Outcrop Blog Post

This week we learned: Not to make your website too Flashy, Facebook's Q3 results highlights & how to really make an exit

Hello again and happy weekend. If your office is like ours, you may be experiencing a bit of a candy hangover. But hey, as soon as we finish all the treats, the sooner we don't have them sitting in front of us, tempting us with their candy coating and chocolate centres. That's how that works, right? As penance for all those sugary confections we've consumed, here are some more substantial things to think on:

What do all good ads and campaigns seek to do? Connect with their audience on an emotional level. These spots from Bose highlight how music makes us feel -- it's right there in the tagline for this campaign, "However you feel, really feel." Like this sweat-drenched ballerina, clearly exhausted, rubbing aching toes freed from pointe-shoes, taking a moment to herself while a drill sergeant of an instructor shouts orders off-screen. The ballerina couldn't be further away.

Next up is some sage advice on what to keep in mind when designing your website. If it's in the budget, it really behooves you to hire a developer and/or designer to work with you on a more customized site than you'd get with a Wix or Squarespace. By now you likely know that most people are accessing your site via mobile device, so make sure your site looks good on a smartphone screen. Is it full of slow-loading videos on the homepage? Require Flash? Get rid of it. Who cares how pretty your Flash site is if no one can process Flash on their phones. 

Big Facebook news this week as the go-to social media platform released its Q3 financial results on Wednesday. Hub & Spoke agency's president Ryan LaFlamme breaks down some of the highlights from this announcement and what it means for you. Highlights of the highlights? Facebook users now number 1.3 billion (!), Instagram now up to 500 million daily users and Instagram ads are a smart way to cut through some of the noise since it has 1/3 of the advertisers Facebook does. Thanks Ryan!

Wells Fargo, an American Bank best known for references made to it in the classic musical, The Music Man (what, just me?) launched a digital-only bank offering this week in an effort to "meet customers where they are." Digiday says the pilot program, aimed at new customers to the bank, is a "sign that personal finance management is becoming part and parcel of mobile banking." 

Did we all hear that Twitter superfan @RealDonaldJTrump had his account go down for a brief but glorious 11 minutes last night? It was apparently the work of a Twitter customer support employee on their last day of work, wanting to go out in a blaze of glory. We can only assume said employee looks like this:

via GIPHY

Well, now that Halloween's out of the way, we're already starting to see Christmas and holiday ads. Have you spotted any good ones? Let us know! Reach out to Outcrop on Facebook and Twitter.