The Power of Animated GIFs

GIF here, GIF there, GIFs everywhere.

From JLaw falling down on the red carpet repeatedly to King Joffrey dying in an episode of Game of Thrones, GIFs are fast becoming the most widely shared content online among Baby Boomers and Millennials.

To understand the rise of animated GIFs in pop culture, it is important to understand:

  • what a GIF is,
  • why they have become so popular in the visual content space, and
  • how they can be beneficial in your marketing strategy.

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Marketing via New Media Meets Brickfish®

Earlier this month, our company was invited to be guest speakers at Becky Carroll’s Marketing via New Media class at UCSD Extension. Carroll’s class focuses on how social media can leverage customer loyalty and engagement. In fact, the book that she uses in her course is Groundswell by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff—a definite must read for any company looking to gain insight and engagement from their consumers.

With that said, we were definitely excited to meet her class (especially me since I’m a big fan of public speaking). We presented what Brickfish® was and how companies can use our platform to launch a social media advertising campaign. Below is the presentation that we shared with her class that night:

What Is Brickfish?

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: case campaigns)

Again, special thanks to Becky Carroll and her students for letting us speak. You can learn more about how her students are embracing social media by reading her blog at Teaching Social Media.

By the way, if you’re attending the 2008 BlogWorld Conference, be sure to check out the Creating Customer Loyalty with Social Media panel as Carroll will be one of the moderators.

Capital One Wants to Get Personal

This is fake.

I stumbled across Kristen Nicole’s article on Mashable titled, “Use Flickr for Custom Capital One Cards” and thought it was a great campaign for several personal reasons.

First, Capital One makes it simple to create a personalized credit card. I already have a Capital One card but now I can select a photo that’s already hosted on my Flickr account or simply upload a jpeg from my PC and make it more fun. See upload guidelines here.

Second, by using a personal photo I’m creating an emotional attachment with my credit card. When I’m in the middle of a transaction, do I whip out my boring debit card or use my fancy customized Capital One card? Chances are, I’m going to whip out the Capital One card then chat with the clerk on how fun it was customizing my credit card and tell her where she can go online to create her own!

It would have also been interesting to see what would happen if the Capital One Image Card promotion ran a user-generated contest around the campaign. Let people create their custom Capital One card with their favorite photo then offer a prize (i.e. a $150 Capital One Gas Card) for the best design in a photo category (i.e. Family, Best Friends, Graduation, etc.).

People can engage longer with the promotion and check out what other people have designed and leave comments if they want to. And if they’re not interested in other people’s creations, they can still order their new card. That’s a great way of building brand awareness in my opinion, what do you think?

Create your own personalized Capital One credit card now.

(Avatar Credit: PosePrints.com)

(Photo Credit: CapitalOne)