“You work where?”

Englewood Cliffs, NJ sits a mile north of the George Washington Bridge, on the wooded bluffs of the Palisades. Most New Yorkers are familiar with its big sister, Fort Lee, whose name is synonymous with the approach to Manhattan and the frantic search for toll fare.

Englewood Cliffs’ anonymity to some is in stark contrast to its reputation in financial circles as home to CNBC, Citicorp, Unilever and other major corporations. In the face of changing financial realities in Manhattan, the creative community should become familiar with the opportunities across the bridge.

Unlike Hoboken and Jersey City, Englewood Cliffs is not accessible by train and as a result, it is “off the grid” for many rail-loving New Yorkers. Little do they know that NJ transit operates frequent buses from the George Washington Bridge bus terminal at the 175 Street stop of the A train, a mere five stops from 42 Street in regular express service. The 186 bus crosses the bridge and arrives in Englewood Cliffs in 10 minutes. Those New Yorkers with cars are likely already aware that driving off-peak means Englewood Cliffs is within 20 minutes of most of the boroughs with plenty of free parking.

Crossing the Hudson at the George Washington Bridge provides a whole different experience than burrowing under the river in a car or train. Using the bridge means one can employ various combinations of NYC subways, NJ transit buses, shuttle buses, cars or bikes (my personal favorite) to suit any mood or change in the weather. Being able to choose and change one’s travel routine creates possibilities for enriching new experiences and vistas. I would even say that I am more fortunate than my New Jersey-based colleagues who have no choice but to rely on their cars to get to work.

Bergen County’s Route 9 has long been a destination for New York City bicyclists in search of fresh air, good shoulders and few stops. Commuters can bicycle from any point in New York City to Englewood Cliffs, saving on gas and travel fares while enjoying unobstructed views of the Palisades.

My current bicycle route from Queens to the Manhattan side of the bridge includes a diagonal stretch through Harlem and Washington Heights from East 125 Street to West 175 Street.

It features the beautiful townhouses of Central Harlem and Strivers’ Row as well as the tree-lined splendor of Adam Clayton Powell Blvd. Harlem’s relatively low traffic density and wide avenues make it a great place to ride; fewer cabs means more space for bicycles.

I’ve managed to shave down the bike ride to under an hour, but it still doesn’t beat taking the car when I’m feeling lazy.

GWB from the Manhattan side bicycle ramp

New York Presbyterian, Hospital, Henry Hudson Parkway and West Side Highway from the Manhattan side bicycle ramp

The Hudson River from the GWB on an early summer afternoon

Crossing the bridge is a great way to work up an appetite. Treat yourself to one the delectable creations at Sunmerry's Bakery in Fort Lee.

The topic of the creative brief is not a sexy one. The creative brief is that boring, mentally-draining tool by which the agency captures the strategy of the campaign from the client.

As an agency, we don’t always do a good job of stressing how important this one little Word document is. With impossible deadlines, busy schedules and pressure from leadership, we don’t want to further complicate our clients’ lives by insisting that we all slow down to hash out the brief.

We get as much information as possible and when we’ve reached the client’s limits on knowledge and patience, we forge ahead. Usually we know our clients well enough that we can hit the mark. But we should always strive for better, more insightful input so that we can deliver successful and targeted creative for every campaign.

This is not just our unique struggle, it is an industry-wide challenge, one that’s been around since the beginning of ad time. We thought it was old news, so we were surprised to see two recent columns posted on this topic on AdAge.com. From the number of responses, it seems the subject is just as relevant as ever.

Marketers, Quit Blaming Your Agency – It’s Your Brief at Fault
by Rupal Parekh
May 23, 2011

Agencies should demand better briefs from their clients
by Matt McDermott
May 27, 2011

We can relate to the sentiments of both authors and many of the comments generated. The responsibility lies with both the client and the agency to set a framework for success, and this means taking time on the front end to really understand who we are talking to, what we are saying and what the key market influences will be.

As marketing vehicles constantly change and evolve in the digital age, one thing remains the same in the advertising world, we’re only as good as the creative brief.

Flying toasters, Christmas lights, aquariums – most folks will recall the classic screen savers. These once ubiquitous features of desktop computing, while no longer required to avoid CRT screen “burn-in”, can still offer a colorful alternative to an otherwise static desktop.

From the serene to the obnoxious, screen savers exist to reflect almost every taste. But what if you wanted a screen saver with a specific message for a specific environment, say for instance, a company-wide or corporate-branded screen saver with a team-building message?

Enter the customized screen saver.

It’s an effective way to reiterate key corporate messages to your staff – employees return from lunch to find that an inspirational message graces the screens of their idling computers.

GE Healthcare Life Sciences recently commissioned us to produce a screen saver for their internal network. The screen saver was one of several communication pieces we produced to help roll out new corporate benchmarking and achievement guidelines internally.

It needed to communicate the company’s high-level strategy, business ethics, values and goals. The deliverable would be an .scr file, ultimately installed by the client’s IT department.

A customized screen saver for the Windows environment can be achieved in several ways. One simple approach would be to install a slide-show screen saver which plays a series of still images from the destination of your choosing. This offers limited creative control over features such as animation and text.

For a more sophisticated option, which allowed us to adhere to GE Healthcare’s visual brand guidelines, we created the animation in Adobe Flash CS4 and then converted the resulting .swf file to an .scr file.

The approved concept included a collection of real photos from recent corporate events, meetings, parties and workshops, delivering a blend of fun and work moments. We thought this was a great way to tie dry corporate messages to personal and relevant imagery that would hold employees’ attention. We used as many photos as possible in a variety of creative presentations.

After a few rounds of photo selection, script and storyboard reviews we started layout and animation. Consideration was given to the timing of the screen saver. Our initial version moved quickly through images at about a minute in length. Our client asked us to slow it down a bit. After considering the function of the screen saver – as something that will be observed casually and linger on screens for several months – we stretched the length to two minutes.

Upon approval, we researched file converters to find the best tool for converting to an .scr file. Googling “screen saver makers” or “screen saver editors” yielded a variety of results, not all of which were helpful. Software for creating screen savers has been around for a while and apparently so have some of the company websites on which they are hosted.

Dated landing pages representing mysterious companies stand shoulder-to-shoulder with more current authors. After some trial and error we settled on Instantstorm 2.0 as the solution for our .scr conversion. The software installed smoothly on one of our Macs with Parallels Desktop running Windows XP and using Instantstorm’s intuitive interface we were able to produce our client’s screen saver.

The installation on the client side isn’t complete yet. If we have any learnings from that process, we’ll be sure to share.

And now we find that a year has passed since our last blog post. And with some shame, we are attempting to revive this forgotten corner of our Web site.

For a split second we discussed taking it down all together, but then realized, as professional marketers, we should be able to swing this. How can we expect our clients to do something that we can’t do ourselves?

There are good reasons to keep our company blog:

1. It shows our personality to current and prospective clients
2. It allows us to showcase the breadth of our knowledge and expertise, which we can’t always do when working on a project basis
3. Ultimately, it’s a great way to market ourselves – through search engine optimization, by reaching audiences through an additional channel and by telling our story in a more approachable way

In short, every company should have one, including ours. But it’s harder than it sounds.

One of our clients recently asked us to add a blog page to their Web site. Along with the theme coding, we offered the following tips to make their blog successful:

1. Good content is key – make the content interesting and people will read it. Content should be insightful, candid and informative.
2. Blogging takes time and thought. Make it a long-term commitment. Treat it like a project, create a schedule and dedicate resources. Credibility as a blogger is established by regular and consistent posting.
3. Blogging should have strategy. It should reinforce corporate goals and deliver on-topic ideas that help build your brand. It’s like any other piece of marketing, don’t stray too far from your main message.
4. Make it a two-way dialogue. Ask clients and customers what they think and then write about what they want to hear.

Sophisticated bloggers pay attention to metrics, traffic, linking, RSS feeds, optimizing, advertising, managing comments and key words. Those details call for a separate post.

For now, to any marketer thinking about starting a company blog, we recommend making consistent, quality content your first priority.

And here are a few articles that you may find insightful:

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/08/09/10-harsh-truths-about-corporate-blogging/

http://socialmediatoday.com/markwschaefer/258359/10-best-corporate-blogs-world

http://www.openforum.com/idea-hub/topics/technology/article/10-tips-for-corporate-blogging-erica-swallow

Happy blogging!

“The first Internet banner ad appeared in 1994; in 2000 advertising first appeared on Google.com, and a few years later the first Tide commercials showed up on YouTube”, according to Sheila Shayon, a Brand Channel contributor. Nowadays people are “friending” brands and local businesses on Facebook – creating a new platform for buzz  building and branding opportunities that has shifted from traditional print and TV media messages to a multidimensional, 24/7 real time digital feed.

Traditionally, brands reflect the media outlet: “logos are predominant in print, jingles in radio, taglines and image in TV spots”, says Shayon. But with recent technological developments and adoption of digital tools, social media feeds and microblogging – old rules no longer apply.  Brand strategy is no longer defined by technology, or brand history. Today, “digital branding deals with behavior”, she points.

Companies such Bravo and Zagat are using Foursquare to direct audiences to real-world places with program tie-ins, as is HBO’s “How to Make It in America.” Clarins is crowdsourcing their next perfume development by asking their fans to submit ideas on everything – from scent to packaging. Fashion houses connect with consumers by streaming live shows online with simultaneous curated Twitter coverage by bloggers and editors in real time. Pepsi’s Refresh project is another prime example of an ongoing relationship between consumer behavior and brand. The very nature of the Internet cultivates a behavioral metric: how many friends do you have, where do you shop, where have you traveled.

“Consumers plus products plus technology results in a new kind of online brand experience,” according to Shayon.  The digital playbook requires an intricate balance between gain and the cost of a consumer’s interaction. Unlike the past, today brands must deliver something more than just an aspiration, but rather an service, a reward, or an interaction. Image, message, and brand trust are simply analog remnants from another era.

Seth Godin | photo credit: Jossi at en.wikipedia

Seth Godin, an American business books author, an entrepreneur and a marketing thought leader, popularized the topic of permission marketing and evolved the concept of the end of the “TV-Industrial complex”.

First, the end of the “TV-Industrial complex” means that marketers no longer have the power to command the attention of anyone they choose, whenever they choose. Second, in a marketplace in which consumers have more power, marketers must show more respect; this means no spam, no deceit and bias for keeping promises. Also, Godin asserts that the only way to spread the word about an idea is for that idea to earn the buzz by being remarkable. Godin refers to those who spread these ideas as “Sneezers”, and he calls the spreading of ideas an “IdeaVirus”.

Advertisements on television and radio are classified as “interruption marketing” which interrupt the viewer/listener while they’re doing something of their preference. Godin introduced the concept of “permission marketing” where the advertiser provides something “anticipated, personal and relevant”.

Night of the Red Dragon Redux – by Christian A.

Fake or real?

What is more exciting, it comes unlocked and is not restricted to any particular mobile provider. Google currently offers it for use on T-Mobile (US) Verizon (US) and soon on Vodafone (EU). This phone not only comes unlocked but users are able to root the device and install other firmware, override protected operating system features, install arbitrary software and enable Internet tethering to share the phone’s 3G network connection via a wireless LAN, among other things.

The hardware cost, purchased with no usage plan, would be $529. The usage plan on the T-Mobile network would cost about 30% less than iPhone.

So how’s Apple planning to compete?

Whatever comes next the Nexus One will put pressure in the marketplace and will set a different tone, don’t you think? Manufacturers and network providers will sharpen pencils, costs will drop and hopefully we’ll see better smartphone days.