There are 311,591,917 people and counting in the United States. So how do six people reach the 44 million young Americans eligible to vote on Election Day? Through pop culture, music, new technologies, and grassroots organizing.

At a recent Ad2DC event, guest speaker Chrissy Faessen, VP Marketing and Communications at Rock the Vote, explained just how much influence a group of passionate individuals can have.

“Founded twenty-one years ago at the intersection of popular culture and politics, Rock the Vote has registered more than five million young people to vote and has become a trusted source of information for young people about registering to vote and casting a ballot.” – Rock the Vote website.

Most people assume that Rock the Vote is somehow affiliated with MTV. Faessen explained that this is most likely due to the incredible exposure it gained during their early years with Rock the Vote’s popular PSA’s on MTV featuring celebrities and musicians, like the first one with Madonna for instance:

In fact, strategic partners like MTV are still a big part of what makes its message spread.  Can you believe that back in the day MTV did all the Rock the Vote PSA’s for free? Just imagine how much that airtime is worth now!

Rock the Vote’s mission ­­– to engage and build political power for young people in our country – is one that most musicians and celebrities have been happy to support by giving a shout out at their concert, posting a YouTube video encouraging fans to register, or just by wearing a Rock the Vote t-shirt – all the while adding massively to Rock the Vote’s brand visibility. I must say, the marketing team here really lucked out.

Want proof? Check out this star studded video:

Faessen also explained her marketing approach at Rock the Vote (which, by the way, would translate well into many organizations):

• Demystify the process of registering and voting
• Go to young people
• Be relevant
• Shape the media narrative
• Convince
• Develop partnerships
• Test, test, test

Clearly they have achieved huge success through this process. I personally don’t know anyone in my peer group who doesn’t know what Rock the Vote is or what it does.

Its strategic use of new technology (like text messaging and QR codes) and heavy research ensures that the Rock the Vote message is reaching its target audience where they are and with the communication method of their choice.

Faesson smirked as she explained their lax brand guidelines. She tells partners and sponsors that there are no rules when applying the logo to posters, t-shirts, etc. Just “use the Rock the Vote logo loud, and use it proud,” Faesson says. As a design agency, this was shocking. As a marketing company, this was brilliant. This organization definitely gained great exposure from allowing this freedom, and apparently hasn’t lost brand recognition. (Although, I still wouldn’t recommend this for most organizations.)

I am impressed with Rock the Vote’s marketing techniques, but most importantly with how six thrifty individuals have organized such a powerful organization. Great work Faesson and team, you’ve got my vote!

Now that the publishing and design worlds are beginning to fuse print/web design with mobile/tablet app design, the first challenge is choosing which digital publishing suite is best suited for your publication’s needs, budget, and required features.

If you’re taking a print publication to the mobile or tablet space, it’s very likely that you will check out two of the most popular digital publishing solutions: the Adobe Digital Publishing Suite and Mag+. Which one is right for you?

After using both services, I’ve put together a quick comparison guide to help publishers and designers determine which option works best for their digital publishing needs.

Adobe Digital Publishing Suite (DPS)

Adobe is well known for their creative suite and trusted by most design firms. Adobe DPS is a premium service, and is priced accordingly; as a result, it may not be the best option for projects with limited budgets. Last year, Adobe made significant changes within its Creative Suite to make the print to digital transition much easier for interactive designers. With the creation of such plugins as Folio Producer and Viewer Builder, designers now have great tools that allow them to create vibrant custom layouts without having to leave InDesign, an application that designers of print publications are likely already familiar with.

Also, the option to view changes in real time with the Viewer Builder is a huge time-saver. Without going into detail about all of the available options in the interactive tool palette, I’ve listed some pros and cons of using Adobe DPS.

Pros:

• Open template designer provides a greater degree of control over what the publication looks like, and the freedom to express variety between feature wells and departments.

• User-friendly experience, more control over what the reader sees and more options for call-outs in quick-read sections. An example of this is Marines magazine, a tablet app I’ve been designing over the years and since its previous incarnation as a print publication: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/marines-magazine/id418341877?mt=8

•  The advent of CS6 is poised to expand the capabilities of Adobe DPS. The introduction of social media buttons and HTML5 overlays make search capabilities within articles more accessible to the user and within search engines.

• The Omniture analytics feature provides granular, comprehensive data collection to get the most detailed feedback on what readers view most and how you can improve on it.

Cons:

• Although the service is feature-rich, cost could be a factor for budget-conscious organizations.

Mag+

Mag+ has a nice interface and is one of the most well known digital publishing solutions in the industry. It’s used by respected publications such as Popular Science, Maxim, and Outside magazines. Mag+ has a straightforward interface that is great for first time app designers, and its online user interface makes it easy for designers to create slideshows, animations and other various interactive elements. The Mag+ Feature Well successfully showcases imagery and separates the content from the layout, allowing for vertical scrolling and interactivity. It also includes analytics for magazine app owners to track where their readers spend the most time. Listed below is a brief list of some of the pros and cons of using Mag+.

Pros:

• Very nice interface, Feature Well easily promotes detailed photography and illustrations.

• Online User Interaction Library makes it easy for designers to choose what kind of inactivity they need for their work.

• Nice transition between pages with the slide feature for large image backgrounds.

Cons:

• Somewhat limited user interaction.

• Template-based layout system can be potentially monotonous for long publications, however, it is decidedly more appropriate for shorter publications.

• Heavily dependent on strong photography and video.

Whether it’s your first time designing for a tablet or you’re a seasoned veteran, keep in mind that your print design skills are remarkably transferable to the tablet. Just remember to always keep your audience’s needs as your first consideration.

Let’s talk about the “Happy Feet” franchise, and what these movies can teach us about the business of marketing. Not the business of marketing movies, but about building great creative product and brand.

Quick intro. “Happy Feet” (the original movie) was released in 2006. Directed and co-written by George Miller and beautifully rendered by Australian shop Animal Logic, the film was not built by household names, yet immediately held its place among the creative giants in the genre – Disney, Pixar, Dreamworks.

Everything was right about this flick; the characters were well thought out, working within the story and with each other. The voice actors were pitch-perfect. The animation and rendering, spot-on. The story, solid. And the music were inspiring score sections seamlessly mashed up to flow in and out of dialog and dance routines, producing straight-up delight. They even worked in a “save the planet” message! A+ job, and the Academy of Motion Pictures agreed. “Happy Feet” won an Oscar for Best Animated Feature.

Then “Happy Feet Two” came out. Did it live up to the first movie? Not so much. Our friends at Wikipedia report the film achieved less than 45% attendance than “Happy Feet” (original). Though the creative team for this second installment is largely the same as the first movie, the flick flounders.

Why? What happened? What does the rise and fall of “Happy Feet” teach us?

Here’s a shot at the overall lessons, and they apply to us as smart and creative people who strive to a deliver smart and creative product:

1. Keep it Simple – Sometimes we forget this. We over-design, over stuff with copy, or over emphasize. We want our tagline to be a brochure, our brochure to work as a website, and our website to work as a social media campaign. We pack our ads with copy or we load our radio spots up with 16 benefit messages. You get the idea. The original “Happy Feet” had one main character moving through a clear plot line, and we were all invested in the journey. Second movie had us jumping from storyline to storyline – penguin to puffin to krill buddy team . Too much = turned off.

2. Remember Your Audience  - Specifically remember what they care about. Are you speaking to their needs? Seems intuitive, but in our zeal to design we sometimes forget the folks we’re talking to. “Happy Feet Two” brought back the characters we knew and loved, but then kept snatching them away from us for stuff we didn’t care about.  When marketing makes a similar mistake (not delivering what the audience cares about/is interested in), engagement lands in the basement.

3. Good creative = new stuff - In Marketing you always have to reinvent, always have to bring something new and fresh and amazing to the world. Why? Because by definition creation means making something that wasn’t there before – breaking new ground, leading the way. In “Happy Feet Two” two main characters wrestled with being accepted and accepting themselves. We covered this in the first movie.  The whole first movie.

4. You’re only as good as your last good - Sad truth about advertising, design, and marketing – the industry has a short memory. Your campaign set the world on fire and a year later someone else posted better numbers, now you’re yesterday’s news.  “Happy Feet Two” needed to raise the bar set by the first movie, instead it fell short and hurt the franchise.  Be hard on your own work, strive to be better than your last victory, compete with yourself and your peers. The work and the rest of us will benefit.

5. Invest in your best people - Judy Morris co-wrote the first “Happy Feet” and was nominated for an Annie Award for the effort. She wasn’t in the credits for the second movie. Part of business is that people come and go, but that sometimes breaks up a winning team. Invest in your people, keep them happy and respect the part each one plays in your studio. They are your biggest asset.

The “Happy Feet” movies are overall a creative victory, so kudos to Miller’s teams. They also illustrate the challenges we face each day in our creative business. We can learn from these movies, learn from each other, and while doing so, keep dancing baby.

One of the nifty surprises with the newest Facebook makeover is that your privacy settings are going to be adjusted. This seems to be a common side effect of these types of updates. One specific update is troublesome: All of your pre-Timeline posts that were only viewable by “friends of friends” or “friends” will become “public.”

(Note: You can see how the public currently sees your page by finding the little gear icon drop-down menu and selecting “View as…” and presto! You can see how complete strangers view you page.)

Here’s how to keep your old posts private once you’ve switched to Timeline:

1) Log into your account and from the drop-down menu beside “Home” in the upper right, select Privacy Settings.

2) From the list on the Privacy Settings page, select Limit the Audience for Past Posts.

3) Click Limit Old Posts (see below)

4) A new window (see below) will appear with a scary message letting you know that you can’t revert this global change easily… but what is really happening is: you’re denying Facebook the right to take all of your previously private posts and make them available for the public to see. Unless you’ve had a change of heart, don’t worry that you’re maintaining the status quo you’ve already established.

5) Once you’ve confirmed, you can do another “View as…” to get a public view of your page and confirm your page is as private as you’d like.

Finally – do yourself a favor and click through your other privacy settings… just to make sure the settings are what you want!

*This article was originally published on Earnest Media.

But to truly see success in our marketing efforts we we’re not talking about just any emotions here.  Not talking about the day-to-day feelings. We’re talking about the deeper stuff, the true passion, the soul-twisting yearnings, the things people feel that push them wayyyy beyond their comfort zone, that lead them to quit a job, start a strike, change a nation.  The “inner fire” feelings.

Now consider the Goldman Sachs conversation this month.  As a quick primer, an executive at the company quit in spectacular fashion – resigning 15 minutes before his OpEd in the NYT went public.  And go public it did – immediately the story went viral: online, on TV, on radio, in living rooms and happy hours across the country.  And most remarkable, the next day Goldman Sachs took over a two billion dollar hit in market value. That’s billion with a “b” Virginia.

It was noted through this media frenzy that employees and insiders have written damning public send-ups of big corporations before.  In fact, a former engineer at Google posted his criticism of the media giant on the company blog of his new employer, Microsoft – the same week that Goldman Sachs entered public relations hell.  The Google story didn’t get anywhere near the traction in the media or online, and there is a good reason.  It didn’t tap into a fire and passion in folks.

I mean, people might be interested a story about the lack of innovation or leadership at Google, but the Goldman Sachs story touched on something much, much bigger. The Banking/Recession/World Financial Crisis has effected the lives of everyone. Unemployment, foreclosures, industries and countries brought to bankruptsy one after the other, and we’re still not out of the woods. People have a constant financial worry from the crisis on their minds coupled with a simmering anger – “How did we get in this mess, and who is responsible?” (see OCCUPY movement) – the Goldman Sachs story touched this passion and fire and sure enough, it blew up the engagement numbers accordingly.

Getting back to marketing. Are there examples we can see of brands that tapped into passion? You bet, and both happen to come from the auto industry.

Honda wanted to introduce a new diesel engine, and they did it in a fantastic and effective way – by tapping into hate. Or more accurately, by tapping into stuff that bugs us.  We all have things we can’t stand and rant about, Honda took this and made it a call to action, the same call to action that led the company to completely redesign the diesel engine.  The “Hate Something Change Something” campaign was wildly successful, here’s a sample

Another example was the Eminem Chrysler Superbowl ad from last year that was reprised in this past Suberbowl with a kind of follow up spot (Clint Eastwood did the talking in that one). The ad was about a car and a company, but mostly about America. Our country is in many ways defined by our love of our cars, and seeing the auto industry on it’s knees in front of Congress begging for a handout a couple years ago was to many people, a commentary on our nation. This ad gives the strong feelings of national pride and hope people had/are having in that context a voice, a voice 14 million people wanted to hear on You Tube alone.

My point is if you want to change the world with your brand you have to pick up world-changing tools – and one of those tools is straight up passion. Think about how your brand connects to these strong feelings, how it can help give voice to something powerful and universal. You might get more than good metrics, you might just start a movement.

It’s a Leap Year, and what better way to celebrate than with food and friends? 
So on February 29, we hosted a Mobile and Tablet App Lunch and Learn to talk about this exciting new frontier with some clients and friends.

As Bates Creative Group continues to grow in the digital space, we continue to get a lot of questions about apps. Whether it’s about cost, scheduling, content, or design, we have the experience to answer a variety of questions.

Bates Creative President Debbie Bates-Schrott led the discussion and was joined by Creative Director Jeff Caporizzo, who talked about branding in the digital space, and Interactive Director Vince Tardy, who discussed mobile publishing from a design and development standpoint. We were excited to share this information, but even more so to hear our guests’ concerns, questions and opinions.

Attendees were association professionals who work in all different aspects of publishing, for instance we had people from marketing and circulation, digital teams, print and online editors, as well as communications and creative departments. Each represent organizations that produce a variety of print magazines and journals, digital editions of these print magazines, websites, and/or unique online editions.

As the discussion unraveled, attendees began to ask about their most prevalent concerns:

• What are the ideal monetization solutions? And what’s at risk for print?
• How to gather and understand app analytics.
• How to share content within tablet app users and non-tablet app users.
• What is the better business model? Charging for their app, or offering it as a member benefit?
• Is the future business model of print on the web and tablet? Or could an organization just go all digital via web and tablet editions?
• Obvious budget concerns.

Overall, it seemed that everyone shared the same two areas of apprehension, which we talked about at length:

1. Whether or not their association could benefit from entering the mobile/tablet app market?
2. If they made the leap into a mobile/tablet app market, which type of app is most appropriate – web-based, native, or hybrid?

At the end of the day, we all learned a few things and enjoyed talking about the next wave of technology within the publishing industry. Our friends gathered some helpful details and hopefully left feeling more prepared to begin the conversation about entering this new publishing realm.

Is the mobile or tablet app market on the horizon for your publication or organization? Let us know. We’d love to help guide you through the process.

- – -

To give some background on our expertise in this publishing medium:

Last year Bates Creative Group was exclusively selected to beta-test Adobe’s Digital Publishing Suite, used to design and develop the Marines magazine iPad and Android tablet apps.

Earlier this year, InformationWeek named the Marines magazine tablet app as one of the 10 best government apps, judging each for their visual appeal and functionality.

- – -

Check out the following articles for additional information:

“Ten Things to Plan for When Developing a Mobile App,” by David Tucker, published on Mashable.com on February 24, 2012.

“Costs to Make a Magazine iPad App, “So you’re curious: “How much does it cost to make a magazine iPad App?” by Ernie Achenbach, published on Align on August 5, 2011.

“iPad Magazine Strategy, Strategy and design tips for tablet magazine apps,” by Emily Randisi, published on Align on March 29, 2011.

Imagine your blank InDesign® document as a clean white ceramic plate; a plate that needs some personality, sauciness, and something delicious. You are about to invest a good part of your day into making the most scrumptious meal so you might as well make it worth it… dig through your immense spice rack for the best fonts to start with.

What are the staples of a designer’s font collection? Of course this can vary from one designer to another but my collection starts with a little Akzidenz Grotesk and Avenir. Two very lovely and distinct san serif fonts. Each was created for their own purposes in the graphic industry. Akzidenz was developed in 1896 for scientific publications of the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin. While Avenir, which in French means future, was created to fulfill what Adrian Frutiger called a need for “handwriting movement [to be incorporated] with a modern typographical independence [from Futura and Gill Sans]”.1

Avenir is typeset in magenta, or pink.

Akzidenz is typeset in cyan, or blue.

Now we move onto another area of the spice rack that consists of spicy slab serifs or in layman’s terms, serif fonts with really fat bars that protrude off the ends of the letterforms. Take for instance the classic font Clarendon. In 1845, it was recorded as the first font to have been patented. A characteristic that really defines this typeface is the very large, organic curves in the slab serif.

A few shakes later you’ll find Cholla Slab… a techy yet quirky typeface. The typeface is named after a group of cactus species indigenous to the Mojave desert. Perhaps one would consider this font for a headline on Wired magazine or the movie poster for TRON® due to its techy qualities.

How could you forget the ever so reliable font, the go-to, and most popular san serif in both hemispheres, Helvetica. This font is the salt and pepper of graphic design. This adaptable typeface is integrated into some of the largest worldwide brands such as 3M, American Airlines, American Apparel, BMW, Jeep, JCPenney, Kawasaki, Lufthansa, Microsoft, Mitsubishi Electric, Motorola, Panasonic, Philippine Airlines, Target, and Verizon. The Swiss font, developed in 1957 by Max Miedinger and Eduard Hoffmann changed the course of typography as we know it.

Dig around in your font pantry and you’ll find a font known for its beautiful serifs, spurs, ascenders, descenders, counters, and more. Yes, all of those words describe the anatomy of a letterform(s). Garamond, created around 1540, is the oldest serif typeface still in use today. Upon the introduction of the Macintosh in 1984, Apple adopted a new corporate font called [Apple] Garamond. It was a variation of the classic Garamond typeface.2 To further show the beauty of Garamond and explain the anatomy of a typeface, see the graphic below:

*Resource: http://zpirnottyp.blogspot.com/2010/08/type-anatomy-chart.html

While designers will continue to expand their font cupboards to broaden their palette and design skill sets, they will always have a handful of classics that will remain close to their hearts. Maybe designers learned from typography professors to always respect and cherish some select fonts. Or perhaps we obtain an acquired taste for some fonts from the typographic successes we’ve experienced throughout our design careers.

Either way, it’s good practice to keep your font pantry full of the classic staples while also adding some new ones here and there to spice things up a bit.

Other Resources:

1] http://www.davidairey.com/13-typefaces-every-graphic-designer-needs/

2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typography_of_Apple_Inc.

1. Responsive Design

What if online content responded to the way the user chooses to experience it (desktop, tablet, smartphone), instead of the user being forced to adapt to the way the content is rigidly presented? That’s the idea behind Responsive Design, and it’s more than just the biggest thing in web design for 2012: it’s quite simply the way forward.

• http://mediaqueri.es
• http://www.thismanslife.co.uk/projects/lab/responsiveillustration/

2. Magazine-Style Layouts

Large, glossy images, smartly organized content, and an emphasis on art direction are all part of the DNA of magazine design. Instead of completely “reinventing the wheel,” designers quickly discovered that the lessons learned from magazine design translate quite nicely into the tablet form factor.

• http://www.mica.edu
• http://www.harpersbazaar.com
• http://www.vogue.co.uk

3. Rich Typography

Advances in browser technology have expanded the typographic tools in the Web designer’s toolbox. With dynamic font replacement, designs can safely utilize fonts outside of the standard Arial, Verdana, Georgia, or other “web safe” fonts. The era of art directed online content has arrived.

• http://www.dustincurtis.com/get_action.html
• http://www.stephencaver.com
• http://typekit.com
• http://carsonified.com

4. Greater Emphasis on Art Direction

Advances in browser technology, rich typography, and responsive design are all key developments that allow designers to craft a true online experience in ways that previously weren’t possible. Art direction is more than just text and images presented on a screen; it is the thought that goes into the artistic and design elements of a project, and how that project is ultimately executed. This is a key development in the continuing maturation of the Web design industry.

• http://www.dustincurtis.com/sleep.html
• http://www.pictorymag.com

5. Infographics

Because of a greater emphasis on art direction in Web design, the presentation of information and data in a visual way will continue to be a growing design trend this year.

• http://fortherecord.simonfosterdesign.com
• http://ab.4muladesign.com/dribbble
• http://www.facebook.com/about/timeline

6. App-Inspired Design

Are apps the future of consuming online content, or will the Web continue to be the channel of choice? While the answer to this question is still up for debate, there is a trend toward designing sites that take UI elements from app design, and translate them for use on the Web.

• http://culturedcode.com/things/
• http://launchlist.net
• http://sparrowapp.com
• http://teamtreehouse.com

7. An Explosion of Mobile Devices

From smartphones to tablets, mobile devices are a ubiquitous and ever-expending part of our daily lives. Expect to hear much more about “content shifting,” i.e., the idea of saving articles, videos and podcasts for later viewing on the device of your choice. Designers can no longer expect for their content to be viewed on a specific device of a specific resolution.

8. Illustration

With all of the emphasis on technological advancement, there’s a noticeable increase in the number of sites that utilize illustrations to add whimsy, warmth and personality to the user experience.

• http://www.ipolecat.com
• http://www.stopchildlabour.eu/africatour2008
• http://booki.sh
• http://cupscalgary.com/default.aspx

9. Large photos as background images

“Content is king” as the saying goes, but the impact of a full-screen image is undeniable. Javascript frameworks, media queries, and high-speed content delivery networks (a system of computers containing copies of data placed at various nodes of a network) now allow images to proportionally fill the entire browser window regardless of resolution, and with minimal image degradation and impact to loading time.

• http://jessicahische.is/awesome
• http://thegreatdiscontent.com
• http://growmedia.ca

10. Fixed Navigation

Keeping the navigation links and/or logo locked in position while the content scrolls is a great way to enhance the user experience, and to eliminate any confusion when web content is viewed on different devices at different resolutions.

• http://www.hellostudios.com.au
• http://www.fullstopinteractive.com
• http://corp.ign.com

11. Breaking the Grid

Grid-based layouts are the foundation of successful web designs, both fixed-width and responsive. However, designers are continuing to experiment with ways to add unexpected design elements that don’t fit neatly into the grid/column structure. In the hands of a skillful designer, “breaking the grid” can elevate a passive design into an active, vibrant one.

• http://beta.rallyinteractive.com
• http://www.ngenworks.com
• http://www.hopeunlimited.org/fiveforten.html
• http://50.aigadc.org
• http://teixido.co

12. Vertical Scrolling Effects

In my previous article, “The Myth of the Page Fold,” I recommended rewarding users for doing what comes naturally: scrolling. Continuing on an increasingly popular trend, 2012 will see a rise in websites that depend on scrolling actions to activate amazing visual effects and create beautifully immersive online experiences.

• http://nizoapp.com
• http://www.beetle.de
• http://activatedrinks.com
• http://acko.net
• http://lostworldsfairs.com/atlantis
• http://inze.it
• http://johanreinhold.com
• http://www.cspire.com

*BONUS* HTML5/CSS3 Standards

In April 2010, Steve Jobs wrote his famous “Thoughts on Flash” article, in which he championed open, modern web technologies like HTML5, CSS and JavaScript over closed, proprietary technologies like Adobe Flash. Fast-forward to 2012, and its clear that HTML5/CSS standards have emerged as the web technology of choice for the mobile era. Almost all tablets, smartphones, and modern browsers support these open standards, and becoming well versed in building sites with these technologies is essential for Web designers in 2012.

• http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/

The origin of the “fold” concept in web design is a holdover from newspaper design patterns. Originally, important news headlines or visually appealing images were relegated to the upper half of the front page of a newspaper so information was still visible even when the newspaper was folded.

Moving forward into the Internet era, the idea that essential website content needed to be “above the fold” of a website persisted and it was believed that users would not scan/read all the way to the bottom.

Today we know that this concept does not apply to the Web for a number of reasons:

• Scrolling is the primary mechanism for reading pages within websites and everyone who is familiar with the web knows how this works – its’ standard, maybe even instinctive.

• Each medium, print or interactive, utilizes a navigation method specific to that medium.

• Putting all of your best content in the top half of your site is wasteful; reward your visitors for scrolling. Good content should be a payoff for doing what comes naturally – scrolling.

You want to create a sense of balance – both from a content strategy standpoint and a design standpoint.

Make it easy for visitors to discover “below the fold” content by avoiding heavy, horizontal design elements that don’t have some sort of “teaser” or lead-in to additional content below (this mentally creates a barrier to scrolling). Also, try adding additional visual cues to subtly indicate that there is additional content below.

Breaking away from the concept of page folds in Web design is not to suggest that your best content should be hidden at the bottom of your site – the main takeaway is that if your best content doesn’t fit at the top of your site, there’s no need for concern. By all means, lead off with your strongest content, but finish strong, too.

Example site: www.thereisnopagefold.com

Times Square, NYC was a perfect backdrop for this year’s FOLIO: Show, as it is the epicenter of all things contemporary, high tech, and digitally engaging. Coincidentally, that was exactly the theme of the show.

Workshops and keynote sessions touched on print and digital strategies, mobile apps, social media strategies, digital development, creative idea execution, business growth and audience engagement.

As sponsors and speakers at the event, Bates Creative was able to hear first-hand what many of the media savvy, publishing pros in attendance were buzzing about.

Discussions ranged from lack of resources and wearing too many hats, to creating digital publications “just because” and considering if the mobile apps space is right for them.

We learned that publishers are busy becoming more relevant to their audiences and advertisers and meeting them where they want to be met: print, web, and mobile apps spaces.

And just in case you haven’t heard, print isn’t dead. What is dead is the brand that doesn’t provide unique content across the right media platforms.

The Power of Print:

• Average paid subscriptions reached nearly 300 million in 2009.
  (Source: MPA estimates based on ABC first and second half 2009 data)
• The average reader spends 43 minutes reading each issue.
• Magazines are the No. 1 medium of engagement and continue to score significantly higher than TV or the Internet in ad receptivity and all of the other engagement dimensions, including “trustworthy” and “inspirational.” (Source: Simmons Multi-Media Engagement Study)

The FOLIO: Show also emphasized new tools and techniques to succeed during the changing landscape of the publishing world, and dubbed our current technologically advanced state as a “Media Revolution.” To harp upon this timely motif of success in a demanding evolutionary phase, Bates Creative joined the show as exhibitors.

Because we want to be relevant to our audience too, our Creative Director, Jeff Caporizzo, had the great idea to use one of our own brand mantras as the backdrop of our booth. Perhaps you’ve already heard…but we do kickass work for our clients, so while exploring the idea of it’s unlimited unique definitions, or kickassology if you will, we asked booth visitors to draw or write what it means to them and post to our board.

Music, marathons, retirement, companies, kids, and tropical locations were all creatively displayed as definitions of kickass. (Check out our photomontage to see how our mantra turned into and interactive booth experience and a great representation of kickassology in motion.)

Thanks to all those who participated, visited or spent some time chatting with us while at FOLIO: Show. YOU definitely kickass.

Because we’re always looking for creative inspiration, we’re curious…how do you define kickass?