Seventeen years...

It's hard to believe we've been in business for seventeen years. We started out in the Nashville music and publishing industries—providing basic design for jobs their in-house or out-of-state agencies didn't have time to do. I remember working on a 500 page children's coloring book on an overnight bus that was driving through the cornfields of Illinois because it was steady work. We never turned down a job, worked many all-nighters and made many late night trips to the FedEx station at the airport to ship color proofs to a client out of state. All that hard work paid off in many ways—most importantly in relationships. From friendships with employees to mentoring from vendors, it has been a wonderful experience in every way. We've traveled the world shooting documentaries in China, Israel, Liberia, England and all over the United States.Working directly with big stars like Peyton Manning or humble entrepreneurs such as Bill Taylor have been rich experiences. Why the retrospective? As our economy struggles, we've all had to adjust our approach to business. In many ways we've had to revisit how we did things when we got our start. While it's not been easy, it has been fun and we look forward to what the future holds for our business, families, clients, vendors and community. We're very grateful for every person, experience and met deadline!

A Few Good Tips for Good Audio

A picture can tell a thousand words, but what if that picture is accompanied by bad audio? Will it be able to tell anything at all? It does not take years of experience as a "sound guy" to record quality audio for your video presentation. By planning ahead you can produce a project you'll be proud to show.

Always be prepared for outside, uncontrollable factors such as wind, industrial sized air conditioners, trains, cars, ham radio interference, hums, etc. You can plan ahead and prevent these kinds of annoyances from ruining your production by utilizing a professional windscreen (known as a "possum") for your lavaliere (lapel) or boom mic and scouting all locations before you shoot. Windscreens reduce wind velocity, which minimizes wind noise, pop noises and breath sounds from your interviewee. By taking advantage of a location scout you will have the chance to notice any unwanted noises and find ways to work around them or the opportunity to find another location that better suits your production needs.

Once while shooting a video project in Dallas we encountered radio interference on our lavalier mic that was coming from several possible sources such a nearby tv station, cell phone towers or a ham radio tower. No matter what channel we switched the mic receiver and camera transmitter to we got a nasty "hummm" in our audio feed. Having exhausted our known solutions we were forced to use a hand held mic taped to a steel rod that was kept out of the video frame. It worked. The moral of this story is to always take as many back ups as possible. Tape, cameras, mics, batteries, etc.

Audio is just as important as video in any production. A clean audio track will take any video project to the next level. Try listening to just the audio track from any program you currently like then imagine it without the audio. Plan ahead and make the effort to scout all locations before your shoot.

Navigation professionally produces a variety of audio and visual needs. http://www.navigationadvertising.com

Big Sales Boost with Email Marketing

By Tiffany Vance

E-mailing company newsletters and announcements are a great way to generate more business...when they are used correctly. Sending out e-mail blasts via an e-mail marketing service will allow you to successfully manage your contact lists and measure your results. They can show you how many were opened and which key content was clicked through to so you can gauge the effectiveness of your strategy. Your email list must be accrued through "opt-in" subscribers, not through bulk email lists sold through brokers. A smaller number of subscribers who care about your product or service is much more effective than thousands who have never heard of you.

One of the most important ways to get your newsletter or announcement read is through the subject line. Considering the how people think and react is essential. You may think you are announcing something that no one in the world will want to miss out on, but the reality is that people may be weary of being "sold". You must pay acute attention to those very few words in the subject line. One company that deals in stock investing found that when they would e-mail what people considered positive news, the unsubscribe rate was in the single digits and they received positive feedback. When they sent negative news, however, they received record single-day unsubscribers and little-to-no feedback.

Valuable content is another essential to receiving the proper response. While many subscribers may want to know what the latest sale is they may also appreciate helpful content derived from your expertise.

Another way to boost sales through e-mails is to resend the same blast. Many companies have found that by simply resending the same e-mail one week later to the addresses that did not open the original message increased response dramatically. Some choose to change the subject line and others do not. The beauty of using an e-mail marketing service is that you can experiment with your messaging and actually track your success rate with tangible numbers. Navigation Advertising has been providing email marketing services to clients for several years. We understand that the proper mix of creativity and strategy garners the results companies and organizations are looking for through Internet advertising. There's not a magic wand - it takes consistency, repetition and valuable content to succeed in email marketing.

The Ever Changing World of Advertising and Marketing

The Economy. Those two words are on the tips of everyones tongues these days. It's amazing how quickly things can change. Just a few years ago we were all talking about terrorism. Every industry has it's own "ese", i.e., words and phrases that are specific to that industry and the people in that industry understand, but others don't. In the world of advertising the phrases such as "branding", "direct response" and "demographics" have been part of the advertising "ese" for several decades. We are experiencing a profound change. The new "ese" includes words and phrases such as: 

"Tweeting", "Behavioral Targeting", "Keyword marketing", "Mobile media", "Rich media", "RSS", "Search Engine Optimization", "Social media", "Third-person recommendations", "Unique users", "Viral marketing", and "Wiki". These new words and phrases don't necessarily eliminate the "ese" that has been used for decades but they do provide insight into the new approach to promoting a product or service. There isn't one learning curve, there are several and the challenge for client and agency is to keep to the fundamentals while intelligently exploring progressive methods. Just because it's new doesn't mean it works, just as it doesn't always work because it worked in the past. Thoroughly confused now? Many are, but it's our job to use cutting edge technologies and methods without falling off the edge :)  <---- "emotioncons" is another word in the new "ese". 

Exploring Ad Design Philosophy with Chris Mabry

Designers love to create the best work possible. It doesn't matter what or who the work is for. We want it to be the best. In order to achieve the greatest success with our work we study type trends, what this season's newest hottest colors are and what next season's will be. We analyze what photography styles are relevant for the products and brands for whom we are designing, and then make the appropriate decisions that will achieve our clients desired results.
Good work may look ok and get a small a bit of attention but great work will be engaging and memorable. Great work can actually gain a percentage of the market share for our clients. Great work will make a difference for our clients and the services their brands offers.

An old mentor once told me, "to be a player in the game you must be a student of the game." Designers must constantly remain diligent about the current climate of our industry and how to take advantage of the new tools provided but never forget the basics. Great design achieves a desired result. It keeps the audience coming back.

Some basic principles we live by:

1. Readability is the most important issue in commercial advertising design. Too often we see attractive designs that can't be deciphered by the viewer, which defeats the purpose of commercial advertising design. For example a billboard should have no more than 8-10 words because most viewers are traveling past the board at 70 mph and need to get the message quickly - they don't have time to read several lines of copy.

2. Less is More. The typical print ad is seen for less than 2 seconds, which means the designer must create the ad to capture the viewer's attention immediately. If the ad is stuffed with too much content the viewer has too much to focus on and ultimately sees nothing. This principle applies to most things in life - consider the design of home décor, clothing or automobiles. Often a client wants their ad to say everything they offer - which is a tragic mistake because no one, including them, looks at advertising to educate them selves on every aspect of a service or product. We look at advertising to determine if we want to pursue the product or service further. Ads are like road signs - or should be.

3. Form follows function. The color palette, fonts styles, use of positive and negative space and images must all work together to support one thing - the message. What do you want the viewer to do when they see your ad? Call an 800 number, visit a website, remember your brand, rush to your sale? We first ask our clients, "What is the purpose of the ad and what do you want the viewer to walk away with after seeing your ad?" After that is determined then we design with that purpose in mind. All elements should support the ads purpose. We use hero images, headlines, subheads, line, color and positive and negative space to direct the eye to the main focus of the ad - the message.

- Chris Mabry
Art Director / Designer

So much more than an office job!

Plane rides, car accident scenes, body builders, politicians, restaurants and more restaurants, history, music, weddings, real estate, children homes—you name it I have probably been involved with a video about it!

The past three years of my life have been spent working for Navigation Advertising and Adventure Video Services to produce videos of all kinds. I have traveled to from Washington D.C. to Montgomery, AL as well as small southern country towns.

Each video production has been unique and opened my eyes to different places and people. Not everyone is fortunate enough to get paid for doing what they love. Visual story telling through video is my primary gift and I enjoy every minute of it.

One of the most recent video projects I shot and edited was a demo reel for motivational speaker, Dale Smith Thomas. Dale's presentation at Murfreesboro's newest hotel and only convention center, The Embassy Suites, was my first time shooting in high definition. Our multi-cam set up included three Panasonic AG-HVX-200’s that recorded directly to P2 cards. Wow! This made “capturing” the footage in Final Cut twice as fast! While editing her speech into a 10-minute demo reel I was not only able to practice editing and exporting high definition video but also truly became inspired by her encouraging words. What a great way to start 2009!

- Kristen Archer, Video Production Manager

Ecommerce: Custom Shopping Cart vs. Paypal

Cost
One of the main deciding factors between using Paypal and a Custom Shopping Cart is going to be the number of items for sale. With few items, it is more economical to simply use Paypal (they charge a small fee per transaction, and setup is free). A shopping cart will require the purchase of the cart engine ($299-$???) and an SSL certificate ($149) which must be renewed yearly.

Management
The advantage with a shopping cart is that if you have lots of items it can (literally) manage those easier, were-as using Paypal (each item by hand) would be tedious and inefficient. When we create an online store for a client we ask, "do you want to manage your products, pricing, shipping, discounts, inventory, image posting, and most importantly, how many products will you ultimately be selling?" These basics pieces of info are absolutely vital to developing a proper online shopping cart experience.

Look
A shopping cart is typically more advantageous because it's easier to keep a consistent graphic look by designing it to look like the parent website; thus, it looks more professional. However, there is a lot of time spent on the front-end doing the custom styling to match the parent website. When using Paypal, the user clicks a button which will redirect the user to a Paypal purchase window (leaving the parent website) where they will select the amount of the product they want, and proceed with checking out. Yet, a shopping cart is self-contained in that all the information and confirmations are handled within the parent website.

Examples
For a visual, we refer you to the Murfreesboro Symphony Orchestra and Secure Product Sales (MSO uses Paypal, and SPS uses a custom Shopping cart).
SPS: http://www.secureproductsales.com/
MSO: http://www.murfreesborosymphony.com/tickets/

Happy Online Shopping!
—Josh Morrison, Senior Web Designer, Navigation Advertising