Whittaker’s Chocolate, a New Zealand chocolatier and the Portuguese Sagres Preta, maker of chocolate stout beer, bravely decided to create their website only using chocolate, their main ingredient.

Everything from the interface design to the navigation and the social icons on their website is made of chocolate!

The idea is brilliant, and with this approach these two companies are showing that advertising should be fun and honest, not boring, false or evil.

To better promote this initiative, the companies also accompanied the campaign with videos of how the websites were done – from idea to execution. Check out one of the videos that went viral on the web:

Delicious, isn’t it!?
If you would like to reinvent your own website and find a creative way to promote your products like these two brave companies, feel free to get in touch with us.

As a final thought, I’ll just share this excellent quote from the great Jerry Della Femina, who said:

“I honestly believe that advertising is the most fun you can have with your clothes on.”

This piece from Direct Marketing News, however, tells us a different story.  This generation makes up 26% of the current population according to the U.S. Census Bureau for a total of 79 million Americans.  They also hold several of the most powerful positions in our global marketplace. Some luminaries include Paul Allen and the President among others, who manage 50% of the country’s discretionary spending.  They feel that the interactive marketing community is ignoring them, and want retribution.

As the writer Anthony Franco asks us, how do we engage this demographic who have such depth of influence? Everything must be kept simple.  Your online advertising campaigns must carry a simple message with clear direction of your business objectives. Your blog or email newsletter can alert your key customers of news updates. Daily tips can be released by the real-time channel, depending on response rates.  Social media portals like Twitter and video sharing sites work great when the message correlates with the product.  Your blog should also have a link that goes straight to customer service for troubleshooting. A labyrinthe website with useless landing pages can really hurt your impression with this demographic. Then the sales do not flow into your business.

Baby boomers will spend time reviewing your site if they know that assistance is available. Web developers must design applications to match behavioral patterns of their customer.  Links with partnerships are always good if your website does not have the answer.

Like any marketer, being prescient is the key to optimizing strategy.  A good website rich in keywords does not hurt either.

I stumbled on this futuristic advertising spot from Techland earlier and thought I would share it. According to the piece, the software used is 3D projection mapping. 3D projection mapping is where objects are used as projection screens instead of traditional flat screens. In shorthand, you are looking at three dimensional points in a two dimensional plane.

Last year, large corporations like Sony, Nokia, and BMW rolled out the technique in campaigns. This year with mobile devices selling in greater quantities, count on more surfacing in the viral network. Advertisers know that stimulation on an interactive level is the key to content becoming king.

As the lead article points out, the iPhone is left out and makes the irony known.  Without the iPhone, we don’t have the Android. This campaign for Fanta in Dubai is also intriguing. Fanta Ad, Dubai.

In a three-part series, Chernov talks with Software Advice about personal brands and media.  He talks about their value and how Eloqua can assist with corporations through their integration of personal branding.

You can follow the first part below.

The interactive marketing rules are constantly rewritten. Is your digital IQ growing? Interested readers, click on the logo to get more insight into strategies to engage your small business. This is the first of a monthly installment for Rousta as a columnist.  We look for it to be an engaging relationship.

Young Entrepreneur, launched in 1999, is one of the largest online communities for entrepreneurs worldwide.  The website reaches a unique collection of investors, startup CEOs, programmers, mentors, and so forth.

Our friends at Software Advice have designed a new website, Marketing Automation Software Guide, that aims to achieve your solutions with aplomb.  As I recently noted on the blog, consumer behavior towards e-commerce is making waves onto the cyberspace and it is crucial for businesses to use the proper to engage them.  We know that social media is growing as a means of intimate communication for managers wishing to solve customer issues.  We also know that web analytics are becoming a measuring platform to gage online activity.  Marketing automation, however, plays a larger part in synchronizing the cycle between seller and purchaser.

Marketers will get an embarrassment of riches from a solid market automation system.  They can track online behavior, manage sophisticated campaigns, and sales intelligence applications.  All these systems operate under the umbrella of Revenue Performance Management (RPM).  RPM seeks to optimize the transaction cycle for a more efficient level of engagement with consumers which leads to brand loyalty, resulting in consistent sales growth.  The marketing automation website will also improve forecasting for chief marketing and executive officers.  Some particular features should strike not only officers, but managers. Here they are, courtesy of Lauren Carlson, CRM Market Analyst.

• User Reviews – We write original reviews of leading marketing automation software systems. We’re kicking off the site with 12 reviews, including Marketo, Pardot and Aprimo, to name a few. Visitors will also contribute reviews if they have first-hand experience with a product.
• Technology Guides – Instructive articles and primers on the latest technologies for B2B marketers. These guides will help you get up-to-speed fast on the market. For example, “Best Practices for Success with Marketing Automation Software.”
• Side-by-Side Comparisons – Detailed, side-by-side comparisons of the leading products for each market segment. We’re kicking off the site with comparisons of lead nurturing systems and marketing automation software.
• Software Advisory Board – We welcome industry experts and end-users to share their opinions and experience with our visitors. If you or one of your colleagues is interested, please let us know.

Click on the logo above for more insight into this promising software.

Some of the topics covered in depth include social gaming, Twitter, Wolfram Alpha, Augmented Reality, and the future of Search. For those who want to improve their business practices in digital marketing, this report is a head start.  The Digital Forecast allows you to quickly and effectively support customers in identifying and qualifying new growth opportunities.  Click the picture for more details.

Regards,

The Blueliner Team

In an early strike, television rivals, set with websites that spool their programming such as Hulu, are balking to offer the same liberty for Google’s nascent television module.  Seeing the cannibalization of music from Google’s legendary search algorithms, networks are smart to hold onto their valued assets until an appropriate structure of online advertising can be developed.  Google in turn has asked network televisions to do a quality search engine optimization to ferret out piracy sites.  They have also offered to do an automatic deletion of unauthorized results.  The model is still in construction, so return to your regularly scheduled program.

2.  An Acid Tablet Market

Apple CEO Steve Jobs ripped the tablet competition earlier this week, saying that smaller models are not capable of creating good mobile applications. In his words, the 7-inch tablet is “DOA.  Dead On Arrival.”  Other people aren’t so sure, thinking that everyone could find a niche for their device.  It’s clear that Jobs is feeling some heat from Android’s burgeoning rise in the mobile sector for both smartphones and hardware.  The MacBook Air was released this week with a new Mac App store that lists guidelines for development.  Earlier this year, that move would have been unthinkable.  The tablet competition is interesting right now.

3.  HP Releases The Slate, at $800

After a lot of press snippets and some kinks ironed out, H-P releases its own tablet, The Slate.  As mentioned earlier, the consumer demand is unclear, but HP will give it a shot.  The device runs on a Windows 7 platform and has a USB Port with a megapixel camera.  Here’s a longer write-up on Endgaget with a short video.  Check there for a future recap.

4.  China Launches Own Map Service

As Google still fights for its web marketing presence in the People’s Republic, Map World was released for the populance by The State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping. The website is quite rudimentary, looking like it was created back in 1999. It promises to possess millions of topographic images taken via satellite of the global parameters.  Google Earth does this scanning in milliseconds.  I don’t know who is playing who here, but Google Earth is still the champion of online map surveillance.

5.  USPS Plans To Appeal Price Increase Rejection

The USPS, in response to a ruling made on September 30 by the Postal Regulatory Commission, is not leaving their demand for an exigent price increase to grow cold.  After the USPS files with the Court of Appeals, then other parties can make their case for either side.  Direct marketers have already sides with the Postal Regulatory Commission, claiming that the law was interpreted correctly regarding the ability to set postage pricing under extraordinary circumstances.  This ruling could be crucial for philanthropic organizations that depend on direct marketing to engage loyal donorbases.  A continuing shift to e-mail marketing could be in the cards if the ruling is overturned.

That’s the Blue News.  Have a good weekend.

Twitter not only lets you know about what others are doing and offers a tool to spread product deals, launches, and job openings. Everything is for free, where you can allow your followers to view your profile and share ideas, trends, and solicit feedback about your business with them.

Twitter offers flexibility that allows marketers to target a diverse market. The content posted via Twitter multiplies exponentially and good content serves as a tiny press release. As a result, content distribution improves, increasing traffic. The viral marketing feature of twitter is one good reason for B2B companies to choose Twitter as a social media tool. With the help of the in-built features and other third party resources, marketers can easily monitor, track and analyze the flow of information, trends and business opportunities.

The main goal of a marketer in using social media tool is to increase the sales volume by engaging the consumers and target audience to develop brand equity. So all companies must try to understand how to make use of Twitter as a social media marketing tool to create awareness about their brands, engage customers, and maximize profit.

There are a range of essential factors that influence the look and feel of e-commerce websites. The top features include quick & easy navigation, product related simple design for increased visibility of product, effective branding, specific product images, displaying related or recommended products, listing popular products, offers & discounts, simple checkout process, and complete website search option.  

The navigation of product pages should be carefully designed with more options for the users to locate the product easily.  This feature of the site requires thorough user experience testing to ensure all navigational issues are addressed properly. With the help of some simple design approaches, the site will give better visibility to the product, as selling is the key point of any e-commerce website. For better performance of the website, the design should be related to the style of products available and thus making a direct connection with the brand.

Your firm should include product specific photos, especially in different angles.  This will help the user get a feel of the product and to make an easy purchasing decision. They should also make use of the homepage and help the users to find something really interesting by adding offers, popular products, new arrivals and other discounts. Displaying a list of related products on the product details page to the user may result in increased sales of those products as well and serves as a promotional tool for similar products. Users may find it difficult to land with the particular product of their interest even with good navigation, so in order to avoid this and help them gain easy access to the product, it is advised to include search box with range of options.

In total, e-commerce websites with all the above good features provides advantages for small and medium businesses in developing countries reducing operational costs and increasing efficiency.