Cigarette labels are about to get a drastic re-design courtesy of the FDA. The 2005 movie “Thank You for Smoking” seems to have hit the nail right on the head. New labels depicting a tracheotomy, a baby with smoke swirling, and smoke-stained teeth are just a few of the images that will be gracing almost HALF of the label on new cigarette packaging.
Do you think the new labels will deter potential new, younger smokers?
What about existing smokers?
Check out this article from HealthDay News for all the details… Read More
Hey, summer is here! Get out of the house and re-join the land of the living. Consider this your official invite to a one of a kind First Friday Event as we bring together a talented, albeit unusual, compilation of artists from the worlds of craft beer, tattooing, specialty pizza and artisanal letterpress printing. Bring your friends, office chums, grandma, someone else’s grandma – it’s an open invite. Here’s a sampling of what we’ve got going on:
- Introductory tastings of “Black Currant Stout” a new specialty beer from St. Boniface Craft Brewing, featuring label-design by Tattoos Ink
- Hand-crafted flatbread pizza prepared in Penn Stone’s wood-fired pizza oven by their soon-to-be neighbor, The Fridge
- Tattoo consultations by the imaginative artists at Tattoos Ink
- Print your own complimentary coaster and release of a new Limited Edition Letterpress Art Prints from the folks at Paisley Dog Press
*Facebook Us! For a chance to win some letterpress wares; coasters, prints, cards, tote bags:) Drawings held Monday June 6th @ 5pm.
When:
This Friday – June, 3rd from 6pm to ????
Where:
PATIO at Penn Stone, Lancaster PA
http://www.patiopennstone.com
Artists:
Paisley Dog Press creates original letterpress works, utilizing a printing method not too far removed from that of Johannes Gutenberg over 550 years ago. They specialize in printing challenging designs and techniques not traditionally suited for letterpress, the crazier the better! Their approach combines newfangled ideas with century old equipment to tell new stories through unique, inspired, eco-friendly paper goods for individuals, designers, and businesses. http://www.paisleydogpress.com
Tattoos Ink is a custom tattoo shop located in the heart of Lancaster, PA. Tattoos Ink prides itself on creating a customer-friendly and medical-grade sterile environment where everyone from the average Joe to suits to tattoo enthusiasts are welcome. Their artists specialize in bio-mechanical, organic and portrait tattoos, but mostly love any work that means something to their client. http://www.tattoosinkoflanc.com
The Fridge (opening Summer 2011) will feature Lancaster’s largest selection of specialty-beers and creative, hand-crafted flatbread pizzas made with the freshest, seasonal ingredients from local growers & suppliers. You can dine-in or take-out with your choice of a rotating selection of draft beers or mix-and-match 6-packs. http://www.beerfridgelancaster.com
Saint Boniface Craft Brewing Company is a nano-brewery located in Ephrata, PA started by two local brewers whom after years competitive brewing, decided to join forces and bring their talents to the masses. Naming their brewery for the patron saint of brewers, Mike and Jon aim to convert people from the false gods of the big beer industry to a better way of life, one full of rich, tasty, more satisfying brews. http://www.stbonibrewing.com
The gang in our letterpress shop just got a new toy!
A Vandercook Universal 1 proof press, circa the 1960′s. We couldn’t resist cranking out a few DRS pocket folders. We love the gold metallic ink on a black paper stock. Check em’ out!
Arizona State University has re-designed their logo and it’s pretty apparent they were looking to take a complete 360 from their longtime logo featuring a cartoon devil with a pitchfork. The new logo focuses on the pitchfork creating a lean, mean and much more powerful visual signature. However, it also is expected to be adopted by a major urban street gang in Chicago, we’re assuming that was an unintended market segment.
But not to worry, the University has gone on record as saying they would send the gang a cease and desist order to defend their trademark, that should do the trick ;)
The messages you communicate to your prospective audience need to be focused on the “emotional payoff”. Think about it. How many times have you heard the tired old advertisements focused on a company being “the best, the biggest, the fastest”? If that’s all you’re basing your campaign on you’re setting yourself up for disaster, or at least wasting a lot of cashola. Dig deep, find out what really matters to your target audience and present yourself as the “logical” choice.
When you approach your audience from a real place with a real message everyone wins.
Ok, you arrive to the office and in your voice mail is a message from a journalist, and they want an interview. Great, but now what? A thousand thoughts racing though your mind. Relax, you’re prepared because…YOU READ THIS!
- Check Out Your Journalist - A quick Google search should yield at least some basic info about whom they write for and other stories they’ve written. Make an effort to get to know their style, types of stories they write etc. Don’t sweat too much though, most reporters a fair and impartial folks.
- Ask Questions - Just because you got the call doesn’t mean you can’t ask questions too. In fact this will help give you a better perspective on how to address the reporter’s questions. Guess what? You can call them back when you’re prepared! Politely let them know you got the message but want to set a time to talk when you can give them your complete attention. While you have them on the line, take the opportunity to gather some vital info. Find out what they are covering, type of story they are writing, why they called you, who else they’re going to call, what background info they already have and when the story will run.
- Practice Makes Perfect - Now that you have the information you need to begin preparing for the interview you can begin to predict their questions. But remember, you have a message to get across too. Figure out what questions you want to answer, questions you hope will be asked and what you want readers to take away from the story. Then prepare yourself to address these topics.
- Know Your Goal - Your goal is to deliver your message no matter what questions are asked by the reporter. Remember, you’re the one providing the material so don’t be your own worst enemy.
- Keep It On Track - Most of the time your reporter will have an agenda, a direction in which they want to take the story. That’s fine, so do you! You’ll have to be clever to keep things on track. Try a bridging technique to address each other’s interests in the interview. This is what you’ll do; answer the question, and then bridge/transition, to state your message. Example: Yes, Jane, I do agree that is an important point, but it is also important to note…..
- Keep It Simple - Maintain a good conversational tone to the interview, you’ll be surprised at the ease you’ll have working in your message as the conversation progresses. If your product or service is of a technical nature make sure to avoid industry jargon and keep things simple, unless your interview is with a trade journalist or publication.
We love an interesting focus group, but I think we’d have a hard time finding people to participate in this one!
Tired of the BS you’re getting at your current firm? Are they damaging your brand instead taking you to the next level? Is their brilliant solution to your unique needs; buy a mailing list, run a billboard, send out a press release, and take out a newspaper ad? When the same-old, becomes well…old, give us a call. We believe that there are smarter more efficient ways to engage consumers by making lasting emotional connections. We listen to the needs of our clients and understand their market. We treat our clients with respect, do great work, and get results.
The way we see things we’re in the business of building relationships so why should the client be left out of the mix?
Advertising and branding just don’t work the same way they used to.
Let’s look back at the golden age of advertising: you hired some firm to develop a nifty little logo and a catchy slogan, then the idea was easily facilitated; buying media on a couple of TV stations and through the handful of magazines that existed at the time. As long as your idea wasn’t complete crap it was headed for success. Now there are hundreds of cable TV channels, traditional radio, internet radio, satellite radio, you get the picture. Your target is now the needle in the proverbial “haystack”, buried under a diluted segmented web of media streams.
Consumers are now bombarded by thousands of messages each day combine that with a limited amount of short-term memory. People have turned into walking SPAM filters set on delete, their brains push distracting messages to the background and when overloaded it lumps the good with the bad and ignores the content as nothing more than a irritating distraction. They have learned to scan messages for value and whether you are participating or not there is a conversation going on about your brand.
But do you know how to proceed? How are you going to engage? What is your emotional payoff? Is your visual signature saying what you think it is? What’s the perfect blend of media so your message doesn’t become background noise?
You need an enterprising partner who will navigate the complex world marketing has become. You need Design Revolution.
Global IP Address Pool Runs Out of Addresses!
MIAMI (AFP) – via Yahoo News – The global warehouse for Internet addresses ran empty on Thursday.
The non-profit Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) doled out its last five batches of “IP” numbers that identify destinations for digital traffic.
“A pool of more than four billion Internet addresses has been emptied this morning,” ICANN chief Rod Beckstrom said at a Miami press conference.
“It is completely depleted. There are no more.”
He brushed aside fears of modern life being devastated by an “IPocalypse,” saying Regional Internet Registries (RIRs) worldwide will be doling out remaining addresses to support a shift to a bountiful new “IPv6” format.
“It is like running out of license plates,” said Internet Architecture Board chairman Olaf Kolkman. “Driving on the road the next day would not change.”
The touted solution to the problem is a switch to an “IPv6″ format which allows trillions of Internet addresses, while the current IPv4 standard provides a meager four billion or so.
The effort and expense of changing to IPv6 would fall mostly on Internet service providers, websites and network operators that have to make sure systems can handle the new online addresses and properly route traffic.
“If an ISP (internet service provider) gets its act together, it shouldn’t be a massive problem,” Trefor Davies, chief operating officer of British ISP Timico, told AFP.
“We really should see this as an historic event,” he continued. “The very nature of the Internet has changed with the transition.”
Beckstrom expected the full switch to IPv6 to take years with potential overall costs in the billions of dollars, some of which could be factored into routine replacement of equipment.
“We are talking about billions of dollars here globally, not trillions of dollars,” Beckstrom said.
Consumers, for the most part, should remain oblivious to the switch since complex IP numbers would still appear to them as words and domains, such as icann.org.
“My mother, my neighbor, my kids — they should never notice,” Kolkman said.
Some people might need to update routers or modems that connect computers to the Internet.
“All conditions are in place for a successful IPv6 transition,” Beckstrom said. “The future of the Internet and the innovation it fosters lies within IPv6.”
ICANN has been calling for a change to IPv6 for years but websites and Internet service providers have been clinging to the old standard since the birth of the Internet.
With about seven billion people on the planet, the IPv4 protocol doesn’t allow for everyone to have a gadget with its own online address.
The situation has been equated to not having enough telephone numbers for everyone.
The number of addresses that IPv6 allows for amounts to 340 “undecillion” (followed by 36 zeroes); enough for a trillion people to each be assigned trillions of IP numbers, according to Beckstrom.
IPv4 addresses were expected to run out first in Asia, where demand has been highest as people and businesses in emerging markets embrace online lifestyles.
Once RIRs run out of IPv4 addresses, they will turn to IPv6.
The formats have been likened to different languages, with translation needed for systems to handle both.
Computers and other gadgets that don’t get the new format might have to start sharing instead of having unique identifying numbers.
“The Internet won’t stop working; it will just slowly degrade,” Google engineer Lorenzo Colitti said of not making the move to IPv6. “Things will get slower and flakier.”
Google, Facebook and other major Internet players will add IPv6 addresses to their systems in a one-day trial run on June 8 to let all parties involved check for trouble spots.
“We need to kick the tires on it at a global scale and see if there are some unforeseen problems,” Colitti said. “There is really a rallying cry element to it. No single player can do it alone; we need to work together.”
World IPv6 Day will start at 0001 GMT on June 8.
Adoption of IPv6 is vital to preventing the Internet from becoming “balkanized” with localized addressing frameworks, according to Internet Society chief technology officer Leslie Daigle.
ISPs and networks worldwide have implemented IPv6 or plan to do so, Daigle said.
“It’s only a matter of time before the RIRs and Internet Service Providers must start denying requests for IPv4 address space,” said Raul Echeberría, chairman of the Number Resource Organization, an RIR umbrella group.
“Deploying IPv6 is now a requirement, not an option.”
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