Activeark - Ideas

30.11.2011 Flash Technology: Recent Developments

2011-11-30T09:21:14+00:00

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.

12.09.2011 Cause Marketing – Help those in need, while increasing sales and brand equity!

2011-09-12T11:23:11+00:00

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
andre.bardy@activeark.com

12.09.2011 2015 Media & Marketing Manifesto

2011-09-12T11:00:14+00:00

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.

12.09.2011 Thoughts on a reality augmented

2011-09-12T09:16:03+00:00

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.

29.08.2011 Stupid is what stupid does

2011-08-29T06:55:53+00:00

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
paavo.jarvilehto@activeark.com
Twitter

09.06.2011 Reason to participate.

2011-06-09T12:51:48+00:00

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.

17.05.2011 ♥ Me, ♥ Me Not

2011-05-17T09:36:48+00:00

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
minna.hiltunen@activeark.com
Activeark Ltd.

11.05.2011 Never judge an image by its cover

2011-05-11T07:46:20+00:00

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
taina.tirkkonen@activeark.com
Activeark Ltd.

11.05.2011 Facebook – liking business

2011-05-11T07:43:50+00:00

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%).

07.01.2011 What makes an effective web presence?

2011-01-07T09:03:13+00:00

Getting effective use from digital channels bring new and unknown challenges for many businesses. The features and functions available are in a state of constant flux and every web vendor or digital agency will have their own preferred approach, design strategy, platform choices etc.

Take a moment to consider what makes the difference between some web experiences and others. Some websites seem to be well thought through and constructed, whereas others are somehow disjointed and lack critical information.

The difference is in the presence or absence of a clear plan or strategy integrating the company’s vision and strategic objectives with:

a clear understanding of the visitors and what they expect to find and do,
a deep understanding of the technologies and capabilities available,
an effective operating model for integrating capabilities of the website into the organisation’s own processes (especially critical for web 2.0 and mobile channel activities),
and finally a clear positioning between the organisation’s website and existing social media sites such as “Facebook”, Twitter and “Linked-in”.

Introducting a Digital Channel strategy

By establishing a digital channel strategy you are able to steer through the complexity and ensure a clear and consistent focus on the needs of the business coupled with the needs of the visitor.

In addition it becomes much simpler to understand and manage the tricky scope issues concerning how different channels interrelate. We see this very clearly in the process of developing a discussion forum. If done effectively, this will impact:

the company internet (because to get a critical mass of discussion, external stakeholders will need to be able to participate)
the intranet (because by stimulating dialogue between employees and customers you have the possibility of creating a new communication channel between the business and its marketplace)
and maybe extranets too (because you might want to give your dedicated customers and business partners their own place in such a forum).

A digital channel strategy developed with commitment and engagement from internal channel stakeholders provides a basis for effectively steering through the complex territory issues that are likely to emerge in a process like this.

Getting the scope right

So… is this a strategy for the internet? What about your colleagues and employees – do they get special access rights and does this extend the scope to your intranet? And then there are stakeholder groups like sales, after-sales care and partner companies… hmmm, extranets too?

Getting the scope right is the first key to developing a successful digital channel strategy. This has become especially challenging and critical now with the advent of corporate network groups on social media sites, where employees go to get news, network and discuss things, activities that are arguably the scope of internal communications but which now end up firmly in the scope of an internet strategy.

Of course, if your business has 50 employees and one office then this will be easier than if you are a multi-national with 60,000 employees, but the principles are the same:

Who are you targetting as visitors (external/internal, customers/prospects, job seekers, press and analysts, etc)?
What business targets you are aiming for (brand engagement, sales, services, communications)?
What countries and regions are you targetting?

Aside from questions of scope, there are certain stakeholder groups you will always need to involve in creating a digital channel strategy:

The brand team – to integrate brand strategy with the online channel strategy.
IT/enterprise architecture – to integrate platforms and applications and provide core services.
HR/Values – to keep the online channel strategy aligned with core values.
Marketing and communications – to evolve an integrated content strategy for coordinating content creation and presentation with the online channel strategy.

Lastly, you need to consider what “business”, “customer”, “consumer” and “partner” mean within the scope of your organisation. For example, in a B2B business, is there also scope to create consumer awareness – as Intel has done (B2B2C)? Conversely, in a B2C environment, for example Nokia, is there also a need to integrate distributors of the handsets (B2C2B)?

How do you develop and launch such a strategy?

Through effective engagement with the primary stakeholders, build on what already exists to create an objective and actionable plan reflecting the ideas and real needs of the business. Again, in a small or medium-sized business it is quite obvious that you would do this in a holistic way, engaging all dimensions of the business. In a larger enterprise this can be quite challenging, but it is just as critical.

Loosely speaking, there are 4 phases to the process of defining a digital channel strategy:

1. Analysing the current state of your web. Of course, this is a critical first step, knowing what you already have and how your web presence is positioned within your industry. The techniques for doing this range from analysis of your web metrics (how many visitors, how many visits, how long, etc); to surveys and interviews (with your employees and with site visitors); to website evaluations (you own, your competitors and best in class); and to internal workshops for determining strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.

2. Setting a vision of the future and a target state for your digital channels. There are three main activities in this phase: a brainstorming workshop to build your vision and set objectives for the online channels in that vision; defining high level scenarios for visitor behaviour; creating a high level KPI or measurement framework as the basis for a balanced scorecard and business case.

3. Building a roadmap and execution capability. Creating the roadmap includes planning for website design and usability; platform selection and development; content strategy and content creation; organisation and process development; KPI, metrics and governance. In many cases this phase includes identification and selection of a digital agency who will become your partner in executing and managing the new channel.

4. Executing the roadmap. Design, build, test, populate, launch, tune and manage the channel.

Each of these steps needs to be carefully planned and can vary from a simple desk exercise of a few days to a project lasting several weeks, depending on the scope, complexity and current state of material available. In every case, the process should leave your organisation with a clear map for bringing people together on and around your digital channels.

07.01.2011 It’s not about the website, it’s about user-centric design thinking

2011-01-07T08:57:43+00:00

What is REAN and what are its advantages?

REAN is a simple but effective approach for enhancing the design process. It’s a way to mastermind actions with the aim of Reaching a representative of the target group, Engaging her/him with the brand, Activating them, and after that Nurturing the relationship so it will continue to yield value for both parties.

The method is often used in conjunction with user personas, where a persona is created for each user, generating personalized and user-specific approaches, content and call-to-action elements. Markus Nieminen, in an earlier edition of Activeark ideas, has already written about this technique of using personas in online business.

Of all available media, the Internet is particularly well suited to applying the REAN method, because it allows for detailed monitoring of the masses of visitors and makes it easy to identify good patterns and the right steps for optimization. Often, the package that results will also involve traditional media to achieving its ends.

REAN – Reach, Engage, Activate, Nurture

The REAN approach includes the following four parts:

Reach:
Design a presence that speaks to the desired user segment and directs them to the organization’s website.

Examples: online advertising, newspaper advertising, e-newsletters, search engine advertising, social media.

Engage:
Deliver an offer or an appeal that matters to the user, and give them a reason to take action.

Examples: demo videos, testimonials, case studies, a cost calculator.

Activate:
When a user is convinced by the offer or appeal, they may take action to respond to it, or to learn more about the brand. This is where conversion happens.

Examples: contact form, e-newsletter or RSS feed subscription, social media tracking, purchase from webshop.

Nurture:
Once a relationship has been established, it can be nurtured and deepened. Depending on the aims and indicators being tracked at this stage, nurturing can mean encouraging the new prospect to become a customer, or existing customers to increase their purchase frequency or the value of individual purchases.

Example: a newsletter, direct mail, personalized online content, competitions, special offers.

Note: Although the internet is known to be a free environment, especially the earned media, once trust is earned it should not be abused by too often sending spam-like advertising just because it is possible and free. Content you use to engage customers must provide some real value.

Potential of the method and some variations

When used properly and professionally, REAN is a very powerful tool for improving conversion rates. Best results can be achieved by using it together with other similar tools, such as AIDA or user personas, depending on the need. Or be flexible in facing your organization’s challenges and innovate your own version of REAN, with possibilities such as RACE or AECR.

To summarize: instead of trying to please all potential users, prioritize the most important segments and focus on them to create relevant, distinctive content and a sharp message that will differentiate you from competitors.

07.01.2011 The Art of the Idea

2011-01-07T08:54:03+00:00

Time and time again we are asked to fight lost causes. First you are told that some new product needs great ideas for marketing because it’s not selling. Then a meeting is called to gather ideas. If there are insightful and brave people around one of them might say that the problem is the product, not the marketing. His colleagues tell him that they know the product is inferior – that’s why they need a really terrific idea.

That’s where it all starts going terribly wrong. As the team has determined there is nothing of genuine value to say, the strategy is to say it as loudly as possible. The hope is that the increased decibel level will somehow change behavior. This never happens. When this doesn’t work, it is dishonest to claim that the idea failed. Another challenge in these situations is the amount of information we have available. Information should never be confused with insight. Insight comes from active thinking not from the passive accumulation of data. It’s important to remember that information, no matter how beautifully repackaged, does not constitute an idea.

The truth is, a large number of hopeless situations get perfumed over with ideas because those who caused the hopeless situation aren’t themselves asked to come up with ideas. It is much easier to ask for another “new idea” than it is to start changing the product. This just shifts attention away from the real problem. If something is fundamentally wrong with the product no idea will save it.

Now, here’s the good news: the rewards of an honest discussion can be tremendous. If you want to use people’s creativity, allow them to think freely. There’s no greater de-motivator than calling a group of people together and then telling them what they should think and what the end result should be.

In the words of Spencer Johnson, “Integrity is telling myself the truth. And honesty is telling the truth to other people.”

07.01.2011 Facebook killed the brand website, or did it?

2011-01-07T08:37:10+00:00

Today the game is different. The user no longer jumps between sites the way he or she used to, banner ads generate less and less traffic and brands have an increasingly hard time getting noticed online. Facebook, Youtube, Myspace, Linkedin, Twitter and others have partly rewritten the online branding game. Social media offers useful and interesting platforms where brands can be seen and interact with their audience without having to drive traffic to their own website. The most talked-about and probably the most versatile of these is Facebook. Some brands have gone as far as redirecting their domain to their Facebook page. Try typing www.vitaminwater.com into your browser and see where you land…

Will this be the online presence of the brand of the future? Why bother maintaining a brand website when you can go where people spend their time anyway? Some factors speak in favor of it, however there are also good reasons for a less radical approach. In order to explain this situation a little theory is helpful.

Home Bases and Outposts

A brand’s web presence can be divided into categories, based on the level of control that the brand has over its online content. Using this approach content can be divided into different levels. Some choose to use three different levels, however I’ve chosen to present only the two main ones here; Home Bases and Outposts.

Home Bases are places online that you own and control completely. A brand website or blog are examples of home bases.

Outposts are places you don’t own, but where you can build and maintain an online presence. Social sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are perfect examples of outposts. They are extensions of your online presence

Why is this division important? Control is key here.

Outposts can simply cease to exist without you being able to control this. Facebook can remove or modify the requirements of Pages anytime they want. You never have complete control over your online outposts and you are always restricted in what you can do by the governing limitations.

Directions

I don’t think there’s a universal guideline that would cover all needs. However I think some lines can be drawn using the information above. Your home base offers you endless possibilities to present your brand in any way you choose to, without any risk of having to modify your content or platform because of external changes. This is the place where the brand experience can be taken further than anywhere else. It’s the most intimate place where the brand is experienced without noise from platform boarders, banner ads etc. Use this to your advantage. Create incredible surroundings where your brand can shine the brightest!

There’s no one right way to use your outposts for marketing online. However, I do think there’s a best approach. When a brand enters an outpost it will always be on someone else’s turf. There are set rules, but also behavior patterns and attitudes that can’t be put into writing, but which set guidelines for how one should act and interact. So, in order to succeed a marketer must know the rules and nature of the game and always remember to play accordingly. Overly marketing yourself at any of your outposts is usually a bad idea. It might seem like a good idea at first, but in the long run it will probably work against you. Instead you should use the unique characteristics of the outpost to your advantage. Be relevant, play by the rules and you’ll win acceptance and respect from your audience!

Next steps

Use your outposts to extend the reach of your brand, and interact with customers and peers. Build 2-way traffic between your home base and your outpost. Bring people from your outposts to your home base and send people from your home base to your outposts. Ideally, people will be flowing through your entire network and engaging with you in as many ways as possible.

Optimize your presence by adapting the nature of your content to the media you present it in. Optimize how you approach your audience by knowing the rules and routines of each medium. Use social media to socialize, present your audiovisual content on video sites and offer the complete brand experience on your brand website!

21.06.2010 Online Advertising and a New Role for the Agency

2010-06-21T14:23:54+00:00

During the last decade we have witnessed an increase in the number of players in the value chain between advertiser and the publisher. First we have ad networks that bundle a bunch of sites to provide better reach for an advertiser than any single publisher could offer. Using these networks, advertisers (with the help of a media agency) were able to get their message out to a wider audience without having to make advertising deals with each individual publisher. This was the first crucial step to making online advertising more alluring for the advertiser and to attract more advertising money for online channels.

But it doesn’t stop there. During the last few years we have seen the emergence of the ad exchange, a marketplace for advertising inventory in which advertisers can make bids on individual page views. Rather than choosing an individual site, advertisers make offers based on the relevance of individual users. Google started it with their AdSense platform, providing self-serve ad serving through Google’s vast content network. Yahoo quickly followed suit, acquiring Right Media and their RMX exchange. Other players are now quickly ramping up their solutions, to get in on this supposed new gold rush in online advertising.

The idea of an ad exchange is similar to that of a stock exchange. Advertisers make bids and the winning bidder gets to show an ad to the consumer. It all happens in real-time so there’s only a fraction of a second to make educated decisions about a user’s value for the advertiser. To manage this, the bidder needs to construct a reliable model of the user based on his/her past activities online. It’s a number crunching game in which algorithms vie for the best bids in fierce competition.

With these recent developments, online advertising has really become a mixture of art and science. Now we have statisticians and mathematicians developing algorithms and building models of user behavior to automate the delivery of ads to the right eyeballs. That’s certainly a giant step from the times of Mad Men – when personal relationships were the most highly valued asset in the advertising industry (not to mention the good tolerance of alcohol).

This is all good news for the online advertising ecosystem. When ads can be efficiently matched with the right audience, everybody wins – consumers will see more relevant ads, publishers can command higher prices for their inventory, and most importantly, advertisers get a better return for their money. This strengthens the position of the online channel as an advertising medium over traditional channels.

While this may be a marketer’s dream come true, there’s also a flipside to the coin – for the benefit of seeing more relevant ads, consumers have to give up some of their privacy. Typically this happens without the consumer having any say in the matter – most often they are not even aware that they are being tracked. But how much privacy are consumers willing to give up in exchange for better targeting? A lot, if you ask the big players. Just just look at recent announcements concerning Google and Facebook, and remember what you’ve heard about the latter’s eroding privacy policy. Just how far the line can be pushed is now being tested, and there’s no doubt consumers want to see real benefits beyond just better targeted ads, in exchange for their lost privacy.

A reader might get the impression that display advertising is just another engineering problem for the propellerheads to solve with more technology. But it isn’t. Even where the role of the agency is evolving, the creative part remains, and that can’t be automated. Algorithms today can do a lot to make a campaign successful, but there’s no getting around the need for a good idea.

Sami Linnanvuo

sami.linnanvuo@activeark.com

Activeark Ltd.

21.06.2010 On Briefing, Briefly

2010-06-21T14:23:44+00:00

No matter what your product or service is, it’s a fact that only a handful of consumers care about what you have to say. The vast majority are indifferent, some even hostile. Also you’re competing against hundreds and thousands of other messages. So it makes sense to think twice about what you’re going to say. And how.

To do a digital brief right you need to know what interests, needs and, most importantly, behaviors users bring to a variety of online and mobile media, and understand the technical potentials of the medium. If you do, you can make the shift from a communications/advertising brief to an experience/discovery brief, as Dominik Von Jan describes it in a recent article in Creativity Online.

“In a world where most consumer interactions are rapidly taking place in complex digital ecosystems, they engage with brands on a much more intimate level. Digital is not just another communications channel anymore that can serve as a message carrier. Digital finally is an environment where people – aka customers – experience, consume, create, play with, re-purpose, re-format, share content, etc.”

And here’s the real challenge. How to embrace the digital world’s ubiquitous nature and still make it connect with the more local, less interactive one? In order to create digital marketing that works, we need to build relevant scenarios, situations and experiences and allow consumers to discover the messages there in a guided way. Those relevant experiences come to life much more easily in creative briefs whose big ideas are made of the very stuff of the digital medium itself. And social media adds another layer to digital experience building, which also has to be taken into account if the creative brief is going to target the market impact effectively.

Considering all this, the hardest part of writing a brief is still getting everyone to agree on the single most important thing that needs communicating. This has to be the single most attractive benefit of the product or service. Once you have that, you need to describe the challenge. If you can do it in one sentence, that’s good. If you need one or two more, that’s still fine. But if you need more than that, then we’re all in trouble. (Don’t worry, we can help you narrow it down.)

Finally, take a look at all the different ideas and views on your topic (ie. what you are going to communicate). Choose the one you feel best dramatizes or demonstrates the proposition. Ensure that the idea is also the most in-line with the target audience and best reinforces the brand idea. And then let go. It’ll be good. We promise.

Turo Drakvik

Concept Designer, Copywriter

turo.drakvik@activeark.com

Activeark Ltd.

21.06.2010 The impact of effective internal solutions

2010-06-21T14:22:04+00:00

Last year we decided to start exploring new solutions that would help support our own marketing and sales division. We narrowed the options and chose the right ones for us, and even after all the careful analysis and forecasting, we discovered that the value we could gain from improving different work processes was much more than we had expected.

It’s fairly easy to find tools with all the key features you need. What’s harder is judging their effectiveness. The solution needs to work the way the company wants, and it has to show results. Based on our own experience, here are four challenges that are key for business success today:

24.02.2010 Moment of truth - user testing

2010-02-24T13:20:43+00:00

Test early, test often
When you’re redesigning a website, it’s essential to first clearly identify what was wrong with the old site. Otherwise you risk creating a brand new design that makes the same old mistakes.

Different kinds of testing and surveys can be helpful, but user tests give the best results for improving the whole user experience. Real users are the ones who will tell you the truth.

Web analytics can save time and expense at the outset by helping pinpoint the main areas of concern and identifying what needs closer testing. This also gives important input for deciding on a set of user tasks to use in the testing.

Results from these tests give strong immediate feedback on usability, and provide important development ideas for making the new site better. You can get feedback into the design process early, and hand your designers a valuable tool.

Benefits of user testing:

* Saves time and money by avoiding problems at the outset
* Shows how users will really use the site
* Pinpoints the “moment of truth”
* Collects honest opinions on the experience of real users
* Hands designers their most valuable design tool

User testing shouldn’t be seen as a separate option, it should be a basic part of the process. Conduct simple tests at various stages in the project timeline. Test the old site, test prototypes of your new site or service and flight-test before launching.

Watch, listen, and learn
When doing user tests, we observe the website from the user’s perspective. For usable feedback, you can’t rely on the project team or the client. They’re not the real users, and are likely to focus on the wrong things. That’s why it’s important to find the right subjects. User testing should be done with an assorted group of real users. With five subjects you can already perform a very valuable test.

Today there are a few “all in one” software solutions out there that can save the whole user testing session to a single video. The video captures and integrates screen activity and the participants’ reactions, while also recording their spoken responses. These tools make it much easier and more cost efficient to organize user tests.

Typical process for user testing:

* Reviewing the background data and analytics
* Planning the test session
* Recruiting test subjects
* Set-up and testing
* Analyzing results
* Reporting results to the client and project team

There are several different methods for effective testing, but the best are the ones that let you observe real-time how users are reacting and what decisions they are making when they interact with your site. It may be the only way to understand something like why customers keep dropping at the end of a long sales process. And knowing that can make a big difference.

Because, remember, people aren’t necessarily using the site the way you would. Have you had your site tested?

Kasper Hilden

kasper.hilden@activeark.com

Activeark Ltd.

24.02.2010 Social Media Marketing

2010-02-24T13:20:30+00:00

40% of consumers in the survey, from a group that was half active social network users and half general population, said they had friended a brand on Facebook and/or MySpace.

26% had followed a brand on Twitter.
77% had watched an ad on YouTube.
69% had read a corporate blog.
73% had posted a review of a brand on a site like Amazon.
52% had blogged about a brand’s product or service.

http://fluent.razorfish.com/publication/?m=6540&l=1

The main reason consumers friend or follow brands in social media is because they want to find out about interesting deals and offers, but they are also really fans of the brand. They might be current customers or potential ones, consumers who want to show a certain image of themselves in their social networks, or consumers searching for interesting content which might become the basis of a new kind of relationship.

So how to market successfully in social media?
One way to advertise in social media is with display ads, where the ad display is targeted based on knowledge of the individual person or the specific page. Facebook even allows advertisers access to profile information the user has marked private. But are these ads really effective? When they get ignored is it because of bad targeting, or are users really just more interested in other things, like engaging with their community of friends and followers.

The key is to get users to spread your message willingly. The Swedish furniture maker, IKEA, created a brilliant small-budget launch campaign for their new store in Malmo. They created a Facebook profile for the store manager. Over a two-week period, they uploaded IKEA showroom images to his photo album, and then put out word that the first person to tag a product in the photos with their name would win it. Word got out, and enthusiastic Swedes begged for more pictures so they could tag themselves to a new sofa, bed or table. Thousands of Swedes were spreading pictures of IKEA showrooms on the Facebook profile pages, and thousands of friends and followers were seeing them.
http://jeffesposito.com/2009/11/19/ingenious-new-ikea-social-media-campaign/

Sponsor something engaging, inspiring or just different, the way electronics manufacturer Samsung did with Nonja, a 33 year old female orangutan living in the Schönbunn Zoo. She documents her life and updates her own profile page, by taking pictures of herself and her fellow orangutans with a special camera supplied by Samsung. The camera gives her a raisin every time she takes a photo, and with them Nonja has now attracted over 84 000 fans from all over the world.

Just get seen, as Finnish travel agency Finnmatkat did when they created a campaign encouraging people to donate their status update for a chance to win a 750€ gift certificate.
http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/Finnmatkat?v=app_4949752878&ref=search

Include social content directly into the ad, and display it all over the web the way Nestle did with a simple display ad. Nestle was the first global brand to launch a campaign allowing Twitter users to post tweets into an ad unit that can be appear anywhere on the web. Wouldn’t it be great on a hotel comparison site, if you could see an ad displaying recent ratings by your friends. Or when you’re trying to buy a good digital camera, and you can see that a knowledgeable friend of yours is a fan of the camera you’re looking at.

Whatever you do in social media remember.
*Don’t just do it because everyone else is. Find out if your customers are really on social media and if it makes sense for your business.
*A community and a marketplace are two different things. Be a useful part of the community instead of just a visitor with something to sell.
*Find out what your competitors are doing. See who visits their groups and campaigns, why they’re why they’re visiting and how they interact. Then try to stand out.

Marja Jaarinen

marja.jaarinen@activeark.com

Activeark Ltd.

24.02.2010 Emotional Connection

2010-02-24T13:20:17+00:00

The above little bit from Seth’s blog summarizes precisely, exactly and spot on the biggest problem in marketing today. People want desperately to rely on proof, on data, on numbers, even in the smallest decisions. But this distracts us all from the real task, which is to make an emotional connection with our customer. So how to connect with customers? How to make them an offer they will like?

Friends with Benefits. Obviously the best offers are the ones that really benefit the customer. Yes, it is possible to sell a product that doesn’t do the the customer any actual good. But you’ll get the most repeat business selling good stuff, not junk. When your customers are truly better off for buying what you offer, they are also more likely to spread the word about you and the value they got. It’s hard to build a solid business on products that are all seductive promise and no real delivered value.

Different Strokes for Different Folks. It’s good to remember that different markets want different things. It’s much easier to sell something people want than something they need. Sounds obvious, but then why aren’t more marketers doing this? Our needs can push us grudgingly toward certain behaviors, but our wants pull us wildly. Offer the customer what they want, while they’re wanting it. Make sure your offer lines up with what they are looking for today, not tomorrow or yesterday. It will make your selling a lot easier.

So Fresh, So Clean! If you keep your offers fresh by limiting them in time, or by setting a limit on how many you’ll sell, you make them instantly a lot more attractive. New and fresh is always more appealing than stale and boring. But remember, it’s not just new because you say it is. It has to be really new, which if we look in the dictionary means “not previously experienced or enountered; novel or unfamiliar”.

A whole lot of time gets wasted in marketing meetings today, thinking what the customer’s reaction is going to be. That’s not our job. It’s our job to create an attractive offer. It’s the customer’s job to say yes or no. Let’s create something it’s easy to say yes to. And let’s start today.

Turo Drakvik

Concept Designer, Copywriter

turo.drakvik@activeark.com

Activeark Ltd.

24.02.2010 Choosing an open source CMS

2010-02-24T13:20:07+00:00

Wordpress
Wordpress is more like blog software than a CMS. When you need a blog or small site, you should really consider giving wordpress a chance. It is very easy to customize and it has a huge number of plugins for additional features. It is also very professionally developed and maintained.

Drupal
Drupal has become a serious challener to commercial content management systems. It is very robust, can handle heavy traffic, and is IMHO the first enterprise-ready open source platform. Drupal can be extended with plugins to accomplish almost any task imaginable, but sometimes the administration interface is too complicated. This is definitely not the easiest choice, but it is probably the best.

Joomla!
Joomla! is a very popular CMS with excellent content management capabilities. It is not as easy to customize as Drupal, but it is a very good choice for corporate and content-driven sites where an easy administration interface is needed. One major downside to Joomla! is that many of the extensions need to be bought.

Key benefits of open source cms

1. No license costs
2. Fast implementation
3. Ease of customization / modification
4. Extendible via plugins and modules

Jukka Gustafsson

jukka.gustafsson@activeark.com

Activeark Ltd.

02.12.2009 The Future of Free

2009-12-02T13:20:53+00:00

Free has been with as for a long time. Anderson’s best example (and probably the best known) is King Gillette: how to make a success story out of disposable razorblades. King Camp Gillette (1855–1932) was an American businessman, popularly known as the inventor of the safety razor. While Gillette did improve the design of safety razors, his true invention was an inexpensive, high profit-margin stamped steel disposable blade and a unique business model that later became known as freebie marketing. Gillette simply gave the razors themselves away for free (usually as part of another brand’s marketing campaign) and then sold the part that needed constant changing: the blade. This beat out competitors and Gillette became the most popular razor of its time.

I’m sure you can think of lots of ”buts” here, and for sure saying that free is the sole business model of the future is an exaggeration. But free in some form is, and increasingly will be a major facto of life for many customer-driven businesses. When thinking about marketing and looking at your budget, the trick with free is to find the and, and not the but.

For example, you can give it away and sell it too. A good example of this is Skype, where the business model is freemium: offering basic services for free, while charging a premium for advanced or special features. In this case premium members essentially pay for the free users. And they don’t care because they are getting the service they need at a very reasonable price. This works because, like disposable razors, servers, disc space and bits just don’t cost much.

Anyway, anyone in marketing or advertising should read Anderson’s book. And if you can’t be bothered to buy it online and wait a few days for it to come in the mail, you can download it as an audiobook from the iTunes Store. For free. Obviously…

Turo Drakvik

Concept Designer, Copywriter

turo.drakvik@activeark.com

Activeark Ltd.

02.12.2009 Mobile advertising – are we ready for the big bang?

2009-12-02T13:20:49+00:00

The winners of the future multi-billion mobile ad market will be companies that manage to put together all the required pieces and who combine the best business model(s) with suitable technologies.

Consumer is the king
One of many things we have already learned is that mobile ads need to be relevant to the consumer. People are surprisingly willing to receive ads to their personal mobiles when they see the benefits of it.

A strong case example of this was the advertising-funded mobile media Blyk’s journey in the UK. (Blyk’s idea in brief was to give its 16-24 year old subscribers free calls and SMS against the right to engage them with mobile ads from their favorite brands.)

After the company broke the news of quitting their mobile operations (July, 2009) in the UK they asked their customers to shout out comments about their experiences with the service.

Thousands of replies delivered an indisputable message. There is a bright future ahead for mobile advertising companies that know how to approach consumers in the mobile space.

The right people, the right time and the right situation

To be able to target specified people with specific ads requires that you know your customers. It is only then that you have a chance to interact with them without making it feel like spam.

Mobile technology itself provides great opportunities for innovation. Just through the fact that it is possible to pinpoint our current location via the phone provides new previously unavailable room for creative marketing possibilities. And there is much more.

I was actually just recently watching a football match in a local sports bar. Right next to the screen was a Heineken ad with a request for me to enable my Bluetooth and see if I had won tickets to a football match.

I tried my luck and received almost immediately a Heineken video to my phone with the message that I had won the tickets. While I’m sure everyone won, I was nonetheless impressed.

I thought the campaign captured the essence of this advertising medium — reaching the right people at the right time and in the right situation. All this in a simple and non-disturbing way.

I realized also that it was the first time I had ever reacted to any sort of mobile ad campaign. The industry really is still taking its first baby steps.

Is technology the key to success?
The rise of the mobile marketing industry is obviously not unconnected to technological innovations. Just think about the fact that the SMS is still pretty much the only 100% sure way to deliver same user experience to different mobiles. Many would describe the situation as, well, embarrassing. I would agree.

Even so, the technology is still just a tool. It is the message, the creative approach and situation that really counts. You can engage the right people, at the right time and in the right situation efficiently with existing technologies. But it is not at all unlikely that the real industry-wide big bang comes only with the possibility of adding true ‘WOW!’ effects to the equation.

Lasse Ylinen

Production Manager

lasse.ylinen@activeark.com

Activeark Ltd.

02.12.2009 From campaigns to web presence

2009-12-02T13:19:44+00:00

But on the internet, things are a little different. The competition gets harder. Millions of websites compete for customers’ time and attention. All sites have equal opportunities to reach people, regardless of publisher or content. It’s simply not possible to shout loud enough. Companies have to start listening to what their potential and existing customers want. And instead of putting money in separate “one shot” advertising campaigns, companies have to start building a continuous web presence. That will attract visitors and generate traffic to their sites — and change the monologue into dialogue.

Common mistakes
One off marketing campaigns on the internet often start from scratch. Visitors have to be collected one by one, one way or another. That usually means banners, which are not that efficient anymore. More and more people are even using browser extensions that block banners. Usability studies also show that people are becoming “blind to banners” (http://www.useit.com/alertbox/banner-blindness.html). So, if it’s a dead-end there, then what?

The list goes on. All too often a campaign site is launched — with its own domain. A domain that has nothing in common with the company’s or product’s other sites. It may be something that looks good in print or sounds nice on the radio but

A) doesn’t include the product or company name,
B) is impossible to remember or write correctly or
C) is too generic and could refer to any product on the market, even a competitor’s product.

And when the campaign ends such sites have no follow up, just a dead campaign site left to rest in peace under a once neat URL.

Fix at least these
How to generate traffic now – and in the future? How to engage consumers at the same time?

Here are three simple things to start with. They’re a shortlist for increasing traffic and building a proper web presence for your site. What’s more, they work even without redesigning your site or investing a lot of money.

1. Forget separate campaign sites and integrate campaigns with your main website. If that’s not possible at least direct customers first to your main website and then to the campaign. If there’s just one domain to remember, is it going to be your main URL or a potentially unrelated campaign domain?

2. Add the URL into all advertising and communications.
It takes only about 10 characters and can’t spoil even the sharpest creative approach. If customers see the ad and are looking for more information, your site is probably the first place you want them to visit.

3. Start a customer dialog; Ask visitors/customers what they are looking for or why they are on your site.
And ask what you could do to serve them better. Once the dialog has started, keep it going e.g. with email marketing, twitter or the media of your choice. Shouting doesn’t work on the internet so it’s better to listen more. And remember, this way the next time you run a campaign you’ll have at least a few people already interested.

And once you start following the shortlist it’s easier to build better and more effective campaigns. Or to start optimizing your site or even participate in social media or whatever it is that is the next thing on your marketing plan.

It really is as simple as that!

Tuukka Sassi

Service Designer

tuukka.sassi@activeark.com

Activeark Ltd.

02.12.2009 When the going gets tough, the tough go digital

2009-12-02T13:19:37+00:00

You know what? This is excellent news.
This is why. Your company has a strategy. In practice this means that you have defined the core elements of your competitive advantage and why this particular offering is both meaningful and useful to your customers.

The trick is to make the competitive advantage tangible and relevant for them. Understanding customers is the key to success, and understanding requires dialogue. Customer dialogue, in turn, happens via marketing, sales, or services.

The challenge – or if you look at it as we do, the wonderful opportunity – lies in making sure the desired competitive advantage is present and concrete in your marketing, sales and services. And that all these are seamlessly interconnected — both internally and when facing the customer.

The result? The desired Customer Experience, the key element of modern business.

How then to streamline and put your competitive advantage to practice? Simply by following these three rules:

1. Make sure your competitive advantage is actually based on your core strategy, mission and guiding principles, and that it’s not a reactive result of market turbulence
2. Engage your customers in all three key spheres: marketing, sales and services
3. Do all this in the digital environment, for guaranteed measurability, cost-efficiency and speed

Activeark’s approach towards developing Customer Experience strategy, is simple, concrete and efficient. Together with you we can turn insight of what exists into foresight of what will happen. At the same time we make sure that compatibility and cooperation between you and us is flawless, seamless, innovative — and fun.

Shall we talk?

Timo Suokko

Strategist

timo.suokko@activeark.com

Activeark Ltd.

03.08.2009 Digital Landscape 2010: Smartphones, Video, and Interactivity

2009-08-03T17:16:56+00:00

So it shouldn’t be the marketing manager’s task to keep up with every possible way of reaching the consumer in a fragmented digital space; there just isn’t enough time in the day. When the client has a particular objective, it’s the agency’s task to advise marketing on what digital channel would be the most effective for achieving that objective.

With that said, what does the landscape look like for late this year and into 2010? The mobile consumer and mobile video are here at last. This isn’t a promise or the hype that we have heard. Smart phones are now in the hands of the average consumer, with the iphone and (not to forget our home-grown own) the Nokia E71 taking hold in a serious way. It’s very likely that you have one. The iPhone sold nearly 12 million units in the last 6 months and Apple recently launched their second version.

Smart phones are in and will only continue to grow in market share as the prices drop. Nielsen Research predicts that the pace will only accelerate into 2010. The number of smart phones isn’t high enough for a full scale marketing budget, but the pace of adoption is so fast that it is time to consider a test budget for a pilot campaign or application. You don’t want to be stuck testing when competitors are already doing full scale campaigns. Brands like Toyota are already running niche campaigns targetting these iPhone/smartphone consumers.

What about video?
Consumers love video, millions of episodes of tv series are being watched on the iphone, not clips but complete episodes! NBC was the first this year in the US to put its shows on mobile and were shocked at how much demand it generated.

For marketers this means that people want to be engaged on their mobile devices and on the web, rather than at a desk reading tell me about the product or service. Youtube continues to rise and instead of only thinking of viral campaigns we can think value add. What can help my customers? How can I make their experience better using video. It’s cost effective and few companies are doing it effectively. From a landing page standpoint conversions increase in many cases by double digit percentages when video is used to help guide the user to take a specific action. Visit Salesforce.com to see how video is used to presell and capture testimonials. For brands telling their story, providing interviews and access to valued video content is also an important opportunity.

Where the interaction’s at
In the end the goals remain the same; its all about engagement. Are you interacting with your customers or providing a way for them to interact with each other? See www.dell.com leading the way in consumer-to-consumer interaction with their support forums, live chat and click-to-call.

And interacting with customers means interacting with communities. Brands have a unique ability to act as platforms for promoting community and in doing so can help build deep-rooted loyalty. This means building social interaction into campaigns and the events that they sponsor. The brand can be the enabler. Music labels in the US have created mini social networks to let fans connect with each other. See www.ladygaga.com/forum/ for a good example. Of course, this can also be done through facebook and other pre-exisiting social networks. There are many tools for doing social media. The simple point is to do it.

If you would like to hear more about any of the strategies, cases or studies discussed here, please contact us.

Sami Asikainen

Senior Consultant
Online Channel Strategy

sami.asikainen@activeark.com

Activeark / labs

03.08.2009 Thinking your online business through Personas

2009-08-03T15:16:45+00:00

Using Personas beforehand and adjusting (using) them into real life user testing creates a valuable advantage for you.

Using Personas
Personas are always based on real information. So, the first thing you should do is gather some data from a survey or through metrics. As I mentioned in my last article, you need to listen to your audience and learn. Categorize your data in smaller groups and define them. That information will help you create your first personas and eventually gain some profits.

You must think from the user’s point of view. And you must consider every use group, even the ones you might not want or need. Define a several groups and try to get all the specific ‘details’. Although personas are fictitious, they are based in facts and information, so there’s no use making ones up that don’t exist.

And remember to use your personas through the whole design process. That’s the only way to guarantee they’ll work for you.

Avoid the trap of building what users ask for rather than what they will actually use.”

Benefits of using personas
When you take user requirements into account right from the beginning, you get better user experiences. That’s simple. Your product or service has more to grow on, and can become more intuitive, efficient, engaging and successful. Which is what really matters.

Some benefits

* user goals and needs clearly focused in common terms for everyone
* designers have a constant set of reference points for their decisions
* deciders have a common set of reference points to use in debating proposed solutions

So, use personas in your design and development thinking, and avoid the trap of building what users ask for rather than what they will actually use.

Markus Nieminen

Art Director / Graphic Designer / Member of Grafia

markus.nieminen@activeark.com

Activeark Ltd.

03.08.2009 Define Viral Marketing

2009-08-03T15:16:36+00:00

Viral marketing, IMHO by the best definition, is a “Marketing phenomenon that facilitates and encourages people to pass along a marketing message”. And in the best case scenario people also take action accordingly. The message can be in any form, but in successful cases it is rarely a funny video. And why? Because funny videos simply don’t sell stuff.

The classic example of successful viral marketing is Hotmail, one of the first free web-based e-mail services. The strategy was simple: first, give away free e-mail addresses and services. Then attach a simple tag at the bottom of every message sent out (Get your private, free email at http://www.hotmail.com). After that you wait, while people e-mail to their network of friends and associates. Then people see the message and they sign up for their own free e-mail service. And the new recruits then spread the message further to their own ever-expanding circles of friends and associates.

Successful viral marketing gives the consumer something that they can use for free – with the intent of gaining a customer to whom other products can be marketed, and who carries a brand awareness. A more recent example of effective viral marketing could be Google’s Gmail, which followed the same pattern. Now the buzz is surrounding Spotify, the first piece of music software to offer free unrestricted streaming. For the moment you can sign up by invitation only, which makes it even more desirable. The point is to first have a product that people actually want to use; they don’t need to be forced to use it, they want to because it’s simply brilliant!

In all these cases there seem to be a set of common denominators. Maybe these could form the basis of a successful viral campaign for you?

1. Give services/products away for free when possible.
2. Exploit common behaviors and habits.
3. Utilize existing communication networks.
4. Take advantage of others’ resources.

So to begin with we need a product or a service and we need to provide effortless access to it. Call us when you have this ready… Or better yet, call us now and we can start talking about what kind of product you should be offering in the first place!

Turo Drakvik

Concept Designer, Copywriter

turo.drakvik@activeark.com

Activeark Ltd.

03.08.2009 Tweet it, maestro.

2009-08-03T15:16:35+00:00

Making your presence count means making a long-term investment in the effort of two-way communication. You have to be prepared to listen, not just to talk. It’s a learning process, with considerable benefits for those who want to make the effort. The point is that even if you don’t want to talk that much, it’s worth understanding where the growing conversation is leading.

Twitter, Twitter on the wall…
Twitter really is the talk of the town when it comes to social media. It’s growing fast, and finding it’s commercial value. Twitter Tweets are already traded for mp3 downloads, used as discount coupons, and that’s just the beginning.

Finland is catching up and gaining speed in these developments. After all, a country that made 160 character messages a big hit can’t find it too hard to do the same for 140 characters, the max length of a “tweet”.

That means that the time to establish your presence is now, when there’s less competition and fewer brands with interesting, personal and relevant content to follow. Right now, people are naturally interested in hearing your answer to social media’s core question: “What are you doing?”.

Think relevancy
Anyone can start broadcasting news, thoughts, ideas and great links they’ve found. Then opinions and commentary on others’ posts. Then retweet tweets from others they found useful, further spreading good ideas, links and stories — one of which could be yours. That’s why ultimately your success depends on how authentic you are and how relevant your messages are to their readers.

And it’s really as easy as asking yourself would I be interested in what the 140 characters in that tweet have to say.

But first you need to know who you want to network with, keeping in mind that your readers will always include current clients, potential customers, and current, past and future employees. To stay relevant in the long run, you need a working strategy for maximizing and following your Twitter impact — as well as for avoiding the major pitfalls.

Think value
In the course of simple discussions there are many ways to add value. It might be a customer’s complaint about not receiving a package, or a prospective client asking around for references or recommendations. If you take action, address the complaint, recommend your own products in a nice tone, you’ll gain trust and reputation. Whatever your discussions revolve around, keep an eye out for these golden opportunities. And make sure you have chosen the right spokesperson(s) to speak on your behalf.

After a while, you can proceed to show more personality, sprinkle an offer here and there, handle praise and complaints… Suddenly you may have transformed the way you keep in touch with customers, how you get new business and how you keep existing customers loyal.

Are you ready
Whether it’s about creating a Social Media strategy, finding your Twitter spokesperson or extending your customer service, call us, mail us, or visit us for a face-to-face. Or why not tweet us at twitter.com/activeark — we’re more than happy to help you make your brand a social brand success story.

You should follow us on twitter here.

Rasmus Stoltzenberg

Copywriter

rasmus.stoltzenberg@activeark.com

Activeark Ltd.

03.08.2009 I recommend

2009-08-03T14:18:55+00:00

- Achieve by giving
- Be selfish by sharing everything
- Show your individuality by creating sociality

I highly recommed this book to you all.

Markus Nieminen

Art Director / Graphic Designer / Member of Grafia

markus.nieminen@activeark.com

Activeark Ltd.

03.08.2009 From talk to tool: solutions for the solution selling dialogue

2009-08-03T14:16:34+00:00

When you ask salespeople if their company provides solutions, they all say yes. Yet, if I ask these same people what solution they provided for their last customer, their answers tell a different story. They’re thinking about products.

And when a company says they’re a solutions business – and most do – this usually still just means a management decision with no practice behind it. 1 in 10 sales reps today are still showing up with 20-slide Powerpoint presentations where the first 19 slides are about the company, and only the last one starts asking how they can help. This is no solution-selling approach. When I look up “solution” in the dictionary, it usually says an answer to a problem

The way to transform a product and service portfolio into a solutions portfolio is by keeping your customer’s problems and challenges in focus, and bringing them into the dialogue. Doing this can also challenge the way you approach your customers. Over the last few years we have been working with various corporations facing just this challenge. Many jump right into solution selling before really mapping out their own solutions portfolio. It’s as simple as asking yourself which of my company’s services are solutions to specific customer problems. If you’re like most companies, this won’t be the easiest task, but you’ll find it was critical for success.

Once you have a solutions portfolio defined and are thinking in terms of solutions and not products, you will find the are new ways of interacting with your customer in the sales interface. Our focus has been on evolving the way in which corporate sales organizations approach the sales encounter and sell solutions in practice.

Simply modifying your Powerpoint presentations to support more interactive dialogue is one option, and a good start. But Powerpoint presentations themselves have limitations, and we’ve found there’s a lot more you can do to empower sales reps in the sales dialogue. Over the past years we’ve been developing what we call interactive sales tools. They use more sophisticated interactive presentation technologies to change the usual hour-long talk into a tool, one that supports a solutions-focused dialogue and can carry the sales conversation forward in concrete steps.

The tools usually start by mapping relevant questions to get an understanding of the customer pain points. Based on the gathered input data the sales rep can point out relevant services that would provide a solution to the customer’s particular problem. If there is good data – if the company has done studies – the tool’s business modelling algorithms can also show what impact a particular solution would have on the company’s pain points and bottom lines. And if the data’s not all there, developing the sales tool can help a company along in their own process of really becoming a solutions company.

More and more, businesses recognize this challenge and are starting to change their approach. This means that more and more of them are looking for more, and for more sophisticated, support at the moment of the sales dialogue. Interactive sales tools, customized to address the company’s particular needs and designed to support good person-to-person dialogue, provide just this. They are tools for solution selling, and can make the effective difference for a company that’s gearing up to really begin selling in terms of solutions, and not products.

Robin Bade

General Manager

robin.bade@activeark.com

+358 40 557 2357

Activeark Ltd.

15.05.2009 Is your website leaking?

2009-05-15T15:13:40+00:00

If visitors can’t find what they’re looking for when they reach your website, they will leave and find the service elsewhere. Poorly designed registration or check-out processes can literally be costing you money and customers.

This is where Usability and User Experience Design come to the rescue. Understanding your customers’ needs, habits and desires will give you the advantage over your competition. But a great user experience doesn’t just happen, it’s the outcome of a constantly evolving process of engagement and re-engagement. Since the web as a medium is highly measurable, companies who invest in listening, learning and improving their user experience will see their investments pay clear dividends in revenue and customer loyalty.

Companies that offer great user experience:

* attract more customers
* increase user satisfaction
* increase market share
* increase traffic
* increase revenue

The interaction your visitors have with your website is an emotional experience, and over time positive user experiences will have an impact on your brand value. Successful businesses, online and off, are built with the customer in mind.

Isko Salminen

Production Manager

isko.salminen@activeark.com

Activeark Ltd.

15.05.2009 Optimizing your online Ad spend

2009-05-15T15:13:18+00:00

Of all marketing channels, online advertising has turned out to be the most reliable when it comes to accurately measuring ROI. Every day there are more and more tools on the market offering new ways to measure an ad’s “bang for the buck”. These tools enable advertisers to see which online ads are bringing in sales or business leads, and which ones are only costing money. And yet, we still see many companies blindly purchasing online media, without knowing what if any value the new traffic is bringing to their business.

We recommend you put some effort into optimizing your online ad spend, to get the maximum value from it.

Here is a simple model for how you can optimize an online campaign:

Identify quality traffic
Defining clear and measurable goals prior to each campaign is crucial for determining what traffic is quality traffic. A goal can be anything from a simple action or event taking place on your website (form submission/whitepaper download/sale) to a combination of metrics (bounce rate/time spent/page loads) which you and your business define as targets.
Guaging performance against these goals will give clear indications as to the quality of the traffic your ads are directing to your site.

Divide your campaign into several phases
When deciding where to place your ad, avoid committing your whole media budget to predefined media placements (websites/networks). Instead, try to split your campaign into two or more phases. During the first phase, spend a small portion of your budget identifying which placements give you the best performance, i.e. draw the highest quality traffic according to your set goals. Then, launch a second phase using only the best performing ad placements. This approach also gives you the opportunity to test new versions of your ads and make adjustments to landing pages for each phase.

Learning from each campaign
Once the campaign is over, do a final analysis combining all data sources. Compile the results, and use your key findings to inform upcoming campaigns. Focus your efforts on what truly works for your business. Make each campaign a learning experience, and avoid making the same mistakes again and again.

Remember, the results speak for themselves.

Edvin Franck

Digital Media Consultant

edvin.franck@activeark.com

Activeark Ltd.

15.05.2009 The CEO’s word

2009-05-15T14:13:52+00:00

We started as an organization focused on adapting traditional marketing to digital formats, but realized this wasn’t enough. At that point I shifted my efforts to developing creative marketing solutions specifically for digital. Looking back critically on our own work, I have to admit most of these solutions weren’t result-driven at all, so I knew something more needed to change. It came down to what we now call the digital marketing lifecycle, a model structured to support the critical steps of online marketing, a model we have built our organization and our knowledge around.

The lifecycle has given us a platform for building digital marketing strategies for our customers, and has brought us to focus on concrete key performance indicators and to use these for further optimizing the performance of the channel. This has made it possible for us to work in an environment that wants constantly improved performance, without always taking the easy way out and just renewing the customer’s whole online marketing platform. Challenging what already exists to keep performing better is a lot harder than creating something new, but it’s often the right thing to do.

Robin Bade

General Manager

robin.bade@activeark.com

+358 40 557 2357

Activeark Ltd.

15.05.2009 Split testing in internet marketing

2009-05-15T14:13:15+00:00

This year, in order to drive top-line growth, advertisers will need to focus their attention on optimizing their content and campaign pages. Through split testing an online campaign can double its effectiveness. This makes a lot of sense if your ad costs have been increasing 15% year after year.

How does split testing work? If you’re using search marketing you already know you can serve up to four text ads with different ad copy and let Google choose the one that gives you the highest click through rate. Google then discards the lower performing ads and only displays the winner. This same principle applies to your campaign landing page. You can rotate different headlines, body copy, calls to action, images and price points. The tests are performed automatically by software installed on the landing page.

Through testing we helped companies like Itella Oyj and their service of NetPosti greatly improve their results in 2008.

We think the big opportunity online in 2009 is in testing. We can help you build and carry out these tests.

Sami Asikainen

Senior Consultant
Online Channel Strategy

sami.asikainen@activeark.com

Activeark / labs