For Valentine’s Day, they have released a video to promote the Red Blooded notebook which has been recently added to the Field Notes standard product line.

The notebook becomes a love letter and is a very inspiring and beautiful example of the power of creative books and print.

QR CODE – Content-rich Resume from Victor petit on Vimeo.

Prepare to feel really inadequate about your chosen resume font. This dude has fashioned a custom QR code resume that is sure to break up the monotony of any HR person’s day.

Made by Victor Petit — who was looking for an internship but recently scored one — this resume is reminiscent of band Cassius’s video and accompanying app [iTunes link] for “I Love You So.” It features a QR code in the middle of a picture of a face (on the back of a printed resume) that unlocks a video of the missing mouth on your phone.

“I realized during my previous job search that getting an interview at a communication agency is the hardest part of the process,” says Petit. “I tried to create a CV that would enable me to express myself vocally as soon as they read the paper version. The combination of a sheet of paper and a QR code felt like the best way to reach that goal.”

We’re not sure what exactly Petit’s skills are from the video alone — it has no sound — aside from being extremely awesome.

Brief Explanation:

A car calendar without cars! The calendar showed only high-quality landscape photos. In order to experience the cars, the user had to download an iPhone app. Using augmented reality, one could then bring out the cars onto the landscapes, with sounds, animations and all!

Describe the brief from the client:

The brief was to develop a calendar for Audi clients. The calendar should differ greatly from other car calendars and position Audi as innovative and modern.

Description of how you arrived at the final design:

When Audi introduces a car calendar, that calendar has to be just as innovative as the brand itself. Audi should not merely say “Vorsprung durch Technik” (Leading through technology) but prove it as well.

Brief Explanation:

A car calendar without cars! The calendar showed only high-quality landscape photos. In order to experience the cars, the user had to download an iPhone app. Using augmented reality, one could then bring out the cars onto the landscapes, with sounds, animations and all!

Describe the brief from the client:

The brief was to develop a calendar for Audi clients. The calendar should differ greatly from other car calendars and position Audi as innovative and modern.

Description of how you arrived at the final design:

When Audi introduces a car calendar, that calendar has to be just as innovative as the brand itself. Audi should not merely say “Vorsprung durch Technik” (Leading through technology) but prove it as well.

Indication of how successful the outcome was in the market:

25,000 calendars were sent out. So far, the app has been downloaded 23,448 times. This means that most of the people who received a copy of the calendar have downloaded the app to experience “Vorsprung durch Technik” in a new dimension. Audi received numerous response mails from enthusiastic clients. Just one person obviously didn´t get it. He wrote an e-mail saying thank you for the lovely landscapes.

Advertising Agency: Neue Digitale/Razorfish , Germany

Managing Director: Sven Kuester, Sascha Martini

Creative Director: René Lamberti, Fabian Roser

Art Director: Kathrin Laser

Copywriter: Stephan Deisenhofer

Concept: Steffen Staeuber

Copywriter: Alexander Ardelean

Designer: Bartosz Elsner

Designer: Florian Uihlein

Interactive Designer: Jens Lembke, Julien Pietri

Programmer: Dennis Hantke, Dirk Tech

Technical Manager: Mathis Moder

Technical Director: Paul Schmidt

Account Manager: Kristina Klein, Dorte Luecker

Animator: David Loehr

Therefore Volkswagen created a phone app for readers of the print ad to download, so they could try it out for themselves, using the print ad to test drive.

Given the limited percentage of the NZ population with smart phones, do you think this would work in NZ?

Facebook and Google have both been reaching out to prospects recently, using direct mail and print as part of their marketing effort.

Yep, that’s right. The two biggest companies in the worlds of online marketing and social media are using a channel that many marketers continue to shy away from.

In both cases, Google and Facebook are reaching out to people to promote their advertising platforms (Google AdWords and Facebook Ads, respectively).

If you are a marketer, then this may be worth paying attention to the next time you contemplate cutting direct mail or print out of your marketing budget.

If Google and Facebook are using direct mail and print to make an impact on their target audience, then you probably should too. Call us at CQ. We can do the same for you.

Every year, marketers search for the next big thing that will make or break the success of their interactive marketing campaigns. A lot of buzzwords like “mobile” or “social” inevitably get thrown around but what does it really mean for marketers? Before you refresh marketing goals for 2011, here are five resolutions to consider.

1. Make data the foundation of your marketing

Collecting data has never been a problem as we know that it fuels our marketing programs and overall business decisions. But achieving visibility and usability is often another story. Many times information is stored in data warehouses and databases across the organisation and tedious exporting needs to be undertaken before being able to take any action. Simply put, many marketers are missing opportunities to engage with customers because their information and processes have become outdated before the customer engagement metrics are aggregated and sorted.

Making a change to the way you currently use click-through rates, online browsing history, shopping cart abandonment, previous purchase history, and other customer information starts with an assessment. Understanding what tools you have before you take action will pay off in the long run.

2. Use mobile to connect with customers

Mobile marketing is often overshadowed as social media and email marketing becomes more sophisticated. But as consumers rapidly begin to adopt smartphones, mobile marketing can no longer be viewed as a “silo” in a marketing campaign.

One of the easiest and most cost-effective ways to begin mobile marketing is SMS. Creating text-in voting programs, Q&A text response campaigns and mobile coupons for your target audience are simple tactics to engage customers. Developing content that is specifically designed for mobile phones is also important – perhaps you might even consider creating a mobile app for your company.

3. Market to customers as individuals

It’s all too easy to be swept away by the creativity of the advertising instead of its relevance. Prioritising customer service before sales is crucial and there are some innovative and simple ways to do this. One example is to listen and be a part of the conversations that are happening online about your company. There are many online monitoring tools available to easily do this and you’ll be surprised by the amount of insight you’ll receive from listening to you customers.

4. Make social media a real part of the marketing mix

For many, 2010 marked the year that social media became a reality instead of just a trend for marketers to watch out for. We know that in the past, customers who had a bad experience with your brand would share it with 5 of their different friends but today, a bad customer experience could lead to negative information about your brand posted to 500 Twitter followers.

One way to integrate social media into your campaigns is to do some social ‘soul searching’. Gather metrics about who is hitting the ‘like’ button on Facebook, who is re-tweeting and what content attracts more user engagement. Another simple tactic is to use social media to gather local data. Geolocation devices and apps such as Foursquare give you the opportunity to find out who is visiting your store and how often.

5. Engage in ‘smart’ automation

In any campaign, there are some jobs that are tedious and time-consuming but remain essential. At the same time, marketing budgets aren’t getting any bigger so marketers need to find ways to work smarter, not harder.

With so much data to manage, automation is a great way to make information usable. Marketers can engage in ‘smart’ automation tools that integrate new customer data and preferences such as tweets on Twitter or likes on Facebook into every communication that is sent out.

Each new year offers a blank slate and a new outlook to start the year off right. And while you may not stay as organised as you’d like or as in shape as you had hoped by mid-year, making resolutions to improve your interactive marketing program can be well worth the investment.

With Americans spending nearly a quarter of their time online on social networking sites and blogs (a 43% increase from just a year ago, according to a recent study by Nielsen), there is no reason marketers should not be taking advantage of these new communication platforms. People see, hear, and touch more marketing messages than ever before. To stay top of mind with your audience, it is important to be where they are at all times and embrace these new avenues of communication.

Many companies have created Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn profiles as another way to connect with customers and prospects. Social media provide customers one more way to interact with you and provide prospects a non-invasive way to learn more about your company.

That’s just a first step, however. From there you need to incorporate them into your email and direct mail marketing campaigns so that you can better grow your network and increase brand exposure.

In email communications, you can add “follow us” and “connect with us” icons that are easily clicked on or a one-liner that says, for example, “follow us at ….” for each social media platform you use. Adding similar one-liners to your complementary printed marketing pieces will also drive traffic to your social media sites and increase exposure. The ability to incorporate social media platforms into both your email and direct mail campaigns can help unify your marketing efforts and enable you to better reach both customers and prospects.

When placing social media links—or any URLs, really—on direct mail pieces, keeping them short and easy to remember is a must. Long URLs are more likely to be misspelled when people retype them into a Web browser.

Social media platforms present an entirely different reason for using short URLs. On Twitter a tweet, or post, can be no longer than 140 characters. So if your link is 125 characters long, you’d have no room left to tell your followers about the link and why they should click on it.  

Because they make printed materials interactive, quick-response, or QR, codes are another way to integrate media. No matter where someone is, he can simply pull out his phone, scan a QR code, and instantly be directed to a Website, a video, a landing page, or any other piece of targeted information. The technology can be taken one step further to incorporate email: The QR code can direct customers or prospects to a landing page that will request their contact information, including email address, before sending them to a designated Website. Armed with that information, you can send a follow-up email with additional information, links to your social media profiles, and the like.

Taking a multichannel approach when it comes to your marketing strategy soon will become a requirement. If you have a variety of age groups and demographics within your audience, the chances are strong that each group spends the majority of time on different marketing media. Some groups might best be reached via a print ad in a magazine or a direct mail piece; others might respond more favourably to an email. 

Social media now accounts for 23% of America’s online time. Integrating them into your current marketing strategies is simple—so why not take advantage of the opportunity and communicate with your customers where they are most interested?

John Foley, Jr., is the founder/CEO of marketing solutions provider interlinkONE.

Toys “R” Us Hong Kong has launched an iPhone app that integrates QR codes, content and rewards. The app is primarily intended for Hong Kong’s 700,000 Toys “R” Us Star Card loyalty program members. By scanning QR Codes (referred to as unlocking “R” codes) that can be found in the Toys “R” Us catalog, on their website, in-store and on posters users can view videos and accumulate rewards.

I had an idea straight away and shared it with them.

Unfortunately it wasn’t appropriate for them, or their market!

The good thing is – it’s okay! We should never be afraid to share an idea. It’s a great way to discover more about your client and their needs – and it shows that you’re thinking about their business with their best interests at heart!

In the latest edition of Rolling Stone magazine, Lorne Michaels talks about how ideas are presented and often rejected for Saturday Night Live.

The writers for the show will come up with creative thoughts, and then develop and write many different skits. They’ll present the skits to the boss (Lorne) and the other writers. Then, they are often told that a skit is not good enough to be put on the actual show.

At that point, a writer can throw the skit away and work on new ideas. Or, they can file that skit away and try to present it again at another time.

One of the most famous SNL skits in recent memory is “More Cowbell”. In the Rolling Stone article, we learn that skit was rejected and re-presented 7 times before it actually saw the light of day. With that much “failure” surrounding it, that skit could easily have ended up in the trash. However, it went on to become one of the show’s greatest moments.

There are many ideas that we may think of when it comes to marketing our company, product, or services. We have many “flashes of creativity” that excite us for a while. But for one reason or another, they are not converted into actual marketing campaigns. Reasons may include budget, timing, or just a lack of resources.

Many of those ideas may end up in the trash for a good reason. They can’t all be great. However, we may find that keeping ideas filed away may provide benefits to us months or even years down the road. Technology makes it very easy for us to store ideas. It could be in the “Notes” app on our smart phone. Or perhaps we keep an easily retrievable document somewhere that we can edit at any time.

There will be times when flashes of creativity escape us. If we take the time to review our list of “ideas from the past that never quite became reality”, we may find the inspiration that we need to create and develop a successful marketing effort.

Though businesses now have more communication channels to reach consumers than ever before, marketing expert David Jackson recently argued on Promotion World that direct mail marketing is still an effective way to generate sales.

Jackson asserts that a properly executed direct mail campaign still provides a "solid return on investment." Citing a recent study conducted by the Direct Marketing Association, he says that direct mail marketing expenditures are expected to increase by more than $1 billion during 2010.

Consumers are also eagerly welcoming the influx of mailers. Referring to the same study, Jackson claims 79 percent of U.S. households either completely read or skim through direct mail messages sent to their homes. Meanwhile, a survey conducted by postal automation firm Pitney Bowes found that consumers still prefer physical mail over digital communication channels, relays the source.

Consumers are especially accepting of postal messages containing confidential statements or new product announcements. Jackson writes that

• 73 percent of respondents prefer direct mail to receive information about new items,
• while 86 percent would rather receive private communications through postal mail.
• In both cases, consumers reveal a strong preference for postal messages over digital mail.

Pitney Bowes’ survey also indicates that

• 31 percent of mail recipients tend not to throw away unopened postal messages, ranging from brochures to envelopes,
• whereas 53 percent are likely to delete unopened email messages.

Additionally, many consumers find direct mail to be less intrusive than unsolicited emails and phone calls.

• Nearly half of respondents (43.2 percent) said direct mail was more convenient,
• while 30.2 percent indicated the sales environment was less high pressured.
• This translated into greater responses overall, with 12 percent claiming direct mail was more persuasive.

"If you haven’t considered trying direct mail, maybe you should. A properly executed direct mail campaign combined with online marketing methods could be an unbeatable combination," Jackson wrote.

The effectiveness of direct mail marketing has caused many businesses to adopt the channel. According to a recent report from the Global Insight Analysts, direct mail expenditures are expected to hit $25.45 billion globally by 2015. The firm cites direct mail’s physical presence as its biggest selling point, especially in comparison to digital channels.