Recent Avicom News, Events, and Updates
Recent News and Updates
Video as a sales tool
posted by Dan Baker @ October 21st, 2009
Avicom has been extremely busy developing innovative sales tools for our clients. One area that we are particularly proud of is our video and interactive group. To see samples of our work drop us an e-mail at Rich.Peterson@avicomdirect.com and we can set you up.
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Recent News and Updates
New Site Coming Soon
posted by Jason Fleck @ May 13th, 2009
We’re revamping our entire website hence the reason for no recent blog posts. Stay tuned!
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Recent News and Updates
A few good ads
posted by McKenna @ January 23rd, 2009
Last week I was suffering from insomnia. Which meant I was up late reading magazines and watching TV, two things I rarely have time to do, and I saw some interesting ads that I would have otherwise missed.
I don’t know if it was my sleep-deprived state or what, but some of these ads seemed exceptionally good. And they weren’t viral, online or otherwise hyped-up “new” media approaches.
This TV spot from Acura totally mesmerized me. I normally find car ads overblown yet uninspired. This one is neither, and it captured my attention.
This 3D print ad from Kleenex also caught my attention. The tactile component made it jump out to me – much more than anything else in the magazine. I couldn’t tell you what other companies advertised that month, but I definitely remember this one. In fact, I pulled out the insert and stuck it on my office door. I still can’t stop touching the ultra-soft tissue in the middle.
Then I saw a TV ad selling Italian language CDs. At first, I scoffed, thinking that nobody would part with their money on language CDs right now. But then I checked myself and thought: This is brilliant. I’m sure there are many people unable to travel abroad this year, due to the economy. Why not bring a little bit of Italy to them?
Each of these ads relied on a strong strategy and relevant messaging to drive their success. And they were willing to put their advertising dollars into strategies that worked. (In fact, the Kleenex ad is the broadest sampling program in the brand’s history.)
What traditional media are calling out for your ad dollars this year?
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Recent News and Updates • Special Events
Super Bowl Splurge
posted by McKenna @ January 20th, 2009
When I saw this headline after I Googled “Super Bowl Spending,” I thought it was current. Whoops. Looks like 2009 isn’t the first year that the economy has affected the Super Bowl.
Wait, what’s that? The economy might not drag down consumer spending (at least for electronics, which represents a big chunk of spending around the big game) or Super Bowl advertising?
Ad prices are higher than ever — $3 million for a 30-second TV spot. Ticket prices range from $1,800 to over $5K for one ticket.
Huh?!
Maybe all those people who foreclosed on their homes have extra cash to spend on a big-screen TVs or tickets in the nosebleed section of Raymond James Stadium. Maybe advertisers think this is their way of helping to stimulate the economy. At least GM isn’t making its situation worse.
Now I wonder how much more (or less) these advertisers are paying their agencies to create and produce ads for the Cards-Steelers game. Have they chopped creative budgets to adjust for the higher placement prices? If so, will this affect the quality of the ads this year? Enquiring minds want to know.
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Recent News and Updates
It’s not you, it’s me
posted by McKenna @ January 15th, 2009
I know, I know – I’ve heard it all before. You have a great service. You’re a fantastic company. You have amazing products. You win awards and influence your industry. You are really nice to work with. You do great things with great people for fantastic results. I know all that.
But it’s not all about You.
It’s all about Me. The consumer, that is.
It’s tempting to tell customers about all of your company’s great assets. After all, you have a great story to tell. But if you want to get people talking about your products and services – and who doesn’t want some positive chatter about them? – you really need to get over yourself.
A few nights ago, I heard a maddening interview with GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz. It’s actually kind of shocking that Lutz’s handlers – or whichever PR people aren’t currently embroiled in crisis control – let this interview happen.
I think it’s fair to say that Lutz still believes it’s all about GM. In fact, it seems fair to say that Lutz also believes it’s all about him and how he can’t fly on the corporate jet anymore. (I’m crying inside for him, too.)
It’s clear that GM is fighting a losing battle right now, and Lutz’s inability to make it about the customer is digging him even deeper.
So what’s the solution to something like this? How does a business like GM change? And how are you going to avoid GM’s fate this year?
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Recent News and Updates
Yammer vs. Twitter
posted by McKenna @ December 12th, 2008
A colleague and I recently argued over the best way to micro-blog. I had recently signed up for Yammer for work, but my friend claimed that Twitter was perfectly fine for both personal and professional use.
Then two coworkers looked at us like we were, well, pointlessly twittering and yammering. And I realized that our argument was relevant only if our coworkers – and our vendors, clients and bosses – knew what we were talking about.
In case you have been too busy updating your Facebook status working, Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows you to send and read other users’ updates (a.k.a., tweets), which are text-based posts limited to 140 characters. It encompasses a huge audience: Twitter had a fivefold increase in visitors during September 2008, increasing its users to 5 million.
On the other hand, there’s Yammer – Twitter for the workplace. The company launched in September 2008, and more than 70,000 people have already signed up for accounts. Proponents like Yammer because it generally contains less frivolous information than Twitter, and can help coworkers keep up with important, ever-changing conversations.
So, what do you think: Is Yammer better for the office? Or is Twitter OK? If you have these accounts, how often do you update them? Or is all of this a moot point because both systems are useless?
Let us know what you think.
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Recent News and Updates
Corporate Blogging: The Sequel
posted by Jason Fleck @ December 11th, 2008
I noticed Greg just posted an entry about corporate blogging and how only 16% of online consumers trust corporate blogs. This topic has been heavily tweeted all day and has generated some excellent chatter.
I think it’s a good topic to cover, but is it really THAT surprising? Corporate blogs, as a whole, have fallen away from good blogging techniques. Even I have to slap my wrists on this one. For blogs to succeed, you must listen and give your readers what they want not something you think they want.
Read your comments. Provide feedback. Engage your readers. Provide them with a call to action.
Max Kalehoff wrote an excellent blog post in reply to Josh’s post I linked above. He defends corporate blogging by saying:
Blogs are a both a communications channel AND a medium. Their value are not proxied well by prompted survey questions among general consumer populations.
…and I couldn’t agree more.
What do you think? Do you trust corporate blogs? Did you like the content of this post? Do you want to see more like it? Let me know by commenting below.
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Recent News and Updates
Are you a Tweeter?
posted by Jason Fleck @ November 25th, 2008
Practically every article or blog post I read relating to social media always mentions Twitter in some fashion or another. What’s Twitter you say? Wikipedia.org defines twitter as this:
Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service, that allows its users to send and read other users’ updates (otherwise known as tweets), which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length.
So in other words, a website based solely on what people are doing?
Yep.
Warren Whitlock, Co-Author of The Twitter Revolution, was part of the 2008 PubCon panel and talked about the two stages of twitter:
1. Denial: Why would anyone care what I ate for breakfast?
2. Reluctant Acceptance: I have a Twitter account but haven’t seen any traffic
Whitlock also stated:
The Twitter Revolution really is about making meaningful connections. Let people know what you are up to, because contrary to some beliefs, people do care.
The vastness of the internet creates false personas — individuals hiding behind a message board or chat room. Twitter takes its users and makes them human. In business terms, it’s much more beneficial for you if your customers can directly relate to you and vice versa. Furthermore, Twitter allows you to keep tabs on what’s being said about your company.
Comcast portrayed this perfectly after they noticed a customer had posted a tweet on how he noticed a blemish in his HD television’s reception quality. Minutes later, Comcast replied to his tweet and sent a technician to his house within 24 hours. The customer was astonished with the quality of their customer service and was transformed from a disgruntled customer to believing customer.
At Avicom, we take our Twitter campaigns in two directions:
1. Serving the customers the same way Comcast did
2. Humanizing the workforce so every worker can relate to everyone else.
Twitter is here and it’s here to stay. So what are you waiting for? Become a tweeter and tweet away!
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Recent News and Updates
Six words – is that enough? Yep.
posted by McKenna @ August 18th, 2008
Sum up your life in six words. That’s what hundreds of SMITH storytelling magazine readers did in 2006, and some of those insightful phrases were recently turned into a book.
Think it’s easy to boil down the essence of a one’s experiences into a few pithy words? It’s not. Just ask any company trying to develop a killer tagline. And if you think six words is short, consider some of the most successful taglines:
Just do it.
Got milk?
Drivers wanted.
Makes six words look like War & Peace.
A perfect tagline’s beauty lies in its simplicity and brevity. But developing something short and sweet can turn sour pretty fast. For something so simple, the process can require a significant amount of time and effort.
Here at Avicom, we’ve written a few taglines in our day. One thing we’ve learned is that it takes the perfect union of research, strategy and creativity to develop a phrase worthy of becoming a tagline. When short and sweet meets strategically sound, we know we’ve found a winner.
In honor of the six-word biography, here are six things to remember when developing a tagline:
1. Determine the key message you want potential customers to remember.
2. Use a common language your audience will understand.
3. Be honest – say something about your company that’s undeniably true.
4. Use words that evoke a positive feeling about your brand.
5. Keep it simple.
6. Be original.
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Recent News and Updates • Trends
If It’s Green, Is It Still A Tchotchke?
posted by Mad Mags @ August 1st, 2008
It seems like we’re all trying to think green these days. At least many of us at Avicom are since the morning one of our earthy account execs circulated a link to a slide show of animals choking on plastic bags.
(Thanks, Lisa. The image of the turtle still haunts us.)
The plastic bag images reminded me of a recent pitch we made to a client to offer reusable shopping bags as a promotional giveaway. While the client wasn’t quite ready for the idea months ago, the reusable bag concept seemed incredibly appropriate now. It spurred me to contact our promotional director Tom Scheel, to learn of trends in the “giveaway” industry. more »
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