Google Travel Conference

by Scott Sussman

I recently had the opportunity to attend The Travel Forward Conference at Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, California. A group of approximately 120 individuals from the travel industry were presented the latest thinking from Google on how emerging technology can be integrated into marketing plans for travel related companies.

Currently half of all domestic travel is booked online and that continues to be a growing trend. Moreover, research for travel continues to be a growing area with over a billion travel related searches a day. Also, 70% of all travel related searches are not for a specific brand, but the search begins generically, this presents a tremendous opportunity for those in the travel industry. Google is making search more relevant by making it easier to access with less movement. For instance it is not necessary to leave the search results page to get hotel or flight rates. It is a rollover and click away.

Mobile is where Google sees the biggest growth in the next few years. Mobile traffic grew by 400% last year and that trend will increase with nearly a million new smart phones sold each day. About 50% of the population now has a smartphone. Smartphones can’t be viewed as an extension of a computer website. It is its own device and should have its own site. Mobile is a local based marketing opportunity as most purchases from this device are made within 20 miles of the transaction.

Mobile commerce is in its infancy, but will explode over the next two years. The much discussed Google Wallet is in test and should roll-out over the next year. Using Near Field Communications (NFC) technology (a chip in your phone) consumers will be able to purchase items without having to access their credit card from their wallets. The consumer will “wave” their phone over a device at the merchant and the transaction will be complete. This technology will also be used for boarding passes at airports.

Location based marketing will also develop over the next few years as messaging will be delivered through Google Spot, which will know your exact location (down to the aisle in a f store) and deliver messaging to you, such as a coupon or offer from a competitor.

As organizations like Google invest in innovation, the manner in which travel and nearly every other category is sold will evolve and change how business is conducted.

Memes. Mutation and Cultural Artifacts

by Dorn Martell

New Zealand 3011 – A team of archeologists were examining the remains of a village from the 21st century and came across an artifact that was quite puzzling. It was a well-preserved ceramic mug with a strange drawing of a baby monkey going backwards on a pig. Was it a Hindu religious icon? A depiction of the Chinese lunar calendar or was it the most misunderstood phenomenon of the digital age – The Meme.

A Meme is a cultural item that is transmitted by repetition in a manner analogous to the biological transmission of genes. And like genes they mutate over time. To understand this meme we call Baby Monkey, we must first explore its provenance.

A video of a tiny monkey riding backward on a small pig was shot somewhere in Asia with a hand-held consumer video camera. That video was posted on YouTube and received hundreds of thousands of views. It was then “discovered” by punk rock band Nerf Herder’s front man Parry Gripp. Parry scored it with the lyric “Baby monkey going backwards on a pig” and it went viral all over the world.

But it didn’t end there. You see, memes are more than just peer-to-peer sharing, they inspire parody, mutations and millions of people who want to be a part of it. In fact there are countless variations of this video on YouTube featuring re-mixes, dubsteps, reenactments and bad photoshop jokes. It has even spun-off into an iPhone app. But the only mutation that will last into the future is the ceramic mugs created by Tinsley Advertising’s Associate Creative Director Rick Blitman (Rick’s Bad Art). The mug, unlike the fad, will not fade or decay. But when a future viewer sees it, will it make any sense at all? It’s impossible to tell.

There is a distinct possibility that some memes will become part of our cultural vernacular the same way that archaic terms from our past like, “Three sheets to the wind”. (a term for being drunk – derived from the erratic behavior of a sailing ship with mis-aligned sails).

But will things like “Antoine Dodson“, “Charley the Unicorn“ or “Nyan Cat“ evolve into an enduring part of our collective consciousness? Or will the original meaning be lost and the reference survive like, “freezing the balls off a Brass Monkey” (originally refering to a “Brass Monkey”-a device that held cannon balls that would fail in cold weather.)

New memes are being spawned every day and new parodies and mutations will continue. To be relevant, when communicating with a new generation of digital natives, we must be aware of the power of memes, the challenge of context and the fact that really silly stuff will always get more attention than overt sales pitches.

Tinsley and The Florida Keys & Key West Recognized for Outstanding Tourism Marketing

By Dorn Martell

We wouldn’t be lying if we said Henry Flagler hangs around our office. In fact we have a whole wall of “Henrys” and are pleased to announce that we just added three more to our collection.

Named for Henry Flagler, the Flagler Awards were established in 2000 to recognize outstanding tourism marketing in Florida and we are fortunate to have won every year since. In this year’s competition, we were finalists in four categories and won the top honor in three.

We won a Henry in the category of Resource/Promotional Material Consumer for our fabulous new LGBT Brochure, which compliments our Best of Show win at the Addys for our Gay and Lesbian marketing.

Our New York Transit poster campaign also won a Henry in the Out-Of-Home category for these memorable pieces: “You’re not a sardine, get out of this tin can”,
“Please step to the end of the line” and “Call in and say you caught something”.

For Print Advertising we won a Henry for these ads:
(For our fishermen) “Big eyes, full lips, drives men crazy. Angelina is that you?”
and “More fans than all of Facebook” (promoting our amazing reefs).

We also won Silver for our Direct Marketing pieces: “The Earth is your Recreational Vehicle”, and “There’s nothing like the end of the road to turn you around.”

We thank the Monroe County Tourist Development Council and its Director Harold Wheeler, for being great clients and allowing us to do the best tourism advertising around.

We’d also like to thank old Henry Flagler for building the railroad that connected the Keys to mainland America and brought paradise a little closer to home.

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The 2011 Fall Television New Show Preview

By Scott Sussman

As the summer comes to a close that can only mean that school is back in session and the fall television season is upon us. A few themes seem to be taking hold as in most years. Retro is definitely in (for now) and reality television has found its place in the American viewing landscape.

NBC
NBC has a new owner and a lot of ground to make-up. They will be coming to market with at least a dozen new shows for the fall. Having taken a look at a preview of some of these shows, NBC will need to head back to the drawing board. Most of the dozen or so new shows do not look promising. Whitney appears to be the only winner in the Peacocks stable. Working off the strength of Mad Men, NBC brings us one of the new retro shows, The Playboy Club. It does not have the depth of Mad Men. Steve Carell leaves The Office for greener pastures (we’ve seen this before) and James Spader is now the boss at Dunder-Mifflin. The show is depending on a line-up of special guest stars to keep this franchise moving forward.

CBS
CBS has only five new shows this fall and a couple of them look like winners. 2 Broke Girls, a comedy that looks promising and will air on Monday nights at 8:30PM , a great spot for a comedy. How to be a Gentleman starring Kevin Dillon of Entourage has an outside chance. The rest of CBS’s offerings are dramas. Person of Interest from J.J Abrams is a cross between The Mentalist and CSI. A Gifted Man and Unforgettable are dramas that have a paranormal skew to them. On everyone’s mind at CBS is how Ashton Kutcher is going to do as Charlie Sheen’s replacement on Two and Half Men.

ABC
ABC has a few potential hits. Apt. 23 is an off-beat, comedy that deals with a psycho New York roommate. Another unusual twist in this show is James Van Der Beek (Dawson’s Creek) plays himself. Man Up is another comedy focusing on three men and how their lives are interrelated. Charlie’s Angels is back and this time set in Miami. I wouldn’t bet the farm on this being a winner. Pan Am another retro 60’s offering will have a tough time keeping the story line fresh. Watch the first few episodes, because it might not be around long.

Tinsley Selected as Agency of Record by The Florida Keys & Key West. Again!

By Dorn Martell

26 years ago, Crockett and Tubbs were prowling the streets of Miami in a Ferrari. Ronald Reagan was urging Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall. Parachute pants were the rage and Tinsley Advertising was celebrating a new account win: The Florida Keys & Key West.

Now, the only thing remaining from that indelible period in time is our relationship with The Florida Keys.

Last week, Monroe County’s Board of County Commissioners voted unanimously to approve Tinsley Advertising as the Agency of Record for The Florida Keys & Key West, again. This follows a similar vote by the Tourist Development Council who reviewed a total of five Agencies.

“Tinsley showed a level of understanding of The Keys and a breadth of work that the other agencies didn’t come close to,” said Rita Irwin, Chairman of the Monroe County TDC.

The 50-minute presentation included everything from an innovative “Station Domination” program for New York commuters to behavioral and contextual marketing on Pandora and Facebook. We also proposed a voluntourism campaign that will encourage visitors to donate a small portion of their vacation to help Florida Keys causes. And of course, we showed some cool new TV concepts for Key Largo, Islamorada, Marathon, Big Pine and the Lower Keys, as well as, new water sports and art spots for Key West.

Our 26-year relationship with The Keys has allowed us to do some of the best work in the travel and tourism industry. We have been honored by The Travel Industry of America, Visit Florida’s Flagler Awards, and the Addys, where The Keys won 30 awards in 2011 including “Best of Show.”

We are so happy to have such a wonderful client as The Florida Keys & Key West. It is a partnership that continues to produce great work and the highest daily room rate in the state.

Thank you Monroe County from everyone at Tinsley!

Tinsley Wins At Regional Addy Awards

By Dorn Martell

Tinsley and The Monroe County Tourist Development Council (The Florida Keys & Key West) were honored to receive FOUR Addy awards at the District Four, American Advertising Federation Awards. This is in addition to the 30 Addys and 14 Golds we received at the Miami Addys including Best of Show for Television. Our regional GOLD ADDY winners are as follows: “Out before it was in” (TV for Key West), “Men Overboard” (print ad), and “Big eyes, full lips drives men crazy. Angelina is that you?” (print ad). We also won a Silver Addy for “A whole new kind of cruising.” (print ad).

This has been a great year for us at the award shows, especially The Education Advertising Awards, The Miami Addys and The District Four Addys. We really appreciate the collaboration between Tinsley and all our clients that has allowed us to produce award-winning advertising over multiple platforms.

Tinsley wins “Best of Show” for Key West TV

By Dorn Martell

Our new TV spot for Key West “Out Before it was In” received “Best of Show” for television at the 2011 Addy Awards® at the Adrienne Arsht Center on Thursday March, 10th. We received thirty awards overall with fourteen Gold Addys®. Over 350 of Miami’s ad community turned out for an evening of swing and the best advertising in our city. We were delighted by the positive reaction our work received and would like to thank the Monroe County Tourist Development Council for allowing us to create this kind of quality work. Our collaboration with Harold Wheeler, Director of Tourism and Key West District Action Committee Chairman, Jon Allen really helped us produce a commercial that stood out in the crowd. Look for more about the Addys® in our upcoming blog posts.

Nova Southeastern University Campaign Wins Best of Show for the Second Time

By Jim Flanagan

The 26th Annual Educational Advertising Awards, the largest academic ad awards competition in the U.S. awarded Tinsley and NSU a total of 16 distinctions plus Best of Show. In this year’s competition, Tinsley’s work for NSU went up against 2,500 entries from 1,000 institutions from all 50 states. The work represents an evolved, phase two effort designed to dovetail with NSU’s 2007 campaign launch which also won numerous awards plus a Best of Show.

Judges for the awards event consisted of a national panel of higher education marketers, advertising creative directors, marketing and advertising professionals and the editorial board of Higher Education Marketing Report.

Dave Dawson, Executive Director of University Relations for Nova Southeastern University http://www.nova.edu/ said “we’re honored that NSU has once again been recognized, validating the value of brand planning and consistency. It speaks to the huge effort invested by our advertising agency partner, Tinsley Advertising and the University’s marketing team, who collaborated to come up with a highly effective campaign.”

Dorn Martell, Tinsley’s EVP, Creative Director said “It’s a pretty tall order to create a campaign that resonates with undergrads, graduate students, faculty, parents and the Educational Advertising Awards as well. We’re very pleased that the NSU campaign has been recognized and that kids show up at events singing the song from the spots.”

The ongoing campaign is an integrated mix of media targeted against cross-generational audiences and is credited with having built awareness for NSU’s undergraduate and graduate programs while driving enrollments in Florida and beyond.

It’s All About Recruits

by Dorn Martell

“We have 365 days of recruiting to do and we have thirty days to do it.”

Those were the marching orders we received, two days into the thirty-day recruiting window, from the University of Miami Athletic Department. New head Coach Al Golden had replaced beleaguered Head Coach Randy Shannon and was on a mission to build next year’s team – FAST!

The solution was a surgical strike, e-mail blast program, targeting the best High School players in the country. Each day prospective players would receive a new e-mail highlighting one of the many benefits of becoming a Hurricane. Our messages were short and simple, geared perfectly to students who are not impressed with long copy and old school communications.

The final blast of the program led prospects to BeACane.com, an interactive micro-site developed by Tinsley in just two weeks. At BeACane.com prospective players can opt-in by uploading a photo, entering their name, and choosing a number. The site then generates a composite image of the student wearing a Miami Hurricane uniform with their number of choice.

Signing day was a huge success! The Canes signed 16 new recruits, including eight who had committed to other schools and switched to Miami. “Gionna Paul probably is our favorite [story],” Miami coach Al Golden said. “He went from not wanting to talk to us to getting a “U” tattoo.” What could be a greater measure of success than getting your target audience to wear your brand for life!

For more details click here.

Look for more on the viral success of BeACane.com in the coming weeks.

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