Digital

Bill Abel, VP/Director of Digital Development

“Marketers are going to figure out how to deal with large amounts of customer data and business intelligence. Big Data, as it is being called, will bring new technologies and services for tackling data problems across all industries. For marketers, this will mean better tools for collection and analysis, resulting in more data–driven strategy.

“Another thing to watch out for in 2012 will be Apple’s entry in to the consumer television market. Not only will they disrupt the consumer electronics industry, but the advertising industry, cable networks and the cable distribution companies. If Apple pulls it off, it may be the start of a media revolution. Already, companies like Netflix and Amazon have proven large numbers of consumers are willing to pay for streaming video content without advertising.

“Paid content may be on the rise, but will people really prefer to pay premiums for no advertising all the time, or is there going to be a mix of ad subsidized content? The industry has been trying to figure this one out since the late ’90s – don’t expect it to be worked out in the next 365 days.”

Strategy

Jay Waters, SVP/ Chief Strategy Officer

“There are four key factors that will shape 2012. They include:

• Unified multi-screen (television, mobile, online, cinema) approach to buying video advertising
• This will be the worst year yet for traditional newspapers
• More integration of ad content into editorial content
• More focus on using digital to deliver sponsored content and functionality, rather than pure advertising”

Social Media

David Griner, Director of Digital Content

“Facebook will finally extend brand options to mobile. So far, the best options for marketers on Facebook have been engaging applications and targeted ad campaigns. Unfortunately, neither has been optimized for mobile, and even Facebook’s recently upgraded mobile app excludes ads and apps. While there probably aren’t many users out there clamoring for ads, there is a lot of demand for contests, sweepstakes and other tab apps to work easily from a smartphone. The price to pay for that access will likely be mobile-friendly ad units. The first will almost certainly be Sponsored Stories, which are light ad units currently found on the sidebar of Facebook.com. The network already has announced plans to roll out Sponsored Stories into users’ news feeds, and Bloomberg reports that they’ll also start appearing for mobile Facebook users as well. Hopefully, apps won’t be far behind.

“It’ll be a do-or-die moment for Google+. The search giant’s Facebook competitor saw rapid initial growth in 2011, and some are predicting it could even reach 400 million users by the end of 2012. But a lot can happen between now and December ’12, and Google+ seems just as capable of auguring into obscurity as exploding in popularity. By shutting down a myriad of underused applications in 2011, Google showed that it’s done throwing good money after bad, so the first few months of 2012 will be extremely important. Google’s task is to prove that it has something great to offer other than being a solid alternative for Facebook haters. Outside of the ability to sort friends into Circles and the slick Hangouts video-chatting system — both of which were included at launch — Google+ simply has been slow to roll out any killer apps that crumble the foundation out from under Facebook. Hopefully, Google is investing in this level of forward-thinking R&D and not simply streamlining what’s already live. If Google gets serious about social media innovative, the momentum and its motivational effect on Facebook could be great for all of us.

“Pinterest will grow up. Few new social sites have exploded with the velocity of this addictive image-sharing service, but Pinterest still has some growing pains to work through. It remains in invite-only beta, which I’d wager won’t last long into 2012, but for now that simply helps create some aura of exclusivity. But once it goes live, will it have a revenue source? How would advertising or sponsored content work? For now, the site seems little interested in partnering with brands. A site rep recently told us they have no system to let brands secure their trademarked name as a Pinterest username and that they didn’t have any plans to create a system. That may fly for now, but long term, it’s going to chafe on major brands like Pepsi and Taco Bell, both of which have squatters on their Pinterest names.”

Edward Bowser is Community Manager at Luckie & Company. You can contact him by e-mail or follow @etbowser on Twitter.

This past weekend I headed out to Ruffner Mountain for a late afternoon hike with my girlfriend. I had hoped to see some fall foliage, get some exercise and essentially unplug for a while. I succeeded in two of my three goals — the leaves had indeed started to change and we covered 3 miles at a fairly brisk pace. I failed miserably at “unplugging” for the following reasons:

• I used the map function of my iPhone to get there
• I downloaded a mobile friendly trail map
• I scanned a QR code at the trailhead for a species guide
• Halfway through the hike I asked Siri what time the sun sets (6:06 p.m., in case you were wondering)
• I also pulled up the Wikipedia page for the 1993 film Alive (this was related to a conversation about surviving in the wilderness and the lengths people will go to in order to survive)

My intentions were to “unplug,” but I’ll be honest, I’m not sure the hike would have been as enjoyable or efficient without my iPhone tucked into my pocket. Come to think of it, I’m not sure many of our daily tasks would be as enjoyable or efficient without the help of our digital device of choice.

A perfect example involves a recent project we completed for our client Bayer Advanced. They’re an amazing company that makes innovative products designed to give you the most beautiful yard on the block. They have products designed to fight off insects and pests, promote healthy lawns, strengthen shrubs and trees and even enhance your rose or flower garden.

You may have questions about which Bayer Advanced product or combination of products is right for your specific yard, and now when you shop at Lowe’s the answers to your questions are just a snapshot away on your smartphone. Utilizing Microsoft Tags placed right on the store shelves, customers can pull up a Bayer Advanced mobile optimized site designed by Luckie that offers a whole range or product information, frequently asked questions and even informative product videos.

As more and more consumers turn to the Internet for research before purchasing a product, why not extend the online experience into the retail experience? The right content, recommendation or savings accessible at a customer’s fingertips within a store might just be the nudge he or she needs to complete the purchase funnel. You might also find it’s a great way to capture customer data and drive brand advocacy.

Whether I’m hiking or shopping, chances are I’ll have my digital device within arm’s reach, and if you’re brand can make my retail experience more enjoyable or efficient through digital integration, you’re one step closer to closing the deal.

Henry Graham is Senior Account Executive at Luckie & Company. You can contact him by email or follow him on Twitter.

I don’t have a personal stake in Steve Jobs’ life. When I heard he had died, I was a bit in disbelief, but that was because Jobs had seemed larger than life. Thinking of his death is like thinking of Walt Disney’s death – you know it’s true, but the fact doesn’t seem to stick.

I’ve had enormous respect for Jobs since eighth grade when I was assigned a school project on an innovator. I picked Steve Jobs mainly because his last name was “Jobs” and at the time the faculty was pressuring our class to plan our careers – I thought it’d be cuttingly ironic. Once I did my pre-Wikipedia research on him, though, I was left with almost a sense of awe. The man has accomplished so much, both with Apple as well as Pixar, and done it all with a can-do attitude that seemed to brush off any hint of negativity. Unlike some other computer-age innovators, Jobs really connected to his audience with a sincerity that was astounding; regardless of his successes, he always seemed genuinely excited to share new ideas instead of being condescending or patronizing.

The Internet already has been inundated with articles memorializing Jobs and everything he has accomplished, most both better informed and better written than anything I could hope to crank out. However, since I do work for an advertising agency, I thought I’d cover his brand.

Steve Jobs has created a legacy that is so prevalent in today’s society that any joke involving his company never needs a backstory. There’s no one out of the loop – every demographic has been reached (“iPod” is even a part of our grandparents’ vernacular). His iConic i-series of products ushered in a new era of terminology that all points back to his creativity and iNnovation. One can even step away from the multitude of parodies and knock-offs of the iPod, iPad and iPhone and point to a slightly older campaign: “Mac vs PC” is still used among students in middle and high school who are trying to be clever, despite the fact that their attention spans don’t usually hold for the duration of an Internet meme, much less a campaign that was initiated five years ago.

While it saddens me to see Steve Jobs’ Wikipedia page edited to past tense, and I myself am having issues saying he “had” instead of “has,” Jobs has not left our world or our culture. There is an iNdelible mark on the subconscious of the masses.

iGrieve but iRemember.

Sadie Mason-Smith is a Receptionist at Luckie & Company. You can contact her by email or follow her on Twitter.

Photo credit: COG LOG LAB via Flickr

Luckie Digital Designer Chris Nager, right, with CSS guru Eric Meyer

Thanks to Luckie & Company, I experienced one of the greatest opportunities of my lifetime. In June, I represented my agency at a Web design conference in Atlanta, An Event Apart. It featured speakers that lead the Web industry like An Event Apart co-founders Jeffrey Zeldman and Eric Meyer. I’d like to share with you some of the most important things I took away from the conference.

Design responsively

Ethan Marcotte, the brilliant mind behind responsive design, asks, How do you experience the Web? Do you spend most your time in your browser on your laptop and desktop computer or on your smartphone? And what phone do you own? Is it an iPhone, Android or BlackBerry? Do you use a tablet like an iPad to browse the Internet? We are at a turning point in Web design history – it’s time to start thinking about content delivery. Your user wants to view your site’s content. It is not your say in how your users choose to view it (be it on a mobile device, Kindle reader, laptop, etc.), it is your job to serve it to them. Here is an example of a responsive design that I created. Open it up and resize your browser window, then open the site on your mobile device. You will see how the design adapts or responds to your choice of device.

Mobile first (inspired by Luke Wroblewski)

In regards to responsive design and content delivery, we, as designers, must shift our priorities to designing for the mobile device first and foremost. The reason behind this “mobile first” philosophy is to force us to decide what content is most important to feature on such a small screen. In mobile and small screen design, it is extremely important that the user can find exactly what they are looking for as quickly as possible. All cruft must be removed so the important content stands out. The “mobile first” philosophy is vital to larger screen designs because it makes us ask whether the content we feature is important enough to be in the larger screen designs. There is no reason to punish our users for using a large screen to view our site by filling our designs with useless information decoration.

Designing in the browser

With the current and future capabilities of Cascading Stylesheets, as designers, we are able to bring the designing process from Photoshop straight in the browser. Photoshop will still remain as a fundamental tool in Web design, but currently has a major limitation. The first step in building a Photoshop document requires setting a document width and height. In today’s Web design, we must account for flexible designs that can be experienced on mobile devices, desktop browsers, and everything between.

Progressive enhancement with HTML5/CSS3

Gone are the days of table-based designs and <div> soup to create beautiful designs. The latest version of CSS allows designers to embrace wonderful design techniques in the browser without slicing images to achieve gradients, shadows, rounded corners and a whole slew of other design flare without adding bloat to our sites’ file sizes. Small file sizes are extremely important when designing for mobile devices that rely on cell networks for Internet connection. Web designers must progressively enhance their sites so that all their users get a great experience and are able to view the content, but users with the latest and greatest browsers will receive an even better experience. The browsers will degrade gracefully down the line. Viewers that use browsers that are years old will get a gracefully degraded, simpler experience.

Web typography has arrived

Jason Santa Maria, creative director for Typekit, spoke about using beautiful type on the Web. He said any typographer will tell you good typography is invisible, which is best illustrated by his analogy of air conditioning. Let’s say you are in a business meeting. People may politely interrupt to ask if the A/C could be turned up or down, but no one will stop a meeting to exclaim the A/C is set perfectly. The perfectly set A/C is invisible, likewise good typography is unnoticed. High contrast is also extremely important when dealing with type on the Web. Readability is everything when delivering content to your user and contrast in your type helps. Our digital team has brought beautiful typography to the web with services like Typekit, Google Web fonts, and Fonts.com. Using real text instead of sliced images improves Search Engine Optimization and future-proofs our apps and sites by making them easy to update the type.

UI styleguides

Aaron Walter, the user experience design lead for MailChimp, spoke about the importance of workflow in the digital realm. He suggested building out User Interface styleguides in HTML/CSS before beginning any Web project. I have used this technique in a few of our latest projects at Luckie and it serves as a great start to a project. For an example of what I am describing, check out Bootstrap, from Twitter that was launched a few weeks ago. It is a great starting point styleguide for building Web apps.

There is one Web (inspired by Jeremy Keith)

As Web designers and developers, we must look to future-proof our sites and apps. There is not a “mobile Web” and a separate “desktop Web.” There is one Web connecting people to content all over the world in many different ways, ways in which we have yet to think. Web design should be device-agnostic. The tools are catching up to the rapidly changing industry. It is important that agencies stay relevant in this ever-evolving Web.

It’s vital that we educate our clients about what they should expect. Pixel perfect design between browsers and the multitude of new devices should be no longer relevant in today’s website and app designs.

I love what I do and An Event Apart has fueled my passion for designing for the Web.

TL;DR (Too long; didn’t read): The Web is evolving and we, as designers, must adapt to delivering content to all sorts of new devices that hit the market. The mobile Web does not exist, there is one Web. The best Web design is device-agnostic.

Chris Nager is a Digital Designer at Luckie & Company. You can contact him by email or follow @chrisnager on Twitter.

Photo credit: Pete Karl II
Source: lukew.com

This has been a confusing and unpredictable year for Google’s users and observers, who can’t tell if the search giant is focused on shedding weight or expanding its reach.

On one hand, Google made the wise decision to drop more than a dozen underused products (Aardvark, Sidewiki, etc.) in 2011 while also launching the mega-successful social network Google+.

But looking at the tech company’s other launches, including this week’s liftoff for Google Flights, a disturbing trend becomes apparent: Google seems perfectly comfortable to be a copycat, not an innovator.

Just look back at some of the more recent Google projects:

• Google Offers: A knockoff of Groupon, which was already being copied by upward of 500 competitors.
• +1 Button: Google’s stab at a “Tweet” or “Like” button. Didn’t really make sense until Google+ came along a month later — and even then wasn’t integrated for another two months.
• Music Beta by Google: Great potential, but still showed up late to the party, launching two months after Amazon CloudDrive

And now we have Google Flights, which lets you find and book air travel. Who’s heard of such a thing? Oh wait, everyone. Back in 2007.

Don’t get me wrong. This product was destined to become reality, seeing as how Google recently completed its purchase of ITA Software, which powers the flight search tools for most major airlines.

But the real issue is that Google simply isn’t bringing much to the table. The execs saw Orbitz, Expedia, Travelocity and Kayak making money, and they wanted to swipe some of that money. Hey, that’s life in a capitalist society. But a company like Google has to do a lot more than just show up.

Google Flights is a speedy but altogether mediocre tool, one that drives you to airline sites for purchase. This is a model pioneered by Kayak, which also lets you scan other third-party sites like Travelocity and Priceline.

In a head-to-head comparison, The New York Times found Kayak to be a better option, though the writer gave Google credit for speed and simplicity.

But this is the very thing that’s wrong with Google Flights: It’s OK. It’s fine. It has potential.

That’s great if you’re talking about some startup graduating out of Ycombinator. But this is Google. When Google decides to go into a five-year-old industry already filled with strong competitors, why should we expect anything less than a generational leap forward? Instead, we get what we’ve recently come to expect from Google: a faster, whitewashed version of someone else’s idea.

Google Flights isn’t bad. But the message it sends sure is.

David Griner is the Director of Digital Content for Luckie and Company and contributing editor for Adweek’s blog, AdFreak.com. You can reach him by e-mail or follow @griner on Twitter.

Photo credit: Toprankonlinemarketing via Flickr