Dad Knows Best… (well, he tries to) This year, for Mother’s Day, American Greetings made a video, which celebrated Motherhood as the World’s Toughest Job. It went viral with more than 20 million views on Youtube and if fathers felt slighted or ignored, there’s good news for you! American Greetings has come up with a sequel and while it does not inspire the feeling that fatherhood might equally be tough, it conveys what it’s really all about. The video shows actors auditioning for the role of the father (it often appears as if Phil Dunphy from Modern Family is taken as the role model for the character) and what ensues is a sequence of hilarity. It shows how fathers appear clueless and comical when posing as the bad cop and are as confused about the process of child rearing as the child himself. Ultimately, when your child comes to you for real advice, there is no script to go on. It’s all about reaching from the heart, remembering what your parents told you and telling your child that you love them and are there for them, no matter when or what. While some fathers might feel that the video has underestimated their importance, it has definitely captured the father-child bond for what it is: playful, fun and confusing but a process of growing in love for both.

Dad Knows Best… (well, he tries to)

This year, for Mother’s Day, American Greetings made a video, which celebrated Motherhood as the World’s Toughest Job. It went viral with more than 20 million views on Youtube and if fathers felt slighted or ignored, there’s good news for you! American Greetings has come up with a sequel and while it does not inspire the feeling that fatherhood might equally be tough, it conveys what it’s really all about. The video shows actors auditioning for the role of the father (it often appears as if Phil Dunphy from Modern Family is taken as the role model for the character) and what ensues is a sequence of hilarity. It shows how fathers appear clueless and comical when posing as the bad cop and are as confused about the process of child rearing as the child himself. Ultimately, when your child comes to you for real advice, there is no script to go on. It’s all about reaching from the heart, remembering what your parents told you and telling your child that you love them and are there for them, no matter when or what. While some fathers might feel that the video has underestimated their importance, it has definitely captured the father-child bond for what it is: playful, fun and confusing but a process of growing in love for both.

Brands Have an Addiction and it’s very BAD!

Brands Have an Addiction and it’s very BAD!

There is a way you can make cash and lots of it quick. No, it’s not illegal; it’s just a brilliant idea that no one has thought of yet and one we will be needing in the near future. It’s an SMR center! We have rehabilitation centers for people with alcohol and drug addictions, so why not a Social Media Rehabilitation center? And before anybody else, brands will need to be treated first! Yes, social media took the world by storm and yes, brands would have lost their presence if they had not liked, tweeted, pinned, poked fast enough but what is happening to brands now? Most are going overboard with social media. They do not know when to start and stop and while they forget to respect boundaries, they also forget that people have free will to stop following them as soon as they get irritating. Brands have developed a bad addiction and nobody shows this in a more entertaining way than Tom Fishburne aka the Marketoonist. As with life in general, brands need to cultivate moderation in their social media attempts. Continue..

Pack a punch!

Pack a punch!

Imagine meeting someone for the first time. What is the first thing you notice about them? Personality? That takes time. Posture? Maybe. But the most obvious would be appearance and it definitely tells a lot about a person, right from whether they are carefree and wild spirited to serious and ambitious. With increasing rapidity, we keep telling ourselves that appearances are deceptive but the truth of the matter is that, in any situation, it is the first thing we have to go on. Which is why packaging plays a major role in selling. If you are walking down the aisle of your local supermarket, out of the hundreds of products stacked together, your eye will be drawn to that which it finds most alluring. Colors can give a lot away. Earthy shades denote organic while black and gold are shades of luxury while bright colors call out to children. Also, how sturdy and compact the packaging is, will create an impression of your brand. Take the example of Apple’s iPad. The packaging is clean, white, classic and minimalistic. You know it is dependable and the lack of flamboyance makes it more convincing. Continue Reading..

The Call of the ‘Millennial’: Can Your Brand Respond?

The Call of the ‘Millennial’: Can Your Brand Respond?

Change is inevitable, especially in these times, when you are marketing to a range of people whose interests keep evolving. There is a new set of people, soon coming to charge and unless, you buckle up and know who they are and what they want, your brand can be in hot waters. They are the ‘Millennials’ and here’s what you need to know about them:

Who are the ‘Millennials’?

They are the Generation Y, with birth years ranging from the early 1980s to the early 2000s. Now, before you pooh-pooh them as a bunch of selfie-obsessed, social media crazed brats, know this: In the United States alone, there are 74.3 million millennials with a purchasing power of $170 billion! Interested yet?

Why do they matter to me?

If you think your brand will survive another ten years, they matter to you because very soon, they will form the majority of your consumer pool. In surveys, at least 45% of them think that brands play an essential role in their lives and yet, most 16-24 year olds complain that brands don’t take them seriously. The thing about this bunch is that, they know more about marketing and about their value as customers. They know that their activities online, can make or break a brand and they are not afraid to wield the wand. continue reading...

Divorce is not the answer. Shampoo Is.

Divorce is not the answer. Shampoo Is.

We are living in a time where divorce lawyers are making good money. Many happily-ever-afters are dying a soon and nasty death. China is no exception to the phenomenon. Around 3.5 million Chinese couples got divorced last year and a recent Leo Burnett ad for Procter & Gamble’s Rejoice shampoo has focused on this issue. Five minutes long & shown in black & white, the ad is in Chinese and has been watched more than 40 million times in the past month. Within a short time, the ad packs an emotional punch, exploring some landmark moments in the couple’s life, starting with the ending and ending with the beginning of their love. Better than many Hollywood romantic films, the ad is tear-jerking and poignant. The evidence of the ad, being for shampoo, is only seen in the guy’s fixation of stroking his wife’s hair. The ad ends with the message that around 100,000 of the divorced couples in China had reconciled. Trending with the hashtag, #IBelieveInLoveAgain,  Continue reading..

Not-So-Dumb Ways to Advertise

Not-So-Dumb Ways to Advertise

It was 2012 and Melbourne Metro was growing worried about increasing accident rates. What would be the best way to tell people to be careful? A regular public service message would just be a channel changing trigger. All of us love to be independent and dislike being told what to do…..unless the speaker is an adorable animated character who died a gruesome death! Ah, yes! Which of us has not watched ‘Dumb Ways to Die’ a hundred times and had that catchy tune stuck in our heads for weeks? This is one ad that is entertaining, humorous and thought-provoking. The greatest feat it accomplishes is that it explores a gruesome matter like accidental death in a manner that is not offensive. Every aspect is perfect. Imagine having human characters or a more melancholic tune or a realistic setting to convey this same thought. It is almost certain that the viewers will feel troubled, disturbed, threatened and irrationally afraid. Thanks to the ingenuity of its creators, ‘Dumb Ways to Die’ accomplished its purpose while acquiring 71 million YouTube views in 15 months. What is the product or service that you are offering today? Is it something that is essential but people are likely to turn a deaf ear to? Well, good news is that good advertising is all you need! Sometimes what is obvious is not what works. Sometimes acting dumb is what it takes to make a not-so-dumb idea.. for more information please visit: http://www.digitalcanvasme.com

The Emotive Super Power

The Emotive Super Power

Humans like to be thought of as rational, pragmatic beings but the truth of the matter is that, on most occasions, our heart and not our brains, pulls the strings. Our complexities lie in the way in which we experience, understand and correlate our feelings and emotions. For any product and producer, it then becomes necessary to make an emotional connection to the consumer. Anybody can say they care but how do you show it? One way would be reassurance. Dove’s Real Beauty Sketches became a big hit as it spoke to the deep seated insecurities in most women. By telling them that they are more beautiful than they think, Dove managed to convince them that the brand truly understood them. Another way would be to capture emotions that all of us feel or want to feel. Schwarzkopf’s A Declaration of Love only makes allusions to the product by subtle imagery. What is explored is love and thoughts that most people want said but fail to find words for. ‘Heart-touching’ is not a figure of speech when you think of this ad. A third method would be to let them know something about themselves that they had forgotten. Living in a time of stress and hardship, most people forgot that they had a fun loving, dancing child living inside them….read on

Advertising Services in Dubai

What works for one consumer might be a disaster for another but with a little priming and prying, we create art that appeals to everyone and yet, beckons to their unique individuality in intriguing ways. For us, every face is an identity, a story waiting to be discovered. We try to see you through your eyes and then work around your challenges and build up on your strengths to present your clients with pictures that pull the strings of the heart and motivate people to act. We specialize in the following and cater to varying needs of clients exclusively:

• Design
• Branding
• Online Marketing
• Production
• Social
• Marketing

Website: http://www.digitalcanvasme.com

Dare to gamble?

Dare to gamble?

When Mark Zuckerberg made the decision to buy WhatsApp for $19 billion, many people called him a fool. This about the man who, based on his vision of connecting the world, created a social networking service, which when it celebrated its 10th anniversary in the first week of February had more than 1.23 billion users and was worth more than $134 billion! Mark Zuckerberg is no fool. He is a man who takes risks and is rewarded well for them. When Google bought YouTube in 2006, it was considered a terrible mistake and look how that turned out! Life is a gamble and so is everything in it. Advertising has seen its own share of the unconventional. When you follow a particular pattern for too long, the monotony starts affecting people. So wouldn’t you say it’s time to revamp everything about you and your brand? Get a new look, a new feel. Though people might take time to get used to it, a change is always refreshing for everyone. You need not make a gamble with $19 billion at stake but being a little adventurous now and then might just be what you need to sustain the interest of your audience.

The Tweet Feat

The Tweet Feat

On March 3rd 2014, at 7.06 AM, Twitter encountered a flood of traffic that knocked the service out for a couple of minutes. The reason for this flurry of activity being a ‘selfie’ taken by Ellen DeGeneres with Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Kevin Spacey, Brad Pitt and others at the Oscars. While the picture was appreciated by fans all over, it must be appreciated more by Samsung, the manufacturer of the phone used for the selfie. In what is an excellent bit of product placement, Samsung can rest smug for a while in the presence of competitors like Apple and Nokia. While Twitter was started as a microblogging service that people used to connect and express themselves, today, tweeting might be your portal to a larger clientele. In a study conducted by the Internet Advertising Bureau in 2013, four out of five consumers told researchers that they would be more inclined to buy a brand after being exposed to its social media presence. According to the research firm eMarketer, 2014 will see a double digit growth in Twitter users in the UK alone. The Middle East has also established a large media presence with Saudi Arabia being the nation with the largest number of Twitter users (32% of the population). So if you are yet to engage an active Twitter presence, it might be time to reshuffle your priorities. Given the rate at which Twitter is growing, a tweet is no more light talk.

The Chronicles of Cave-Media

The Chronicles of Cave-Media

All jokes aside, this cartoon has more than a grain of truth to it. Many have suggested that cave paintings might have been the first form of content marketing and before we shrug this idea aside, why not? Would it seem too presumptuous to assume that some of these paintings might have been ‘wanted’ or ‘for sale’ flyers? Say, the first man who invented a blunt instrument paints a picture of it on his wall. Others will be interested and intrigued by it and approach him for a similar instrument and barter something to acquire it. What is otherwise known today as advertising. Today, we have (way too) many forms to express ourselves. Your friends know exactly what latte you are drinking, in what sized cup, from which Starbucks, at what time of day. Regardless of whether they want to or not, you have a way of letting them know. What about our ancestors? Imagine old grandpa Joe had bagged the biggest bison around, wasn’t it his right to put it up on his wall? And that’s exactly what he did! So even before we learnt to make proper clothes, we had made crude forms of Facebook and Twitter, where a wall was an actual wall, where there were no 140 characters limitation and paintings were the accepted form of communication.  Advertising and social networking are more elemental to our existence than we realize and form an integral part of our evolution, to the tech savvy creatures we now are. The cave paintings are so much more than an art form; they are the embodiment of a communicative creature, struggling to find release, from the silence that entraps him; they set the foundation for what would later define most buyer-seller relationships.

What’s Your Status on Facebook?

What’s Your Status on Facebook?

Yesterday Facebook crossed a new milestone, accumulating 100 million users in India, the second country after the United States to reach this incredible number. There is no doubting it. Facebook is the ultimate representative for social media. Overthrowing Orkut soon after its inception, Facebook continues to remain a favorite, so much so that Twitter looks a lot like Facebook after attempts to make its interface more user friendly.

So what does the Facebook Factor means for brands? It means you should be invested and heavily invested in your Facebook page. Facebook is a landmine of opportunities for small businesses and for big ones hoping to increase penetration. Many home businesses have grown through their Facebook pages. Get a person to like a page and ask him to share it and before you know it, a thousand people who have not heard of the brand before, know of it in seconds. And who does not have a Facebook page these days? Right from actors to politicians to public figures like ‘Grumpy Cat’ have their own pages! Even prospective employees are known to check out their employer’s page before joining. The more updated and interactive your timeline is, the more people get to see it.  Facebook is also a good way of raising awareness about new promotions that you may have available. Many pages also follow current trends to increase audience participation. Most recently, several pages invite people to send in selfies and get gift hampers. In 2013, 53% of marketers said that they had found their customers via Facebook and increased sales by more than 50%. 81% of consumers have admitted to being influenced by social media posts from friends and 71% made a purchase based on social media referrals and 78% made purchases based on the company page’s posts. Facebook is an effective and relatively cheap way to engage people and to tap into the huge population of people unaware of your product’s existence while establishing brand loyalty.

Caution! Disastrous Hashtags Ahead!

Caution! Disastrous Hashtags Ahead!

Social media, like most fragile things, should come with a label: ‘Handle with Care’. Anything from this medium, is thrown open to people who pretty much agree on nothing, so it is very important that every campaign is thought through well to avoid unnecessary and unpleasant digital confrontation. The NYPD learned this the hard way today when their #MyNYPD hashtag generated quite the opposite of the result they were hoping for. They had asked for images to be sent in with the hashtag as part of efforts at PR on Twitter but Instead of smiling, contented faces, they got images of people getting beaten bloody. Some even came with amusing captions, like the one sent by Occupy Wall Street, with the photo of an officer wielding a nightstick, which said: “Here the #NYPD engages with its community members, changing hearts and minds, one baton at a time.” KFC never thought that their #iatethebones campaign would propagate cannibalistic instincts (though it’s quite obvious) and McDonald’s #McDStories expected nothing but stories of how much people loved their burgers. Clearly, what people had to say was quite often the opposite. In 2011, Qantas Airways also faced a social media disaster, when their #QantasLuxury hashtag was used by angry passengers of disrupted flights, for everything but the competition they had created it for. Bad social media campaigns do create exceptional brand exposure, though in a bad light. Is that the sort of exposure you really want?

Brands Have an Addiction and it’s very BAD!

Brands Have an Addiction and it’s very BAD!

There is a way you can make cash and lots of it quick. No, it’s not illegal; it’s just a brilliant idea that no one has thought of yet and one we will be needing in the near future. It’s an SMR center! We have rehabilitation centers for people with alcohol and drug addictions, so why not a Social Media Rehabilitation center? And before anybody else, brands will need to be treated first! Yes, social media took the world by storm and yes, brands would have lost their presence if they had not liked, tweeted, pinned, poked fast enough but what is happening to brands now? Most are going overboard with social media. They do not know when to start and stop and while they forget to respect boundaries, they also forget that people have free will to stop following them as soon as they get irritating. Brands have developed a bad addiction and nobody shows this in a more entertaining way than Tom Fishburne aka the Marketoonist. As with life in general, brands need to cultivate moderation in their social media attempts. Yes, they need to grab attention and yes, they need to be interesting but do not forget the meaning of social media. It is a platform for people to connect with loved ones and acquaintances and if you attempt to flood their newsfeed with your updates, you have gone very wrong. Also, do not make your page all about yourself. People want to know what’s in it for them. It’s not all about you and the ‘ME’ cry of desperation does not make for votes. Social Media is like a piece of fine cheesecake; it’s absolutely delicious and very smooth but that expanding waistline is not worth too much.

When the Nom-Noms Met the Ad People

Have you seen ‘How I Ate Your Butter’ or were you too busy with ‘The Dimsums’? Better yet, did you have your head buried in the ‘Game of Cones’ or were you caught up in ‘Baking Bread’? If you think this post is about food, let’s stop you right there. Look a little closely and you will see these names morphing into ‘How I Met Your Mother’, ‘The Simpsons’, ‘Game of Thrones’ and ‘Breaking Bad’, all popular TV shows. Zomato had you fooled, like it had us all. A popular online restaurant guide, it has grown from humble beginnings to an omniscient, omnipresent food guru to many lost souls, wandering in a world of gastronomical plenty. With its growth, the creative team at Zomato has been showing incredible skill. Released in keeping with the Primetime Emmys, the aforementioned titles and their graphics garnered considerable attention on social media. Timing: Check! Humor: Check! Ingenuity: Check! Zomato does it right. For everybody who did not know, when nom-noms meet ad people expect wondrous creations like Zomato’s ‘Primetime Yummies’.

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.960538743972208.1073741833.170229159669841&type=1

‘Check Frequently’ – This Is Not a Social Media Message

Social Media has proved to have many uses but thanks to the Breast Cancer Foundation, we have discovered a new one. In a witty yet profound ad, the logos of popular social networking platforms have been modified to imply a significant thought: ‘If only you checked your breasts as often’. While most of us are obsessed with our social media presence, this is a much needed reminder to keep check on reality. Ads on social issues are difficult to pull off as they should trigger a need for action with shocking revelations. The sketch figures that highlighted anorexia; the sushi wrapped in plastic, highlighting pollution or the mannequins dressed as children, placed behind billboards, to highlight child neglect, are some notable examples from the past. All of these ads intrigue and shock people into action, convincing them of the power and need for the messages they bring.

  

The Call of the ‘Millennial’: Can Your Brand Respond?

Change is inevitable, especially in these times, when you are marketing to a range of people whose interests keep evolving. There is a new set of people, soon coming to charge and unless, you buckle up and know who they are and what they want, your brand can be in hot waters. They are the ‘Millennials’ and here’s what you need to know about them:

Who are the ‘Millennials’?

They are the Generation Y, with birth years ranging from the early 1980s to the early 2000s. Now, before you pooh-pooh them as a bunch of selfie-obsessed, social media crazed brats, know this: In the United States alone, there are 74.3 million millennials with a purchasing power of $170 billion! Interested yet?

Why do they matter to me?

If you think your brand will survive another ten years, they matter to you because very soon, they will form the majority of your consumer pool. In surveys, at least 45% of them think that brands play an essential role in their lives and yet, most 16-24 year olds complain that brands don’t take them seriously. The thing about this bunch is that, they know more about marketing and about their value as customers. They know that their activities online, can make or break a brand and they are not afraid to wield the wand.

How do I get them to like me?

Gen Y will not be fooled by glitz and glamor and idle promises. They want brands to cultivate friendships with them and act on their words and if you do get them on your side, they will go to great lengths to support you. A study by Havas states thatmillennials “have less of an interest in rebellion and revolution” (unlike the folks of the 1950s and 60s) and tend more toward problem-solving. They gravitate towards brands that can offer entertainment, knowledge and resources for success. They also look for brands that are socially responsible and share their interests. Does that sound like you? It will soon have to!

(with inputs from: http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/attention-brands-how-you-get-millennials-you-160575)

For more articles please visit our website: Digital Canvas Design Consultants

Divorce is not the answer. Shampoo Is.

We are living in a time where divorce lawyers are making good money. Many happily-ever-afters are dying a soon and nasty death. China is no exception to the phenomenon. Around 3.5 million Chinese couples got divorced last year and a recent Leo Burnett ad for Procter & Gamble’s Rejoice shampoo has focused on this issue. Five minutes long & shown in black & white, the ad is in Chinese and has been watched more than 40 million times in the past month. Within a short time, the ad packs an emotional punch, exploring some landmark moments in the couple’s life, starting with the ending and ending with the beginning of their love. Better than many Hollywood romantic films, the ad is tear-jerking and poignant. The evidence of the ad, being for shampoo, is only seen in the guy’s fixation of stroking his wife’s hair....read more

Brands ‘Bite’ Into FIFA

Brands ‘Bite’ Into FIFA

Social media usage especially that of Twitter, is all about being prompt. Brands who keep up with the times can make use of current events to promote themselves, a trend referred to as ‘real time marketing’. A recent example of this would be when Uruguayan star Luis Suarez bit opponent, Italian defender, Giorgio Chiellini’s shoulder, during a match in the ongoing World Cup. Brands took to Twitter with interesting takes on the issue. McDonald’s tweeted Suarez with a jovial appeal to take a bite out of a Big Mac if he’s hungry, while Nando’s, with a similar approach said, ”Hey @luis16suarez, if you’re that hungry, why not get your teeth stuck into something really tasty?”. Natural food retailer, Whole Foods, joined in with the message “This can be your dinner…ITALIAN FLANK STEAK PINWHEELS #WFMdish”, while TGI Fridays cheekily chimed in with, “I think it’s safe to say Uruguay was hungry for the win”. Cinnamon Toast Crunch expressed their opinion with “Biting is only okay when you’re made of cinnamon and sugar. #BanSuarez #WorldCup”. Listerine pitched in with “We recommend a good swish after grabbing a bite of Italian. #WorldCup #PowerToYourMouth” and Trident Gum exhorted “Chew Trident. Not soccer players. #ITAvsURU”. American beer Bud Light posted a picture of someone trying to open a bottle of beer with their mouth, with the caption, “Relax, they’re twist off. #biting #ITAvsURU”. While managing social media, making use of opportunities like this, can grab attention for your brand. Get into the flow of what’s trending and give your take on it. Now there’s a thought you can chew on!

Do You Don the Cloak of Invisibility?

Advertising Agency in Dubai

A reputed Marketing and Advertising Company in the heart of dynamic Dubai, Digital Canvas specializes in branding, digital and social media marketing, web designing and SEO services.
In everything we do, we place ACCENT ON DESIGN. Years of expertise and working with diversified sectors have helped us to evolve with changing times and stay one step ahead of the competition. Welcome to the digital hub of forward thinking and strategic solutions!

To us, success is 70% inspiration, 30% perspiration and 10% aspiration. Yes, we know that comes up to 110% but that’s what we strive for. We believe that work is best done when you love what you are doing. We look at each project as an adventure and not an obligation. Over music and a cup of coffee, there is no challenge too hard or problem too difficult to work out. We draw inspiration from the best, add our special mix of uniqueness to it, work out the crinkles and present to you a canvas that is devoid of imitations and limitations.

All our relationships with our clients are two way streets and they change us just like we change them. We are result driven and treat the business of each client like we would treat our own. Today, we are a culmination of everyone we have represented, every idea we have promoted and every story that succeeded and that did not. We are not sector agnostic and have indulged immensely with almost every industry in the making and tried a hand in everything to acquire the expertise that we treasure today.

If you are looking for Advertising Agency Please call us at: +971 566191025
Website: http://www.digitalcanvasme.com

The Deciding Factor

The Deciding Factor

Recently, a young woman was faced with a big dilemma. She had to make a decision that would alter her life in so many ways. She had to decide if….she should buy a Samsung S4 or IPhone5. She decided to let man’s new best friend make the decision for her. She logged on to the Facebook pages of the respective mobile phones, checked reviews, comments and discussions and made her decision. As far as we are concerned, her decision is immaterial; how she reached it, is. In today’s world, we are all well connected via the social networks. This makes these networks the ideal platform for companies to advertise, promote and cater to customer grievances. How engaging you are will have direct implications on the way your product is perceived. If you are thinking of purchasing a car, would you be more inclined to the one with the extremely helpful, well informed salesman or to the one with an aloof salesman with a take-it-or-leave-it attitude? It’s the same with social media platforms. Every post and every comment should be sincere and with genuine concern, without a hint of superficiality or ulterior motives. Let your prospective consumers get to know your brand, what you stand for and what you have to offer them. If they grow to like your brand, their loyalty will be unquestionable. Social media marketing is not just a colorful addition anymore, it is a game changer. Let the lines of communication open and let your clients get to know you.

Not-So-Dumb Ways to Advertise

Not-So-Dumb Ways to Advertise

It was 2012 and Melbourne Metro was growing worried about increasing accident rates. What would be the best way to tell people to be careful? A regular public service message would just be a channel changing trigger. All of us love to be independent and dislike being told what to do…..unless the speaker is an adorable animated character who died a gruesome death! Ah, yes! Which of us has not watched ‘Dumb Ways to Die’ a hundred times and had that catchy tune stuck in our heads for weeks? This is one ad that is entertaining, humorous and thought-provoking. The greatest feat it accomplishes is that it explores a gruesome matter like accidental death in a manner that is not offensive. Every aspect is perfect. Imagine having human characters or a more melancholic tune or a realistic setting to convey this same thought. It is almost certain that the viewers will feel troubled, disturbed, threatened and irrationally afraid. .. read on ..

The Emotive Super Power

The Emotive Super Power

Humans like to be thought of as rational, pragmatic beings but the truth of the matter is that, on most occasions, our heart and not our brains, pulls the strings. Our complexities lie in the way in which we experience, understand and correlate our feelings and emotions. For any product and producer, it then becomes necessary to make an emotional connection to the consumer. Anybody can say they care but how do you show it? One way would be reassurance. Dove’s Real Beauty Sketches became a big hit as it spoke to the deep seated insecurities in most women. By telling them that they are more beautiful than they think, Dove managed to convince them that the brand truly understood them. Another way would be to capture emotions that all of us feel or want to feel. Schwarzkopf’s A Declaration of Love only makes read more...

The Deciding Factor

The Deciding Factor

Recently, a young woman was faced with a big dilemma. She had to make a decision that would alter her life in so many ways. She had to decide if….she should buy a Samsung S4 or IPhone5. She decided to let man’s new best friend make the decision for her. She logged on to the Facebook pages of the respective mobile phones, checked reviews, comments and discussions and made her decision. As far as we are concerned, her decision is immaterial; how she reached it, is. In today’s world, we are all well connected via the social networks. This makes these networks the ideal platform for companies to advertise, promote and cater to customer grievances. How engaging you are will have direct implications on the way your product is perceived. If you are thinking of purchasing a car, would you be more inclined to the one with the extremely helpful, well informed salesman or to the one with an aloof salesman with a take-it-or-leave-it attitude? It’s the same with social media platforms. Every post and every comment should be sincere and with genuine concern, without a hint of superficiality or ulterior motives. Let your prospective consumers get to know your brand, what you stand for and what you have to offer them. If they grow to like your brand, their loyalty will be unquestionable. Social media marketing is not just a colorful addition anymore, it is a game changer. Let the lines of communication open and let your clients get to know you.

The Art of Giving

The Art of Giving

Obesity in the world is rapidly on the rise. It is no wonder then that every time you open a browser you find yourself faced with hundreds of ads with promises to reduce weight in a matter of days or even hours! Initially, you keep closing all of them, till finally one day you decide to see what the fuss is all about (the fact that the scales groan every time you step on them might have a little something to do with that!) so when you finally do open this ad of ‘promise’, you hear what causes weight gain, why you haven’t been successful in your attempts to lose weight so far, how building muscles will do wonders and how they have the perfect exercise to do just that. You inch closer to your screen and wait in eager anticipation of the weight loss miracle about to happen. However, what comes next on screen is the total cost for the exercise DVD, shipping costs and some limited time discount which somehow never seems to run out of time. Frustrated? Yes. Seething? Yes. Ordering the product? NO! The product here had actually countered the biggest challenge of all: capturing the customer’s attention. Sadly, the ad gets too greedy and is unable to sustain that interest. The age-old adage of ‘give something to get something’ is very important here. While marketing this particular service, the trainers must have given a preview of a few exercises they found useful. A truly interested client would try these out and if they work, would order the product without hesitation. If you have confidence in your product and how well it works, it is no burden to offer people an idea of what they are missing out. If you want to market well, be prepared to give something to get something.

The Head and Tail of It All

The Head and Tail of It All

Humans have very short attention spans. Add to that the time constraints of a very busy life and people barely read anything at all…unless it is too hard to resist at first glance. Headlines determine the fate of any piece of writing. Most of us when we think of headlines, think of something short and sweet. However, one of the best ads for Rolls-Royce, written by David Ogilvy, had a headline which read, “At 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in this new Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock”. Long but very effective. The headline conveys sufficient information about the content, praises the product without being boisterous and is clever in itself. Headlines like The Economist’s ‘To err is human. To er, um, ah is unacceptable’ are hard to forget. They stay in the reader’s mind and create quite the impression. Some headlines arouse interest by questioning the consumer, read on..

Dare to gamble?

Dare to gamble?

When Mark Zuckerberg made the decision to buy WhatsApp for $19 billion, many people called him a fool. This about the man who, based on his vision of connecting the world, created a social networking service, which when it celebrated its 10th anniversary in the first week of February had more than 1.23 billion users and was worth more than $134 billion! Mark Zuckerberg is no fool. He is a man who takes risks and is rewarded well for them. When Google bought YouTube in 2006, it was considered a terrible mistake and look how that turned out! Life is a gamble and so is everything in it. Advertising has seen its own share of the unconventional. When you follow a particular pattern for too long, the monotony starts affecting people. So wouldn’t you say it’s time to revamp everything about you and your brand? Get a new look, a new feel. Though people might take time to get used to it, a change is always refreshing for everyone. You need not make a gamble with $19 billion at stake but being a little adventurous now and then might just be what you need to sustain the interest of your audience. For more information please click here: Digital Canvas Design consultants

Let Silence Speak!

Theologian Mark D. Thompson of Moore Theological College said, “Perhaps the most powerful image of despair at the beginning of the twenty-first century is not found in art, or literature, or even popular music. It is found in a single photograph.” The photograph in question is that of The Falling Man, taken by Richard Drew of the Associated Press. In the aftermath of 9/11, people were yet to recover from an event that shook history, only to wallow in greater despair at this photograph of a man falling to death, forced to choose, in a dilemma that chills the soul. What we choose to dwell on here, is not this horrific tragedy but on the power of the photograph. In an instant, it captures a moment in history for eternity. Having the right shots can lead to very compelling advertising. It makes people think, feel and stirs the deepest emotions. An example that comes to mind here is of the Purina Dog Chow Campaign. With a simple picture of leftovers being fed to a dog shaped trash can, the company gets across the message that a thousand pictures of happy, smiling dogs cannot. Every dog owner cannot help thinking if he is indeed treating his best friend like trash. So how about a ‘picture perfect’ story for success?

‘Oh, Be A Sport and Advertise!’

Today, the UAE was picked to host the IPL matches and with the giant of cricket matches coming to Dubai, it is only natural to think of how attached advertising is to sports now. Scanning pictures of matches, right from the barricades to jerseys to everything in and around the game seems to be an outlet for some sort of promotion. According to a study by independent media shop, Horizon Media, corporate sponsorships on sports jerseys could generate more than $370 million in advertising value! For fans besotted with players, buying products they advertise is a way of expressing their support and affinity to them. With IPL ads costing roughly around $8000 in 2013, it is a far cry from the price of a 30 second slot in the Super Bowl which comes up to $4 million. Boasting a viewership of more than 100 million, these slots are however not that effective in terms of ROI as a study by the research firm Communicas revealed that ‘only one in five Super Bowl commercials leads to a sale, or intent to purchase’. Perhaps, all that advertisers are looking for are a chance to get established in the big leagues and create an impression on the minds of viewers, without expectancy of action immediately. Whatever the reason, sporting can definitely look up to advertising, to continue to be a great source of revenue.for more blogs click here

What’s Your Dose of Drama?

What’s Your Dose of Drama?

Drama, drama, drama…everybody loves drama! The more gruesome, nerve-wrecking, gut-wrenching it is…the better! TNT, the American cable channel, got it right with their ‘Push to Add Drama’ campaign, at their launch in Belgium, in April 2012. A red button was placed in the middle of the street at a sleepy little town and those who were daring enough to push it for drama had set the ball rolling on quite the sequence. Right from a man on a stretcher rolling out of an ambulance, to street fights, to bikini clad women on bikes, to gun fights, to mob members, to footballers, it had it all. There would no doubt as to who people had to resort to, for their daily dose of drama. After all, hadn’t the campaign shown that they know what they are doing? But much like TNT, everyone should learn to add a little bit of drama. Have you noticed that a page left blank often inspires more speculation than one filled? Leave your audience wanting, waiting, build up the anticipation and then reveal yourself. You will be remembered for the sensationalism you helped create. They say good things come to those who wait. May be leaving people waiting, is what you need to do, to convince them that you are the absolute best.

Observing the ‘She’ Factor

They constitute more than half of the total world population and according to a report by She-conomy, account for 85% of all consumer purchases including everything from automobiles to health care and spend about $5 trillion annually and yet, very few companies market exclusively to them. Yes, we are talking about the fairer sex and how important it is to reel them in, if you need to have any shot at success. According to the afore mentioned report, 91% of women say that advertisers don’t understand them. Where are we going wrong and how badly is it affecting us? Most ads stereotype women, make assumptions and portray them as a necessary accessory to the man of power. Others create unrealistic portraits of women themselves. Who are these impossibly altered, photoshopped pictures fooling? If anything, they just make women more resentful and inferior. According to Women’s Marketing Inc, 46% of women will first check their smartphones when they wake up in the morning readmore..

The Chronicles of Cave-Media

The Chronicles of Cave-Media

All jokes aside, this cartoon has more than a grain of truth to it. Many have suggested that cave paintings might have been the first form of content marketing and before we shrug this idea aside, why not? Would it seem too presumptuous to assume that some of these paintings might have been ‘wanted’ or ‘for sale’ flyers? Say, the first man who invented a blunt instrument paints a picture of it on his wall. Others will be interested and intrigued by it and approach him for a similar instrument and barter something to acquire it. What is otherwise known today as advertising. Today, we have (way too) many forms to express ourselves. Your friends know exactly what latte you are drinking, in what sized cup, from which Starbucks, at what time of day. Regardless of whether they want to or not, you have a way of letting them know. What about our ancestors? Imagine old grandpa Joe had bagged the biggest bison around, wasn’t it his right to put it up on his wall? And that’s exactly what he did! So even before we learnt to make proper clothes, we had made crude forms of Facebook and Twitter, where a wall was an actual wall, where there were no 140 characters limitation and paintings were the accepted form of communication.  Advertising and social networking are more elemental to our existence than we realize and form an integral part of our evolution, to the tech savvy creatures we now are. The cave paintings are so much more than an art form; they are the embodiment of a communicative creature, struggling to find release, from the silence that entraps him; they set the foundation for what would later define most buyer-seller relationships.

When Seeing is Savoring!

Advertising for food is a difficult task. Food is an exploration of all the senses. You have to see it, smell it and feel it as much as you need to taste it. The Carte Noire ads manage to do all this and more just by sight. No words, no promises; just the art of cooking. Every step is pure poetry; there is such beauty and sensuousness to it, that the viewer is drawn irrevocably in. The pure freshness of milk and the delicate yellow batter, dusted with flour to create soft, fine textured dough, the splitting of egg shells, the graceful churning, the burst of baked goodness, the infusion of fine, filtered coffee, the silky texture of freshly made cream, the soft glow of satin-like pink, the heat of the oven, the smell of coffee and freshly baked scones create the feeling of actually witnessing the chef in action. When the preparation is complete, we are on our toes, drooling over the miracle created right before us. The video is so effective that it can instigate hunger and craving in anyone watching it. This is the result of excellent cinematography that captures everything, right from the condensed droplets on a lid to the dark brown of individual coffee beans. When it comes to video ads, imagery that tempts your audience to the point of physical pain is a win-win!