It's been great :)

When I first started studying advertising, I joined the San Diego Ad Club and began looking into ad agencies in the area. I was immediately attracted to Bailey Gardiner and the work that they did. One of my goals as a beginning creative professional was to eventually get an internship at Bailey Gardiner. After a few years in school, countless hours working on my portfolio, and a few internships . . . I finally felt ready to take a shot at getting that internship at what is now known as i.d.e.a.

To make a long story short, I was ecstatic to be joining the i.d.e.a. intern team and to have the opportunity to work with the most talented and fun group of creative individuals in town! The i.d.e.a. team is by far the most exciting group that I’ve ever worked with!

During the short (but super sweet) time I’ve spent as an intern at i.d.e.a., I have learned many things. Here are a few of what I perceive to be the most important lessons I’ve learned:

1.     Always have fun! – the i.d.e.a. team always has a good time with everything they do. It’s a very exciting environment, and that is really inspiring to interns that are hoping to someday work in the ad world.

2.     Don’t be afraid to ask questions. – I’ve found that everyone in the office is always willing to answer questions and offer advice. This type of support is invaluable to young professionals, like myself.

3.     There’s no such thing as too much coffee. – Hence the Keurigs and      7-11 across the street. Perhaps you ate too much at lunch or didn’t get enough sleep last night . . . either way, coffee is the answer!

4.     Melina has the best seat in the office (the candy holding seat) – The best part about filling in for Melina during her lunch or at the end of the day is eating the candy! I will surely miss the endless supply of York Peppermint Patties and Reeses.

5.     i.d.e.a. doesn’t mess around when it comes to special occasions – Halloween in the i.d.e.a. office was a blast! The costumes were entertaining and the Halloween spirit was contagious. There were a wide variety of costumes ranging from Gary Warewolf and Heisenberg to a creepy clown and a pig in a blanket.

I have thoroughly enjoyed my time at i.d.e.a. and I’m sad for it to already be over. However, I am thankful for the people that I’ve met and the things that I’ve learned in the process. I couldn’t have asked for a better internship experience, and I’d like to thank everyone at i.d.e.a. for making my goal of working with them a reality. I am going to miss everyone, especially my fellow interns in the corral. Best of luck to everyone!

- Kirby Darland (cintern1)

Interactive Advertising Right Thur!

Well hello there! Being that I am the new ad intern 2 I know I have some shoes to fill. While reading some of the posts from previous interns, I gained some inspiration on “how to blog”, as well as some insightful things about this awesome agency called i.d.e.a.

From Classroom…

My previous quarter at the Art Institute, I was enrolled in a class called “Interactive Advertising”.  The class consisted of learning new and emerging technology as well as creating a case study for a client we got to choose that integrated some kind of interactive tech. I chose AVIS, and created a case study/ campaign with my fellow classmate  (i.d.e.a intern too!) Kirby. The problem I chose was simply parking. We created a campaign that included layer technology and an app that allowed AVIS customers to reserve their parking space through our mobile application. Any who, the class really got us to learn about all the fast moving technology that was emerging in this industry we call Advertising.  One of the things I noticed was that I was hearing about all these cool gadgets, but wasn’t really getting the chance to see them in real life action.

…To Real life

About a week or so ago, I was on my way to my hometown of Hawaii. A nice 10 - day getaway to lie on a beach, drink and eat all that Hawaii has to offer (Note to self, never weigh yourself while on vacation). On my travels there I had a layover at LAX. As I strolled and people watched through the hectic airport halls, I came across this lady touching a billboard that seemed to be interactive. Right away I whipped out my iPhone and started to discreetly video tape her playing with this billboard. After about a minute of trying not to look like a complete creepo, I waited till she was done, so I could play and be the one being recorded. The billboard was a matching game of traveling icons with a time you had to beat. As you can see in the picture below I was clearly horrible at this game.

The company behind this awesome technology is called Monster Media. They are an international full-service media company specializing in digital-out-of-home advertising. Basically these are the guys who create those crazy kiosks, storefronts, and anything that is probably catching your attention on a wall. One of their campaigns that I really enjoyed was for Cheerios. They created a vending station that was placed in the mall for kids and whoever to play a pairing game with their phrases. Participants were then given a box of cheerios that was dispensed from the machine and got to take a fun picture at the end. I found this to be really engaging with their target and remind them of why we love the brand Cheerios.

All in all, seeing this interactive billboard and actually getting to play with it really reminded me of why I love this industry and the excitement I have going in to it.

Cheers!

Keana - Adintern 2

Insightful Marketing Tips from Good Game Design

People are obsessed with games. And I’m not just talking about all those quote and quote ‘gamers’ out there.  It’s more than just the people who play xbox3 or wii; people now choose to interact with games on their mobile devices almost on a daily basis. From social games like Words With Friends or Draw Something, to games like Fruit Ninja and Angry Birds, people are interacting with games on whole new levels.  Why do people willingly choose to interact with games so much?

After watching two keynote lectures on good game design, I finally think I understand why everyone enjoys playing games in some form. What’s even more interesting about good game design is that it provides great marketing insight for us marketing people.  Here’s some great marketing insight I took away from the gaming world from Dr. Amy Jo’s keynote and Jesse Schell’s keynote lectures.

1.     Good Games understand their players: The Sims game is a perfect example of how game designers understand their players. Sims is designed as a life-simulation game that follows the gradual life cycles that people go through including both successes and failures.  A new Sims character will go through different life events depending on the choices and life that a Sim character makes, similar to the same choices people will make in their real lives. In Amy Jo’s keynote, she talks about how games understand their players’ different life cycles. As players move from a novice position to a regular player, their needs from games change. She advises that when designing a game to map out the different needs of players as they move from a novice beginner to a regular player to enthusiast.  Similarly, as marketers, we need to think about how to prepare our strategy to our target markets as they move through the purchase funnel. How we speak to a new consumer will be very different than how we speak to an avid fan of our brand. Just as it is important for game designers to map out the needs of their different players, we as marketers need to plan ahead for talking to different types of consumers.
2. Good Games interact with their players by teaching: How good does it feel to watch the stack crumble on Angry Birds and make it to a new level? Players enjoy figuring out how to get to the next level of difficulty. Jesse Schell made a point that people enjoy interacting with games because they always provide something new to learn or peak their players curiosity. Whether it is achieving a new level or a feeling of freedom, games provide people with those psychological needs. Although our brands/products do not always need to teach something new to our consumers, we need to think about teaching, as a fun & engaging way to interact with our consumers. Marketers need to remember that teaching our consumers through interactive campaigns about new products may lead to more engaged consumers.
3.   Good Games embrace intrinsic value like relatedness, and power: If you’ve ever played Bejeweled on Facebook, you’ll understand how intrinsic values like relatedness and power play a role in getting players to keep playing. After finishing a game of Bejeweled on Facebook, the application shows you your rank against people on your friends list. This ranking against people who matter to you versus beating strangers gives you a sense of power and relatedness to others, even if you have not interacted with them recently. Although the game itself may not change often, you may be more inclined to play as you see your friends beat your score.

In both keynote lectures, both speakers talked about how relating to people’s intrinsic values will always leave a lasting impression over extrinsic rewards. This is important point for marketers to understand, especially in our world of couponing, free promotions, and prizes. As marketers, we need to remember that our advertising, marketing, and PR needs to appeal to people’s intrinsic values like a sense of belonging, accomplishment, learning or greater meaning. Intrinsic rewards may lead to better sentiments with our consumers towards our brands/products in the long run than silly big prizes to extrinsically reward them. Is the reward system we are giving to our repeat consumers making them feel like they belong or apart of our brands or is it just an extrinsic prize for them?

So what do you think about these insights from great game design? Check out these great keynotes from Jesse Schell & Dr. Amy Jo on game design and let me know what marketing insight you have gathered from game design! 

Signing off from the intern coral –Kristie