The Direct Marketing Voice » Graphic Design

Tag Archives: Graphic Design

My Business Card is Better Than Yours… But, Why Do I Have One?

Posté par Cynthia Fedor le April 13, 2009 – 1:18 pm

dans Marketing Strategy, Production & Printing, Small Business Marketing

Unless you and your buddies are going to sit around a table, American Psycho style, and compare the subtle qualities that differentiate your business cards from everyone else’s, ask yourself why you have or need a business card.

I’m saying this, because, after watching a video of an extremely obnoxious guy explain why all business cards are crap (with the exception of his of course), I started to research business card best practices, design tips, examples of memorable business cards, and so on. My plan was to come up with several solid, universal guidelines that people could follow when preparing to design their own. However, after scanning a plethora of websites saturated with do’s and don’ts, design tips and lists of things to include on them, I started to wonder if people get so wrapped up in the design and creative appeal of business cards that they forget the actual purpose of having them.

Your business card should serve a purpose – the end goal you want to accomplish. Ultimately, the design and what you choose to include on your business card will vary based on that purpose. Is your business card meant to simply exchange contact information, exhibit your design talent, create tone for your business, be something that will be collected and remembered, attach a name to a face, etc?

Once you determine the purpose of your business card, all the other elements will fall into place. Then, the only thing left to do is to find a quality printer that will turn your concept into reality.

What is the purpose of your business card? Does everybody need them?

Tropicana’s Rebranding Attempt Gone Wrong

Posté par Cynthia Fedor le April 6, 2009 – 3:14 pm

dans Marketing Strategy

I must confess something I’m not proud of thinking. When I heard that PepsiCo’s sales of the Tropicana Pure Premium line had taken a 20% dive after their failed package redesign attempt, a mischievous smirk found its way across my face. Especially within the last few years, I’ve been watching long-established brands take a misguided route to ‘refreshing’ their image. And as we can see in the case of Tropicana, poor planning on a brand redesign project can not only hurt a brand, but it can give their competitors a boost in market share.

For those of you not following the story, Tropicana teamed up with Omnicom’s Arnell Group to update the Tropicana Pure Premium refrigerated orange juice carton. Everything about the carton design changed, including the disappearance of the iconic ‘straw through the orange’ logo. The reconstructed design featured a close-up shot of a glass containing an orange liquid, presumably juice. Big mistake!

In a press conference defending the change, Peter Arnell, CEO of Omnicom’s Arnell Group, hinted at a motivation for doing away with the logo:

…historically, we always show the outside of the orange. What was fascinating, of course, is that we never show the product called the juice.

To me, this is not fascinating at all. Why? Because the focus shouldn’t really be on the product anyway; it should be on how the consumer benefits from using that product. There are many juices on the market. Some are 100% fruit while others are made of water and corn syrup. How does an image of an orange-colored liquid differentiate Tropicana’s juice from all the other juices available in the market?

The point of the ‘straw through the orange’ logo was to express that Tropicana’s orange juice is pure, natural, fresh, healthy, etc. In essence, the logo says — ‘this is the shortest path to pure nature.’ By simply looking at the logo, consumers knew exactly what they were getting. This is not the case with the new logo.

In the end, the consumers reacted by buying less Tropicana and switching to different brands of juice. Sales suffered, and, a bit of the brand image suffered as well.

Rather than hand over control of their marketing message to Omnicom’s Arnell Group , Tropicana should have kept in mind the following:

Refreshing a brand does not always mean a total overhaul is necessary.
Consumer focus groups can help steer the direction of a redesign and predict the success of a rebranding campaign.
Don’t forget to leverage existing brand equity.
Don’t forget the core concept/purpose of your brand.

Where do you think Tropicana’s rebranding/redesign effort went wrong?

The Direct Marketing Voice Links 3-19-2009

Posté par admin le March 19, 2009 – 12:20 pm

dans News & Trends

David Meerman Scott on working with Agencies

via The Direct Marketing Voice – The QuantumDigital marketing team is sharing a book by David Meerman Scott called The New Rules of Marketing and PR, and generally find it to be a good read. As part of a new book tour, David promotes his newest book, World Wide Rave, by filming this short spoof of his experience interacting with agencies who “just don’t get it”.

Are Email Appends An Achilles Heel For Deliverability And Strategy?

via MediaPost – While opt-out email append is not without risk, if managed correctly it can be an excellent way for marketers to grow their email lists. In these tough economic times, companies are looking for ways to accelerate the use of the email channel, essentially reallocating marketing budget from less “accountable” channels to email.

Direct Mail Nugget: Resizing Artwork To Cut Printing Costs

via The Ballantine Blog – We recently quoted a postcard project for a new client. Like we do on every project, we made sure the piece was running on the press at the most efficient size. In doing so, we realized that if they shaved just 1/8″ off the height, it would save them $1,200.

Tactics and strategies: Model behavior for greater list efficiency

via DMNews – Marketing budgets may ebb and flow, but one area of investment is always essential: lists and data. Database marketing is a key part of any successful campaign, whether through direct mail, e-mail or an integrated effort. The following expert articles focus on issues such as list efficiency, database quality and processing costs.

Do Not Obey: The Confusing Construct of Fair Use

Posté par Cynthia Fedor le February 23, 2009 – 3:52 pm

dans Leadership & Innovation

What makes it okay for artists like Andy Warhol, Marcel Duchamp and Sherrie Levine to appropriate images from pop culture to produce art under the protection of fair use while Shepard Fairey cannot? What makes it okay for the media to do the same? (Side note: When Sherrie Levine appropriated Walker Evans’ photographs, she didn’t even change them. She simply re-photographed them and presented them as her own.)

Compare: Mannie Garcias photograph of Obama vs. Shepard Faireys Hope poster.

Manny Garcia/Associated Press

The recent ongoing controversy of Shepard Fairey’s Obama “Hope” poster is raising many concerns over what constitutes fair use and how the doctrine should be interpreted. For those of you not following (wake up and smell today’s culture), there is a heated debate in progress over the source image used to create the now famous poster that became the unofficial face of Obama’s 2008 electoral campaign. The Associated Press is suing the street artist over copyright infringement, claiming that the image of Obama on Fairey’s poster is based on a photograph taken by AP-contracted photographer Manny Garcia. Fairey acknowledges the source but argues that he only referenced the photograph and transformed it enough to where it now has a totally different message and meaning.

Arguably, the portion of the copyright law that describes fair use doesn’t really concretely define it – it is subject to interpretation. Marketers, advertisers, lawyers and artists have their own, and differing, opinions on this specific case. Milton Glaser, the artist recognized for his creation of the iconic “I (heart) NY” logo, states in a recent PRINT Magazine article:

The process of looking back at the past is very accepted in our business-the difference is when you take something without adding anything to the conversation. We celebrate influence in the arts, we think it’s important and essential. But imitation we have some ambivalence about, especially because it involves property rights. It probably has something to do with the nature of capitalism.

He continues, sharing his opinion as it relates to the Obama “Hope” poster debate:

For myself – this is subjective – I find the relationship between Fairey’s work and his sources discomforting. Nothing substantial has been added.

Personally, I think he’s wrong. Shepard Fairey turned an ordinary and uninspiring news photograph of Obama into an image that ignites emotions within the hearts of its viewers – for some, a symbol of hope and change.

Of course, we will all probably have different opinions and reactions to the photograph, poster and to the debate itself. The questions regarding fair use that are surfacing now have been debated in the past and will continue to arise in the future. There is no, nor will there ever be, a definite answer.

Am I wrong? Do you have an answer?

Using Color in Your Direct Mail Campaigns

Posté par Jamie Matusek le February 19, 2009 – 1:24 pm

dans Direct Mail Marketing

Do you ever have that feeling of “forgetting something?” Well when it comes to preparing for a direct mail campaign there are core items you don’t want to forget. First of all, make sure you have a clear understanding of who you are targeting. This key element will determine your imagery, copy and offer. Use of bold headlines, short compelling copy, strong imagery that connects with the audience and a clear call to action are all core elements in creating a direct mail piece. But, what about the use of color? Should you use color on both sides of your piece?

In the February 16 DMNews Technique Column titled, Color Your Campaigns to Boost Results, experts weigh in on whether using color in direct mail campaigns boosts results. Our very own CMO, Eric Cosway is featured.

The key takeaways listed are:

Color usage driven by the value in the consumer data that you have collected really works. Give it a test.
Using Web-to-print tools can help manage campaigns and remove valuable hours or days from the cycle time.
Color can effectively increase brand recognition and call out important information.
Use color for branding elements. According to a recent study by the Color Marketing Group, a firm researching how color affects marketing, color can increase brand recognition by up to 80%.
Color can make your marketing efforts stand out from the crowd.

Take a look at the article before you design your next piece and let us know how using color in your direct mail campaigns has worked for you.