COURTESY RYAN MCGUIRE Pixabay
Category: Ideas & Inspiration
Marketing ideas for your next campaign: Scrolling images
You know that saying, “a picture’s worth a thousand words?”
Structural Graphics is blowing that old idiom out of the water with a new marketing mechanism created specifically for brand storytelling. Now, SG can help marketers in any industry create compelling visual landscapes with its new See Scroll dimensional design. Continue reading
New Magic X-ray Viewer: 12 IDEAS for Your Marketing Needs
Our NEW Magic X-ray mechanism is a great format to bring to life various types of messaging! Display before and after imagery, old to new restoration, a positive transition, hidden messages, what’s “behind the curtain”… the possibilities are endless!
The Inside Scoop:
Invented in late 2013 by our designer, Rob Kelly, this concept was inspired by his son’s preschool show & tell for the letter “X.” He gave his son paper X-ray specs to wear which were [of course] pretend. He wondered if there was a way he could bring the x-ray effect to life in paper. Energized by the idea, Rob made a working prototype that weekend!
Check out our Structural Graphics 2014 New Year’s card. This card featured a snowy forest scene with some woodland creatures hiding. A fox? The abominable snowman? An owl in a tree? Birds chirping? The only way you can tell who is hiding, is to move the wand around to find them!
Other clients, in addition to Whirlpool, have used this design to bring their messaging to life! See some ideas below to get the creativity flowing…
1) An x-ray of a body part including the benefits of a new medical device produced
2) A “discover and find” for kids, similar to “Where’s Waldo?”
3) What is in your wallet? For financial, credit card, insurance card companies, etc.
4) Before and after restoration, a new car, or feature a car that changes colors with a movement of the “wand” to reveal
5) Curious what’s in your food? Take a sneak peek into what it is made of, including the vitamins and benefits
6) X-ray luggage on an airport conveyor
7) Motivating customers to travel – a black and white snowy scene transforming into a tropical, colorful beach somewhere exotic!
8) New building design layout, interior views of a building, or everything going on behind the scenes in a home
9) Sneak peek “magic reveal” for a new TV or movie premiere!
10) The magic of a new makeover, anti-aging treatments or simply skin cleansing solutions
11) Your brand logo as the showcased image with your services and products magically revealed underneath
12) A look inside of a gift package – revealing jewelry or an engagement ring, keys to a car, a brand new smartphone, etc.
This Magic X-ray Viewer is new and PATENT PENDING, thus only found through your friends at Structural Graphics!
Incorporating Technology into Print Marketing
Hello, friends! This week we’re talking tech. We’ll take a quick look at some cool ideas that you can easily incorporate into your printed campaign. By incorporating these cost-effective elements into your strategy, your customers are able to interact with your brand in another dimension. Let’s start with the basics:
Video, Lights, and Sound: You can marry full motion video with the printed page. Video is available in a variety of screen sizes, video lengths, and is fully rechargeable and re-usable. It’s also 100% customizable. Think audio and LED panel lights are more suited to your marketing needs? Connect with your customers by inserting this technology in unique magazine inserts, direct mail, point of purchase displays, and premiums. Check out a video player that we produced for Qutenza:
code# 8512-590
Augmented Reality (AR) is not new, but has steadily been gaining traction in recent years. The aim of AR is to simulate an environment in real-time via your mobile device or desktop computer.
Augmented Reality on a mobile device.
A printed “tag” lives on your print piece and this acts as the trigger to launch the animation, the video, or the 3D rendering that responds to the context of your environment. Check out more about how our partner Taggar, is revolutionizing the industry:
Near Field Communication: (NFC) has also been a player for several years but is still considered cutting-edge. The basic premise of this technology utilizes wireless radio communications. NFC tags are small, thin discs that can be inserted into print pieces or stickers and are read via your smartphone or other NFC-enabled device. There are multiple vendors who are already building this capability into the hardware of their mobile devices – including Samsung, Nokia, and LG.
Here are some potential creative uses for NFC tags in everyday life. (Imagine what you could do to promote your brand and increase customer interaction!)
All of these unique mediums are totally customizable. The only limits are what we can imagine together!
The White House goes Dimensional
This holiday season, even the White House is looking to dimensional print to dress up their holiday tidings! Who could resist a stage pop of the iconic building, replete with adorable resident pups Sunny and Bo gracing the front lawn? The card is elegant and simple, and employs gold foil stamping for a beautiful and delicate finishing touch.
The President, First Lady, daughters Sasha and Malia, and even the dogs all signed the card. Check out the story and photos:
http://www.today.com/holidayguide/white-house-christmas-card-stars-dogs-bo-sunny-2D11718786
Stay tuned – we will be featuring our very own dimensional holiday card in the coming weeks! And in case you missed it, here’s last year’s edition:
http://www.structuralgraphics.com/work/structural-graphics-holiday-card
Sensory Mail to Boost Brand Awareness
How does an American home improvement retailer launch its new line of appliances? Continue reading
Print marketing: The Best Enhancement to Digital Marketing
With so many marketing mediums available to the public, today’s marketer can’t afford to be one-dimensional. Continue reading
Reaching Out to Higher Education Marketers
Structural Graphics unveils its latest direct mail piece, which combines interesting typography, eye-catching graphics, and a message that will resonate with its audience: higher education marketers. Continue reading Reaching Out to Higher Education Marketers
Print Shout-Out: WaterFire Providence
Delighted by print promotional pieces at WaterFire Providence. Continue reading
Danielle LaPortes’s “The story of Freddy & the iPhone — and 4 questions for Creatives”
This blog, written by Danielle LaPorte, has been reposted – with permission – from LaPorte’s website (look for the link at the bottom). LaPorte is the creator of The Desire Map, a communicator and business strategist.
If you’ve got an iPhone, grab it now. Or grab someone else’s iPhone (ask nicely). The home-screen function that says, “slide to unlock”… Pay attention. Slide it. Did you hear that “click” sound? That’s the sound of Freddy’s locker opening.
Freddy Anzures works with Apple. He helped develop the iPhone styling as we know it. In high school he recorded the sound of his locker opening and closing (on a cassette tape recorder, I presume.) And now, millions of us hear those two seconds of Freddy’s teen spirit multiple times a day. Slide and… ch-click.
(I did the James Victore Dinner Series workshop with Freddy and I asked him if I could tell this story. He said yes. I told him that I would think of him at least 52 times a day when I checked my phone and send him love. Freddy blushed.)
This got me thinking on the behalf of Creatives everywhere. I have some questions for us:
- What have you got in your archive that can be turned into art today? We’re so occupied with creating new and innovative that we can forget our past experiments or the ideas whose time hasn’t come yet. Remember that one idea you had…? Dust it off now and see if it’s got some glimmer to it. I’m just starting to pull together big ideas that occurred to me years ago — it feels like making a feast for old friends — very special.
- Analyze what interested you in your past. I’ve been obsessed with Jenny Holzer, Wim Wender’s Far Away So Close, Egyptian Hieroglyphics, information visualization, and every form of book-making, binding, gluing, sewing and designing. (And I went through an extensive obsession with Andy Gibb in my earlier years. That didn’t amount to much.) Point is, I can see how some of my past obsessions are culminating into what I now make in the world, and when I revisit them, I get new ideas about what to bring into my work. I also feel a deeper sense of belonging to my own life, since I can see how my interests brought me to where I am.
- Your life is content — what do you do well everyday that you might be taking for granted? The advice you give, the effortless problem solving, the way you see things, the artistry of how you live… What comes naturally to you is your greatest distinguisher.
- How can you bring your personal story into your work? Not just your personal perspective, but your actual shared experience. That’s putting your heart into it.
Visit Danielle’s blog at www.daniellelaporte.com.
