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  • Margi 7:27 pm on May 10, 2012 Permalink  

    Stronger 

    Last Saturday, Chris Rumble, a 22-year-old leukemia patient at Seattle
    Children’s Hospital grabbed a camera and filmed this astounding music video
    featuring the hemoncology floor singing and dancing to the song Stronger, by
    Kelly Clarkson. Five days later the video already has over 600,000 YouTube
    views, 1,300 inspiring comments and a video response from Kelly Clarkson
    herself.

    Here’s the video along with Kelly’s response to the kids. This moving
    grassroots piece is another reminder of the incredibly important work being
    done at Seattle Children’s Hospital every day.

     

  • Jim 4:37 pm on April 10, 2012 Permalink  

    Jamie Moyer turns back the hands of time. 

    moyer

    Perhaps the most compelling story of the young baseball season is the improbable comeback of 49-year-old pitcher Jamie Moyer. Old enough to be the father of most of his Colorado Rockies teammates, Moyer missed the entire 2011 season to reconstructive elbow surgery. Against all odds, he’s worked his way back to the starting rotation and is playing in his 25th Major League season.

    He’s the baseball equivalent of Picasso who pushed the boundaries of art well into his eighties.

    Or Philip Roth, writing powerful, intricate novels in his seventies.

    Or Bruce Springsteen, still leaping and sweating through 3-hour concerts in his sixties.

    Our ad agency has had a long association with The Seattle Mariners, the team Moyer pitched for from 1996 through 2006. During that span, Moyer won 145 games for Seattle—and promoted Mariners baseball in a dozen commercials our agency produced during that time. We got to know Jamie well, even volunteering our company’s services to The Moyer Foundation which he founded with his wife, Karen.

    We observed many Moyer personality traits during that time that may provide an insight into the secret of ageless creativity and productivity—lessons we can apply to our own careers.

    Never Stop Learning Your Craft
    Moyer’s fastball tops out at 80 miles per hour—the speed of a decent high school pitcher. His success is a result of guile, not power. His pinpoint control, wide array of pitches and ability to outthink hitters are the keys to his success, along with his fastidious preparation. Craftsmanship is the careful tending of talent—and can keep us productive for decades.

    Be Curious
    Jamie was always asking questions. He found the film production process fascinating and was one of the few ballplayers who took the time to ask about technique, look trough the camera, talk to the crew. Intellectual curiosity keeps us fresh, young and constantly learning.

    Stay Fit
    Sure good genes are helpful, but Jamie is fanatical about physical conditioning. Even if we’re not professional athletes, a healthy body often contains and active, healthy mind.

    Be Confident, Be Humble
    Jamie Moyer has immense self-confidence. He’s been dismissed and released by baseball experts many times over his career. But he always finds a way to bounce back, never doubting himself. Yet he’s one of the most unassuming and approachable athletes you’ll ever meet. To know how small we are often makes us big.

    As of this writing, Jamie Moyer has 267 career victories, 33 short of the exclusive 300-win club—a guarantee of baseball immortality. My guess is that Jamie is focused on that seemingly impossible goal. Don’t bet against him.

    I’d like to leave you with two of my favorite Jamie commercials from over the years.


    “The Change Up” celebrates Moyer’s exasperatingly slow but effective off-speed pitch.




    “Tribute” is a tongue-in-cheek jab at his age. It was produced in 2006. We thought he was old then.

    Take a moment this season to marvel and tip your cap to the amazing #50. He deserves our admiration.

     

  • Tim 11:13 pm on March 30, 2012 Permalink  

    My ad ran where? 

    A recent story in Adweek listed just about every possible peril of using ad networks for online display campaigns. It featured a case where display ads for major brands were running on a horribly-designed site full at least questionable if not downright offensive content.

    So should we flee as fast as we can from online networks? Hardly.

    Buying online media blindly from networks merely to get the best possible CPM carries risk. It’s not unlike buying run of network on cable. Sometimes you get good programming in good timeslots, sometimes you get garbage at 2:43am.

    Network buys need to be carefully purchased and closely monitored. When we’re purchasing a network, we research sites where we’ll be running in advance. That’s exactly what we did with a mobile network buy for a client that’s running right now. We eliminated questionable sites before the buy even went live. And it’s also why we have tools like Adometry, which allows us to track the exact sites and placements for our ads on a network and make adjustments if necessary.

    Ad networks can be highly effective. They reach broad audiences, they provide “one stop shopping efficiency” and pricing is often very attractive. But the buy has to be managed. It takes good tools and hard work to ensure the client’s money is well-spent. That’s where an agency can deliver real value for a client.

     

  • Nat 12:00 am on March 1, 2012 Permalink  

    Facebook Timeline for Brands 

    We’ve known for a little while that Facebook would be moving Brand Pages to the new Timeline format and today they launched a preview for page administrators. The change will happen automatically for brands on March 30th, so we wasted no time in diving in and checking it out. Here’s a quick glance at what Brand Managers need to know about the changes.

    1. Cover Photo replaces Profile Image
    The Cover Photo is the biggest visual branding opportunity in the new format and a great image here can really set the tone for a brand presence. Previously, brands were limited to a maximum 200×600 pixel image in the upper left-hand corner. The new cover photo is 850 pixels wide and dominates the initial view of the page.

    ben and jerry's cover photo

    Ben & Jerry’s dedicated their Cover Photo to their famous Holstein Cows.

    It is important to note that Facebook has added restrictions to how this image may be used, prohibiting coupons, purchase information, calls to action and contact information. They seem to be encouraging brands’ better angels and it will be interesting to see how well this policy is adhered to.

    2. Tabs are now Boxes
    In their previous major design revision, Facebook “Tabs” were replaced with links and icons along the left-hand navigation and much confusion was created. We continued to call them Tabs even though the design metaphor no longer fit, so it is with some relief that this content is now added to the top navigation and can be promoted with large graphical boxes.

    Starbucks is handling the new boxes elegantly.

    Brands can display four boxes in this space and Photos is the only content piece that is fixed in place. Boxes can be anything from your “Like” counter, a map, various apps or custom pages. Additional boxes (up to 12 in total) are displayed in a dropdown menu.

    3. Custom Pages canvas is bigger
    Custom Pages (AKA Page Tabs) now have 810 pixels of width to play in, up from the 520px allowed in the previous design. The Custom Pages will reside in a nearly blank canvas, free from the Facebook user interface elements that crowded out the old pages. This is a huge opportunity to create rich sub-pages inside your Facebook presence.

    The size difference can be seen here, where Dove has an old Custom Page sitting inside the new canvas.

    4. No more default landing page
    In the previous design, brands could create “Like Us” pages and designate them as the default landing page for visitors who had not yet liked the brand. This tactic has been the basis for like-building campaigns that sometimes required visitors to like a brand before receiving special content (a practice known as Like-gating). This capability is now removed, making Timeline the only default view.

    I’m not sure if this spells the end of Like-gating as we know it, but it certainly looks like brands are going to lose a favored Like-building tactic. Interestingly, Facebook also prohibits referencing “user interface elements, such as Like or Share” in the new Cover Photo. With these two policy shifts in place it will be interesting to see what Facebook has in mind for the future of Like-building for brands.

    5. The Timeline
    Images are bigger and (potentially) more engaging. Posts can be customized by widening them, pinning them to the top of the page or (as before) deleting them entirely. A well-curated Timeline is going to be a great opportunity to communicate a brand’s personality.

    I like the visual consistency of the content on Ben & Jerry’s Timeline.

    6. Messages
    Visitors can now contact a brand privately using a prominently placed Message feature. It will be very interesting to see how users embrace this new private communications channel inside Facebook, which has until now been a strictly public forum for brands. Social Media Managers everywhere will be adding this to their to-do list.

    This is just a quick overview of the new features and overall we are very excited about what they mean for customization and brand engagement. If you have any opinions or questions you would like to share, head on over to our new timeline and let’s continue the discussion.

     

  • Jim 5:17 pm on February 27, 2012 Permalink  

    What does Digital America look like? 

    Remember when we used to rank cities by how “wired” they were? (Austin was high, Biloxi was low.)

    Remember when our media plans excluded digital messaging and social networking for people over fifty?

    Remember when we thought online video viewers were overwhelmingly young, white men?

    The face of Digital America is changing. And while the growth of the Internet is hardly newsworthy, there are a few surprises in a recent study from Nielsen and NM Incite. Here are five nuggets regarding digital and social media usage that might cause you to reconsider your views of online behavior.

    • 54% of visitors to social network sites and blogs are women.
    • Women outnumber men (53% to 47%) among online video viewers.
    • Men are more likely to own tablets than women (53% vs. 47%).
    • 274 million Americans have daily access to the Internet—at home, at work or at a third place. However, 100 million Americans (a third of the country) do not have access to broadband.
    • Whites make up 61% of smartphone owners. The next largest group of smartphone owners are Hispanics  at 17%.

    One thing is certain: adoption of new technologies is a dynamic process and the digital demography will surely be different a year from today. Stay tuned.

     

  • Jim 5:52 pm on January 10, 2012 Permalink  

    Put a code on it 

    qr code

    If you watch the uneven but occasionally hilarious IFC cable series Portlandia, you are familiar with Put A Bird On It: a design movement that enhances objects by adding a bird.

    Marketers have their own version of this fad: Put a QR Code on it.

    These chunky barcodes are showing up on everything from billboards to, alas, urinals. I recently saw a QR Code on a website which accessed (wait for it) another website.

    In theory it’s a great idea. When scanned, a QR Code provides additional content that enhances the host message. A print ad can turn into a full- motion product demo. A real estate flyer can offer a guided tour of a home. A concert poster stapled to a telephone pole can unleash a music video.

    Unfortunately, the public doesn’t share the marketing community’s enthusiasm for QR Codes. According to a recent Forrester Research survey only 5% of Americans with smart phones actually scanned a QR Code during a recent three-month survey period. Those that did tended to be young, affluent and male.

    Does this mean that QR Codes won’t ever be a viable marketing tool? Not at all. But as with any emerging technology, it requires patience and best practices. Here’s how our agency is using QR Codes for maximum effect.

    Get real
    While it’s easy to slap a code on virtually any medium, be realistic. Are consumers inclined to chase a city bus down the street to scan a code on a transit ad for a casino? Probably not. On the other hand, QR Codes make sense at the point of sale, in print advertising and mobile couponing.

    Make the experience worthwhile
    Consumers who take the trouble to whip out a smart phone and scan a code should be rewarded for their efforts. Make sure the content is more than a pointless rehash of the host message.

    Integrate
    Don’t use the technology for technology’s sake. Make sure the scanned message advances your overall brand story.

    Be Patient
    Don’t expect miraculous results from a QR Code effort. The percentage of those who scan the code will be low. The technology relies on third-party apps that can be clunky to use. But smart phone penetration will continue to increase and the QR Code user experience get better with built-in readers.

    By applying common sense (and some uncommon creativity), there’s no reason why you shouldn’t put a code on it.
    QR Code

     

  • Jim 1:37 am on December 23, 2011 Permalink  

    The C+F Top Ten 

    It’s the time of year for Top Ten Lists: movies, books, albums, even Republican debate bloopers. In this Lettermanesque spirit, we present the Copacino+Fujikado Top Ten Moments—the news and events that made 2011 a memorable year for us.

    #1: Bernandez Mania
    In March, we introduced a Mariners commercial about Felix Hernandez’s alter ego “Larry Bernandez.” The creators, Mike Hayward and Kurt Reifschneider, knew they had a fun spot, but nothing prepared us for the frenzy that followed. Larry went viral—a Facebook Page, Twitter account, a Bobblehead Night, and scores of lookalikes at the ballpark. Advertising is fun when it turns into pop culture.

    #2: Kickball Kingpins
    C+F won the citywide Co-Ed Kickball League Championship with a thrilling come from behind victory in the final game. The champagne flowed freely in the post-game celebration—which lasted several days.

    #3: World Visionaries
    In June, we were awarded a major assignment from World Vision, the global humanitarian organization with headquarters in Federal Way, Washington. We created two compelling TV campaigns, encouraging viewers to sponsor poor children in emerging countries.

    #4: St. Paddy’s Day Part-ay
    Our erstwhile interns, Peter Orr and Cliff McLoe threw a St. Patrick’s Day party that included leprechauns, an Irish feast and a wee-bit o’ the grain. For an Italian-Japanese agency, we did Irish pretty well.

    #5: LifeWise Outdoor Prompts 911 Call
    We created a large downtown mural for our “Boringly Good” LifeWise campaign that featured a dummy, dangling from a harness, to simulate his “painting” the message. The dummy was installed at a bit of an angle, prompting a concerned citizen to call 911 and report a “lifeless man” dangling from a downtown building. That’s Lifewise, sir, not lifeless.

    #6. Responsive Design
    We introduced responsive design to our agency website. This is a new technology that allows web content to automatically configure to any browser—whether on a computer, tablet or smart phone. The result? A better user experience across all platforms. We’re pretty good at this—call us if you want us to build responsive web site for you.

    #7. Taking Our Pulse
    The first annual American Marketing Association Pulse Awards were held in Seattle and C+F was a big winner—with recognition in multiple categories for clients Symetra, LifeWise and the Seattle Mariners.

    #8. Ping Pong Pandemonium
    The paddles were scorching all year long at the agency Ping Pong table. Shawn Herron is the reigning champ, but a group of hungry young upstarts are challenging for the crown.

    #9. Selling Seattle
    In the fall, we were named agency of record for Seattle’s Convention and Visitors Bureau. To generate holiday tourism, we created the Seattle Snow Mobile—a glass truck featuring a holiday cityscape complete with falling snow. The Snow Mobile toured Spokane, Portland and Vancouver, B.C. with brand ambassadors singing the praises of a holiday getaway to Seattle.

    #10. Let it glow, let it glow, let it glow
    How’s this for a bright idea: We created one of the largest blacklight posters ever to promote the Seattle Aquarium’s glow-in-the-dark jellyfish. Check it out for yourself: Moon Jellies Video

    Thanks to all of our fantastic clients, vendors, staff and friends who made 2011 a year to remember. Let the 2012 fun begin! Happy New Year.

    C+F Top Ten

     

  • Chris 10:25 pm on October 10, 2011 Permalink  

    C+F’s Top Five Baseball Movies 

    With all the hullaballoo around Moneyball, we at C+F took a moment to ponder our favorite baseball movies. As the longtime agency for the Seattle Mariners, we know a little something about baseball entertainment. (We gave birth to Larry Bernandez, after all.) So we implemented a detailed survey of popular baseball movies—with several criteria, all with a different numerical weight that was then put into Google-esque algorithm to determine our favorites. Okay, it was basically a straw poll. Regardless, here are our top five favorite baseball movies in order of staff (read: expert) preference:

    1. Major League: A hugely entertaining depiction of an under, then overachieving group of cobbled together Cleveland Indians misfits. The characters of this movie are memorable, from overpaid giant ego Roger Dorn, to tire salesman-turned-skipper Lou Brown, to washed-up and lovesick catcher Jake Taylor. Throw in great performers Wesley Snipes (Willie Mays Hayes), Charlie Sheen (Rick Vaughn) and buffed-up Cuban slugger Dennis Haysbert (Pedro Cerrano) and it’s a movie that you can watch over and over again while reciting all of the great one liners (i.e. “You put snot on the ball?” or “It’s too high.”). We almost dropped this movie down in the rankings on account of the inept sequels Major League II and Major League: Back to the Minors, but the original shines and gets top billing from C+F.


    2. Bull Durham: Kevin Costner is as believable as it gets with his portrayal of Crash Davis—a lifetime minor league catcher who has seen it all and is enduring long bus rides in the Southern League for one last longshot at the “show”. Written by former minor leaguer Ron Shelton, no baseball movie better tells the story of what bush league baseball is all about. Tim Robbins—despite his dubious athleticism—shines as a big ego prospect with an invincibility and sense of entitlement complex. The entire movie is great, but top scenes are Costner’s epic “What I believe in” speech, the interview cliché lesson and Crash Davis waxing longingly about his time in the bags. This would get argument in some circles as the best all-time baseball movie and it was a close call in the C+F survey.


    3. Field of Dreams: 22 years later, this movie can still make any grown man get downright misty. (There is crying in baseball after all. See below.) Playing on the romanticism of baseball, Kevin Costner is present again as an idealistic, unsuccessful Iowa farmer who builds a baseball field in the middle of a prized cornfield because some eerie, yet prophetic voice told him to do so. James Earl Jones is awesome as a J.D. Salinger-like scribe who gets pulled into Costner’s quest and delivers the greatest single speech in any baseball movie ever. Bar none. The movie culminates in Costner having an opportunity to play catch with his estranged ghost of a father, which is about the time we claim dust in the eye or oncoming cold sniffles to cover up the fact that even though we’ve seen this movie 49 times. The poignancy and nostalgia of this baseball story still makes us weepy every time. The other thing this movie makes you think is what the hell happened to Ray Liotta?


    4. Sandlot: Baseball nostalgia pulls at us again in this movie about a group of kids growing up in Southern California one summer playing baseball on the neighborhood sandlot. (A casualty of suburbia.) A cast of great child characters makes this movie endearing and James Earl Jones shows up again to provide some real baseball movie cred to the picture. Looking past the ill-casting of Dennis Leary as the intimidating stepfather, this movie is a nice story of how baseball ties diverse people together and how special shoes can help you prevail in any athletic feat. Thanks Benny.


    5. A League of Their Own: What do you get when throw Geena Davis, Rosie O’Donnell, Madonna and Tom Hanks into an historical baseball timepiece? Cinematic gold. The story captures the Rockford Peaches of the All-American Girls Baseball League which became popular during WW2 when the country’s men were away at war. Regardless of gender, this movie has genuine baseball chops and the baseball sequences are spot on. Hanks delivers a perfect performance as a washed-up and perpetually inebriated ex-major leaguer who has been tapped to bring validity to the league as a team manager. The girls’ talent and grit turns him from grumpy skeptic to a heartened believer who cagily steers the Peaches into the championship game. If for nothing else this movie cracks our top five for the immortal statement “There’s no crying in baseball”. Or advertising for that matter.

    Once the recency hype dies down, it will be interesting to see where history (or C+F) ends up ranking Moneyball in the pantheon of great baseball movies. Our guess is that it will have staying power and be discussed in the same conversation of the above. Let us know what you think—it’s a great debate.

    Here’s to a hopefully riveting post-season because among other things, We Are Baseball Fans.

     

  • Chris 5:08 pm on September 30, 2011 Permalink  

    Rising up against declining CTRs 

    Over the last couple of years, industry studies have reported a general decrease in average click-through rates (CTR) for online display. This trend was recently highlighted in a Google study looking at CTRs across 2010. The favorability of online display is starting to be questioned given steady declining CTRs and other stats flowing from user studies that find something like 16% of online users account for 80% of all clicks.

    It shouldn’t be a shock to us as marketers (who are consumers ourselves after all) that CTRs are declining. As continually barraged as we are with advertising messages furiously competing for every last nanosecond of our attention, it makes sense that users who are interacting with content they have voluntarily sought-out might not be so ready to be redirected to your site just because you have been gracious enough to place an ad on the page they are viewing. It just doesn’t work that way and we need to rise above the dependence on the click as the only measurement by which we judge campaigns success.

    The focus should move from driving the click to maximizing the impression. We make a lot of impressions in online display, but what is the true quality of those impressions? Not very high if we tell incomplete stories that rely on the click to resolve the narrative. Instead, we should focus on succinct, engaging storytelling in-banner that fully communicates within the unit.
    At C+F (shameless plug) we call this “short-fuse messaging”. The focus should be on strong, yet pithy, complete messages. If your message gets truncated because the user decided not to bless you with the scarce click, then you have not communicated effectively. If the user does click—great and we love that—but it shouldn’t be mandatory to complete the communication, nor the be-all end-all in measurement of success.

    The trick then is to engage in a relevant and meaningful way, maximize the impression and then create paths back to your destination for users to engage with what you have to offer. Paid Search can help. Strong SEO is table stakes. And of course, including online display along with other media in an integrated campaign helps reinforce and drive traffic.
    Site side metrics are still important and driving people to your site to engage them remains key. However, relying solely on an ad click to facilitate this customer experience is dangerous and impractical.

    It presents a challenge to our industry. Account Management must deliver clear strategy for concise storytelling. Creatives must be able to communicate impactful, relevant and complete messages inside ad units. And of course media needs to continue to run communication against a targeted audience in the most relevant environments. We still must learn and optimize continually.

    However, we must evolve the use of online display if we are to continue to recommend this media in our campaigns and ensure we use this medium the best way for the greatest impact on our audiences. If we stay tied to the click, our favorability with our clients will inevitably go by the way of user CTR.

     

  • Kurt 4:39 pm on September 22, 2011 Permalink  

    The client in the room. 

    Our agency just completed a bunch of TV spots for one of our newest clients, World Vision. They’re the humanitarian organization that promotes child sponsorship, battles social injustice and provides disaster relief in some of the world’s poorest countries. It’s beautiful, heart-wrenching, harrowing and inspiring stuff indeed.

    From the get-go, we’ve been working with a bunch of nice folks at World Vision who are committed to putting something persuasive and fresh out there. They’ve been dormant on TV for a number of years and were interested in redefining and revitalizing the category. Oh, and they hope to sign up a slew of new child sponsors.

    Our main client contact, Steve Quant, expressed an interest in not only attending the shoots, but being involved in post production, as well. And involved he was. In the best way imaginable. A film editor in a past life, Steve sat in the edit suite with our team for days. And not only did he have many tweaks and suggestions (most really good, by the way), he also demonstrated a real respect for the editors and the entire creative process. He spent 13 solid hours with me in color correction. Why? He simply wanted to see how it all worked. And in the process he offered a new set of eyes that helped us make the images look terrific.

    The result? Better commercials. And a client who’s as much an owner of the final product as the agency. An enthusiastic protector of our original creative concepts and someone who knows the source material inside and out. Someone who dug into the details, not to control them, but to understand how all those little details added up to something really special.

    Have a look for yourself at the World Vision spots. If you see something that catches your eye or melts your heart, that was the agency’s idea. Or the client’s. Or both.

     

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