AREA203 Digital, a full-service digital agency, is recognized from all disciplines in the 2013 Advertising Age Agency Report, released April 30, 2013 by the trade publication Advertising Age. The agency is ranked among more than 900 advertising and marketing firms in the United States.

With a ranking of 439, AREA203 achieved its first-ever appearance in the top 500 rankings of all agencies listed in the report. AREA203 is the only agency ranked from Chattanooga, Tennessee and one of only four from the entire state.

“We are honored to be recognized by Advertising Age as one of the nation’s—and Tennessee’s—leading ad agencies,” says Doug Freeman, President of AREA203 Digital. “This recognition is driven by numerous client successes, and steered by dedicated determination from our team.”

The 69th annual Advertising Agency Report was produced by the Advertising Age DataCenter. The report appeared in Advertising Age’s April 30, 2013, print edition and on AdAge.com. It includes rankings of more than 500 advertising, marketing-services, and media agencies based on 2012 revenue.

AREA203 Digital is a full-service digital agency headquartered in Chattanooga, TN. By helping brands create influence through innovative thinking and doing, AREA203 delivers measurable solutions that address their clients’ needs. AREA203 practices Corporate Social Responsibility by donating profits and time to many global causes. For more information, visit AREA203.com, read their blog AREA2oh3.com, or follow us on Twitter @AREA203Digital.

→ Casey Knox, Director of Communications and PR, AREA203 Digital; follow @caseymaeknox

Gene de Libero, Chief Strategy Officer at AREA203, regularly collects must-know resources from around the web for marketers.

• How cloud, big data and mobile will make the CMO the BMOC — Tech News and Analysis
  The rise of cloud and big data is altering business models, and in the process shifting corporate hierarchies, too. The chief marketing officer could be a big beneficiary of all this change.
• Why P&G Can’t Blame 6,250 Layoffs on Facebook
  P&G doesn’t know, and they don’t get it. The most mind-boggling part of this is that their response to their inability to get last year’s digital experiment to work is… wait for it… increasing their ad budget. Business Insider also reported that these layoffs were “in part…because Facebook ended the free ride for advertisers in the middle of last year.” So even getting this stuff for free couldn’t make their new digital strategy work.
• Why Do Top Athletes Suddenly Develop “the Yips” – a Tendency to Choke under Pressure?: Scientific American
  There is no clear explanation as to why pro athletes, who frequently encounter high-stakes moments, still choke under pressure. One suggested explanation is a neurological condition called focal dystonia that results in involuntary muscle contractions when performing a motor task and tends to affect a muscle group that is used frequently and repeatedly. The cause is unclear, but the contractions may involve abnormalities in neural communication.
• 8 Data-based Tips for Optimizing Your Content on Pinterest and Instagram
  Even though the two most popular social networks to emerge in the past few years (Instagram and Pinterest) revolve around visual content, there isn’t much data about what content performs best on these platforms. Because Instagram and Pinterest revolve around visual (not textual) content and their APIs are difficult to access, it can be challenging to research these networks.
• Why Is Facebook Blue? The Science Behind Colors In Marketing | Fast Company | Business + Innovation
  Turns out, something as simple as tweaking the color of a button changes user behavior or endears people to your product. Buffer’s Leo Widrich explains the importance of color in a website and brand design.

Reused with permission from www.genedelibero.com.

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Microsoft launched Bing in 2009 to insert a legitimate competitor into the search industry that Google had begun to dominate. Yahoo!, Ask.com, and others were powerful search engines at one time, but it was clear Google had left them in the dust. Could Microsoft’s new search tool actually compete?

While Bing has had its ups and downs since its launch, it’s clear Google still has a firm grip on the search industry. But this post is far more practical (and dorky) than evaluating their history of success.

Let the Search Contest Begin!

Danny Sullivan, Founding Editor of Search Engine Land, recently wrote a blog post that gave me a great idea. In short, the post compared the search engine results pages (SERPs) on Bing and Google for queries related to the first website ever.

In a series of posts that will go as long as interesting, relevant topics are presented, I’m going to explore the differences in the SERPs for the same search queries. Whether they’re seasonal, topically related to a recent event, or a completely ambiguous, randomly selected website, we’ll see how well (or not well) Bing and Google deliver results. But before we begin, we’ll need a few rules.

• Geographic Location
• Browser History and Cache
• Personalization

If you’re sitting in a library in Detroit, you’re absolutely going to get a different set of results for “coffee shop” than if you were on the boardwalk in Miami Beach. Your results can be altered based upon your past usage and history as well. You’ve probably noticed things like this yourself. (Check out Rand Fishkin’s awesome breakdown of this subject in his Whiteboard Friday about Personalization and SEO.)

The First Test: AREA203 Digital’s Latest Blog Post

Earlier this week, our agency posted a blog about the Chattanooga Area Food Bank and the impact it and other similar non-profit organizations have. This post will be the subject of our first ever search contest between Bing and Google! Let’s start with Bing’s search results when using the exact Title Tag:

Google 1, Bing 0

Google may have won this round (albeit with an unfair advantage) but I look forward to a greater variety of findings in future search comparisons. What subjects, websites, or comparisons would you like to see? I’ll be back in a few weeks with Round Two of Bing vs. Google. And yes, I’ll make sure it’s a fair fight next time.

→ Brady Callahan, Content Specialist, AREA203 Digital; follow… @BradyDCallahan

Many of us have thought about it at least once. We plunk down $12 for a gourmet burger, and we feel a little guilt knowing that even in 2013 there are still families struggling to put food on the table. What you may not know is just how far $1 can go, let alone the $15 or $20 typically spent on a full meal.

The stats on hunger may actually be even worse than you’re aware. According to the USDA one in six Americans don’t know where their next meal will come from, and one third of those are children.

But What Can $1 Do?

Just $1 can equal five meals. $10 can feed a family of four for a week.

How Exactly Can $1 Do So Much?

It’s because of non-profit organizations, such as the Chattanooga Area Food Bank. They form partnerships and are able to combine resources to purchase food at bulk prices. Volunteers then help put together meals and deliver them to needy families.

How You Can Help

Right now, food banks around the country are competing for several $45k dollar grants. If the Chattanooga Area Food Bank receives one of these grants, it will help fund their Sack Pack program which will deliver over 22,500 meals to needy students around the region. Many of these students only eat Monday through Friday while they’re at school. To help, just vote daily through April 30th on Facebook (to vote, click here) and those votes can become dollars. Share the campaign on Facebook, Twitter, or your social media platform of choice to help bring them across the finish line and secure the grant.

Dig a Little Deeper

When it comes to food, exactly how much can $1, $5, or $10 get you? It depends on where in the world your home is. Here are some more stats on how your $1 can help in the worldwide fight against hunger.

BuzzFeed recently published a video that looked at the buying power of $5 in nine countries across the globe. They looked at the average price of:

• Bananas
• Coffee
• Beef
• Rice
• Potatoes
• Eggs
• Beer

For more information on the Chattanooga Area Food Bank, visit www.chattfoodbank.org.

→ Heather Huston, Strategist, Social Media, AREA203 Digital; follow…@hustonian

Each week Gene de Libero, Chief Strategy Officer at AREA203, collects must-know resources together from around the web for marketers.

• Big Data, Trying to Build Better Workers – NYTimes.com
  Article discusses some of the startling findings of an emerging field called work-force science. It adds a large dose of data analysis, aka Big Data, to the field of human resource management, which has traditionally relied heavily on gut feel and established practice to guide hiring, promotion and career planning.
• Mapping Out The Connection Between Our Real and Our Digital Selves
  There is a growing, almost transparent connection forming between our online and real world personas. Before, these were clearly delineated. But with the advent of social media (an always on application) and smartphones that are always connected (whether via wifi or cellular) these personas (and our behavior) are becoming increasingly intertwined (or juxtaposed if you wish).
• When Agency Execs Cross Over | Digiday
  The grass is always greener on the other side, and that’s why some agency executives eventually find themselves working on the client side.
• Google Creative Lab Links Product to Stellar Storytelling | Digital – Advertising Age
  Robert Wong, chief creative officer at Google Creative Lab, the internal agency responsible for most of Google’s product marketing, told attendees at the Advertising Age Digital Conference Wednesday that it’s a combination of understanding the company’s own culture and story, and then demonstrating the product in the most empathetic way possible.
• Sales – Why Lead Nurturing Is Like Hosting a Dinner Party (and Nine Ways to Do It Right) : MarketingProfs Article
  Everyone loves a dinner party, which is why I’m always surprised when I hear people express something of a distaste about lead nurturing. When you think about it, the two are very similar. They both require the host (the marketer) to not only build but also maintain relationships with their guests (leads) through conversation, solid rapport, and sense of trust. And as with a successful dinner party, a successful lead nurturing strategy involves very careful planning…
• The Rise of the Digital CMO – Harvard Business Review
  What do these “digital CMOs” do differently? They experiment aggressively. They hire smart digital natives — and empower them. They partner with great agencies. They have the humility to admit what they don’t know, the courage to toss out the old playbook, and the confidence to allow digital metrics to illuminate the results.

• New Blog Series: Gene’s Links
• Gene’s Links: CSS3, Conversations, and SEOmoz
• Gene’s Links: Chrome, Hispanic Markets & Mobile
• Gene’s Links: Facebook Home, Giveaways, & Skype
• Gene’s Links: Behavio, Luke Wrobleski, & Content Marketing

Reused with permission from www.genedelibero.com.

Gene de Libero, Chief Strategy Officer at AREA203, collects the best of the web for marketers.

• Social prediction startup Behavio joins Google
  Startup Behavio announced it is joining the Mountain View crew and shutting down its closed alpha. The company built its short-lived product on top of Funf, a framework for collecting data from mobile phone sensors. Its goal was to analyze things like physical location, contacts and other data about your activities and environment to monitor trends, then make predictions about behavior. The targets weren’t just individuals though, but entire communities, and it was even suggested that Behavio could predict the eruption of mass protests.
• 4 Truths About Content Marketing Agencies Today
  In the search for “content gold,” providers of marketing services have been “heading west,” as more brands continue their move toward creating owned media programs and establishing content marketing dominance.
• 4 Surprising App-Design Principles, From The Instagram Of Quick Quizzes | Co.Design
  Luke Wroblewski, the mobile-first design evangelist behind Polar, talks about four winning strategies he used to supercharge Polar’s user experience.
• 10 Startups That Turn Complexity Into Simplicity | TechCrunch
  Here are 10 startups that turn traditional complex processes into simple ways to get work done.
• We need a data democracy, not a data dictatorship
  The democratization of data is a real phenomenon, but building a sustainable data democracy means truly giving power to the people. The alternative is just a shift of power from traditional data analysts within IT departments to a new generation of data scientists and app developers. And this seems a lot more like a dictatorship than a democracy — a benevolent dictatorship, but a dictatorship nonetheless.
• The Most Hated Digital Ad Tactic | Digiday
  You’re sitting in front of your computer at work, and you’re surfing Twitter. A friend shares a link which you find interesting. You click and as soon as the page opens up, your face gets embarrassingly red as everyone in your silent office looks at you. You were just served an autoplay video.

This is the fifth post in the “Gene’s Links” series. If you’d like to see other recent posts, click on the links below.

• New Blog Series: Gene’s Links
• Gene’s Links: CSS3, Conversations, and SEOmoz
• Gene’s Links: Chrome, Hispanic Markets & Mobile
• Gene’s Links: Facebook Home, Giveaways, & Skype

Reused with permission from www.genedelibero.com.

In the days since his passing, Roger Ebert has been mostly remembered for his bar-setting work as a film critic, but as David Carr of the New York Times wrote this week, Ebert’s life “was a remarkable template for how a lone journalist can become something much more.”

“Long before the media world became cluttered with search optimization consultants, social media experts, and brand-management gurus,” wrote Carr, “Mr. Ebert used all available technologies and platforms to advance both his love of film and his own professional interests.”

According to Mark Caro of the Chicago Tribune, Ebert was a lot of things—”film critic, newspaperman, social-justice soldier, husband, father, grandfather, and champion of artists and imagination.” Ebert was also a hugely influential brand that marketers can learn a lot from. And it’s no surprise, then, that marketers are among those paying tribute to him this week.

• Lifehacker’s Kevin Purdy says you can “build your own small empire” by following Ebert’s “passion for your field” and treating your output “as a product, not a job.”
• Kimberly Bordonaro of SteamFeed says that Ebert’s life teaches those building personal brands the importance of discovering their passions, adapting to change, and consistently delivering what audiences (or consumers) value and expect.
• According to Phil Rosenthal of the Tribune, Ebert “wrote a business script worth following” by knowing his identity, knowing his consumers, owning his work, embracing his rivals (like Gene Siskel), embracing technology (like blogging and social media), being transparent, being a mentor, and being great. Rosenthal says that Ebert’s honesty about the illness that ultimately took his life “only enhanced his credibility as a critic.”

Ebert’s illness (which robbed him of his ability to speak) caused him to rely on the Internet to be his voice. Ebert adapted, creating what Carr called “the kind of stickiness and durability that media brands crave.”

He will be missed—and studied—for a long, long time.

→ Bill Colrus, Managing Editor, Content Marketing, AREA203 Digital; follow… @billcolrus

Gene de Libero, Chief Strategy Officer at AREA203, collects the best of the web for marketers.

• Clayton Christensen Talks Venture Capital, Crowd Funding, And How To Measure Your Life | TechCrunch
  The Innovator’s Dilemma as you might know outlines how companies with historically successful products and market share will be disrupted and beaten unless they are innovative again and again. Clayton also recently co-authored How Will You Measure Your Life? which explains how like in business you need to plan in order to be successful in your personal life or you run the risk of failing your family and betraying your values. Read or watch the interview here.
• Why Home won’t move the needle for Facebook — Tech News and Analysis
  The announcement of Facebook Home this week has elicited applause, shock, horror, and disapproval. But it may not matter much anyway as the numbers suggest its reach will be modest at best.
• Facebook Home: A Brand’s Allied Enemy | Branding Magazine
  Welcome Home. Or at least this is how Facebook beckons users towards its newest development, Facebook Home. Commonly mistaken as the much-anticipated Facebook phone, Facebook Home is in fact a mobile operating system powered by the social giant. Layered atop the existing Android system, Facebook Home will be pre-configured into the settings of the new HTC First; in addition, the “family of apps” will become available for download to select HTC and Samsung phones on April 12th.
• SMG to Track How Mobile Ads Lead to In-store Visits | Digital – Advertising Age
  Starcom MediaVest Group has partnered with New York City-based startup PlaceIQ to unlock mobile marketing’s great mystery: when someone shown a mobile banner ad is enticed to walk into a store.
• Giveaways Turn Tough Sales into Easy Sales | TIME.com
  Offering your product for free may seem counter-intuitive, but it could be just the right strategy to spur sales and growth for your small business.
• Skype: 2 Billion Minutes Spent on Skype Calls Daily | BGR
  Skype just announced proudly that its users spend 2 billion minutes a day on Skype calls. It’s a big achievement, for sure… but considering how long Skype has been around, it’s also somewhat underwhelming. According to company comments from 2011, the average video call length was 27 minutes. If we estimate that the average Skype call including both voice and video calling is closer to 20 minutes, the 2 billion minutes a day figure would translate roughly to 100 million calls per day. This sounds decent enough — except that a cluster of mobile messaging app companies that debuted just a couple of years ago have already moved far beyond that level.

This is the fourth post in the “Gene’s Links” series. If you’d like to see other recent posts, click on the links below.

• New Blog Series: Gene’s Links
• Gene’s Links: CSS3, Conversations, and SEOmoz
• Gene’s Links: Chrome, Hispanic Markets & Mobile

Reused with permission from www.genedelibero.com.

Gene de Libero, Chief Strategy Officer at AREA203, collects the best of the web for marketers.

• 10 Phrases That Can Solve Any Work Problem – OPEN Forum
  Here are 10 phrases that can be used to solve any problem you’re having in your office…
• Will Chrome Solve our Multi-Device Problem? | John Lovett at Web Analytics Demystified
  Google recently launched a new television commercial that advertised their Chrome browser as a solution for your computer, tablet, and mobile device. For marketers and digital analytics pros of all types, this solution has real potential. Not because of the convenience of the solution, but because it potentially solves our problem of identifying visitors to our websites and mobile apps as they traverse from work computer, to mobile to tablet…throughout the day.
• Why Can’t Hispanic Market Get Its Fair Share of Investment? | The Big Tent – Advertising Age
  The answer lies in a seriously flawed system for gathering multicultural sales data. What multicultural market researcher experts call the “sales data undercount” is estimated at between 40% to 60% of the true volume of multicultural consumer sales, depending on the brand or product category.
• The Web on Mobile and Beyond
  Not only has the web a big role to play on mobile, mobile has also a key role to play for the web. As more and more of our connected interactions start or end on mobile devices, we must ensure that the web platform adapts to our mobile lives.
• Material Honesty on the Web
  Material honesty—the idea that a substance should be itself, rather than mimic something else—has guided everyone from Ruskin to Charles and Ray Eames. How might material honesty apply to our immaterial (digital) projects? What light might its principles shed on such aesthetic debates as flat versus skeumorphic web design? And how might a materially honest approach change how we conceive and sell our projects? Kevin Goldman forecasts increased longevity for our work and even our careers if we apply the principles of material honesty to our digital world.

This is the third post in the “Gene’s Links” series. If you’d like to see other recent posts, click on the links below.

• New Blog Series: Gene’s Links
• Gene’s Links: CSS3, Conversations, and SEOmoz

Reused with permission from www.genedelibero.com.

And this time, it’s for real!

Old Authentication Processes

Remember movies from the 90s that showed people using fancy key fobs with constantly changing access codes? Or Minority Report-style security measures that required a fingerprint, an eye scan, and a voice-recognized password to obtain access to top-secret information?

While those security processes have only previously existed in banking, military, or other government-sector jobs like IT, two-step authentication has finally made it to the consumer market. Google, Facebook, and now Apple have all embraced a login process that is more secure while still easily accessible to average users.

Far from the clunky key fobs of the industrial world, the technology giants are leveraging physical devices we’re much less likely to lose or forget on our way out the door: our phones and tablets.

Secure Mobile Access

Designed to provide secure login from new devices, users will not notice the extra security step until they attempt to access their accounts from a secondary device. Here’s what the two-step process will look like: users will login normally with a username and password on the new device; and then they will receive a text message (on their mobile device of choice) with a unique, one-time code that they will input in order to gain access.

This is a welcome development in a market where consumers are increasingly dependent on services that are remotely secured and have large amounts of personal and financial information. The minor inconvenience of an extra step in our login process is far outweighed by the benefit of knowing that there is an extra layer of security between our data and the bad guys.

→ Joda Thongnopnua, Content Design Specialist, AREA203 Digital… @JodaThongnopnua