Award Winning Blog

Is what you're reading right now. That's right, folks. Tales from the Expedition, the Francomedia blog has won a Gold Hermes Creative Award!

The unique design of the blog surely swayed the judges as it really is a compelling design (thanks Francomedia design team!) - it was not an easy design to work with, but we have the technology (thanks Francomedia development team!).

Through weekly(ish) updates, we try to keep our customers and the viewing public aware of what's new in advertising, marketing, design and of course, Francomedia.

Updating a blog does take significant effort and many of our staff contribute to Tales from the Expedition. So, thank you for reading our blog and don't be shy, hopefully there are posts you feel worthy of sharing, go ahead - we're down with that.

Over the last couple of years Francomedia has been on the receiving end of many awards for their creativity, design and marketing - this is thanks to a great team of creative thinkers and doers - and I thank you for that, Francomedia team.

Keeping Busy in Cowtown

How fortunate are we to be working on some of the coolest projects in Calgary?

Some may say, that we are really making a name for ourselves as a go-to-shop for creative goods... and this is resulting in us being very, very busy. Winning a gaggle of awards over the past 12 months may have been a contributing factor, but I like to think it was more about our reputation than anything else. Busy nonetheless.

But, busy is good - and being busy on creative projects is really good, so, life is really, really good at Francomedia.

So far this year, we have done some great branding projects, some cool web projects and some great print projects. To new clients we are super heroes, to existing clients we are consistent and always ready to take on whatever they throw us. Our challenge these days is all about scheduling - getting new work into the mix is harder than ever, but we manage and manage well.

We are breaking new ground with a very cool project that will be released sometime before summer - we believe it will set the future standard for marketing in the publishing industry, all while showcasing the true power of Apple's new iPad.

Another project that we are passionate about is TEDxCalgary - which is happening on April 29th and we are playing a part in helping them market the event online and on-site. You can watch it live from 9:00am - 6:00pm (MST) at live.tedxcalgary.ca.

We've worked on some really high profile web sites over the past year, Cabinets by Hayley, Ronmor Developers, United Nations, Calgary Council for Advanced Technology... just to name a few - there are a few others that we can't name yet, at least not publicly or prior to launch.

Since December we've branded a custom fly rod maker, an engineering firm, a home builder, a realtor, an oil service company and a publishing corporation.

Most of our blog posts are helpful and offer advice in marketing... this will continue, believe me - we like to share. I guess, we just needed a forum to say that we're happy to be working with some great customers on some great projects. Thanks for reading.

Why Creative Is Important

In the advertising and marketing field, the word creative is used to describe the work produced by the creative team at an agency, typically in the form of concept, copy writing and graphic design.

For example, if we were to design a poster for you, the artwork would be called the 'creative'. You would say, "Let's see the creative...", and we would show you a proof of your poster.

This is advertising jargon.

At Francomedia, we describe ourselves as a boutique creative agency, meaning a relatively small group of very talented people that produce creative for various purposes. We are not an advertising agency, although that's the best way to describe us to people that don't understand our vernacular for the word 'creative'.

Many people have trouble understanding when or why they need creative supplied by an agency. A good example of this is the good old-fashioned power point presentation. Nearly every working stiff with a mouse can create a power point presentation, which is why so many companies don't see the need to hire a creative agency to supply creative for such a common item. Especially, since they can have their most junior person do it.

So, why hire a creative design agency to do your power point?

Everything is marketing. It doesn't matter if you are presenting something internally or to a crowd of investors, your power point is your marketing. And, when it looks like a grade school kid made it for you, how does that reflect on you? I have seen many corporate power points, and honestly, my kids make better looking/working ones than I've seen by some big companies, and they're in grade 3.

Great creative can do a lot of things for your power point (or anything else for that matter), and, it doesn't have to be expensive. Here's what professional creative will do for you:

1. Make you look credible. If you are looking to the audience for investment on an idea or a company and you can't even get your headings to line up page after page, how are they supposed to feel about investing with you?
2. Make you look professional. If you are presenting a recommendation to upper management or a board of directors and you have clip art images strewn throughout, are they supposed to take you seriously or try figure out where on their fridge to post your 'art'?
3. Make you look capable. If you try to communicate a concept by embedding a certain graphic, sound or video into your presentation but it never seems to work smoothly (or at all), how is your audience supposed to feel about your ability to see things through without error?
4. Make you compelling. If you have a clean, well designed presentation, that runs smoothly, you will hold the audiences attention - at which point your presentation will come down to your content... which is what it's supposed to be about, right?
5. Make you effective. If your presentation is properly designed and crafted, a good creative person will know what information to highlight and how to make those points ring true with the intended audience. That's important, right?

With all these benefits, you would think that hiring a creative team to build this for you would be a no brainer... but, often is the case where someone feels that they can do it internally and save the couple of bucks. What is the cost of lost credibility or a lost sale, or a lost investment?

Doing your own presentation is a great way to have your audience set very low expectations for you and what you are presenting. And, it doesn't take much effort for a creative professional to polish a presentation up, if even just to get some consistency throughout.

Even though, we used power point presentations as an example, hiring the right person for the job applies to just about anything in business. But when it comes to marketing your company, internally or eternally, you need to put your best foot forward and do everything you can to ensure your brand is exemplified and that people trust and believe what you present, on a screen or in an ad.

So, the next time you are planning to make a presentation, ask yourself if it's important that people hear your message and believe it. Then give a creative agency a call.

Talent Pool

For the last 6 to 8 months, we have had a practicum student working with us from the SAIT New Media Production and Design program. It's a good program, in fact we stole one of their best and brightest a few years back - he's now a mainstay at Francomedia and produces some of our best creative.

As luck would have it, we have another SAIT graduate, from the Computer Sciences side of things and he continues to amaze us with his ability to do anything thrown at him.

SAIT produces some all-star talent and this year is no different, our practicum student has helped us out on quite a number of projects, was quick to learn and very efficient.

Earlier this month, the students of the New Media program at SAIT put on their Student Showcase - a demonstration of their work. It's a wine and cheese gathering with lots of young talent waiting to be picked up by local businesses. This is the first time I attended the event, so I wasn't sure what to expect.

I was impressed with the diverse nature of the work and it was cool to see so much promise and prospect in one room - who knows where these kids will end up, maybe running shops like ours one day.

The displays were amateur and hand made, and I don't mean that in a negative way at all - they were well thought out and good by any standard. When you're in school and you have limited resources you do what you can, and what they put together was great. It just wasn't like walking through CES, if it was I would have been very intimidated. A $50,000 booth isn't necessary when looking at potential, you can see it in their enthusiasm, in their pride of work and in their portfolios.

On Wednesday, we learned that our practicum student, Annky Yu, won the best of show this year at the Student Showcase. Holding true to what I've always believed; we attract top talent. Congratulations to Annky!

When you see hard work pay off through a win like that, it's very rewarding - our team has hit many home runs, unfortunately the majority of the time nobody's keeping score. At least, we think nobody is. Truth be told, our clients know the score which is why they keep coming back for more.

It's great to be surrounded by such a deep pool of talent. And, believe me, there's no shallow end at Francomedia.