update: feature coverage added 12/12/12
News from the Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) last month raised eyebrows across the motorsports racing landscape. Not only would the Performance Racing Industry show, just purchased from event founder Steve Lewis in March, merge with upstart competitor International Motorsports Industry Show (IMIS) but rather than remain in Orlando Continue reading
These days Software As A Service (SaaS) is taken for granted, as evidenced by the proliferation of cloud-based apps delivering digital publishing output from your phone to your social page quicker than you can say Instagram. The unbelievable transformation from carving text into metal to clik-send blasted out of the gate in the late ’80s and hasn’t let up since.
By the late 1990s, less than a decade later, the conversion from analog to digital was all but complete.
Stroh’s was a legacy beer brewed in Detroit for decades before turning toes up in 1999 when the 150-year-old company sold its labels to Pabst and Miller. Ten years earlier this transitional ad ran and though cutting edge for its day now appears quaint by comparison. Continue reading
For much needed insight into the confounding world of paid digital media I staked out a seat at American Advertising Federation’s Tampa chapter Doing Digital Media Right meeting when they imported Goodway Group’s COO Jay Friedman from Dallas to talk shop. Thanks to a small class size, comfortable venue, and a generous with advice accessible speaker I got plenty of big data answers to my small data questions. (Also see online spending: search vs. display)
At Goodway, the emphasis is on holistic planning. Just like the health philosophy of the same name, holistic planning encourages Continue reading
This year barcamp returned to the University of South Florida’s School of Business Administration for a combined event with codecamp. More than 300 creatives, engineers, and coders from a broad range of backgrounds began lining up before 7:30 a.m. for name tags, coffee, donuts, and a presenting slot. view barcamp Tampa 2012 on flickr
To the average person who might find themselves marooned in this gathering by either a fussy Garmin GPS or a galactic wormhole, barcamp tampa surely comes across like Santa’s Little Helper on the Simpsons – blah blah blah blah blah. I’m no coder, so much of what enters my ears during each of the day’s 50-minute sessions finds me in full agreement with that cartoon greyhound. What does get through, though, is often priceless in terms of application and value.
Barcamp Tampa 2011 was my introduction to the network’s universe of mostly backend web and app design. This year, a shorter list of speakers meant a leaner menu of topics, spread across nine venues in six time slots that started at 8 a.m. and ended at five.
I finished the day with three solid seminars under my belt, leaving a couple of half-baked selections behind on the table. Even though overall the offerings were pared down, Beyond Netflix – New Frontiers in Algorithms, Harvesting Social Data, and WordPress Optimization added up to several hours of insight, information, and takeaways that would have proven elusive, if not impossible, to discover if not for barcamp.
Start with a number: nearly 1.5 billion. While most – but surprisingly not all – powersports B2B media and distributors and B2C retailers have staked out claims on the most popular social media channels, actual engagement of this valuable real estate lags far behind potential. This infographic measures the reach and user engagement of the most popular trade event, distributor, and online retail vendors on Facebook and twitter. Click here for more on how powersports uses social media.
An article in last week’s New York Times, while leaving the door slightly ajar for the channel’s future, makes a reasoned case against a present marketplace that features electric motorcycles humming around the urban landscape in silent flocks of environmental uber responsibility. (See earlier post on Mercedes Benz plans for a 2014 market entry.)
Reporter Dexter Ford writes in the paper’s Automotive section about the challenges facing the nascent industry, not least of which is cost. Far cheaper conventional alternatives, eco-friendly and offering the same or better mileage per comperable fillup, are getting top billing as the major Asian motorcycle brands begin to flex their muscles in taking on not only high-end electrics but cheap, disposable Chinese scooters as well.
Compounding the confusion over electric’s future is a same-day post on the NYT’s Wheels blog on Zero’s 2013 lineup just introduced at Intermöt. In what’s seen as a responsive reaction to marketplace concern, the Santa Cruz, CA, company is moving away from the mountain bike inspired initial design towards a more familiar traditional look courtesy of former Buell designer and now Zero’s chief technology officer Abe Askenazi.
Between the high performance Lightning, the gyro stablized LIT Motors C1, or the mainstream (for electrics) bikes from Zero and Brammo, interest isn’t going away. And neither is the significant cost differential, or the lingering comparisons to Segway’s marketing rationale.
Whether that same interest will translate into sustainable sales for complete bikes or morph into a niche industry of DIY builds sourced from frame makers, engine manufacturers, and battery suppliers might be the unanswered question.
How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice.
Trying to achieve page rank by relying on a domain name stuffed with keywords just got a lot harder. In an update unrelated to Panda, which puts more emphasis on well designed and written quality content, Google’s latest algorithm begins to make the practice of keyword-defined URLs obsolete and thus encouraging (forcing?) content managers to develop rank organically by adding meaningful content.
New exact-match domain (EMD) algo affects 0.6% of English-US queries to a noticeable degree. Unrelated to Panda/Penguin.
— Matt Cutts (@mattcutts) September 28, 2012
It works for me. Googling “powersports (advertising – marketing – pr)” usually results in page one rank for Siebenthaler Creative. In September 2012 screen grab below Siebenthaler Creative is the only SERP that doesn’t have “powersports” in the URL. This query returned two of my pages based on “powersports advertising,” more on subsequent SERPs. Bottom line: if the goal is to be seen by as many as possible, you need a strategy that doesn’t depend on shortcuts, and one that can survive and adapt over time.
Cycle World’s introduction of their subscribed free mobile app signals the first major move of parent Bonnier since the 2011 buyout via Hearst via HFM.
This is one of a handful of titles in the powersports community and the first among major enthusiast consumer magazines to tap the growing popularity of mobile/tablet platform publishing coupled with a digital subscription rollout that may or may not gain traction. Issues run within the app, and aren’t viewable as a browser interpretation.
The app, available only via iTunes, adds to Bonnier’s growing portfolio of tablet targeted digital publishing efforts which now includes Field & Stream, Popular Photography, Flying, Popular Science, and their high-end gourmet glossy, Saveur.
What’s significant is that unlike a Flash based publishing solution, the app is easily viewed on Apple iOS devices, which represent a major and growing portion of interactive mobile publishing. Can you see a cross-link marketing connection in the works? Ad reps are standing by – CW’s going to make mighty attractive bait for Bonnier’s other mainstream enthusiast brands.
Optimized for page view on tablets and scaleable as an adaptive/responsive layout for smaller screens, I’m guessing the digital porting is positioned to take full advantage of Apple’s latest Retina displays – and that translates into photography so lavish you can just about dip your hands in.
Tablet publishing is the new frontier of print journalism, and depending on acceptance by the public will determine in large part how profitable titles will become as newstand and subscription sales continue to tumble into the abyss. Will it work? Wired and Sports Illustrated were early entrants in what can be a hugely expensive and time consuming technical task. SI recently laid off another busload of staffers, but kept photogs in place.
Interested? You’ll need an iTunes account (free) to download, but the app’s free and promises a couple of gratis teaser pubs as incentive for a full-fledged subscription. Which is why the first link attached to the eBlast ended up a clunker. Here’s a link that works.
If you think Google docs equals digital publishing, time to catch up. For more insight on the wide range of available digital formats, click here.
One thing the troubled world of powersports trade events can’t survive and still maintain a credible industry presence is the abandonment of anchored floor space by major distributors.
The increasingly anemic dealer turnout that’s plagued Expo in recent years takes another hit as the persistent rumor of Parts Unlimited and Drag Specialties departing Indy in favor of building their own corporate footprint apparently has legs.
LeMans is expected to announce a budget reallocation that shifts marketing funds from Dealer Expo to expand their own self-hosted Showcase dealer show to include bi-coastal (CA and PA) additions, each with up to 200 vendor slots, in a move that further suppresses aftermarket manufacturer participation in traditional venues.
Logos, logotypes, and trademarks have become integral to everyday life, from the pictograms used to order your lunch at Mickey Ds to finding your way to the next road trip gas stop.
This six-minute primer from the PBS Off Book series looks in on the history, tradition, and uses of a visual identity and establishes the argument for professional design versus the DIY approach that’s emerged as a result of desktop publishing empowerment.
Properly done, visual identities are a powerful marketing tool that work to fulfill an observers expectations. When that design is poorly developed, communication suffers.
