There is a poster boldly displayed on one wall of Dynamic Digital Advertising’s new digs that proclaims, “Don’t be afraid to be different.” I think that is the common thread that binds all who work here; we are each very different. Not weird different, but creatively, healthy, believe-in-ourselves different. 

A specific example would be our Programmers. David says our Lead Programmer,  Amy, can solve any problem to do with code.  She is also a whiz with an electric drill.  Tyler is our “Go To” guy for everything from small changes to clients’ websites to installing a complex phone system, while Reggie has become an expert at building gargantuan retail shopping carts, and Vinnie does a lot of action script work and helps with Coldfusion code issues and other language problems. If you put the four of them together, you would never mistake one for the other, and yet they are linked by this strange gene Programmers have for speaking little and spending hours solving problems. It is like there is a mind meld between them and their computers.  

Dynamic Digital, as an entity, is unusual too. There is no model we followed when David and I first started a decade+ ago. We grew organically, and David’s business instinct and vision helps shape what is our very complex organization today. But from those early days, we never lost the goal of providing marketing, promotional, and advertising services to businesses. Our old self-promotion brochures push digital photography, cd-rom development, graphic design, and print production among other things. We still do all that, but we just keep adding services. So many services that our Lead Designer, Carrie, wonders how she is going to showcase the new service. (P.S.-She always figures it out.)  Check out our website, the timeline graphically shows our growth, the changes, and the new services. And today, May 15th, 2008, I can promise you, there is real excitement planned for the coming year. Stay tuned. 

Yesterday, we had a large floor cleaning machine in the studio that was to get the 360 degree rotation treatment. The 360 degree rotation treatment is when we take 36 digital photos from the same angle of an object but rotate the object 10 degrees for every picture. We then crop out the background in Photoshop and import the images into a program called VR Worx. VR works is a program that allows you to create panoramic images and 360 degree rotating images. All 36 images are compressed into a quicktime movie that has special controls built right in. These controls allow the user to have total control of where they want the camera to be pointing. The user can rotate and zoom the object so as to see it as if it was sitting right in front of them. This quicktime movie can then be embedded into the product’s website to allow users to see much more than your standard 2d picture. It is definitely a nice way to put big things in small packages!

Moving an office with 21 people and not disrupting the work flow takes organization and juggling. As an experience, it is both traumatic and cathartic. It seems that at the old Dynamic Digital office, we saved everything that had to do with advertising. We filled a big dumpster with our throwaways.  I saved proofs of all our projects, as well as samples of brochures, postcards, and posters of companies - even those that are no longer in business. But most of all, we saved every marketing and promotional item about our digital services.

I came across one of our first letterhead designs that we used to sell our services to local businesses. It had seven thumbnail images stacked down the left margin and included digital photography (with a Lumina scanning camera) which today is obsolete. Since it scanned in three passes (RGB) the resulting image was a photograph. Today, if you go into our video and photography studio, the sophistication of digital cameras from that first clumsy Lumina is dramatic. The images our photographers and videographers produce with our up-to-date equipment are crisp, the color is very accurate, and the results are akin to film output.   

Since those early days, we have pushed the envelope constantly in all the areas of our services. Our clients, new and old, discover over and over again that there is nothing we cannot do at Dynamic Digital Advertising. We chose the road of complexity and steep learning curves so we could become a truly full-service shop. And we are proudly that, and pushing some more. Stay tuned. 

One of my favorite poets said it best, “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I…I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.” 

Viral marketing refers to marketing techniques that utilize an assortment of social networking devices (website designs, Flash animations, photography, video productions, message boards) to promote a product or service and quickly spread word of this product. The most successful viral marketing campaigns rely heavily on mystery and trying to get people to sign up for your website to learn more. Most notably in the past, extensive viral marketing was done for the movie Cloverfield. Movie previews did not release the name of the film, only a simple blurb of intense video, and numerous websites with mysterious information about the movie were created. The marketing hype behind the movie was the driving factor to get people into the theater, and it worked. These are the great things you can do with Hollywood -funding. Likewise, there is a commercial on television that shows a delivery person carrying boxes with the brand name and website on them while a song plays in the background and no other sound is used. What the product is is a complete mystery and they hope the commercial intrigues you to go to their website. In a way, it works. But if you ask me right now what the brand name and website and website is, I couldn’t tell you. Thus, the campaign is a huge failure.

While viral marketing has shown to work in a few cases and while DDA has the resources to pull off such campaigns, we always find that successful advertising promotes and engages people while teaching them about the product or services you offer. Things like brand name recognition are extremely important. Simple and effective messages will always have mass appeal. That’s why at DDA we strive to achieve effective marketing campaigns that will absolutely draw people to you, whether through animation, video, websites, brochures, or any other advertising techniques.

The new office has a lot more space than the previous location. Our advertising company needed more space for its operations to continue their growth. The photographers needed more space so, in our new office, they have almost two and half times the previous space to perform digital photography. Some different types of digital photography are, food photography,  product photography, and other photography services. The photography studio is shared with the videographers. Now these two can work concurrently and not bump elbows like in the previous location.

Our new office has plenty of space to grow and we are all excited to be here where all of us have more space and equipment to work with!

Effective communication is everything. Because DDA prides itself on being able to handle anything thrown our way, it doesn’t always come without its fair share of some initial disconnect. As things become technical, we often find it difficult to properly explain why clients can’t have video in certain resolutions or why they can’t use a 72 dpi photograph to print a large graphic. No fault to any of our clients, of course, it’s our job to know all the technical and savvy parts. At the same time, there are times when a client introduces a product to us and the technical aspect of their product takes some time for us to figure out and we may even have to go back to the client to get some additional information. It all comes with the territory, we only know what we know and we can only hope to help each other understand what we don’t know.

This is why communication is always important. Effective communication, that is. Someone at DDA is always available through phone or email to help guide you through a difficult process, or help explain the technical side of things. We also have clients who do a wonderful job of keeping us informed or answering our questions.

A hobby that I always wanted to get involved in was digital photography. I have always been very appreciative and observant when it comes to nature and natural landscapes. I do not have any interest in performing photography services, just strictly as a hobby. Unfortunately, I barely have time to work out, fish, or even hunt these days! Photography is in my very distant future, perhaps when I retire I will be able to enjoy nature as God intended.

I was adding a few examples of my 360 degree rotating jewelry videos to the DDA portfolio the other day and I just realized how massive it is. There are 10 different categories to the portfolio and each category has 4 or 5 sub categories. Everything from websites, cd-rom/dvd, digital photography, print, illustration, large format graphics, video, 3-d, animation and virtual reality. Each project has a description, picture and video or link. With all the options and examples available, it is an easy way for someone to get an idea of exactly what they are looking for. There are even some things that I did not even know we offered! It is plain to see that the work speaks for itself. Since the portfolio is growing each day, the user always has up to date examples of what we have been up to!

Photoshop’s automated features are just great. Right now as I’m typing I’m saving digital photography images that DDA photographed in-house about a year ago in three different image formats: high-res TIFF files, and high-resolution and low-resolution JPEG files. There are about 100 images and without Photoshop’s stellar capabilities, this might take me all morning to open each file and save it out three different ways.

Simply create your action that you wish Photoshop to apply to each image. Then, ask Photoshop (politely, of course) to replay that action on all images in a specified folder. Then, sit back and enjoy your Venti Latte. Or, if you’re like me and enjoy multi-tasking, sit back, enjoy your Venti Latte, write your daily blog, burn a CD and mentally plan out your day’s graphic design projects.

One of the many services DDA offers in digital photography. Whether you’re able to bring your product to our studio or require us to go on-location, we can. DDA has been a forefront leader in digital photography since the beginning of the digital revolution but has always supported scanning and digitizing film or photographs. In fact, DDA was the first digital photography studio in Pennsylvania well over a decade ago!

DDA has also long since used programs like Adobe Photoshop to manipulate images, heighten colors, or place people in completely different backgrounds. With the skills we have acquired over the last 14 years in photography, we are ready to take on any photography project you need.