VIA Studio

3 fascinating Super Bowl advertising tidbits

jason — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 18:20:24 +0000

So the Super Bowl has come and gone. Kudos to the Saints for giving New Orleans even more reason to party! The media landscape was fascinating this year. Anyone interested in advertising should pay very close attention. I’m sure we’ll draw our own conclusions, but I would guess that this year marks a big turning point for television advertising.

Pepsi picks social media over Super Bowl

Pepsi has always been a big advertiser for the Super Bowl, using big celebrities to gain awareness and attention, from Britney Spears to Cindy Crawford and Ozzy Osborne. This year they stayed out of the big game, choosing to spend those millions of dollars on social media strategies. I would agree that this was the right decision. Everyone knows Pepsi. There’s not a celebrity they could pick that would help or hinder their brand. We all either drink Coke or Pepsi now right? (For the record, I prefer the generic Whole Foods cola). Pepsi’s online campaign involves donating to social causes and community projects, which I feel is definitely the right move. After the horror of their 2008 rebranding, this can only help.

CBS rejects gay dating ad

I’ll try to keep my opinion out of the equation here, instead saying that these two decisions really speak to the political climate of the day.

CBS denied an ad placed by gay dating website mancrunch.com, saying that the ad “is not within the Network’s Broadcast Standards for Super Bowl Sunday”. The company decided to place the ad on YouTube (for free, of course). The PR backlash from the CBS decision has resulted in unbelievable awareness for the company. I would say this situation is a complete win for mancrunch.com. After viewing the ad, it’s definitely provocative, but I’ve seen much worse on network television. CBS claims that the site was just trying to generate free publicity from an ad they knew wouldn’t be accepted. Posting the ad on YouTube instead of the originally intended Super Bowl television slot reportedly saved mancrunch.com about $2 million.

Interestingly, CBS did choose to air an advertisement from Focus on the Family, which is an conservative evangelical group that is opposed to gay marriage.

Watch the mancrunch.com ad:

View some other banned Super Bowl commercials.

Google airs 30 second spot

Google aired a charming spot this year. If I’m not mistaken, this is their first venture into the television advertising world, and they managed to drive a point across perfectly. It’s a very simple spot which probably didn’t take much to produce. In fact, it’s actually been around online for a few months now. Says Google exec Eric Schmidt: “We didn’t set out to do a Super Bowl ad, or even a TV ad for search. Our goal was simply to create a series of short online videos about our products and our users, and how they interact. But we liked this video so much, and it’s had such a positive reaction on YouTube, that we decided to share it with a wider audience.”

Watch the Google ad here:

The only final observation, GoDaddy aired an ad as well. They could have used the money better by redesigning their horrible, horrible site.

So why does it matter Jason, you didn’t even watch the Super Bowl?

Glad you asked. I think the move by Pepsi is the biggest indicator that the days of the 30 second TV spot as the most important form of advertising is officially over. It is still important for companies who can afford it (hello Google), but focusing your efforts online gives infinite more bang for the buck. A solid marketing strategy is going to be different for every company, but the most important aspects are changing:

Branding. Always.
A solid online presence.
Awareness and Reputation
Interaction/Social Strategies
Rinse and Repeat

VIA Studio welcomes new hires!

kim — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 16:12:41 +0000

After a great end to 2009, VIA has hired on two new team members to our growing staff. We look forward to showing off some great project work this year. We’ve got a great team, and the added talent will only contribute to the quality of work released. We’d like to thank our current clients for allowing us the opportunity to grow and succeed!

Amber Glisson
Designer
Amber loves design and with the ability to balance form and function brings order to even the most unwieldy projects. She joins VIA with 14 years of photography, interactive, sales, advertising, design and programming experience with companies including Red Giant, Schmidt Photo, and Daniel Knight Studio B Photography. Amber earned her BFA at the University of Illinois Chicago.

Jason McCreary
Programmer/Developer
A self-proclaimed “geek”, Jason joins VIA with nearly a decade of experience in web development and an eye to mobile technologies which includes apps for phones. He is a Louisville native with a B.S. in Computer Science from Purdue University and comes to VIA from Humana.

2009 Ramblings & 2010 Forecast

jason — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 16:06:45 +0000

As we close out the books on 2009, I thought it would be a good idea to wrap up the year with an account of the best, and a few low points. As we all know, the economy was particularly bad for most industries. VIA Studio definitely had it’s ups and down, with the months of March and April being particularly bad. We survived however, and ended up having the best year ever in terms of gross revenue. It’s not the growth we were expecting at the end of 2008, but it does bode well for the future.

2009 was a year of firsts on both sides of the spectrum. Hopefully we can build on the good and learn from the bad. I think they were all necessary to our long-term growth and maturity as a company.

In terms of client work, we were able to push ourselves harder than ever, building some amazing tools and cranking out beautiful designs. Some highlights include:

Winning 2 awards at the Louisville Graphic Design Association 100 Show
Building a cohesive site that integrated both Magento and Wordpress
Writing custom Wordpress plugins, including an extensive Event Management system (more details on that one to come!)
Travel photography and video. Something I hope we’ll do more in the future
Getting involved in some really fun and engaging video production work
Making great strides and seeing huge sucess in Search Engine Optimization

Some of the downsides to 2009:

We fired our first client.
New ownership combined with unreasonable expectations led us to ask a client we loved to find another agency. This is the first time we’ve had to do this. I know that in dealing with clients and money, things can quickly turn south. I hope I never have to do it again, but I’m glad we went through it. There is power in the word No.

We let 2 employees go.
This is the first time I’ve had to let someone go, so doing it twice in one year was stressful. I wish these people the best in their careers and am extremely sorry it didn’t work out.

We won some great bids and picked up clients that I know we will continue a great relationship with, but we also lost some RFP’s that I know we should have won. One of my resolutions for 2010 is to be a little more assertive on the sales end. I know we have the knowledge and talent to do most any web project, but I’m more of a soft sell guy. “Here’s what we can do. Let me know if you’d like to work with us” should become “We’re the best in the region. We know this will be a win-win relationship for all involved.” Although it could be said that losing bids is a good indicator that our industry is healthy. I know we’re the best, but it’s great knowing that others are doing well.

Here comes 2010!

As 2010 gets underway, we already have much to be optimistic about.

We’ve taken on two extremely talented people to our staff at VIA (bios and pictures to come). Welcomes all around to Amber Glisson who is joining us as a designer and front end developer. She has a wealth of agency experience and design knowledge, and is a fellow board member with the Louisville Graphic Design Association. Jason McCreary joins us as a Programmer/Developer. He’s previously worked at Humana as Lead Front End Developer and will be helping us in all areas, including mobile apps!

We have a few projects in process that I can’t wait to announce. One is a subscription web service that is sure to be amazing. I need to keep my lip buttoned on these projects until we’ve moved ahead a little more.

Deck! As you may know, our offices are at Butchertown Market on Story Avenue. Our favorite landlord is currently building a deck on the roof of the building so we can watch the boats pass by and the fireworks light up. I’m glad it’s not built yet, because it’s freaking cold outside!

Anyway, onward and upward for VIA Studio. We’ll be checking in more often this year. It’s a resolution, so it has to happen… right?

Turns out someone really likes our logo

jason — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 14:53:35 +0000

It was bad enough when Starbucks introduced their “VIA” coffee, but this hits even closer to home. I haven’t seen a version of this logo since the June press releases, so hopefully someone realized the error of their ways. Has anyone seen this application in action? Are they still using this logo? Is imitation the most sincere form of flattery in this instance?

Know the Most Important Program on your Computer

jason — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 15:05:32 +0000

It’s your web browser. Pretty soon, most everything you do on your computer will be through a web browser (if you don’t already). Phones are a little further behind, but they’re on the way as well. It’s important that you know which browser you use and that you have a choice.

Why is it important?

1. Speed
There are noticeable differences in the speed of various web browsers. If you’re on Gmail all day, I guarantee you’ll have a faster experience using Google Chrome.

2. Security
Any computer attached to the internet is vulnerable to attack. Attackers usually exploit the highest profile software (Windows/IE). Having a non Internet Explorer browser makes you safer.

3. Extensibility
Even though we do online marketing and advertising, I do not believe in most banner ad campaigns. It’s like having a strobe light attached to your website. Not cool. SEO (and increasingly social strategies) work better. Luckily Firefox and some of the other browsers allow plugins to be written to block ads and add other extremely useful functionalities.

Know your browser and that you have a choice. It’s important.

Feel free to share the following video with those who will listen:

Read “What is a browser?” from the Official Google blog.