L&S Unscripted

From travel and tourism to higher education, telecommunications to healthcare, 12 different Lawrence  & Schiller clients took home honors Saturday night, at the 44th Annual South Dakota Advertising Federation’s Addy Awards. The diverse collection of winners represent a 25% higher number of clients than any other marketing agency in the awards show.

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March 1 – a landmark day for a lot of reasons.  The Hoover Dam was completed on March 1. Ohio was admitted as our 17th U.S. state. And it’s the 60th day of our calendar year, a sign (at least with today’s sunshine) that spring isn’t as far away as it seems.

But at L&S, March 1 will be remembered for a different kind of reason. It’s the official campaign launch of “My Town, My Taco John’s,” the first joint advertising effort between Lawrence & Schiller and Taco John’s International.

Just a few short months ago, our entire office was hanging on to hope that we’d one day get the chance to work with Taco John’s. Today, we’re rolling out a new series of television commercials, point-of-purchase advertising and radio, complete with a new original jingle celebrating the bond between Taco John’s and our hometown communities.

To view the first of many new spots in the “My Town, My Taco John’s” family, click on the links below. And celebrate with us as we say, “olé!” this March 1.

Breakfast Burrito_15

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A very intersesting survey about how people’s habits have changed while the Olympics are on.  Are you changing your household routines to tune in? I’ll use any excuse not to do the laundry…too bad the Olympics are only on for two weeks, every two years. And men are admitting to tearing up!?

Updated Winter Olympic Results:
Based on the first 13 nights of the Vancouver Olympic Winter Games (through Wednesday, Feb. 24), NBC is estimating a total tune-in to-date of 177 million viewers on the networks of NBC Universal. Average viewership is 24.9 million — 20 percent above the 20.7 million for the comparable period in Turino in 2006.

According to NBC Sports:

-46 percent of Olympic viewers changed their typical routine to watch the Olympics.
-34 percent delayed doing laundry or other household chores — including paying bills — in order to watch the Olympics.
-59 percent said they didn’t watch some of their “regular shows” in order to watch the Olympics.
-35 percent of viewers cried or became teary-eyed while watching (25 percent among men).
-66 percent of viewers cheered aloud while watching the Olympics.
-63 percent stayed up longer than usual to watch, resulting in 42 percent being “more tired than normal.”
-42 percent of viewers said the Olympic sport they would most like to try is bobsled.

BTW…I’d love to try the Alpine Downhill Skiing. What Olympic sport would you like most to try?

If you are a small restaurant, hotelier or attraction in the tourism industry, it may be overwhelming to jump into the social media game. I recently presented a step-by-step roadmap on how to get your social media program off the ground at the South Dakota Governor’s Conference on Tourism, and wanted to share those tips here.

So what is social media and how does it relate to travel planning? Well, it’s many of the things you already do to promote your business or attraction: you talk, you relate, you share, you collaborate, you advise and you comment. Social media is simply word of mouth, gone digital. People already believe what others are saying about your business. Your job is to get people talking and build a network of brand evangelists in the online space.  Here’s how:

Social Media Travel Tip #1: In a digital sense, tell people who you are and where to find you. Maps are at the core of many online applications; therefore, sharing your basic contact information is critical.

• Customers are searching for you on Google – make sure they can find you. Visit www.Google.com/LocalBusinessCenter to add or check accuracy of your local business listing (this gets you on Google Maps as well). Be sure that your listing includes your physical address, phone number and hours of operation. Take your listing one step further by adding photos, videos or coupons. All of this is FREE.
• TripAdvisor is the most-visited digital travel advisor. Make sure you exist by searching at http://www.tripadvisor.com/UserReview. If not, add yourself by clicking on the “Tell us more about it” link. Then, encourage your customers to add reviews of your business/service.

Social Media Travel Tip #2: Monitoring should be the cornerstone of your social media plan. Track your brand and know who’s talking about you online through blogs, reviews, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

• Visit www.Google.com/Alerts and you’ll find an easy web form to create your Google Alerts. Tell Google what terms you’d like to monitor (your business name, for sure), how often you’d like to receive the alert listing and what e-mail address to deliver the information to. Again, FREE.
• www.Addictomatic.com is an awesome tool to aggregate all social media activity about your company or industry. Type in your business to see what you find!
• There are many other free social media monitoring tools available, including www.Technorati.com/search, www.Search.Twitter.com, www.Tweetdeck.com, www.Facebook.com live feeds and more.

Social Media Travel Tip #3: Get people talking. Encourage your customers to post reviews on TripAdvisor or other social media review sites.

• A great success story of how The Hotel Giraffe, The Library Hotel, The Casablanca Hotel, and The Hotel Elysee gained the highly sought-after top five ranks among all New York City hotels on TripAdvisor: http://www.ftnnews.com/content/view/8345/26/

Social Media Travel Tip #4: Join Facebook. It’s a must – There are more than 350 million active users and today, Facebook hit a new milestone of 100 million mobile users. 50% of these active users log on to Facebook every day. Some things to keep in mind:

• Create your personal account. Facebook accounts are for people, not businesses, so the first thing you need to do is set up your personal account. Next, set up a fan page for your business. Under the facebook logo in the upper left corner, click on “Ads and Pages”, then click “Create Page”.
• Invite your Facebook friends to become fans and encourage them to invite their friends. This is how something “goes viral”.
• Name your fan page something that people would search for. Do not abbreviate. For example, if you are the Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Bureau, you would not want to name your page LV CVB, rather something people would actually enter into the search field – Las Vegas, Nevada. This will make it easy for people to find you.
• On your fan page, develop engaging content including posts, photos and videos.
• Be active and responsive, but not annoying. Offer special values to your fans. Remember that you are representing your business, but have fun!

Social Media Travel Tip #5: Focus on mobile. People will continue to use their mobile phones for travel planning, including flights, lodging, dining and activities; therefore, think about the mobile applications for your industry segment:

• Hotels – Lodging.mobi, Travelta.mobi – these applications are changing every day, search for lodging options in your town from a mobile device and if you don’t show up, work with these providers on your options.
• Dining – Urbanspoon or Yelp are two leading mobile restaurant finders. Also, consider restaurant reservation sites like OpenTable.
• People will search for travel options from the medium that’s most convenient for them, so if they’re searching from their mobile device and you’re not there it’s a missed opportunity.

The key to success: Don’t be pushy. Engage and interact, but don’t sell to your network and don’t market to your network. Just build relationships with your customers and the rest will take care of itself. Let people get to know your employees, share behind-the-scenes secrets, share fun pictures in an effort to let people be a part of your world.

As a precursor to formally announcing his candidacy for Mayor of Sioux Falls on February 1^st, Pat Costello, with the help of Lawrence & Schiller, launched his new website on January 15, 2010. Encompassing Costello’s overall position, (the future is now) the website takes a comprehensive look at Costello’s family life, professional and political experience and vision for Sioux Falls, focusing on five platforms: A Safe Sioux Falls; City Finances; City Relationships; Commerce and Entertainment; and Communication. The site also includes a photo gallery, voter information, and a contribution page. With email signup, a constant social media feed and the ability to submit questions or concerns to Costello himself, the site is interactive and user-friendly.

 Check out the site at www.costelloformayor.com

 The 2010 municipal election for Sioux Falls Mayor will be held Tuesday, April 13, 2010

We’re excited to announce the addition of a new market leader to our client list – Taco John’s International.

Lawrence & Schiller started our Taco John’s journey in the spring of 2007. Our team grew up in Taco John’s country, recalling countless hometown Taco John’s stories, which led us to identify the company as a client we wanted to work with. Our account service team began building relationships with Taco John’s that led to the opportunity to respond to their agency of record RFP in October, pitch the business in November and win (!) the business in December.

The RFP called for a creative shoot-out, so in true 5280 style, we developed strategic creative based on a deep understanding of the Taco John’s brand. We visited over 100 stores, interviewed franchisees, talked to customers and studied any other research we could get our hands on. As a result, we presented three diverse concepts, and like true parents were very proud of the entire trio of brainchildren. 

The creative selected will hit the airways in March, celebrating the hometown tradition that is Taco John’s. A few members of our Taco John’s team attended the Advertising Production Committee Meeting last week, where we officially kicked off our collaborative relationship.

Welcome, Taco John’s! We couldn’t be more excited to dedicate our time and creative energy to another brand that is such a big part of our lives.

To read more about this new relationship, click here.

Back to the basics of Christmas is the approach used in the latest Lewis campaign. No hot toys or gadgets were featured this year, marking a somewhat different Christmas campaign than in years past.

A sound mix to “Oh Christmas Tree” and highlighting a breadth of products from all departments within Lewis lends a fresh, fun feel to this spot. Products from TVs and cameras to baby dolls, champagne and Doritos – it is made apparent that Lewis is your first stop for everything holiday. Whether it be for shipping and packaging, decorating your house for the holidays, gift buying or party planning, Lewis has it all.

As Thanksgiving approaches, we’ll be enjoying food and conversations.  I thought I’d leave you with a little brain food to digest over the weekend.  It’s more food for thought from the iab MIXX conference.  This post visits the growth of digital video advertising (and what the content is), trust levels of consumers (by medium), types of video ads and the metrics to measure the results.

Factors that indicate the future boom of online video ad spending.

• Broadband now reaches ‘critical mass’ 
• People used to click on ads all the time – why? Because they were new.
• Network TV Viewers/Video Streamers likely to forward ads: 
• 2006 – 26%
• 2009 – 17%   

One interesting tidbit – as of now, nearly all video time is TV time. (This surprised me, due to the popularity of YouTube)

• As % of total US video viewing time (as of 2nd quarter 09) 98.5% TV viewing, 1% Internet Videos (i.e. YouTube)

In 2013 it is projected that 16% of online video time will be internet videos. 

Video ads have low trust levels, as of now.  Advertising Trust Levels by Medium, of North Americans. By eMarketer.  Now that’s not to say that this shouldn’t be a part of your mix – it’s just a newer medium, but if your content and brand can show that they are credible and trustworthy, and you place ad content on sites that are also credible, you should have success. 

• Opt-In Emails 67%
• Newspaper Ads 66%
• Brand Spons. 62%
• Magazine Ads 62%
• TV 61%
• Radio 61%
• Cinema 53%
• Outdoor 53%
• Paid Search 37%
• Online Video 33%
• Online Banners 24%
• Mobile Text 18%

Four Types of Video Ads (different options for different creatives).  Your team at L&S will help you to determine which works best for you.

• Pre-Roll, Mid-Roll, Post-Roll
• Overlays (at the bottom, not interrupting the video)
• Skins
• In Page Banners

Metrics (don’t gauge all success by Click Through Rate)

• Delivery (did it get delivered?)
• Impressions, or Streams
• Audience Composition (who?)
• Consumption
• Interaction
• Action
• Purchase
• Brand Metrics (awareness, intent)

Video Performance Factors (Why it worked, or why it didn’t)

•  Creative
• Delivery
• Experience
• Not all videos are created equal; most are commercials moved to the web. It is much better if it is created for the web. 

In September I had the opportunity to attend the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s annual MIXX conference.  I had the chance to attend idea-stimulating workshops, listen to speakers from a variety of companies, and learn about new trends in the digital industry.  In the next few weeks, I’ll be posting excerts from my notes.

The Consumer Revolution

Yahoo! did a survey and found that 77% of those surveyed wanted to find an ad again, but they couldn’t find it.  The people surveyed wanted to save it, store it, share it.  There is a large expectation gap of what online provides and what users want it to do.  Stay focused on the consumer.

• The web – massive in scale, but individual areas for all the niches, like interest groups the web brings those communities together.
• The web – not daunting but it needs simplification. 
• It is about LIFE, not online, or offline, all the time. 

It’s a mesh of:

My World               The World            

Friends                  Knowledge

Family                    Information

Values                   News

Interests                 Entertainment

Locale                    Editorial

Combine the two to give more of what they want and less of what they don’t.  Figure out what matters most.

Lawrence & Schiller had the great opportunity recently to be involved in announcing the merger of Sanford Health & MeritCare. In collaboration with the creative teams at Sanford & MeritCare, we produced the Stronger Together campaign including television, outdoor & online ads, launched Monday, November 2. This powerful new partnership will provide better patient care with over 800 physicians and expanded services, as well as advancements in medical research and education. Congratulations to Sanford Health & MeritCare on this monumental occasion!

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The best practices for designing, developing and deploying next-generation web, mobile and enterprise solutions were on display recently at Adobe Max in Los Angeles, CA. Among those attending was Eric Cross, Senior Interactive Developer at Lawrence & Schiller.

What were the biggest surprises? The biggest takeaways? And how can a conference like Max help L&S clients? Eric shares his thoughts in this episode of The Extra Minute.

Given the rainy temperament of Mother Nature lately, it’s only fitting that Lawrence & Schiller is now sharing its website umbrella with our friends at L&S TeleServices. Our offices may be across town, but our philosophies are the same—go 5280 for our clients every day. The new section is modeled after our travel industry segment and highlights L&S’s expertise in call center services.

Learn more about the customer care for which L&S TeleServices famous.

check out this article from eMarketer:

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TV, Internet, mobile: up, up, up

Americans are consuming more video content across their three screens—television, Internet and mobile—according to The Nielsen Company.

The research firm’s “A2/M2 Three Screen Report—2nd Quarter 2009” indicates the screen to gain the most US video viewers was mobile, with a 70% year-over-year increase. Traditional television viewing climbed by 0.9% between Q2 2008 and Q2 2009, while online video viewing was up significantly in June (due to changes in methodology, online figures should be used for directional purposes only). Timeshifted TV viewing was on the rise as well, with 32.2% more viewers in Q2 2009 than the prior year.

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Viewing on all screens is up year-over-year, with the largest gains in internet usage, followed by timeshifted TV, video on the internet, and mobile usage.  The article goes on to say “Consumers also reported watching more than 141 monthly hours of traditional TV, and 7 hours and 16 minutes of timeshifted TV per month.”  Consumer internet usage dropped from 26:29 to 26:15 from 2008 to 2009.  Currently, 25% of all homes have a DVR.

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Since 1999 Search Engine Strategies (SES) has been presenting one of THE best conference series on search engine marketing. Doesn’t matter if you’re a novice or an expert, interested in search engine optimization (SEO) or pay-per-click (PPC) placement, digital PR or analysis of a campaign’s ROI, SES offers a wealthy of information.

Robin Temple, Director of Digital Marketing at Lawrence & Schiller attended the most recent SES conference (San Jose). In this episode of The Extra Minute, Robin discusses what’s new in search marketing now and what we can expect in the future.

The San Jose SES Conference also provided an opportunity for Lawrence & Schiller to step up to the speaker’s podium. Billie Jo Waara, Director of Account Planning and Research, spoke on “Small Voices, Big Impact: Social Media for the Little Guy.”

I just received this video link via a digital community news feed.  As the video discusses, and as we discussed last week with businesses of all sizes, “Is social media a fad?” and how do we measure its true value?  Its great food for thought as I take a few moments to digest all of the notes and information in my literature bag from last week’s national Search Engine Strategies San Jose conference (#sessj).

Last week, Lawrence and Schiller had the opportunity to share our social media expertise with other professionals from across the country in search engine and digital marketing. Great topics, great conversations and I’m excited to share a quick summary of insights discussed during the event.

Search is about people. Not keywords. Search engine strategies to reach customers are not meant to be separate from your social media relationships.  Today, and even more in the future,  people are expecting results that reflect the most up-to-date and relevant content. User-intent and user-influence are key considerations when understanding and preparing for the way search engines will index sites and the deliver the results we see today and in the future.

SEO adds fire to Public Relations. As quoted in the video, “We no longer search for news, the news finds us.” Using social media tools and best practices for SEO are key to ensuring the right audiences find the relevant news we all want to share.  Researching keyword trends, editorial calendars, writing the way the audiences are searching, keeping headlines short and simple are just a few ways we can ensure “news” continues rank well and has maximum reach with leading search engines and social media platforms.

Social CRM. Its here.  Discussions on ways to integrate existing CRM technologies with social media conversations piqued my interest last week.  We’ve begun the path of integrating the newest CRM 2.0 or social CRM tools within our existing enterprise systems – but the world is always changing and there’s more that we can do to ensure our clients have the tools they need.   Businesses are always looking efficient ways to respond to customers from a variety of communication sources, and that includes the most popular social media platforms. Engaging in customer-driven conversations, and measuring those efforts, is the next stage in building effective relationships. These effective conversations lead to relevant search results, which in turns leads to more people finding you.

In short, no matter what the next stage in search strategies, social media, or any other aspect of marketing that leads today’s conference topics, its clear that the fundamental value of any communication hasn’t changed. The goal of great marketing is now, more than ever, about RELATIONSHIPS. The tools, the strategies and the places in today’s world are dynamic and evolving, but the basics of a good conversation never go away.

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Search Engine Strategies – San Jose

What a great day at Search Engine Strategies, San Jose! It’s an honor for L&S to be here as a guest presenter. It was a full day of thought leadership, brainstorming with industry execs and now we’re off to the social events. Among the great sessions today, Clay Shirky opened up SES San Jose with an overview of his book, Here Comes Everybody. My notes from the session:
Clay discusses the major changes in media as a true revolution based on three principles:

1. Community Influence – the Internet is the only medium where groups have many-to-many communications
2. Symmetry among the online landscape
3. As all previous media get digitized, the Internet will be home of ALL, providing feedback loops to media content that was previously one-way messaging

It’s not the shiny new object’s arrival that is revolutionary; it’s when people use it without even thinking about it that results in true social changes and shifts in behavior. Tools only change society when they’re accompanied my motivation. The key to understanding why people participate in social media is to get to the bottom of their motivation? Clay discussed the differences in intrinsic and extrinsic motivations. Social media is most successful when it’s lead by people with passion. Often extrinsic motivations, such as monetary compensation, ruin the fire that fuels great long-term engagement online.

Clay provided the 3 primary reasons why people engage:

1. Autonomous – I am my own author
2. Competent – I matter, people care and I want others’ attention, which eventually turns into a competition of sorts
3. Connected – I am a part of something I believe in

Sociology matters more than it ever has in media. Characteristics of user’s motivations are what really matters and what makes tools important. The question to ask is not “why do people take part in a particular social movement” rather it should be “why does this come as a surprise?”

The cost of the media landscape is now so low that the logic of media has changed. Content used to be filtered first and then published, because everything cost money. Now content is published and then filtered. The audience or readership decides whether to filter it or not. Producers of content don’t generally have mass audiences in mind; they are more likely to target their content and conversations to their friends and networks. No professional media network has ever had the power that intrinsic motivations can relay… intrinsic motivations result in fulfillment, which fuels passion.

Key head shift:

• Stop thinking about behavior
• Start thinking about motivation and modes
• It isn’t about old people and new people – motives are the same, the opportunities to share have just changed.

Thanks for the thought-provoking session, Clay!  Great stuff. Read more at http://www.herecomeseverybody.org/.  More to come!

Kevin Perlic has joined L&S as a Broadcast Producer. An Ohio native, Kevin earned his degree from Cleveland State University and worked at a production company in the city for ten years. At Lawrence & Schiller, Kevin will work with several clients to edit and produce TV commercials and videos.

The agency has also added two full-time interns to the mix.

Katie Fritz joins L&S as a recent graduate from South Dakota State University. Katie graduated with a graphic design degree and will work as a Production and Graphics Intern with the agency’s client and web teams.

A previous L&S intern, Jamie Bulian will return to the agency as a Copywriting Intern. A University of South Dakota graduate, Jamie also works as a freelance writer for 605 Magazine and the Ribs, Rods, Rock & Roll event in Vermillion.

This week, L&S welcomed a new face to the 5280 family.

Chad Riedel joins Lawrence & Schiller as a Production Artist, where he’ll work on designing print and multimedia executions for clients. Chad is a South Dakota State University graduate with a graphic design major. He has previous experience working with motion graphics and animation for Keyframe, a division of Daktronics in Brookings.

Chad is excited to get his first dose of “real agency experience” here at the state’s biggest advertising firm. A South Dakota native, he enjoys hunting and the outdoors in his spare time.