Atomic's "Hollywood sign" stunt for the Trust for Public Land. More coming...
Friday, 12 February 2010
Atomic LA and Atomic Digital Ops have had to keep mum about this project for some time, but now we're public with our efforts and the news is making headlines around the globe. So far we've seen hundreds of major press hits, broadcast pickups, and social media chatter (1,750+ Facebook fans in 36 hours, a Top 10 trending Twitter keyword in LA, etc).
We're helping the Trust for Public Land in their campaign to save Cahuenga Peak, the land surrounding the Hollywood Sign. Owned by private developers, the land is at risk of having a number of mansions built atop it, forever marring the iconic view of the Hollywood Sign and preventing the public access to the land which people have enjoyed for decades.
Much more to come soon - in the meantime check out our microsite for the latest updates, and feel free to share the widget below and encourage support!
Communicating with video (it's more than viral)
Monday, 07 December 2009
Producing video can do a lot for a brand. While going 'viral' is clearly one potential benefit, I think most of us are well aware of what that is and what it achieves. But beyond virality, how else can video be of value to a brand?
How about playing on the NASDAQ screen in Times Square? More in this in a minute...
Producing video can do several things. In some cases, it can make complex ideas simple and intuitive. For example, trying to communicate the benefits of a networked power grid can be a tough sell for people outside the utility industry. Knowing that, we worked with our client Echelon, a leading provider of smart grids and networked power solutions, to produce a series of videos highlighting the cost savings and environmental benefit of the technology. In addition to making the message accessible to consumers, these short videos also helped clarify their position to journalists and instantly illustrate what exactly they do.
In other cases, it can be helpful to introduce and build trust for new companies. When Mint.com launched in 2007, we produced a series of videos around the holidays centered on personal finance for 20-somethings, such as holiday budgeting (BTW, Mint was recently acquired by Intuit for $170MM). These videos served several purposes beyond the obvious consumer appeal. They also helped introduce the product to journalists and analysts, and they also served as a showreel for Mint.com CEO Aaron Patzer, ultimately leading to a screentest with CNBC to appear as a regular contributor on personal finance issues.
Video can also be used to raise awareness on macro issues. ArcSight, a leading security and compliance management company, helps companies from the private sector all the way up to the military and intelligence industries protect themselves against cyber threats. To help raise awareness on the issue, we produced an animated typographic video highlighting some disturbing statistics on cybercrime and major cyber incidents. The piece was so well received, it was used in the opening keynote of the Protect09 cyber security conference in Washington DC, and also played in Times Square when ArcSight rang the opening bell at the NASDAQ.
Lastly, video can provide a search benefit as well. With universal search, videos and other content sometimes appear in search results alongside the usual ten blue links. A strategically produced and optimized video may rank well for relevant searches (as it did for our client Ingres during their 'Vectorwise' product launch) which both supports client messaging while helping to defend the first page of results against competitors or off-message content.
Check out a short snippet of the ArcSight video in Times Square below. Questions? Feel free to send a note to our Digital Ops group at digops@atomicpr.com.
Search is more than just keywords and links
Friday, 28 August 2009
With eight years of professional involvement with search marketing on both the organic / algorithmic side and the paid side, it's surprising to see how, in many cases, the discussion tends to have a singular focus: drive traffic to my site.
Not that there's anything wrong with that - eCommerce and ad-supported sites really do need an ever-growing stream of traffic to sustain their business. But for most of us, there is a world of search beyond your domain that can sometimes be even more important than the traffic arriving at our site.
Enquiro, a research firm commissioned by Google, produced a study that outlines that effect. It confirmed an intuitive feeling I had long ago, that the search engines have an effect on brand. For example, ranking well for the term "running shoes" will indicate to most users that one is an authoritative brand/store/voice on the topic of "running shoes".
Nielsen Net//Ratings then released a study in April 2009 on how trustworthy various forms of advertising were, in which "recommendations from people known" and "consumer opinions posted online" ranked as #1 and #2 respectively, with #4 being "editorial content posted online". And the first one doesn't necessarily mean your best friend - "people known" can be anyone that someone trusts, in some cases even respected public figures or industry leaders with whom the user feels some type of connection with.
In other words, sometimes the best search results for a brand may not be that brand's website at all. And, even if the brand website is ranking well, having a multitude of other touchpoints out there definitely doesn't hurt (and it can help you defend that ever valuable first page).
Ensuring your brand (and not just your brand homepage) is well placed in this ecosystem is becoming ever more important. Be sure you consider the broader aspects of search, including how search can influence brand, the effect of 3rd party content on the results, and search outside of the major search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo.
After all, search has evolved into one of the most critical pillars of the modern web ecosystem - search engines don't just send people to websites, they can make or break brands, influence opinion, and take the pulse of the world in real-time.
Clip of friends and clients: Animoto at SXSW 2009
Saturday, 28 March 2009
