Archives: Advertising

There's a new campaign on Broadway... Axe took over the old Bailey and Coy Books store front to advertise their "Undie Wear Challenge". Axe is always raising the bar with risqué and viral campaigns. Are there any local schools participating?

http://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2010/04/20/bailey-coy-brought-you-by-a...

If you don't know by now, I am a huge, huge fan of UNIQLO. This casual fashion retailer based in Japan, but located all over the world, lives and breathes branding and marketing that is fresh, engaging, fun and just simply brilliant.

Here is another example of how UNIQLO continues to stay ahead of the game when it comes to engaging customers with their interactive campaigns. We've all seen various forms of Twitter being used to create word clouds and trend charts when typing in a key word. UNIQLO decided to take the personalization a step further by creating UTweet, which is a fun "tweet show" music video that features all the tweets with the key word you typed in and profile pics of the tweeters.

This intro is a perfect set-up to the "UT All Stars", which is their new collection of graphic tees of famous cartoon characters.

There is no real information to gain here like the other tools in terms of a Twitter trend and popularity, but it's a great example of UNIQLO's innovative and customized use of social media to connect customers to their brand.

Via CScout

I have started to take a Web Design class at Seattle School of Visual Concepts. We just recently had a class discussion on our first homework assignment that I thought was a refreshing look at what people like best about using the web, what there most common activities are, and what is commonly missing from their online experience. We were asked to create a mood board for the discussion.

I took a different approach by thinking of words that came to mind when asking myself these three questions using Wordle.

1. What's the Best part about using the Web?
2. What are your most common activities online?
3. What's commonly missing from your online experience?

Some Explanation for some of the words I choose:

NOW

I have a wondering, A.D.D. mind that most people in the creative world have, and the biggest thing that helps that is being able to educate myself on anything that comes floating in my head on a day to day basis. All I have to do is type a word or a phrase in a search box, and BAM! a whole crap load of things are a click away.

Therapy

This is something that I have just recently been exploring. The main part of therapy that I lack in doing is blogging. Blogging is therapy, you have something to say and you eject it into the online world for further discussion. Some smaller parts of therapy online that I use frequently are the social sites such as Twitter and Facebook.

Education

Within the last couple of years this part of the online experience has been getting stronger and stronger. If I want to learn about things from DIY projects to a new version of software, I can, and on my own time with sites like CreativeLive, Lynda, DIY Network, and even Youtube.

A couple things missing from my online experience:

Originality

Website have become a lot of reiterations of the same idea, and when I see something original it inspires me a great deal and gets me excited and motivated to learn new and better ways of getting a point across online. Originality doesn't really mean a whole new way of doing a site, it could simply be a new kind of rollover for a button.

Faster! (Bandwidth)

No matter how fast things get, I will always complain that they need to be faster. It's just a simple fact.

One thing during the discussion that came up frequently was the idea of the web not being touchy feely. Personally I don't have a huge issue with this, and not much was really said about it, I did however share with the class a new site that I discovered called Toy-A-Day that can, in a way, give you the touchy feely feeling that print has.

One last thing that I got out of last nights class was a great sentence to ask clients and yourself early in the discovery process of building a site, I think this sentence alone can dig a lot out of clients and get to the reason a site is needed for them:

"What do people need to do on your site for business to be effective"

It is more and more obvious to businesses and individuals that technology allows for opinions to travel more quickly than ever. Every blog is a potential blessing or curse for a business, and any tweet may take the place of old school Consumer Reports magazine. We all know we can save money and improve our chances of getting a good value by looking to online sources that we trust.

In addition to the widespread and speedy dissemination of information, though, a recent survey points out another factor at work: cyberdisinhibition.

What is "cyberdisinhibition"? It is the reduction of the "public face" that each of us wears in real life. It is the willingness of people to be more extreme--in their opinions, in their (lack of) manners, in their abrasiveness--online. Anonymity and the low barriers to entry to contributing online logically make being especially loud and grouchy more likely; the consequences are fewer and the costs lower to complain (even in an over-the-top fashion) over a digital medium than in person.

What does cyberdisinhibition mean to businesses? It reinforces the need to be aware of how their brand and image is being communicated online. The days of controlling the message entirely are long gone, but an untended complaint (whether thanks to cyberdisinhibitionist forces or not) can snowball out of control quickly. Businesses should be aware of communities (blogs, forums, Twitter users) that use and discuss their products and be willing to communicate about issues.

Nip the problem in the bud before the Customer with the Keyboard starts typing in all caps.

WONGDOODY produced this piece to promote the Horizon Air shuttle from Seattle to Portland. What do you think about it?

http://www.i-5slog.com/