ZDO Bloghttp://zeedio.com/blog/Copyright ZDO BlogsNewsWe'd love for you to join us on Facebook. To see random musings about our industry. Our lives. Samples of our work. Find out what books we're reading and movies that made us cry. Things that caught our eye and that we just had to share. Some enlightening. Some entertaining. Some just plain odd. We think you might enjoy it. Come check us out and become a fan!Mon, 02 Aug 2010 11:53:21 +0000http://zeedio.com/blog/home/follow-us-on-facebook/http://zeedio.com/blog/home/follow-us-on-facebook/With the 2012 Olympics just around the corner and Women's Match Racing making its Olympic debut in London, supporters of the discipline have much to do. Make no mistake, just waiting to see if the event airs primetime on US networks and then watching the event will accomplish nothing, and may, in fact, damage the chance of the event recurring at another Olympics. Simply, we need to be proactive in order to keep Women's Olympic Match Racing from being a one-off event. What is absolutely essential is the building of a spectator base for the discipline. There needs to be a HUGE fan base, and those who matter at the networks and ISAF and the IOC need to SEE that huge fan base so that the popularity of the sport is unmistakable! Where sailing organizations and yacht clubs have erred in their marketing efforts is that they seem to think that other sailors are the only important target audience. I wonder how successful Happy Meals would be if McDonald's would've only targeted parents in their ad campaigns (since the parents are the ones paying for Happy Meals). We have to appeal to a broader demographic, teach the world about match racing, about the simplicity of its course and laps, the complexity of its maneuvering, about its oftentimes close-to-shore proximity and subsequent spectator-friendliness. Once we've taught them, we can begin to get them excited. Get them hooked. To get them asking for Happy Meals. There's an indirect effect of building this spectator base that is also essential to the sport, and that is the appeal of a large spectator base to potential sponsors. Big money sponsors want to get in front of as large a slice of the population as they can with their brand's identity. And so a large fan base is far more appealing. And ultimately attracts more participants AND viewers to the sport! Who's responsible for building this spectator base? All of us. Any one of us who is passionate about the discipline needs to talk about it, write about it, blog about it. Yacht clubs, sailing centers and organizations need to market events by advertising them as broadly as possible, inviting the public at regional and local levels. After all, the idea is not just to market women's match racing or sail racing, but to build interest in the sport of sailing. The payoff will be worth it. It's from the new spectator base that we'll discover, train and watch new Olympians going for the gold in sailboats. Bryon D. Zimmerman, CEO and Sailing EnthusiastThu, 15 Apr 2010 09:45:52 +0000http://zeedio.com/blog/home/building-a-spectator-base-for-womens-olympic-match-racing/http://zeedio.com/blog/home/building-a-spectator-base-for-womens-olympic-match-racing/You may work for one of the seemingly hundreds of thousands of companies that cut back on their marketing and advertising investments in this less-than-convincing economy. And you may be able to cite a half-dozen good reasons why your company cut back. But the truth of the matter is, there really are no good reasons to let a tough economic situation dictate an interruption in your marketing plan for the year. What is more likely the case, is that you didn’t have a marketing plan for the year, and so it’s no big deal to cut back expenses there when budgets need to be tightened up. What you might soon learn, though, is that your competition has a plan and they have kept faithful to the plan while you were cutting back and even putting yours on hiatus for a few months. We’ve seen dozens of companies jumping back on the proverbial bandwagon in an effort to try to get their marketing initiatives fired back up, and they’re realizing that there’s lost ground to recapture. A lot of lost ground. And there’s lost momentum to regain. You may have been top-of-mind to your target audience before the economic downturn, but because you cut back so much, you opened the door for your competitors to get a shoe-in. Plus, because of your cut back in marketing, your target audience may have lost sight of you and now sees you as just a little bit weaker than before. All in all, there’s much to do to get back on top of your marketing game. There may even be an image to re-craft and get back out in front of your target audience. With the tough year most business has experienced, it’s more important than ever for you and your company to instill confidence in your distribution channels. In your sales force. In your clients. And the most effective way to do so, is to promote the message that you’ve emerged from this lean economic time stronger than ever. Bryon D. Zimmerman, CEOMon, 12 Apr 2010 14:55:42 +0000http://zeedio.com/blog/home/the-return-of-marketing/http://zeedio.com/blog/home/the-return-of-marketing/I recently received a paper company's promotional booklet that contained some staggering facts on environmental impact vs. effectiveness of many of todays green advertsing/marketing trends. Below are just a few those staggering facts. I'm a bit of a pessimist when an industry which has taken much criticism publishes facts of this sort, but each statistic was footnoted with it's source, and they were reliable independent sources! 78% of retail shoppers use coupons from their printed local paper. 52% of consumers were prompted to visit a company's web site by printed advertising. Direct Mail is still the number one most successful advertising medium, but internet-based advertising is expected to reach number two by 2012. 81% of people surveyed said they preferred a printed Annual Report over an on-line version. 25,000 homes could be powered by the energy used by the typical data center. 60% of retailers reported that catalogs are their primary sales channel. 2.24% is the direct response rate from printed catalogs vs. .48% for email solicited selling. 70% of toxic waste in U.S. landfills comes from e-waste. Burning a CD produces 4 times as much CO2 as printing a single annual report. Interesting "Lifecycle" statistics. Here's how long on average today's and yesterday's communications will last. e-mail - 5 seconds shopping list - 2 hours periodicals - 6 months avg. cell phone - 18 months computer - 5 years web site - 5 years avg. book in NYC Library - 23 years a love letter - 64 years Lee Mauer Creative Director @ ZDOFri, 12 Mar 2010 08:07:26 +0000http://zeedio.com/blog/home/does-green-advertising-really-bring-in-the-green/http://zeedio.com/blog/home/does-green-advertising-really-bring-in-the-green/If it were a single source that we could all turn to on a daily basis, I'd have a lot more time to kill in my work day. Unfortunately, it's different for everyone and every project that needs that spark. I've been in this career for 21 years now and have found a few activities, publications and resources that I turn to on a regular basis for a creative kick-start. I've always loved movies…all kinds…horror, comedy, sci-fi, foreign…you name it, I've probably seen it. Movies are a great insight into the emotional condition of the human race. Our profession does require us to connect your brand to it's target audience on an emotional level, so this is a great resource. There's also many cultural aspects and current trends covered in movies. And you all thought I was just procrastinating! The first Creative Director I worked under used to take off in the middle of the afternoon to go see a flick — not something I would do, but it taught me that inspiration can be found there. Music is my life! I listen to music on a daily basis, and I don't mean my ten minute commute to work. I actually sit down and (on a fairly descent audio system) listen to music at home. I've played guitar for some 20 odd years now, so listening, studying and going to see live shows of popular (and not so popular) bands is as natural to me as reading a book or watching my favorite show. Music videos can also be very inspirational. Did you know many directors of music videos go on to direct TV commercials and/or full-length feature films. There's one industry publication that has stood out among the rest for decades — Communication Arts, a high-quality, well juried pub that covers all areas of commercial communications from photography to interactive design. It has some of the best researched articles on trends and the state-of-the-industry that I've come across in my career. If you're a marketing professional, I'd highly recommend getting a subscription, it's not just pretty pictures and designers patting themselves on the back. My own personal method of sparking creative direction when hitting the proverbial brick wall is word association. I didn't come up with this tactic on my own, it was taught to me by my high school English teacher and several professors in college. Start by making a list of the features or attributes of the product or service you need to sell, then spur off of each of those words into different directions. Nine times out of ten, you'll hit a word or phrase that just clicks. Cross reference your word associations with a book of idioms (popular phrases), I swear this is where most headlines for advertising find their origin. Pay attention to what others are creating. Do you ever wonder when watching a commercial on TV how they came up with that idea? I do it almost to the point of an obsession. It's really interesting to pick apart a scenario that could have led the art director or writer to that particular concept. I'm floored occasionally by how abstract the thought process must have become. To me Super Bowl Sunday is almost as exciting as Christmas Day just because of the commercials! Flip through every magazine you can get your hands on. I try to get through three or four while waiting my turn for a haircut or at the dentist. The next time you're reviewing some concepts, take a moment to think about the effort that went into developing them. Not that I expect you to sit in awe of the process, just to see if you can trace the inspiration behind the ideas. And don't forget, when you're shown two or three ideas from an agency or design firm, they probably came up with a least six or seven before picking the strongest ones to show you. How many other professions can say that 60% or more of their work will never see the light of day? Still, we do it every day, and we do it passionately. Lee Mauer, Creative Director @ ZDOThu, 04 Mar 2010 18:56:33 +0000http://zeedio.com/blog/home/where-exactly-do-people-in-the-creative-fields-get-their-inspiration/http://zeedio.com/blog/home/where-exactly-do-people-in-the-creative-fields-get-their-inspiration/