As Director of Creative Services here at LeapFrog Interactive, I’ve gotten the opportunity to work on several fun and exciting interactive contest campaigns for our clients over the years. In my experience, these kinds of promotions can net great results for businesses. One particular challenge that affects me and my team in Creative Services is maintaining brand compliance on an interactive contest campaign. It’s our responsibility to ensure that if we have to add images, audio or video content that doesn’t currently exist in the client’s digital asset library, those files are always 100% consistent with their brand style.

That’s where the brand personality approach really pays off. If you understand the brand as a three-dimensional persona, you have the depth of understanding to extend the digital assets as needed without going off-brand. Sometimes, you have to appeal to the consumer represented by that brand personality, rather than what the client’s personal preference would be, but if they agree that it fits the brand personality, then that’s the direction you take. It adds a more objective layer and guideline to the subjective design process.

User experience is another area for concern in interactive contest creative development. Any design element that causes friction or prevents the user from submitting their email address is a roadblock. In addition to interfering with building the consumer database, it also represents a gap in user experience. If the user didn’t complete the action we expected it means we need to look at the design again, figure out why, and determine what changes to make.

Finally, it’s important to know how far to push the overt brand elements on a contest site. Applying the brand style needs a certain level of subtlety and sophistication. If you push the direct branding too hard, it becomes intrusive to the user experience. But it needs to be obvious enough that users remember not just that it was a fun contest, but a contest presented by your client’s brand. Striking the right balance can be tough, but it’s important not to go overboard in either direction/

Join Mike and Alan as they discuss the creative and branding implications of interactive contest campaigns. 

 Alan on Interactive contests: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

We’re seeing a lot of client interest in developing mini-sites lately, so I thought we could touch on a few things that we’ve learned can make the most of a mini-site.

Keep it timely.  Mini-sites work best for limited time promotions, such as short-term sales events, contests or sweepstakes.

Keep it short.  It’s called a mini-site for a reason–don’t give in to the temptation to try and fit “one more thing in.”  A main landing page, a page for the legal stuff (terms and conditions, privacy policy, etc.), a form page so that folks can either enter the promotion or contact you about it, and perhaps one more page for detailed information or for “follow up” information (for example, a gallery of submissions for a photography contest or a page that lists the winners of a sweepstakes.

Show the way home.  Don’t forget to include a way to get to your main site, and make sure it’s visually clear.

Pump it up.  A mini-site can have great viral potential.  Be sure to promote it in any social media marketing you participate in.

Be as engaging after the click as before.  Pay attention to the “ancilliary creative,” the submittal success page and any transactional emails.  Don’t abandon the user once he or she has converted with a generic, uninspired “Thanks for your submission” page or email.

Mini-sites can be a great way to expand your online marketing presence for big awareness pushes, without the need to redesign or significantly alter your main corporate site.  When well-executed, they can be fast, fun and effective interactive marketing.

They should be grateful that at least it isn’t a disaster on-par with the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.

And that’s about the best that can be said about the 2012 London Olympics logo.  Universally derided as a confusing mess, it’s hard to believe someone wrote a check for $796,000 for what may be the worst Olympic logo ever. Not just bad design, the logo is downright hazardous (and possibly seizure-inducing.)

Design can be abstract and effective, evoking a positive emotional response through color, movement, line and pattern.   But this clearly isn’t effective.  All it’s clearly trying to convey is the number 2012, and most viewers can’t even make that out.

Interactive advertising as we know it is almost obsolete.With the Web, mobile-phone advertising and all other forms of “digital delivery” of advertising, change will come not in the span of 10 or 50 years, but over the next few years.

The greatest present challenge is the growing disconnect between content and where it’s consumed. In the past, video was meant for TV and only played on TV. Audio was meant for radio and guess what, only played on the radio. Now, content in any media is continually remixed and rehashed across a wide spectrum of channels.  Content originally created for television is captured, repurposed as a humor piece and sent out on the Web as a Flash video, where the audio might be picked up by a local radio station looking for something to talk about during the morning show.  You cannot predict where someone will view or hear your message or advertising.

The whole term “interactive advertising” has itself changed, leaving some advertisers dazed and confused. Just as most major advertisers have finally come to accept interactive advertising in terms of the Web and search engines, the term changes to mean all these other channels as well.

Today, interactive advertising comprises any kind of two-way communication. It’s anyplace there’s collaboration, community – whether it be between consumers or between a consumer and your brand. The Web’s dominance in our lives has changed consumer behavior regarding the way they look for information or content. In retail, going to the mall or any other store isn’t about finding something anymore; the majority of people these days already know what they want (and where they’ll find it) by the time they get in the their car. Window shopping takes place online, eliminating physically traveling from store to store searching for what you want.  Even in entertainment, the way we seek content has changed.  We’re no longer limited to sitting and watching a television program in our own living room.  We can watch that same episode while commuting on the subway.

Customers have become Interactive Consumers. They don’t simply take your brand, product, message at face-value anymore.

They have a loud voice, well-versed in researching on the Web. They are increasingly influenced in their decisions by social media and more likely to actively post information themselves.

These consumers expect to have things on their terms – what they want and when they want it. If you can’t provide the information or content that they are looking for, they assume your competitor will.

What does all this mean?

Advertisers’ methods of reaching these people need to adjust to this behavior.  They need to first look at their website and turn it into their most profitable retail channel and their best communication tool. Put that content out there. Update it often. Provide the tools and content using methods that will work across multiple technology platforms so that it is available to the consumer whenever and where ever they want it.

Look to advertise and post on websites where people already go – iTunes, YouTube, Flickr, Google Video. Lead the charge in talking about your brand on the Web.  So few companies are even taking the step of effectively reacting to what’s being said about their brand online (for example, the recent Home Depot and Kohl’s incidents).  The truly great brands proactively initiate dialogue about their company, and engage the interactive consumer as a creative force, driving truly effective content.

There is a significant advantage that advertisers and business will realize when they truly take advantage of these new channels of communication and leverage that raw, unvarnished consumer opinion for their brand. There is access to instant data confirming (or refuting) return on investment enabling incredible, never-before-possible agility in terms of targeting and correcting your message for maximum effectiveness.

We’re in a time of unprecedented opportunity for those willing to embrace the changes that are occurring online.  These changes are exactly like the tides: if you get on top of them early, it’s possible to ride them out for incredible results.  If you don’t, there’s tremendous risk of being overwhelmed by them.

I’m always on the lookout for new applications and tools to help keep me organized, and streamline my workday. (Because, like most geeks, I have a “twisted skein of attention deficit issues”). In fact, for the last year or so, I refer to it as “the quest for The One App,” the one application that will tie up those attention deficit issues into a nice neat bow, and keep everything I need to know handy at all times. The One App to Rule Them All. I haven’t found The One App (yet), but I have found a new solution for keeping up with RSS feeds that eliminates at least one extra step from my workflow.

Keeping up on the latest news (not to mention gossip) in interactive marketing circles is pretty critical to my job. However, remembering to check my feed reader daily was just one more to-do that kept dropping off the “to-done” list most days.

Enter FeedBlitz. FeedBlitz serves up your favorite RSS feeds by sending you an email summary of new content daily. So now I don’t have to remember to check both my email and my feedreader. I know it doesn’t sound like much, but any time I can eliminate even one extra task and still get the same amount of work accomplished, I consider it cause for celebration.

Yes, I know there are programs you can pay for which will also turn your Outlook into a feed reader. But I also like avoiding paying for services that I can get for free.

Remember the first time you went to a public library? Probably not, ok…Remember last year when you went to the library to check out The Pocket Zen Reader? Well, maybe that’s just me…

In Louisville, the main branch of the public library is on 3^rd and York, roughly taking up the entire block. It’s a cool place, once when I was leaving, a homeless man gave me a well-worn BET t-shirt, 3 pictures of Jesus, and a T-mobile lunch bag. I still have the pictures of Jesus. In any case, no matter how many times I get hit up for money or am scared to get out of my car I will continue to go to the public library downtown. The foyer of the building is gorgeous, by the way, and there is always a fresh rotation of art.

One thing that remains the same each time I go to the public library is that the computers with the internet seem to be the most popular attraction. Reading books is boring anyway, unless it’s Pocket Zen Reader. Anyhow – my point is this: if people aren’t looking at the internet, they want to be. It’s more engaging than television because we get to interact and communicate, and it’s more productive than a video game, unless you count spending two days straight playing Final Fantasy XXVII as productive. Pretty soon the library will be a book cemetery full of computers.

The average public library internet user is not the ideal consumer, I know. I recently saw a PBS special on the hippies that invaded San Francisco in the 60s. I was fascinated by their “no work, buy nothing” mentality. I bet those hippies hung out all day at the public library, and nothing against a hippie, if anyone is a tree-hugger it’s me. Personally, I like to work and I like buying stuff, a lot. Treehugger.com, anyone?

“Living beings have no absolute self; they are all influenced by conditions and actions” Thank you, Zen Reader. As seedy as facilities at public libraries may be sometimes, it’s nice to have those public spaces with internet resources for those who normally have no access to a metal box with a fan on it. Communal internet: the trickle down effect at it’s finest.

 
Adobe has announced they will be holding an event to announce the release of the much anticipated Creative Suite 3 on March 27^th, though the actual release won’t be till late spring. During this event, Adobe will reveal the features and suite configurations that will make what Adobe is calling the largest software release in their 25 year history.
 

Although Adobe has not released the list of features for each program, they did release a beta version for Photoshop and the word on the street is that it has some pretty fancy new features, one of them being the Smart Filters. This feature allows you to apply filters and turn them on/off, etc. without hurting the integrity of the graphic. Very nice.  
Here’s a short list of some additional features that could be seen on the new release:
Quick Selection Tool
The new Quick Selection Tool creates selections by painting the general area of interest. Photoshop CS3 analyzes the image to complete the selection automatically.
Refine Edge
The new Refine Edge feature offers a simple, flexible way to modify the edge of any selection. Available via the Options bar or via the Select menu, the Refine Edge dialog lets you smooth, feather, contract or expand the current selection by using simple slider controls.  Experiment with the Radius slider to select irregular or fuzzy edges.
Automatic layer alignment and blending
Using automatic layer alignment and blending, easily combine the best parts of multiple images of the same scene into one “best” image. Simply place multiple, related images on separate layers in one document, and let Photoshop CS3 analyze the contents, moving and rotating the layers so they overlap as precisely as possible.
Black and White conversion
Advanced black-and-white conversion is now simpler and faster. With the new Black and White adjustment, one button analyzes the image and offers conversion settings.
For all you nerds out there that can’t wait till the full list of features are available on Adobe’s website, Adobe will be webcasting this event live from New York City on March 27, 2007 at 3:30 p.m. EDT at http://www.adobe.com/go/cs3launch. Enjoy!

If you’re familiar with the concept of kaizen at all, it’s probably in the context of manufacturing or other assembly-line practices, not in the context of creative work.  Kaizen is a Japanese term that, roughly translates to “continuous improvement.” However, there is a lot more implied by it than the standard Western idea of continuous improvement. There is an element of “respect for people” implied in the idea of kaizen, and three guiding principles must be in place for true kaizen: focus on results and process; big-picture, systemic thinking; and a non-judgmental, non-blaming attitude (blame-laying being considered a waste of time and energy).

As an interactive agency, we’re in a radically new industry that blends the creative with the technological. From a project management standpoint, a kaizen attitude is a great fit for process improvement, because it works well with both the very human creative elements and the very practical process and delivery elements. With each new project, we experiment, learn new and better processes, and we implement them and carry them forward into the next project. We also learn from things that didn’t work well, and eliminate those elements from the process as we go.  I’m not saying that we are formally instituting kaizen here at LeapFrog; just that the improvement process here feels, to me at least, very much like kaizen.
Often in business, instead of making small, incremental changes, you determine that you’re going to “do it right.” “Doing it right” means taking time, making preparations, setting the stage, and totally implementing a complete, fully-formed new way of doing things.

But there are a lot of problems with this approach. First, it fails to take into account the shifting, continuously moving nature of work. By insisting on completely defining both the problem and solution in detail first, a person or organization can effectively postpone making any changes …pretty much forever. Second, it fails to take into account the complex nature of change and how even a small change can have difficult-to-predict outcomes that then need to be dealt with. By trying to implement massive, all-at-once, “programs” of change, an organization is effectively tacking learning the new way, maintaining the new way (building new habits and breaking old ones), troubleshooting the new way (dealing with the inevitable “oops, didn’t think about that” items), and improving the new way simultaneously. In short, it’s a great way to set yourself up for failure.

As LeapFrog moves forward and continues to grow, we’ll need to keep improving to continue to exceed client expectations. That means improving one task at at time, one project at a time, continuously, with respect for the creative people who are part of our team and with an eye on the big picture.

Last week I joked with Jeremy that I was going to start charging people an hourly fee for counseling and therapy services. Both in my personal life and my professional life here at LeapFrog, I find that I’m someone people come to with their problems. Sometimes they want some good ideas for resolving their problems, and as a fairly out-of-the-box thinker, I’m generally pretty good at that. Sometimes I think they just want someone to “feel their pain.”

Those are the people I’d like to charge for the “couch time.”

Psychology, specifically the psychology of personality, has always been interesting to me. The human psyche, what motivates people (and what doesn’t) is pretty fascinating stuff. The drivers that motivate human behavior are of critical interest to marketers.

There are several different systems out there to classify people into different personality types or temperaments, and they all have their different relative merits. But at a high level, I think it’s important to realize that they are not describing who people are. They are describing their most important strategy for behavior. People rarely surprise me with how unpredictable they are. They more often surprise me with how eerily easy it is to predict what they’ll do, sometimes before they themselves know what they’re going to do.

A personality type is a (mostly) unconscious strategy that people use to make decisions so that they don’t have to think about every action they take, and so they can get a predictable outcome to their actions. Humans love predictable outcomes, even if they’re not great outcomes. Most people use the same few basic strategies with the same basic assumptions and values. Given a good enough understanding of the most common strategies, and enough time around a person to learn what strategies they rely on, it becomes increasingly easy to predict what their actions will be. The way a long-time married couple can appear to read each other’s minds is an example of this.

In some ways, marketing is a form of this parlor trick, performed on a mass audience. The better you understand the common denominators of the largest part of your audience, the more effectively you can predict what will and won’t motivate most of them.

Which can be remarkably useful information to have handy.