The Marketing Innovation Blog

GY&K hosts a live music series known as GY&K Sessions, which feature emerging artists who perform in our office. The latest Session starred Grammy nominated artist, Seth Glier.

Jeff Topping, VP/Associate Creative Director at GY&K, designs posters for all of the GY&K Sessions (such as the one above). “I thought it would be a nice parallel between the keys of the piano that Seth is familiar with, and the keys of the keyboard that we all play everyday at the office,” Jeff said. “It’s a ‘colliding of worlds’ in a way. The clean, iconic, bold design style captures the hard working office environment.”

Check out Seth’s performance below, and be sure to watch all the way through for a surprise finish. Trust me.

Don’t you wish Seth performed at your office?

Luke Bonner is the Marketing Coordinator at GY&K Marketing

Like all creative professionals, I understand there is an expectation that our wells will never run dry of ideas. In a busy agency environment, I find that having resources for creative inspiration will often help during those moments of chaotic timelines and due dates. When there is even a brief second of downtime, I retreat to various places of stimulation where, if I’m lucky, a spark might be kindling.

There is no single source, but I do frequently visit several such places and you may be surprised to find that they are fairly standard social media channels. The explosion of content sharing has made many of these sources ripe for creative abundance. The filtering and search tools have made these channels efficient vehicles for doing research and rapidly scouring for inspiring showcases. And they allow me to either become a publisher myself or create sets and collections of things I want to keep track of.

Tumblr technically is a publishing tool. However, I use it to search for inspiration.

I initially entered some tag searches, such as “identity,” “brochure” and “branding.” My dashboard then populated with any posts using those tags. Those posts displaying images I found relevant or creatively inspirational, I “followed,” meaning anything that posting person adds goes into my feed. Now each time I go on Tumblr, my feed is representative of those who I chose to follow at one time. I can “heart” certain posts too, which creates a list of those things I, well, “love.”  Those posts that I feel are meaningful to me and my creative stockpiling can be “republished,” and in turn I create my own Tumblr page. All of those “killer ideas” are now on my own page for me to refer to and share with others who might be looking for inspiration as well. I admit I’m fairly lazy about adding my own tags that make those posts searchable and valuable.  As I said, downtime is precious and the downward linear scanning fashion of this site suits me best.

http://onlysmarter.tumblr.com/

Behance.net is a social channel created specifically for creative professionals who wish to share their portfolios and recent work. I use it as a way to see fresh work from around the world. It also uses keywords or tags to help search, but rather than publishing the things I like, I can “save to collection” and into sets that I create for sorting, such as branding, logos, websites, banks, healthcare, etc. It also works as a forum for critiques for those who post their work. I regularly give props to those whose work I admire, which helps elevate their submissions. I can also search by most recent, most appreciated, most commented, or random sample galleries. Many of the entries I save have a full-blown creative history for the creation of the final piece, including sketches, photos, clippings and background ideas. I again, unfortunately, don’t have the time to publish and share much of our own work but it is a great way to receive feedback on our work.

http://www.behance.net/smarter

Pinterest has become an increasingly popular place to share ideas and also has some of the best features for building collections. It allows you to build “boards” to which you can “pin” anything you find online. So I could have a board for every industry I work in, or for any category I need to research. It’s a great visual organization tool. I usually search by topic and then find other designers like myself building collections of great work to share. Very quickly I am inundated with visual results that are great creative fodder and inspiration for my projects. This site has the familiar feel of the traditional creative mood board or war room, where we would cover the walls with clippings and tear sheets while brainstorming. I have only just begun sharing my own work on this site, as I’ve found it a bit time consuming but the benefit of taking the time to do that means others can connect to me and I don’t have to do as much outbound searching every time I want to do research.

http://pinterest.com/onlysmarter/

Any of these websites offer me a way to quickly see great examples of relevant work. I can be introduced to new typefaces, new design styles, photography methods and color palettes that are fresh and contemporary. So before I break into my own sketching and preliminary design ideas, I like to take a look around and get some inspiration, much the way an artist might spend a few hours at the museum. And when the demand for the next great creative solution calls, I will feel a little more prepared to deliver it.

What online resources do you use to spark creativity?

Jeff Topping is the VP/Associate Creative Director at GY&K.

At times, advertising can feel impersonal and lose the “human” element, especially website and mobile banner forms of advertising and paid SEM. The level of separation between marketers and their customers can be rather large when it comes to online engagements via banner ads and search advertising. Consumers view banner advertising, conduct a keyword search, visit a brand’s website, research product information, and even purchase goods without ever speaking to a live person.

While this is great for people who enjoy this type of shopping experience (and many people do), some prefer to ask questions and learn more about a brand by having a live conversation with a knowledgeable brand ambassador. This personal interaction can be essential for brands that offer in-depth services and have customers with specific needs.

As an organization, wouldn’t you want those consumers to be able to find your brands and connect with you as quickly as possible?

The Internet in general and organic SEO help extend your reach, but paid advertising can put you over the top. It is important to note, however, that while online banner advertising, paid search, and mobile advertising are valuable,  they can be a bit impersonal.

Because of this, many brands are now testing the addition of a new element to these paid media channels. Instead of clicking on an ad, being led to a website and then left on your own to find a phone number, we’re testing options for customers to click on a paid search ad or a mobile ad and be connected directly to a live person.

For customers, with the increased need for instantaneous gratification, this feature proves to enhance a customer’s experience. What other emerging technologies have you seen that facilitate additional customer engagement and direct feedback?

Shana Malik is VP of Integrated Media at GY&K

In preparation for Super Bowl Sunday, Wheat Thins created a user-generated contest on Twitter and Instagram. Using #musthavewheatthins, Wheat Thins tracked tweets from users in San Francisco and Baltimore, promising a thousand boxes of Wheat Thins to the city that tweeted more.

Earlier this week, San Francisco was crowned the “loudness champion.” On Super Bowl Sunday, Wheat Thins will be making snack runs, delivering boxes of Wheat Thins to the first 1000 @WheatThins followers in San Francisco who tweeted the hashtags #SF and #musthavewheatthins.

Wheat Thins will attempt to capitalize on the momentum of this campaign with a Super Bowl commercial featuring a paranoid Wheat Thins lover fighting a yeti.

This campaign was interesting and relevant for a few reasons:

-This campaign gave consumers an incentive to provide content

-The actual delivery of the Wheat Thins provides another event and opportunity for customer interaction/promotion

-The Super Bowl is one of the biggest snacking days of the year, and so Wheat Thins are a natural fit

Hashtag campaigns aren’t new, and this wasn’t the first time we have mentioned the Wheat Thins promotion machine  (see our post from early last year on Stephen Colbert’s “sponsortunity”) but this one has a unique opportunity to capitalize on the national stage. What other campaigns have you noticed recently combining a traditional ad campaign with a large social push?

Mike Stevens is Director of Integrated Marketing and Reporting at GY&K

On December 27, 2012 the New York Times introduced the world to a piece of multimedia journalism that redefines storytelling.

Sound too strong? Then you haven’t experienced “Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek”.

I say, “experienced” because this isn’t simply a story you read. It’s a story that you are immersed in, literally (and virtually). With its beautifully written narrative, amazing graphics, photography, and breadth of compelling video content, “Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek” has blown the creative and technological doors wide open in the way stories can be told and how quality content can have an amazing impact. You have to visit the link above to get the full impact, but this video is a captivating piece of the full story.

This story will have such a big impact because it sets the high bar for what is possible in online storytelling – combining the best in writing, design, multimedia and web technology.  Just check out a couple of the stats in this memo from executive editor Jill Abramson:

• In the six days after Snow Fall’s launch, it received more than 3.5 million page views
• The page had 2.9 million visitors, nearly a third of whom were new visitors to the Times website
• The project was shared by more than 10,000 users on Twitter
• At its peak, as many as 22,000 users visited Snow Fall at any given time
• More than half a million visits went directly to Snow Fall, and more than half of those direct visits were from new Times users (or readers who hadn’t visited the site in a long while)

Have you seen other examples of major news outlets using new technology and various forms of media in a unique way?

Andrew Harris is the VP/Creative Director at GY&K

Lance. Tiger. Barry. The list goes on. How the mighty have fallen. I can remember the first time I watched Tiger play golf—I was, naturally, glued to the screen as my mother gushed, “He’s such a wholesome guy!” on the couch beside me.

But then, he fell. And I was more disappointed than you can imagine. (I don’t think I came out of my room for a week). While my story is relatable for many, when heroes fall, there is often more at stake than lost idols.

What about the brands that attach themselves to these human brands?

It used to be a star athlete knew they’d made the big time when they made the coveted Wheaties box. Now the big stars have more sponsorship contracts than a NASCAR driver. And the payoffs are often huge. Who can forget the Nike swoosh on the ball that rolled slowly into the cup? Or the social movement that became LiveStrong?

So let’s talk about Lance. He’s our most recent fallen star—and a ballsy one at that.

Here’s a spot Nike did with Lance in 2001.

He ends the spot with “ Everybody wants to know what I am on. What am I on? I am on my bike, busting my ass six hours a day. What are you on?”

At the time it was bold, inspiring and Lance looked like a hero, a leader. Now 12 years later, a scandal and an unemotional Oprah interview later, it looks like a joke.

But does that mean brands should never take chances? That human brands are never trustworthy? For this optimistic ad girl, I certainly hope there are still heroes to be found and historic ads to be made.

Shoshanna Kelly is a Senior Copywriter at GY&K