Is Your Brand a Crock Pot?

It’s that time of year again. A time to throw portion control and calorie counting into the fireplace. It’s a time where melted cheese reigns supreme. It’s Crock Pot Season!12274660_10153323349228507_2422566036580949659_n

A heated agency debate before our annual chili cook-off, spurred a question about the brands that we create. Is your brand a Crock Pot or a stoneware slow cooker? Crock Pot is a product, but it is also a brand that owns its category. Although many brands have come along that sell similar products, Crock Pot has been able to stand the test of time by releasing new products that embrace technology, while staying true to the core purpose of the brand. Save time, and make it easy. Crock Pot was created over four decades ago as a way to cook a flavorful, convenient, home-cooked meals without having to spend any time in the kitchen.

 

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Brands that are able to stay true to their roots while continuing to advance, are the ones that take over (or create) their own lanes. Brands Like Kleenex, Coke, Band-Aid, Tupperware and Crock-Pot are brands that have become synonymous with their product categories. To create the next “Crock Pot”, determine what your brands purpose is, brand it and then own it. Be confident in your brand and never forget why it exists.

Jacob Tyler | San Diego’s Best Design Firm

Microsites and Landing Pages: A Primer

Just about every business has a website – or at least should. But a website is not the only venue through which you can market your business on the web. The rise of online marketing and its various tactics have given birth to new forms of web engagement – including the microsite and landing page. Generally, both are an addendum to – or an extension of – an existing website, but each serve a particular function in guiding people along the buyer journey. Let’s take a look at the basics:

The Microsite:

What is it? A microsite is a lot like it sounds – a small, bare bones version of a traditional website. Comprised of no more than a few pages, microsites are built around a singular message (i.e., a new campaign, product or service offering).

What is its purpose? Microsites help to develop brand awareness around a particular product or service. By focusing on a simple and clear message, microsites cut through the clutter of a traditional website and allow potential customers to learn about a product or service in a quick, painless and easy to digest manner.

The Landing Page:

What is it? A simple, single page or form – usually hosted on an existing website – intended to drive a specific action.

What is its purpose? The landing page is singularly focused and intended to spur action (i.e. – download information, sign up for a free trial, subscribe to newsletter, etc.) and move a potential customer from awareness to consideration and eventually, purchase.

The Bottom Line:

Microsites and Landing Pages are great vehicles to enhance your marketing efforts and help drive sales. In some cases, they can even be utilized in place of a traditional website. Microsites and landing pages offer similar benefits, and determining the right solution for your efforts is entirely dependent on your needs.

Benefits of microsites and landing pages include:

• Quick deployment (3-4 weeks vs. 3-4 months for a traditional site)

• Can be used as a short-term solution for specific goals and programs

• Promotes a specific call to action (CTA)

• Build brand awareness organically

• Easy to measure campaign engagement

• Simple navigation

• Allows for direct interaction with a specific promotion or campaign

• Great medium to tell a brand story

Want more info on this topic? Fill out the form to the right and let’s chat!

Digital Advertising in San Diego by Jacob Tyler

Instagram’s Latest Updates Could Help Brands Reach Consumers

Visuals are a powerful way to promote your brand. The right image can capture the soul of a brand and communicate it in an instant. Instagram – the largest image-sharing site in the world – boasts 70 million images and video uploads every day. That’s a lot of users – and a big potential audience for your brand. However, reaching the right audience via Instagram has been a bit tricky – until now.

The photo and video sharing social media powerhouse recently announced two big changes that look to be a boon to brands utilizing the app. Here’s what you need to know:

The Upgraded “Explore” Feature: Spurred in part by the explosion of users posting to Instagram, the company has updated its Explore feature to deliver trending topics in real time. Whether it’s images from the scene of a breaking news story or a nationwide event like #FathersDay, users will be provided with easy access to relevant content. Likewise, brands can gain exposure by posting content relevant to the latest trends and topics. Instagram has also added specific collections curated by an in-house team of editors that include categories like “ancient ruins” and “extreme athletes.”

All New Search: Instagram has improved its search algorithm to make finding people, places and events much easier. The update allows user to search people, places and tags simultaneously. With enough savvy, brands can utilize the search features to make themselves more discoverable to users.

To learn more about the all-new Instagram, check out the company’s blog. If you would like to discuss how your brand could utilize visual media to gain exposure, fill out the form to the right and let’s talk!

Branding by Jacob Tyler

7 Brand Launch Rules For Start Ups

Over the last few of years, San Diego has experienced a significant rise in startup companies. In one six month period last year, 228 companies formed in the area! To those of us who live here in America’s Finest City, this is not a surprise. San Diego’s weather might not be dynamic, but its creative energy most certainly is. Over the last 15 years, Jacob Tyler has helped launch countless brands – many of them startups. We’ve learned a few things along the way. Launching a brand is an exciting endeavor. But like a rocket, you only get one shot. The following seven tips will help you ensure your startup doesn’t crash and burn at launch.

Identify your audience, and find out everything you can about it. Before you launch a brand, it’s important to determine the audience for your product or service. Know who they are, what they want and how to best communicate to them.

If your name doesn’t say what you do, make sure your tagline or logo does. Not every company name is descriptive of its operations – and that’s OK. But a succinct tagline or a descriptive logo can capture a brand’s story and communicate in a glance.

Highlight your differentiation. It’s a simple but too often missed rule. Unless you’ve created something so unique that no one else does it, you have competition in your market. Make sure your branding and marketing efforts highlight what you do differently and why you do it better.

Tell your story. Why does your brand exist? Make sure your brand has a story that defines the motivations for your existence. A brand story will help humanize your brand and create a connection with your audience.

Be clear. Being a new brand means no one has ever heard of you. When you catch the attention of your audience, use it wisely. Have a clean and concise message about what you do and why you do it best. Create messaging that people will share via word of mouth. This form of grassroots marketing is incredibly powerful. Companies like Uber were able to explode and a global level in large part due to word of mouth.

Your launch never stops. There is no defined period for launching a brand. Unless you decide you want to stop attracting customers, consider your launch to be endless – and market accordingly.

Figure out what works, then look at it with fresh eyes. There are very few secrets to creating a successful brand. But that doesn’t mean you have to design a familiar logo or marketing messaging that’s been around the block a few times. Look at what has worked in the past and build on that foundation to create something new that excites and engages your audience.

Want to learn more about the finer points of a brand launch? Contact us using the form to the right!

Jacob Tyler | San Diego’s Best Web Designer

17 Quotes on Design Philosophy From Apple’s Sir Jony Ive

Recently, Apple announced it was “promoting” its lead designer, Jony Ive. The promotion is little more than a title change, as Ive has led Apple’s world-changing product design since joining the company in 1996. “Sir” Jony Ive (he’s been knighted by the Queen of England) is well known across the globe for his innovative designs that made Apple the world’s biggest company and changed the way we interact with technology.

As designers, we draw inspiration from a variety of sources – the word around us, the innovative products and services of our clients and the work of great designers past and present. Ive is certainly one of those greats. The following collection of quotes from Apple’s creative maestro offer an interesting look into the philosophy that drives Apple’s world-changing designs.

“Simplicity is not the absence of clutter, that’s a consequence of simplicity. Simplicity is somehow essentially describing the purpose and place of an object and product. The absence of clutter is just a clutter-free product. That’s not simple.”

“There’s no learning without trying lots of ideas and failing lots of times.”

“Different’ and ‘new’ is relatively easy. Doing something that’s genuinely better is very hard.”

“We shouldn’t be afraid to fail- if we are not failing we are not pushing. 80% of the stuff in the studio is not going to work. If something is not good enough, stop doing it.”

“There is beauty when something works and it works intuitively.”

“If something is not good enough, stop doing it.”

“If you are truly innovating, you don’t have a prototype you can refer to.”

“What we make testifies who we are. People can sense care and can sense carelessness. This relates to respect for each other and carelessness is personally offensive.”

“Apple’s goal isn’t to make money. Our goal is to design and develop and bring to market good products.”

“True simplicity is, well, you just keep on going and going until you get to the point where you go, ‘Yeah, well, of course.’ Where there’s no rational alternative.”

“What I love about the creative process, and this may sound naive, but it is this idea that one day there is no idea, and no solution, but the next day there is an idea. I find that incredibly exciting and conceptually actually remarkable.”

“A small change at the beginning of the design process defines an entirely different product at the end.”

“When something exceeds your ability to understand how it works, it sort of becomes magical.”

“Designing and developing anything of consequence is incredibly challenging.”

“Making the solution seem so completely inevitable and obvious, so uncontrived and natural – it’s so hard!”

“It’s a very strange thing for a designer to say, but one of the things that really irritates me in products is when I’m aware of designers wagging their tails in my face.”

“The best ideas start as conversations.”

San Diego Digital Marketing Agency | Jacob Tyler

5 Themes from Interactive Day San Diego, 2015

Ah, Interactive Day. The one day a year when Southern California’s best, brightest and most innovative digital marketers convene to remind each other just how behind the curve they are. It is a day of inspiration and excitement and anxiety and terror: how do I institute this philosophy at my agency…how do I make these trends tangible enough to sell to my clients…when does happy hour start?

The Jacob Tyler team attended several insightful sessions throughout the day and identified a short list of the most prevalent themes discussed by leaders in the industry. Below are key takeaways, implications and points of inspiration from each theme.

1. Millennials (2015 is the peak year for marketing to millennials)

THE SCOOP:

  • This coming-of-age generation, now 18-34 years old, is the largest generation in the workforce.
  • Well educated and socially mindful, expect a growing annual spending power and influence among peers
  • A stronger connection to brands provides trust and relevance

PRO TIP:

  • Don’t be afraid to evolve with this audience and use a dynamic marketing approach. Be where they are, use their preferred media platforms, you won’t reach them otherwise. (Next Up: Gen Z)

INSPIRATION:

  • Lowe’s Fix In Six (#lowesfixinsix) campaign uses Vine to provide low-budget, clever improvements to make life at home a little easier. https://vine.co/Lowes

2. Personalized Content (Your content – whether text, images, or video – should be personalized and relevant for the audience)

THE SCOOP:

  • Ensure your campaign matches the data behind what your audience cares about.
  • Engaging experiences are made through personalization and relevance to the platform being used.
  • Content should be the start of a two-way conversation (talk to them, not at them).

PRO TIP:

  • Include descriptive and informative messaging that is helpful for the audience. It’s not only about the visuals.

INSPIRATION:

  • Top performing pins on Pinterest provide instructions and tips as well as a beautiful image — brands recognize that pins are about planning and information, not just aesthetics. https://www.pinterest.com/categories/popular/

3. Augmented Reality (Creating a near-real experience with a brand in a connected world)

 THE SCOOP:

  • Consumers today have made their purchase decisions well ahead of an in-store visit.
  • Augmented reality transports the consumer to a branded environment for a fully immersive experience. It can live anywhere your consumer lives, and become interactive through a variety of devices (smartphone, wearables or anywhere in between).

PRO TIP:

  • Start simple: how can my prospects see themselves using my product? Build a simple experience reflecting that, then test, and grow, and test, and grow.

INSPIRATION:

  • Always ahead of its own curve, the IKEA catalogue took augmented reality to an innovative (and still approachable) space: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDNzTasuYEw

4. The Internet of Things (So much more than using Nest to create a connected home)

 THE SCOOP:

  • Speaking of wearables…the next generation of personalization and automation provides efficiency to living and working lifestyles.
  • Let technology learn more about you to improve day-to-day tasks and challenges through data.

PRO TIP:

  • Focus on how your brand and the information it gathers can simplify your consumers’ lives, and invest in the technology to build that connection.

INSPIRATION:

5. Live Interactions (Streaming video can be used to create a real-time, shared experience)

THE SCOOP:

  • Consumers crave real-time access to events as they unfold.
  • Live, user-influenced content creates an immediacy and shareability to brand experiences.

PRO TIP:

  • Listen to and know your audience, then build events and stories that invite them in as a live participant.

INSPIRATION:

  • Watch Gisele fight back to negative comments as the new face of Under Armour. http://gisele.underarmour.com/

How do these trends come to life, and how to they apply to your brand (or your clients’ brands)? What success stories have you seen, and what pitfalls should brands avoid?

Jacob Tyler | Branding Agency in San Diego

5 Easy Tactics to Reach Brand Enthusiasts

Do you own a gadget that you can’t wait to tell all of your friends about? Are you quick to recommend your favorite restaurant or a film you enjoyed to anyone who will listen? If so – to paraphrase the late Jeff Foxworthy – you might be a brand enthusiast. Brand enthusiasts are more than a fan of a certain product or brand – they champion brands, spreading word far and wide, without expectation of compensation. And they’re more common than you might think. According to a recent study, more than 25 percent of consumers are considered brand enthusiasts. That number doubles among Millenials, whose social media prowess makes them the most powerful and effective purveyors of enthusiasm – not to mention a powerhouse purchasing demographic.

Marketing to brand enthusiasts is a no-brainer, and the reasons are largely self-evident. Brand enthusiasts are trust worthier than advertising or marketing campaigns – and they don’t charge. They personify your brand from a deeply personal place, relaying their experience to a willing audience. Quite simply, brand enthusiasts are the most powerful arrows in your marketing quiver.

But reaching these magical marketing creatures – and convincing them to evangelize for your brand – is no easy task. There’s no magic formula, and if there were, there’s no way to guarantee enthusiasm for your particular brand. Aside from offering a great product or service, there are strategies you can employ to help you win brand enthusiasts to your cause. Start with these five:

Show Up: Don’t wait for brand enthusiasts to knock on your door asking to sample the goods. Go to where they are. With a little research, you should be able to find out where the conversations around your particular market are taking place – social media channels, chat rooms, etc. Be where the conversation is, and add to it.

Start a Conversation: Want to know what people think about your brand? Ask them. You will learn more about the perception of your brand from a conversation than you ever will from your assumptions. You’ll you gain a solid understanding of the way people feel about your brand, and learn how you can improve your brand in the eyes of your customers.

Gather Information: Brand enthusiasts are generally more willing to offer personal and contact information than more skeptical consumers. By collecting contact information and staying in touch with them, you can move from conversation to relationship.

Make Sure Your Technology is up to Snuff: Brand enthusiasts are known as some of the most tech-savvy consumers on the planet. As such, they research and engage with brands overwhelmingly through mobile devices. Make sure your website is easily accessible though mobile devices and operating systems.

Feed the Hungry: Brand enthusiasts devour content. After all, one can’t truly be considered an enthusiast if he or she isn’t an expert on the subject. Provide timely, targeted and useful information to your audience. If your brand enthusiasts like what you have to say, they’ll share it with the world.

Want to learn more about how you can generate enthusiasm for your brand? Fill out the form to the right and lets chat!

San Diego’s Best Branding Agency | Jacob Tyler

Is Anyone Watching This? – Video Ads and Viewability

In the beginning of this millennium, around when the DVR became ubiquitous and the Internet realized its potential as the platform for content delivery, the television ad was pronounced dead. The perpetual march of technology, combined with a growing distrust for traditional advertisements, was implicated in the TV ad’s demise. The death certificate, however, was written far too early. After all, the advertising spend on the 2015 Super Bowl was the largest ever, and shows no signs of slowing down. Sure, less people view ads on televisions these days, but the visual advertisement continues to dominate the media landscape – by way of the Internet. Both advertisers and publishers have increasingly focused on video ads over the last few years, resulting in both more video ads – and more questions about their effectiveness. Advertisers, in short, want to know – “Is anyone watching this?”

Web pages draw a much less captive audience than do TV screens. Visitors move about freely, clicking links and refreshing pages to locate the content they desire, rather than having it fed directly to them. Merely placing a video ad on a page offers no guarantee that the ad will be seen. Rather than base ad costs and effectiveness on delivery metrics, advertisers and publishers are now relying on a metric called “viewability, ” created by the Media Rating Council, which measures the percentage of the time a particular ad is seen. An ad is considered “viewed” when at least 50 percent of its pixels are on screen for more than two seconds. Viewability is an evolving metric, but it represents a shift in the way advertisers are doing business.

Google’s recently released State of Ad Viewability report offers some important insight on ad visibility, including where ads are being seen, how often they’re being seen, and how format and placement affects viewability. The following are a few major takeaways from the report:

Averages

The average video ad viewability across the web (not including YouTube) is 54 percent. With YouTube, it’s 93 percent. The difference between YouTube and non-YouTube ads isn’t quite as striking as it appears, since only the YouTube numbers accounted for viewability on mobile devices.

Heard, Not Seen

Video ads that played in the background (in a separate tab, etc.) but were not technically “viewable” still resulted in a 33 percent increase in ad recall, when compared to those who had no exposure to ad at all. It’s better to bee seen than heard, but better to be heard than nothing!

Going Mobile

The massive shift to mobile devices, including smartphones and tablets, is reflected in viewability data. YouTube video viewability is 94 percent on mobile devices – due largely to the fact that videos often utilize the entire screen on these devices.

Why Videos Fail the Viewability Test

The majority (76 percent) of videos not seen were due to the video playing while in a background tab. The remainder (24 percent) was due to visitors scrolling away from or clicking off the ads in less than two seconds.

Size Matters

Unsurprisingly, viewability increased step by step with screen size. The largest format (848 x 477) had an 87 percent viewability rate, while the smallest (300 x 250) had less than 20 percent viewability.

It’s All About Location

Google’s report showed that not only player size, but also location on the page is an important factor in viewability. Ads placed at the top of the page vertically, and in the center of a page horizontally, had far better viewability rates.

What Does it All Mean?

While viewability is an important step in determining where advertisers should focus spending, it doesn’t tell the whole story. Ad content, audience identification and a solid marketing strategy will ultimately determine an ad’s true effectiveness, and move potential customers from viewing to conversion.

 

Jacob Tyler | San Diego’s Best Branding Agency

Are You Ready for Mobilegeddon?

In April, Google officially rolled out its “mobile-friendly” search ranking update. In short, this means that Google will now boost the rankings of what it considers to be “mobile-friendly” pages – and penalize pages that it does not – on its mobile search. The update is intended to reflect the rise of Internet access through mobile devices, which now constitute more than half of all Google searches. The update is expected to negatively affect many websites – popular industry blog TechCrunch found that 44 percent of Fortune 500 companies failed Google’s mobile-friendly test – and could impact revenues for those websites who do not meet the new mobile-friendly standards.

Let’s take a look at the basics of the new search update and what it means for your website.

What will change?

  • The mobile-friendly update will impact web page search rankings based on accessibility and usability on mobile devices.
  • The change affects only search ranking on mobile devices.
  • The update applies to individual pages, not entire websites.

What makes a website mobile-friendly?

According to Google’s blog, the following basic criteria will be used to determine “mobile friendliness” in search results:

  • Websites that avoid software that is not common on mobile devices – like Flash.
  • Websites that use text that is readable without zooming.
  • Websites that size content to the screen so users don’t have to scroll horizontally or zoom.
  • Websites that place links far enough apart so that the correct one can be easily tapped.

Is my website mobile-friendly?

If your website features responsive design or adaptive design, or has been configured specifically for use on mobile devices, it may not be affected by the new search algorithm. Older, more “static” websites, however, will likely suffer a loss of ranking under the new search rules.

To determine if your website is mobile-friendly, simply paste your URL into Google’s quick and easy mobile-friendly test.

How can I optimize my website for mobile?

Google recommends responsive web design as the best way to ensure sites remain relevant across all platforms. According to Google’s blog, responsive design:

  • Makes it easier for users to share and link to your content with a single URL.
  • Helps Google’s algorithms accurately assign indexing properties to the page rather than needing to signal the existence of corresponding desktop/mobile pages.
  • Requires less engineering time to maintain multiple pages for the same content.
  • Reduces the possibility of the common mistakes that affect mobile sites.
  • Requires no redirection for users to have a device-optimized view, which reduces load time.
  • Saves resources when Googlebot crawls your site.

In a nutshell –

The new mobile search ranking is an undeniable shakeup of the status quo, but should eventually optimize the search experience for both consumers and businesses. If your website lost rank status on April 21, it can regain that status once it is optimized and becomes mobile-friendly, as Google will reclassify the newly updated site.

If you would like to learn more about how to optimize your website for mobile, fill out the form to the right and let’s chat!

Jacob Tyler | San Diego’s Best Web Design Agency

Jacob Tyler Has a New Home – And it Might be Haunted

After a few months of “camping out” with our good friends at Solekai Systems while waiting for our new office to be built out, I’m happy to announce we’re finally home. Actually, we’ve been in our new space for a month or so – but hey, we wanted to decorate before we invited anyone over! Our new office, located at 6863 Friars Road in Mission Valley, retains much of the style of our former office downtown – open spaces, exposed ceilings, lots of red – and of course my love of Howard Stern memorabilia. But we now have more space to work, play (pinball anyone?) and most importantly – create.

At Jacob Tyler, we’re always looking forward – we look for what’s “next” in branding. We look for emerging technologies that will help connect our clients with their customers. We look for innovations in marketing, and look to create our own. We anticipate changes that will affect our clients, and adjust accordingly.

As I walk around our new spaces, however, I feel myself looking back as well. There’s an air of history in this building. The ghosts of advertising past, you might call it. This building was once home to one of San Diego’s oldest and most respected advertising agencies, Phillips Ramsey. Founded in 1928, the agency’s clients included the San Diego Zoo, First National Bank, WD-40 and others. In Advertising’s heyday in the 1950s and 60s – the era so deftly and unflinchingly portrayed in AMC’s Mad Men – Phillips Ramsey was the epicenter of creative thought.

The era of smoke-filled offices, three-piece suits and lunchtime martinis is long gone. But the creative energy that flowed through this building during that era remains today. Maybe it’s my imagination running wild, but sometimes I feel like those ghosts of advertising past are looking over our shoulders, and nodding approvingly.

Whether you’re a friend, client (past present or future) or partner, our doors are always open. Drop by and see our new home anytime, and together we’ll create some history of our own!

Digital Marketing in San Diego