Better Late Than Never...

(Note: Sitegeist is a regular blog focused on issues related to design and marketing and is written by David Hitt, a principal at Splat Productions.)

The great thing about the blogosphere is that, despite the common perception that everything web-related is ephemeral, blog articles actually live for what seems like a relative eternity. Because of the catalog-oriented nature of blogs, a simple reference to an article someone wrote two years ago can instantly resuscitate an idea or discussion.

This happened to me this morning while I was reading a Twitter feed... I came across a blog post written by Jay Ehret from The Marketing Spot. He was talking about a recent facelift he gave his business and was talking about the development of his new logo. He then referenced this blog post he had earlier written, about the relative unimportance of logos for new brands. Having just written an article for the Philadelphia Ad Club about ugly brands, my curiosity was aroused.

Jay's earlier post begins:

"I hate to be the one to break the news, but the importance of logos in branding is overblown. Don't get me wrong, they have their use...somewhat. But when it comes to branding, logos have nothing to do with the establishment of your brand. If you're about to spend some money having a logo designed, you may want to wait."

He then goes on to illustrate a number of well known logos -- Coca Cola, Starbucks, Microsoft, Wal Mart & McDonalds -- and asserts that, essentially, their logos do little to maintain or acknowledge the brands they are paired with. Really, he notes, most logos have little meaning and are only important "after you establish your brand."

He has a point. Certainly the marketing landscape is clogged with big name brands featuring visual slop for identity. (I wrote about those in a previous post...)

But that doesn't mean visual identity isn't important or doesn't play a role in the way your business is perceived by your clients or consumers. In my previous post, I used Google as an example of a business that paid a price for the sloppiness of its visual identity. When I saw the Google homepage for the first time I remember thinking it looked, well, pretty amateurish. I get spareness but, frankly, the designers of that UI looked like they just didn't really care what it looked like. Which, as their customer is, for me, somewhat insulting. (I applaud the simplicity and functionality, though. Functionality and attractive design, though, are not mutually exclusive. ) The brand succeeded in spite of its amateurish mark and look. Imagine if its founders had spent only a few thousand bucks paying a competent design firm to create a memorable mark and finessed their UI a bit.

Which brings me to my last point...

Jay makes the reasonable observation that logos are only important "after you establish your brand." But, if I'm starting a small business, wouldn't my money be better spent if I allocate a small amount of it upfront to get a visual identity for my brand that I don't feel like I have to retroactively fix two years down the road?

In the end, getting it right the first time might be less costly than fixing something at a later time.

Kudos to Kristine Wirth for Some Basic Website SEO Tips

(Note: Sitegeist is a regular blog focused on issues related to interactive design, marketing and computer graphics, written by David Hitt. David is principal and founder of Splat Productions...)

This is a very short post, which I also retweeted. Kristine Wirth posted a really concise blog post about "must do" Search Engine Optimization steps that website designers often overlook. The entire article is here, but, in her closing, she lists a few "don't ever do this" no-nos which relate to meta tags (or H1 tags). For those of you that don't know, meta tags are the descriptive phrases or keywords buried in the code of each page of your website. The viewer can't see these but the crawlers that ultimately see and help determine search engine rank can. Kristine's list of meta no-nos include:

• Missing, empty or duplicate title tags. (Note the duplicate title tags especially). What Bing is saying is that you should not use the same title on more than one of your site’s pages (sage advice).
• Missing, empty or duplicate meta description tags.
• Missing, empty or duplicate H1 tags.

These are really basic issues which can be fixed quickly by someone with only limited coding or Dreamweaver knowledge. If you'd like us to do a quick assessment of your site's search engine readiness, send me an email...

Has Web 2.0 Killed Good Design?

Recently, I’ve been giving a lot of thought to the ascendency of Web 2.0 driven companies and the conversation-starting technologies they’re based on. It seems like I can’t go to a professional event anymore without watching a speaker evangelize about social media or search engine optimization. (Okay, I know, SEO isn't really a Web 2.0 thing, but the social media is usually placed within the context of search engine optimization, so the two are virtually inseparable these days...)

“Here’s How to Integrate Facebook Into Your Business’ Marketing Plan...” might be the title of one talk.

or

“Strategies for Content Generation for Long Tail Search in SEO...” might be the title of another.

As someone who straddles the world of both marketing and design, I’ve watched the rise of Web 2.0 and -- unless my forty-something eyes are suffering from more than just midlife farsightedness -- I’ve noticed something. The internet -- and the brands it has spawned -- is becoming an uglier place.

Consider the extinction of the all-Flash website. Four years ago, at the height of the real estate boom, nearly every developer client of ours wanted us to design these luscious, all-Flash web sites for their projects. Flash, as many of you probably know, allows for the creation of truly immersive web experiences. You can have musical underscores, overscores and lots of pretty, moving pictures and type. But Flash has a big downside. Namely - for a lot of technical reasons I won’t bore you with - it's pretty stinky from the standpoint of search engine optimization. So, in the last couple of years, we in interactive design have witnessed the virtual extinction of websites authored exclusively in Flash. And, although it's true that diehard design devotees (like the folks at webcreme.com) are still out there, championing beautiful design, we've found that, these days, aesthetics are having to take a back seat to a whole range of other Web 2.0 generated concerns. (Try designing a site which - besides having to feature the usual navigation bar - also needs to feature link buttons to Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Digg, Delicious, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon... you get the picture. Making something like that look pretty and uncluttered is a challenge.)

Then there's the accompanying rise of what I call the "visually brandless" companies of the internet universe. Let's start with the biggest Gorilla on the web, Google. Do you remember when the search engine phase first took hold and you logged onto Google for the first time? I do. And, boy, I remember being confused about what all the hype was about. (That barren screen, with only the centered logo and search window drawing your eye's attention...) I can appreciate the simple functionality of the interface and I think that's a good thing but -- if the only visual element you plan to feature in your user interface is your logo and the technology behind your product is next generation -- wouldn't you want that logo to be at least a little edgy or visually provocative? I mean seriously, from the standpoint of design, that logo is suspect. From a designer's point of view its use of off-the-shelf typography seems lazy. And the embossing and drop shadows are Photoshop cliches which young designers are cautioned to avoid.

Which brings me to my final observation. As I was researching this article, I discovered that Google's original logo which -- essentially -- is the visual ancestor of the current logo, was designed by none other than one of Google's founders, Sergey Brin. His technical and entrepreneurial brilliance aside, Brin's professional training is in mathematics and computer science. Frankly, his lack of formal design training is evident. Why he didn't "get" that the mark he was creating would have far ranging impacts on his business for years is a point of puzzlement.

All of this "geeks driving design decisions" makes me realize that, in the entire 30 year span of time dating back to the dawn of the personal computer, not much has changed. With the noteworthy exception of Apple, tech brands have often overlooked or even devalued design. For decades now, the Microsoft vs. Apple competitive feud seems to express the ambivalence technology companies have about design and brand. On the one side, Apple has embraced sleek, straightforward design and married that sleekness to intentionally spare interfaces. Design is integral to the brand. Microsoft (and other tech companies, like Google or Flickr, for example), have been more reluctant to embrace design as significant components of their identity, though. Apple's commitment to design has served them well, because it has created such a strong identity for the brand that -- even through down times -- people understood what the brand stood for and steadfast loyalists stood by it.

I wonder if brands who place less of an emphasis on design as a core value earn this loyalty? If Google falters in the next couple of years or starts losing market share to an upstart, will its fans rally around its corporate standard? Or are Google users simply "information mercenaries" who will change sides at the slightest suggestion of a technology shift?

Technology companies -- including all the current Web 2.0 companies -- are at the mercy of the winds of change. And the winds of change are as predictable as the Santa Anas in the world of high tech. Buffering their reputations with thoughtful, well designed brand identities would serve more than couple high tech companies well.

Preview of Upcoming Column

(Sitegeist is a regularly updated blog written by the staff at Splat Productions...)

I thought I'd just give a teaser of an article I'm working on for the magazine of the Philadelphia Ad Club.

I'm calling the column "Has the Internet Killed Good Interactive Design?", and here's the outline:

Recent shifts in technology and the rise of visually "brandless" companies like Google and Flickr have left designers and ad professionals asking the question: "Is good branding and design an endangered species on the Internet?"

Consider these trends and brands:

• Google's logo which -- with its simple emboss and drop shadows -- invokes all the visual cliches designers have been ridiculing since Photoshop's inception.
• Flickr -- which may own the brand for photo-sharing on the Internet -- but, strangely, has almost no definable visual identity. (I know, its the absence of identity that gives it its unique identity. I'll look at that argument, too...)
• The SEO driven phenomena which makes web copywriters afraid to use metaphors and, instead, has them writing the same stale keywords again. And again. And again.
• The near complete disappearance of Flash driven "experiential" web site which, though often beautiful, have been discarded in favor of searchable content.

In this article, I'll look at the "absence of design" phenomena which seems to have swept over the interactive landscape in the last few months. Are these new brands and trends -- with their blandness and simplicity -- representative of the honesty brands must now possess in the Social Media dominated world of open conversations? Or are they just examples of bad design
run amok?

---------

If anybody has any thoughts on content I might want to cover or reactions to some of the observations outlined above, drop me a line...

dave

The Internet Must Really Be All Grown Up: Digital Parochialism, Social Media and Old School Advertising

(Sitegeist is a regularly update blog written by David Hitt and the staff of Splat Productions.)

I got a post feed through the Philadelphia Interactive Marketing Association yesterday for a column written by online media expert & Philly Ex-Pat, Greg Satell. Greg was actually commenting on another post, written by Eric Qualmann on his Socialnomics blog.

In the Socialnomics piece, Qualmann glibly questions the decision of The Boeing Company to embed a recurring ad for its aircraft in each one of several recent podcasts of Meet The Press. Besides running the same ad in multiple podcasts (which he finds tiresome), Qualmann ponders:

Is a television or iTunes media buy really the best way to target the airplane buyer? As my wife shouts every time the commercial plays – 'Honey can we buy a Boeing Today?' There are only a handful of airplane buyers, why would you spend $100,000 plus on producing a commercial and then 10x that on the media buy in the hopes of reaching one of 50 buyers? This commercial screams of someone in marketing at Boeing wanting a fancy commercial, and why not, it’s fun and easy. After all, what’s easier than producing one commercial over the course of a year and then having your agency buy media spots? Unfortunately, this is called marketing to yourself my friend.

Hmmm... So Qualmann thinks Boeing was making this ad to reach out and grab the one potential customer that might be watching a "Meet the Press" podcast? I'm not so sure about that. His suggestion underscores some reservations I have about new age digeratis who promote the idea that social media and the internet "change all the rules of Old School Marketing."

Boeing, undoubtedly, didn't produce this ad nor buy spot time for it on national television in an effort to reach their potential single customer. (Although, I'm sure they would welcome this unintended occurrence and, frankly, if you look at how much revenue one sale would generate -- I mean, people usually buy airplanes in quantity -- it might still make sense financially.) Rather they fell back on an "Old School" principle of advertising which is still relevant, even in the Facebook and Twitter-driven world we live in. Namely, by running the ad, they were building or shoring up existing brand awareness. It was a pure "brand awareness" sort of ad of the sort that Madison Avenue has been pumping out for decades.

Here are some reasons why these ads still make sense:

1. Not everyone knows about Boeing. At first blush, this might seem preposterous. Most educated adults surely know the Boeing brand well. However, all of us start out in this world uneducated. Brand ads often serve as our first introductions to brands which later become part of our collective cultural DNA. True, "Meet The Press" might not be where the brand-ignorant hang out, but it still makes sense to advertise there within the context of the next two bullet points.
2. Boeing is a publicly traded company. Brand awareness is essential for publicly traded companies because, in a sense, every potential investor represents a new customer of sorts. Boeing may derive much of its capitol from its revenues but working capitol is also acquired by selling more stock. Putting the brand in front of well-monied general investors and making them feel warm and fuzzy about that brand is a smart, necessary component of an overall brand strategy.
3. Postitioning your brand in a positive light protects it when things go wrong. Think a little about Boeing's core business and you'll understand this last point. Boeing knows that, at any given moment, one of its big passenger jets might fall out of the sky, with inevitably disastrous consequences. It is a fundamental and unpleasant reality of the business they're in. Managing the PR cataclysm that results from such rare circumstances is easier if the public is inclined favorably towards your brand, at the moment calamity strikes. By keeping positive messages in front of the public's eye about all the great things Boeing does, they insulate themselves, somewhat, from the negative feelings that result in such circumstances. (I call this situation "prophylactic advertising.")

One last thought about Qualmann's post which again illustrates some of the limitations of Social Networking. In his closing incitement to "get on Social Media channels," Qualmann says, "The biggest advice I can give Boeing is to start having conversations with your buyers, engineers and passengers both online and offline, rather than hoping to reach one of the few buyers with a fancy :30 second commercial."

Now, I'm not in the airplane business but, I'm guessing that not a single purchasing deal to buy a new fleet of airplanes has ever been transacted over Facebook or Twitter. Here, once again, is a situation where "Old School" marketing practices are surely alive and well. Negotiations for such purchases most certainly still take place over many steak dinners and, perhaps, a week's worth of working vacation at an exclusive Aspen resort. If I'm selling a few hundred million dollars worth of product, surely I'm aware that my buyers want to be feted and cajoled. In person. And that's a reality that is unlikely to be changed by the next nifty Social Networking App.

If You're a Realtor or Developer Using Social Media, I Need Your Help...

(Sitegeist is a regularly update blog written by David Hitt and the staff of Splat Productions.)

Hey readers --

I'm giving a ninety minute seminar for realtors, developers and other real estate professionals in Philadelphia in a few weeks. I'll be talking about trends in interactive marketing, namely the rise of social media and its impact on brands. I'm trying to find great case study examples of real estate professionals who have implemented any sort of Web 2.0 plan in their marketing and had success. So, then, if you're using Twitter to communicate with prospects or have integrated Facebook, blogs or video into your marketing channels, I'd like to hear about it.

If you think you qualify -- and would like to help me out -- leave me a comment below or drop me an email.

Of Mice and Tweets

I'm conducting a completely non-scientific experiment in my professional life right now.

About a year ago, I attended a series of seminars given by marketing gurus on the use of Web 2.0 tools -- social networking sites, blogs, video, etc -- within a professional context. At that time, the phenomena was still relatively new. Twitter had not quite taken off and Facebook had yet to replace MySpace as the all-around social networking site of choice. In real estate (historically the largest client base we serve) sites like Zillow, ActiveRain and Inman News were beginning to host large communities of likeminded real estate, banking and marketing professionals.

It was only a few months earlier when I had started to write this blog, along with some help periodically, from some of the best people I've ever worked with.

In the intervening year, a lot has changed. For one thing, the recession changed our business completely. For a period of several months, we "hunkered down" internally and focused on our core competencies, while attempting to direct the business in directions which seemed to respond to industry trends. Our sites became more web savvy -- we began designing with search in mind, we included widget links to sites like Facebook and realized that our role had changed from a real estate centric design firm that did web site design, video and animation to that of an internet strategy and design firm with other specialized skill sets.

One effect the recession had on me is that I became rather irregular posting to this blog. Doing so, of course, represented a violation of a Cardinal rule of blogging. By not offering topical content, not only was I not going to be generating much cross traffic to our site, but I was also losing credibility. For me, the blog was usually a "vision" thing, ie, it offered the opportunity for me to share great new ideas or trends with likeminded people and clients. The problem for me, personally, was that I've been feeling decidedly less than visionary these last few months. Essentially, the industry we've been tied to historically (new construction) almost disappeared there for a couple of years. I let a touch of professional despondency affect the self-discipline blogging requires.

However, I think I'm back. And, the good news is, we've actually broadened our scope and expertise as web strategists so I can actually write with greater authority on these matters.

Now here's my ongoing experiment.

Twitter interests me. It interests me in so much as I don't think I understand what it's about. And there are all these guys out there telling me my clients can make money using it as a marketing tool. I got a Twitter account a year ago. I must confess: I used it for about a week and then let it languish. A couple of weeks ago, though, I reinvigorated my account. And, since I noticed that all these marketing-types keep putting their twitter addresses on their business cards, I've decided to start following every person whose Twitter address is on their card. And, my Twitter window is open all the time on my desktop

Why am I doing this now? Two reasons. The first is that I really want to see if I can understand a paradigm which, quite frankly, has eluded me thus far. I think I'm a reasonably smart guy and, frankly, my pride is wounded over not getting this whole Twitter thing. Plus, if I'm going to recommend it to our clients as a business tool, I actually think I should be a master -- or at least skilled -- in its use.

The second reason, frankly, is to see if all those guys who pitch themselves as Twitterphiles really walk the walk. I'm following them and waiting for the snippets of inspiration they promise. (One guy out there incidentally, who really DOES seem to walk the walk is this fellow we met a few weeks back, Glenn Gabe. Glenn is this amazingly smart SEO/SEM fellow we've been working with. He tweets interesting stuff all the time. And he writes a blog. You can read it here...)

That's all for now, folks. I'll keep you updated on all my adventures in Twitterland, LinkedIn, ActiveRain, Zillow, YouTube, MySpace and everyplace else my promiscuous little mouse happens to find itself in.

Oh, and did I mention? We're web designers, strategists and content creators, too. We'll design a new web site for you (or create 3D animation or design/plan an interactive ad campaign) if that's what you need. You can reach us here.

When we're not tweeting, we actually get a little work done.

Advertising Is Dead Again...

(Editor's Note: Sitegeist is a semi-regularly posted to blog written by the staff at Splat Productions...)

I walked by someone's desk earlier this week and noticed that they had a browser window open and were chuckling. Stepping closer to take a look, I saw that they were looking at the home page of a well known Ad & PR firm, which was loudly asserting that, "Advertising, as we know it, no longer works."

"Hmmmm," I thought to myself, "...guess I better find me a new profession."

"Advertising, as we know it, no longer works." Is there truth in this bold proclamation?

A History Primer

Somewhere in the latter part of the Paleolithic era of human development --- say, after family bands had progressed from nomadic cavedwellers to housebound farmers and hunters -- some clever stone age entrepreneur invented a new tool. In those days, meat was scarce and the staple of the day was a delicious hot porridge made from "locally and organically grown" grains. (Funny, though, they didn't call them that yet...) A challenge of the time, however, was separating the inner, fleshy part of the grain from its outer hull. Those chewy hulls would somehow or another make their way into the porridge and play hell with Stone Age dental bridges and what not. At about this time, though, along comes a gal with an idea. We'll call her Oumquohoka. Using the technology of the time, she invented a stone implement that -- when applied with the appropriate technique and force -- neatly separated the grain from its hull. It was a pure stroke of genius and she knew other cooks in both her village and neighboring villages would wanna get their hands on this revolutionary device. "And," she thought to herself, "maybe I can trade these tools to cooks in other villages, for some of the ingredients which seem sparse in our village..."

It was a great idea but, of course, no one else in any of the other neighboring villages had ever heard of our inventor's new device. And, even if they had, it was so revolutionary that it was unlikely they would have believed in its usefulness right off the bat.

Luckily, Oumquohoka had an ally in a neighbor hunter friend who had an idea. Because his line of work took him far afield from their home village, he offered to take samples of Oumquohoka's tool to other villages and introduce it to other cooks and millers. As he travelled, the other villagers began seeing the virtues of this miraculous tool. They began telling their friends about its usefulness. And then those friends told more friends. And so on and so forth. Thus, in this preliterate, prebroadcast media, preinternet era, the first -- and still the most successful form of advertising -- was born. Word of Mouth advertising. Praise and recommendation from trusted personal sources.

When someone makes the statement "Advertising, as we know it, no longer works," I cringe. One reason I cringe is because advertising and PR literature is filled with "paradigm changing" hyperbole which -- for as long as I've been reading it -- has been telling me (every six months or so) that everything about anything has completely changed. As professionals, we demean our credibility by continually making such overreaching statements. (Remember Chicken Little?) And, as far as I can tell, the fundamentals governing consumer decision making really haven't changed and won't change until we evolve into a species with a different set of needs and concerns. We still value good, cheap food. We still crave sex. We still need to put a roof over our family's heads. And we still crave the companionship of our friends.

What has changed, of course, and what, I think, people mean when they make sweeping statements such as the one above, are the different opportunities our digital era empowers us with to reach our clients, friends and family. Twitter, Facebook, blogging and all the other "Web 2.0" technologies offer unique chances to connect with others. As advertising professionals, it is our responsibility to understand how these opportunities can enable our clients to reach out to their customers and future customers. Having said that though, traditional "paradigms" are still alive and healthy, thank you. It's still easier to sell products which have a unique "revolutionary" quality about them. (Just ask Oumquohoka.) And the fastest way to ensure a huge spike in sales is to get people on the outside -- your customers -- to start recommending your product to their friends, who will recommend it to their friends. And so on, and so forth.

And that, my friends, is what advertising is, and always has been, all about.

Splat Productions Announces SEO PreFlight...

I talked last week about some of the dilemmas facing agencies when smaller clients come in the door and -- with limited budgets -- expect us to both design a site for them and make that same site easily found through organic search such as Google or Yahoo. Despite the additional costs associated with priming a site for search, though, we have increasingly come to the conclusion that to not design with SEO in mind is shortsighted.

In a typical scenario, SEO is often applied to a site post-creation by a third party SEO vendor who gets a hold of a marketing manager or webmaster and convinces them of the value that SEO offers. However, retroactively making a site SEO friendly is like adding an after market air conditioner to a new car. The resulting addon usually costs more money and doesn't work as well as one installed in the factory. Designing for SEO involves more than applying invisible code to the back end of a web site. It impacts all the significant messaging elements -- copy, video, images and links. Designing with SEO in mind from the outset then, offers the opportunity to marry message with searchability right up front.

For this reason, we've developed suite of services which we're offering to our new and existing web clients. Called SEO Preflight ® these services are all designed to ensure that your site will attract traffic initially and -- with ongoing maintenance by one of our partner SEO professionals -- keep pulling visitors to your site.

SEO Preflight services will vary somewhat, according to the needs of every customer, but minimally include the following services:

• Research and develop likely search strings using
  client input and keyword research/discovery tools
  
• Write Keyword embedded copy for all meta tags
• Integrate keywords into all copy for visible portions of web site
• Pay careful attention to tagging all images with relevant text tags
• Make sure all sites have Privacy Statements and Company Information
  pages.
• Create and submit a site map to all relevant search engines
  
• Ensure that site creation is consistent with Google Webmaster Guidelines
• Install analytics monitoring tools to site

Choosing SEO Preflight ® for your new site will give our clients the comfort of knowing that, not only will their new or redesigned site be attention getting... it will also get attention on the web.

Some Thoughts About SEO

As the principal of a small agency which specializes in interactive, we've designed and built dozens of web sites for a variety of clients. These days, clients are obviously interested in getting as much out of the money they're spending on interactive advertising as possible and SEO is a particular concern. With that end in mind, over the next few entries, I'm going to be touching on critical issues agencies and clients need to think about, as they sit down together to discuss web site design and interactive search strategies....

First Let's Talk About SEO

We have designed countless web sites. At the beginning of our process with clients, it is customary for us to have a discussion about how important searchability is. Many clients don't understand that web sites are not necessarily designed with organic search in mind and that there are no "best practices" for web site creation which all designers adhere to. The reason for this is that preparing a site for SEO costs considerable extra time and money. These days, clients are especially cost conscious and we are constantly finding ourselves cutting one or several thousand dollars out of web budgets which formerly would have been more robust. Trying to pad these already skinny budgets with (sometimes) several thousand dollars worth of SEO services, then, is not feasible. Our practice now is to try and have a discussion upfront with our clients about how important, ultimately, organic searchability is and -- if it's a particular concern of theirs -- we work with them to implent and additional package of SEO "Pre Flight" services. In my next entry, I'll discuss, precisely, what these services comprise...