Pixel Creative Group, Inc.

Adobe survey finds readers 'engaged' with ads on Apple's iPad

2011-01-24T10:34:00.001-06:00

Published: 09:55 AM EST

Adobe on Monday released the results of a new survey which found that advertisements in digital magazines on devices like the iPad can "more effectively engage readers and create stronger purchase intention" than in print.

Dave Dickson revealed the results of the survey in an official post on the Adobe Digital Publishing blog/ The research paper, entitled "Digital Ad Engagement: Perceived Interactivity as a Driver of Advertising Effectiveness," was conducted by Alex Wang, Ph.D. at the University of Connecticut.

The test studied readers between ages 18 and 32, and had them view print and iPad versions of advertisements featured in a past issue of a digital magazine. Participants were asked to rank their perceived interactivity, engagement, message involvement, attitude toward the adds, and purchase intent.

"The result is a new brand advertising paradigm where advertisers can engage customers with a brand in the immersive context of a digital magazine -- in contrast to the interruptive, templatized, and commoditized nature of current digital display ad inventory," Dickson wrote.

Participants ranked ads in each category from a score of one to nine. Interactive ads on the iPad carried a purchase intent significantly higher than their static counterparts, as the interactive ads earned a score of 3.98, compared to just 2.50 for print.

"The study also found clear statistical connections among the five measured categories in the experiment," he wrote. "By using interactivity such as motion graphics, sound, slideshows and animation, advertisers can engage readers and create favorable attitudes toward their brands.

"Once engaged, readers are then more likely to interact with the ad, resulting in a higher probability that they will purchase the product or service being promoted."

While the advertisements might be more effective, details of magazine purchases in late December indicated that they have significantly declined since many of them debuted earlier in 2010. For example, Wired -- a magazine powered by Adobe -- launched in May and sold more than 100,000 copies, but the more recent issues had much lower sales of 22,000 and 23,000 in October and November, respectively.

Publishers are said to be anxiously awaiting the ability to offer recurring subscriptions on the App Store for iPad versions of their magazines. Currently, publishers must make due with a pay-per-issue approach, something they believe has hurt sales.

Like Adobe, Apple has bet in the interactive advertising market potential on the iPad with its own mobile advertising network dubbed iAds. The iAd network on the iPad launched in late 2010 with just one advertisement, but is expected to significantly expand in 2011.

Banner vs. Search Ads

2010-08-19T09:28:00.000-05:00

Internet players who win similar trust and popularity could command premium rates for advertising and related services. Below them, in Tobaccowala's view, a vast contingent of competitors will sell ads at commodity rates, the online equivalents of pork bellies and West Texas crude. The battle ahead in every branch of Internet advertising is to gain a foothold among the ruling class.

Online advertising breaks roughly into two camps. The fastest-growing side has been search-engine advertising, led by Google and Yahoo. This industry has zoomed from zero to an estimated $5 billion in six years. The process starts as advertisers bid for keywords, whether "Viagra" or "Miami hotels." When a Web surfer enters those words, their ads show up alongside the search results. And they pay an agreed price to the search engine every time the ad is clicked. When it works, search provides such rich data that advertisers can calculate minute by minute the return on investment for each keyword. It's an unprecedented level of accountability -- provided the clicks are real. Last year search-related advertising was on pace to grow 27%, as was the competing camp, display ads.

But advertising executives predict that the display banners and videos that appear on Web pages will outpace search this year. "Most of the big money [advertisers] -- cars, movies, packaged goods -- are putting more of their budgets into display," says Jeff Lanctot, general manager at agency Avenue A/Razorfish (AQNT ), the world's largest buyer of Internet ads. "We think growth in search will fall back in '06." Google's chief financial officer, George Reyes, hinted much the same when he indicated on Feb. 28 that Google's per-customer growth in search advertising had topped out, triggering an investor stampede.

As brand advertisers push into display ads, they're hungry for new measurements. With the page view as its standard metric, display has always been far less accountable than search. Sure, Web sites can count the times an ad pops up on a page someone visits. But how many of the readers actually focus on the ad? Studies show that they take in only an average of one of every 12 Internet ads. What's more, in display advertising, even the more concrete metric of clicks is questionable. "Click measurement has been abused," says Greg Stuart, president of the Interactive Advertising Bureau in New York, an industry group. "There's no relationship between clicks and brand awareness."

Some 18 months ago, Stuart's group set out to quantify the value of Internet ads and to compare them with advertisements in other media. The agenda was clear: to attract advertisers, who were placing only about 3% of their budgets online. The resulting IAB studies, which involved 30 major advertisers, including Procter & Gamble (PG ), Kraft Foods (KFT ), and Ford Motor (F ), used testing methods similar to those of social scientists. They created control groups, exposed them to mixes of advertisements from various media, and tracked their effects in recall, brand recognition, and intent to purchase. The IAB concluded that most of the advertisers were underspending online -- and advertisers agreed. Ford, which was spending less than 5% of its ad budget online, quickly moved to triple it.

The ideal is not only to reach viewers but also to get them to spend time with the ad -- and signal to advertisers what interests them. Clicks achieve that, but many surfers are wary of detours and fearful that unknown sites might infect their computers with spyware. This has led advertisers to their latest wrinkle: measuring the movements of the mouse. New interactive banner ads spring to life when the Web surfer crosses them with the cursor. No click necessary. Some of them balloon into mini Web pages as you browse. Others sprout arms and legs pitching cars or recipes.The advertisers don't always know who the Web surfers are, but they often know which Web page they have come from. They can track which parts of the banner appear to interest visitors and how long they spend there. This contributes to an avalanche of data. "We have so much data that agencies are hiring teams of analytic people, PhDs in statistics, to make sense of it all," says Greg Rogers, director of strategy and insights at MEC Interaction, a New York media agency.

Kraft Foods builds entire campaigns around interactive banners. Before holidays, it serves them up on the major portals like MSN.com (MSFT ) and Yahoo's main page. Web surfers whose cursors pass over these banners are served recipes featuring Kraft products. This feature enables Kraft to gauge the popularity of each food. Advertisers and agencies now monitor the performance of their online ads with so-called computer dashboards, which allow them to track their portfolios of ads. Like social scientists, they test ads against "placebos," usually a give-away ad for a charity such as the Red Cross. If one ad fares better than another against the placebo, they make adjustments on the fly.

by: www.businessweek.com

What now?

2010-08-16T11:37:00.000-05:00

By the Project For Excellence In Journalism

Inside news companies, the most immediate concern is how much revenue lost in recession the industry will regain as the economy improves.

Whatever the answers, the future of news ultimately rests on more long-term concerns: What are the prospects for alternative journalism organizations that are forming around the country? Will traditional media adapt and innovate amid continuing pressures to thin their ranks?

And with growing evidence that conventional advertising online will never sustain the industry, what progress is being made to find new revenue for financing the gathering and reporting of news?

The numbers for 2009 reveal just how urgent these questions are becoming. Newspapers, including online, saw ad revenue fall 26% during the year, which brings the total loss over the last three years to 41%.

Local television ad revenue fell 24% in 2009, triple the decline the year before. Radio was off 18%. Magazine ad pages dropped 19%, network TV 7% (and news alone probably more). Online ad revenue over all fell about 5%, and revenue to news sites most likely also fared much worse.

Only cable news among the commercial news sectors did not suffer declining revenue last year.

The estimates for what happens after the economy rebounds vary and even then are only guesses. The market research and investment banking firm Veronis Suhler Stevenson projects that by 2013, after the economic recovery, three elements of old media — newspapers, radio and magazines — will take in 41% less in ad revenues than they did in 2006.

For newspapers, which still provide the largest share of reportorial journalism in the United States, the metaphor that comes to mind is sand in an hourglass. The shrinking money left in print, which still provides 90% of the industry’s funds, is the amount of time left to invent new revenue models online. The industry must find a new model before that money runs out.

The losses are already enormous. To quantify the impact, with colleague Rick Edmonds of the Poynter Institute we estimate that the newspaper industry has lost $1.6 billion in annual reporting and editing capacity since 2000, or roughly 30%. That leaves an estimated $4.4 billion remaining. Even if the economy improves we predict more cuts in 2010.

Network news division resources are likely down from their peak in the late 1980s by more than half — which amounts to hundreds of millions of dollars — and new rounds of cuts came in the last 12 months. Local television is harder to gauge, but one estimate puts the losses in the last two years at over 1,600 jobs, or roughly 6%. Staffing at the Time and Newsweek since 1983 is down by 47%.¹

So what about the new-media experiments growing around the country? There are certainly exciting things happening, from former journalists creating specialty news sites and community sites, to citizens covering neighborhoods, to local blogs and social media.

In 2009 Twitter and other social media emerged as powerful tools for disseminating information and mobilizing citizens such as evading the censors in Iran and communicating from the earthquake disaster zone in Haiti. The majority of Internet users (59%) now use some kind of social media, including Twitter, blogging and networking sites, according to a new PEJ/Pew Internet & American Life survey.

Citizen journalism at the local level is expanding rapidly and brimming with innovation. This year’s report includes a new study of 60 of the most highly regarded sites. The prospects for assembling sufficient economies of scale, audience and authority may be most promising at specialized national and international sites — efforts like ProPublica, Kaiser Health News and Global Post.

For all the invention and energy, however, the scale of these new efforts still amounts to a small fraction of what has been lost. While not all of the blogs and citizen efforts can be quantified, J-Lab, a project led by Jan Schaffer that studies new media, estimates that roughly $141 million of nonprofit money has flowed into new-media efforts over the last four years (not including public broadcasting). That is less than one-tenth of the losses in newspaper resources alone.

Michael Schudson, the sociologist of journalism at Columbia University, sees the promise of “a better array of public informational resources emerging. ” This new ecosystem will include different “styles” of journalism, a mix of professional and amateur approaches and different economic models — commercial, nonprofit, public and “university-fueled.”

Clay Shirky of New York University has suggested that the loss of news people is a predictable and perhaps temporary gap in the process of creative destruction. “The old stuff gets broken faster than the new stuff is put in its place,” he has written.

There is something important in these notions. As Schudson notes, the news industry became more professional, skeptical and ethical beginning in the 1960s. Many journalists think that sense of public good has been overtaken by a focus on efficiency and profit since the 1990s. In the collapse of those ownership structures, there is some rebirth of community connection and public motive in news.

Yet the energy and promise here cannot escape the question of resources. Unless some system of financing the production of content is developed, it is difficult to see how reportorial journalism will not continue to shrink, regardless of the potential tools offered by technology.

And as we enter 2010 there is little evidence that journalism online has found a sustaining revenue model. A new survey on online economics, released in this report for the first time, finds that 79% of online news consumers say they rarely if ever have clicked on an online ad.

There was certainly more talk of alternative approaches to advertising in the last year. Entrepreneur Steve Brill and others launched JournalismOnline.com, which offers news sites a mechanism for charging, but at this point it is more a possibility than a business reality. Rupert Murdoch announced discussions with Microsoft about higher payments for searching his content and insisted that everything his company produces would go behind pay walls. Columbia University produced a report that explored nonprofit and public funding sourcing and assessed the state of startup new media. The New York Times announced it was giving itself a year to figure out a way to charge for content to “get it really really right.” And more new-media startups were planned, a growing sign that as old media continues to shrink, the ecosystem is changing and some things are growing.

But if a new model is to be found it is hardly clear what it will be. Our survey, produced with the Pew Internet & American Life Project, finds that only about a third of Americans (35%) have a news destination online they would call a “favorite,” and even among these users only 19%² said they would continue to visit if that site put up a pay wall.

In the meantime, perhaps one concept identifies most clearly what is going on in journalism: Most news organizations — new or old — are becoming niche operations, more specific in focus, brand and appeal and narrower, necessarily, in ambition.

Old media are trying to imagine the new smaller newsroom of the future in the relic of their old ones. New media are imagining the new newsroom from a blank slate.

Among the critical questions all this will pose: Is there some collaborative model that would allow citizens and journalists to have the best of both worlds and add more capacity here? What ethical values about news will settle in at these sites? Will legacy and new media continue to cooperate more, sharing stories and pooling resources, and if they do, how can one operation vouch for the fairness and accuracy of something they did not produce?

The year ahead will not settle any of these. But the urgency of these questions will become more pronounced. And ultimately the players may be quite different.

“I think the answer may come from places staffed by young people who understand the new technology and its potential and who have a passion for journalism,” said Larry Jinks, the highly regarded former editor and publisher who transformed the San Jose Mercury News a generation ago and who still sits on the board of the McClatchy Company.

Apple's iPad Review

2010-05-13T15:40:00.003-05:00

At first glance the iPad looks like a large iPhone or iPod Touch, but once held in your hands you find it’s much more. The simplicity of the iPad as like the iPhone and iPod Touch continues Apple’s great quest to make computing less intimidating and user friendly. And yet again with the iPad they’ve achieved that with flying colors. The iPad comes in two different versions: WiFi and WiFi + 3G (3G version includes a separate monthly fee from AT&T). Within each version there are three models with different memory sizes: 16 GB, 32 GB and 64 GB. The starting price for an iPad is an affordable $499.

As you will find out quickly what the iPad does it does wonderfully. The first thing you will notice when you pick up the iPad is the bright gorgeous screen. The picture quality is nothing like anything you have even seen in a portable device. The internet is quick and responsive. Emails are a snap. Web browsing is a breeze. The iPad’s near full size keyboard makes typing a cinch. Movies start with just a push of your finger filling the vibrant screen. Nearly all the games and apps from the App Store work instantly with the iPad giving the user instant access to thousands of great apps. And daily, developers are updating their iPhone/iPod Touch apps to work exclusively for the iPad’s larger screen size and resolution. Following the iPhone/iPod Touch the App Store and iTunes Store are accessible right from the iPad with no need for a desktop computer making it simple to access all these great apps right from you iPad. In addition to the iTunes and Apps Store Apple added another called iBooks. This is a bookstore in your hands. If your a reader this is a dream come true. No longer are you forced to read digital books on a small black and gray screen. With the iPad books come to life in full color. With the iBook store you have a choice of hundreds of books right at your finger tips. To read a book it’s as easy as one push of your finger and within seconds your reading. With the combination of the iTunes, Apps, and iBook stores the iPad will continue to grow better and better everyday.

But after saying all these great things there are a few draw backs. One, as like Apple’s other portable devices the iPad has no support for Flash. But to counter this many well known websites are making their websites 100% compatible with the iPad so there is no need for Flash. I personally feel you’ll see more and more websites follow as the portable era grows in popularity. Another draw back that many where hoping to find at launch was a camera. It would have been nice to have video chat on the iPad but heres hoping for the future. Another draw back worth mentioning is the lack of inputs. Other than the typical headphone and charging jacks there are no USB or memory stick inputs. This kinda is a shame because it causes the iPad to still have to rely on a standard computer for other activities such as burning CDs or printing documents.

Minus these little nuisances the iPad is an incredible device. I personally own a MacBook Pro (laptop) and a Mac Pro (desktop) but I constantly find myself picking up my iPad for everyday simple actives such as email, web browsing, networking and casual gaming. It sure beats lugging a heavy laptop around or sitting at a computer desk away from my comfy couch. To sum it up. If your daily computer activities include, music, video, email, web browsing, reading, photos, word processing, networking and casual gaming the iPad is for you.

The Year in Review

2009-12-23T13:03:00.000-06:00

The visit in September 2008 of Hurricane Ike was closely followed by a dramatic dip in the financial world. Those two events, at least for the Texas Gulf Coast area, seemed to put a near halt to many marketing initiatives by the first of 2009. Some companies saw this an an opportunity to re-brand and make a mark in their fields while their competitors cautiously held tight. Others, either unsure of what the future may hold or mindful of the appearance of frugality in volatile times, chose to slow or stop their marketing efforts altogether. As the fears of the bottom dropping out seem to be subsiding, many companies are now emerging from their year long hibernation with new energy and ambitions. Those who recognized the value of reinforcing their identities through the economic downturn will have a much better position as we head into 2010. Those who have been in a holding pattern may find they have a lot of work to do to get back into the game. Either way, 2010 looks to be a busy year as companies revive their marketing efforts and look for ways to reinforce their brands and images in a more competitive marketplace.

Taking the Emotion out of Crisis Situations

2009-11-09T10:00:00.000-06:00

One of the biggest obstacles to overcome in any organization undergoing a crisis is emotion: Stakeholders, especially management and employees, often become defensive because their livelihood may be at stake. It’s basic human nature.

When defensiveness rules, the lawyers are usually put in charge. Virtually all outside communication is then shut down or limited to stilted legalese, the goal being to limit discoverable materials and protect the organization from lawsuits. The problem with this sort of response is that it smacks of a cover-up. Unanswered questions lead to speculation and speculation leads to rumor and eventually, perception can become reality and you’re doomed.

Consider Arthur Andersen. When representatives of that firm aided and abetted Enron in perpetrating its massive fraud on investors and energy consumers, AA adopted a purely defensive posture. Andersen’s legal team and managers couldn’t see the forest for the trees. The central issue was not protecting the company against lawsuits by angry investors who had relied on its audit opinions regarding Enron’s financial situation, it was preserving the franchise itself. But AA’S lawyers, senior management and Board of Directors never realized what was at stake until it was too late. As a result, the franchise that had been built up over 89 years was destroyed, along with 85,000 jobs.

AA could have weathered the fallout. A new leadership team, headed by some prominent person with impeccable credentials, could then have launched an internal investigation into how the AA-Enron scandal came to be and into how conflicts of interest among Andersen’s different lines of business might have contributed to the scandal. Changes in policies and procedures, divestiture of conflicting lines of business, full cooperation with the authorities and perhaps a name change might even have saved the firm.

Crises that threaten an organization’s reputation or franchise are essentially public relations problems. A good consultant will put all emotion aside, examine the situation as a detached observer and thereby identify the essence of the crisis, the true costs involved (both short- and long-term) and what it will take to fix the problem at hand. Sure, they may have legal implications that could cost significant money over the short term, and the lawyers have their job to do in limiting that liability. But this short-term focus can lead to winning the battle but losing the war.

-Posted by Tony Lentini 11/9/09

Learning to Speak Twitterese

2009-11-05T14:24:00.002-06:00

The Twitter Dictionary aka Twittonary provides explanations of various Twitter related words. Here are a few examples, to find more visit www. twittonary.com

Teletwitter: experimental open source client. –Teletwitter

TikiTwit: match your iChat status to your last tweet using your mac.

TinyTwitter: works with any Java enabled device (includes the BlackBerry) and any Windows Mobile Pocket PC or Smartphone. –TinyTwitter

TrashTweeter: someone who tweets trash or talking trash on twitter

TreoTwit: easily check and update your Twitter right from your Treo.

Twitophant/twitophantic: one who repeatedly tweets the Top 100 in an attempt to gain more followers.

Twabe/Twabes: Twitter Slang. A young woman. Or informal. Sweetheart; dear. Used as a term of endearment.

Twabulous: fabulous tweet or fabulous information or fabulous take...

Twad: wad, bunch; viral twitter outrage over something thats misunderstood

Twadget: Simple gadget that lets you view and submit tweets right from Vista’s Sidebar

Twaffic: Twitter traffic.

Twaigslist: to sell something via Twitter (also Twebay).

Twantrum: a tantrum thrown by excessively tweeting!

Tweet You Later!

-Posted by Ron Cutsinger 11/5/09

What happened to the Corporate Logo?

2009-11-02T09:00:00.001-06:00

The really interesting classes I took in college were the ones that dealt with corporate identity. I remember that IBM, “big blue," was the benchmark that every company was measured against. It was a time when memorable marks were created to withstand the changing times. Once upon a time, the logo/mark represented the heart and soul of what the company stood for. I wonder if that is the case today?

Today, identity is often called branding, but I think in reality this term has muddied up the whole point of why you create a symbol that represents the company in the first place. A symbol or mark use to be the visual that represented the company beyond the commercials and clever sayings that changed with the seasons, economic ups and downs, and advertising fads of the time. The mark was the one symbol that represented core company values and integrity no matter what the conditions. It was what you stood for and who you were.

Now, it seems a lot of today’s marks are created for the industry they represent. Developing and cultivating a unique identity seems to be a lost art. Maybe I am being hard on these new “techie” logos, but I wonder how much staying power they will have when their symbol stands more for their industry than for their unique offerings. It seems many corporations today would rather the industry identify their personality rather than taking control and investing in developing a mark that becomes unquestionably theirs.

An example of a great mark is, Apple. They have lead the way in revolutionizing the computer world without forsaking their image or mark for the sake of their industry. Their symbol, a piece of fruit, is a simple mark that has come to represent a highly complex company, in a high tech industry. I don’t think anyone would question the integrity of their products, even if they started selling toasters. There was a time the same was said of IBM.

Time will tell, but when you look at some of the older marks for corporations, they have withstood the test of time and their identity has been firmly established. Of course, ingenious marketing played a role in developing and defining these timeless brands, but I wonder if these new marks represent a phase or if they too will hold up over time. I guess I will have to write another blog in 25 years to let you know the answer!

-Posted by John Weaver 11/2/09

Crisis Management… Letterman Style

2009-10-29T09:56:00.001-05:00

David Letterman may have won the first round in his sex-with-staffers crisis, but it remains to be seen whether his strategy of announcing the scandal in a comedy monologue will help or hurt him over the long run.

A cardinal principle in crisis management is taking charge of your crisis: Don’t leave it to others to define you; define yourself. Letterman did just that. He preempted the media by addressing the situation himself, live on his popular late-night television show. And he did it in the style he knows best, hoping to win over viewers and the studio audience through humor. It was a masterful performance. “Good old Dave; there he goes again!”

Under those controlled conditions, he was also able shift much of the focus away from the affairs and toward the blackmail attempt, thereby eliciting sympathy as a crime victim.

Letterman had at least a couple of other options for taking charge of the bad news:

1. He could have announced it on his show in a serious manner, asking for forgiveness and understanding as so many philandering politicians do. But that is wearing thin and therefore becoming less and less effective. And a serious announcement at the beginning of “Late Night” would have put a damper on the entire remainder of the show. Announcing it at the end would have been just as bad, ending on a down note.

2. Letterman could have broken the news himself by issuing a news release and/or conducting a press conference, but this would give him much less spin control than a “Late Night” announcement. And a press conference would entail answering questions about his sexual conduct, without the comedy. He can dodge most media queries from this point on by refusing comment, so as not to interfere with the investigation in

One thing Letterman knew he couldn’t control was the fact that the news was going to get out, one way or the other. He made the right choice in preempting the media, and in the setting and manner in which he made the announcement.

However, his comedy monologue would have been a bit more helpful to his situation over time had it been more self-deprecating and apologetic in tone. Letterman is a master at his craft and could have pulled it off. Instead, he was almost flippant. It was all, wink, wink, nudge, nudge, “Aren’t I just a loveable little devil pulling the most outrageous stunts?” That could come back to haunt him.

Letterman’s overall strategy for handling his crisis is to weather the storm and survive as the host of “Late Night”. He won round one by delivering ratings and not hurting his show.
What happens from here?

Letterman’s flippant “apology” could eventually backfire.

-Posted by Tony Lentini 10/29/09

Spending Versus investing Your Marketing Dollar

2009-10-15T18:49:00.000-05:00

These are tough times. Everyone is trying to find ways to cut costs and operate more efficiently. Perhaps your company has had a layoff in its marketing and PR functions and is contemplating a change in direction. The first thing to find out is: How effective are your organization’s brand awareness and communications programs? How do they stack up against the competition?

Is your brand well recognized by customers, investors and employees? Is it still effective and geared toward the right consumers? Is your logo still fresh and relevant, or does it send the wrong message to the right people? Are your marketing and sales collaterals, signage, corporate communications materials and messages consistent and correctly targeted all across your organization? Are you losing market share to a competitor? Is your perception in the marketplace something you control, or are you leaving that for others to decide? Are your messages driving sales and growth or are they falling flat? Many executives would say, “Now is not the time to mess with our identity; it’s expensive and takes the focus off of our day-to-day operations.”

Those executives don’t work for top-brand companies. Top-brand companies, such as Coca Cola, McDonalds, General Electric and Johnson & Johnson know that their image and what their brand stands for, are of paramount importance, especially in a down economy. Their brand drives sales. So when is the best time to evaluate the above questions? Yesterday!

-Posted by John Sr. 10/15/09

Photoshop or Fireworks?

2009-10-09T12:00:00.000-05:00

Which is better for web designers, Photoshop or Fireworks? This is a question many web designers seeking the best out of their work ask themselves. Back before Adobe bought-out Macromedia that was an easy answer, Fireworks. But as time has gone by Adobe since added Fireworks to it’s product line, and Photoshop has evolved adding many features that Fireworks once called it’s own. So, which is better? Even though Photoshop and Fireworks share many of the same tools and both can produce websites there is still differences. Without confusing anyone about the differences I’ll try to help make your choice easier by asking another question. Do you do graphic design and web design, or just web design? If you are a web designer who does more than just web and you dabble in graphic design, then Photoshop would mostly likely be the better choice. With its versatility for photography, it would suit those better who demand more than just web design. But if your focus is strictly web design, then Fireworks is a great choice, and one I would recommend without hesitation. From it’s first release, Fireworks has focused on web designers, and that focus still stands today. So in conclusion, both Photoshop and Fireworks are great tools for web designers. The better choice for you just depends on what your workload includes.

-Posted by Brad 10/9/09

Five mistakes companies make concerning their Annual Report.

2009-10-01T14:35:00.002-05:00

1. It’s a requirement!
Most companies today take the attitude that it isn’t that important and only a SEC requirement. There was a time when the Annual Report represented the heart and soul of a company. It was the main marketing tool used in every transaction. It defined the directions of the company, past, present as well as the future. Why has it been regulated to a necessary evil? Has the Internet taken its place? I don’t think so? People may have changed the way they communicate, but people still want to know about their investment, place of employment and who they do business with. I can understand if you want to cut down on the cost of printing or stop the high cost of mailing and shipping, but don’t cut down on the message. Not only do your shareholders, employees and vendors need it,but you also need it! Not everyone understands assets and liabilities or governances and transparence. Don’t assume people understand what your heart and soul is based on a SEC requirement.

2. Accountants making the big decisions.
When times get difficult many times sound marketing decisions are replaced with accountants. Number crunchers never make good marketing decisions. If you need to watch the dollars, set a budget and then create an effective message within that budget. Cutting cost is never an excuse to cut communications. It will take at least 5 years to reestablish your brand presence if you do not make the effort to control it. What savings you think you have today will cost you in the future.

3. Not putting a value on the Annual Report?
How much should an Annual Report cost? It should cost you exactly how much you value your own perception. How much do you spend on your house, car, clothing, etc. to make the desire perception you want others to see? Why treat your Annual Report any differently that you would treat yourself? It should be a reflection of you the President, the one who has been charged with the success or failure of your company. So remember the next time you sign your signature at the end of your letter, you are saying to everyone, “this is how I see my company and this is the way I want you to see me.”

4. Spending too much, unnecessarily.
Can you spend too much? You bet you can. So pick a firm that can work within a given budget. Many companies make the mistake of letting the “professional” make the budget decision. If this is your first Annual Report, you may need some help establishing some goals, but they should still be your goals. Only you know the value and budget that you have for the process. A good firm will not take advantage of the process by bidding low knowing there will be changes where additional money can be made. Each Annual Report firm approaches the process differently. Look for one that is willing to state their cost up front and are willing to stand behind it when the process is over. You may presently have a relationship with a firm, but is it one that is taking advantage of the process with additional cost, revisions and overtime? Find one that is willing to stand behind their proposal no matter how hard the process becomes. That way you will find out if their interest is truly yours. No matter how much you like the final product, it will never be deemed successful if it is over budget.

5. Hiding the Annual or not doing one.
Has instant news on the web replaced the need to tell your story? Your company has a perception. You can control it or you let others control it for you. Many companies think that a website is the answer to communicating. Done right, it is a good start. But most sites have become a hodge-podge of information that has no relevance when it comes to communicating a central company message. The annual report is generally found buried on a page in the financial section - the year’s most important message you have to communicate to your shareholders, employees and vendors. Why not put the Annual Report front and center on the home page? If you are not proud of your accomplishments, why should anyone else be? Communicate with the viewer, establish the playing field, let them know what they are to expect. And then fulfill their expectation. Don’t assume they get it!

Posted by John Weaver on 10/1/09

Tough Times Call for Simple, Clear, Direct Communications

2009-09-29T17:04:00.000-05:00

In this economy, almost every business seems to be cutting back on communications. Annual reports are largely 10-K wraps, written by lawyers and accountants in convoluted language. Quarterly reports, other than 10-Q filings, are largely extinct. Budgets for advertising, public relations and investor relations have been sharply reduced.

Hunkering down and clamming up are not necessarily the best strategies. Stakeholders want and need communications about your company in good times and bad. In difficult periods, communications are even more important, because they provide insight into how management intends to overcome tough challenges.

Top brands understand this and often increase communication efforts during hard times. They know that if you’re not defining yourself, somebody else is doing it for you. It may be a competitor, a disgruntled customer or shareholder, or someone on Wikipedia with an axe to grind. The only solution is to take charge and create and reinforce the image you want to project.

Simple and direct communications are always the most effective way to tell your story. You’re not going to get that from a committee of accountants and lawyers. You need a professional communicator who can write for ordinary people, especially in an age where the Internet, e-mail, texting and Tweeting have made us unbelievably impatient with long messages and convoluted language.

At some point, an economic turnaround is going to occur. That is not the time to start communicating, because you’ll just be playing catch-up. When the gun goes off, are you going to be back in the locker room lacing up your shoes, or warmed up and in the starting blocks?

-Posted by Tony Lentini

Broken the Rules!

2009-09-24T17:58:00.012-05:00

So they say, "you've gotta have a blog! It's the way of the future." Well, true. There is undeniable value that can be found in this strange new form of "virtual" circles called "social networking." But, what happened to the days of happy hour mixers, luncheons and golf tournaments? What happened to just stopping in to chat with a business associate or picking up the phone to find out if there are any potential job opportunities? Well, I don't know if you've tried it lately, but people just don't seem like they want to actually talk to people anymore. Communicating boils down to letters on a screen...emailing, blogging, texting, YouTube, MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook & Flickr. Seriously? Is this really how modern business relationships are being started, cultivated and maintained? The simple, and maybe sad, answer is yes!

So, we can't resist it anymore. This truly is "the way of the future." And digging our heels in isn't going to make it all stop. Let me share some interesting facts I found on socialnomics.net.

By 2010 Gen Y will outnumber Baby Boomers….96% of them have joined a social network
1 out of 8 couples married in the U.S. last year met via social media
If Facebook were a country it would be the world’s 4th largest between the United States and Indonesia (note that Facebook is now creeping up – recently announced 300 million users)
% of companies using LinkedIn as a primary tool to find employees….80%
There are over 200,000,000 Blogs
Because of the speed in which social media enables communication, word of mouth now becomes world of mouth
25% of search results for the World’s Top 20 largest brands are links to user-generated content
24 of the 25 largest newspapers are experiencing record declines in circulation because we no longer search for the news, the news finds us.
Generation Y and Z consider e-mail passé…In 2009 Boston College stopped distributing e-mail addresses to incoming freshmen

And my favorite,
10. Successful companies in social media act more like party planners, aggregators, and content providers than traditional advertiser

To view the rest of the list, visit socialnomics.net. So back to the title, we have broken the rules by not keeping up with our own blog! Which, I might add, is about to change! I am going to start the next blog entry right now.

...right after I check my Facebook page.

2008 BMA Lantern Awards

2009-02-09T20:12:00.002-06:00

Pixel Creative Group proudly received awards at the 2008 BMA Lantern Awards for: HLS Enterprises: Logo and Stationary Packages HLS Enterprises: Radio Commercials Lentini Creative Communications: Logo Sign Shares: Logo

Does your website need a check up?

2009-01-29T07:33:00.003-06:00

It's a new year and time for your annual check up!

A 2005 study at University of Iowa determined that there were over 11.5 billion publicly accessible web pages on the internet. Businesses who are serious about generating leads and attracting customers online can't afford to take an "If we build it, they will come" approach to their websites. To do business online in today's market you need to make it easy for your audience to find you and you need to ensure you're prepared to stand out from the competition.

Best Practices for Optimizing Web Advertising Effectiveness

2009-01-28T10:48:00.006-06:00

Web advertising first appeared in 1994.1 Eleven years later, in 2005, U.S. companies spent $12.5 billion advertising online.2 No longer is that the irrational money of venture-backed startups with dubious business models; according to Nielsen//NetRatings, 25% of all display ads in 2005 promoted Fortune 500 companies. Advertisers already spent double the amount online that they spent in 2005 on billboards and other outdoor advertising and roughly half of what they spent respectively on magazine and radio advertising.3 And after a brief market contraction in 2001 and 2002, the online ad industry has been growing at 30+% for the past two years.

Yet, despite this rapid mainstreaming of online advertising, many advertisers still are not observing a range of established tactics and strategies understood to substantially improve the effectiveness of online ad campaigns. In some cases, this is because advertisers are new enough to the Internet to remain behind on the learning curve. “There are still a wide range of experiences out there,” said Arthur Rotberg, ad production manager for CondeNet. “Of course this is rare, but I just got an email from a sales assistant asking if a client could mail their creative on a disk. At that point alarm bells go off. The creative is probably not in the right format for online serving, most likely it’s a PDF of an ad the client did for a print campaign.”

In other cases, many advertisers have viewed the Internet as a source of “cheap” advertising and therefore do not invest sufficiently in experimentation and research to identify for themselves the tactics that work best. “Sometimes advertisers are pennywise and pound foolish in not running brand effectiveness studies and using the click-through rate to measure the success of a brand campaign,” said Yaakov Kimelfeld, director of business intelligence at Beyond Interactive. Brian Eakin, Associate Media Director at Freestyle Interactive, concurs: “While many clients will say that there is value in learning, the clients most in need of actionable research are frequently the companies most connected to a cost-per-sale measure of success, and many of them simply won’t allocate investment that doesn’t immediately contribute to product sales. The challenge for planners is to extract strategic insight from active campaigns without forcing their clients to choose between sales and learnings.”

Online advertising remains new and fast evolving. But after a decade, it has been around long enough for several best practices to emerge. As observed in the popular DoubleClick® paper, “The Decade in Online Advertising,” a major trend in recent years is a shift towards a seller’s market, as new ad dollars come into the market more quickly than users are generating incremental page impressions. The result is online ad prices are going up, and it may no longer be seen as a “cheap” advertising medium. It remains, however, an effective one. As such, it is more important than ever for advertisers to master the tactics that produce the best results for their online campaigns.

Best Practices for Optimizing Web Advertising Effectiveness

1. See details in DoubleClick’s paper “The Decade in Online Advertising” (2005)

2. According to the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers

3. According to the Outdoor Advertising Association of America, the Radio Advertising Bureau and the Magazine Publishers of America

In today's tough economic environment, only the fittest survive.

An oil company makes a major discovery that significantly boosts production and reserves. How do investors find out about it?

2009-01-26T19:32:00.003-06:00

Public Relations.

In today’s tough economic climate, businesses need to do everything in their power to separate themselves from the pack. Getting your name and your unique brand in the news is one surefire way to drive sales and attract new customers and investors.

Successfully telling your company’s story to the world through free newspaper and magazine articles, online, on radio and TV news shows or via the new media requires the specialized knowledge, contacts and skills of a public relations expert.

Dinosaur Extinction Traced to Lack of Web Site

2009-01-26T19:30:00.002-06:00

If your business doesn’t have a Web site, or if yours is out-of-date in terms of content, navigation, technology, optimization, look and feel, you’re headed for the fossil bin. You’re a dinosaur. Think about when you personally need a product or service. Where do you go? The Yellow Pages? That would place you in the Mesozoic Era. Modern mammals go online or use a Web function on their cell phone. But not all Web sites are created equal. Natural selection weeds out those that are too cumbersome, uninteresting, difficult to navigate, or simply invisible because they haven’t been optimized to pop up when someone seeks a product or service you offer. In today’s tough economic environment, only the fittest survive. Pixel Creative Group creates Web sites that work. For your particular species. Web making is just one of the services Pixel Creative Group offers. Our job is to create advantage for our clients, through branding, advertising, public relations, marketing, design, writing, web making, audio/visual/electronic/print production and issue/crisis management. We’re unique in offering a full range of services to position you and your company for success in today’s challenging marketplace. Darwin would be proud. Pixel Creative Group 2801 Post Oak Blvd., Suite 101 Houston, TX 713-622-9293 www.pixelcreative.com

No Spring Vacation!

2009-01-26T19:26:00.001-06:00

It’s that time of the year again: the dreaded Annual Report Season. When CFOs, corporate communicators, IR managers, accountants and lawyers hunker down to produce their company’s most important document… while everyone else takes a breather. Pixel Creative Group takes the stress out of annual reports. We’ve been doing it for more than 30 years. We’ll handle the design, photography, charts and graphs, typesetting, Edgarization, web posting, printing and distribution—even the writing, if you wish—to produce a first-class product that gets your company the investor attention it deserves. On time. On budget. No fuss. No muss. So you can rest easy. Corporate reports are just one aspect of what we do at Pixel Creative Group. Our job is to create advantage for our clients, through branding, advertising, public relations, marketing, design, writing, web making, audio/visual/electronic/print production and issue/crisis management. We’re unique in offering a full range of services to position you and your company for success in today’s challenging marketplace. Pixel Creative Group 2801 Post Oak Blvd., Suite 101 Houston, TX 713-622-9293 www.pixelcreative.com

Sometimes staying out of the news is just as important as getting in it.

2009-01-26T19:23:00.002-06:00

Bad things happen to good people and companies. How you handle a crisis situation and the media coverage surrounding it can affect your reputation, your earnings, your very survival. Effective Crisis Management involves taking charge of the news to get the story behind you, reputation intact, so you can concentrate on your business. The flip side of that is proactive communications: telling the world—including customers, investors, employees and others important to your business—about your products, services and successes. We offer both, through one of the top Crisis Managers and Public Relations consultants in the field. That is just one aspect of Pixel Creative Group, where our job is to create advantage for our clients, through branding, advertising, public relations, marketing, design, writing, web making, audio/visual/electronic/print production and issue/crisis management. We’re unique in offering a full range of services to position you and your company for success in today’s challenging marketplace. Pixel Creative Group 2801 Post Oak Blvd., Suite 101 Houston, TX 713-622-9293 www.pixelcreative.com

What do Microsoft, Sony, ExxonMobil, McDonald’s and the hit TV series “24” have in common?

2009-01-26T19:19:00.002-06:00

Advertising. Successful companies understand that nothing drives business and top-of-the-mind brand awareness like advertising. It’s their secret weapon, only not so secret. Your company or organization, large or small, can benefit from the very same sales generator the Big Boys use. Print, radio, television, Internet and new media advertising are just as accessible to you as they are to the world’s most successful companies. And surprisingly affordable, especially in today’s tough economic climate where everyone—including the media—is hustling for business. All you need is a message that gets attention. That’s where Pixel Creative Group comes into play. We’ve been writing and producing advertising that works for more than 30 years. Our staff of old pros and young bucks can craft messages that resonate with any age- or demographic group. Clever, informative, entertaining ads in any medium you choose. Ads that generate business. Advertising is just one aspect of Pixel Creative Group, where our job is to create advantage for our clients, through branding, advertising, public relations, marketing, design, writing, web making, audio/visual/electronic/print production and issue/crisis management. We’re unique in offering a full range of services to position you and your company for success in today’s challenging marketplace. Pixel Creative Group 2801 Post Oak Blvd., Suite 101 Houston, TX 713-622-9293 www.pixelcreative.com

Pixel Creative Group Receives Honors at BMA’s Lantern Awards of Texas

2008-10-28T10:47:00.000-05:00

HOUSTON–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Pixel Creative Group is pleased to announce it received several awards, including top honors in two categories, at this year’s BMA Houston Lantern Awards of Texas gala held at The Petroleum Club of Houston. Pixel Creative Group dominated the “Corporate Identity Logo and Stationery Packages” category with three of the four final pieces in the competition produced by Pixel Creative Group. The work for Lentini Creative Communications received an Award of Excellence, as did the work for Sign Shares. Receiving the Lantern Award, the highest award in each category, was the work produced for HLS Enterprises. In all, Pixel Creative Group brought home three awards in this category alone. Pixel Creative Group earned another Lantern Award in the category of “Radio Commercial Campaigns” for its “Lending Nature a Hand” radio spot. The thirty-second radio spot featured a loving Mother Nature doting over her little seedlings as they voice concerns about their care. According to John Weaver, owner and senior creative director at Pixel Creative Group, “the humorous spots were designed to bring a more personable image to the business.” The BMA Houston Lantern Awards competition is hosted by the Business Marketing Association and is held annually to recognize the top creative business-to-business work. For further information about Pixel Creative Group visit www.pixelcreative.com or call 713-622-9293 to request a brochure. About Pixel Creative Group: Pixel Creative Group is a full-service strategic branding, public relations, advertising and design boutique offering services to small- and mid-size companies up through Fortune 100 corporations. Pixel Creative Group was founded in 1997 by John Weaver and was formerly known as John Weaver Design.

Pixel Creative Group Expands Capabilities with Lentini Creative Communications

2008-07-30T15:28:00.000-05:00

HOUSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Pixel Creative Group, with more than 30 years of design, marketing and advertising experience, has recently expanded its capabilities to include public relations, crisis planning and management, and marketing and communications services through its association with Lentini Creative Communications. Pixel Creative Group evolved from the award-winning design firms Gluth, Weaver Design and John Weaver Design. The name was changed to Pixel Creative Group in 2006 to more accurately reflect the vision of John Weaver, owner and founder, for a specialized, yet comprehensive, group of talents. Pixel’s recent partnership with Lentini Creative Communications complements Weaver’s vision and brings a completely new range of capabilities to the group, adding public relations, crisis planning and management, and marketing and communications services. Lentini Creative Communications is owned by Tony Lentini, who previously served as Public Relations and Communications Vice President for two of Houston’s most visible Fortune 500 companies, Mitchell Energy & Development Corp. and Apache Corporation. Lentini has managed many high-profile public relations issues and has been a guest of many major networks including ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX and CNN. Weaver believes that Pixel’s current offerings are unmatched. “We offer our clients something unique: Not only can we design and produce virtually any creative project, we can help a company develop a recognizable identity that results in brand recognition, and then carry that brand through all design and marketing initiatives. With our added marketing and public relations capabilities, clients feel safe entrusting their entire communications needs to Pixel. The whole idea is to make things easy for our clients.” Pixel has produced annual reports, logos, brochures, websites and all forms of print and Internet advertising for notable companies such as Hercules Offshore, Stewart Title and BJ Services and consistently ranks in The Houston Business Journal’s Book of Lists in Graphic Design. Pixel’s creative work has been featured in numerous award shows and publications including the Mead Annual Report Show, the New York Art Directors Show, Print Magazine and the Potlatch Annual Report Competition. For further information about Pixel Creative Group or Lentini Creative Communications, visit www.pixelcreative.com and www.lentinicreativecommunications.com or call 713-622-9293 to request a brochure. Pixel Creative Group is a creative consulting firm that strategically positions companies for growth and recognition through effective brand development and management. Full capabilities include all forms of creative communications and consultation including market analysis, branding, advertising, web and print design, marketing, public relations and crisis management. Contacts Pixel Creative Group, Inc. Director of Marketing & Operations Cassie Friend, 713-622-9293 or Lentini Creative Communications President Tony Lentini, 713-907-5841 (cell)

Pixel Creative Group Relocates to Galleria Area

2008-06-18T10:44:00.000-05:00

HOUSTON — Pixel Creative Group, with more than 30 years of design, marketing and advertising experience, has moved to the prestigious Galleria area. Pixel Creative Group evolved from the award-winning Gluth, Weaver Design and John Weaver Design organizations, which have produced award-winning materials for some of Houston’s largest and most visible corporations. The firm was established in 1996 and was located on the west side of Houston for a dozen years before relocating to the Uptown District last month. John Weaver, owner and founder of Pixel Creative Group, believes that the move to the Galleria will better serve clients and create new opportunities. “Not only is the Galleria a thriving and exciting area, it puts us virtually within walking distance to many of our clients and is easily accessible from all parts of Houston,” he said. “We look forward to the new opportunities this location will bring.” The company’s new address and phone numbers are: Pixel Creative Group, Inc. 2801 Post Oak Blvd., Suite 101 Houston, TX 77056 713-622-9293 (main) 713-622-9069 (fax) 1-866-PIXEL88 (toll free) Pixel Creative Group is a creative consulting firm that strategically positions companies for growth and recognition through effective brand development and management. Full capabilities include all forms of creative communications and consultation including market analysis, branding, advertising, Web and print design, radio and television production, marketing, public relations and crisis management. For further information about Pixel Creative Group visit www.pixelcreative.com or call 713-622-9293 to request a brochure.