University of Basel: Swiss Rare Disease Day

Great cause, and a fun day at the University of Basel raising awareness for the unique challenges of funding research for the thousands of rare diseases . We played a small role, designing posters, flyers and developing social media applications. Social Media plays an important role in connecting a community of people who crave discourse, interaction and contact with others facing the same challenges. Its a positive and active community.

As important, this was a great excuse to catch up with old friends and clients! Thanks for the opportunity to participate.

Google This: How to Reach 106 Million Consumers

As Google continues to eclipse its origins in the scope of business and ambition, and steps out of it’s role in what became a real-life “international-episode” in China, Google smartly reminded us where it all started…with “Search” and the original core benefit of the internet – the democratization of information. Source agnostic, and available with a click. What you need, when you want it.

In the meantime “Search” is big business and Google is a virtual monopoly on distributing and prioritizing information online. Our clients can make a direct and significant connection between their keywords and real bookings, nothing is more targeted, measurable or, importantly, manageable.

As agencies increasingly discuss (amongst themselves) the collision of digital and traditional media (See RG/A in AdAge, here is a nice reminder from the source that Mass Reach Matters:
YouTube Preview Image

Created by Google’s in-house creative team, with a first-time copy-writer. A spokeswoman for Google, said “The commercial was among a series of videos produced by “some of our creative people” demonstrating how Google search tries “to remove everything but the product and the user.” In the end, it’s important to communicate the simple product benefit.

International Internships as a Gateway to Work.

We know how tough it is these days for designers and developers entering the workforce to get good gigs. And we also believe that a tough job market shouldn’t discourage talent from pursuing their ambitions. Actually, it’s in the long term interest of the marketing industry to make sure that the best talent gets the support they need to stay in the industry and advance.

Although we want the ICON internship to be fun, and love to watch everyone enjoy the Appenzeller experience, we also do our best to put an emphasis on helping people develop new skills, and add international work to their portfolio as a way of setting themselves apart when they get home.

As this recent Chicago Tribune article points out, we agree, international internships indicate a level of confidence and a desire to work: Chicago Tribune

The perfect opportunity to expand my design skills, and curb my wanderlust!

“Interning at Icon Worldwide, I dove head-first into the world of international advertising. As a design intern I got to work for global clients, experience the creative process from start to finish, and live in the picturesque Swiss countryside. From day 1 the Icon team made me feel right at home. Under their guidance, I created work for real clients that I was proud to put in my portfolio.

Life in Switzerland wasn’t too shabby either. In St. Gallen, I was close to many awesome European destinations, including Munich and Milan. It was easy to travel on the weekends, or great stay in town and get to know the local culture (food, beer and more food — don’t forget to ask about the Käsespätzle).

The Icon Design Internship was the perfect opportunity to expand my design skills and curb my wanderlust. No way could I have imagined a better internship experience. And guess what? With the confidence I gained from working with a top-notch international creative team and a design book that put me a step ahead of my peers, I was able to use my internship experience at Icon to find a job.”

Pepsi Pushes Social Media into The Mainstream

Social Media has been steadily gaining acceptance amongst traditional marketers as an integral part of their marketing mix. Still, the importance of a Big Announcement such as the recent headline: “Pepsi Cancels Superbowl Advertising for Social Media” seems to somehow add the final stamp of legitimacy to the medium. We can expect marketing managers to point to this headline in their planning meetings as a mandate to formalize their Social Media Programs. See the recent piece from Forrester: Pepsi Refresh and What It Means to Marketers.

Pepsi Co. has always been smart about seizing the right moment in time for this type of announcement. In 2001, I worked with atmosphereBBDO on the Doritos brand, owned by Pepsi Co. We made headlines by persuading Doritos to shift their media spending from the Supwerbowl to digital marketing. In place of the million dollar TV spots, we encouraged them to build a branded micro-site including viral video program, and a renegade unbranded microsite around the campaign character. The AdAge headline was, “Doritos Abandons Super Bowl For Internet: Will Triple Spending for Online Advertising”

doritos

From an agency perspective, the Doritos program was critical towards bringing other big brands into the Digital space, and, importantly, getting them to think about digital media in the same context as their traditional print and TV campaigns. In retrospect, this shift spelled the eventual doom for many of the so-called internet hot-shops that had been the early movers in digital marketing. As the medium grew in importance and spending, the clients turned to their trusted brand stewards at the big agencies. The internet shops who recognized the changing environment quickly attached themselves to big agencies or holding companies.

In the same way you can be sure agencies can now expect to spend much of their time discussing the role of Social Media with their clients. As traditional agencies are faced with reduced media and production budgets we can expect Social Media to move away from the realm of “Social Media Gurus & Consultants” and become a more integral part of the complete marketing mix.

Putting Twitter to Work for Business

We have spent much of the first business days of 2010 discussing with our clients the strategic role of Twitter, Facebook Groups, Blogs, etc. for their businesses.

The acceptance that Twitter is now “expected” by customers who want to engage with a brand or service, and can play an important role in maintaining a dialog, is well established. Increasingly, our clients are now elevating the seriousness of Twitter, and taking a more professional approach to managing the content towards a specific marketing objective. We are helping our customers bring their Social Media components into line with their traditional media strategies, and to achieve specific business objectives.

For the St.Gallen MBA, for example, we designed a page introducing their new program brochure, providing critical dates for application, and creating a stream of information replicating the stimulating University atmosphere. A separate student Twitter page complements the formal news with a “Participants Perspective”. For our Video on Demand client, XEPTUNE, we are using their campaign character Hugo to deliver real-time information about the latest service enhancements, new film titles and special offers. In another great example, we are supporting the cause of Rare Diseases Day in Switzerland, for whom Twitter is proving to be a great way to spread the word, raise awareness and connect a community.

For those who remain skeptical of the long-term viability of Twitter this recent piece in the NY Times addresses this point nicely: NY Times

There are two main arguments for the long-term viability. The first is the idea that the short message format is an integral part of internet communication:

“The history of the Internet suggests that there have been cool Web sites that go in and out of fashion and then there have been open standards that become plumbing,” said Steven Johnson, the author and technology observer who wrote a seminal piece about Twitter for Time last June. “Twitter is looking more and more like plumbing, and plumbing is eternal.”

The second main argument is that Twitter has become a tool for filtering the clutter of the internet, and helping the user find the most relevant and current information for their particular agenda. I.e. who you “follow” sets the stream of information you are exposed to:

“What could anyone possibly find useful in this cacophony of short-burst communication? Well, that depends on whom you ask, but more importantly whom you follow. On Twitter, anyone may follow anyone, but there is very little expectation of reciprocity. By carefully curating the people you follow, Twitter becomes an always-on data stream from really bright people in their respective fields, whose tweets are often full of links to incredibly vital, timely information.”

How Ford Gets Social Media Right

While there seems to be much confusion about how to succeed in social media today – Ford got it right – 6.5 million YouTube views, 50,000 requests for information about the Fiesta — 10,000 cars sold in six days. Grant McCracken at Harvard Business Review has one of the BEST social media case studies on this.

Merry Xmas From Texas!

hey guys,

i received a swissian package yesterday–thanks so much. it’s nice to see the things and hold them when you have been staring at them for so long on the comp. and they look great too! very happy with how they turned out, thanks for taking the time out to send it to me.

i’m happy to report also that i signed on with Origin full-time, i start in january as a designer. i actually had two offers thankfully, but i chose this one over a job at Waste Management (this job wouldn’t be challenging enough for me…even though it paid more..). Anyways, i appreciate your assistance in the job hunt, im going to stay in bush country for now and see what happens. i would like to end up on the west coast in a couple of years though.

hope ya’ll stay warm and have a great christmas, please tell napoleon and lucy that i won’t be home for christmas, but i will be thinking about them. ya’ll have a great holiday and new years!!

M

PLEASE DO (N’T) HIRE JAMIE KUECHENMEISTER!

(Because we can’t afford to have talent like her’s working for another agency.)

We know that in this economy every entry level design hire is critical to your business. You will be particularly interested to meet a PROVEN TALENT like Jamie Kuechenmeister.

Jamie worked with us in our Swiss office from September through November as a design intern. In this short time Jamie worked like a true professional, and brought real talent to every project she touched, including:

  • Collateral for Fortune 500 Companies and Major Universities. In multiple language versions, including pre-press production, and on-press supervision.
  • Print advertising campaigns which ran in major European newspapers in Switzerland, Germany, and Austria.
  • Online Banner Campaigns / Flash Banner Advertising
  • Corporate Website Design
  • User Interface Design

Jamie has the maturity to sit with senior level clients and the discipline to work independently.  We are confident that she will make a positive impact on any advertising or design firm.

You can view her CV.

You can contact Jamie here: jmkuech @ gmail.com

For a personal reference, please write to us here: Office @ icon-worldwide.com

Using Data Visualization For Customer Acquisition

The challenge of sorting through, and making sense out of increasingly massive amounts of data has given rise to new discussions about the value of data visualization. Often the emphasis is limited to the clever graphic illustration of information, and not focussed on achieving a real business objective.

In a commercial context, smart data visualizations are, of course, an excellent tool for guiding customers towards a product purchase. The ability for customers to sort through product decisions via visual guides, can be useful in providing an added intuitive level to searching for a product, verses, for example, a standard search field. Having eased the customers path towards the desired product, the transition from to the purchase process becomes much more natural.

For the University of St. Gallen, the leader in Executive Education in the Swiss-German market, traditional customer acquisition and sales relied on direct mailing course information to a known customer base. New customers, would have to find their way to the University, and then received individual advise on which course is appropriate, available, etc. In sum, a very clumsy, inefficient, low-tech approach. In a down economy, where large companies reduce investment in Executive Education, and individuals have less financial resources, the University felt pressured to improve on this recruitment process.

The trend in data visualizations tend to fall into two categories:

1. Graphic tools to help consumers understand data trends, process large pools of data, and find a relevant insight. Here is a recent, popular example of a NYC demographic map:

NYC_Dem_Map

2. Helping consumers sort, and find relationships between information from a variety of sources. Classic examples include News visualizations, such as the Digg Labs “Arc” or the MSNBC “Spectrs News Reader”:

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For the University, who maintains a constantly changing database of over 350 courses for different target audiences, business areas, start dates, costs, etc., we wanted to make it (a) easier for a user to find the relevant information and (b) connect this process to a real sale.

We developed a visual tool to help potential “customers”, sort through the over 350 potential courses of study. Users can modify their search by defining themselves by either their current job position and industry, or their “desired” position and industry. Which allows them in a dynamic way to connect the education required to reach their professional objectives.

treemap

Most importantly, from a business perspective, the path to registration and customer acquisition is rapidly increased. Having found the ideal course, users can contact the admin directly, or simply apply online.
Treemap_Course

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