STUDIO H

Let’s take a hard look at your relationship with your website. While I am in full realization that a girl whose romantic relationships have the shelf life of a dairy product should not throw virtual stones, indulge me in this little analogy.

Some of you are in ‘new website love’. Your website is beautiful, interesting, intelligent and meets all of your needs. You have met other websites in the past but are certain you have never experienced true website love until now. You want it to meet your family and rave it about it to your friends to the point they roll their eyes and mumble ‘stupid new website love’ under their breath. Your new website is PERFECT and those who would dare to challenge that would immediately be slapped across the face with a leather glove and challenged to a duel at dawn. If it has flaws, you are blinded to it. That’s just the nature of new love… Um… I mean new WEBSITE love.

Then there are those who are in ‘honeymoon website love’. You have taken the plunge and made a commitment. The ceremony was lovely. Your family and old college buddies on your side of the church, meta tags and navigation icons lined website’s side. No one really danced at the reception, but it is a known fact that meta tags never really have been huge fans of the Macarena. You love your website just the way it is. You overlook the fact that website stays in it’s pajamas all weekend. Website isn’t the greatest chef or housekeeper but hey… there is always take-out and Merry Maids. Okay so website isn’t perfect but these little things are what makes website adorably ‘quirky’.

Which leads us to those of you experiencing ‘old website love’. The bloom is off the rose. Life with website, although predictable, is painfully routine. Date-night finds website staying home watching ‘Real Websites of Orange County’ marathons while you go out and play pool with your old college buddies. To make matters worse one of your friends is in ‘new website love’ and won’t shut up about it. You find yourself rolling your eyes and muttering ‘stupid new website love’ under your breath as you sink the 8 ball into the corner pocket on the break. One of the meta tags from your ceremony sits in the corner giving you dirty looks. When you get home website has had one too many glasses of wine and demands to know ‘what have you done for me lately’? Website then throws a pillow and the blanket you bought on your Mexican honeymoon on to the couch, and shouts ‘hope YOU can sleep tonight’ as it stalks off into the bedroom and slams the door. As you prepare to sofa surf for another night, you notice a copy of Dr. Phil’s ‘Relationship Rescue’ book on the coffee table. Website texts you from the bedroom saying meta tag called and said you were flirting with the waitress at the bar. Sigh.

My point is in ANY stage of your website relationship you may be too close to give it an unbiased evaluation. Your family, friends, co-workers and ad agency may have a different viewpoint. Ask other people to look at your website and give their honest opinion. They may see aspects of content or functionality that are missing. Maybe your love affair with your website can be rekindled with a few design tweaks here or there. Perhaps your website needs some serious SEO optimization. Depending on how much your business structure or needs have evolved, a complete overhaul may be in order. In days past, websites may have been a secondary marketing source but today your website is where the majority of consumers are going to make a final decision about utilizing your product or service. You really don’t need them finding your website in it’s pajamas. 

STUDIO H may not be Dr. Phil but we are sure we can put you and your customers back in ‘new love’ with your website. We promise to not roll our eyes or mumble under our breath. After all… we ARE all about the love.

Kristi Erban

Those that are saying there is no such thing as a captive TV audience anymore does not live with a ‘Tween’…. the great divide between childhood and insanity.  I am still a big believer in TV being a vital component to any marketing campaign as long as the strategy behind it takes viewership patterns into consideration. Anyone in marketing has become aware of how the holy grail of reach and frequency has been affected by TiVo, On Demand, Hulu, Netflix etc. However, those flighty little Tweens are about as captive as a captive audience can be. 

My daughters will not only watch the same program or movie over and over again… I actually hear them call each other into the room when their favorite commercials are on. In addition they will then commandeer my iPad to watch it over AND OVER again on YouTube. Subsequently I am commandeered to watch it over and over again on YouTube. Hello reach. Hello frequency.

To a Tween, commercials are just as entertaining as the programs they watch. The other evening the 11-year-old was ‘waiting for a bad commercial’ to come on so she could change into her pajamas. Fortunately the Toyota Prius commercial with the nightmarish-beast-made-out-of-people came on, although she did take the time to notice and inform me that the beast’s nose is comprised of a person’s butt. The twins know every line to their favorite commercials and will belt out jingles in the check-out line at WalMart. Reason number two hundred and twelve why we shop at WalMart. While singing ‘Do a Dollop of Daisy’ at the top of your lungs in Huckleberries will get you sideways glances and the occasional stink eye… Two 9-year-old pixies singing it at WalMart will get you applause and about five bucks worth of change. 

Some may argue that Tweens don’t have purchasing power. While they may not hold the pursestrings they are in complete command of the heartstrings of parents and grandparents. Most parents can recall at least one Christmas when desperation  set in to get the ‘it toy’ your kid was begging to find under the tree yet could not be found ANYWHERE by you. We all have war stories about the sad, depraved and occasionally felonious  things we have done for a Tickle Me Elmo or Furbee. We just pray the footage doesn’t end up on the news, internet or an episode of Cops. 

If your service or product is geared towards the Tween set, take heart that television advertising is just as alive and kicking as it was back in the day we were captivated by images of that Slinky going down the stairs and the fact that Mikey would eat his Life cereal. As a parent I have to admit some of today’s ads geared toward the Tween set are pretty darn entertaining. Then again, anything on in my house that does NOT involve the Twilight series is a welcome relief.

Kristi Erban

I knew I could pull you in with a subject line like that. Distraction. It is everywhere in the workplace. Just a quick trip to the coffee maker can be like running a gauntlet. Carrie is raving about her new ‘permanent’ eye liner as you resist the urge to congratulate her that she will now ‘permanently’ resemble a raccoon. Dave wants to give you all the details on how awesome his newest girlfriend is as you resist the urge to refer to her as ‘the-flavor-of-the-week.’ Chris wants you to sign up for Fantasy Football as you resist the urge to tell him your fantasies as of late have absolutely nothing to do with football. That is a lot of urge-resisting for a cup of Folgers my friends.

And the blame cannot always be attributed to the Carrie, Dave and Chris in the office. For example I have been dying to address for the million and fourth time why Brooke Burke is still a host on Dancing With the Stars when her delivery is that of a reporter announcing that a basket of kittens has just been devoured by a pit bull. Would it kill the woman to show a little enthusiasm??? Okay. I feel better now. My point is that I can be a complete distraction to myself.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m a fan of office socialization. Sometimes working with Hara is like having a slumber party in the daytime. And to be fair, distraction is something I tend to hunt down like a skinny coyote after a fat pheasant if there is something on my ‘To Do’ list that I really don’t want to do. We all have them. The annual report, 2012 projection presentations or the dreaded year-end reconciliation statement. They haunt my ‘To Do’ list like a ghost on the Queen Mary. These are the occasions when I need to ‘get a room’.

With the vast majority of us either owning or having access to a lap top, we can virtually make any location our office, sometimes even without the necessity of an Internet connection. A location free from the everyday office distractions. My favorite location is the lobby of the Coeur d’ Alene Resort. Not only do I feel ‘away’ from the office but the vacation feeling of a hotel helps me relax. I can accomplish a project that would take 3 days in the office in 4 hours curled up on a comfy couch close to the fireplace at the Resort. Also, contrary to popular belief creativity does not turn on like a faucet. It’s more like a slow drip that turns into a creative puddle and I usually get to that puddle sooner if I am near a body of water.

I’m not the only one who subscribes to this theory. I have a friend who books herself into a Lodge in Montana for three days every October while she plots out the budget for the upcoming fiscal year. An associate of mine religiously works for two hours a day from a local coffee shop. A writer I know swears that the lobby of the Davenport is where she does her best writing. I am writing this blog from a quiet child free home (until my little minions invade it again in one short hour). However, if I was working on technical writing I would most likely choose to write from the business I am preparing copy for as the environment usually helps me get a better feel for the writing itself. 

Give it a try. The office will survive without you for a few hours. The patients will not overrun the asylum. Once you have some of the big projects off your plate you will have more time to engage in office socialization. Heck… with the annual report done you might not even mind too much when you find out that Dave’s ‘flavor-of-the-week’ is your favorite cousin. Then again, if it DOES bother you, that annual report is now complete so you have the time to interview candidates for his replacement.

Kristi Erban

As I spent my weekend nursing a monster head cold, I was afforded the rare luxury of reigniting my love affair with television. Armed with over-the-counter cold medication, Kleenex and my trusty remote I settled into my high thread-count sheets and conducted some serious channel surfing. After hours of being beguiled by ‘Bridezillas’ and intrigued by ‘Intervention’ I happened across one of my favorite movies of all times… ‘Dead Poets Society.’ I settled in and wrapped the movie around me like a warm blanket.

With the lure of popcorn, I managed to coerce my daughters into snuggling in to watch it with me. Perhaps it was the effect of cold medicine or the vapor from the Vicks but the movie quickly became a study in perspective. When I watched this movie as a teenager I remember celebrating their exuberant rebellion. In contrast my children were horrified as the plot unfolded and they quickly sensed the impending repercussions from the school and parents. As a parent myself, while I still celebrated the rebellion, I was acutely aware of the peril that accompanied it. This experience was heightened by the scene in the movie where Keating encourages his students to stand on his desk to get a different ‘perspective’ on things.

Again, I may plead the ‘I was on antihistamines’ defense on this but I got the brilliant idea to lead the girls into the dining room and let them stand on the dining room table. After they realized this was not a trick and that they should take advantage of this rare, albeit drug-induced chink in Mom’s armor they quickly scrambled up on to the table. After a period of silence which I mistakenly construed for deep, profound thought, I asked them to tell me what these brilliant thoughts were. The answers in respective order follow: ‘Man Mom, you REALLY need to dust the top of the hutch!’ ‘Do you realize you don’t have CFL bulbs in the chandelier? That is not very energy efficient.’ ‘Uh… I’m pretty sure I am afraid of heights now.’

Okay, okay… while the answers may not have been profound, they were indeed three very different perspectives from three very different human beings. Hold on people… I do have a point that pertains to business here… I promise. Slightly deflated by the lack of insight I was sure I was to gain from this experiment with my offspring, I began to think of how this pertained to advertising (okay I also thought of how it applied to relationships and the overall meaning of life but we’ll skip all that).

How do we mere, non-Robin Williams-mortals address a myriad of consumer perspective with one message? Did the message we so brilliantly crafted and carefully executed resonate with our desired audience? Did they make an apples-to-apples comparison to what we said or was it more like a fish-to-bicycle comparison? How do we know? There… I said it. Cats out of the bag. Horse is out of the barn. Elvis has left the building. The only way to know and the only way to continuously craft messaging we know is reaching our consumer is to track results.

While I am hoping there are those out there who are outraged that they just read this entire diatribe to get to the obvious, I am quite sure there are those out there who either: A.) Have been meaning to get around to tracking their media results OR B.) Had no idea you COULD effectively track your media results. A or B, it’s time to get moving. In an economic climate where every dollar counts, the investment you put in to your marketing efforts needs to be quantifiable.

The advertising agencies of today are not only embracing but encouraging their clientele to build trackable elements into every marketing effort. If they haven’t…. they aren’t the ones standing on the desk shouting ‘CAPTAIN MY CAPTAIN’ in your presence. If you’ve got questions about trackable marketing… we have answers.

Kristi Erban