Ideas & Insight

    Most marketers will admit that running any kind of marketing campaign is a bit of a gamble. But what if there was a way to load the deck, and still make adjustments on the fly rather than going ‘all in’ on your first hand?   That’s the power of digital marketing.   With people spending more time on their devices than ever before, the ability to reach prospective customers via digital channels is changing the way we advertise.   What is Digital Marketing?   For the purposes of this article, ‘digital’ marketing refers to social media, search, on-demand music streaming,...

The way people buy has changed. Why? The explosion of information caused by the internet has changed the way people buy goods and services. Instead of seeking out a salesperson for information, buyers are doing their own research and not contacting you until much later in the process. Research shows that buyers typically are 60% down the path to purchase before engaging with a brand. What’s wrong with that? The problem is at that point they have made their own decisions and are simply looking for the lowest price. ...

You’re about to watch your daily dose of funny cat fail videos on YouTube. As you choose a clip, you get slammed with a local mattress store ad yelling about their ‘BIG BIG SAVINGS’. You have no interest in mattresses, cringe, and quickly scramble for the skip button. This is how some marketers are attempting to use pre-roll video. And it is a massive waste of time. A large percentage of pre-roll videos are just recycled broadcast spots that a company reuses from other placement campaigns. For viewers, it is...

Our client Greater Iowa Credit Union came to us with an idea. They did the research and learned that a large segment of their target demographic were viewers of the show “The Walking Dead.” So why not reach that audience using a wisecracking pair of walking dead?  And that’s where Applied Art came in. We worked with Greater Iowa to create a killer spot for their killer mobile banking app. And beyond fulfilling many a team member’s bucket list item to work with zombies, we also created a

As an interactive developer, I’m pretty much always on the hunt for fresh technologies with surprising uses. And when it comes to trade shows, I’ve built enough interactives to know that the goal on a trade show floor is as much getting people to remember your brand as it is introducing new ideas. So when an on-site project took me to the Consumer Electronics Show a few weeks ago, I was excited to see what the biggest players were bringing to the table. This annual 3-day tradeshow in Las Vegas...

Fall. Cooler temperatures, pumpkin spice everything and bountiful fields buzzing with sounds of combines...and an Applied Art & Technology crew, shooting spectacular footage of farms, fields, crops and equipment. How often do you say to yourself (or your editor), “this piece could really use some dramatic, harvest shots!”? Well, the moment has arrived. There’s a narrow window of time right now and we want to join you on site to capture beautiful, dramatic footage of harvest to be used for your projects throughout the year. ...

The video took 4 months to shoot. We used 7 cameras and a drone.  We ended up with 5 terabytes of video which was edited down to two versions. Editing took over a month.  It was released to several sites including MidAmerican's YouTube page. It was very popular in Europe where wind power is hot topic. Cost to buy equivalent number of impressions: $1,000,000.  YouTube is now the second largest search engine. 75% of Executives watch a business related video at least once a week. Seventy percent of B2B buyers and researchers are watching videos throughout their path to purchase.  

How about a suitcase that can tell you exactly where it has been. If you and your suitcase become separated it can alert you to it's whereabouts on your phone. Speaking of phones, how about being able to remotely lock your suitcase through an app.  Sound amazing? But wait there's more. It has a built in digital scale that tells you the weight to avoid those expensive overweight charges. Looking for a place to charge your phone? This suitcase has a built-in charger for your phone and other electronics.  Sound too good to be true?  Its the...

You may have heard about the “How Old Do I Look” website that was launched last week by a couple of developers at Microsoft and has since gone viral. You can upload a photo of anyone and the site will try to determine the gender and age. It’s sometimes amazingly     accurate and other times hilariously wrong. The site was built as a demonstration of Microsoft’s Azure machine learning suite of API’s. An API allows third party developers to integrate functionality from other software into their own...

Google's new algorithm update will start penalizing your website in organic search results if it's not "Mobile-Friendly."  What does that mean for your standing in the digital world? It means if your site is not designed and developed to scale to different screen sizes, like tablets or smart phones, then it will begin to slip in Google search rankings.  Neutral no longer Before, Google's treatment of non-responsive sites was just neutral. Not anymore. A site that is not "Mobile-Friendly" will get pushed lower and lower on the list of search results. And in a world where consumers and clients'...

Responsive design is today's best practice in web design. Instead of having to design a separate, stripped-down mobile site for viewing on a mobile device-- with a separate look, a separate content management system (and a separate price)-- today's websites are being designed to be flexible and effortlessly bendable to any viewing platform whether it is mobile, desktop or anywhere in between. It's like having a business suit that can also be a swimsuit - according to Applied Art's web designer and developer Leon Resh. How does it work? Websites built with responsive design include code that...

Fun with stop motion paper creations Around the 0:30 mark the fun really gets going!