We all put on our best dressed and got our hair did for the Addy’s last Saturday. We kicked some ass again this year, well kinda. Blind Society came home with more gold Addy’s than we ever did. But we also won a bronze award, which for the first time came in form of a piece of paper. We’re taking suggestions on what to do with it, we’ve got a few ideas ourselves.
We’d like to thank our clients for allowing us to produce some amazing work. It’s always nice to be recognized for the work you do, plus it does wonders for our egos. We look forward to creating more smart work for our clients again this year.
We may have had a little too much to drink and maybe did far too much celebrating but all in all it was a good night. At least what we can remember of it.
Who We Are:
Blind Society is the world’s first Consumer Connections company. We specialize in creating alternative high-impact marketing campaigns that reach the elusive 18-35 prosumers. Consumer Connections are an evolved form of marketing that use alternative media tactics to start two-way conversations and relationships with targeted and influential consumers.
Who We Need:
The Interactive Experience team at Blind Society is seeking visionary Flash/Interactive Developers. Are you a crazy thinker? Do you have a portfolio that will inspire us? If you’re a person with multiple interactive skills and passions, we probably have projects that can utilize all of them. We have an amazing team of creatives, technologists, and strategists all working in an incredibly collaborative environment, concepting and prototyping together. We work on a broad array of media including gaming, web, mobile, industrial, product design, interactive retail environments, and experiential outdoor. If you’re passionate about the merging of various media channels and creative disciplines, you will want to come push the limits with us.
Position Requirements:
An innovative thinker and code expert that enjoys tackling challenging projects with a positive attitude.
Must be an expert problem solver and possess a failure is not an option mentality.
Excellent people skills and ability to clearly communicate ideas, decisions, and reasoning to a non-technical audience.
Ability to play a large role in managing the interactive experience development process of our projects.
Always maintain a keen sense of professionalism, be goal oriented, extremely self-driven and have a positive attitude.
Ability to juggle multiple projects and clients regularly.
You must be passionate about programming and technology
You will be working with others who are dedicated, driven, and talented
You will develop technical and creative solutions through research and experimentation
You will participate in brainstorming sessions, scoping meetings, and may also participate in meetings with clients
Need Bachelor’s Degree or higher
You must be at an expert-level with Flash, Flex, and Actionscript
You must have experience with. NET, SQL, JavaScript, XML, and HTML/CSS experience
Minimum of 5 years of interactive experience
Animation and user interface experience is helpful
Relevant design experience includes rich interactive applications, game development, motion graphics, web development, photography, and print advertising
Extra credit: a programming background and experience working on interactive campaigns outside the web
What we offer you besides a Killer Job: Competitive salaries, excellent benefits, and a very unique company culture.
How To Apply:
Please send your resume, cover letter, link to portfolio, and the number one reason why you would be the perfect addition to our team exceptional team to jeremy.watson@blindsociety.com
No Phone calls please.
No recruiters or agencies.
To the Blind generation—the 15–35-year-old consumer, content should not be controlled by the brand, but rather, by the consumer. This attitude stems from the fact that the brand, itself, is not controlled by the brand, but rather by the perception of the consumer. To that end, it’s frustrating when television networks and music labels will not allow us to share their content as we see fit.
OK Go became a viral sensation a few years ago with their grassroots video to the song, “Here Is Goes Again.”
(This is not EMI’s version. Embedding is, of course, disabled by request.)
The fast-spreading nature of the video was due, in large part, to it being embeddable. Recently, their new videos have no longer been embeddable. Such a move breeds ill will amongst fans. OK Go, smartly, spoke out in an open letter.
Of particular interest is this paragraph:
Four years after we posted our first homemade videos to YouTube and they spread across the globe faster than swine flu, making our bassist’s glasses recognizable to 70-year-olds in Wichita and 5-year-olds in Seoul and eventually turning a tidy little profit for EMI, we’re – unbelievably – stuck in the position of arguing with our own label about the merits of having our videos be easily shared. It’s like the world has gone backwards.
Indeed. The lesson for adroit marketers is simple: treat your fans like gold. Give them the tools to share their love for your brand (or band). Let them do as much heavy lifting as possible. When an advocate lifts his finger, it is more powerful than much of the corporate muscle. They posses something no brand can every posses: true, unspoiled credibility.
In the bookThe Pirate’s Dilemma, by Matt Mason, the example of the original Napster is given. Napster was more than a file-sharing P2P network. It became the dawn of a new era for how people consume media. Brands that clung ignorantly to the old way of speaking to consumers, such as music labels, fought the trends brought on by Napster. Smart brands, like Apple, launched brands dedicated to a Napster-like experience in iTunes.
Embrace your buying society’s call for change, or brace yourself for war. At the end of the day, do you want to do everything you can to please your customers, or do you want to do everything you can to discourage and argue with them?
FOX Networks called us to do a project for their hit shows 24 and Human Target. Being big Jack Bauer fans, we were more than ready to show FOX what Blind Society was all about. As the new season was set to roll they were looking for an innovative way to promote their hit shows.
Blind Society has done several campaigns utilizing the Immersive Fan Experience. We’ve developed this proprietary technology for a number of sports teams across the nation.
The goal for FOX was to get viewers more involved with 24 and Human Target. So we created an online experience that made people feel like they were a character in the show. As the campaign progresses we will incorporate social media strategies to attract more people to the website and build a bigger fan base. To see what we’ve done so far, go to:
The last month has been hectic here at Blind Society. We’ve been busting our butts producing DriveTime’s new television campaign that will run nationwide. They wanted to introduce their new DriveCare program, an ownership program that’s changing the game for people with credit problems. So they came knocking on our door to help them launch it. We shot all three spots in L.A. and to say the least, it was a hell of a shoot. We shut down a bridge in Long Beach. Solicited a man dressed as a woman. Enlisted the help of a couple Clydesdales. Poured motor oil all over a nice family. Yeah, a good time was had by all. Much thanks to everyone who worked on this project with us: Crossroads Films who shot it, Marcus McCollum the Director, and Copper Post for the editing and graphics. We had fun, laughed a lot, and hopefully you will too. Check it out.
Phoenix Design Week, a tribute to fine design in a valley mostly known for sun, Charles Barkley’s indiscernible rants, and the occasionally awesome Cardinals, jumped off during the week of October 21–25. Blind Society’s very own Darren Wilson—Partner and Brand Visionary—was asked to speak during Saturday’s sessions.
His presentation was colorful and animated, as were his slides. We wanted to bring the slides to you, the Digital Elsewhere (or those who want to relive his speech over and again).
The presentation starts with the generally held opinions about creatives and industry professionals in Phoenix, then moves on to how we can change the course of Phoenix’s future.
Coming away from PHXDW09, it is clear that we, as a Valley, are on the brink of making something great happen.
Check out the slides and leave some thoughts below.
Teens interact with media and brands in a very unique way. A Nielson study this past summer set out to demystify their preferences for engagement. This topic is nothing new—marketers have always struggled to understand the engagement preferences for each new generation of teens.
The most dangerous fact: TV is king insofar as consumption is concerned, with the average teen snacking on nearly three-and-a-half hours of television a day.
If you’ll pardon the expression, “Facts are like bikinis. What they reveal is enticing. What they cover up is essential.” Ergo, these results should be read with scrutiny when choosing a media mix. Read the rest of this entry »
Digital Buzz Blog—an office favorite—recently posted an article about the end of the destination web. Along with Super Collider, they make a case for the decline in destination sites—homepages, microsites, and so on—and the corresponding rise of social media.
A few examples:
These sites are essential, but with the absolute dominance of Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, brands are focusing on going where the people already are.
Facebook is up 700% over the past year. Twitter is up 3200%.
The iPhone 3GS’ launch marked a new era for digital video. For the first time, the mobile world’s darling device was fully equipped to shoot video, and upload it direct to YouTube. The result: mobile uploads on YouTube shot up 400%.
Flip, makers of pocket-sized direct-to-computer/web camcorders, offer the highest quality video per dollar. Flip has chosen Facebook as their horse. New Flip camcorders, which shoot in full HD for under $250, come with direct-to-Facebook uploading software.
Interesting!
As consumers get more and more savvy, and continue uploading more and more videos, which of these brands will win? Are they even fighting for the same dollar, or do they serve separate purposes? More and more, marketers are engaging their buying societies through online/offline competitions which involve video uploads. Integration with these portals has become important—nay, essential—for smart brands.
How’s this for engaging and being a socially responsible advertiser? Telstra, a mobile carrier in Australia, published a microsite chalk full of tips for mums in an online world. The site has pithy, clever one-to-two-minute videos covering topics such as adding friends, applications, and privacy. The site has easy-to-share social media links via Twitter, Facebook, StumbleUpon, and Delicious.
My personal favorite is the “joining a group” video. The mum, trying desperately to keep up with her daughter’s trends, is sitting amongst a slumber party of tweens. She wants desperately to get involved in a conversation about Robert Pattinson, whom she mistakenly calls…oh, I don’t want to ruin the video for you.
A great viral video makes usually causes one of two reactions: we laugh or we shake our heads in incredulity. Internet favorites like “Charlie Bit Me” and “Sneezing Panda” are organically hilarious. For a brand to get in on the nonstop flow of viral love, it takes a truly ingenious approach.
I was really impressed with Sony’s new Twilight campaign, which puts their camera equipment to the twilight test of low-light shooting, a prominent feature on the new cameras.
The microsite, while not particularly visually stunning, serves as an effective springboard for the contest, giving Sony fans (and fans of the creative arts, for that matter) the tools they need to get involved.
Smart brands give their buying society a chance to engage with the brand. Loyalists and evangelists love to do some of the heavy lifting, if they know that their actions are approved and appreciated.
Break down the barriers between online and offline engagements. The smart marketer threads the needles through every medium. This creates consistency, coherency, and completes the engagement cycle most effectively, both figuratively and monetarily.
One of the biggest, baddest video game franchises of all time is EA’s Madden series. The 2010 installation features our very own Larry Fitzgerald sharing the cover with Troy Palimalu. Blind Society’s partner, bluemedia, did the large-format printing for the launch party in Malibu, CA. Blind Society was in attendance for the event, which featured a scrimmage and plenty of time to catch up with the best and brightest EA has to offer. Hop o’er to Flickr for some cell phone snaps.
Make sure to dig into bluemedia’s blueline blog post about the event.
Group Y is a sublime network of marketers aimed squarely at reaching the hyper-connected consumers in the Gen Y sect. Recently, Blind Society’s own Ben Bacon attended the very first Action Sports Conference with bluemedia’s very own action sports hero, Brian Pryor. Marketing’s finest and brightest were on hand, including Braden Dahl from New Era Cap, Vipe Desai from Monster Energy Drink, and Patt McIlvain from Oakley.
Huntington Beach, CA: the concurrent backdrop of Agenda, the streetwear industry’s formidable #2 trade show, and the US Open of Surf. The boldest and brightest (metaphorically and quite literally) exhibited their ‘10 collections. Blind Society’s Relationship Specialist, Ben Bacon, was in attendance, connecting with marketers from K-Swiss, Skullcandy, Nike 6.0, New Era Cap, and many, many more.
And the hits just keep coming! First, Adobe debuted the Mojo Yogurt website as their Site of the Day in June, and now industry-leading publication Communication Arts has featured the very same site in their Webpix for July 15, 2009.
Says Communication Arts: Reflecting Mojo Yogurt’s in-store customer experience and successfully conveying the brand’s mantra attracts a target audience of hip and health-conscious consumers.
Thank you to Communication Arts for the wonderful recognition. We are indeed honored.
