One of the many things Mantaray has done and continues to do is create websites that take the user on a journey. As a result, we are always on the lookout for inspiration and we often find ourselves getting excited by really awesome websites. These are just a few that make us drool.

We are particularly enamoured by the site jessandruss.us, which takes you on a journey of the aforementioned Jess and Russ from their meeting to their marriage. It’s very sweet and decorated with swirling patterns and endearing scribbly animation.

Jess and Russ (jessandrus.us)

On a similar note there’s jacquico.com, a site for a baker from The Production Kitchen who specializes in rainbow cakes. It’s a click-and-drag adventure, taking you from one baking necessity – sprinkles – to another – a not so aesthetically pleasing whisk that gets the job done – all sketched in bright and pastel colours. It also won Awwwards’ Site of the Day.

The Production Kitchen (jacquico.com)

Impressapenguin.com was used by Penguin Press on its search for a new Community Manager. It uses the company’s iconic penguin to take you through a scrolling storybook explaining why the penguin wants to meet someone new, until finally explaining that Penguin Press is looking for a new Community Manager.

Impress a Penguin (impressapenguin.com)

The site for Saucony’s Kinvara 3 shoe operates much like the Penguin Press site. It’s scrolling based, but instead of being a scrolling storybook it’s a scrolling guide explaining the various layers of the running shoe. This is the second page.

Kinvara 3 (community.saucony.com/kinvara3)

The website for the shoe brand Conspiracy focuses entirely upon the unique attributes of the shoes – from tentacles to gemstones – and displays them on the homepage in one shoe. By clicking on the circles around the displayed shoe you can create different shoes from the pieces of shoes already developed by Conspiracy’s Gianluca Tamburini. Like The Production Kitchen it won Awwwards’ Site of the Day.

Conspiracy (conspiracy.it)

The site of actor/director/artist Matthew Gray Gubler works from a single looping video apparently drawn by him. It creates a tiny world where clicking on a location, such as the Top Hat Foundry, will take you to another page with more of his drawings and an explanation of the location (the top hats grow in the caves of Gubler-land). Conversely, you can click on one of the characters and they may say something or move in unique ways, such as tipping a top hat.

Gubler-land (matthewgraygubler.com)

Mantaray has produced a number of cool websites too! Check out our work below:

- ProCura
- Famous 5 Foundation
- Soapbox
- Montaro
- Century Park
- The Montana
- Bec Woodcraft

What’s your favourite site design?

What is ambient advertising?

Ambient advertising it a form of guerrilla marketing that focuses on integrating ads into any environment, the space around you, often by placing ads in unusual places that you wouldn’t expect to see them.  The key to a successful ambient advertising campaign is to be creative while choosing the best media format available, combined with an effective message. Ambient ads often make someone think about a certain place or thing differently.

Those bus stops you see around Calgary wrapped in $100 bills aren’t real, but they strike a chord of curiosity and make you want to go deeper into the rabbit hole of recognizing a particular brand without having a specific product pushed at you.

For instance, just a few weeks ago, I was at Mount Royal University and I saw a flat bed truck parked in a loading zone. On top of the truck was a wrecked car that appeared to have been in a serious crash. It made me think, “What the heck is that?” my curiosity drew me closer. As I got closer, there was a sign promoting safe driving and it was all an ad. It’s that kind of in your face advertising that plays a huge part of guerrilla marketing and helps organizations build brand recognition.

Who’s done it?

Many organizations have used ambient marketing to build brand recognition. One notable example was 7-Eleven’s cross-promotional campaign with “The Simpsons Movie”.

The campaign consisted in decorating 12 stores to look just like a Kwik-E-Mart, which is the only convenience store featured in the show. Products that are usually seen on the show were made available for purchase such as “Buzz Cola”, “Krusty-O’s” (which kind of give me the creeps) and “Squishees”. Even the uniforms were based off of the store on the show. The campaign was a proven success.

In an article featured in The Hollywood Reporter, 7-Eleven franchisee Kumar Assandas said his sales and foot traffic had increased nearly 30%.

Take a look at this store in Burbank California:

How can you do it?

Executing an ambient marketing campaign does not necessarily require a lot of money. The beauty of guerrilla marketing is that it’s a cost effective way to reach your audience. As long as you’re creative, it can be as easy as slapping a sticker on a wall while advertising in a unique way that lets people remember your name, which then helps build your brand.

So use your imagination, think about what you or your business is all about. Your audience wants to be informed, entertained and intrigued all at once. So why not build your brand on the streets while attracting your audience?

There’s a bright orange couch in our “boardroom” that I prefer to sit in, partly because it reminds me of the couch sitting in my living room back home, and partly because it rests against a row of large windows and my desk is sheltered in a corner without any windowed walls. (Although, I do have a screwdriver and an orchid.)

On the ledge behind the couch are a variety of artifacts: an old crimson radio, four old cameras, a bronze statue of a cinematographer, and a frosted glass manta ray. (For reasons that remain elusive to me there is also a small inflatable clown next to a plant my non-gardening self knows precisely nothing about.) Across from the couch, past the twin white chairs and coffee table, are the bookshelves. The shelves hold plenty of reference books, some photography books, vinyl records, examples of Mantaray’s past work, and, again for reasons elusive to me, bobble-heads of Yoda and Green Lantern Hal Jordan.

In the entry to Mantaray, there is a unicycle.

Clearly, our physical office itself puts forth the idea of a “creative corporate culture.” It’s a little more difficult to put forth that idea in a non-physical space, such as the Internet. But we’re going to try!

We’re currently doing a revamp of our social media presence, which you’ve probably noticed as we’ve experimented with different hashtags and a more regular blog schedule. We’ve found however that it’s a challenge to display a creative corporate culture on social media, mainly because we have too many ideas and not enough hands or hours in the day to unleash all of them. Also, that many ideas might be a tad excessive. Restraint is difficult. So, I’ve come up with a way to whittle down those ideas to the key few ones:

1) Does the idea directly, rather than indirectly, contribute to the organization’s overarching goals?
2) Are there any similar ideas undertaken in the past that we can look at to avoid any major pitfalls? Similarly, do we want to do something that’s been done before, simply with our own spin?
3) How many resources will need to be dedicated to the idea, and can we afford to dedicate said resources to it?
4) Does everyone (or the majority) in the organization support the idea?
5) Is there a way to measure the effectiveness of the idea once it gets going?
6) Do we want to take a risk on trying something new?

Of course, the answer to number 6 is going to nearly always be “yes, of course we do.”

It’s a tenuous balancing act, presenting a display of professionalism in an already established community (such as Twitter) and then blending that with the creativity that a creative agency encourages. Do you have any tips for displaying creativity on social media?

In the oil and gas industry there are obviously a number of challenges. One of those is figuring out how to market and bring attention to an oil and gas company during a time when the industry is not the focus, even here in Calgary.

Videos today encourage people to engage with their content, and are highly valued by a number of different audiences due to their ability to present something that can be both highly visual and highly informative. With more than 10 million video ads being watched by North Americans each month, online video is now the most effective element in a marketing family; it is now the leading force of every marketing campaign. And with web video spending anticipated to increase from $3 billion this year to $8 billion in 2016, organizations in all sectors, including oil and gas, will need to constantly create online video content to sell, teach, train, educate, and entertain their target audience.

Here are a few examples of O+G videos, doing it right:

For a few years, British Petroleum has put out their reviews of the industry and outlook to the future in animated videos using excellent kinetic typography and bold colours. BP’s outlook for the world’s 2030 energy industry is presented through sliding and winding graphics done up in BP’s colours.

Chevron created an ad campaign in 2010 around the concept of “We Agree.” We Agree was a campaign that worked to display the values held by Chevron and show that they matched with the values of their various audiences. Through consistent imagery and a variety of people speaking about values either on behalf of Chevron or on behalf of themselves, Chevron created a collection of clips based on the We Agree concept. The crisp clip shown here focuses on Chevron and communities:

Suncor, like many other companies, often uses videos to display its ongoing projects, how its various projects were accomplished, and any successes it experiences. Suncor got lucky with the discovery of an Ankylosaur, and exhibited it similar to how they exhibited many of their ongoing projects. Through video, Suncor gave the situation’s background, presented the people involved and then brought the viewers through the important steps taken to complete the project (in this case, uncovering a dinosaur).

Figuring out what type of video to create – animated, live-action scripted or background – can be one of the most challenging steps in the production process. Let us help. With our rapid concept-to-delivery approach, our creative team works closely with you to develop scripts that not only provide your audience with relevant information, but do so in an engaging, story-driven manner that will resonate with and entertain your audience. Our production team then assembles the best animators or talent for the job to shoot your story in high definition. Finally, our post-production experts add their dazzle to the project and deliver your video online so that it can be viewed on any device, anywhere, anytime.

Whether you’re new to online video and would like to learn more about the process, or are already experiencing the benefits of videos on your website and would like to watch our reel, we would be grateful for an opportunity to meet with you to show you how video can work for you!

What are your goals with video?

Evocative title, no? Check out the cover, by Stephanie Hans.

The Girl Who Would Be King, cover by Stephanie Hans

Kelly Thompson is a notable free-lance writer, blogger and graphic novelist. Not to mention, Kelly has an enviable online following that added to the success of her debut novel The Girl Who Would Be King. She managed to self-publish her novel thanks to crowd funding. For those who have no idea what I’m talking about, crowd funding is a collective effort of individuals who pool their money, usually online, to support the efforts of an initiated project. Kelly used the popular platform Kickstarter to raise money for her book. Here is a section of the summary, found on her Kickstarter page:

Separated by thousands of miles, two young women are about to realize their extraordinary powers which will bind their lives together in ways they can’t begin to understand.

…

One girl driven to rescue, save, and heal; the other driven to punish, destroy, and kill.

And now they’re about to meet.

On the same page, Thompson states that the book is for fans of superheroes, comics, feminism, young adult and crossover fiction, The Hunger Games or Battle Royale, character driven epics, or “strong but complicated female leads.” With all of those categories having fans already, while she may not necessarily be filling a void, she does have an audience, which is key for self-publishing.

Initially, an unnamed publisher rejected the book due to the difficulty of classifying it as Young Adult, Sci-Fi/Fantasy or something else entirely. How to market it was a huge challenge for the publisher and not one that they ultimately decided to undertake. Thompson turned to Kickstarter as a result, where her initial goal of $8,000 to publish the book was reached in less than 30 hours, according to two articles.

The book has been available for close to a year now, having raised at least $18,478 more than the initial goal by the time funding was stopped on July 25, 2012. The funding was used to pay for the production and distribution of the book, both print and digital copies, along with the limited edition signed and numbered hardcover, and additional merchandise such as prints, pins, magnets and stickers. The merchandise and limited editions were given to prominent backers of the book, as a part of the backing deals.

Through the new crowd funding platforms available online, Thompson was able to successfully fund the publishing of her book, generate a ton of buzz around the book – partly thanks to her prominence in the comics community – and make the book available both in digital and in print. Happiness abounded all-around! It’s clear that self-publishing, in particular through crowd funding, can find success provided the work put forward appeals to the right audience at the right time and in the right way.

Ready to give crowd funding a try?

Guerrilla marketing has become increasingly popular as an effective and affordable form of unconventional advertisement. Guerrilla marketing requires some serious imagination, time and energy rather than the big budgets of traditional methods.

Experiential marketing is one of many forms of guerrilla marketing, a way of breaking through the clutter of traditional marketing to meet your customers face-to-face and build their interest in your brand. It is based on the idea of engaging all five senses of the audience and giving them the opportunity to physically experience the product, something that simply can’t be achieved online.

Coca-Cola Zero recently partnered up with SKYFALL and ran an experiential marketing campaign for the latest 007 movie, SKYFALL. The campaign was aimed at train passengers at a train station in Belgium where a passerby would attempt to use a vending machine and be given 70 seconds to reach a different platform. The participant would then have to run through the station dodging various obstacles in a way that would be seen in a Bond movie. Once the participant reaches the destination they are asked to sing the classic 007 theme song to win tickets to see the new movie.

This sort of campaign demonstrates how experiential marketing can build a brand while pairing it with another brand; in this case it was the Bond franchise and Coca-Cola Zero. It gave the audience or participant the opportunity to engage with the product and interact with both brands. Not to mention, I’m sure it caused some buzz in the train station and with their co-workers once the new ‘James Bond’ arrived at work!  It’s definitely worth a watch:

Unlock the 007 in you. You have 70 seconds!

Experiential marketing can have various positive effects on audiences. It creates brand awareness where people can see the brand in a familiar way, it engages the audience and allows them to feel involved in a way that keeps the brand fresh in their minds, inspiring a feeling of ‘ownership’.

We can see this on a smaller scale at car dealerships. When you look for a new car, you go to a showroom and if you’re anything like me, you press all of the buttons. The salesman hands you a brochure, but does this move you to buy the car? No, you need to take it for a test drive to see how it handles and how comfortable you feel in it before you decide to buy it. This may not be a direct relation to experiential marketing but it does show how giving a customer the opportunity to engage with a product can open doors to potential sales, as opposed to just giving them information and sending them on their way.

What are some examples of experiential marketing you have come across?

Screaming from the rooftops, while certainly attention-grabbing, is not a good long-term tactic to get people to buy your book. Getting people aware of your book and wanting to buy it is one part of self-publishing which can trip some authors up. After all, it involves such things as “marketing” and “public relations” and few people really know what either of those things is.

Here’s the situation:

Your book is awesome. Your book is amazing. You love your book and you want everyone else to love it too. At the very least, you want them to buy it so you can eat something other than $0.99 ramen every day of the week. (You love ramen, but this is just getting excessive.)

You have your book all ready to go. It’s going to be available digitally on Amazon, for Kobo users and those on the Nook within the month, and you’ve decided to opt out of print and audio. You have Twitter, you have Facebook, you have Instagram, though you still don’t understand the point of it, and you’ve been tweeting and posting nonstop about the fact that your book is now on the market.

“This is so exciting!” you tweet for the sixth time in the past week, because it is. You also Instagram a photo of you holding up a package of chicken breasts because they are distinctly not ramen and soon you will be able to afford them. You repeatedly deny that you are planning your speech for when the film version of your book wins an Oscar for Best Picture. (You’re on the second draft.)

However, your book will only be available at the end of the month, which is a few weeks away. Your excitement isn’t premature, but channeling that excitement into a strategic plan to boost awareness of and interest in your book will be more helpful.

Hugh Howey, author of the widely successful Wool series, did this very effectively.

Wool by Hugh Howey

He used a serial format for publishing his books. He published a new book every few months as a part of the series, which helped to keep the anticipation and interest up. He sent free copies of the books to book bloggers and critics, while encouraging the creation of fan works for his series and giving early drafts of the future books to select fans to edit.

He generated that illustrious word: buzz.

Once that buzz was established, the series held up on its own. It was of the dystopia genre, which is popular right now thanks partially to the prevalence of The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. Plus, the writing was something that people enjoyed. The buzz, the online following Howey had established, a following which recommended his work to others, encouraged people to buy the digital book and earn him over $1 million before Simon & Schuster even considered contacting him about print publishing rights.

Yeah, screaming from the rooftops is great. Even better is talking with your prospective readers, honing your craft, encouraging feedback and making it easy for people to get your book.

Gonna read Wool?

YouTube is the largest video-sharing site in the world. With over four billion hours of video watched each month, YouTube sounds like the place to be. We all love watching videos of pandas sneezing or kittens running around in a bathtub, but at some point you might want to indulge in some more unique content and ask yourself, “Can I market my content in a better environment?”

YouTube isn’t the only fish in the sea. Vimeo is a similar website, but it features more unique and innovative content. If you want to display your content to the masses, YouTube might be the place to go, but uploading to other sites like Vimeo might just broaden your viewer base. The only question is which one best suits your needs?

When we take a look at Vimeo we can see that it isn’t quite as popular as Youtube, but the user interface is cleaner and if you want to embed it to your blog or website, it displays in a better style. If you are trying to market your content virally, the viewer base is not large enough to do so.

The production quality of most of the videos on Vimeo is much higher than YouTube. It features a plethora of original content by artists, musicians and businesses. With no limitation on video length your options to express yourself are limitless. YouTube only has a default maximum of 15 minutes with the option to increase length by request.

YouTube is in the lead when it comes to allowing you to reach a massive audience. The viewer base alone can allow your video to soar from a few views to several million in no time; you just need the right theme for your content. However, a disadvantage of YouTube is the possibility that your audience might get distracted with a million other things going on around your video, such as the suggested videos bar.

Vimeo seems like a comfortable site where you aren’t overwhelmed by other videos or advertisements. The layout is simple and clean, which may be preferred if you are sharing a video in a business setting.

Ultimately, it’s up to you to choose which site to use. Whether it’s for viral purposes or presentations, the choice is yours.

From your experience, which video sharing site do you prefer and why?

Excellent. There are a few things you should keep in mind before you get to the ‘happy dance’ stage when your book is finally published.

Full disclosure, I’ve never actually self-published anything (my novel will be finished eventually). From my research though, there are a few necessities.

First, and this is very important, if you have had a publisher before double- and triple-check that you have the publication rights for whatever publication avenue you are taking (digital, print, audio etc.). If you do not, self-publishing is not an option. If you do, then go on ahead with the self-publishing route but do keep an eye on the contract you have with the publisher.

If you have never had a publisher before then the above point is moot. You have all of the publication rights. You are all-mighty.

Second, editing. Has your book been edited ruthlessly by someone, multiple someone’s even, other than yourself?  Editing allows for the essence of thoughts to be clearly conveyed, it isn’t just the “to/too/two” variety that you have to worry about. The editing process can only improve the book in the end and it’s not worth skipping this stage.

Third, make sure that you understand what copyright is (Can, US), what an ISBN is and how to get one (and then, of course, get one: Can, US. You can then use the ISBN to get CIP data so that libraries can catalogue your book (Can, US). Imagine, your book in a library…

Lastly in the self-publishing preparation, does your book have an amazing cover? (Yes, you are allowed to hire someone else to do the cover for you. I promise that doing so does not make you any less of a self-publisher.) Because really, who doesn’t judge a book by the cover?

There is tons of excellent information (with links to even more information) on self-publishing at these articles/sites, which I’d highly recommend checking out:

• The 4 Best Strategies for Savvy Self-Publishers
• Self-Publish.ca
• How To Publish Your Book
• How To Publish A Book 101

Do you have any tips for self-publishers?

Overly manly man internet meme from overlymanlyman.com

Starting a blog can be really easy once you get the ball rolling. The key is to keep your readers up to date with your latest and greatest offerings. But what happens when your site experiences increased traffic and you find yourself putting your blood, sweat and tears into developing new content? It’s time to make some moola by taking your blog to a new frontier, monetization.

In 2008, Brett McKay and his wife Kate started a blog called The Art of Manliness. In an interview with The Rise To The Top, McKay said he originally intended to be completely supported by ads. The website steps back from the GQ style of what a man should look like, and focuses on the grass roots of what it is to be an honourable man. This idea soon gained popularity and took off.

“I started off with Google AdSense, that was in the very beginning,” McKay said. As time progressed and site traffic grew, McKay said he was able to bring in larger advertising networks, which gave him more lucrative deals.

Since then, The Art of Manliness has published a book, created posters and even made t-shirts all of which are for sale on the site; but McKay says that advertising is still the top earner for his site, accounting for about 60% of their income.

Bringing in advertisements to your blog can generate a lot of money if you maintain it. The trick is to always keep the content fresh and interesting. If visitors grow tired of the content, your hits will drop and ultimately your ad revenue will decrease. Some things you can do to keep your readers reading are:

• Stay current, you don’t want to keep writing the same old thing
• Keep your posts relevant to your blog’s focus
• Write shorter posts, most people skim through online content
• Let your readers interact with your stories, give them links to relevant content and let them start discussions on the topic at hand

Google AdSense is a great place to start with blog monetization. All you have to do is have a blog, sign up and copy the Google provided HTML code into your page. Visitors of your page can click the ads thus depositing a certain amount of money into your account with each click. Next thing you know you’ll be stinking rich. Well maybe not stinking rich, but you’ll be making money doing something you enjoy.

Once you begin generating revenue that way, there are more advanced techniques you can explore. Do you have any unique ways of generating money for your blog?