At Dynamic Digital Advertising, Flash is a big part of our website design philosophy.

When I first started working at DDA, I knew I was going to have to take on responsibilities that were not covered in my training at school.  I never thought, however, that I would ever be tackling web design at all. In this web 2.0 world, Flash website design and coding skills are a must for any business trying to compete in the Internet marketing space. That’s why when I was asked to do Flash sites, I was more than happy to learn.

Now I’ve helped put together over a half-dozen flash pieces for the web. That’s not bad for  someone who had no web experience coming into the job. If it wasn’t for DDA, I probably wouldn’t even know my AS 3 from my ActionScript 2!

We take pride in our ability to create dynamic web 2.0 applications for your company or small business. Let me and the rest of the DDA video department put together your next Flash site, and rest assured that you will have a professional, innovative website that stands tall in the crowded 21st century web marketplace.

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images stacked down the left margin and included digital photography (with a Lumina scanning camera) which today is obsolete.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.” 

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.

When I was in college, I struggled to find my niche with regard to a career. I started as an accounting major and then filtered my way through marketing, psychology, sociology, and secondary education to end up with a rare degree in Professional Writing. My hobbies as a child ran the gamut from photography, violin, and sewing to softball, poetry, and singing. I tried almost everything at least once, and for the most part I loved it all. I even liked ballet, although I pirouetted into the wall in a dance recital and rollerblading, although I fell and scarred myself for life.

Today, as an advertising copywriter for DDA, I’m able to enjoy the many different aspects of the career options and hobbies that held my interest when I was younger. I can express my creativity as I did in photography, poetry, and sewing through copywriting services for brochures and websites. I can utilize what I learned in psychology and sociology classes to maintain a good repore with clients, and the organizational skills gained through accounting for overseeing projects from start to finish. For that which I did not necessarily succeed, I’ve learned to pick myself up, dust myself off, and move on to the next venture.

The lessons learned in school and fun as a child I carry with me every day and try to build upon them with practical application. It sometimes amazes me to step back and think about how one’s experiences truly do shape the ethics and capabilities displayed in the workplace.

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!

Trade show graphics are in a unique world by themselves. Sometimes the graphics convey particular messages, and sometimes they provide backdrop ambiance. Sometimes the world is an Alice in Wonderland one.

For a previous medical trade show we created a forest of trees out of larger-than-life-sized needles. For the same show, I created several 10-foot by 17-foot trompe l’oiel backgrounds of surgical rooms, with 3-D mannequin parts sticking out of the drawing!

Creating graphics at such a large size has unique challenges and rules. The fonts must be readable, the file must be examined carefully for image quality, and the file size has to be manageable.

Today, I’m working on a 10-foot high, 4-panel graphic and wrap-around pedastal for a company for which we have created other printed literature. I like that the literature and other graphics we’ve created for them are visually integrated with each other. We’re also photographing a product for this company today, so that it will be large enough to use for the trade show graphic I’m creating, and now they’ll have the photograph on file to use in any future projects as well.

I hope that people visiting their trade show booth will, at least for a few moments, feel immersed in a unique world.

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!

Some may call me a liar if I said I like Mondays, especially if they have seen me first thing in the morning, but I do. It’s the start to a fresh week, where anything can happen.

When you work in an environment like DDA, there is always something different or new going on. On any given day, a website could be going live — in some cases a site that has been months in the making — another highly-innovative, interactive animation or tool has just been developed in house, or we are just staring a new project that is highly involved or intricate in nature.

It can be exciting, though admittedly as  a Project Coordinator, at times it can also be a bit hectic.  Mondays are about putting the pieces in place for the coming week, checking the stauts of all projects or prospective projects, responding to questions or inquiries, and setting up the workload for the week.

Not every business can bring a whole new set of challenges and experiences each week, but with a full range of services, and so much going on under one roof, come Monday morning you have to be prepared.