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Digital confidence campaigns are a foundation for success

Reprinted from South Florida Business Journal

One thing about living and working through a pandemic is that many of the old objections to digital communications transformation have simply evaporated. They’ve had to, by necessity, as we operate and stay connected while we shelter in place.

Online connection has kept us somewhat sane and, for many businesses, productive through the shutdown. Software tools for telecommuting that previously seemed like a novelty have become necessities of daily business life. Like Kleenex with tissues, Zoom – one of the big winners in all of this – has almost become a generic term for any video conference, whether it be a GoToMeeting, Google Hangout or Skype.

The way we communicate has changed. The pace of life has changed. We’re examining old assumptions and things we’ve taken for granted in a new light. The reality for many is that, while rearranging our lives temporarily, we are considering how we might like to rearrange them permanently.

That makes the present moment an ideal time for businesses and organizations, no matter how small, to re-examine their digital communications foundation to rebound from the Covid-19 pandemic. It’s important to provide messages of continuity, commitment and relevance so that you find a place in the lives of your customers in a post-pandemic world. It’s time to project and instill confidence.

What is a digital customer confidence campaign?

Now is not the time for a hard sell. It’s also not the time for brand small talk or platitudes. A digital customer confidence effort should be neither.

In simplest terms, this kind of marketing effort is a way to share good works, provide relevant information and offer real value to customers. The general sentiment your audience is left with is: “We’re here. We’re helping. Here’s how we can help you.” Here are just some of the things you can cover as part of your effort.

Show, don’t tell, how employees are working

Visually show how your company is operating differently due to the virus. Show how your employees are working together via video, conducting virtual meetings, and accepting deliveries at home. And share family pictures, too.

These visual depictions inherently communicate that you’re still in operation in a way that’s far more compelling. And they humanize your company, giving target audiences confidence that you are taking care of your employees and your customers.

An example of a nonprofit organization building confidence is Catholic Health Services’ transformation of their website’s home page to show employees on the job, helping those in need.

How are you helping those in need?

In addition to your employees, how are you helping the jobless, health care workers and first responders? There are many organizations that are strapped for funds and need contributions. JM Family Enterprises’ Jim Moran Foundation gave $5 million in emergency response grants to more than 80 current nonprofit partners in Broward, Duval and Palm Beach counties. Progressive Insurance has committed over $1 billion nationwide to support customers, employees, agents and communities through the Apron Relief Program.

And there are other creative ways companies are working to impact positive outcomes. Tesla and GM are making respirators, and other companies are sewing masks for health care workers and first responders. Intel has announced a $50 million commitment to expand access to technology during the Covid-19 public health crisis, including funding for online learning.

But it’s not the dollar amounts that matter here. It’s the spirit of donating time, resources and skill to worthy causes. Sharing photos or video clips of your organization helping out others is a great way to show your audience your commitment to the larger community.

Feature you and your customers working together

Your confidence campaign is a great opportunity to showcase your clients and how you’re working with them. It’s a great way to demonstrate that working relationships are still intact, even if things aren’t exactly business as usual.

Demonstrating a sense of partnership and sharing the spotlight with your customers endears you to them – and to others.

Don’t forget to make your content findable

While this column has focused mostly on content, don’t forget the little things that make your content accessible – things like SEO, good email subject lines and using proper hashtags on your social posts. It’s easy to forget these considerations when our schedules are a bit off-kilter, but they’re critical to making sure your content gets seen. After all, SEO lead conversion rates are said to exceed traditional outbound methods by more than eight times.

These new digital customer confidence efforts can integrate into your new more tone-sensitive marketing mix. It’s an essential part of continuing to do business while showing that business means more to you than just the bottom line.

After all, John Deere commands one of the strongest brand loyalty scores in the world, and it all started when the company refused to repossess equipment, extended financing and delayed payments for farmers struggling during the Great Depression. That one act inspired three generations of loyalty that have helped propel the company to where it is today.

So, find your calm, reassuring place in this crisis with efforts that build confidence for your target audiences. Showing them that you will be there, prepared to help them emerge full throttle from the pandemic, is definitely a competitive advantage.

CDP is more than an acronym, it’s a company asset

Reprinted from South Florida Business Journal

Just when we’re all getting comfortable with using CRM (customer relationship management), is it really time to start learning CDPs (customer data platforms)? Well, you might already know more about it than you think.

One of a company’s most valuable assets has always been its customer list. And, in essence, a CDP is simply a way to make your customer list much more robust and useful.

Why is a customer data platform important?

With the advent of online privacy laws and Google again threatening to disallow third-party cookies as soon as 2022, it’s time to re-examine the health of your customer records and the useful data you maintain about what, how, how often and from whom your customers buy.

That’s what a CDP is all about. It’s a way to house, manage and use your customer list and data set to make them far more valuable and be less dependent on third-party data sources. It’s more than a good direct mail or email list; a CDP can contain all the data that fully describes your relationship with your customer and your customer’s 360-degree experience with your company.

To promote CDP adoption, there is an organization called the Customer Data Platform Institute, and major tech companies such as Oracle, SAP, Adobe, Microsoft and Salesforce are jumping on the bandwagon with CDP product offerings that are already on the market or will be in the coming months. One expert called the decision to invest in a CDP perhaps the most important decision companies will make in the next decade. And venture capital is said to have come up with over $2 billion in funding for CDPs.

In essence, once fully developed, a CDP can be a company’s own proprietary marketing tool — a goldmine of information that can be used to increase marketing and advertising performance, as well as a secure storage platform for all firsthand data and personal information on customers. It will also hold other third-party information on customers that a company may already have the right to use. Being able to also store relevant “small data” about why and how a customer uses or feels about specific characteristics of a product or service along with critical “big data” can be very powerful.

Have there been tangible results of CDPs?

CDPs have been around for only a few years, and the number of companies that reported having one is still under 200, but growing rapidly. Some are already reporting double-digit sales increases by using CDP data in their marketing. They also have the ability to verify outcome data from their advertising on the large online platforms with the data stored in the CDP.

Still, the CDP is only as good as its data. And, to be clear, the CDP is the receptacle for data that needs to be extracted for use in additional marketing software. How you access the data from the CDP becomes a critical factor in its performance success, and one that should be asked of any CDP vendor.

How to plan ahead for a future CDP

Many companies will not be ready to make the investment to move forward immediately with a CDP, but they can start gathering relevant data now. The hard data and sales interactions may already be in your data set from your CRM, but companies that are beginning to see results from more involvement with their data are doing additional surveys of their customers on an ongoing basis to augment their small data.

The importance of continuously enhancing your data cannot be overstated. Having the data be able to evolve your product or service offerings to stay ahead of your customers’ wants and needs is critical to your future. Starting your CDP journey now is an excellent first step toward a major competitive advantage.

The Right Leads. At the Right Time. All at Lower Cost.

Starmark’s multi-year marketing partnership with a national fiber optics provider successfully achieved several of their leadership team’s most challenging business goals:

Creating a recognizable new brand image and positioning that would resonate with IT leader and C-level target personas.
Driving more qualified business leads and higher conversion, while optimizing spend through data science-driven targeting strategy and tactics spanning media, creative and data science.
Building a forward-thinking marketing platform that prepared the client to thrive as a stand-alone firm, and later, as a strong subsidiary within their new parent company.

The Big Idea

In 2015, there was a small, fast-growing telecommunications company with award-winning products, outstanding performance reputation and impressive customer loyalty in the highly-competitive telecom space.

But few target prospects were aware of it — or the value it offered. Their outdated website and sales tools were also impeding effective lead generation and conversion. They had a sales team and self-generated leads. However, they were looking to grow bigger, faster. Company leadership reached out to Starmark for help.

The Approach

Starmark’s three-stage strategy guided the company from initial brand launch to a robust marketing platform that prepared them to embrace next-step evolution within their new parent company.

1. Brand Launch

We formulated, then communicated a core positioning: who they are, who they serve and the top three differentiators that mattered most to their prospects. This informed the global campaign theme “Uptime World” that conveyed that value proposition perfectly: a business nirvana where connection is dependable, 24/7/365 expert service is a call away and flexibility is guaranteed. People depicted in the campaign are professional, yet real and believable — not posed. Their demeanor, expressions and body language embody flexibility, collaboration, trust and responsiveness. Images showcase the bold, beautiful nature of fiber-optic light.

The new brandmark, tagline, visual strategy, voice & tone rolled out across all channels to emphasize what mattered most to prospects: speed backed by reliability.
New marketing and media strategies drove more awareness and qualified leads, at lower cost.
Mail and email campaigns drove IT managers to personalized landing pages with an appealing offer in exchange for contact info and current contract expiration date. That expiration date fed our next-step followup plan.
Stronger collateral, a responsive new website and Alexa skills are among several sales and marketing tool enhancements that greatly improved users’ experiences.

2. Building Momentum

We developed regression, decision tree, and neural net machine learning models and chose the model with the greatest accuracy. The model was based on their current customer base, enhanced with third-party business data and other third-party sources.

We trained and tested the model on multiple industries, in multiple states, with a stronger emphasis on the client’s key verticals (healthcare, financial, government and education). We also used zip code geo-targeting in areas where they had particular strength, or offered strong potential, and had an adequate sales force presence and infrastructure.

Then we applied the model to prospect lists and determined how many leads the sales team could handle and process each week. Based on predicted response rates, we marketed on a weekly basis to keep leads flowing manageably via a personalized landing page system. This ensured a well-timed, quality sales followup, as opposed to an all-out marketing blitz that would overwhelm the call center.

We leveraged everything we learned to optimize future efforts, fine-tuning our lead generation strategies and promotional tactics.

Persona development, segmentation and predictive modeling revealed applicants with the strongest likelihood of response to minimize wasted ad spend.
A specialized executive campaign sent senior executives a series of three mailers with smart-connected devices designed to become office conversation pieces. Recipients clicked to a landing page housing a video and downloadable app to power their new devices.
Trade show support included experiential elements like the attention-grabbing Fiber Dreams video game, inspiring hundreds of attendees to play for prizes.
We designed booths, backdrops, charging stations, “Text to Win” Apple Watch and Phantom Quadcopter contests, a coffee cart, branded swag and more.

3. Next-Stage Evolution

By Stage 3, our client’s foundation stood strong. Their brand reputation, performance and customer satisfaction ratings were shining brighter than ever. The program expanded into trade shows, digital sales tools, video testimonials and more. Now, as the brand-new subsidiary of Crown Castle, a $5.6 billion revenue parent entity, it was time to explore next-stage evolution.

We used in-depth collaborative sessions to strategize how to best leverage all the promising opportunities under the client’s new parent umbrella.
The evolution of the company name and brandmark reflected the new parent company and spotlighted top strengths.
The client broke all its previous records at the 2016 North American Business Connectivity Service Provider Excellence Awards, earning 1st place in Brand, Sales Reps, Service Delivery, Network Performance and Customer Service.

The Results

Year One:

Cut media spend by 64% year over year — all while generating 36% more higher-quality leads
Reduce cost per lead by 73.8% year over year
Drove 2.4x greater return on ad spend
Drove 2.4x greater ROI

Year Two:

3% reduction in cost per click
19% increase in clickthrough rate
4% increase in qualified leads

TELECOMMUNICATIONS INDUSTRY AWARDS

Combined improvements from both their internal operations and Starmark’s new programs earned our client first-place rankings across five different brand and service competition categories. All awards were based upon nationwide independent survey results from thousands of business customers.

Creating an Experiential Tourism Event that Stands the Test of Time

When you think of Fort Lauderdale, chances are images of wild spring break parties come to mind. From the glory days of “Where the Boys Are” in the ’60s to the revelry of the mid-1980s, college kids flocked to the local beaches in search of sun and fun. Today, Greater Fort Lauderdale embraces this storied past as much as it celebrates the future.

“Spring break shaped who we are today,” explained Stacy Ritter, president and CEO of the Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention & Visitors Bureau (GFLCVB). “We wouldn’t be the diverse, cosmopolitan destination we are now without our popularity among younger generations.”

Having been the GFLCVB’s strategic marketing partner for the last 12 years, perhaps no one was able to capture that sentiment better than Starmark. And at the GFLCVB’s recent 2020 Growth Plan Luncheon — it showed.

The Challenge

Every year, approximately 500 hospitality professionals and Broward County elected officials attend the luncheon to share tourism insights and outlooks. But on February 12, 2020, GFLCVB and Starmark had something different in mind. “We wanted to celebrate the many milestones Greater Fort Lauderdale has seen over the last 40 years,” continued Ritter. “While at the same time build excitement for this new decade of innovation and change that is upon us. And we needed the entire community behind it. All 31 municipalities.”

The Idea

Luncheon Theme

Inspired by the evolution of the destination, the Starmark team gave the luncheon a theme: “Elevate. Celebrate.”

The team then created a plan to take the audience through “the story of Greater Fort Lauderdale,” with a compelling experience guests could enjoy from the moment they arrived until the very end.

The Execution

The Journey Begins

After guests checked in, they traveled back in time as they strolled into the lobby where several 8-foot, backlit columns decorated the foyer. The museum-style columns represented Greater Fort Lauderdale’s history from the 1960s to the present day. The team researched hundreds of archives from the Fort Lauderdale Historical Society and the Broward County Library to find photos from the past. Guests could observe the photos on these columns, along with captions and dates explaining that point in time.

Entering the Timeline Tunnel

The photos from the columns then came to life through videos created in a 48-foot tunnel leading into the main ballroom: a luncheon feature that truly transported guests through the decades. The farther the guests walked, the more they could see the transformation from black and white spring break photos to colorful shots of today’s landscape.

Using Technology to Create an Epic Atmosphere

At the end of the tunnel, guests entered the ballroom, where its walls were covered by a panoramic video of downtown Fort Lauderdale. Guests were transported to sweeping views of the skyline full of winding waterways, construction cranes, tall buildings and the Atlantic Ocean. In fact, it didn’t feel like you were in a ballroom at all.

“I have never been prouder to be part of our hospitality community as I was [the day of the luncheon]…Deepest acknowledgment to the creative teams and staff that made this day a crowning moment for our destination,” said Ina Lee, TravelHost Fort Lauderdale Magazine founder and trailblazer for the tourist industry as a 20-year member of the Marketing and Advertising Committee of the Convention & Visitors Bureau. (Lee currently serves as its vice chair.)

Once the guests were seated, their attention was captured by an animated postcard flying around the video screens on all four walls to land at the front of the ballroom. Dramatic and effective, the kabuki screen fell to the floor, revealing the stage as our main video began to play.

Guests Meet the New Greater Fort Lauderdale with a Video

Taking center stage, the “Story of Greater Fort Lauderdale” video utilizes photos from the past and hyperlapse footage from the present to reveal how the destination has evolved over time.

The Show Goes On

Starmark created an accompanying keynote presentation that stretched across three separate video screens on the stage, as the 2020 Growth Plan was revealed.

Throughout the presentation, the panoramic screens surrounding the ballroom changed during each segment. Massive cinemagraphs transported the audience to an underwater wonderland with sea turtles swimming around, the Florida Everglades with alligators lurking, and the local waterways with boats gliding by.

Smells like Team Spirit

The team also wrote and produced a video showcasing the staff at GFLCVB. Airing at the luncheon, the video captured the GFLCVB team’s passion for their destination, posing the question, “What do you love about Greater Fort Lauderdale?” Using a little bit of humor and a whole lot of heart, the video culminates in a rallying cry for the entire audience to join their mission of building community in the name of tourism.

Postcards

To foster community relationships between residents, officials, and the local tourism industry, guests were treated to a tin filled with custom-designed/written postcards: one for each municipality in Greater Fort Lauderdale, as well as the FLL Airport and Port Everglades. Each postcard was also featured in a photo-op wall in the lobby for guests to pose in front of at the end of the luncheon.

Printed 2020 Growth Plan and Meetings Promotional Booklet

The 2020 Growth Plan addressed the state of tourism, market research (with the help of Destinations International), GFLCVB’s marketing direction, goals, and paid media buys. The 90-page booklet, overall, summarized the destination’s emphasis on the importance of community in tourism. Attendees received their plan in a Visit Lauderdale tote bag.

To help meeting planners learn about the destination, guests also received a meetings booklet featuring editorial destination photography and new information about the expansion of the convention center. Meeting planners can use this booklet to learn all about what makes Greater Fort Lauderdale the ideal meetings destination.

Augmented Reality Experiences

Strategically placed throughout the collateral were QR codes that linked to AR and 360-degree experiences Starmark created as selling tools for Visit Lauderdale. Experiences included an AR Facebook portal to the exterior of the new convention center expansion (a first-of-its-kind destination planning tool on social media), a 360-degree video from the top of a skyscraper in downtown Fort Lauderdale, and an AR Facebook table-top model of the new convention center expansion.

Time to Celebrate

At the conclusion of the presentation, Ritter invited guests to pick up confetti cannons and toast to the new decade. Confetti rained down on the ballroom as the music from the “Story of Greater Fort Lauderdale” video flooded the speakers: a true celebration of how far we’ve come — together, as a community. Guests left the convention center that day in awe of the luncheon’s production level and feeling optimistic and empowered for the destination’s next chapter.

Facebook’s new AR ads getting more face time

Reprinted from South Florida Business Journal

After a successful beta test last year, Facebook augmented reality (AR) ads opened for use by all advertisers just before the holidays. This exciting new format is already posting some impressive results.

Before AR ads, the previous gold standard for ad performance on social media was capturing 6 seconds of time from a fast-scrolling consumer. But AR ads are creating engagements that are three times longer.

Facebook’s Spark AR platform allows anyone — from big brands to independent producers — to create AR experiences that can reach more than 1 billion active daily users on Facebook and Instagram. It’s a great way to create more consumer engagement without creating your own mobile app.

AR ads work for many product categories

Wearables, whether sunglasses or makeup, were among the first products to use the technology to show their products on users’ faces. But now, AR ads are expanding among destination and hospitality marketers, construction and real estate and furniture makers—any category for which an immersive experience will help the customer to decide to buy.

Just imagine: If you sell products, you could let people place those products in their environments in AR to see how they look or work. If you are marketing a location, you could do an AR portal to transport people to and immerse them in the experience.

Before creating or promoting Facebook AR ads, it’s important to establish goals and be aware of Facebook’s ad manager ability to optimize your campaign using its machine learning performance capabilities. The powerful Facebook ad manager tool offers you four choices to optimize your campaign: brand awareness, reach, traffic or conversion.

An exponential growth expectation to $200 billion

Some market forecasters believe the AR market for all applications will grow to $200 billion by 2025. Whether or not they are right, we are bound to see a significant increase in current numbers with the AR ad market, which can contribute significantly to that number.

The number of AR viewers grew to nearly 60 million last year and are projected to approach 80 million this year. While younger audiences have made up the majority of the viewers, Facebook AR ads also give marketers an increased presence with the 50+ age groups that can garner more vacationers, and health care and senior products users.

The cost may be lower than you think

You can spend from $2,500 to $100,000 on AR campaign creation. To keep costs on the lower end, consider what creative assets you may already have.

For example, if you have 360-degree photography or architectural renderings of a destination or a building, you could immerse users in that environment with a portal-style AR ad (try here or here). The same principle applies with prototype or manufacturing models for products. Any 3D art that you have of your product or subject can substantially reduce the cost of creating your AR experience.

AR ads make sense as part of your marketing mix

Incredible targeting capabilities and a lower cost per placement than traditional media make AR ads an attractive prospect. Considering that video is expected to exceed 70% of social content this year, making the leap to AR is a way to capitalize on the current trend—and get ahead of it with ads that are more engaging than your competitors.

In addition to Facebook, Snapchat and soon Instagram, your AR assets and ads can also be used in the New York Times, and predictions are that the number of more traditional publishers’ digital magazines accepting AR ads will grow.

AR ads place emotion over promotion

AR ads are more engaging, inherently more involving and relate more intimately to your customer base. They reward attention and engagement in a very human way for customers who are spending time on a social platform when they are bored or enjoying some downtime. In return, you get quality time with your customer base—unlike when they are in a hurry, distracted or searching for information.

Excitement and emotion come with the immersive experience of AR ads so they can give you higher returns on digital advertising—definitely a competitive advantage.

Starmark Brings Home Gold at the 2020 American Advertising Awards Gala

Starmark was a big winner during this year’s American Advertising Awards (ADDY) Gala for Fort Lauderdale and Palm Beach County.

The team took home two Gold ADDY Awards and six Silver ADDY Awards. To top it off, two Starmark entries received Judge’s Choice Awards. All winning entries head on to the district competition.

Judge’s Choice Award Winners

Two Starmark entries were selected for special recognition by the judges for this year’s competition. The Judge’s Choice Awards go to work that a judge felt was particularly noteworthy and impactful.

Judge’s Choice: NSU Mission Possible Video

This blockbuster video celebrated the opening of NSU Florida’s Tampa/Clearwater campus with a story starring Drs. Kiran C. and Pallavi Patel as secret agents.

Judge’s Choice: Riptide Music Festival

Starmark put together an ambitious indoor/outdoor activation during the 2019 Riptide Music Festival for the Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention and Visitors Bureau. The interactive experience featured oversized playable instruments, DJ sets, a media lounge and a record wall full of cheeky album art alterations featuring all 31 municipalities of Broward County.

2019 Gold ADDY Awards

The team took home two Gold ADDY Awards — one for NSU Florida (Nova Southeastern University) and one for the Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Gold: Riptide Music Festival Activation

The Riptide activation selected for a Judge’s Choice Award also won ADDY Gold in the Ambient Media/Single Installation category. It now advances to judging at the district level of the competition.

Gold: The NSU Edge — Brand Essence Video

As part of the recent NSU Florida rebrand, Starmark created a video, The NSU Edge, to bring the new brand position to life for prospective students and the community. This entry won ADDY Gold in the Cinematography category.

We’re so proud of and excited about the great work we produced together this year. The big wins really add to our gratitude and pride.
— Kyle Fisher, Vice President, Nova Southeastern University Public Relations and Marketing Communications

2019 Silver ADDY Awards

The Starmark crew won six ADDY Silver Awards for Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital, NSU Florida and the Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Silver: Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital Catch the Love Campaign

Starmark’s work for the Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital won ADDY Silver in the Public Service/Campaign category. The Catch the Love Campaign is designed to showcase the impact of the hospital and attract new supporters.

Two Silvers: NSU Razor Mascot

Starmark helped overhaul and modernize the NSU mascot, Razor, in 2019. The mascot won ADDY Silver Awards for both Art Direction and Guerrilla Marketing.

Silver: NSU Razor Mascot Reveal Campaign

Starmark created a social campaign and video series highlighting the origin story of the character and building intrigue ahead of the Homecoming pep rally reveal event for NSU Florida’s updated Razor mascot. This entry won ADDY Silver in the Social Media Campaign category.

Silver: NSU Mission Possible Video

The Mission Possible video that won a 2019 Judge’s Choice award also received an ADDY Silver in the Film, Video & Sound — Non-Broadcast category.

Silver: Pride of the Americas Teaser Campaign

Starmark created a teaser campaign to promote Pride of the Americas, the inaugural Pride festival for North, Central and South America, to be hosted in Fort Lauderdale in Spring 2020. The teaser campaign took ADDY Silver in the Card, Invitation, Announcement Campaign Category.

We’re so proud that our work is making an impact in tourism, higher education and healthcare. It’s an honor to be recognized among the best in the area.
— Dale Baron, Starmark Executive Creative Director

About the American Advertising Awards

The American Advertising Awards, informally known as the ADDYs, is the largest creative competition in the advertising and marketing industry. Each year the competition receives over 35,000 entries. Winners at a local level proceed to district judging, followed by the national American Advertising Awards. Winning a national ADDY is one of the industry’s highest honors.

A Destination Music Festival Activation for the Record Books

For the 3rd year in a row, Starmark and the Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention and Visitors Bureau (GFLCVB) teamed up to create a rockin’ brand presence at Riptide Music Festival on Fort Lauderdale beach. The Nov. 2019 activation took over the entire beach, cementing Greater Fort Lauderdale as a music destination.

The Challenge

This was the first year Riptide Music Festival was branded a “Broward County Signature Event.” GFLCVB needed to make a big impact throughout the whole event’s weekend, in order to fully own the new title. The activation’s message had to encourage travel throughout the rest of the destination, as well as celebrate its reputation as a place where creativity and the arts thrive.

Competition was another notable challenge — there is a sensory overload for attendees throughout the entire beach with brands galore. Festival attendees were ages 18-49 and comprised of a local and national audience. These were music fans and trendsetters that attended multiple concerts and music festivals a year. At Riptide, they are constantly moving, not staying in the same booth for a long period of time. Attendees typically remember one “cool factor” about a booth and are willing to give out their information if the activation is exciting enough.

The Booth Heard ‘Round the Beach

The Starmark team ideated the “Visit Lauderdale Music Beach House,” a concept that welcomed music fans with open arms. The two-story booth painted Greater Fort Lauderdale as “the soundtrack and backdrop to your vacation.” With a vintage record store sign and a “Let’s Make Music Together” banner at the top, it featured multiple activations that seamlessly tied aspects of the destination and music together.

Vinyl Record Wall

Since this was the first Broward County Signature Event, Starmark thought it was important to highlight the entire county at this activation, not just Fort Lauderdale beach. All 31 municipalities in Broward County were represented in both an exterior and interior decorative record wall.

In the last few years, vintage record stores and vinyls had made a big comeback within the music industry. To leverage this insight and connect with fans, the creative team put a clever spin on the famous bands and artists we all know and love. Artist names like Kanye Weston, Bruce Coral Springsteen, Linkin Parkland, Macklemiramar, Deerfield Beach Boys, North Lauduran Duran each got their own album cover on the wall, featuring editorial-style destination photography. In the center of the wall was a “Visit Lauderdale” neon sign, making the brand name clearly identifiable to attendees as they admired the wall, waiting in line for the booth’s other activities.

Larger-than-Life Instruments

These days, if you went to a music festival without taking a picture, it didn’t really happen. Starmark felt that creating “Instagrammable moments” at Riptide not only would engage attendees, but also their followers. Give attendees an epic background, and they won’t be able to resist posing, posting and sharing.

Three oversized instruments were dispersed throughout the festival, tempting attendees to snap a photo. The first was interactive—a “Big” piano placed inside the Visit Lauderdale Beach House that people could play with their feet. As they tickled the ivories with their toes, other attendees could hear and be inclined to join in.

Two giant guitars were great photo-ops, one 16-ft guitar placed outside the booth and the other greeting attendees at the VIP entrance. The VIP guitar featured destination photography, while the other embraced an artistic aesthetic, and both included the @VisitLauderdale handle to encourage social follows.

Booth Activities

Attendees could make their own music videos in the video booth complete with neon lights and funky music. The booth captured leads when the attendees filled out their information in order to receive their video. The email they received encouraged them to share their videos on social media tagging @VisitLauderdale, and a second follow-up email asked them to opt-in to Visit Lauderdale’s monthly newsletter, as well as promoted additional upcoming festivals and events in Broward County.

People could also get free temporary flash tattoos, applied by the GFLCVB street team. Each tattoo was custom designed, from an octopus wrapped around a guitar to the Riptide logo.

The second level of the booth was a balcony lounge positioned directly in front of the Underground Stage, which Starmark also designed the skin for. Attendees with special wristbands had access to sit upstairs and enjoy the music from the stage. The balcony had couches with branded Visit Lauderdale pillows and vinyl record coasters featuring the municipality album names. GFLCVB also arranged for DJ Citizen Jane to play music in between sets to attract passersby to the booth.

Social Media Promotion

Starmark and GFLCVB partnered with Entercom to promote the Visit Lauderdale booth. Instagram stories and In-feed Facebook and Instagram organic and paid posts highlighting each booth feature were shared on Entercom’s pages, in addition to Visit Lauderdale’s accounts.

Starmark also created custom Visit Lauderdale branded Instagram stickers, including a spinning octopus guitar and a Riptide guitar pic, uploaded to Giphy. Users could add them to their Instagram stories and post all the fun from the festival.

Broadcast Lounge

Riptide performers, from The 1975 to The Killers, were invited to the broadcast lounge to be interviewed by the press, do meet and greets and enjoy cocktails. Starmark designed the entire lounge, placing Greater Fort Lauderdale branding throughout. Aerial photos of the beaches and other destination hotspots served as backdrops on the wall and branded pillows on each couch and chair.

Music to Our Ears

Visit Lauderdale’s activations took Riptide Music Festival by storm.

“I couldn’t be more proud of the talented Starmark team that has pulled off such a cool and creative activation for Riptide Music Festival.” — Kara Franker, Senior Vice President of Marketing & Communications at GFLCVB

All weekend long, fans lined up outside the Visit Lauderdale Music Beach House to get in on all the action. Attendees starred in their own music videos in the Bosco video booth, exchanging contact info for their footage and generating 305 videos, 325 emails and 766 SMS. In addition, a total of 96,008 social users were reached with paid social media assets: 30,548 on Facebook and 65,460 on Instagram. The event was covered by acclaimed media outlets, from Rolling Stone Magazine to Good Morning America, while a number of social media influencers posted footage and photos at the Visit Lauderdale booth. It’s safe to say the first Broward County Signature Event was a hit.

Agile creates a better work-life balance for employees

Reprinted from South Florida Business Journal

Companies moving to an Agile work environment is a growing trend. Of 3,130 project managers surveyed by the Project Management Institute, 75% say their companies use Agile at least some of the time. Among these are knowledge-based professional organizations, as well as many other categories including software and manufacturing.

There are many benefits for companies using Agile—a work methodology that gives ownership of the work to each individual team member. From planning and defining to producing each work element, the work process is transparent to all. The result is higher productivity and happier, more motivated employees.

Employees want to work smarter

As one ad agency employee put it: “Before Agile, the workday used to be filled with distractions and interruptions. People breathing down your neck or stopping by every 5 minutes. [Agile] setting the expectations lets you focus on the work. Everyone understands better what has to happen for the work to complete.”

Having ownership of the work improves productivity

The first thing that the millennial generation is said to require to be happy in their job is collaboration. Agile is an inversion of the traditional department silo approach. In an Agile environment, multidisciplinary teams complete work together in close collaboration.

In that sense, Agile is all-inclusive of not only those who produce the work,but all of those—from senior management on down—who have an interest in a project’s success.

It’s about collaboration and personal development

Collaboration is closely followed as a millennial job requirement by personal development, both of which Agile promotes among the team. Everyone on the team speaks about their work, not only in planning meetings, but in 15-minute “stand up” meetings every day. Each team member discusses accomplishments, reports a plan for the day and calls out any resources needed to be able to complete that work. Senior management can see project deliverables every two weeks, which result from carefully preplanned work sprints.

This Agile worker pretty much summed it up:

“There’s a personal feeling of accomplishment. You feel good when you’re able to get it done. And, at the end of the sprint, we all feel that. It’s that sense of accomplishment as a group.”

Another employee said: “I would never go back to how I worked at previous companies. With Agile, I’m in command of the promises I make and the work I deliver.”

Agile transformations take resources and time

Unfortunately, you cannot snap your fingers and create an Agile work environment. It requires training and coaching from the top down and a willingness to change how work is produced. Some people who have had bad experiences with Agile were following the processes without adopting the change in mindset. The good news is that this training helps employees understand and adopt ownership of the overall goals for the business. As a result, teams become more united, cohesive and valuable.

You might try Agile first by using consultants or agencies that can facilitate your planning with their teams and yours. You may want to contact your local CareerSource office to apply for training grants to help you fund this effort.

Agile can be a major contributor in recruiting and retaining a happy workforce and, therefore, happy customers. Yes, it takes planning. But in today’s low-unemployment business environment, workforce satisfaction is definitely a competitive advantage.

What’s Broken About Briefs

Creative briefs. Love ’em or hate ’em, these one-page assignment summaries have been one of the most widely used tools in advertising and marketing since the days of Mad Men. But just because a practice is old doesn’t mean it’s sacrosanct.

In fact, there are a few things that are pretty broken about creative briefs. Over the course of our four-year Agile journey, we’ve actually moved away from using them. Here are a few reasons why and how we communicate work differently.

Problem: Briefs are written from a single point of view

A brief is generally written by an industry generalist, like an account manager or project manager, to communicate to a team of practitioners, like copywriters, art directors and developers. And that’s an inherently flawed process.

Here’s a better idea

At Starmark, the team plans the work by discovering and cataloguing the details that each subject matter expert deems important. This creates a shared understanding of the project that’s more well rounded and circumspect.

Problem: Briefs create an illusion of simplicity

It’s right there in the name — brief. These documents are inherently reductionist. They have a tendency to minimize or ignore complexity and complication if it doesn’t fit within the confines of an 8.5×11″ sheet of paper.

This is another way

The subject matter experts who do the work understand that the messy insights, peculiarities and unknowns of an assignment are often what define the best solutions. Allowing a fuller understanding of the context allows for bigger, more effective solutions to the problem.

Problem: Integrated campaign briefs lack substance

A brief is absolutely the wrong tool to kick off big campaign thinking. Many agencies have created campaign briefs, which are just creative briefs that are simultaneously less brief and more vague. Usually, this just results in a constellation of baby briefs that attempt to split up an integrated challenge into a series of discipline assignments—like media, creative and SEO—that are tackled by siloed teams in a waterfall sequence.

Try this instead

A huge multimedia solution to a genuine business challenge is irreducibly complex. Like a living cell, the customer journey doesn’t work without all its parts. By creating a collaborative roadmap, both the team and the client can understand and address the challenge holistically and avoid the slow, siloed waterfall process.

Briefs don’t adapt well to change

In general, part of the purpose of a brief is to define the scope of a marketing effort. The client signs off on it, and then the team goes off to work. This is designed to prevent change in direction with phrases like, “You signed off on the brief,” and “That’s not what we agreed to.”

There’s a smarter solution

Each story in a roadmap is both detailed and negotiable. Our clients know what each story is and why it’s important during the roadmap walkthrough—because we discuss these things in plain English. No spin, misunderstandings or mumbo-jumbo. And when priorities change during the course of the project (because change is inevitable), we’ve planned for that, which gives us the flexibility to reprioritize the sequence of work or brick out old stories in favor of new ones.

Here’s the bottom line: Briefs aren’t the only way to define work

Being able to adapt to change is an essential tenet of Agile Methodology here at Starmark. When we roadmap a project, an entire team of experts is involved in defining and solving a client challenge. And that means the entire team defines and understands the full context in a way that simply doesn’t fit in a traditional brief. It’s a more collaborative, flexible approach that allows a team to own the work and respond to change for a more successful project.

Starmark gets in the Holiday Spirit with Clients and Friends

Starmark hosted its annual holiday party at its downtown Fort Lauderdale winter wonderland headquarters. With 2019 winding down, it was the perfect time to celebrate and reflect on the year’s successes among clients and friends in a festive atmosphere.

Various evening highlights include:

Alexa Skill
Alexa is for more than just checking the weather. With an Amazon Echo on-hand, we demonstrated our custom voice skills with functionalities that can grow any business. We can develop skills for both Amazon Echo or Google home technologies.

Website Work
Our recent web work, created by Starmark, were on display for all to see. This particular site included exciting offers with optimal UX design, blog posts with editorial content suitable for SEO and more interactive features.

Augmented Reality Apps
AR experiences can initiate and accelerate selling processes for your business. Across from our sushi bar, guests could get a good look at our newest AR app which featured with trivia questions, games and brand videos. Starmark is especially proud of this one; it took home a SMARTIE Award from the Mobile Marketing Association, making us the only agency in the U.S. to win one in the Augmented Reality category.

Ad Campaigns
Guests were able to see our various campaign work, from Facebook Instant Experience ads, digital banners, print ads and even a digital billboard that is soon to debut in Times Square. They also viewed the video that earned Starmark our very first Emmy award.

In her remarks, Starmark President Jacqui Hartnett congratulated our clients on 10 International Marcom Awards, welcomed 8 new clients and thanked everyone for making 2019 a year to remember.

With an office full of people, the tone of the room was merry and bright. We truly mixed and mingled all the way. Happy Holidays from our family to yours!

View the Party Photo Album on Facebook

Starmark Wins 10 Marcom Platinum and Gold Awards in 2019 Competition

After a strong 2018 showing, Starmark again took home a spate of MarCom awards in the 2019 competition.

MarCom Platinum Winners

The Main Las Olas Branding

Starmark took a Platinum award for The Main – Brand Platform, Naming and Brand Mark. This effort was created for Stiles Development to reflect the unity and duality of a a new residential/commercial development in the heart of downtown Fort Lauderdale.

The NSU Edge Brand Essence Video

Another Platinum award came back for the NSU Edge Brand Essence Video Starmark created for NSU Florida (Nova Southeastern University). This video demonstrates the university’s new brand position through a story of a young woman who develops the NSU Edge in the form of a Shortfin Mako.

Azul Beach Resorts A-List Campaign and Website

The “A-List” Campaign and Website for Azul Beach Resorts won MarCom Platinum. The campaign and site reposition the brand as an upscale Millennial destination and differentiate the A-List experience from the rest of the Karisma portfolio of properties.

Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital Catch The Love Fundraising Video

Another Platinum win came for the Catch The Love Fundraising Campaign Video created for Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital. This touching campaign video was created to help donors and supporters understand the impact of their gifts on children and families throughout South Florida.

FLL Airport Brand Awareness Signage

The Brand Awareness Signage for the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport (FLL) took home MarCom Platinum. Starmark helped create clear signage to identify the destination as FLL and assist visitors from 185 countries establish a sense of place in Fort Lauderdale.

Greater Fort Lauderdale Weekend Getaway Instant Experience

The Facebook Instant Experience – Weekend Getaway for Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention & Visitors Bureau also won MarCom Platinum. This social experience specifically targets travelers with an immersive story of the perfect weekend getaway.

MarCom Gold Winners

Broward College I Can Campaign

MarCom Gold came home for the Broward College I Can Campaign. This summer campaign empowers students with more possibilities that they can pursue at Broward County’s largest institute of higher ed.

Elegant Hotels Experientialists Campaign

The Elegant Hotels Experientialists Ad Campaign also won MarCom Gold for its clever plays on the transformations the experiences of Elegant Hotels create for guests.

Azul Beach Resorts A-List Photography

Campaign photography for the Azul Beach Resorts A-List Campaign also won a Marcom Gold for capturing the feeling, uniqueness and experience of a resort specifically for its new Millennial target.

Nickelodeon Resorts Global Website

The final 2019 MarCom Gold came for the Viacom: Global Nickelodeon Resorts Website. This site for Viacom and Nickelodeon – one of the world’s largest entertainment brand and the world’s #1 brand for kids – creates a content-driven portfolio for global Nickelodeon Hotels & Resorts properties. The site captures the spirit and essence of the world’s only five-star Nickelodeon resort experiences.

MarCom Honorable Mention

Nickelodeon Hotels & Resorts Punta Cana Billboard

This :15 second animated billboard helped drive holiday bookings during the cold New York winter months. The playful creative stood out amidst the clutter in Times Square — and really made an impression on MarCom judges, too.

About MarCom

MarCom Awards honors excellence in marketing and communication while recognizing the creativity, hard work and generosity of industry professionals. Since its inception in 2004, MarCom has evolved into one of the largest, most-respected creative competitions in the world. Each year about 6,000 print and digital entries are submitted from dozens of countries. For more, visit marcomawards.com

Turning Student Empowerment Into a More Profitable Conversation

Broward College’s 2019 summer and fall campaigns accomplished two key goals: (1) elevating its brand positioning into a more collaborative experience between prospects and the college; and (2) mining student data to enable more direct and successful targeting of the most promising prospect applicants.

Starmark’s Challenge

Broward College (BC) serves 63,000+ students annually, providing high-quality educational programs and services that are affordable and accessible to a diverse learner community.

The college’s leadership partnered with Starmark to evolve its existing brand positioning and create a tactical summer campaign. The goals: increase awareness of the college, drive higher enrollment through targeted lead generation and improve the quality of leads at application.

The college already liked the strong student empowerment message of their existing “I CAN” brand platform, but felt it was too general and didn’t differentiate BC’s top benefits and programs. They asked Starmark to elevate the positioning to the next level of effectiveness.

The Approach

Starmark recommended evolving the solo “I Can” empowerment message into a shared “I Can/We Can” conversation. Students can achieve their dreams because BC is the passionate, responsive partner in their corner. This allowed BC to emphasize their key strengths, while still prioritizing the empowering student “I CAN” voice throughout.

The visual strategy focused on candid, naturally lit hero shots of individuals with a compelling determination to succeed, against a local backdrop of recognizable Broward County locations.

The team recommended that the campaign focus on three core benefits: Transformation (New opportunities, better life); Affordability (Top-10 ranked education for less); and Guaranteed Transfer (Allowing students to save substantial money by spending their first two years at BC with a guaranteed state university transfer to finish up their bachelor’s.)

All options were preference tested with BC students on campus, as well as students in online national surveys matching the college’s targeted personas.

Using predictive analytics, we created a computer model of all their existing students to focus the media targeting and spend, and reduce the amount of unqualified leads the college received.

What’s Next?

Based upon summer campaign insights, Starmark and Broward College continue to optimize and calibrate the model so that it continues to support the initiative to increase high value students. The Starmark team recommended three specific optimization priorities:

Media goals: increase propensity to enroll while ideally cutting spend even more.
Data modeling: to drive even stronger social media and display results.
New student photo/video shoot: to build more strategic content for the college that would strengthen future brand and lead generation campaign efforts.

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