Still cuckoo after all these years

Do you ever wonder if your advertising and marketing campaign is getting old and stale? Do you feel like you need to have a new image or a new look to help boost sales? Perhaps your brand needs an evolution, not a revolution.

Since 1962 Sonny the Cuckoo Bird has been cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs, because of those 3 wonderful qualities "crunchy, munchy, and chocolatey."

Since 1959 the silly Trix rabbit has been trying desperately to trick children into giving him some Trix Cereal. Although on a few occasions, he WAS allowed to eat a bowl of Trix, he continues to try.

Since 1963 Toucan Sam has been sniffing out hidden bowls of Foot Loops Cereal and he can ALWAYS find them because all you have to do is follow his nose (it always knows).

With respect to these three brands, General Mills and Kellogg's have chosen to stay on the path of CONSISTENCY.  I often emphasize the importance of consistency because although YOU are looking at your marketing materials day-in, and day-out, your customers and prospects aren't necessarily seeing it every day. Rather they only see your message as an intermittent burst among the sea of thousands — sometimes even tens of thousands —  of messages that they are flooded with every day. Staying consistent and cohesive gives your brand extra strength through longevity and repetition.

Sometimes an ad campaign seems to get boring or dull, and you may want to switch it up after a few months or even a year.  The 3 examples above have been maintaining a consistent advertising campaign for OVER 50 YEARS!  Sure, the characters get freshened up, and they go on new adventures, but they are always there. Think about what you don't like about your message and maybe all you need is a new twist on the old theme. Don't lose faith in your brand equity and brand history.

Keep Sonny in mind next time you want to start fresh. Think about it, are your ads driving your prospects cuckoo, or just you? If General Mills or Kellogg's had changed their campaign theme intermittently, they might have gone from Cereal Manufacturers to Cereal Killers.

Sculpture Preview: Something's Got to Give

Here are a few preview images of my latest wood sculpture.  The series I am currently working on are all large, single-piece, subtractive sculptures.

Norwalk Oyster Festival Logo

I am so glad to see that the Norwalk Oyster Festival is still using the logo that I designed for them in 2004!  Being that I was born and raised in Norwalk, it's nice to know that I contributed to one of the City's long-time traditions (since 1978).  It's been around for almost as long as I have.

Norwalk Oyster Festival Logo

I designed this logo for the Norwalk Seaport Association in 2004 while working at Giaccone Storytellers

 

 

Google me.

In 2010, people googled the word "google" over 615 MILLION times according to comScore's 2010 digital year in review. This suggests that people in general don't like to use the browser address bar.  After all, "http://www" is not a very user friendly string of characters.  "Is that two colons and one forward slash...or was it two forward slashes and then a colon..or was it a back slash and a semi-colon?!"  Just looking at the many emails I get every day, people often have a hard enough time spelling their own name, let alone remembering how to properly format the syntax of a Uniform Resource Locator (URL).

So what does this mean for me? It means that first and foremost, before you start worrying about targeting keywords for your products and services in organic search engine rankings, you need to make sure that your company name and or URL itself is searchable. For the most part, this is relatively easy to do, and the search engine algorithms normally account for this.  For example, if you search for hats, in the top 5 results you get www.hats.com.  The same result happens when you search shoes or belts – www.shoes.com or www.belts.com will show up in the top 5 results.  But when you search for couches, www.couches.com is not in the top 5 results.  This poses a problem for the people that - although they have your URL, don't know how to use it.

The above statistic barely holds a candle to the nearly TWO TRILLION searches for  the phrase "facebook."  in 2010, Facebook grew to the 4th most visited web property.  3 out of every 4 internet users visits Facebook at least once per month. comScore 2010 Year in review also reports that "Facebook accounted for 10 percent of U.S. page views in 2010, while three out of every ten Internet sessions included a visit to the site."

Facebook is a great place to expand your marketing efforts to. Find your 'fans' and enable them to help you spread the word about your product or service.  Obviously ALL your customers aren't reachable there, but reaching out to the ones that are there is a great piece to a comprehensive marketing campaign.

Go ahead and Google me. You should get a few valid results.

STOP ADVERTISING!

STOP ADVERTISING! It saves money like stopping a clock saves time.

Prepare yourself for Cinco de Mayo

With recent advances in freedoms and liberties, the mobile intoxication service 1-800-GET-DRUNK will be servicing locations near you.

Prepare yourself for Cinco De Mayo call 1-800-GET-DRUNK

Prepare yourself for Cinco De Mayo call 1-800-GET-DRUNK

 

i.e., e.g., a.k.a. - WTF?

Calvin (from Calvin and Hobbes) is confusedHere are three abbreviations that are commonly mixed up.  For your reference, I have listed what they  mean, and how they are supposed to be used. Good Luck and happy writing!

i.e. – This abbreviation is from the Latin id est, which means "that is." When written in English it can be read aloud as the letters "I - E," or replaced with the words "that is to say." It is used to add additional explanatory information to a sentence or to say it in a different way.

I like my coffee black and sweet, i.e., no milk and two sugars.

e.g. – This abbreviation is from Latin exempli gratia, which means "for the sake of an example." When written in English it can be read aloud as the letters "E-G" or replaced with the words "for example." It is used to give actual examples of what is being written about. (A good mnemonic to remember this one is that you use it for EGGsamples)

Learning a foreign language can help you get ahead in life; e.g. Spanish, French, Chinese.

a.k.a. – This abbreviation is not from Latin, but merely a shortening of the words "also known as." It is used to describe aliases, nicknames, working names, alternate names, pen names and pseudonyms. Don't be tempted to use this abbreviation when you actually mean to use one of the other two listed above. When using this in your writing, just replace it with the words "also known as" if it still works, then you probably are using it correctly; if it doesn't work, then you probably mean to use i.e. or e.g.

I like to eat those big, sloppy McDonalds burgers a.k.a. The Big Mac.

 

 

Load content to the clipboard

I have been looking for a solution to load a block of text to a client's clipboard at the click of a button; basically I needed a way to "copy" text for pasting without having to actually select and copy it.

Most of the solutions that are available are NOT cross browser compatible. I have looked at  different Javascript, jQuery, and Flash based systems, but all of them were older and were lacking cross-browser compatibility.

Two of solutions that didn't work:

The solution that does work:

Let me know if you need help getting something like this to work on your website.

Hits don't hurt and impressions don't last.

In the world of websites...impressions lead to hits, not the other way around.When looking into an online advertising program, it's good to know the lingo before you start. Here are a few terms you should know to get you on your way.

Clicks: A click is when a user actually CLICKS on your web ad. This click normally goes directly to your homepage, or to a landing page you have set up for that specific ad or marketing campaign. Normally this statistic is counted on the site where the ad is placed, so even if the ultimate destination (your web site) is down, doesn’t load correctly, takes too long to load, or the user cancels the action and goes somewhere else, the click still counts as a click. (Normally a click is registered at the exact moment the user releases the mouse button - thus it goes 'click', or maybe it goes clack, but I digress...). This method of ad tracking is commonly used because it is easy, simple and does not require tracking code on YOUR website (only on the site where the ad, banner, or link is placed.)

Impressions: Impressions are the number of times an image, ad or link is displayed. In most cases tracking impressions requires access to the site that is serving the ad.

Click Through Rate (CTR): Click Through Rate is one of the vital statistics that you should be aware of. To find your CTR, you divide the number of users who clicked on your ad (clicks) by the number of times the ad was shown (impressions)  For example, if your ad was shown 100 times on a website and 1 person clicked on it, then the CTR is 1 percent. This statistic helps you determine if your advertising campaigns are effective. There are many factors involved in determining the effectiveness of of an (target audience, the content of the ad, position of the ad, etc).

Okay, so what's a 'hit'?

Hits: A hit is when a user actually LANDS on one of your web pages. Hit counts tally the traffic your page or site receives. Google Analytics uses the terms "Visits" and "Pageviews"to refer to variations of the "hit." A visit is a unique person who comes to your website as a whole. A pageview is when an individual page on your website is viewed by a visitor. If you are trying to determine the success of a banner ad through hits, then you need to have a separate landing page set up, so hits from that particular ad are gong to a unique page, often called a "landing page," and not just directing visitors to the home page.

They're using my photo! Inconceivable!

Inconceivable! Wallace Shawn as Vizzini in The Princess Bride

Inconceivable!

I know you licensed that image, but I don't think it means what you think it means.

Have you ever seen an advertisement and done a double-take because you KNOW you've seen that image somewhere before?  Well, you probably have.  With the advent of low-cost royalty-free stock photography, this phenomenon is happening more and more. One day I use a photo for a client website, and the next day, the same exact photo appears in my inbox from an unrelated company. Hopefully you steer clear from using the same photos as your competitors, but that is the risk you take when you use stock photography.

The two ways to guarantee that no one else is going to use the same image as you is to either purchase the complete rights to an image (which can often cost exorbitant amounts) or hire a model and a photographer and do your own photo shoot.  Make sure you have an arrangement with the photographer that at the end of the day you will own all rights to the photos and they won't be reused or re-sold. Custom licenses and contracts are always negotiable, but make sure you figure it all out ahead of time.

Unfortunately, the cheaper a photo is, the more likely people will license and use it.

How do photo licenses work?

The Biltmore Email newsletter used the same royalty-free photo that we used for White Collar Investigations

The Biltmore Email newsletter used the same royalty-free photo that we used for White Collar Investigations

Royalty-Free Images

No, these aren't FREE, they are royalty-free. These images are usually the least expensive to purchase, and the quality tends to be on the low end (but not always). This means that you license an image at a certain size, usually determined by the pixel dimensions of the digital image, and you can use it wherever and whenever you want and as many times as you want.  License particulars vary from vendor to vendor, but the general idea behind royalty-free images is the same.  NO ROYALTIES!

Websites like iStockPhoto.com, 123rf.com and many others license images like these starting at $1 (for a small web-size).

Rights-Managed Images

A rights-managed image means that you have to purchase an image for a specific use and time frame.  You can license it for a day, a week, a month, etc. You normally have to also disclose to the vendor where and how it is going to be used.  Web, print, commercial, editorial, the list can go on and on.  Many factors are calculated into the final price.  At the end of your image license time-frame, if you want to keep using the image, you have to renew the license.

These types of images usually tend to be of a higher quality and are more desirable than royalty free images, which is why the vendors can often get away with charging higher prices.  These images usually start at $500 for a single use at a small size, and go up from there.  The final price can end in the thousands.

Beware, you are responsible to renew your own image license.  When the license runs out, the image files do not self-destruct like the mission tapes in an old episode of Mission Impossible.  Although you may still hold the digital file for the image, you can not use it in a public piece without renewing the license.  Yes, Big Brother is watching, and you may find yourself in a legal matter when the image vendor calls on you with a letter to cease and desist and to collect $5000 of past royalties for using an unlicensed image.

The Discovery Channel used the same royalty-free image that we used for Amit Arava, a Counselor and Sex Therapist in Westport, CT.

The Discovery Channel used the same royalty-free image that we used for Amit Arava, a Counselor and Sex Therapist in Westport, CT.

Custom Photography

This is always a great option when the image you are looking for is specific and realistic.  (If you need an image of a model in the Caribbean, and you are located in the mountains of Colorado, you probably should consider other options) however, the cost of a model and a photographer for a day can often be MUCH CHEAPER than licensing a Rights Managed image for a year of unlimited use.

Free Images

There are select websites like www.sxc.hu that offer FREE photos for commercial or editorial use.  Be sure to read the image details carefully.  Different people have different license requirements and some request to be notified of use and/or credited. Overall these images are of a much lower quality than you would find anywhere else, but I have been able to find rare gems among them. And as my Father says, "It's hard to beat free."

Good luck on your image endeavors and let me know if you have any questions!