Often in our vain attempt to convince our audience to partner with us, romance goes out the window and we simply yell louder. We try to say more. But do we really need to say anything at all to have a meaningful connection with our audience? Pedigree thinks not.

In the following television commercial, Pedigree takes things slow and succeeds in making an emotional connection with their dog loving audience. The emotion was heightened with the use of slow motion, an effect that was achieved with a Phantom camera that shot 1000 frames per second.

Simple. Emotional. Memorable.

Enjoy.

Have a break – have a KitKat…Chair?

This is a really clever guerrilla marketing piece for KitKat in NZ. These ‘posters’ were located at a free concert, which came in rather handy for a lucky few attendees! Guerrilla marketing pieces like this are great for making a big impact on a relatively low budget but, as is evident from the KitKat Chair, there is also a large commitment of time and creativity required. It was definitely worth it in the case of this innovative PR exercise.

Via: Coupdemainmag

This week marked the national launch of MOVE (Measurement of Outdoor Visibility and Exposure), an initiative of the Outdoor Media Association. MOVE is a new audience measurement system intended to make audience reach measures of out of home advertising more consistent and accurate. The MOVE system will provide media buyers with a more precise idea of how many people are likely to see the outdoor advertisement.

Getting creative with out of home advertising is a great way to touch base with your customers and prospects while they’re out and about. With the right location and a generous splash of creative, you have the opportunity to make a lasting impact on your audience and generate invaluable word of mouth. Out of home advertising is best as a part of an integrated strategic campaign.

There are some great examples out there of cleverly executed out of home advertising, including outdoor advertising channels such as bus stop advertising and billboard advertising. Here are just a few…

The “Rain Changes Everything” campaign for Papakura District Council, NZ featured a billboard that bleeds when it rains.

This is an attention grabbing piece for release of Patricia Cornwell’s The Scarpetta Factor.

An example of just one of the clever creative billboards for the True Blood series.

This enlightened billboard for The Economist uses motion-sensing technology to light up when someone walks under it.

As we continue to move from the information age to the conceptual age, I am a firm believer that creativity, and the creative industries, are becoming a more significant and even critical component of the emerging developed world economy.

It’s an argument championed by Daniel Pink a few years ago in his book A Whole New Mind: Why Right-brainers Will Rule the Future. With the future in its hands, the creative industries are certainly an exciting place to be, and the Creative3 forum is the place to learn, share and network with the industries best.

Creative3 is an exciting industry forum focusing on the point where creativity, investment and enterprise meet.

Hosted by QUT Creative Enterprise Australia, and taking place in Brisbane from 14-16 April 2010, this first of a kind event boasts an impressive range of keynote speakers providing their insight and support to creative businesses.

This is shaping up to be a must attend event for anyone connected to the creative industries, as well as those who realise the importance of investment into a significant part of the emerging Australian economy. From entrepreneurs to venture capitalists, this forum has much to offer, including Australia’s first investment pitching session with prices valued at more that $100,000 up for grabs.

Learn more about Creative3 at the creative 3 website: http://creative3.com.au

Whether you are reinvigorating an existing brand or starting from scratch, colour is a powerful influence on how your customers perceive your brand. Remember, your brand isn’t what you say it is – it’s what your customers say it is. So it’s really important to consider the emotional impression your colours will make.

Colour is a visual language that communicates with us on a subconscious level and can influence our moods and emotions. The impact of colour is based on learned associations that are a product of our experiences, tradition and culture. Therefore when selecting colours for your brand or corporate identity make sure you keep in mind who you want to talk to and how you want to be perceived.

Last year, the issue of colour as intellectual property reached a peak with Cadbury and Darrell Lea, and BP and Woolworths battling it out for rights to shades of purple and green, respectively. This just highlights the power of colour as a highly effective and valuable communication tool.

If you need a bit of inspiration take a look at Colourlovers, which is a great resource that matches your search terms or desired meanings with colour palette options.

Since last week’s announcement, the web has been abuzz with discussions and reactions to what is quite possibly Google’s boldest project in years: Google Wave.

It appears a Wave is a live communications object that 2 or more people can participate and interact with at any time. It’s a bit like a blend of an email, IM, wiki and social networking tool all rolled into one.

The big news however, is the proposed open source nature of the protocol that powers the wave. This effectively allows any service provider to build wave servers and wave clients, much as they can with email servers and clients. The success and ubiquitous nature of email is largely due to its open standard protocol, and Google’s move to position Wave as an open standard, both client and server side, dramatically increases the likelihood of mass adoption.

It is for this reason that there has been much commentary heralding the beginning of the end of email’s reign as the king application of the internet. While we heard similar arguments with RSS, Facebook and twitter, it does seem plausible that Google’s new, open protocol for direct and group messaging could chip away at email’s dominance over the next decade or so.

My first reaction to seeing the demo was “Wow, businesses are going to love this, how much more efficient is this going to make multi-participant email conversations”. 

My second reaction was “Perhaps this is a little too complicated. Email is simple and straight forward, yet how many corporate dramas are created by the accidental or misuse of the ‘reply all’ button. How will the workplace cope with such a dangerously flexible and complicated communication tool?”

My third reaction was “This platform is going to enable marketers to engage with customers in some seriously cool ways. With the ability to build extensions and gadgets, and the communication being a live object, this is going to radically change the electronic direct marketing game.”

My gut feeling at the moment, is that marketers need to watch the wave very carefully this year, as adoption is likely to be rapid, opening up a new line of communication with the consumer. In the short term, it is likely to be yet another channel we need to manage. In the medium term, with developers building gateways between wave and platforms like email, twitter and facebook, Google Wave could become a central aggregator to our currently fragmented online communications. In the long term, it could even knock email off its block. However with many people sporting a multi-decade email habit, I don’t see this happening anytime soon.

One thing’s for sure, at Enso we’ll be keeping a very close eye on Google Wave and its implications for changing the game of email marketing as we know it.

Every year, Enso donates creative marketing, design and production services to select charitable causes.

We are very happy to have recently worked with the fantastic Y4K committee, providing creative design services for the promotion of the 2009 Redkite Y4K Colour Ball.

The Colour Ball, an annual evening of exciting entertainment and networking with young Sydney professionals, is shaping up to be a memorable event in 2009 with the theme of “Ultra Violet”.

It all happens on Saturday 4th July at Sydney’s Darling Harbour, so gather your friends and enjoy one of Sydney’s best nights out for a great cause.

Redkite supports children, young people and their families through cancer.

For more information, and to secure your tickets, visit the website at http://www.redkite.org.au/colourball

Hope to see you there.

“Email is the tightest link ever forged between buyer and seller. Email is the heart beat of the internet.”

These words were delivered by Stan Rapp, 82 year old veteran of direct marketing and chairman of marketing agency Engauge, at the Email Evolution Conference in Scottsdale, Arizona earlier this year.

Stan Rapp is often credited as the pioneer of one-to-one direct marketing, and the above statement is one that should be carefully considered by anyone involved in brand marketing.

Unfortunately many organisations are not giving email marketing the limelight it deserves, and these are the same organisations that are unknowingly leaving money on the table. Some organisations have the perception that email is ‘cheap’ and subsequently fail to invest in the strategic planning and resources required to deliver their customers value and generate return. It is true that email marketing is very cost efficient, and well executed strategies are delivering returns far above those delivered by any other channel.

Email is rapidly evolving from an auxiliary marketing channel into the central brand-relationship, and direct-sales channel around which other marketing activities are being organised. Savvy marketing departments are realising this, and with the current economic situation, are reaping the cost effective benefits of investing in the channel.

Simms Jenkins recently published a brief but interesting interview with Stan Rapp at iMedia Connection titled “Why email marketing deserves more respect”. A must read for all marketers yet to realise the true value of email marketing.

Coffee and tea packaging and products can offer a great touchpoint for your marketing initiatives. The clever folks over at WDARU have come up with some very creative and fun teabag designs for the consumer tea lover.

When we produce coffee and tea brand reminders for our clients at enso they are always received well and generate good exposure. Something to consider in your channel mix.

Via: designboom

This is one of my all time favourite presentations on the fundamentals of branding, and a great piece of design as well.

At Enso we direct clients to this presentation all the time, especially when they come to us with an obvious gap that needs to be bridged between their business strategy and their brand design.

Download the presentation by Marty Neumeier here.

Marty Neumeier’s book The Brand Gap, is fantastically succinct, and an absolute must have in every brand or marketing manager’s library.  It’s one of the most worn books in Enso’s brand, marketing and strategy library and is an inspiring read every time I pick it up. A great reminder of what brings innovative brands to life.

If you don’t already own this book, and you work with a brand in any way, you need to own it!

Check out and buy the book from Amazon here! The best money you’ll ever spend on your brand (besides coming to Enso of course!).