November 5, 2009 | tags: adveriting as interruption, Captains of Industry, Death of advertising, pica, Southworth Development, traditional advertising, wake for advertising
David DeSmith, Director of Marketing for Southworth Development, talks about the Death of Advertising
David DeSmith, the Director of Marketing for Southworth Development, talks about how he will miss his good friend the pica, now that advertising by interruption is dead. Stay tuned for more thoughts from other guests at our Wake for Advertising about where marketing and advertising are headed in the future!
November 4, 2009 | tags: driving web traffic, Field of Dreams, Kevin Costner, marketing, marketing agency boston, media center, Web Content, web traffic, websites, wind energy, wind energy video
Field of Dreams and The Power of Good Web Content to Drive Visits
Whenever we build a new website, I’m reminded of the movie Field of Dreams starring Kevin Costner, and the line, “If you build it, they will come.” For companies creating new websites, the line translates to “If you build it with good web content, they will come.” But what does “good content” mean, and how does it actually draw in visitors who will buy into your brand? Captains of Industry recently launched a new website for a clean energy company, First Wind, that in its first month increased their site traffic by 60%.
Read more Share This
November 2, 2009 | tags: advertising, Captains of Industry, Death of advertising, marketing agency boston, traditional advertising, wake for advertising
A Montage of the Wake For Advertising
We’d love to hear your thoughts on how the party went, and how we should all move on in this post-advertising world. Let’s all take part in the conversation together!
October 30, 2009 | tags: advertising, Death of advertising, marketing, marketing agency boston
Ted Page’s Eulogy for Advertising
Ted Page, Creative Director for Captains of Industry, a Boston marketing agency, gave a heartfelt eulogy for his dearly departed friend Advertising. Watch the video.
Read more Share This
October 30, 2009 | tags: advertising, Death of advertising, marketing agecy, new advertising, traditional advertising
Thoughts on Last Night’s Wake for Advertising
By Ted Page, Captains of Industry
I have to say it was the most fun I’ve had at a wake. About 70 people came to pay their last respects to the old advertising and join us in a conversation about the rebirth of the industry. To me, it felt a lot like a family gathering, and even though our tongues were in our cheeks with the wake concept, there was a homecoming feel to the event.
Read more Share This
October 28, 2009 | tags: boston video shoot, customer advocacy, customer testimonials, using customers in marketing, video production, video shoot
Making testimonial videos that turn customers into your most passionate and credible sales people
By Jean Levasseur, Captains of Industry
I was on a video shoot for a solar energy client on Wednesday, creating testimonial videos of clients and employees to go up on their new website, which we’re in the process of creating.
I was amazed at the passion for solar energy, and for the company, that the two customers we were shooting had. One, a retired professor, said that the solar company literally helped him fulfill a three-decades old dream that he had. The other, who was using a Power Purchase Agreement model, explained how he didn’t think there was any reason that anyone shouldn’t get solar, because we’ve finally reached the point where solar is financially viable, thanks to government tax incentives. And both said more about how great the installation crews were than anything I’ve read online.
Read more Share This
October 26, 2009 | tags: advertising, Death of advertising, kleen-x, mad men, newsweek, traditional advertising
Mad Men in the Age of TiVo
By Ted Page, Captains of Industry
I was leafing through Newsweek over the weekend, and my nose was stuffy but there wasn’t a Kleen-X around, so I sniffed and turned the page, and there in front of me was an ad with the headline, “Are your nasal passages filled with mucus?” That was a humbling moment. Here we are getting ready for the wake for traditional advertising, and a good old fashioned print ad stopped me in my tracks. It was a reminder that even in this day and age, if you spend enough money with traditional media and you place enough ads you’re sure to reach somebody with a stuffy nose.
Read more Share This
October 20, 2009 | tags: clean tech marketing, renewable energy, renewable energy websites, website design, websites for clean energy
10 tips for making a great website for your renewable energy or clean tech company.
A lot of basic, common sense things go into making a great website, and you’ll see some of those reflected here – but also specific considerations to take into account when making a new website for your renewable energy or clean tech company.
1. Get everyone internally to agree on the goals of the website. What’s #1?
Read more Share This
October 13, 2009 | tags: advertising by interruption, boston death of advertising wake, Captains of Industry, Death of advertising, party
In memoriam: Thoughts on the Death of Advertising (As We’ve Known It)
I’m sure that many people will deny that advertising is dead. Just look at all the ads that are still all over the place. This is a huge industry, right? To those who deny that advertising is dead, I would remind them that according to Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’s seminal work on dying, “The Five Stages of Grief,” the first stage is, in fact, denial. We all want to believe in the status quo, but the reality is that things are changing so rapidly that the old ad model has, as John Cleese might have said in the Python’s parrot sketch, “Gone to meet its maker,” “Passed on,” and “Would be pushing up daisies if you hadn’t nailed it to its perch.” The main culprit is new media technology combined with rapid changes in how we interact with each other and the world, which is closely tied to generational shifts in the use of this media. Advertising based on interrupting someone’s entertainment or news gathering experience is going away quickly.
Read more Share This
October 8, 2009 | tags: logos, memory, Peter Devenport, renewable energy, unforgettable
Making your logo unforgettable
I’d like to follow up on Ted’s post about logos with a thought I had recently. I was flipping through a new book a friend showed me, Unforgettable: Images That Have Changed Our Lives by Peter Devenport, and I got to thinking about the importance of making the images that represent your company memorable. Unforgettable is a collection of the world’s most famous images: King Kong, Elvis twisting his hips, Charles Lindbergh in Paris, Marilyn Monroe over the sewer grate, etc. However, there isn’t a single a picture in the book. Only blank pages with small captions at the bottom. I’ll bet you, though, that if we both look at the same page and draw that image, we’ll draw the same one.
Read more Share This