Over the holiday break I have finally had some time to get some reading done. One of them was Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media, and Blogs (The New Rules of Social Media) by Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah. It is a very cool book and a super fast read. The text gives a good overview of what’s happening with inbound marketing and is ideal for beginners to intermediate folks in the industry or who want to get started. The book begins by setting up the current environment then moves into basic overviews of using blogs, search engines and social media in your marketing efforts. Next it moves into to capturing customers and capitalizing on your marketing efforts.
I think this book gives a great overview about how and what new media can do for your marketing efforts. It is pretty basic and very prescriptive in its approach in that it gives a “do this, do this, and then do this.” Me personally I enjoy a descriptive approach with more case studies, but since it is a general overview most of the advice is right on. For me as a instructor at a university and teaching in this area I think this might make a wonderful book for students. The book offers great information and definitely worth checking out.
I have been reading an excellent book by Chris Anderson, FREE: The future of radical pricing. The book describes how companies like Google can offer so much for free and the business models that are emerging from prices progressively moving closer to zero. I am not anywhere near being an economist, but the ideas create an interesting discussion. I teach in a college of journalism where this topic has become more of and issue because of the current situation with newspapers going out of business and moving online. This book fittingly is available free as an audio book.
An interesting section of FREE is the piracy chapter where Anderson tells about China and Brazil’s take on copyright. I think China has an interesting model for the music industry with 95% of the music on the market being free copies, but labels become event planners. The classic example in the US now a days is Radiohead’s In Rainbows where you buy the album online and give what you like. This in turn drives interest in the band making concerts and merchandise.
Along these lines there have been some great videos online about piracy and copyright law that I think are opening the conversation about this topic.
A documentary by Web activist and filmmaker Brett Gaylor RiP: A remix manifesto looks at issues of piracy and mash-ups. Watch it online or download it for what you think its worth!
I am not dead yet, but I do have a Master’s degree now so 2009 is just starting to exist outside of work and school.
Anyway, recently I have been reading this great book by Rebecca Lieb called “The Truth About Search Engine Optimization.” Nice quick read but jam packed with practical information about SEO. I teach a New Media Design class at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and will definitely be referencing this book and recommending it to students. It is easy to understand but also clears ups some gray areas I had about the topic. It is broken down into short sections making it a great reference book that is a great addition to any advertiser, marketer, web designer/developer, graphic design or anyone else involved with working online.
More info here, they also offer it as a PDF download which I am always excited about for classes I teach.
Through various contacts and research on other things I ran into Nxtbook Media’s website where they “find ways to leverage traditional print material for optimized use online.” It is an interesting concept and goes into the whole debate on whether print is dead. I will speak on that at a later date, but they make arguments ranging from easy online integration to environmentally friendly.
I see where they are going with this and seems like a glorified PDF or Google Book. The interface is nice and it is neat how the pages actually flip, but I think it seems like an older crowd application who are hanging onto how they read printed pieces. It is nice to have the printed layout available but there are multiple benefits to provide a web-based layout to include related materials, links, video, interactive charts, and commenting options. In other words take advantage of all the “Web 2.0″ there is some included but it is very clunky.
So I wrote a short paper about web advertising for a marketing class (see below). The text mention banner and skyscrapper ads were not effective. Although I generally agree Apple has a couple great applications of these formats.
Apple began the “Get a Mac” campaign in 2006 with a series of television commercials featuring humorous exchanges between a Mac, Justin Long and a PC, John Hodgman. The campaign also included static internet banner ads to supplement the television effort. In November 2007, they launched a new rich media advertisement on the internet which combined a banner ad across the top and a skyscraper ad along the right side of selected websites. The ad features video of the familiar characters, Mac and PC, in the skyscraper ad commenting on and interacting with the banner ad displaying an unlit sign which says “Don’t Give Up On Vista.” In the ad, PC hits a button to light up the sign but only the “Give Up” part illuminates, he hits the button again and “On Vista” lights up. He then repeatedly hits the button with these two phrases alternating on and off. The ad is a comment on the number of PC users who upgraded to Windows Vista and were unhappy with the new operating system.Clutter is mentioned in the text as a disadvantage for internet advertising with the effectiveness of banner ads on the decline. This ad builds off the popularity of the TV commercials creating good synergy and reinforcing Apples brand image. Another disadvantage it overcomes is annoyance to the user. The initial state of the ad is static with information about the new Mac computers and includes a play button where viewers have the option to view the rich media content. This technique adds to the brand image of a class, innovation, and a customer driven company who thinks of everything. The ad is a creative use of the medium which not only breaks through the clutter of online advertising, but has created a buzz with internet users seeking out the advertisement.
Stella Artois, a European brewery not only has super sweet beer that everyone should try it also has a couple of amazing websites. There regular site, www.stellaartois.com, is very entertaining with the its’ “cinema” style. It blends the borders of a websites navigation into a entertaining film(s). Classic example of an Advertainment in my mind.
They also have a new campaign called “Le Courage” where you bravely navigate the challenges of brewing beer in 1366. Again its a wonderful blend of advertisement and entertainment. It has a short, amusing story line which you play a simple short “game” to accomplish your task. The visuals themselves are a very well done flash piece that combines live action video with flash interactivity. Check out it out here.
Courtesy of Adobe Edge Newsletter, December 2007 issue, which everyone should subscribe to if your into any kind of graphics or design.
