As a Project Coordinator at Dynamic Digital Advertising (DDA), I work closely with clients and all members of our team - from graphic designers and programmers to copywriters and animators - that are involved in a given project. In my experience, I have come to realize how important it is to take the necessary time and word correspondences correctly to convey a clear and straightforward message. While some of our clients consist of well-established companies with extensive experience in all forms of advertising, others are innovative start-up organizations that lack the knowledge on the best way to proceed in a project, whether it is a website design or a video production.

Bottom line, it is not our clients’ job to automatically understand, it is our job to provide all pertinent and relevant information in an easy-to-understand format so they, in turn, can make wise and educated decisions. That said, it is critical that every form of communication be well thought out and that important points, issues, or potential problems are discussed internally beforehand in order to ensure that everyone is on the same page and there are no discrepancies. Anticipating complications and misunderstandings prior to initiating a response and doing our best to avoid them helps things flow from one stage to the next as smoothly as possible.

“More important than the quest for certainty is the quest for clarity.” ~ Francois Gautier

In this fast paced, always connected, and everything-happening-at-once world we live in, there are layer upon layer of trends that permeate our lives, dictate our future, and continually challenge the things that we know and understand.

Of course the big picture trends include such things as outsourcing, globalization, and connectivity. The reality is that everything and everyone is caught up in a whirlwind of ever-moving, ever-changing, ever-increasing trends. There are fashion trends, medical trends, manufacturing trends, religious trends, educational trends, the much feared economic trends, the much criticized dietary trends, and of course the sometimes frivolous and often amusing celebrity trends. In advertising, there are website design trends, video production trends, custom programming trends, animation trends, graphic design trends, copy writing style trends, and even color trends.

There is one trend that has been engaged and evolving since man first walked the Earth. Innovation! It is the granddaddy of all other trends, the foundation of all civilizations, and both the savior and perhaps ultimately the destroyer of mankind itself.

I hold the belief that modern civilization is focused on measuring the wrong things. We measure countries, wealth, gross national product, population, the number of sick, the starving, the oppressed, the free, opinions, viewers, visitors, customers, travelers, manufacturing numbers, consumer indexes, etc. We even spend a great deal of time measuring trends - where they started, where they are today, where they are going.

Perhaps we should measure innovation. Innovation determines which individuals prosper, which companies succeed, which countries grow, what groups become healthier, and ultimately, which civilizations rise and fall.

At DDA, we focus on innovation and intuitively understand that everything else follows, because everything else is just a trend.

Today I am creating a trade show graphic. It will be an addition to three other pop-up graphics we have already created for this company for a past trade show. Their goal for this trade show is to attract employees as the company expands, and this will be the main message for the graphic I create.

Besides delivering a message, another function for trade show graphics can be as part of the trade show booth’s “set design,” creating a background mood through colors and images. Those kinds of graphics are especially fun to create because they can be painterly through the use of collage and texture, sometimes having no text at all.

Trade show graphics have a unique set of requirements for their composition. For example, most of the message usually needs to be toward the top of the banner, if it stands on the floor. The bottom part of the graphic is often partially obstructed by a booth table or pedestal, and of course, people standing in front of it.

The text for a trade show graphic must be large enough to be readable at a standing distance, and succinct, to catch people’s attention as they walk by or look around admidst the hustle and bustle of a trade show.

Because of the large physical size of a trade show graphic, the resolution of the image needs to be lower than if it were a printed piece. This is necessary to keep the file size down, as it can easily exceed a few gigs. The printing process is different for trade show graphics than for printed pieces, and the process varies according to the type of material the graphic is printed on.

There are many unique structures to choose from for trade show graphics, such as pop-up banners, roll-up banners, hanging banners, and more. Options allow for easy portability and installation.

The only thing I wish for in this process, is that I could be at the show to experience the effect!

They say bad habits die hard. It should also be said that good habits are a laborious birth. At DDA, doing the right thing is NOT a matter of unlearning bad habits, but rather the articulated and dedicated practice of doing the right thing.

Most advertising agencies are born of deception and subterfuge. Example after example abounds of new agencies being formed by one or two account representatives who steal a few clients and set up a business of their own. The ease of doing this is enhanced by the fact that almost by definition, advertising agencies often don’t really do the marketing or advertising design and production themselves. Outside design and production houses, like DDA, serve the advertising agency industry by providing in-depth graphic design, photography, video production, 2D and 3D animation, programming, search marketing, copywriting, website design, ecommerce and other services. DDA provides them all.

Guaranteed, immediate clients and a readily available source of design and production make for an easy advertising agency business start-up. What is difficult is servicing the clients well over the long term and sustaining growth. What is wrong is the perpetuation of all of the bad habits the founders of the breakaway agency learned at their former place of employment and integrated into their new work process and client relationship procedures.

In this way bad habits not only die hard, they are perpetuated and spawned. Some of the bad habits may have actually been more benign at the original advertising agency due to the large size, or specific nature of the clients and industries they serve. When transferred to a smaller, less capable environment, they can mutate and become malignant.

Here’s the irony; the backgrounds of the founders at DDA are an organic mix of corporate marketing, B2B and B2C advertising, retail store and manufacturing ownership and general business management and consulting. NO advertising agency experience, no breakaway business start-up, no mutated process and poor client relationship habits.

After fourteen years of steady and sustained growth, innovation, and pioneering processes and procedures, DDA has all but reinvented the advertising agency. After fourteen years we are still fresh, eager, energized, and creating new habits daily by always striving to do the right thing.

Today is a day that made me realize how dependent we are on modern technology. This morning we were one car down, so we all had to shuffle rides, and trouble with the Internet- which seems to have an affect on everything. And although these things seemed small- We had to rearrange a lot of things to accommodate the hiccups. It made me think of how spoiled we are by our conveniences.  Don’t get me wrong. I wouldn’t want to  give up any of my “toys”! As an American I have the privilege of living in a society that has many electronic “toys” that affect work as well as play. And we are consumed with more, more, more… At DDA, we also seek more, more, more. More speed , more efficiency, more services. We understand the need for a website that is more efficient, advertising that is more attractive, and marketing that is more effective. We have the best Search Engine Marketing services and SEO copywriters that will take your site to the top of the Google list. We have the best Graphic Designers that will work every detail to perfection. We have the best programmers that will amaze you with their expertise. Each and every person here enjoys the satisfaction of perfecting their speciality. So in giving more, we also get more, and that is a good feeling all around.

DDA subscribes to several business practices and principles that directs everything we do. They are transparency, ethical conduct, and doing the right thing. The practice of these are both just good, sane, logical and practical approaches to client and vendor relations and emotional, cerebral and feel-good-about-yourself practices and beliefs that allows one to look himself or herself in the mirror each morning and sleep well at night.

Some definitions through the eyes of DDA:

Transparency. I like to think I am a good communicator. I know I am a lousy listener. My other career path might well have been as a history teacher and I sometimes wonder if the excitement of the advertising and business world overwhelmed my common sense.

Despite my best efforts, I recognize that four people in a meeting or discussion will leave with four slightly or largely different understandings of what just happened, what information was shared, what conclusions were drawn, and what the next steps are. Since we believe strongly that good process is at the core of all efficiency, somehow each successful advertising, branding, or marketing meeting must result in common understanding, shared goals, and a focused unified vision of the end game.

Transparency tools are woven into and heaped upon every advertising, branding, or marketing project we undertake. DDA TRAC (Time Resource and Accounting) is an in-house developed, Internet-based time tracking database tool. The result is that every hourly billed project including programming, logo design, graphic design, copywriting, photography, video, 2D and 3D animation, illustration, trade show displays, large format graphics, print design and print production for sell sheets, catalogs, brochures, flyers, direct mail, business cards, training portals and tools, CME design and development and even search engine optimization (SEO) is invoiced accurately. No time, not one minute is rounded up or added on, and every invoice is accompanied by a detailed minute-by-minute description of how the time was spent. On time, On budget, On TRAC every time.

Additional tracking and reporting tools abound. DDA’s search engine optimization (SEO) work has a series of metrics that perpetually report website visitation, usage, pathways, experience-based mapping, rankings, and much more. Website analysis means corporate websites can be better understood, improved, and managed.

Online proofing development websites are assigned to each client and each project. Our clients see every project unfold, improve, and take shape and their input is welcomed, requested, and insisted upon every step of the way.

Transparency is as much an attitude as it is a report or tool. At DDA, we believe that direct communication is the hallmark of a truly professional service-oriented vendor. We answer the phone, have project coordinators for each client, welcome questions and love client interaction. Every project is a blend of skills, expertise, information, and point-of-view provided by both the client and DDA.

Call us anytime. At DDA, the Transparency is clearly better.

Ethical Conduct to follow Monday.

Doing the Right Thing to follow Tuesday.

A few years back there was a very successful turnaround CEO that had some awful sounding nickname like the meat cleaver or hatchet man or butcher.

As evidenced by his awful sounding nickname, his MO was to takeover or be installed at the head of a troubled company and to slash payroll and every corporate budget across-the-board in order to restore solvency and make the company a viable platform from which it could grow. When asked directly about his budget slash-and-burn methodology he said that there was one exception to his across-the-board approach. While slashing payroll and every other corporate budget he would also always double the marketing budget.

Ironic isn’t it that many less savvy corporate managers and leaders choose to slash marketing budgets during a slowdown or recession.

Metaphorically, sales are the lifeblood of every business. After a heart attack, keeping the blood flowing is the first and sometimes only goal of the attending EMS worker or clinician. It is an admittedly gruesome analogy, but slashing the marketing budget during a downturn is like fixing a heart attack by slashing the throat.

Let DDA help you increase your sales,  restore vitality to your organization, and regain full health with results-oriented advertising and marketing across a wide range of media. From website design and development, with or without ecommerce capability, to graphic design, photography, illustration, logo development, branding, 2D and 3D animation, video, CD-ROMs, DVDs, custom programming. professional search engine marketing, content development and copy writing, DDA does it all in-house, under one roof, and with an experienced and dedicated staff of degreed professionals whose only goal is to build sales, impact bottom lines and build long-term relationships with our clients.

While our new facilities (since March 1st) are dramatically bigger and better and a joy to live with and in, they still lack a proper sign out front.

It turns out that most Townships, ours included, make money by allowing businesses to post signs outside their front door and make even more money by allowing the signs to change with each new inhabitation by each new business resident. This monopolistic money making scheme results in a lengthy, expensive and sometimes impossible permitting process that takes many weeks, forms, drawings and sometimes even consultants to complete successfully.

As we are often, and totally with the acquisition of our new facility, we are very lucky.

The former owner left a beautiful, big, expensive, and totally non-related sign in the facility. Didn’t want it or more likely didn’t want the hassle and expense of getting it approved in their new township location.

Turns out that if you do not change the shape or size or footprint of a sign, you can reface it without having to thread the permitting process. With some effort, good planning, and the effort of one of our artists we are in the process of rehabbing the sign just as we did the building, and just like the building it is turning out to be beautiful. Gold and green, rich and bright, lighted and landscaped, DDA will enjoy for many years to come not just the most attractive and professional sign on the street but perhaps in the entire township.

The sign reads Dynamic Digital Advertising, LLC. It should really say; within the walls this sign sits in front of, is the world’s best advertising, marketing, branding, website developer, video production company, graphic design house, photography studio, custom programming group, professional copy writers, animation artists, ecommerce specialists, search engine marketing technicians, and creative advertising concept developers.

We tried, but it just would not all fit!

“Goodbye, Blue Monday” was the alternate title for Kurt Vonnegut’s sour, clever and bleak novel “Breakfast of Champions.” Either book title would be relevant for today, since Monday is the day of the week on which DDA gives its employees breakfast. And not some motel-quality continental breakfast, but genuinely mood-altering bagels which make it possible for DDA to continue its tradition of excellence, even on rainy Mondays.

Things didn’t bode well for today. Rob and I (well, I pluralize it to share the blame–one could say that as only Rob drives, the wrong turn was all on him) took a wrong turn, and ended up getting stuck behind garbage trucks, buses and unimpressed pedestrians down the circuitous one-way streets and crowded boulevards of North Philadelphia. This was followed by a traffic jam on 95, which was the road we were supposed to be on all along. Also, it had gotten cold and rainy since the glorious weekend, and I, like the rest of the professional world, had to reconcile myself to the upcoming week of uncomfortable shoes, prompt responses, scheduled meals, and wearing pants. What could convince me that this day held any merit?

For one thing, it was Mariah Monday on 98.9 FM. If a client were to ask me what keywords they should include in their search engine optimized content, I would recommend they sneak in some search terms like “fantasy”, “emotions”, “one sweet day”, and just to keep things current, “touch my body (remix)”. But I am not a search engine optimization specialist, like several of my co-workers are. They would probably suggest keywords that were more relevant to the client’s products and/ or services. I suppose this is why I’m just a writer.

And the other thing that saved the day was bagels. I actually haven’t had mine yet, as I’ve been sidetracked by my duties in project coordination and copywriting. There’s a lot riding on this bagel–my day’s happiness. However, I’m not worried, because I am as assured of my Monday bagel’s deliciousness as you should be of DDA’s excellence in advertising.

I looked at the calendar for this week when I got in this morning and realized there are fewer appointments scheduled for today and tomorrow than I can ever remember. A moment of panic entered my mind, my fight-or-flight instincts took over and stress hormones flooded my body. Every business owner’s dark side took over and my mood plummeted. Is the recession really here and no one wants to do any branding, marketing, graphic design, video production, or advertising of any kind ever again, anywhere in the world, for any industry, service, or product? Is all that we have built in jeopardy?

Thankfully the voice of reason, of common sense, of objectivity and logic and peace and joy whispered in my ear, David, it is April 14th and Tax Day is tomorrow. It will return to normal on Wednesday. It was my wife and partner, Elizabeth, and of course, as usual, she is right.

Wednesday, the tempo will pick up and my life will once again be filled with controlled chaos, too much to do, incessant meetings, lots of questions to answer, and oh the uncontrollable phenomenon of time flying by way-to-fast.

Actually, the quiet and calm of today is kind of nice!