Tag: creative

Understanding Creative Work Culture

Understanding Creative Work Culture

gamification·

In this day and age, little to no company is unfamiliar with the term of creative work culture/environment. It is the new and trendy thing to do after all. Not only does it keep your employees happy, but it keeps them motivated with their work. But what is it really? And why is it that they work? Below we’ll discuss what drives this creative initiative to better work performance as well as some misconceptions strewn about the topic.

The Misconception of ‘Creative’ Work Culture

It’s easy to look at the term and think of the stereotypical things such as; casual dress code, flexible work hours and hip furniture and recreational appliances. And some of those things may be disheartening, especially for corporations and formal companies as they do not promote professional appeal. However, this isn’t really the case. While those benefits also help offer a creative environment, they are not exclusively the only things you can do to drive passion from your employees. You can still wear a suit and tie, but have fun in the office.

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The rise of millennial-run and young companies or even competition with those aspects helped drive the idea that these are the things that the younger workforce wants. But in reality, they are not at all necessary. Casual dress codes and recreational activities within the office are in fact, a source of motivation, sure. They inspire a fun experience in the office. And yet, they don’t necessarily tie in to productivity nor creativity. And actually, they may even pose a risk of disturbing any sense of diligence, turning your employees lax and apathetic to their work should these initiatives not be well-deployed.

What is a ‘Creative’ Work Culture?

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Besides simply catering to an employee’s enjoyment of their work experience, creative work culture is where they and you earn the rewarding sense of accomplishment in your work. A culture based on making you work the best you can while being able to take pride in it. This sounds obvious like something all companies should strive for, but the truth of the matter is that countless companies still disregards this aspect in their work culture design.

Google’s Work Culture

As a prime example of work culture, we take a look at Google. Fittingly enough, if you google Google’s work environments, you’ll be introduced to a torrent of content singing high praises for the work experience the company provides. This is to be expected from ‘The Best Company to Work For’ in the world. However, people often mix up the work perks and benefits Google provide with what makes them earn that title.

 

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While free food, massages, and education reimbursements are a large part of what keeps their employees happy, what makes working at Google so satisfying is actually none of those things. The constant strive to achieve greater heights, transparency and a sense of openness among work peers. Those are the true elements that create Google’s efficient yet friendly teams.

Differentiating Important Aspects and Optional Perks

It’s all too easy to misinterpret what truly matters among the glitter of benefits. Because most of the time, the trade-off for these work benefits may be pure capital and is barely profitable, but they offer ease. Investing in benefits only require you to pay up, but never really to get attached or add in personal touches.

You can cramp your workplace with all the benefits you want, but it won’t add up to anything if the culture amongst the workers themselves is still cold and impersonal. Important aspects that you can consider should include:

  • Promote transparency from the higher ups
  • Encourage healthy disagreements and debates
  • Encourage direct and honest communication
  • Go out of the way to help one another
  • Let workers earn personal feedback from their superiors
  • Grant autonomy and inspire responsibility

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In its core, a creative work culture should exist to serve freedom of work for your employees. To make them appreciate and take ownership of the things they do. Thus, the term ‘creative’ comes into play. Which is to say, your workers are given freedom to be creative with what they do and feel like said work is their own rather than a chore handed by superiors to be done.

ARG’s Power to Spread Brand Awareness

ARG’s Power to Spread Brand Awareness

gamification·

You may be wondering how exactly can an ARG bring forth so many people to collectively work together or to individually pursue such great lengths for what is essentially a game. Our previous two articles explain the fundamentals of ARGs’ potential and the impact it had on the past. But in this article, we’ll be seeing how exactly said impact is made. Right now, in the present and how said potential will continue to grow in the future, especially for marketing brand awareness.

How ARGs Gains Their Reach

Alternate Reality Games, in its essence, are puzzle solving games where the players would need to work as a collective to solve. Even ARGs targeted for individuals to solve alone like recruitment ARGs still encourages a sense of community within the players, collaboratively increasing their knowledge-base through networking. Therefore, it is through that collective process that ARGs spread like wildfire. Especially in this day and age, where sharing information through something like mainstream social media is only 1 click away.

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However, that is not the only reason an ARG can quickly become so popular. An ARG like the Twitter account The Sun Vanished makes use of surreal story-telling elements. An ARG is a narrative playground. If you can create a story for the ARG that would evoke a sense of interest alongside the challenge it provides, you can have yourself a viral hit ready to be sent out.

How Your Brand Can Tie to an ARG

With some ARGs, it seems almost impossible to put the face of your brand into it. But the key here isn’t to put your brand blatantly to the game. That takes away the intrigue of it all. Your potential consumers must know that your brand is an ever-looming presence in the game without being intrusive about it. Below are 2 examples of how a brand is implemented within a viral ARG.

I Love Bees, Halo 2 (Game) Marketing Campaign

In August 2004, hints of a website were dropped everywhere but were first advertised by a hidden message within the game’s trailer. When taken to the website, the players then uncovered that it was apparently being taken over by an A.I. and through this campaign, foreshadows and context of the story for the game is slowly uncovered. From the people that found it, spreading it, and reaching out for help, the campaign eventually reached out to over 3 million visits and players around the world. This campaign, titled I Love Bees was commissioned by Microsoft for their upcoming game, Halo 2. The campaign itself received many awards for being innovative and incredibly unique at its time. Although the ARG weren’t too blatantly obvious that it was a Halo 2 marketing campaign, the people that paid attention to its updates and the participating players never forget.

Why So Serious, Batman: The Dark Knight (Film) Marketing Campaign

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Some marketing ARGs are a bit more obvious as to what it promotes. The Batman: the Dark Knight’s marketing ARG titled Why So Serious. This campaign was a viral hit not only due to it being in the shadow of the big movie title, but also for its way of fan-service. The puzzles were simple enough, thus it doesn’t require super intelligence to solve but also hard enough to invoke many people asking questions, thus the sense of community. This campaign sparked over 10 million people to be immersed in a world-wide puzzle-solving agenda. And with a lot of the orders were to take pictures and share it online, it leads to a domino effect of intrigue and an ever-growing audience.

The Power that ARG Gives

Besides having the power to spread your brand and product, ARG has the capability to give a power as well. And said power is ownership. One of the key aspects of gamification is to make something done and worth the effort feel like it’s the player’s. Thus, they’d have a sense of bond to said experience. And with it, a bond with the product and/or brand.

“The experience must transfer ownership to the Audience, make it feel like it’s theirs”
Susan Bonds, 42 Entertainment President & CEO.

Creating a Brand Sensation with ARGs

Creating a Brand Sensation with ARGs

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According to eLearning Industry, ARGs or Alternate Reality Games are “An experience that takes place across multiple platforms, formats, and locations.” Something that “Has elements of eLearning, computer games, geocaching, scavenger hunts, live action role-playing, and social learning in Alternate Reality Games.”  But that in itself is not the full extent of this initiative. With proper implementation, this initiative has the potential to attract up to millions of players worldwide. Alternate Reality Games could possibly be one of the best method of getting the involvement of your potential consumers through a marketing campaign and this article will tell you why.

What is an ARG?

Alternate Reality Games are more than often a collaboration of a scavenger hunt and a mystery case. Sparking engagement through the puzzling clues it leaves and drives collaboration within individuals that are equally interested in finding the answer. Through the challenging tasks it provides and offers to the players, often times an ARG is seen as something that might alienate consumers instead of draw them in. However, what is often overlooked is that despite not everyone is able to participate in such a hunt for clues and puzzles, everyone can bear witness to it. The mere activity in itself becomes intriguing and often leaves people fascinated by them, and this often leaves quite the examples.

The Problem with ARGs

Albeit having early 2000s with Microsoft’s marketing campaign for the movie; Artificial Intelligence, ARGs had always been thought as expensive due to the need of in-depth elements such as puzzles, mysteries and the incorporation of those elements to the real world. Combine this with things such as website maintenances and other variety of costs, Alternate Reality Games have always been considered an intimidating campaign to plan, let alone execute. And despite the results ARGs seem to bring, with its level of virality and reach, it has never been a true trend or mainstream within the world of marketing. However, the argument here is that perhaps now it is the time to ignite a more creative approach to ARGs.

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Why ARG is Now Simpler

After nearly 2 decades of its first case, ARGs are now getting simpler to plan (With the creation of intricate elements of the game aside). This is due to the fact that communication and media had grown wildly since then. It is much easier to spread the fire of the game’s virality online. And such ease comes from (but not exclusive to) the following:

  • Growth of the Internet and its ease of use
  • Growth of Social Media
  • Rise of services that serves to ease phases of an ARG’s creation

How Alternate Reality Games Drive Such Engagement

Everyone loves a mystery and many people love challenges. A good ARG brings the best of both worlds. An ARG can create a challenging mystery, driving the curiosity of its players and bringing creative ways for the players to progress the game. In its essentiality, an ARG uses the same drive that makes people think up and love things such as conspiracy theories. Since, within an ARG, initially you would not know what the purpose of the challenge is. The cryptic nature and intermingling over the world-wide web would spark a sense of genuine curiosity and fascination.

ARGs’ Effect to Brands

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Besides leaving behind a spectacle in the brand’s history, players that had partake in the game or even onlookers that observed its progress will familiarize themselves with the brand that conceived it. And this is no small matter. As, if the game itself reached the ears of hundreds of thousands or even millions, those very millions would be the one to see the brand in high regard for the clever marketing. And besides spreading brand awareness, would most likely also promote a better image for the brand as all creative marketing plans tend to do. And should this be coveted into recruitment for capable hands, the campaign itself would also serve to be the best type of assessment for it.

Drastic Changes to How Ads Work

Drastic Changes to How Ads Work

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Drastic Changes to How Ads Work

Although the title above says ‘drastic’ the change to advertising due to modernization and advancement of the digital era has been chipping slowly little by little. However, it is that very accumulative stride that will lead to a sudden shift that must be made now in order for a company’s marketing to not be left behind. Below we’ll be going through what those changes are and how a company can cope with them or perhaps even take advantage of those changes.

Traditional Ads vs Digital Ads

As technology advances and slowly surrounds our everyday life, it is only natural that they would be the perfect target for advertising. We live in a strange time where a company’s advertising can show up in a digital monitor on our fridge or car after all. But what is that to say about traditional ads? Will there be no more room for them?

Something that needs to be separated

While it is true that these days digital ads are so much easier to consider than regular real-world advertising, this is not the change that needs to be considered. Even in the digital world, a regular advertisement is still just an advertisement. It is often invaluable to the consumer and the internet user would want to be rid of it. Be it from using an ad blocker or skipping immediately when they are allowed to. And this is said to have costed the digital marketing industry over 22 billion dollars.

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Is there room for real-world advertising?

The short answer is yes. And yet, not in the way most companies might think. How many times do you see a billboard or poster catching your eyes these days? Most likely, it happens rarer than a decade or so ago. And yet, it still happens does it not? Occasionally, creative and eye-catching advertising will pry your eyes away from your activity to get a look at it. And that is most likely the drastic change you need. The key here is that there is in fact, room for traditional advertising, but it must serve to must be more meaningful and charming to the audience. Not simply blatant advertising.

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Consumers Demand Creativity in Advertisements

Blatant advertising is rarely accounted as ‘informative’ to consumers these days. And over 60% of people are saying that today’s ads are annoying and/or intrusive. And indeed they are. In fact, some companies still believe that by being intrusive you can generate more attention because you’re all up on the consumer’s faces. But is that really the case? If your advertising proves to only be a nuisance to your potential customers, it will only serve to hurt your brand’s image.

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And of course, this would at times mean a higher investment. Be it cost, creativity and time investment, these things prove to be essential in modern day marketing. But the key investment you really need is creativity.

The Change Doesn’t Stop There

Creativity is even more needed today than ever before as other forms of scouring the web come to existence, mainly voice searches. Beyond the United States or parts of Europe, this may not yet be that big of a deal, but it certainly is so when it will be.

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This new type of browsing the world wide web can change and disrupt regular SEO as we know it. Don’t think that this might be true? Below are the facts of how voice searches are being used that benefits businesses according to BrightLocal Study.

  • 58% of consumers have used voice search to find business information.
  • 46% of voice search users look for a business daily.
  • 27% visit the website of business after conducting a voice search.
  • 53% of voice search users are performing daily searches.

What Awaits 2019

With everything’s pace coming up a slope, waiting at any time to have that boost of downhill speed, no one is really sure what awaits us at 2019. However, with the changes that we know in mind, we should always try to stay steps ahead. So be sure to use any means you can for your marketing, lest it gets left behind. Controversial ads, live streams, gamification, or a whole other entry only you can think about. Just remember to keep it creative.

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How Live Streams Generate More Clicks

How Live Streams Generate More Clicks

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How Live Streams Generate More Clicks

Live Feeds or live streams are slowly becoming more and more popular on the internet as many platforms now beginning to provide ease for it. From Youtube to Facebook, live streams are slowly becoming the mainstream way to broadcast be it news on entertainment as it also provides two-way feedback through chats. How will live streams be a key point in sales and marketing? Below we’ll try to share this insight with you.

Live Stream and Its Digital Marketing Use

Digital marketing is grossing by each year alongside the development of technologies and social media. However, some companies have not considered the possibility of combining it with live streams or live feeds. Due to the rise in modern streaming services, it is much easier to access live videos in the internet. Be it from an influencer or from official companies and broadcasts. This rise is considered so much so, that more than 80% of internet users from the billions have watched live videos than years prior.

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And the direct correlation here is that over 67% of viewers would be more interested in going to an event or making purchases that are shown and/or related to the live stream. Placing your products within the stream or sponsoring it, especially when the content shown is of interest to the viewers, will be more likely to help them appreciate your brand. Multiple reasons for this exist depending on the type of stream. For example:

  • An influencer can spread their trust for your brand to their viewers.
  • A news broadcast that is reliable will persuade the viewers that the ads are in turn, reliable.
  • Promoting your event via live stream would urge viewers to want to experience it for themselves.
  • Seeing donations and purchases made live in real time will help urge other viewers’ pride and ease their doubt in participating in the purchase/donation.
  • Direct feedback can be used for QnA to help further assure the legitimacy of content or ads provided.

Live Video Ad Potency

Not only will ads shown on live videos bypass ad blockers, but they are also said to have grossed more than $10 Billion in spending. And the numbers will only keep climbing by at least 10% until it will finally surpass television, if it hadn’t already by this second.

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But click rates aren’t the only thing that live videos are good for. Unlike a show on television, when someone loves a live stream, there are still the possibilities that they share it on social media. And this will be opening the floodgates for a domino effect of shares and increase in viewers, with over 90% of mobile video consumers sharing them according to Insivia.

Live Streaming Efficacy

By this 2019, it is even said that videos will account for a whopping 85% of total internet traffic. With the video-sharing giant, Youtube, making strides to improve their streaming services, live video sharing is becoming easier and more available to do at that much lower of a price.

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Not only will it be that much easier to manage your content or ad on a live stream, but it will also be easier on feedbacks as well. As mentioned at the start of this article, live streams provide two-way feedback for you and your viewers through chat. Should this feature be used properly, may be the key you need to show your company’s transparency through direct communication with your consumers. And through it, 73% of B2B marketers say they have been getting positive ROI impacts.

Transparency and Shift in Advertising

These days, many of the consumer base highly values the more transparent companies. And through a live stream, the chance to show that transparency is shown. While it is a risk that something done live may have difficulties and mistakes, it is those very mistake that sometimes remind the viewers that the people doing this are still human.

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That in itself is already marking the shift in modern day advertising. Where companies used to strive for perfection and blatant, bold remarks, today’s market is a bit more delicate than that. However, you keep your eyes on us because this topic will be further discussed in the next article.

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