Scott Design was named a Leader Award winner in the 2011 Summit Emerging Media Awards competition for its work on the online Adobe/Amazon.com Product Selector.

The Summit EMA competition is based on the foundation that advertising is consistently at the forefront of the technological evolution of communication. It was created to identify the world’s marketing communication pioneers – those pushing the bounds of the communication badlands.

The Adobe/Amazon.com Product Selector is an online application on Amazon.com that removes the guesswork for Adobe customers selecting products to buy. Instead of a static banner ad, the selector is an interactive application powered by Adobe ColdFusion and AJAX technology with a back-end database that recommends products and brings the user right to the Amazon.com purchasing page to shorten the sales cycle.

“Those involved in today’s emerging media technologies are the leaders who are establishing tomorrow’s avenues of advertising communications.” Said Jocelyn Luciano, Executive Director for the Summit International Awards (SIA). “Most communication professionals recognize that established avenues of communication can be reliable and safe. However, audiences are becoming increasingly fragmented and difficult to engage, inform, and affect.  Developing, applying, and combining emerging media with creative messaging and market awareness is challenging.  Achieving this synthesis is what makes earning a Summit EMA a significant achievement.”

Read the rest of this entry »

How you use type on the web is just as important as how you use it in print, but many web designers ignore even the most basic rules of typography. Good typography makes your content easier to find and read. Bad typography tires your reader and can make site visitors leave your site.

Here’s a quick rundown on how to use type like a pro on your website.

Typeface selection

There are five web-safe fonts that work on most Mac and Windows browsers. Here are the reasons you might choose one over the others:

Alignment

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s that time of year again when we share the free online games we create every year: the Virtual Fireplace (2005), Snowflake Designer (2006), Snowbash (2007), Special Delivery (2008), Augmented Reality Snowstorm (2009), 3D Fun (2010), and now a new iPad app, Snow Bash! (2011).

Snow Bash! iPad and iPhone App: Protect Ginger Hill from the Snowmen

Enjoy the free iPad and iPhone versions of the award-winning Snowbash Flash app created by Scott Design in 2007. All the fun of the original version, plus new prizes, more animals, and icemen! Download Snow Bash! for your iPad or for your iPhone from the App Store.

3D Fun: Put on your glasses and enjoy some holiday scenes

Grab your stylish 3D specs and enjoy some 3D holiday images. No 3D glasses? Send us an SASE and we’ll send you a pair!

Augmented Reality Snowstorm: A virtual snowstorm using your webcam

Get into the holiday spirit with the Augmented Reality Snowstorm, where you can put yourself or your family in a virtual snowstorm. No webcam? No worries! Just visit the virtual snowstorm, instead!

Read the rest of this entry »

Google is pretty straightforward in its mission: To connect people searching online with the most relevant, speedily delivered, comprehensive, fresh information available. To get Google to love your site and put it at the top of the search results, you should create content that someone searching online is going to love.

Here are 4 ways to get the love:

1. Relevance: Someone doing a search on Google is looking for information that is trustworthy, from an expert or enthusiast who knows the topic well, and includes original content. This original reporting, original research, and original analysis are top qualities in Google’s eyes, so create the one-of-a-kind content your audience is looking for.

2. Speed: Website visitors are not a patient lot. Studies show that users are happier with faster sites and less satisfied with slow sites, so speed is now a factor in Google site ranking. Make sure your web coding is lean and mean, uses the latest web standards, and uses CSS to minimize bulked-up code.

Read the rest of this entry »

Our client’s challenge:

Adobe wanted to promote special upgrade pricing for photo- and video-editing software products. The goals of the “tours” were to allow users to quickly and easily understand the value of the products, become inspired by the top features, and actively engage with the products by exploring all the features.

The Scott Design solution:

Scott Design produced online Flash “tours” that display new features in action and highlight price-slashing offers right in the welcome screen of trial and full-version products. The team combined animation, compelling imagery, and streaming videos in a series of online presentations that display the software’s top features. Each of the presentations included prominent, strategically placed calls to buy the product. Scott Design also created special “Black Friday” versions of the tours to promote a limited-time upgrade offer.

Read the rest of this entry »

Our client’s challenge:

To show online sellers how to use a new listing process, eBay sought animated online demos that would explain the new flow. The goal was to provide mid– to high-volume sellers with clear, step-by-step instructions for using eBay tools to add and revise listings in the eBay online catalog.

The Scott Design solution:

Scott Design partnered with HDI to design and produce a series of easy-to-follow Flash demos—with corresponding PDF versions—that make it simple for anyone to add their products to the eBay online catalog. These step-by-step tutorials include animated screen views and narration that remove the guesswork. The end result is a fast and easy learning experience for sellers.

Read the rest of this entry »

A recent report by Forrester Research confirms the importance of a corporate website in decision making by U.S. and European business technology buyers. The 2011 Social Technographics® For Business Technology Buyers survey found websites, personal contacts, webinars, printed publications, and email to be far more important in the business technology buying cycle than social media, forums, and other online resources.

Forrester recommends that technology marketers concentrate on the sources that yield the most influence and use social media to expand their reach, with the understanding that time spent on social media efforts probably will not yield great value in the short term.

Print marketing is becoming a less and less important part of the marketer’s toolbox. But there are still times when print can play a major role in your marketing strategy, especially when it’s integrated with your online strategy. Here are just a few ways to use print to enhance your digital marketing:

1. Use QR codes on printed pieces:  “Quick Response Codes” do just what they say. A user views the QR code on an ad, poster, or the back of your business card using a smartphone app and the smart phone’s browser takes them quickly to a page on the web. Provide a relevant, meaningful, beneficial experience when a mobile user gets to your landing page through a QR code:

• Direct the viewer to a mobile-optimized version of your website.
• Show a digital business card including a photo and bio.
• Let the user RSVP to an event.
• Show a video or play audio.
• Show a case study or portfolio.
• Give an instant discount.
• Let the visitor sign up for a loyalty club.

Whatever you present should be a worthwhile and robust experience. Too many QR codes lead to a home page on a website with no special “bonus” for the QR viewer. And, track results by using custom QR codes for different programs to easily analyze the effectiveness of your QR codes.

Read the rest of this entry »

Our client’s challenge:

Opus Solutions’ client, Good Technology, needed eye-catching materials to promote a corporate rewards program. The client sought a colorful set of materials aimed at building excitement for this sales incentive program, which would include all-expenses-paid accommodations at a luxurious resort in Puerto Rico.

The Scott Design solution:

Using imagery provided by the resort, Scott Design created colorful and elegant President’s Club promotional materials. Those pieces included a mailer, letterhead, and full-size, colorful posters.

Read the rest of this entry »

The goal of an effective banner ad is to get a qualified click on your ad. Creating banner ads that get results is easy using a formula developed by MarketingExperiments.com:

ea = 2at + i + as

This formula for creating an effective ad (ea) is based on three objectives: attracting attention (at), generating interest (i), and asking for the click (as).

Attract attention:

In order to attract attention, your ad should stand out from the page and other ads on the page. This can be achieved through a difference in one or more of the following:

• Size: Larger ads have more visibility.
• Shape: A unique shape or irregular edge can help your banner ad stand out.
• Color: Make sure the colors used in your banner ad are different from other banners and the overall page color.
• Motion: Consider animating an image (not text) in your banner ad.
• Position: Be sure your ad is in a prominent spot on the page to get better results.

Getting attention is the most important part of successful banner ad design, so it’s multiplied by two in the equation above. But use these attention-getting tactics judiciously: If you emphasize everything, you emphasize nothing.

Generate interest:

Read the rest of this entry »