Activeark

The single most anticipated feature was the Stage3D accelerated graphics rendering, which enables Flash to use the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) on the computer. Previously all content on a webpage (or AIR application) was processed and rendered by the CPU. Now that the GPU can take over the workload of processing graphics, it leaves additional resources for the CPU to use.

To put it simply, we can now create visually highly advanced stuff; interactive 3D-models, immersive environments, fast-paced 2D games and more. This is a significant advantage to other forms of rendering graphics in web browsers, as they have a long way to go before they can support the same level of graphics processing in a reliable way.

However, one should keep in mind that even though we now have technology that enables us to use these new methods, the work isn’t done for us and there is still a lot of solid effort behind a good product.

This new graphics rendering support won’t be restricted to desktop environments; by early next year Adobe will release a update that enables the same architecture on mobile platforms, meaning we get the same added possibilities to applications on our iOS / Android devices.

Read more about this and other new features in Flash Player 11 and AIR 3 here: http://activeark.fi/s/63

Adobe discontinues development of Flash -plugin for mobile browsers

In a move to add focus on the desktop and mobile application environments, Adobe announced in early November that they would be discontinuing development of the Flash -plugin for mobile browsers.

The plugin has been available mostly for browsers on Android devices. Apple iOS users are entirely unaffected by this, as the plugin has never been included in the Safari mobile browser.

This initially stirred some confusion among consumers - what is the mobile browser plugin and does this mean Flash is going away entirely from mobiles? Don’t worry! In the development community this has been well-received and thought of as a good decision, and something that will benefit both the developers and the users. Here’s why.

Smartphones have become common and people have come to have some expectations of what mobile sites should look and feel like; easily accessible, light and informative. Usually one does not expect to be presented with heavy animations or other rich content on a mobile site, which is the reason for why using Flash in that context is seldom motivated. This is also the reason for why Adobe decided to drop support of the mobile Flash -plugin - the additional software that makes Flash available to the browser.

When it comes to mobile sites HTML provides all the necessary tools, within the confines of the browser engine. However, when it comes to more heavy-duty processing, advanced functionality or when the browser is a limiting factor, applications are the way to go. And that is where Adobe is focusing, now more clearly than ever. With the AIR runtime we can package Flash content as a mobile application, making all that rich content available in a dedicated environment.

So, to sum it up:

• Flash on a site? Won’t work on a mobile browser.
• Flash on a mobile? Make it an application!

Further reading:
Danny Winokur, Vice President & General Manager of Interactive Development @ Adobe
http://blogs.adobe.com/conversations/2011/11/flash-focus.html

Lee Brimelow, Game Developer Evangelist @Adobe
http://www.leebrimelow.com/?p=3151

Thibault Imbert, Flash Product Manager @Adobe
http://www.bytearray.org/?p=3744

Flash is a tool for delivering interactive presentations, animations and other audiovisually rich content to web pages.

AIR (http://www.adobe.com/products/air.html) is a runtime which enables packaging Flash content into a application, adding several powerful features and possibilites. Applications made with AIR can be run on both desktop (Windows, OS X, Linux) and mobile (iOS, Android, Blackberry) platforms.

Cause marketing refers to “a type of marketing involving the cooperative efforts of a ‘for profit’ business and a non-profit organization for mutual benefit”. – Wikipedia

Recent political events have shaken my view on quite a few things. The first cloud in my sky was the striking success of the True Finns (a populist/national socialist party) in the 2011 Finnish Parliamentary elections. And now the second wave of the financial crisis has had a serious impact on how we will be making economic and political decisions in the near future.

I believe that these events will foster an introverted politics with less emphasis on securing long-term positive developments worldwide. Even in this tight situation, though, many people still feel the importance of sustainable development and the need to aid less fortunate people around the world.

Brands have the chance to play a key role in making it easier to help. Almost any purchasing situation can present opportunities for taking positive action, and companies will find that doing good can in fact be profitable business. This happens automatically when a firm gets favorable publicity for contributing to valuable causes, generating customer goodwill and enhancing brand value. Going even further and developing the brand towards always being associated with good causes would be the natural next step.

You might think this is something limited to just a few companies or specific campaigns fortunate enough to get positive press for supporting causes. But if you take a look at what both consumers and managers are saying on the subject, it becomes clear that there are real opportunities here for almost any company out there.

When you ask consumers
Eighty-six percent of consumers worldwide believe that business needs to place at least equal weight on societal interests as on business interests.
2010 Edelman goodpurpose

Marketing executives agree
Two-thirds of brands now engage in cause marketing (up from 58% in 2009) and 97% of marketing executives believe it is a valid business strategy.
2010 PRWeek/Barkely PR Cause Survey

Cause increasingly creates differentiation
79% of Americans say they would be likely to switch from one brand to another, when price and quality are about equal, if the other brand is associated with a good cause (compared to 66% in 1993).
2008 Cone Cause Evolution Study

Quite a few major brands are already doing cause marketing. Pepsi, for example, generated quite a buzz when they announced that instead of running their usual TV ad during the 2010 Super Bowl, they would be giving the 25 million dollars to good causes.

But even if some major brands are taking steps in this direction, few if any are automatically associated with cause marketing as a practice. Which means this could be the perfect time to start building exactly that aspect of your brand image!

Below, some examples of a company that has been doing an excellent job building a flourishing business around cause marketing.

1. You need to start from somewhere, right.

2. If your concept is good and simple enough, it’s easily extendable.

3. Use it for campaigns and go viral.

You might agree this sounds like something worth getting involved in, but say there are other more urgent things demanding your attention right now. On the other hand, when you consider that supporting good causes is not secondary to doing good business, the priorities might look different. Why not take some solid steps towards enhanced brand equity and customer loyalty today?

Your business, and the world we live in, will be glad you did.

The writer is a Business unit leader, Account manager at Activeark
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Finding information online is simple. Finding the people or consumers you need to connect with is more challenging. Even more challenging is how to communicate with people that don’t know they need you. As the Internet increasingly filters content based on relevancy, marketing new ideas across these media becomes more challenging. What is the key to marketing in a virtual environment where users and search algorithms hold the power? We believe the key lies in offering meaningful products and services that touch people, create social equity and allow them to share and contribute. 

However, today it’s not just the Internet a marketer needs to consider. You need to understand all media, and know your alternatives. Living as we do in the midst of change, the ability to make choices and take action is vital. Unless you understand all the touch points, how can you rationalize your decisions about where to communicate and what? You need to know more about people and about how people behave, and will behave, in the developing digital society. One thing is sure, though: soon the Internet will include all the world’s data. Uniqueness is what will then matter most, so focus on your value proposition, service, product or brand story, and make it stand out.

We believe things are evolving universally to a point where marketing communications and the product increasingly become one. This shows why the advertising industry needs to change: an agency that would serve our growing digital society cannot be built on old structures. This is an environment where the agency who understands media, consumer behavior and technology will master future creativity. And as the majority of all consumed media is expected to be digital by as soon as 2015, the creativity and productivity will be increasingly one thing: digital. Our aim is to be the agency for the digital society. 

The name itself suggests that virtually anything in the real world can be digitally augmented or enhanced. Conventionally it is the environment itself, or elements within the environment that are augmented. Augmented Reality Cinema and The Witness are interesting examples of this.

Print media is a likely candidate for digital augmentation, because it is itself limited, while potentially relating to content in other formats. QR codes (short for Quick Response codes) have become quite widespread and are making just that connection. Traditionally, QR codes simply provide a link between the code found on a printed page or packaging and related digital content online. I remember using them daily in Tokyo, Japan in 2006, but nowadays they’re becoming more and more common here in Finland, too. QR codes from UpCode, Victoria’s Secret and Reporters Without Borders show some clever uses, creating experiences that are quite a bit more augmented than more familiar cases. One dimension that QR codes traditionally do not take into account is orientation. Frauennotruf München and Volkswagen, in recent campaigns, use more advanced AR solutions to do just that, providing an even richer augmented print media experience.

Any digital resource can serve as the augmentation part of AR, just as any environment or object can be the item augmented. The main constraint is the technology used. Taking orientation into account enables the use of 3D objects, and this is the kind of implementation that most people think of when talking about AR. This Adidas campaign is one of many examples developed for PCs. String, being developed for iOS, makes it possible to view 3D models as AR content on a mobile platform. Like most AR applications, these serve visual content, but other senses can be addressed as well. In Volkswagen’s example (above) the device would vibrate, adding touch to the experience. There are also location-based audiobooks that draw on sound for augmenting the user’s experience.

In Finland, the markets have been a bit slow in adopting AR solutions, but for example QR codes and local implementations in Layar are signs of positive development. Augmented reality still has some challenges to overcome, but one thing is clear: we’re going to be seeing a lot more AR in the future, with new platforms and standards emerging and whole fields of untapped potential. As with any new technology, early adopters will have the advantage, and there is still plenty of room for frontrunners to emerge. Augmented reality holds tremendous promise for any number of fields, especially marketing and advertising, and it’s only a matter of time before augmented reality will be everyday reality.

And she was spontaneous and she was fun. What she thought was how much fun it would be sitting soaked in the old roller coaster or running around in the empty amusement park.

We didn’t go to the amusement park. I don’t remember what we did instead.

But if we had gone, I would remember it.

And this is the same thing that happens all the time in creative work. Someone throws out an idea and someone else quickly thinks up a bunch of reasons to shoot it down, instead of seeing where a more constructive response could get you.

That’s the thing with kids. They don’t feel embarrassed when they share their ideas. Children base their actions on impulses.

And they haven’t grown up hearing how stupid their ideas are.

Adults on the other hand are petrified of sounding stupid. So they think things through before saying them. And they expect others to do the same.

But when you’re creating something new, you need ideas. And you can’t just sit around expecting good ideas to show up. Normally, the only way to get to a good idea is through a thousand bad ones. In the process of creating something new, quantity is far more important than quality.

The time to be smart is when you have something concrete to be smart about. Ideas are always different for everyone who hears them. When I say “car”, I have my idea of a car and when you hear it, you have your idea of a car. Proposing a week-long car trip in the Alps may be stupid with my idea of a car, but brilliant with yours.

Not only is it often the only way to get good results, but being stupid also creates an atmosphere that’s essential to creative thinking, where you don’t need to be the responsible adult. Being stupid lets you not think about budgets, target groups or schedules. It lets you remember some awesome thing you saw the other day, or a stupid joke you heard one night sitting in a pub. And that might be just the thing to trigger the really great idea, the one that works in the real world, too.

Whoever was thinking about Star Wars when their job was to create an ad for Volkswagen wasn’t being very grown-up and responsible. Or whoever first suggested that building a big painting robot would be a good way to fight cancer.

So never underestimate the power of stupid; it can achieve some pretty awesome things.

The writer is a Lead Creative Designer at Activeark
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The agencies often focus on creating architecture and brand surface sans a real interactive content or concept.

This is a challenge, since the audience according to basically all research trusts brands less all the time. One way communicative efforts are more and more seen as something that interrupts and disrupts.

All doom and gloom then?

Hardly. Brand design today is as much creating an experiential framework than it is just determining the color and the shape of things.

Reason to believe has transformed to reason to belong.

Experiential brands - not brand experiences.

First we discover that companies have a soul and an ideology. We interpret the brand essence into a living, breathing persona - basically dig out the essence on which the consumer not only makes a choice but feels good about making said choice.

This is the core on which all activities are based on.

We must also take care of not dropping the audience once it is reached, making sure that there is a reason to continue the interaction.

End result is a participatory brand, one that is truly horizontal with the audience, one that behaves with logic and coherence.

This makes it possible for the audience to like the brands beyond offering a like button.

Communication seen as a behavioral framework liberates the thinking from placement to significance and interaction, and interaction is in the end of the day is the core on what our business was founded back in the day.

As agencies, we are evolving from the technicians of the digital age to the strategists and drivers of brand dramaturgy - maybe the embers of the revolutionary fires are still glowing.

As a creative, I had quite a long period a few years back when I just accepted that I’m never going to find my “one true” client. There were some sparks, yes, but everything was always too complicated and no relationship could really flourish. There were other people (jealous advertising agencies), trust issues (“If you can’t deliver this on this timestamp, we’ll find someone who can”) and, well, everyone knows how messy money can make things.

Work-wise, I felt a little like someone in the Finnish movie “Restless” by Aku Louhimies – “Kun mikään ei tunnu miltään” (“When nothing feels like anything”). Everything was fine in a way, but somehow it all just felt a little empty.

And then one day, there it was. A full-fledged client romance! There were fireworks from the start, and it quickly evolved from just a website to a whole identity project. I was on fire! All my senses awake, I could do better design, felt more mentally engaged, and, most of all, I was enjoying my client’s company. Lines like “ I trust you”, “I’m happy” and “How would you see this” brought the relationship to a new level beyond any prior client relationship. With the others there was still some selfishness, occasional suspicions of infidelity, power games. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not the kind to kiss & tell or the bitter ex who talks trash once the relationship’s gone cold. But everyone knows there are relationships where everything is like, nice…, and then there are RELATIONSHIPS.

Well, that was a while back, and even good things come to an end. Our lives led in different directions, and we parted ways as friends.

But now there’s someone new. We’ve had this thing going for a while. I’m trying to take it slow, and don’t want to brag, but I think we might have the best understanding of all time. When we meet, it’s always fun, creative and relaxed. Sometimes I get gifts – they really know how to woo a lady! And I always feel 100 % motivated to do whatever’s needed for the relationship. There’s something cozy and a little bit everyday about it; not the wild rush of first love, but something that feels more grown-up and real.

Just a couple weeks ago we “went public” for the first time. I was really nervous how this (award-stuff) would affect to our relationship. Would it make us stronger or bring new challenges? Well, it was a big success. I think people can really see how well we work together. And everyone seemed happy for both of us.

Relationships come and go, and nothing’s ever certain. Will we grow old together wearing matching woolen socks, or will something come between us? There’s no way to know. But as a romantic I just have this naive belief that some things are made to last, even in the digital age.

Minna Hiltunen
Lead Creative Designer
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Activeark Ltd.

They just fumbled around with the square of paper in their hands until someone else pointed out their images in the photo. Although we are now living in extremely visual times, I claim that we are still mostly looking at the picture surface instead of seeing the true content of the image. It may be that we are just too dazzled by the everyday flood of images to see through the surface of any single one. But we need to look deeper into a picture to understand the reality the images around us are creating. Only if we realize the power and potential in an image, can we begin to create reality ourselves, through images.

Just as those aboriginals had to learn to see through the thin surface separating the image from the world they knew, we too need to learn to see through the transparent boundaries in our way of thinking – i.e. “It’s just a picture”. Or we should think of the image as a mirror (which, of course, is a particular kind of image) always looking back at you. Are we just blindly viewing pictures without giving them a chance to confront us, and augment our way of thinking and feeling? Ideally, there should be some intellectual exchange between us and the images we see.

We really need to think outside the box, because there are two different – but definitely equal – realities on either side of the picture surface. Russian scientist Anatoly T. Fomenko, who has a deep understanding of these different realities, summarizes the reality of his mathematically inspired drawings in these terms: “One can consider these images to be photographs of a strange, powerful, and fantastic mathematical world—one that exists, regardless of how we perceive it, according to its own special laws”. So, it doesn’t matter at all if the world depicted in an image differs from scientifically validated reality, and vice versa! Exploring different realities by creating visuals is a kind of pseudoscience. Basically we just need to know what we are doing, and respect the laws of the reality we find. We need vision!



Here is another concrete example of a picture that guides us straight into another reality: 19th Century illustrator Gustave Doré’s visualization of Dante’s Divine Comedy, this from the third section, Paradise.

If we really want to impress people, we need to be bold and look beyond the most obvious meanings to make a difference. We all have the power to make images come alive, so there is no reason to be boring and stuck in clichés! Lastly, here’s something for your inspiration: But Does It Float (http://butdoesitfloat.com/). A great blog-like source of thoughtful interaction between amazing images and penetrating minds. Enjoy!

Taina Tirkkonen
Art Director
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Activeark Ltd.

This is why it is important to understand what motivates consumers to follow brands on Facebook in the first place, and how they expect to benefit as fans or “likers” of a brand. eConsultancy, an independent digital marketing and ecommerce advisory out of the UK,  tried to find out. Conducting a Toluna-powered survey of British consumers (http://econsultancy.com/uk/blog/7136-why-do-people-follow-brands-on-facebook), they got very interesting results.

Even though Facebook today is attracting a growing number of brands, and more and more money is being invested in Facebook activities, only 20% of users currently follow brands on the social networking site. So at the moment 80% of Facebook users do not follow brands, and that’s a big number.

The survey also revealed that the users who do follow brands are not doing it for the interaction, communication or engagement. What really motivates people to follow brands on Facebook are special offers and shopping. So it is not about “spending time with the brands”. Consumers want something real: real benefits. 68% of those who follow brands on Facebook do it for the special offers and 33% for shopping –  only 20% show an interest in being brand advocates by allowing brands to post messages and content on their profile.

Perhaps the most interesting finding in the survey was that already 25% of users who follow brands have made purchases via a brand’s Facebook page. F-commerce (F for Facebook) will probably show up as one of the biggest trends of 2011. It is predicted that f-commerce will emerge as the 4th largest retail channel after stores, mail order and the Internet. For example Asos (http://apps.facebook.com/asosofficial/) and La Redoute (http://www.facebook.com/laredoute?v=app_176667005697254) have already launched their f-commerce stores, and the first social shopping mall was opened on Facebook in February: http://apps.facebook.com/shoppingmall/.

With f-commerce solutions, brands can begin rewarding their Facebook followers with real-time benefits and special offers, and turn them into active and loyal paying customers.

So maybe the future of Facebook is not about entertainment and discussion after all, but about business.

P.S. Even though brand websites have been losing their unchallenged dominance in the world of e-commerce, they are still vital, and not least as a channel for driving people to Facebook. 45% of users found their brand’s Facebook page through the brand’s website, still a higher percentage than through friends’ recommendations (36%).