Word on the Street

Are you prepared for Google’s latest search algorithm change? On April 21, 2015 Google began rolling out a change to the way it ranks websites in mobile search results. The “mobile-friendly update” puts more emphasis on whether a website is mobile-friendly when determining the website’s search results ranking for searches performed on mobile devices.

Keeping things fresh and new is always important in advertising. Getting a customer’s attention and keeping it long enough to consider the content of an ad is always a challenge. Rich Media ads are one of the newer formats of digital advertising, and take advantage of animation and video to truly catch the customer’s eye.

If you’ve seen the lines outside Apple stores just before the release of a new iPhone, you’re already familiar with one of the fastest growing tech trends—the use of mobile devices. It seems like mobile is the way to go, from email and social networking to shopping and online banking. According to the Pew Research Center, the percentage of American adults that own a smartphone increased from 35% in 2011 to 58% in 2014, while the percentage of tablet owners increased from 8% to 42%.¹

Early last week, we had the opportunity to check out some of our completed design work in person at Graph Expo 2014, the annual international printing industry trade show. Our team has been hard at work over the past two months, preparing materials for a valued client’s large format printing exhibit. We had designed application samples to showcase the capabilities of our client’s printers as well as digital marketing pieces to get the word out about our client’s booth.

We love this clever video from IKEA that shows off their yearly print catalog, the bookbook™, and highlights the simplicity and usability of print materials.

QR codes have become a common tactic for marketers wishing to drive traffic to a website (or special landing page, video, Facebook page, etc.).

Interactive print could be a marketing tactic of the future as companies begin to use web-based applications to turn “dead printed pages into portals for digital content.”

According to Direct Marketing News writer David Eldridge, “It’s [marketing] an ongoing process made up of many discrete but valuable steps, each contributing to the greater cause.” Street Level Studio agrees.