A little spring cleaning this week reminded me of a bunch of items I really like but just haven’t had the time to get to.

ZAGG sent an all-in-one press kit of accessories for the new iPad, although many of them can be used with any portable media device.

Included was the invisibleSHIELD ($29.99), the company’s patented protection cover film for the touchscreen.

When using it you still get 100 percent access to the device’s functions, as if you didn’t have anything on the screen.

ZAGG made the cover, which the company says is made from a product that was first used on U.S. Military helicopter blades and is now available for over 5,000 of today’s portable electronics.

My favorite item is the ZAGGsparq 2.0 6,000 mAh portable lithium polymer battery charger ($99), which supplies more power on the go than most any other portable battery I have seen of its size.

I gave a full charge to my iPhone and iPad at the same time with the dual USB ports, and it still had a little juice left in it. To recharge it just fold out the prongs to plug in to any standard household AC outlet.

While it’s recharging up you can charge you devices in the pair of USB ports.

The ZAGGfoam ($9.99) cleans all your devices and the ZAGGsmartbuds ($49.99) let you get the tunes from the devices to your ears in comfort.

www.ZAGG.com

CurrentWerks USB Outlet Quattro is a standard size AC wall outlet but instead of standard AC ports, it has four USB ports.

The ports can all be used at once and deliver an output of 22 watts.

According to CurrentWerks it has been tested to meet all of today’s UL testing;  a full list of the safety testing standards is available at the company’s website.

It’s available in white, ivory and light almond for $39.98 each.

www.currentwerks.com

Microsoft makes a lot of web cameras and it seems like I get a new one from them weekly. It might not be that often but each once seems to better than the previous.

The most recent is the LifeCam HD-3000, which has a great saying “your video is worth a thousand texts” on the box.

As expected, the camera is simple to work; it mounted right on my monitor and delivered an outstanding image.

Along with video conferencing, the camera can capture true 720p HD video.

It’s made with Microsoft’s TrueColor Technology that delivers a crisp clear image with vibrant colors.

www.microsoft.com/hardware

The Soma Stand from XtremeMac is one of what seems like a never ending line of portable audio sound systems with docking stations for playing and charging your Apple device.

The dual speaker system works with four AA batteries (not included) for up to six hours of portable use. It also charges and operates with the included AC adapter.

It has a line-in jack for other MP3 devices and folds up for easy portability and storage.

Users can download the XtremeMac Alarm clock app to turn the system into a nightstand alarm clock.

www.xtrememac.com $56.70

The Jabra Journey in-car speakerphone, along with your Bluetooth-enabled cellphone, combines to make a handsfree combination.

Once you pair it with your phone, the connection is automatic.

It’s built with an HD Voice mic to let callers hear you clearly and has noise cancellation to block out background noise.

The battery life is great since it has an auto on/off feature and charges a microUSB cable or car charger, both of which are included

An added feature lets you pair two Bluetooth devices to the speaker simultaneously.

www.Jabra.com

Contact Gregg Ellman at greggellman@mac.com.
Follow him on Twitter: @greggellman.
2012, Gregg Ellman.

Many of our entrants will be extremely pleased, others will be disappointed. This is the 15th year that the Association of Marketing and Communication Professionals has judged competitions and we don’t take it lightly that what we do is important to many people.

There were over 4,700 entries in this year’s Hermes. It took our judges about eight weeks to carefully scrutinize each ad, publication, marketing plan, website, video etc.  It might sound trite that each year the quality of the materials improves.  But, the fact is that people who don’t do good work, don’t enter competitions.  If you win a Hermes Creative Award, you deserve it.  If you didn’t win, you probably still deserved it, but we are only human and doing the best we can.

Regardless of the results, we recognize that everyone would like to see a written critique for each entry.  Unfortunately, we all have limited life spans and don’t have enough time to write detailed, defensible critiques for each of the over 10,000 entries that AMCP receives each year.

If you would like to see some of the entries, we highlighted a few of the outstanding or unusual ones on this blog.  These were not necessarily meant to be the best of the best.  We only publish entries that we receive online, and have been granted permission to do so.  AMCP recognizes that many of our entries are proprietary in nature, are done for the government or are entered by creative people who don’t have specific permission from the client they did the work for (the red tape for getting permission would in many cases preclude entering).  So we protect the privacy of your entries.  In fact, entries do not leave our facility and are destroyed or recycled immediately after judging.

If you were one of our winners in 2012, congratulations. If you weren’t, I guess we’ll be hearing from you.

Each year, the judges see the best work produced by the biggest agencies with the largest budgets. However, only a small percentage of the creative industry has the time and resources to produce a project that is the best of the best.  A shortage of time, budget and manpower however, should never be a limiting factor for creative ideas, artistic design or imaginative writing.  Our judges are all long-time experienced professionals who live the process and know how difficult it can be to take a mundane product and a small budget and make it sing.  Based on their experience and an expectation formed by analyzing the client and materials, they are often more impressed with the work of a small agency working on a local project, than the work of a team from a New York agency working for a Fortune 500 client.  One of our favorite entries over the years was the resourceful work of a public relations person for a small non-chain New York City boutique hotel.  She came up with the simple idea of writing a story about items that her client’s customers left behind in their hotel rooms.  Over a couple of months, she conducted a survey that revealed surprising and interesting stats on the percentage of forgetful people and what they forgot.  She included insightful comments from chambermaids about some of the unusual items.  The story was picked up by the Associated Press.  It ran in New York City and newspapers throughout the country.  Business immediately skyrocketed from the millions of impressions that it generated.  The genius was that it took virtually no money to produce a major impact for the client, and any hotel in the country could have done it.

That being said, it does help to have a large budget to design and produce a truly memorable printed piece.  Below is an entry from Hilton Worldwide which is one of the most all around outstanding pieces we have ever received.  It is a 200 page brochure for lobby design (forgive us but we condensed it to 11 pages).   It was entered in the Publication Overall category. Where do you start?  Cover? Design? Photography? Writing? Wow.  We’d all like to be part of a project like this.

Instructions are included for opening some devices but caution should be used when opening anything to prevent damage to the case or the contents.

Once you have your device open, it’s simple to replace batteries (also sold at NewerTech) and do other simple repairs.

In most situations just insert the tip of the flexible steel blade into the seam of the device and then widen the cover from the back to unlock the clips.

NewerTech does have a warning about the iSesamo, “This tool is made of metal and can scratch the casing or glass of your device” so caution should be used.

www.newertech.com $9.99

A fish eye, macro and wide angle lens are included in the olloclip lens attachment for iPhones.

The ever-growing world of iPhoneographers will love the choices, which can be changed in seconds.

With the wide angle lens, you’ll get the viewing angle expanded by 2X. The focal distance for the macro is 6-inches and the fish eye will give you about a 180-degree field-of-view.

The lens snaps on and off the iPhone 4 or 4S in seconds since it fits like a glove but beware that it might not fit properly if you have a screen protector on your LCD.

According to the company, “The olloclip was designed to work with a ‘naked’ or ‘caseless’ iPhone.’’

As for results, the lens worked great for all its functions. An iPhone’s camera does have its limitations, but since I always have it on me, a camera is always nearby. Adding the three lenses only makes this better.

When not in use, the lens comes with a cover and a microfiber material case for storage and cleaning.

http://olloclip.com $69.99

The glif is a great little device for mounting your iPhone 4 or 4S onto a tripod or other photography accessories.

The recyclable rubberized plastic adapter is about 3-inches long and snaps onto your phone (again, beware of use with screen protectors) and has a standard threaded tripod (hole is on the bottom) for easily attaching it many accessories that accept this type of attachment.

It works in both portrait or landscape angles and can attach to your phone to prop it up on a flat surface for a movie stand.

There’s not a lot to this product but it works great and only costs $20.

www.studioneat.com

The NCredible NErgy high performance in-ear headphones from Monster sound great and has a unique feature, which I always like in a product.

When your tunes aren’t playing you can just snap both earbuds together to let them hang round your neck.

This way they stay tangle-free and easily accessible in the event a call comes in since they also have a built-in mic with Monster’s Universal ControlTalk for phone calls.

As for the sound, they are what we have come to expect from any Monster headphones with clear sounds and lots of strong bass.

www.monstercable.com $69.95

Contact Gregg Ellman at greggellman@mac.com.
Follow him on Twitter: @greggellman.
2012, Gregg Ellman.

How do you visualize something you can’t see?  The Chapter Media of New York City created a commercial that captures both the beauty and practicality of wind.  Using breathtaking cinema photography and imagery, the commercial turns a message into a movie.  Wind power anyone?

You don’t have to be a snowboarder to enjoy this website.  Through incredible animations, Dutch Monaco transports players to the ends of the earth.  Vicarious thrill seekers hurl down mountains in Siberia and blaze through snow tunnels in Antarctica.  The web animation was created for Canadian gaming company EA Sports for its Super Snowcross video games.  You don’t have to own a PS2 to go on this ride.

http://blog.amcpros.com/jobs/week-of-042312/

National Communication Job Postings

Week of 04/23/12

Recently I moderated a Dallas Press Club panel for journalists who were looking for new career paths due to layoffs in their field. The question came up, “Will there still be journalists in 20 or 30 years?”

It’s an interesting question that I often hear, and I have two answers. First, yes, there will always be trained journalists who we rely on daily for accurate, unbiased news reporting. And second, we will ALL be journalists due to the rapid explosion of social media.  In many regards, we will come to rely on both types of journalists for our news.

Let’s take the recent tornado outbreak in Dallas/Fort Worth as an example. As you may know, approximately 15 major tornadoes struck DFW one afternoon during the work day. At our office, we were glued to the local television stations reporting both the tornado damage and weather reports. (Yes, we did go to the stairwell at appropriate times.)

We had the TV helicopters giving us the live footage of the 18-wheelers flying through the air and the tornados forming in the sky. At the same time, “citizen journalists” were sending in their photos and footage from the ground, augmenting the official coverage from the TV stations.

It is this combination of two types of journalism that gives us a more full and accurate view of news events. Until recent years, we had to rely solely on formal news organizations to give us the news. Now we can all contribute to the news cycle by being in the right place at the right time.  Just look at the passengers on the JetBlue flight who got the only footage of the pilot going crazy as the plane was in the air, and whose footage subsequently went viral both through traditional outlets and social media channels.

As a former journalist, however, I know that we will always need “real journalists” to interpret, investigate and report on the news on a macro scale to give us the full story. And it distresses  me to see so many good journalists being laid off or choosing to leave the field. I can only hope  students keep taking journalism and aspire to become true reporters.

Sincerely,

A newspaper mogul once remarked that to sell newspapers all you need is a picture of a pretty girl, a child, and a dog.  Aetrex Worldwide dropped the kid and the mutt but still managed to make an impression.  Using a a wink and a nod approach to sell shoes, Aetrex placed a pretty woman into a bathtub and captioned the image, “don’t forget to take them off”.  The colorful ad graced the pages of CondeNast Traveler and Lucky Magazine.

]]> http://blog.amcpros.com/2012/04/18/hermes-submission-6/feed/ 0 http://blog.amcpros.com/2012/04/17/hermes-submission-5/ http://blog.amcpros.com/2012/04/17/hermes-submission-5/#comments Tue, 17 Apr 2012 20:53:32 +0000 admin http://blog.amcpros.com/?p=1997 Read The Rest →]]> Winner: Columbus Metropolitan Library
Client: Columbus Metropolitan Library
Title: CML’s 2011 Summer Reading Club
Category: 34c. Integrated Marketing Campaign

With dvd’s, computers, Internet, ipods, gaming, and cable television within easy grasp of most kids, reading would seem to be lost among the competition for attention.  When’s the last time anyone went to a public library, especially a child?  The Columbus Metropolitan Library faced a daunting task–get people reading again.  The Summer Reading Program built a fully integrated campaign around the theme, “Be a Hero. Read”.  The CMS reached out to the community using social and traditional media.  Logos, graphics, and celebrities also were brought into the marketing mix. The creative campaign resulted in a 20% increase in participants.  Almost 90,000 kids, teenagers, and adults signed on to be ‘heroes’.  Reading is alive and well in Columbus, Ohio. Community Heroes YouTube page