Mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets, are gaining market share. They’re now people’s go-to tool for communicating, emailing, social networking, checking the time, killing time, taking photos and — increasingly — finding and researching products, services and businesses. According to a recent study by Google, 92 percent of U.S. smartphone owners browse the web daily and 83 percent of US smartphone owners use their smartphones in-store. (more…)
The Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention & Visitors Bureau (GFL) received a record number of Flagler Awards, including Best of Show, as part of the 46th Annual Florida Governor’s Conference on Tourism. For the second straight year, GFLCVB and Starmark won the highest honor, Best of Show, this year for the “Hello Sunny” integrated marketing campaign. (more…)
In the old days – like the 1990s – brands designing a logo thought about how it would look on brochures, buildings and billboards. Today, brands must think small, considering first how their mark will look on social media.
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While advertising creative serves an important purpose across mediums, experiential marketing strives to generate an actual connection with the consumer. The experiential approach means thinking about time as your currency, and developing ways to have your customer spend time with your brand. (more…)
Reprinted from South Florida Business Journal
Is your advertising creating more demand for your competition than for you? If you are running a local business, and neglecting “local search engine optimization” (local SEO), you may be driving customers into the arms of your competitors. (more…)
Images have become the currency of the web – just look at the rise of Pinterest, Instagram and Facebook’s Rich Stories. Now, Google is getting into the act with a beta of Image Extensions for AdWords. With Google’s newly released version of Image Extensions, advertisers are able to display relevant images to go with text ads.
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Tumblr is the blogging platform brought to you by 26-year-old entrepreneur David Karp. Recently acquired by Yahoo, Tumblr now supports 108.4 million blogs (and 53.9 billion posts).
For marketers, it’s important to understand Tumblr’s niche. A microblogging platform and social networking website, it’s not the place for a post that runs 1,000 words, but rather the location for picture sharing and blog posts of a couple hundred words.
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Casual Internet users may not realize that search on a mobile device returns different results than search on a desktop – and apparently neither do the world’s biggest companies. A recent study found that just 6 percent of Fortune 100 companies are compliant with Google’s impending mobile SEO requirements. What about yours?
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Facebook has just rolled out a completely overhauled Insights tool. Facebook admins can take advantage of the cleaner, faster and simpler metrics interface, as well as comprehensive brand analytics, to learn what is working and what can be improved.
Major upgrades include:
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According to a recent study, 82 percent of local consumers use search engines, not phone books, to find local businesses. The death of the yellow pages means that ranking high in a local search – and therefore local SEO – are priorities for any business trying to drive local traffic.
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Starmark’s Augmented Reality (AR) app strategy for SeaWorld Orlando took fans on an unforgettable Antarctic adventure — no flight needed. It played a key role at every stage of the campaign, driving awareness, participation and social shares at SeaWorld’s 10-city “Epic Voyage” Antarctica Tour, as well as in consumers’ own homes.
SeaWorld Orlando’s new thrilling, chilling attraction, Antarctica: Empire of the Penguin, encompassed a ride, penguin habitat, gift shop and restaurant. It was their biggest expansion to date: they needed to generate awareness and desire to visit months before it opened.
Starmark proposed an augmented reality app that could boost awareness, create social conversation and generate buzz in engaging ways. The app would be sponsored by the Coca-Cola Company, one of the park’s key marketing partners.
Leveraging leading-edge augmented reality, the Empire of the Penguins AR app transported fans to real-world penguin life on the icy South Pole continent. Consumers could meet and interact with the attraction’s characters one-to-one: at an event or right in their own homes.
Users shot AR videos of themselves, friends, family, even their pets. The app augmented this video with scenes from Antarctica featuring the penguins. We collaborated closely with SeaWorld’s designers, using the same 3D models and textures they did. This ensured strong synergy between app and actual in-park ride.
In addition to AR, users could discover more about Antarctica through a video trailer, penguin personality quiz and fast facts. They could buy park tickets. Enter a sweepstakes. And engage with SeaWorld Orlando socially.
The app was modular: topics could be added or removed easily as opening date neared. Once the attraction opened, a live Penguin Cam was added.
The app also simplified Social Media sharing with pre-populated handles and hashtags. Fans eagerly shared 94,000 pics and videos, driving big viral buzz and awareness for the attraction.
The app successfully moved consumers from interest to desire to action, all while creating brand loyalty and higher awareness among family and friends. It was a key attraction at SeaWorld’s 10-city “Epic Voyage” Antarctica Tour campaign, with the campaign itself driving:
Reprinted from the South Florida Business Journal. Peggy Nordeen.
A recent survey of the “young and hip,” born between 1988 and 1994 and the youngest of the millennials, produced some interesting insights into this generation of consumers. These young ones have “attitude” about how and they use websites, apps and social communities. As marketers, we need to tune into their thoughts, not only to reach them more effectively, but also because they are major influencers in their families and social communities. (more…)