Image Selection, Real Estate and Flash – 3Q06

In a recent expose on the current state of marketing to men, Business Week noted the success that Miller Lite found with their “Man Laws” campaign. The TV spots feature a board room of notable men discussing proper male etiquette for such topics as wireless headsets, cooler etiquette, and the repercussions of putting one’s finger inside another man’s beer bottle. While the spots are certainly humorous and critically acclaimed, the corresponding interactive website has also been a huge success. In fact, visitors average over 11 minutes per visit—a tremendous brand impression by any metric. These spots and website are a prime example of the importance of and potential results available in an effective integrated media campaign.

News from Inside Articulation

The team at Articulation has been busy working on design, image selection, and treatment for two new film projects. Look, tone, and feel were crucial to both projects as the design elements created will serve as the core visual identity from capital raise through production and distribution. Currently in the early stages of development, both the films’ visual treatments were designed to encapsulate the essence of the script in image, treatment, and typography. One project, a documentary, incorporated a design to highlight the dualistic meaning of its title, while the other used an image treatment to evoke a feeling of a drought-ridden, sweltering-hot desert. The goal of each was to create intrigue and interest in the projects and the initial branding will serve as the foundation for their ensuing marketing campaigns.

Inside the Industry

With the merge of Adobe and Macromedia, the newest release of Flash Professional is the standard for creating high-impact, rich web content. Flash provides full design control to maximize creativity and deliver powerful end-user experiences. An element created and built in Flash can be distributed to the web, Windows, Macintosh, UNIX, PDAs, and even cell phones—across the entire range of browsers and platforms. With broadband penetrating 75% of homes and 90% of businesses, Flash has become the industry’s most advanced authoring environment for interactive websites, digital experiences, videos, animations, presentations, and mobile content. Take advantage of the powerful marketing tools offered by Flash, one of the most effective web platforms, currently on 98% of global desktops.

Current Projects

During the quarter, we have been working with two real estate-related firms to help fine-tune their marketing and advertising strategies. Our team has always emphasized the importance of coordinated integrated media campaigns to ensure the right messaging and look are consistently conveyed and maximized across target audiences. We incorporated this strategy through flash ads and email campaigns designed to drive traffic and improve touch point frequency and quality. Flash ads can be a cost effective way to deliver interesting and effective animation in a limited web space and time frame. We also created an HTML email campaign for both firms. HTML widens the scope of design for emails and delivers branded, usable, and attractive messages that convert better than plain text. E-mail campaigns are also low cost, informative, convenient, and timely. Both these strategies can deliver powerful ROI and drive sales.