The 2010 AdVision Awards ceremony represents the final culmination of  the Fourth Annual international competition of Russian-language advertising founded by Global Advertising Strategies in 2006. The AdVision Awards has established itself as an advertisers’ forum, that honors the best advertising works from all over the globe.

This year, the AdVision Awards ceremony will be held at the legendary B.B. King Blues Club in New York City. This venue embodies universal culture and the name B.B. King has great meaning to the Russian people, as many grew up listening to Blues and Jazz. Hosting the AdVision Awards at the Club will enable Global Advertising Strategies to achieve the Company’s main goal of bridging the cultural and business differences between Eastern European and American societies.”

Additionally, as part of the AdVision events,  Blueliner CEO Arman Rousta will be participating in a panel discussion on Friday, March 5 at 3:00 pm titled, “Going Viral, Going Global: Harnessing Social Media. The panel will be moderated by Craig Kanalley, Traffic & Trends Editor for the Huffington Post.

Arman Rousta says, “I’m honored to be speaking at AdVision this year.  Global puts on a first-class event with topics, like the Social Media panel, that are timely and relevant for advertising agencies. I hope to bring some insights on how agencies need to take the lead in devising Social Media strategies for their clients.”

Blueliner introduces Christopher Walbert as the new Web Marketing Manager. He will assist the in-house marketing strategies at Blueliner, overseeing web content on the corporate news and blog pages. His hands are also involved with the web initiatives of our clients, providing SEO, SEM and web marketing strategy.  He has extensive experience in search, online display, affiliate markeing, social media, and mobile.

Chris comes to Blueliner from Baltimore, Maryland with eight years of experience in digital media.  He spent the last three with Media Works as their Digital Media Manager. He led all digital initiatives for the client base, which ranged from travel, automotive, real estate, health care, education, and government accounts.

Before Media Works, he spent five years with the health and wellness company Medifast, inc. There, he served as a brand manager and oversaw a $20 million advertising budget. Medifast’s e-commerce business grew from $3 million to over $40 million in two years with Chris’ stewardship. Last but not least, he was the chief architect and strategist for the development of MyMedifast.com, a private online community for Medifast customers.

CEO Arman Rousta gives a ringing endorsement, saying that, ”Chris is a first rate Search Marketing professional, whose career I’ve been tracking for several years now.  He is a multi-faceted team player who can take also charge of client accounts, presentations and pitches.  Given his nice balance of copy writing and quantitative skills, I have high hopes for Chris and what he can do for Blueliner’s Search and Social Media Marketing teams.”

We give Chris a hearty welcome to the Blueliner family.  His diverse range of abilities will prove invaluable to our clients and staff.

January 19, 2010

Blueliner closed out a stellar year on a high note in Q4-2009 by selling a 41% ownership stake to Global Advertising Strategies, an international full-service marketing and advertising firm with headquarters in New York and offices in several European countries. Global is an award winning agency that has a strong reputation in the multicultural marketing space, with high-end clients like Lufthansa and DirecTV.  As part of the integration, Blueliner moved into a high-tech office space at 55 Broad Street in the Financial District, with Global as its co-tenant.  Both brands and staffs will retain their independence, although they will be working closely together to complement one another’s skill sets, maximize campaign strategies and bring more integrated solutions to both Blueliner and Global clients.  In essence, Blueliner now becomes the de facto interactive division for Global and its clients.

Arman Rousta, CEO, Blueliner and Givi Topchishvili, CEO, Global Advertising Services

“Blueliner and Global will complement each other’s current client offerings in ways key to the growth of both companies.  We are looking forward to the synergy created in this fusion of expertise and capabilities, across creative, technical and marketing disciplines,” says Arman Rousta, CEO.

“This investment increases Global’s ability to offer additional and more cost-effective digital solutions to our clients,” stated Givi Topchishvili, President & CEO of Global Advertising Strategies.  “Blueliner’s advanced digital technologies, and our companies’ combined global presence will help us to further grow our interactive practice worldwide.”

This partnership will lead to more web marketing and development opportunities for Blueliner, which is now in its seventh year of operations.  The growth phase is supported by new additions to the management team, that will be formally announced over the coming weeks.

Through this investment deal, Rousta retains majority ownership in the company and remains on board as the CEO.  Meanwhile, Global represents a strategically talented and financially stable partner at the table, which will fuel Blueliner’s growth as one of the top interactive agencies in New York.

Morningside is a leading agency for worldwide translators and legal professionals. When the project initially began, Morningside had a website resembling a small paper brochure. The corporate culture also reflects a rather humble ethos and emphasizes their personable relationships with clients. The agency, however, is a proud member of many large associations and an international corporate sponsor of industry events. The website did not properly convey their rich portfolio of services ranging from translation, interpretation, and transcription.

Dali Singh and Adam Mustafa were the project manager and creative director for Blueliner.  They worked with the Morningside executives to redevelop the brand and optimize its potential for internet traffic revenue.  Blueliner’s specialization in Web 2.0 and the 7 Pillars of Marketing brought major improvements.  First, the logo was adjusted to reflect their mission of global reach and expertise in translations and legal services.  Blueliner also used bold, crisp photos, and color variation along with wider layouts in order to stimulate consumer interest.

Morningside also wanted to target new clients on the web.  In the past, their strategic model was predominantly cold telemarketing.  Blueliner implemented their SEO methodology with the guidance of a lead copywriter to improve their search potential on the major engines.  The information scope was expanded from 10 to 80 web pages, generating higher ROI metrics.  A social media panel was also installed on the website to update clients on news within and outside the agency on a real-time basis with links to Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.  Experience the new website here.

Blueliner has launched a diverse internet marketing strategy for Vis-a-Vis, Inc. The partnership seeks to improve the search engine optimization, online advertising, social media, email marketing, and web analytics of Vis-a-Vis in the fickle world of cosmetics. Vis-a-Vis wants to generate new leads for their product line, and Blueliner will use five of the 7 Pillars of Marketing in order to reach higher ROI metrics.  Here are a couple of photos from a recent photo shoot at Anar Studios in Jersey City.

We have a special preview of the innovative commerical video on our blog.  Follow it for updates on the campaign.

This session is a part of the DMA on-going virtual seminar series. Arman will discuss methods for incorporating powerful web design trends and tactics that drive ROI. DMA seminar attendees will be taken through a set of case studies that highlight the most popular web design trends of 2008 including the use of online videos, polls and blogs, ajax forms, popular font styles, landing page optimization and 2008 consumer trends to be on the look out for.

If you are interested in joining Arman in this powerfully interactive seminar, click here to secure your registration.

About Arman Rousta

Arman Rousta is the CEO of Blueliner Marketing, an internet marketing agency and web development firm that specializes in ROI-driven branding and web marketing initiatives. He brings over 12 years of internet marketing experience to his clients. Arman is recognized as an industry expert and has been quoted in popular publications, including Crain’s New York, Wall Street Journal, Success, New York Times, Popular Science and Inc Magazine.

Arman is the pioneer behind the 7 Pillars of Internet Marketing and Blueliner’s offshore teams in India, Bangladesh, and China.

As wages and other costs in India continue to escalate at rates as high as 15% a year, more New York companies are going next door to Bangladesh…”Bangladesh is definitely emerging as the next center for outsourcing,” says Lilach Nachum, a professor at Baruch College’s Zicklin School of Business…

In Bangladesh, information technology staffers get $5 to $10 an hour, versus $10 to $20 in India. As a result, switching can reduce overhead by as much as half. Some Indian companies that get U.S. outsourcing business are moving their own work to Bangladesh, and their New York clients are happy to follow.

“India is almost oversaturated, but Bangladesh is up-and-coming,” observes Arman Rousta, co-founder and principal of Blueliner Marketing, a New York online marketing consultant with operations in Dhaka, the capital. “People there are hungry.”

Mr. Rousta was initially skeptical when a Bangladeshi-American employee suggested that Blueliner start outsourcing in Dhaka as well as India. But the executive reconsidered when costs began rising. The size of Blueliner’s Dhaka operation is now double that of its Indian one.

Though most of Blueliner’s outsourcing is IT for small and midsized businesses…several larger clients, including Citigroup, have had Web work done in Bangladesh.

This is an excerpt from the article “Outsourcing Moves to Bangladesh,” published in Crain’s New York Business, December 17, 2007. The Full article is available in newsstands from December 17 to the 23 and to members of Crain’s New York Business.com.

Since its creation in 2003, Blueliner has leveraged offshore outsourcing in creative ways to lower costs for clients. Offshore work was originally sent to India, hailed as the prime market for top quality, highly educated programmers and technical support staff, and then later expanded with an additional office in Bangladesh in July of 2005.

Bangladesh is a rising star in the international economy whose government has focused development efforts over the past 10 years on a country-wide ICT infrastructure that has resulted in widespread access to many of the same training materials and open source software available in the US.

From the beginning, the Bangladesh team has been a tremendous asset to the company. Reduced competition for workers in Bangladesh allowed Blueliner to get team members with top quality education, superior English language skills, and excellent work ethic at a cost clients can afford.

“Our team in Bangladesh has performed at an increasingly higher-level since we started there in 2005,” says Arman Rousta, CEO of Blueliner. “Overcoming the cultural and time barriers was made possible by our U.S. management team’s willingness to travel to Bangladesh and train staff, as well as everyone’s flexibility to work ‘weird’ hours.”

The team has exceeded expectations since it was started, topping expansion goals to bring the entire offshore team to 14 employees in the fourth quarter of 2007, and has reshaped traditional thought about what to expect from an offshore team in several ways.

For one thing, a culture of independent learning in Bangladesh, which emphasizes open source rather than proprietary software, has resulted in a team highly knowledgeable at manipulating the open source programs, which Blueliner favors for its internal operations and clients because of better flexibility and lower cost.

The enthusiasm of the Bangladesh team has also allowed the Blueliner corporate office to develop a unique offshore training program that goes beyond website design and software development, into the realm of internet marketing, corporate branding and social media. In essence, this diffusion of labor, allowing creative and technical jobs to be done overseas, sets apart Blueliner’s offshore business model and re-establishes its reputation as an innovator.

About Blueliner Marketing

Blueliner Marketing is a full-service marketing agency specializing in internet marketing, social media and offshore outsourcing. With offices in New York, India, Bangladesh, and China, Blueliner follows “The World is Flat” business model of efficient implementation, providing high-level website design and development services at competitive rates.

To learn more, visit www.Blueliner NY.com

What the pros say: “At the end of the day, the technical work and link building will only take you so far. You have to invest in building up the quality of the site so that the search engines regard it as a source of high quality information” – Imran Hassan, Blueliner Marketing

To download and read the entire white paper, please visit Business.com.

Where does that leave full-service interactive agencies that have always integrated online and offline campaigns into the media mix? Precisely in the right place.

Blueliner, LLC, a full-service, interactive marketing agency specializing in web development, marketing and creative media services, announced the launch of BluelinerNY.com, a new website with social media features and resources for entrepreneurs and marketers.

Blueliner Marketing was founded by two entrepreneurs Arman Rousta and Dali Singh, in yes, the basement of their Jersey City home. Five years later, Blueliner has grown to become one of the fastest-growing agencies in the US.

Headquartered in the heart of NYC, Blueliner is now a global operation with offices in Bangladesh, India and China and follows the ‘World is Flat’ business model of 24/7 implementation and ROI-centric marketing methodologies. When you walk into the NYC office, you’ll meet Imran from Bangladesh, Caleb from Kansas, Dali from India, David from Chicago and Arman from Iran. The diverse office environment quietly resonates with the company’s vision and offshore business model.

“How can the world, individuals and organizations best adapt to new media and technologies, effectively, without being overwhelmed? While that sounds like a broad, over-arching aim, I find it to be relevant to how we operate and what Blueliner aims to be. This vision is true to our entrepreneurial make-up”, says Arman Rousta, Blueliner’s CEO.
With the launch of BluelinerNY.com, business professionals can take advantage of educational resources like the 7 Pillars of Internet Marketing and Opening an Office in Asia podcasts, informative blogs, webinars and featured spotlights on established entrepreneurs, media folks and bloggers.

About Blueliner Marketing, LLC
Blueliner is a full-service interactive marketing agency specializing in web development, marketing and creative media services. Blueliner seeks to utilize its entrepreneurial, media and web technology skills, to achieve brand recognition and maximize ROI for a select group of clients who offer innovative and meaningful products.

To learn more, visit www.bluelinerny.com, or contact Dali Singh at dali[@]bluelinerny.com, 212.904.1240.