2010 November | T2 + Back Alley Blog

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November 23rd, 2010
by Teri Rogers
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Developing Mobile Marketing Solutions Is Good Business

Why We Do Mobile Design

Designing mobile marketing solutions for our clients is an integral part of our business plan. If you’re reading this blog, I’m probably not telling you anything you don’t already know. We are a mobile society and carry our mobile devices with us everywhere. If we leave the house without them, we turn back and get them — the thought of getting through a day without connectivity in the palm of our hands is untenable.

A billion people accessed the mobile Internet worldwide in 2009 and Gartner forecasts call for expect usage to double within five years as mobile overtakes the PC as the most popular way to get on the Web. Additionally, according to MarketingProfs’ mobile devices are the most personal method of reaching people and messages are more likely to be read on the small screen than they are on the big.

According to an Outsell study, consumers who have a smartphone spent an average of more than 25% of their waking hours interacting with their device. That same research shows that by 2014, more than half of web browsing will be done from mobile devices.

Despite this clear trend, 56% of marketers are currently doing no mobile or browser advertising. With devices such as the iPad, Android and iPhone becoming capturing increasingly more marketshare, marketers could be missing out on big rewards.

Mobile advertising is still in its early days but this space represents huge opportunities for marketers across B2B, B2C, E-commerce and non-profit organizations. Gartner predicts that by the end of 2010, 1.2 billion people will carry handsets capable of rich, mobile commerce and that that will be the preferential way of reaching consumers.
This is exactly why my company is designing for the mobile space. It’s not going away — and according to the stats above, helping clients develop mobile marketing solutions should be a growing business segment for T2+Back Alley Films.

November 4th, 2010
by Teri Rogers
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Experience Design at Its Finest – In the “Limelight”

A Limelight "performance"

This Friday, Nov. 5th there will be a very special happening at First Fridays in the Crossroads – and you know how much we love experiential happenings. “Limelight” is a live public art installation that is coming to KC after its initial installation in Glasgow, London and Arlington, Va.

For this work Sans façon, have taken a different approach to city street lighting by replacing two existing streetlight heads with theater spotlights, inviting passersby to temporarily transform the street into a stage. According to their press release, the theater spotlight is a universally familiar symbol of performance — both recognizable and appealing. This intentionally subtle alteration to the street lighting transforms an ordinary sidewalk into a stage where the passersby become both the actor and the spectator. A few dance steps become an instant spectacle, a few sung words become a musical and a kiss turns into a film scene. And the thing that I love is that a public space, a street, becomes a place — a place that showcases the creativity and vitality and energy ever-present in a city, but rarely shown in a public space. And that’s nothing short of magical.

Why Kansas City? Kudos to David Dowell and El Dorado Architects for making this happen. Turns out David met the two principals of Sans façon a few years ago and the two firms have since collaborated on multiple projects. Sans façon is a collaborative art practice formed between British artist, Tristan Surtees and French architect, Charles Blanc.

David contacted them about bringing “Limelight” to Kansas City as a public outreach event for 20th St. Streetscape Project – which is an El Dorado project that is working to transform and redefine 20th Street into a “Great Street.” Definitely check out 20th St. Streetscape Project which includes some sustainable elements as well as changes to sidewalks and street lighting. I can’t wait to see the whole plan for 20th Street…but I digress. Bottom line, Dave Dowell went out and raised the money to bring “Limelight” to KC. He made it happen and I’m grateful for his tenacity.

Suffice it to say, I will be hanging out at 20th and Main Street at dusk on Friday so I can be a part of the experience. I might be too insecure to perform but I’ll have fun watching. Then again, who knows. That’s what is wonderful about experiential projects. And I hope I’ll see you there.

November 2nd, 2010
by Teri Rogers
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Online Video Facts That May Surprise You

Occasionally I get sucked into the Internets. You know what I mean. You start out looking at one random thing and, before you know it, hours later, you’re off on a tangent and discovering things you can’t get enough of. This week, stats about online video hooked me. I started reading some stats from comScore’s annual video matrix that was published in the spring and, well, they’re pretty compelling. Here are a few:

• The average U.S. Internet user watched 186 videos per month.

• 183 Million Americans watched a total of 33.9 billion online videos in the month of   May alone.

• YouTube, naturally, is the top dog when it comes to online video content viewed at 143.2 million unique viewers, with Yahoo! Sites coming in at 55.1 million unique viewers.

• Facebook is rocking it as an online video portal, coming in third overall, with some 46.6 viewers (only a million more than Microsoft sites.

• Americans viewed nearly 3.6 billion video ads in July, with Hulu generating the highest number of video ad impressions at 783 million.

• comScore calculated that video ads reached nearly half (44.5%) of the total U.S. population an average of 27 times in the month of July alone.

• More video is uploaded to YouTube in 60 days than all 3 major US networks produced in 60 years.

• From 2005 to 2010, Online video grew at a phenomenal rate of 910%, versus 114% for the Internet and 0% for TV.

910% growth? Oh yeah, video is everywhere. And now you know why I spent so much time checking this out. It’s an optimistic sign for our industry – and certainly our experience in the work we’ve been producing this past year back all this up. These ad spending stats from eMarketer back all this up as well.

eMarketer Online Video Stats

And the world of video content production has changed significantly. Back in the day, the agency world (and thus my world), used to focus on the :30 spot. Today, there are less ads and more branded content. We see less advertising produced by creative teams at agencies and executed by motion graphics firms and more content produced by way of partnerships between advertisers and content producers. For consumers who live in a fragmented world and who are constantly bombarded with stimuli and messages of all kinds, one piece of content (e.g. that :30 spot) just isn’t enough. Smart marketers are adopting a strategy of enveloping their audience in a fog consisting of a variety of messages rather than hitting them over the head with just one message.

And the reason for the messaging has changed. The website has become the hub of a brand’s business operations and a significant place for brands to engage their customers. Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and other social media outlets are becoming equally as important, and viewed as a complement to a brand’s website. Thus, it’s critical that branded video content is created with these different venues and varying strategies in mind. Sometimes the content is developed for brand enhancement purposes, sometimes it’s to entice them to a site, sometimes it’s goal is to engage website visitors once they get to a site, and keep them there longer. And other times, it’s developed for lead generation purposes. And more goals mean more content.

I think the future of video content is pretty clear. I bet at T2 + Back Alley Films, we’ll just keep producing more of it and doing it less expensively. It only makes sense.