. More often than not, we don't get to those callers as quickly as we would like.

The other day I had watched a video online that featured David Ogilvy giving a Pep Talk to the Direct Marketing group at Ogilvy & Mather in New York Circa 1977. I was curious about the video and what was behind asking the man to come out of retirement long enough to film a speech. I worked for a Creative Director years ago who is currently Worldwide Creative Director for Ogilvy and I decided to get in touch with him. Thinking maybe there was a slim chance he would be in his office and I could ask a few questions about the video, I called. His secretary put me through to his voice mail.

A day later I was on my way home from the office when my cell rang and the area code was 212. It was David Fowler calling me back. We spoke for a few minutes and I thanked him for returning my call. The exchange somehow meant a lot more to me than a text, an e-mail or a comment on my Facebook wall. He took time out of his busy day to call back. It dawned on me that I may have neglected people in my own life by hiding behind the easier and less personal methods of modern communication.

I have another Creative Director friend with whom I've stayed in touch over the years and he laments often (and sounds very much like my mother) that I never call him back. Well Glenn, I promise to call you back when you leave a message, you too mom.

Forget Nostradomus, David Ogilvy was a true Prophet.

I don't know of any other ad man who had so many rules as David Ogilvy had regarding art direction and copy as they related to advertising and direct mail. Some friends of mine would still roll their eyes and scoff at such hard and fast rules as "NEVER use all cap headlines" "Long copy is always better than short" And let us not forget my favorite; "No Reveresed Copy"

Shortly after attending a seminar about where the advertising agency business is headed, I found a video on You Tube of David Ogilvy. It looks as though it was shot on 16mm film complete pops, scratches & flutter. What a great find. As you watch this, keep in mind all that you've heard and read over the last few years about the internet and how it's changing the game. In particular David's words about Direct VS. General advertising. He speaks about the importance of measurability. Was he really ahead of his time or are we in the same business we've always been with a bigger toolbox? Just when I was ready to accept the old ad men who came before us (and the internet) as somewhat irrelevant in today's world, I am reminded that David Ogilvy had it right already, he just didn't have a laptop with internet access.

The final word on keywords . . .

Matt Cutts, the head of the Google "Search SPAM police" and has come out with the definitive official word - Google does NOT index the "keywords" meta-tag in web search rankings. Since Since Google is the predominant search engine on the web, we pay attention to what they say.

The keywords meta-tag used to be a way to insert keywords into the code of your site that wasn't part of the page that users actually saw, so you could "hide" keywords there. And . . . lots of folks tried to. We moved away from the keyword meta-tag about a year ago, but there are still some SEOs out there that are saying "you need meta keywords!"

Google doesn't like to be fooled - they really really want to deliver search ranking to sites that actually have content relevant to what a user is searching for. Not a list of arbitrary keywords that someone stuck into the code to try to fool the web crawlers.

Here's a link to a video of Matt's comments.

Lauren Cobb, Interactive Marketing

Do more “Safe” work than “Risky”: Bring on the Jeers.

Often overheard within the walls of many a creative department is the art director’s or copywriter’s lament:

“My client only wants to do safe work and never wants to take any risks”

Well of course. Why would anyone suggest to a client to take a risk with it’s advertising budget? It’s not your money. What if your banker were to call you one day and asked if they could take a significant portion of your bank account and invest it in a “risky” stock. If you’re like me you would say Hell N0! I don’t like being risky with my money. Neither do clients.

Ay, there’s the rub.

When it comes to producing an ad, we just know that the more unique, the more outrageous, the more creative a communication the “Safer” it is. Opposite of what you and your client sometimes think. All too often what the client thinks is a “safe” ad is actually the most risky thing to do.

Stress to clients that the safe ad is the one that sticks out like a sore thumb.

George Lois once said, “good advertising is like noxious gas, it should take your breath away and bring a tear to your eye”

So don’t lament that your client won’t take risks. They shouldn’t.

Just be better at selling “safe, sure bet” ideas.

Kids say the smartest things.

A few years ago I was asked to design a new identity for a YMCA Kid’s Camp in North Carolina named Camp Hanes.

I met the client at the camp and took a tour, asked questions, listened and learned a few things about this wonderful camp. I learned a few things about selling my own work in the process.

On the client’s request I designed several marks that included camp fires, kids, the visual of the Sauratown Mountain slope that overlooks the camp as well as one that didn’t include any of those things. During my tour of the camp, the director spoke at length about the friendships and sometimes life long bonds that are created at Camp Hanes.

A stylized “H” with hands reaching out to one another was the overwhelming favorite of several focus groups made up of moms, staff, and a group of campers.

The director had his favorite. It was a stylized camp fire with stars as embers. When he announced his preference to the group, a 13 year old girl named Tracy raised her hand and asked the director why the camp fire was his favorite when nearly everyone else preferred the hands. He told Tracy that he felt the camp fire was the most representative of something that campers see and participate in at camp. He went on to say, “I don’t see our camp in the hands, I don’t see our mountain, our kids, or our camp fires”

Tracy raised her hand and said one of the smartest things I’ve ever heard in a creative presentation:
“You don’t really see a hamburger in McDonald’s logo but you think it don’t you?”

I think every adult in the room said to themselves, wow, why didn’t I think to say something that smart?

Based on Tracy’s comment, the director’s response was “well Tracy, you are exactly right, thank you”

With that, the Capital “H” with hands has been the cornerstone of their identity since.

Thanks again Tracy.