The Solavista Blog For Marketers and Designers

Billboard Ads: More Challenging To Pull Off Than PPC Ads

2008-12-16T12:58:00.001-07:00

We recently tested some billboard ads with consumers with the objective being ad recall. Most billboard ads fail at this in some fashion: They are memorable (slick art or headline) but consumers could not recall the company/brand.

Or, the brand was recognizable, but didn't know what product they were specifically selling (other than the brand name itself.) Some billboard ads were too wordy. Some were to visually confusing. Lots of great feedback was achieved. But here was the big takeaway:

Billboards are to drivers what PPC ads are to web searchers.

Both require great headlines.

Both require some branding or brand recognition.

Both require you to read/understand in under 5 seconds.

Bother require some memorable call to action.

Our testing was revealing for other reasons too. Mostly that billboard ads are some of the most difficult to create. For many of the reasons stated above, but also because of the time that users take or have to read. It's hard to read PPC ads if they aren't relevant or compelling. Billboards are hard to read, remember, act upon and differentiate when cruising down the road at 75, I mean 55 miles an hour.

Testing iPhone Apps

2008-12-12T19:38:00.003-07:00

We've recently been testing some iPhone apps. So far, what do consumers say:

1. Keep it simple. This seems like a no-brainer, but you can get into some rather complex iPhone applications that do create user experience problems. Mostly they occur when they provide options to "shake" or to vibrate in some way. Not all iPhone apps work out of the gate and this functionality is often buggy.

What seemed to work very nicely for the "urbanspoon" app, doesn't work so well in other apps.

2. Use the Apple features as they are now ubiquitous for iPhone users. In other words, if you are using an iPhone, you've already become accustomed to interfacing with some of it's functionality the way only iPhone provides it. Try selecting dates or times with an iPhone and you'll instantly see the "slot machine" style selection interface.

See example:

Users that were offered different interfaces were often confused. Go with what is working for iPhone users to date.

3. Test multiple version of the icon that will be used on the iPhone desktop. Not all icons are recognizable and some consumers were easily confused or even forgot what the app was for after downloading. It's one thing to get them to download an app, but to use one takes recall and recognition. This is where that icon comes.

If you're a Facebook user, you're probably quite loyal to the brand. You'd know their logo and iconography anywhere. It would be easily recognizable on iTunes.

So you go to iTunes and download the free Facebook app. Once you do, the icon resides on your iPhone desktop. And as a result, you'll no doubt know what this icon is for:

But would you know what this one is for after downloading:

(It's for hotels.com, the travel site. As you can see, not all brandable icons are as effective as others.) It's something to watch for as you develop apps.

4. Price. Test prices. When we asked consumers about free vs paid apps, almost all users said they were open to both. When asked to pay for apps using their own money, users tested checked the free apps first at a 4:1 ratio. They also downloaded more free apps than paid. Within the paid apps, users price shopped for alternatives if there were some in product categories and were will to use price as a decision point, even more so than app reviews by consumers.

Why Web Designers Should Act Like Optometrists

2008-12-11T05:00:00.001-07:00

Do you like this one? Or this one?

This one? Or this one?

Left? Right?

We've all been there. Getting the eye exam. And it made us think: maybe web designers should think more like an optometrist than "designer" when evaluating a new or re-design?

Why?

Well, we were recently referred to a great blog post by the folks at Vandelay Design. In the post they highlight how to go about evaluating the website's design prior to redesign. They outline the following steps:

1. How does it compare to websites of competitors?

2. Could a new design keep the same feel, or does it need to be stripped down and totally started over?

3. What style should the new design feature?

4. What works and what doesn’t work in the current design?

We couldn't agree more. These questions are very smart and help evaluate properly how to get started in looking holistically at the website to be redesigned and where you (or the client) want to take it.

We would add that testing the website design with consumers is crucial to answering all four of these questions. After all, the website's design isn't for the designer or the client. It's for those people that are actually coming to the website (read: consumers.) Who better to answer these four questions than the very people the site is being designed for?

Getting the answers from consumers will provide all the creative and design ammunition needed to go from good to great.

Now that will be $80 for the eye exam. Frames not included.

Why Do People Click On Your PPC (Pay Per Click) Ads?

2008-12-10T13:57:00.000-07:00

Do you conduct PPC advertising on Google, Yahoo, Live or other search engines? Their analytics will show you what ads perform the best and give you the most clicks. But do you know why consumers are clicking?

We've been testing PPC ads in a pilot and now offer this as a general option within Advista. The results are really quite eye-opening.

When we tested customer's top performing PPC ads amongst 100 consumers, the revelations of "why" they might click on the ad vary from URL used in the ad, to the call to action in the ad. Testers also cited the "way the ad read" i.e. the simplicity of "getting" what is being advertised. Also noted in a big way was the headline. The headline is important for the obvious reasons of providing relevance against a search term. What testers told us that was also important was keyword use in context to the ad copy and call to action. Those combinations, when working well, outperformed nearly every other ad.

Testing PPC ads is an easy, inexpensive way to find out why certain PPC ads perform. That knowledge is great on its own. What is even more powerful is to take that knowledge and dial it in to other creative, design or ad mediums to boost response, or brand recognition or sales. It's worth doing and makes all of your online and offline ad efforts that much more powerful.

How To Minimize The Disconnect Between Design Teams and Marketing Teams

2008-12-09T19:45:00.001-07:00

We've all been there. The design team has some great ideas with comps and concepts in tow that marketing just doesn't like.

Marketing feels like the "design guys" just don't get the overall reaching goals of the business. The design teams feel like the marketing group is out of touch.

We've all seen this before.

But what can be done about it?

1. It really starts with understanding. And no, not the Kumbaya singing understanding, but rather understanding what each side is looking to achieve. Know what you are really after, but also know what the other side needs. This is a collaborative effort.

2. Do your homework. Do you know why your concepts are going to work or not? Have you tested and re-tested to be sure you're on the right path? Data sings numbers. You can't BS your way out of a bad idea if the metrics show you on the losing end. Know the score. Without the data, you're just walking around blind and without a cane.

3. Learn when to walk away. You want to be a collaborator, but you also don't want your name tied to a bad idea, concept or implementation. Understand what your dealbreakers are and advocate why the other side needs to understand the perils. (That is your value add after all.)

4. Learn when to keep your mouth shut. Sometimes you need to listen to what is being said and done so that you can completely understand the holistic view. (See point #1.) After all, if the other side is making your argument for you, let them do so.

Honestly, the real power is knowing that both marketing and design teams want the same thing: success. The key is knowing what "success" means for both and bringing your data, passion and knowledge to the table. If you're on the right side of what's right for the business, you'll almost always prevail.

And if you're on the wrong side, acknowledge, accept, learn and move on. It's the best thing for your career.

Logo Development and Design

2008-12-09T09:16:00.001-07:00

I think one of the biggest misconceptions is that a new logo can define your brand. We disagree. Now that might come as a bit of a shock from a company that has for it's mission to improve designs of all types, logos included.

But please don't misunderstand us.

It's not that we don't think testing new or revised logos is not a worthwhile effort. All we're saying is that a great logo won't define your brand. A great logo is only a way to introduce in a visual sense, your brand to prospective and existing customers in such a way that their thoughts and memories resonate with a visual image.

The definition of your brand is how well you execute your goals.
How you position and sell your products and services.
How you stand by your claims.
How you interact with, respect and help your customers.
How you improve their condition from using your products and services.
How well you adapt to the customer's needs.

We could go on, but you get the point.

We're in the market research business. Having and developing a great logo is fantastic, but only a start.

How well your logo represents your brand is up to you.

The Dashboard of the Future

2008-12-03T07:35:00.000-07:00

Take a look for yourself:

http://now.sprint.com/widget/

There's No Swearing in TV Advertising

2008-11-30T08:00:00.000-07:00

Do you think we should try that $%#@ here in the *&^%#$@ Solavista office?

%#@%^&$-A!

(We bet that this tested really well with consumers, but couldn't make the TV cut. What a shame.)

Web 2.0 Conference: Steve Ballmer Interview

2008-11-24T12:05:00.000-07:00

This is an interview with John Battelle and Steve Ballmer. Interesting enough to post here. Steve talks about the Facebook investment, global strategy, search. Fairly good insights.

More videos from Web 2.0 can be found on their Blip.tv page.

Removing Fast Food TV Ads To Cut Obesity?

2008-11-21T06:00:00.002-07:00

Do you think that removing TV ads about fast food will cut obesity rates in the United States? A study was conducted that concluded just that, "A ban on such commercials would reduce the number of obese young children by 18%, and the number of obese older kids by 14%, researchers found."

I'm not sure where you stand on this, but it's a curious thought. Do TV ads have that much power over us that we can't control our inclinations? Is personal responsibility now in the hands of advertisers? The suggestions say that they are.

But we're also told by smart marketers like Seth Godin that we are now at the end of the "TV-Industrial complex." Meaning that marketers no longer have the power to command the attention of anyone they choose, whenever they choose.

Which is it? We'd like to hear your thoughts. Do advertisers still wield all that power or is it going away?

Via USA Today

Apparently There Is Truth In Advertising

2008-11-21T05:00:00.001-07:00

I know times are tough, but maybe that's the cause in the rise of brutally true advertising.

Marketing Research Books Worth Reading

2008-11-20T15:23:00.002-07:00

Made To Stick. A great book about how/why some ideas, concepts, companies, websites "stick" in our heads and why they don't. The authors, the Heath Brothers, make comparisons to why some urban legends last in people's conscience whether or not they're even true. A real good read.

Selling Blue Elephants is also another great read. In this book, Howard Moskowitz describes how to create great products before customers even want them. Moskowitz was the brain behind Prego, the spaghetti sauce that developed multiple types of sauces. Prior to Prego's arrival on the shelves, Ragu was the only sauce in town. Moskowitz was hired to by the Prego people to find out how to carve out a niche in the market. He found one using the techniques described in his book.

Malcolm Gladwell actually has a short talk on Moskowitz that describes the Prego story. View it here:

Web Design In Under 2 Minutes

2008-11-20T14:10:00.001-07:00

This is another video that's been around for awhile. Essentially it compresses two hours of development time into a 2 minute video.

Of course, we need to ASSume that the developer is creating this site based upon consumer feedback to meet their needs and NOT the needs of the developer or client. That's always the hope. But alas, not always the reality.

Q: What do you think of this video when you watch it? Does it do anything for you and what is your takeaway after viewing? Post a comment and let us know.

Great FedEx Advertisement

2008-11-19T04:38:00.001-07:00

We're not sure if this ad actually ran or if it actually made it as a piece of FedEx vehicle signage. We'd like to think FedEx did both. Because it makes you look and even more importantly, it's something you don't easily forget. What do you think of this type of promotion?

Insights Behind Google's Logo Design

2008-11-17T04:03:00.001-07:00

Google's logo has become as recognizable as Nike's swoosh and NBC's peacock. Ruth Kedar, the graphic designer who developed the now-famous logo, shows the iterations that led to the instantly recognizable primary colors and Catull typeface that define the Google brand.

Kedar met Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page through a mutual friend nine years ago at Stanford University, where she was an assistant professor. Page and Brin, who were having trouble coming up with a logo for their soon-to-launch search engine, asked Kedar to come up with some prototypes. "I had no idea at the time that Google would become as ubiquitous as it is today, or that their success would be of such magnitude," Kedar says.

Via Wired

Designers and Their Fees

2008-11-16T14:03:00.000-07:00

David Airey's blog has a new post that we've read discussing how designers charge their clients. It's a great article which demonstrates the strategies and techniques designers use to keep themselves competitive without giving away the farm.

One of the benefits we hear from designers all the time in how they use Solavista is that they can offer our services to their clients as a part of their doing business, instead of as a line item charge. Mostly this is because we can white label our products for them. More importantly however, is that we can provide accurate market research for their client designs which make the designs and relationships with their clients even better.

And relationship building is the core foundation of growing a design practice and keeping income flowing.

Microsoft Marketing the iPod

2008-09-09T16:00:00.001-07:00

I know many of you have seen this before, but we wanted to take a look at this again and decided to post it for those who might not have seen this before. Enjoy.

Adventures in GIF Animation Design

2008-09-04T15:02:00.001-07:00

We're not exactly sure how this is relevant other than it's a unique way of animating a GIF with topical figures.

But for whatever reason, we can't NOT laugh at it. Enjoy.

Walmart's New Logo Design

2008-08-21T07:05:00.000-07:00

By now I'm sure you've all seen or have been the new WalMart logo. Here they are side by side for comparison sake. Obviously WalMart did extensive testing of this logo before they would make a move this large to a logo they know resonate with consumers positively. And this shows exactly how small the changes can be that have massive positive or negative affects towards your brand and consumer's identity with it.

On face value, you could say that all they did was "freshen it up". But that's really the narrow view. If you look closely, you can see that the font, color, icon, spacing and depth have all been changed. All of these aspects are vital for great logo design and they all require their own distinct research and rounds and rounds of testing.

Our estimates put the number of different variations that were developed before this final logo was designed upon at approximately 100-150. This no doubt went through many channels and departments for weigh-in, buy-in and approval. They also did international trademark and service mark research for the icon and new logo to be sure it wasn't being duplicated worldwide.

So take some tips from WalMart. Testing is essential. You probably aren't making a logo or brand change this large and broad, but the essential parts of your corporate re-branding efforts are similar. It starts with concepts, designs and vision and massive amounts of testing throughout the process. This is hard to do with a $99 logo change.

Make Your Logo Bigger Cream

2008-08-18T06:00:00.001-07:00

Is your ‘tiny-logo-loving’ designer always cramming your beautiful logo into an obscure corner of your ad? Well not any more, now that you’ve got Make My Logo Bigger Cream!

Worth a quick look below or on their website.

Why Has Logo Design Become So Cheap?

2008-08-15T12:18:00.001-07:00

If you perform a search for "logo designers" on Google, you'll get over 75 million pages that reference logo designers in one way shape or form. And more and more of them are offering logo development for insanely low prices. $99, $49 and we saw one that boasted $24.99 for logo design!

Folks, this is certainly nice from a price point, but what value are you getting and do you know if the logo you've designed is truly resonating with your target audience?

Yes, it's true that even in tough economic times, you've got to look at ways to cut budget, but is a $99 logo worth it? The adage you've got to spend money to make money also applies to your brand. Being in business and driving a successful business are different things. You really need to consider that often times, your logo and corporate identity are the first things that prospects will judge you on. Do you know how you're being judged?

What about the costs of re-branding and re-developing that logo after you've found out that the bad corporate identity you've chosen needs to be re-done?

So what then is the true cost of the $99 logo? Let us know your thoughts.

The Perils of Web Design Without Testing

2008-08-13T09:16:00.002-07:00

We recently read a great article about website design, entitled: "15 Tips for Effective Web Design". It was brought to us via MarketingVox and was written by Mark Jackson of Host Review UK. The great news is we completely agree with everything he says.

The bad news is: They forgot to mention testing the designs with consumers.

This is a common mistake made with good intentions. You're attempting to design a web site with all of the bases covered that Mark mentions in this article. But the fact remains, you're not designing this website for you. Or your client. You're designing the website for your customers or your client's customers. As such you need to include them into the design process. Think about the irony of that: designing a site for a customer that you don't include in the process but hope that they will like and use the website after it's done. Doesn't that seem odd?

We call this Outside In Design. You need to go outside of your design to the customer and dial their wants, needs, desires for how they prefer interacting with your brand, via your website, and bring that information into the design.

More typically we see companies that perform the Inside Out Design where they internally decide what to design, write, display on the website without any consumer insights and then releasing that website out to the world, hoping for the best.

Website design testing allows you to hedge your bets so you don't have to simply "hope for the best." You'll have a great insight into what resonates for the consumer as it relates to your website's design because you've already included them in the process. This makes for a much more successful launch and more importantly, a much more successful (and utilized) website.

How Do You Measure Corporate Identity Success?

2008-08-11T21:09:00.000-07:00

We recently had a discussion about corporate identity development and a key question was asked:

How do companies truly evaluate the success of their corporate identity?

It's a challenging question. You've got website analytics packages (Google Analytics, Omniture, CoreMetrics, Webtrends) that analyze your website performance and we developed Logovista to allow you to have logos and corporate identities evaluated by up to 500 consumers and both of those are great in and of themselves.

But what about after you've chosen a design and the ID has already been developed? How do you measure it's impact with consumers, clients or customers over the long haul?

If you have ideas or thoughts on the matter, we'd love to hear what you've got to say.

The Business of Website Design

2008-08-10T09:06:00.003-07:00

Part of what we've set out to do with solavista.com is to help designers improve the quality of their designs. But what we've noticed along the way is that for website designers, the business of website design often makes designing a great site difficult.

What do we mean?

Website designers are in a tough spot because for 90% of their clients, the end goal for their website is conversion: conversion to sale, conversion to some call to action, conversion from a "visitor' to prospect. to customer, etc.

But building websites typically involve clients who also have preconceived notions about how a website should "look", "feel" or act. And 90% of the time, the client's position is based on personal preference, not business or design acumen. Let alone what their end users actually want or need.

The successful website designers that we've worked with don't placate to the client need, even though the "business" of website design would say that the client paying the bill, gets what they want. But at the cost of bad design, and therefore, bad user experience, savvy designers say no thanks. Instead, they advocate for designs that are built for the client's customer, not the client ego.

This is a departure for many web designers. They would rather keep a good paying client happy by giving them what they want. But great website designers, the one's with extensive repeat business, that combine great design with great function, know better: to give a client what they need, not want.

That's the value added they bring to the table. And that's what separates the great web designers from the rest.