Mad Men Yourself!

Posted by admin - 31/07/09 at 11:07:24 am

In promotion for the upcoming Season 3 of Mad Men on AMC (which in my opinion is one of the best TV series of all time), they have created “Mad Men Yourself,” where you can create your own Mad Men character to look like you! Pick your features, your clothes, setting and extras.

Here is mine…. That’s me arriving on my first day at Stanley Cooper!

ryan-madmen_widescreen

ryan-madmen_fullbody

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The Evils of Invisible Tape

Posted by Nic - 15/07/09 at 09:07:56 am
How many times have you walked into a restaurant, only to be greeted by a sign taped to the window like this one?
There are two major problems with this sign. The first is the content of the sign, but I’ll save my comments on that for another post. The problem I’d like to focus on today is the tape being used to hold the sign up.
What’s wrong with using invisible tape to hang a sign on your entryway? I see three main problems:
1. Invisible tape doesn’t work as advertised. Namely, it’s not actually invisible. Most brands of invisible tape are actually fairly cloudy looking, and the closest-to-true-invisible brands tend to gather finger oil and bubble up while being applied.
2. You’re making a first impression, and the tape isn’t helping. Unless you run a “hole-in-the-wall” restaurant or a government agency, the tape contributes to an image of “junky, thrown together crap”. Especially if your sign is well-designed and printed on nice cardstock, the tape effectively cancels out your efforts on the messaging itself.
3. The tape is just lazy. There are plenty of ways to hang a sign without resorting to invisible tape. Suction cups, wire, pushpins, magnets, all kinds of simple, efficient ways to keep your messaging while improving your image. If you simply must use tape, try rolling the tape (to make it faux-double-sided) and sticking it on the back of the paper, out of sight.
I understand this may sound incredibly nit picky. But when you’re developing a brand identity (and if you own a small business, you’re doing just that), all these little tiny details actually matter.
Especially when the first encounter some people will have with your brand is right at your front door.

How many times have you walked into a place of business, only to be greeted by a sign taped to the window like this one? Forget the content of the sign for a moment, we’re simply looking at the display of the sign itself:

IMG_9734

There are several problems with this particular sign. We could talk about the wording of the sign, the fact that capital letters make it seem like they’re yelling at their customers, why “italic” font isn’t the best for readability, and why the image of the padlock should be replaced.

But the first problem I notice with this sign is the invisible tape used to hang it up.

What’s wrong with using invisible tape to hang a sign on your entryway? I see three main problems:

  1. Invisible tape doesn’t work as advertised. Namely, it’s not actually invisible. Most brands of invisible tape are actually fairly cloudy looking, and the closest-to-true-invisible brands tend to gather finger oil and bubble up while being applied.
  2. You’re making a first impression, and the tape isn’t helping. Unless you run a “hole-in-the-wall” restaurant or a government agency, the tape contributes to an image of “junky, thrown together crap”. Especially if your sign is well-designed and printed on nice cardstock, the tape effectively cancels out your efforts on the messaging itself. Consider the example above — it’s bad enough that some people’s first experience with this restaurant will be that it’s closed, the presentation of the message should help assuage that problem, not exacerbate it.
  3. The tape is just lazy (and / or cheap). There are plenty of ways to hang a sign without resorting to invisible tape. Suction cups, wire, pushpins, magnets, all kinds of simple, efficient ways to keep your messaging while improving your image. If you simply must use tape, try rolling the tape (to make it faux-double-sided) and sticking it on the back of the paper, out of sight.

I understand this may sound incredibly nit picky. But when you’re developing a brand identity (and if you own a small business, you’re doing just that), all these little tiny details actually matter.

Especially when the first encounter some people will have with your brand is right at your front door.

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eCommerce SEO Tip

Posted by admin - 10/07/09 at 01:07:17 pm

BING is Microsoft’s recently rebranded search engine. They changed things up in an attempt to compete with, or at least slow down, the increasing dominance of Google. The jury is still out as if it will gain any market share, but it still pulls enough traffic that it is important that your site is well represented.

One of the main focuses of BING is comparison shopping.

Bing is focusing a large of part if its million dollar ad campaign and functionality on their tagline “Bing and decide”.  If you have an eCommerce  website or have shopped on an eCommerce site then I’m sure you understand the importance of user reviews in making purchasing decisions. In an effort to make BING the search engine of choice for comparison sh

opping, they include REVIEWS in the search results.

IMPORTANT: BING is pulling their user reviews directly from these 3 sites:

These review sites are not just  important for BING.  These review sites (especially Yelp) are referenced on numerous sites and iphone applications. So, be sure that your site is accurately listed on those sites and encourage your customers to leave positive reviews. If you get positive feedback or a great testimonial in person or over the phone, don’t be afraid to ask that customer if they would mind posting that online where it can really do you some good!

And I’m sure you will all start hearing a lot about another SEO-ish acronym DEO (Decision Engine Optimization)

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