Trending Now from G/L: Industry Support, Quirky Brands, New Apps and more

Geile/Leon Marketing Communications

Trending Now from G/L: Industry Support, Quirky Brands, New Apps and more

TRENDING NOW FROM G/L

Every Monday morning, the G/L office starts our week by meeting together and updating everyone on new business, old business, this week’s needs, last week’s successes – all the good stuff. We always take time at the end of these meetings to discuss what is trending now in our marketing and design world. We decided that what we talk about isn’t only beneficial to us, but to our clients and followers – so every Monday morning we share our favorite trends with you.

WHAT WE’RE TALKING ABOUT THIS WEEK

Last week, we talked about companies moving ads onto Instagram, a designers project The Urban Type and more. This week, we are talking about grabbing a beer with Anheuser-Busch InBev, Joe Boxer’s support for binge-watching shows, Samsung embracing the unboxing video trends, breaking up with IE8, Facebook taking on the video space and an app that reads your facial expressions to save pages for you.

“GRAB A BEER”

If you weren’t thirsting for a beer before, you may be after seeing this site. Anheuser-Busch InBev recently launched a digital campaign entitled “Let’s Grab a Beer”. The site is aimed at promoting the beer industry as a whole. In fact, if you weren’t looking for who made the site, you may never know it’s from A-B InBev. The site includes infographics, photographs and memes in a Pinterst-esque look and feel. This is a good example to show that your audience wants to hear about the industry, not just about your brand – and ultimately, if the industry benefits then the company does too.

Screen Shot 2015-04-20 at 10.57.37 AM
See the website here.
Read the full article from AdAge here.

INACTIVITY MOTIVATION

Joe Boxer is known for its wacky yet clever ads, specifically around holiday seasons. The brand mentions that in a slow time of year, they came up with something to put them back on the radar – it is known as their Inactivity Tracker. A spoof on exercise trackers, this band rewards users for doing nothing. The brand says it encourages slowing down and spending time in pajamas in this crazy world – but does so while showing the quirky personality of the brand. The product is accompanied by a video, a content hub and a PR push.

Screen Shot 2015-04-20 at 11.07.35 AMRead more about the product, and how to get it, in the article from AdAge here.

SAMSUNG EMBRACING THE TRENDS

“Unboxing” videos have become wildly popular in the tech world. Consumers record themselves taking their phone out of the box for the first time and reviewing the look, feel and features on camera. Samsung acknowledged that this is a steady trend in the tech world and made new ads out of their own professional unboxing videos. The brand uses each unboxing video to introduce the product and (at least) one specific feature to the viewer. These ads show that Samsung is in-tune to what their tech world is consuming and committed enough to tailor their style of reach to what the audience will already be looking for. Though action packed and filled with drama, the message the ads convey is the same message a tech reviewer at home would post.

Watch the videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ll0iK6fIsI8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=40&v=NEhhIM6K_2o

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efjaZeGFWis

Read the full article from AdWeek here.

IT’S OVER, IE8

I think most of us at G/L broke up with Internet Explorer long ago, but because of a influx of new users and the six year anniversary of IE8, a website to help you realize your worth and relationship needs out of a browser has launched. This is the break-up with your IE8 browser site…and it is harsh. The website walks you through the break up, it tells you why you’re ready to let it go or encourages you that your choice to leave is the right one. Once you make your decision, this website has you tell IE8 in 100 characters why it just isn’t working out and then these reasons get displayed on the website for everyone to relate to.

Check out some of our favorite break-up statements:

Screen Shot 2015-04-20 at 11.25.41 AM

See the website for yourself here.

FACEBOOK IN THE RUNNING

Brands (such as Popsugar, BuzzFeed, Jimmy Kimmel Live, and more) are creating video specifically for use on Facebook, leading to Facebook’s transition as a leader in video streaming. This appears to still be unfolding, as there are many thoughts to pre-roll ads, user experience and insights – but marketers are interested in learning more. Facebook targets by age, gender and location among other benefits, so it would be no surprise that brands start investing more in videos tailored to Facebook instead of (or in addition to) YouTube. Facebook has been approaching this from a small and medium size business perspective as well by encouraging them to learn more about the benefits of video uploaded to Facebook and how that performs compared to photos and text posts. In addition to Facebook’s push to keep more content within their platform, we’ll be keeping an eye out to watch this shift continue to unfold.

Read the full article from AdWeek here.

SMILE SUGGEST: SMILE FOR YOUR FRONT FACING CAMERA

Smile Suggest is an app for your browser that (when turned on) uses your front-facing webcam to detect when a website makes you smile. Once it detects a smile, it saves the page for you that you can revisit later or share with friends. It’s a little bit of creepy and awesome at the same time – who knows, it could be the first step to never needing to navigate manually again, like the Xbox Kinect.

Watch the video.

See the website here.

Want to talk these trends with us? Did you see an interesting trend we haven’t talked about? Let’s chat. Connect with us on Twitter or Facebook.

Did you miss the last trends we shared? See them here.

The Hell With Extension, Put Digital Media Advertising First

Tim Leon
President/Brand Strategist

The Hell With Extension, Put Digital Media Advertising First

Strategy and Planning to Digital Media Advertising

We conducted a webinar this past week for clients, entitled A Strategic Approach to Digital Media. We included our strategic partner, Goodway Group, in the presentation. It was a successful webinar and it got me thinking about the predictive nature of planning and buying digital media advertising.

Digital Media Advertising
PointRoll developed a helpful infographic showing the evolution of digital advertising.

With the tracking software and tools available today, information about consumers’ online media habits and interests, among other characteristics, are readily accessible to marketers. This information includes the best time of day to serve up digital ads, certain days of the week that the consumer is more likely to be online, frequency of which customer needs to be exposed to ad before taking action and even more.

Taking Advantage of Digital Media Advertising Opportunities

To target prospects, Goodway Group uses a real-time bidding model that serves advertising based on existing consumer data as well as online habits. Instead of buying digital inventory beforehand from media partners with the hopes of reaching the right target audience, Goodway segments audiences and places media where the target is. There’s no guessing game, just getting your message in front of the right people. Digital advertising is then placed/served through behavior targeting, contextual targeting, search retargeting, and more.

In the big scheme of things, I can’t think of a campaign we are working on that DOESN’T have the need for a digital advertising component; the challenge is we can sometimes back ourselves into thinking of digital as only an extension of a campaign. The hell with extension, putting digital first in planning is the key to making digital media advertising a reality in your next integrated marketing communications campaign.

The Impact of Digital Media Advertising

We are seeing digital media advertising everywhere. Consider these facts from the Advertising Age Marketing Fact Pack 2015. Digital advertising was the fastest growing ad medium in 2014 with 18.4% growth. People spend more time on the Internet than watching TV (273 minutes per day for TV vs. 346 minutes for internet). It’s no coincidence, heh?

We partnered with Goodway Group and held our webinar to display our commitment to digital media. Are you interested in learning more about what we do, or what digital media advertising can do? Download your own copy of our Webinar Presentation!

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Weighing In: Advertisers Are Getting Fat at the Expense of Kids

Geile/Leon Marketing Communications

Weighing In: Advertisers Are Getting Fat at the Expense of Kids

One of the worst health issues for American kids is O – B – E – S – I – T – Y.   And we marketers feed right into it.

How could that be? We bike to work, run marathons, and quaff light beer and Skinny Girl Margaritas. But what we serve up to our clients and their customers is the problem. (more…)

To Build a Better Portfolio, You Need to be Ready and Willing.

Dave Geile
Creative Director Managing Partner

To Build a Better Portfolio, You Need to be Ready and Willing.

As a Creative Director and owner of my own marketing communications agency, I had the pleasure of being asked to be an advisor to a new start up organization. The win-win-win factor behind this nonprofit concept is fantastic. It is a nonprofit set up to help other nonprofits with marketing, advertising, and promotional materials—with a dual benefit allowing young professionals the opportunity to network and get some real world experience. The organization is called Ready and Willing, and this is how it works.

First of all, as we all know, most nonprofits are living on a shoestring. Money is tight, and what is spent is done sparingly. But, they need marketing and communication materials to spread the word about their services and solicit donations and volunteers. Secondly, there are hoards of young advertising and marketing professionals out there looking to make their mark on the ad industry, trying to build their portfolios and launch their careers. This is where Ready and Willing comes in. They build a membership list of these nonprofit organizations and match them up with a team of young art directors, writers, and account service people. But you may ask, “Hey Dave, you mean you plan on turning a bunch of green creatives loose on innocent unsuspecting nonprofits?” “Waddaya NUTS! Where’s the quality control?” Glad you asked. Here’s the twist.

Ready and Willing will also host a group of member Mentors to help steer, guide and instruct these over-hormoned, zealous ad people to insure the work is on strategy, on message, and the creative is something to be proud of. This is the third win. These seasoned professionals that range from Creative Director level to agency owner types will be able to give back to the community with the very skills they have honed over the years, while also helping to mold young talent. Plus, they get to network within this group of “up and coming” talent, possibly recruiting for their own shops or scouting freelance assistance.

It’s that simple. Ready and Willing. Win, Win, Win. And aside from a small member contribution to participate, the work is all free of charge. Check them out if you are interested in helping out, networking and building your book at the same time.

Along with being on the Board of Directors with Ready and Willing, David Geile is Creative Director and Managing Partner of Geile/Leon Marketing Communications. G/L is a convergence agency specializing in Brand Development, Strategic Positioning, Interactive Marketing, and SEO strategy.

 

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