Archives for Community
Geolocation; localized content hits home
The online user experience is becoming more localized and we expect to see major growth in the coming years as AT&T, Google, Yelp, Foursquare and others get into the action. We already have geo-targeted ads, segmented content and social search serving content in a more personalized way. But now, we are seeing the emergence of [...]
Great Clients make for Great Campaigns
A friend once told me that behind every great campaign is a great client. Of course, what they meant was that a client who trusts you take their brand in new directions will likely be a collaborator in the creative process. This could not have been truer than in the case of the latest online [...]
Did You Really Think This Was a Good Idea?
Technology that Failed, and Hard Since man first used a stick to dig under some roots and accidentally caused a tree to fall on him, humans have been doing stupid things with technology. Since the invention of the microprocessor and instant mass media, this has only become that much easier. Thankfully 2009 is gone, and with it one [...]
If I Could Tell All Young Writers One Thing…
Passing into the waning end of my twenties during a recession (which makes you age in your career faster) means I can now get away with two things: I can say “back in my day” when referring to anything before 2006. I get to dole out useful information to students and other people trying to get into [...]
I say potato, you think Vichyssoise. Let’s talk.
In my 10+ years of managing projects, teams and client expectations, I’ve come to the conclusion that the most common threat to the success of relationships and projects is simple lack of communication. Why simple? Because usually the simplest misunderstanding at the outset of an engagement is where it all starts to skid downhill. For example, [...]
Content Marketing is not what it used to be
For the last 15 years, I have made my living as a content developer. I started off as a photographer documenting and telling stories through static images. At first, this was a pursuit in art and process related to photography but these explorations opened the door to many other mediums. Along this journey I bridged [...]
Twitter’s new home page
When I talk to people outside of the interactive business world about Twitter, most people don’t get it. “Why would I want to know what Thom ate for lunch?” they ask. For those who haven’t been paying attention, Twitter is a micro-blogging system which allows people to say something to the world in short “tweets”. People [...]
Open Letter to PortlandOnline Refresh Committee
In May, one of the largest interactive firms in Portland announced it was closing its downtown Portland office, and that its staff would begin “working from home.” In the last 12 months, nearly every web development firm and design firm in the Portland area has laid off staff (thankfully, a situation Pop Art has avoided), [...]
Portland Bike and Marketing Freak Out
Local web analytics powerhouse WebTrends recently rolled out a new transit ad campaign to demonstrate their ability to measure offline and online sentiment and conversation using the question, “should cyclists pay a road tax?” Kablooie. Cyclist meltdown and freakout. I’d chalk this campaign up as a “near miss.” WebTrends did a great job of getting the [...]
“Consumers will have these conversations anyway”
Stumbled across this interesting article about the mobile marketing, teens, and conversational marketing, and loved the following quote from Jeffrey Cole, Director of the Center for the Digital Future at USC: “Advertisers are terrified of [conversational marketing]. In their hearts, many really don’t want to interact with customers because they are afraid that either there will be [...]
Leading with Interactive Starts at Home (or Work)
Like good manners and learning to read, it has been said that positive behaviors start in the home. At Pop Art, where our mantra is Lead with Interactive™, this principle holds true. The way we approach online interactive begins in our offline work space. The 3rd floor of Pop Art is an open floor [...]
Use Social Media for Customer Service
We’ve all seen stories about rogue customer service teams using social media to help customers, but here’s a great way to institutionalize it. At the end of the article, you’ll find a reminder and links about why great customer service improves both sales and profits. Using Social Media Opt-Ins for Customer Service Imagine if at the end of [...]
Twitter 101: Tweeting for Fun and Profit
Everyone is talking about Twitter, and everyone wants to know how to handle a business Twitter account. As of recently, one in ten online adults in America are on Twitter. And trust me, if you spend just two weeks actually trying to tweet, you’ll be addicted too. Some Background Twitter is a social networking and micro-blogging service [...]
Managing During Hard Times: A First-Timer’s Perspective
What’s a new manager to do during their first real big downturn? There’s a lot of conflicting feelings, obligations and advice about how to manage during a recession. I’ve been sorting through it in my own mind, and have developed my own mental checklist. Know Yourself I went through the “dot-bomb” back in 2001, but I was [...]
Oh, Baby (Einstein)
As a new mom, my internet habits have changed a bit. I am part of a whole new world now, full of mommy blogs, parenting communities and endless companies pushing products you just MUST buy for your baby. (Bumbos, Boppies and Bjorns! Oh my!) One company that has impressed me from the very beginning is [...]
Liquid Holiday Cheer, a How-To Manual
After four years of college, and two as the head of my fraternity’s social committee (you try running a party of 300 and not melting), I graduated with an advertising degree and took the next natural step. I became a bartender. Over the next few years, as I built my spec book, I [...]
Gen Y Can Smell a Fake, or Why I’ve Watched Bike Hero 4 Times This Week and It’s Only Monday
By now, everyone’s seen the “Bike Hero” viral video on YouTube. If you haven’t, please, please watch it now, or else none of this will make sense. While you’re at it, watch the “Runaway Jeans” viral video too. Ok, now that we’ve got that out of the way, the big “Watching Comprehension” question: Did you notice [...]
Motrin Messes with Mommy-Bloggers and Loses
This morning, Annie told me about a Motrin ad that a bunch of mom-bloggers were angry about because it was critical of babywearing. She was really upset about it, and convinced that it was an intentional slam on mothers. Since I work in marketing, and Annie majored in Sociology, we tend to have conversations like [...]
Being a Little Bit Transparent is Like Being a Little Bit Pregnant
It seems that I can’t have a conversation about blogging without also talking about fear, legal liability, and transparency. Which I find somewhat ironic: as a business, most of our clients have tens, if not hundreds, of employees who are trained to talk to clients. Customer service reps. Sales people. Technical support. They’re trained in [...]
How Can a Computer Screen Replace Human Interaction?
Coming from the world of live events and into the Interactive space, I have been contemplating this since joining Pop Art. Interactive has been progressively threatening the events business since the 1990’s, because it offers convenience, broad scalability, and lower cost for traditional event clients. As an event Producer, this was exasperating. While the events industry [...]
Who is Pop Art?
In the course of re-launching the website for our interactive agency, we wanted to bring the Pop Art people forward. After all, Pop Art is in the business of interactive advertising and marketing services. Services that are provided by people who like to laugh, explore geeky things, and do great work. The question became, “What [...]
Food and Advertising: How to Cure the Culture of Obesity
I am the world’s worst eater. Bar none. Put a burger in front of me, and I’ll ask for bleu cheese and bacon, too. Which is why I was dumbfounded when I started seeing this McDonald’s commercial a while back: I wanted an apple. The commercial illustrates a conundrum faced by the U.K. government anti-obesity [...]
New Media & The Corporate Quest for Authenticity
One of the most impressive things about the New Media Expo was the wide variety of good content produced at a small scale by talented, regular folks. These are the internet users who are immersed in the environment and have perfected the art of creating message & meaning for this medium. It’s no surprise that [...]
Photo Caption Contest
We got a little press from the Newhouse News service, who was looking for tips for interns. The article shifted in focus a little from internship tips to employer tips for staying on the right side of employment law. It’s still an interesting article, and I believe Pop Art has one of the best organized internship [...]
WebVisions 2008
WebVisions is a Portland-based web conference that I’ve attended twice before. Sadly, due to a crisis at the office, I was only able to attend the first day of sessions this year, which means I missed Andy Baio’s presentation on internet memes and Jeffrey Veen’s keynote. What I did see was good, but not great. In [...]
