Warm wishes for the holiday season from on3!

Posted on December 15, 2011 by admin

Jim hates it when I do this. Which is why I do it EVERY year.

Happy Holidays!

- Jim and Heather

Posted in On Three, Random | Comments Off

last ditch tourism campaign to save small town leavenworth

Posted on August 19, 2011 by admin

What Leavenworth lacks in size it makes up for in creative risk-taking. From DeepDishCreative’s blog:

“In the 1960′s little Leavenworth, Washington’s population had dwindled significantly since its boom days as a railroad and logging town east of Seattle. Town officials dreamed up a last ditch effort to save the town from total demise and converted it to a Bavarian-themed destination. Businesses caught on and now the town is as alpine as can be in the Cascade Range. Surprisingly without being too kitschy, Leavenworth is a must-stop town for tourists and Washington locals alike. Now with their nutty mascot, Woody Goomsba and this hilarious video, Leavenworth is making the most of its reinvented location.”

This is brilliant. I’m still amazed that small town leadership would take such a huge risk, but it has paid off big time. They did something fun, the campaign got noticed and they are reaping the benefits. (A nice outcome given the dire straits the town was in before they conceived of this.)

Here are the takeaways for economic development and tourism professionals – it works because:

It takes a stand and takes a risk
It embraces a niche market and sells the hell out of it
It’s a complete campaign that engaged the local community
It’s funny, memorable and completely unexpected from LEAVENWORTH (!) – how can you not take notice?

Sure beats “Live. Work. Play.” now doesn’t it?

Posted in Branding, Economic Development, Ideas, Social Media | Tagged city branding, Economic Development, great tourism campaign, leavenworth, marketing, place marketing, tourism marketing, woody goomsba | Comments Off

and this is why you don’t use stock photography kids

Posted on August 19, 2011 by admin

Nokia used a stock photo of a woman using an iPhone!?! in this display ad:

Oooops! Lessons learned:

It’s time to fire your agency; and
Don’t use stock photography – take the time to photograph your own product.

Found here.

Posted in Branding, Business, Design | Tagged dangers of stock photography, nokia iPhone blunder, stock photography | Comments Off

google search stories: visualize how people find you

Posted on August 5, 2011 by admin

Google has a groovy little tool on YouTube that lets you create “stories” by entering a handful of search terms that get animated, set to music and uploaded right to your YouTube account page.

For economic developers, it could be a handy and engaging way to show how your online investment in a website, blog and/or social media are paying off. Enter your city or region’s name and combine it with terms like “incentives”, “business development”, “site selection”, “operating costs”… you get the idea.

Here’s one I did for On Three to show our prevalence on the web for those seeking expertise on Canadian economic development marketing. View it full screen for easier reading:

You can create your own here.

Posted in Branding, Economic Development, Ideas, On Three, Social Media | Tagged cool ideas, Economic Development, economic development marketing, economic development websites, Social Media, Youtube | Comments Off

latest Liberal ad ripping off Chrysler/Eminem superbowl success

Posted on June 20, 2011 by admin

Seriously?

Watching television tonight, I saw the new Ontario Liberal Party ad for the first time. The ad is basically a paraphrased version of the hugely successful Chrysler Superbowl ad that featured Eminem and did a tremendous sales job for Detroit. Both begin with a narrator’s voice over short clips of gritty city scenes and hardworking men and women. In the Chrysler ad, the narrator opens with “I got a question for you…” and the Liberal ad (narrated by Dalton himself) begins with “Ask yourself something…” The similarities only get creepier from there. Watch them in a row below:

The Ontario Liberal Party:

And the original Chrysler version:

Curious, I went to the internet for answers and found this excellent National Post article about the appropriateness of the deliberate rip-off by the Liberals, and the complete lack of ethics of the ad agency that stole from one of its peers. It’s not uncommon to be inspired by each other, or to come up with similar ideas independently, don’t get me wrong. But this crosses the line – for both the Liberal party and the ad agency that represents them.

Posted in Branding, Business, News | Tagged chrsyler ad, detroit, eminem, liberal ad, ontario liberal | Comments Off

Is this Moscow’s new identity?

Posted on May 26, 2011 by admin

Thankfully, no.

But I was so surprised when I opened a recent post about this Moscow logo that it took me a few minutes to actually read the article and figure out that this is not an official identity, but rather an independent initiative of architect Nicholas Pereslegina and designer Alexander Pershikova.

At first, I was intrigued: Talk about taking a risk, embracing pop culture and creating an identity that is a true departure from what comes to mind when most people think of Moscow. But then I got to thinking about some pretty important branding fundamentals – namely that a brand should aspire to be timeless. The choice to use emoticons in this case throws that principle out the window. It’s unlikely that emoticons are going to serve a major city’s identity in the long-term, and an investment in a brand should pay off for years to come. Further, how prevalent are the emoticons chosen? They are supposed to represent “surprised + happy = wow”, but I wonder how many people will get the meaning. I didn’t.

Here is the proposed brand in action (all images from Brand New blog):

Don’t even get me started on the placement of the “o’s” on the shirt.

If this was a serious official identity out of Moscow I’d be concerned, but given that it’s an exercise in design (and a publicity stunt, let’s be honest) it’s fun to look at and analyze. It’s also a good opportunity to revisit some branding fundamentals and, in this case, serves as a good reminder of the balance between design bravery and flash-in-the-pan’ism.

Posted in Branding, Economic Development | Tagged city branding, emoticons, moscow logo, place branding, place marketing, timeless brands | Comments Off

on3′s superbowl ad picks

Posted on February 11, 2011 by admin

They’re always fun to watch… more so than the football if you ask me. Here are on3′s picks for the Top 5 Superbowl ads:

#5 Teleflora – Faith Hill

No rocket science here, this one just made me giggle. Faith’s delivery of “So you just sent that?” and Sound Guy’s subsequent delivery of “My heart told me to” make the spot.

#4 Career Builder – Parking Lot

I love it when a brand revisits something that worked well and puts a new twist on it. This ad gives the viewer enough credit to remember the excellent 2006 chimpanzee spots Career Builder ran, and revisits our miserable employee and his chimp coworkers in the parking lot.

#3 Bridgestone – Reply All

An excellent spot that actually shows the product it’s advertising in use. For your next email gaffe, make sure you’re riding on Bridgestones.

#2 Chrysler – Imported From Detroit

The cinematography is gritty and beautiful, and this one gets on3 bonus points for the excellent place branding for Detroit. “Imported from Detroit” is the best piece of copywriting of all the Superbowl ads.

#1 Audi – Escape Old Luxury

And our pick for top spot goes to Audi for a spot that is genuinely creative from concept to the final line “Escape Old Luxury”. Nice to see something really different, although it would have been much better without the Kenny G cameo at the end.

Posted in Branding, Ideas | Tagged audi old luxury, bridgestone reply all, career builder, chrysler eminem, superbowl 2011, superbowl ads, teleflora faith hill | Comments Off

Philly uses crowdsourcing for tourism campaign

Posted on January 18, 2011 by admin

Crowdsourced campaigns can increase reach and buzz, and Philadelphia is banking on this approach for its new tourism initiative: “With love, Philadelphia XOXO”.

The campaign asks residents to submit their “with love” idea in the hopes of having them selected to appear on one of the billboards along I-95 purchased for the campaign. They are also encouraged to share their billboard ideas via social networks, thus increasing the reach of the campaign further.

Although crowdsourced campaigns often have the potential to go terribly wrong (see Gap logo fiasco October 2010), this one falls less on the side of exploiting the crowd being sourced, and more on the side of rallying that crowd to create pride in the city they love. It is admittedly a very fine line.

This campaign is smart and they are already getting great material for the billboards. The sharing, bragging and smiles that will come from this campaign will have a positive effect on the city and its visitors. A nice initiative all around.

You can learn more here.

Found via Place Marketing Group.

Posted in Branding, Design, Economic Development, Ideas, Social Media, Writing | Tagged billboard, city marketing, crowdsourcing, economic development marketing, philadelphia branding, philadelphia tourism, place marketing, tourism marketing | 4 Comments

3mail introduces social sharing

Posted on January 12, 2011 by admin

Great news for our 3mail clients who are using social media as a marketing tool. We’ve just introduced social sharing into 3mail, which allows you to add Twitter and Facebook buttons into every campaign you send.

If your email recipients like your content, they can use the buttons to quickly share it with their network, thus increasing the reach of your communication and encouraging new subscribers.

It’s as easy as adding a quicklink in the 3mail editor:

What’s even better, is that every time someone tweets or likes your content, it shows up in your 3mail campaign reports in real-time, closing the loop and helping you to see how often your content is shared on these social networks.

We are very excited about this new feature, and have more in the works. Next up: Unlimited monthly plans for 3mail’s heavy users who prefer to pay a flat fee instead of paying everytime they send. You asked, and we’ll deliver! Look for this update in February 2011.

About 3mail:

3mail is an email marketing tool designed specifically for economic development and tourism. With 3mail, you’ll know exactly how your campaigns are performing. See who opened, clicked and forwarded your email.

3mail lets you:

1. Create and send your own beautiful email campaigns
2. Manage and grow your recipient lists
3. Review powerful reports and campaign statistics

Check it out here and start sending amazing email campaigns today. Thanks for your continued support. We hope you love this new feature as much as we do!

Posted in Business, Economic Development, Email Marketing, On Three | Tagged 3mail, email and social media, email campaign, Email Marketing, email reports, onthree, social sharing | Comments Off

my year in tweets

Posted on December 31, 2010 by admin

Twitter has become our favorite social media resource for economic development news, marketing and inspiration. I’ve just finished combing through my year in tweets and culled the best from each quarter for this wrap-up post. When you look back over an entire year, it’s amazing how many links and resources you come across and share on Twitter.

This post represents the best of what I thought was tweet-worthy in 2010. I challenge you to do the same and post your best of in the comments section or @ me on Twitter.

You can follow me here. I’d love to connect.

- HC

Best Tweets of Q4

One of the best posts I’ve read on writing for the web and email: http://ow.ly/3vMX3

RT @mashable 5 Ways Cities Are Using Social Media to Reverse Economic Downturn – http://on.mash.to/hm2l2n #econdev #placebranding

Very cool. RT @fastcompany San Francisco Aims for 100% Green Power by 2020 http://bit.ly/fKJpO0 #econdev

Hip does not equal sustainable. RT @mellormurray Great post – Cool or uncool cities? What really matters is prosperity http://ow.ly/3p20G

Need a social media policy for your EDO? Good database of corporate, gov’t and non-profit examples here: http://ow.ly/3hq2k #econdev #sm

RT @mellormurray How do you measure economic development success? http://ow.ly/39xqD

Approaching tourism from a regional perspective. Applies to #econdev too. http://ow.ly/35v4G (via @sandyratliff)

RT @jupia Low corporate taxes not a major draw of foreign investment; Conference Board http://bit.ly/c7TRa7

Business incubators as an #econdev tool – more likely to succeed AND stay local when they do – http://bit.ly/b4H7KK (via @EcDevComDev)

Best Tweets of Q3

Data as a municipal asset. http://bit.ly/b2A36R (via @MartinProsperiT) We were pretty impressed when Vancouver did this: http://ow.ly/2K8OH

Interesting ideas in here for cities/ #econdev too RT @mashable How Universities Can Win Big With Location-Based Apps – http://mash.to/2Io3I Continue reading →

Posted in Business, Economic Development, Ideas, On Three, Social Media | Tagged best tweets of 2010, destination marketing, Economic Development, economic development marketing, place branding, place marketing, twitter, year in tweets | Comments Off

Warm wishes for the holiday season from on3!

and this is why you don’t use stock photography kids

latest Liberal ad ripping off Chrysler/Eminem superbowl success

Is this Moscow’s new identity?