O2 Creative Is Rebranding!

O2 Creative is Rebranding!

Why? After a few too many people thought were an oxygen bar we decided to develop a survey to identify our brand’s identity.

The survey results confirmed that we needed to rebrand in order to better convey what we do as a business, what we are capable of, where we work, and the types of industries we work with.

Here is some information on the process –

• We met to discuss direction: We like our color scheme of lime green, black, and white. (Good thing too because it matches our office and none of us enjoy or are great at interior painting.)
• We like our name: (Phew! That would be a lot of documents, addresses, etc. to change.)
• We are web-based: We’ve realized that in the past few years, our business has changed to be more web-based – (websites, web design, online marketing, SEO, etc.). Our new branding needs to reflect, and convey that…our current branding, logo, tagline, etc. doesn’t.
• Solution: We’re going to take on a whole new look, put ourselves first and develop a responsive website, design and develop handouts, business cards, etc. (We are getting a makeover folks!)

While our rebranding process is still underway, our team and designers have made great strides in giving our current logo a “facelift.”

Here is a sneak peak!

Our Old/Current Logo: We like it, we used to love it…but we need a change. We need something so FRESH and so CLEAN…like OutKast. Something that will clarify and convey who we are and what we do.

Our New Logo: The goal was to develop a simpler logo that has a greater range of use. When it comes to logos, the simpler the better. That way we will be able to “manipulate” our logo in order to fit each of the particular uses we have for it. (Fun Fact: Logos are getting smaller and simpler these days to conform with mobile sites, social media, etc. Just one of the many trends we are staying on top of!)

So our designer Jason started at the drawing board…

Then moved onto Illustrator where he took the concepts to create vector drawings derived from the sketches and ideas. (This is where the magic happens…)

Our team identified a direction…which we are excited to unveil in the next few weeks. Stay tuned!

Google and Your Website

Google and Your Website

 

“Starting April 21, we will be expanding our use of mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal. This change will affect mobile searches in all languages worldwide and will have a significant impact on our search results.”

– Google

What does that mean for your website? If your website is not responsive or mobile friendly, your mobile search engine rankings will take a hit. (Say goodbye to your first page rankings)

Why is this happening? Google is putting mobile users first, because mobile traffic is outweighing desktop traffic on the old “inter-web” these days…

Not sure if your site is mobile-friendly or responsive? Test it here

If your website is responsive, pat yourself on the back and go watch videos of cute puppies…

If your site is mobile-only, take a deep breath knowing your site will be safe from Google’s “mobile-pocalypse,” but you might want to continue reading to learn the many benefits of a responsive website.

If your website FAILED  you’ve got two options:

– Option 1: Create a mobile-only website that links to your website

– Option 2: Replace your website with a responsive website

Mobile-only design: This is a separate website specifically for mobile devices. (You will end up having two websites, one for desktop users and one for mobile users.)

Pros:

• Lower upfront cost
• Customizable for mobile users

Cons:

• Site needs to be maintained frequently for future browsers
• Higher long-term costs to maintain and update multiple websites
• SEO challenges – Google sees two websites vs. “piggy backing” on the sites
• Redirecting from desktop website slows the loading, hurting SEO

Responsive Website: This is an all-inclusive website that aesthetically fits whatever device (desktop, mobile, tablet…) users are browsing on.

Pros:

• Lower lifetime cost (less day to day maintenance)
• One website covers everything
• Very flexible among different devices
• Provides users with a unified experience no matter the device ~ ideal for branding
• Google recommends responsive – (Google is the BOSS..surrender for your business’ sake)

Cons:

• Higher upfront cost

The Trend: Google has specified that these changes are specific to mobile search results, however indicators suggest that Google will expand these rankings to desktop searches as well. With mobile devices outweighing desktop users, we recommend that businesses and organizations switch their websites to responsive or mobile-friendly now.

The Reality: So on April 21, 2015 Google’s mobile ranking algorithm will include their new mobile-friendly usability factors, either pushing your site’s mobile SEO rankings up, (if you’re mobile-friendly/responsive) or pulling your mobile rankings down if your website is not.

Contact us at O2 Creative for more information and to find out how this will impact your website. Don’t let your search ranking slip. Let us help you revamp your website and capitalize on Google’s new mobile ranking algorithm.

The Power of Advertising with Vehicle Wraps

• Advertising with vehicle wraps offer the lowest cost-per-impression of all advertising forms. Cheaper than billboards, newspaper ads, website ads, commercials, etc. (According to the Outdoor Advertising Association of America)

• Whether you are driving around, filling your car up with gas, or parked, your vehicle wraps are working for you! Why would not want to wrap your vehicle?

• 98% of passengers and drivers indicated that they spotted truck-side ads. That’s a pretty good percentage! Think of the opportunities you are missing out on not wrapping your vehicles?

• The average American spends 15 hours per week in a vehicle. Think of the opportunities for them to get familiar with your business?

• When you aren’t using your vehicle, increase your reach by parking it in a strategic position that will continue to promote your business.  Now that’s effective advertising!

• When your vehicle is wrapped you are marketing to pedestrians, bicyclists, and others who see you.  A lot of different demographics get covered when you cover your vehicle.

• Traffic and traffic jams become a prime advertising opportunity.  When life hands you a traffic jam…get advertising with vehicle wraps! 

Why we recommend using a Design Firm:

Without proper design and planning, your vehicle wraps will not reach their full advertising potential and give you the best return on investment. Ensure you are getting the best results from your vehicle wraps by working with a qualified design firm.

A design firm will work with you to guarantee your vehicle wraps will effectively promote your business, your brand, and provide key information that potential customers will use to find and contact your business in the future.

When it comes to advertising and design, the devil truly is in the details.  Designers will work out the simple details that make all the difference!

Small details designers will take into account:

• What colors stand out the best at different distances
• The fonts that are the easiest for individuals to read
• The shape and size of your vehicle
• The information you should include
• What information the wrap will convey in under 5 seconds

If you are going to invest in vehicle wraps, (and we don’t know why you wouldn’t want to) make sure you do it correctly the first time around!

O2 Creative would be happy to design and order vehicle wraps for your business. We are an experienced Graphic Design Agency in Winter Park CO. We have experience designing wraps for a variety of businesses with a variety of budgets, all of which have seen a positive return on investment. Contact us today to meet and discuss how vehicle wraps will promote your business. Email: [email protected]  Phone: (970) 726-8021

The Importance of Branding

Branding is one of the most overlooked aspects of a business, yet it is perhaps the most important.

What is Branding?

Brand is key to developing and facilitating perception of your business. It is what you are promising your customer and is what helps to differentiate your product and/or service from those of your competitors.

How to define your brand?

• What is the mission or goal of your business or organization?
• What separates your products or services from others?
• What is the current perception of your business or organization?

Take time to identify accurate perceptions through the use of surveys, interviews, focus groups, etc.Include all stakeholders that are involved and don’t assume.

• Consumers
• Community
• Employees
• Board members

What do you want the perceptions to be?

Next Steps

Design:

• Logo – come up with a great logo! – Don’t skimp on this, your logo will be the “face” of your business/organization
• Identify color schemes, layouts, placement, etc.

Brand Message:

• Write down key messages and attributes you want to convey with all individuals you come in contact with.
• Share these messages with employees so that they can incorporate them when representing the business/organization.

Voice:

• Create a “voice” for your business or organization that reflects your brand
• Use this voice in all written and verbal content

Create a Tagline:

• A tagline is a short, concise statement that captures your brand
• The tagline should be simple, yet memorable

Incorporate:

• Encompass your brand in all parts of your organization (Everything from answering your phone, email signatures, business cards, blogs, website, etc.)

Be Consistent:

• Consistency is key
• Remain true to your brand

Brand consistency in all Bike Granby Ranch collateral

A level of consistency remains throughout all Granby Ranch collateral

Think it is time to consider branding your organization or business? O2 Creative is here to help you should you need any help along the way. We can help with the entire branding process or just pieces of it. We specialize in defining brands, designing killer logos, creating visually effective websites, and more!

Contact us today:  970-726-8021, [email protected]

Winning at O2 Creative!

With over 4,000 entries from all over the world, we are excited to announce that we have been awarded not one, but TWO Silver Davey Awards by the International Academy of the Visual Arts (IAVA)!

What are the Davey Awards?

The annual International Davey Awards honors the achievements of the “Creative Davids” who derive their strength from big ideas, rather than big budgets.

We were awarded a Davey Award for the trail signage we produced for the Town of Winter Park and Headwaters Trails Alliance and another for the digital and print marketing we did for Winter Park Lodging Co.

Project: Trail Signs

Client(s): Town of Winter Park and Headwaters Trails Alliance

Fun Facts: 

• These projects combined took over a year to complete.
• 100+ signs were designed and printed.
• O2 Creative is now an expert in ‘wayfinding,’ (the organization and communication of our dynamic relationship to space and the environment).
• We took these very complex and detailed projects extremely seriously because what good is a system of signs if they don’t get travelers to the desired destination?

Design:

• We identified and used materials that would survive the test of time in this climate for years.
• Created designs that would be relatively simple to replace and add sections to cut down on future costs for Winter Park and Headwaters Trails Alliance.
• Used similar fonts and styles for the signs in Winter Park and the Headwaters Trails Alliance to create consistency and a unified feel throughout all trails in the area.

Favorite Parts:

• We truly enjoyed collaborating with Headwaters Trails Alliance and the Town of Winter Park on this project.
• Seeing the trails in use by locals and guests alike has been the biggest payoff.
• It’s cool to know that the trails will be enjoyed by thousands of people for years to come!

Project: Digital and Print Marketing

Client: Winter Park Lodging Co.

Fun Facts:

• We’ve been working with Winter Park Lodging Co. for 5+ years.
• Winter Park Lodging Co. has a lot of different clients they work with.
• We helped create content that would effectively communicate with all of those clients.

Design:

• We spent a long-time developing and tweaking the brand.
• Focused on keeping all pieces developed consistent with brand.
• Updated their website to display the luxury accommodations.
• E-newsletter template that reflects the overall brand.

Favorite Parts: 

• Seeing how the collateral we created has had a positive return on investment for Winter Park Lodging Co.
• Visually seeing the collateral working together.

We at O2 Creative hold all our work to our highest standards, and it is nice to know that our work meets the standards of the International Academy of the Visual Arts too!

So What Makes us Successful?

• High standards – We strive to ensure that all of our work exceeds our client’s wildest dreams!
• Inspiration – Look around us! The natural beauty in the Rockies never ceases to inspire!
• Collaboration – FACT: Teamwork makes the dream-work!
• Good Karma – You get what you put out there…
• Green Walls – There is never a dull moment when you’re surrounded by neon green and art!
• Pug-sulations – Consults with the pugs! You’d be surprised how opinionated (and right) they can be!
• Knowing our clients and their consumers – This is key!  

5 Benefits of Rebranding

Rebranding’s in the news again this week.

Pizza Hut unveiled a comprehensive new rebranding complete with new logo and new menu offerings – anyone else curious to try that honey Sriracha sauce? The news from Pizza Hut prompted us at O2 to hold numerous discussions this week about rebranding (we’re marketing nerds like that). With rebranding on our minds, we thought we’d use this week’s blog to discuss the ways a business can benefit from a rebranding. Here’s a quick list of 5 benefits of rebranding:

Rebranding keeps your business up-to-date. Perhaps your current brand is looking a little dated, or just doesn’t attract customers like it once did. Rebranding helps your business keep up with the times and helps you stay fresh in the minds of your customers.

Rebranding differentiates your business. Maybe your brand has been around for such a long time that you just don’t get noticed like you used to, or maybe your branding is just too similar to the branding of another business in your market. Rebranding creates individuality for your business. It helps you get noticed and stand out again, which leads to our next point…

Rebranding can revitalize your business. When your branding is new, it makes customers curious to see what’s new with you. Updating your brand both re-engages existing customers and catches the attention of new customers too. Consider a rebranding to breathe a breath of fresh air into your business, especially if a new strategy is involved. Speaking of which…

Changes in business strategy should be accompanied by changes in branding. If you’re making changes to the marketing strategy or to the product or service offerings of your business, consider a rebrand to go with it. Updating your brand acts as an illustration to your customers of the updates in your business’s offerings. This is especially true if your brand has or recently had a merger or acquisition in the works.

Technological innovations need branding innovations too. If advances in technology has changed the way your business operates – for instance, maybe you do a lot more business online these days – then a fresh rebranding is a good way to reflect your business’s operations.

These are just a few quick reasons why rebranding can be beneficial to your business. We could go on, but for now we’ll keep it at 5, for the sake of the blog. Of course, rebranding is frequently much more than just a new logo. It often involves a new marketing strategy and ad buys, new target audiences, new products and services, and more.

It can get overwhelming, and that’s where we at O2 come into play. We’ve branded and rebranded all sorts of businesses over the years, including even ourselves. We can help you through every step of the branding or rebranding process, and we’d be happy to do it for you. So if you’d like to discuss the benefits of rebranding your business, let’s have a chat. Please contact us soon!

To contact O2 Creative, call 970-726-8021 or email [email protected].

Click here for our last blog: O2’s local media survey.

Winter marketing

Summer is gone, September is here, and the seasons are changing yet again in the Colorado Rockies. (Labor Day really just came and went?? How’d that already happen!) We even had a dusting of snow along the Continental Divide this morning.

With the summer tourist traffic winding down and shoulder season just around the corner, now is the time to think ahead to winter in Grand County. The snowy months mean skiing, snowboarding, and lots of other cold weather fun. They also mean some of the heaviest traffic of the year, which means the busiest time of the year for many local companies.

To be prepared for the winter season’s business boom, your business needs to begin planning its winter marketing today! Getting your marketing and advertising initiatives in place means you can be fully prepared to capitalize on the snowy season’s tourist traffic.

Good marketing takes time. There’s plenty of planning, research, and coordination that can go into a campaign, not to mention graphic design, production and printing that may be involved. Starting early also means you’ll have time to fine-tune your campaign; to get your marketing message just right. This will not only help you attract more customers once they start arriving this winter, it can also make your customers aware of your business before they even get here.

Want to attract new customers with some posters and flyers, or a social media campaign? Want to increase your brand awareness with promotional products? Want to improve your online presence with blogging and search engine optimization? To have these and other marketing initiatives ready for the winter season, start preparing today.

We at O2 are about to launch a little marketing campaign of our own: we’ll be sending out direct mailer postcards to our clients and leads.

These postcards are a friendly reminder to get your marketing lined up in time to make the most of the upcoming ski season. When you see them, remember to contact us so we can get started soon!

Whether you have something specific in mind, or you just need help creating some effecting marketing initiatives, we can help. Contact us at O2 to start planning your winter marketing today!

To contact O2 Creative, call 970-726-8021 or email [email protected].

Click here for our last blog: a year in the new office!

D&M’s promotional products mix

O2 recently had the pleasure of working with Grand County’s own D&M Roofing Company on some design work. Specifically, we created a comprehensive collection of promotional products for D&M – shirts, hats, water bottles, magnets, even a big banner. To ensure consistency in branding, we kept the logo design consistent across D&M’s promotional products mix – same font, same blue letters, same recognizable red roofing hammer.

Once the designs were determined, it was time to get creative with the promotional products themselves. First up were the hats: we selected a high-quality New Era trucker-style cap, custom embroidered with D&M’s logo. Here’s Sophie the O2 office pug proudly modeling a D&M roofing hat for us:

Next up, shirts. We created cool V-neck t-shirts complete with D&M’s logo on both the front and the back. The shirts, as well as the hats, can be used as uniforms for D&M’s employees or as promotional items for their clients.

We also created branded water bottles for D&M Roofing. Promotional products such as water bottles are great items to give to potential leads. These branded items help your leads remember your business, which can ultimately turn leads into customers.

Branded magnets were also in the mix. We created white oval magnets complete with D&M’s logo (a logo that you probably recognize by now – see, all this promotional products marketing really is working!). The magnets also feature D&M’s contact information, including their phone number and website. Here’s the O2 office refrigerator with D&M’s magnets on display:

Finally, a banner. We created a durable outdoor vinyl banner for D&M to display, again with the same familiar logo; again communicating the company’s contact information. Here’s O2’s Jaryd displaying the D&M banner while pensively gazing off into the distance:

The shirts, hats, magnets, banner, and bottles are all part of a consistent mix of promotional products we created for D&M Roofing. From retaining existing customers; to converting new ones; to increasing brand awareness at job sites, trade shows, and even around town; these promotional products are tangible items that D&M can now use to make the most of their marketing efforts.

Promotional products can work as marketing tools for just about any sort of business as well. To discuss the benefits of promotional products for your business, or to learn about all the different kinds of promotional products we can create for you, contact us at O2 or visit www.o2promo.com today!

To contact O2 Creative, call 970-726-8021 or email [email protected].

Click here for our last blog: the O2 dogs!

Promotional Products from O2

O2 is pleased to announce yet another service we’ll be offering as an agency. In addition to providing top-quality graphic design, web design, and marketing services, we’ll now also be offering promotional products to our clients as well! Click here to view our promo products page!

Nowadays, promotional products are an increasingly important part of a business’s marketing mix. They’re a tangible symbol of your business that can really do a lot for brand awareness.

There’s virtually no end to the variety of promotional products we could create for you as well. We can design the coolest branded shirts, hats, and other apparel, which can be used both as uniforms for your employees, as promotional items, or even as business gifts to clients.

We can design your brand logo or message on office products, such as calendars or mouse pads. We can create coffee mugs, water bottles, or even tools and toys that can represent your business too.

Feel free to browse our promotional products page – click here to check it out!

Pens and key chains? We can do that. Bumper stickers for your car? We can do that, too. Branded pocketknives or mini-flashlights? Yup, we can do that too!

We think unique business-specific promotional products can be especially effective. From pizza-shaped magnets for your pizzeria to branded golf balls and tees for your golf course, we can get really creative with promotional products!

Of course, if you’d like to discuss promotional products in more detail, or if you have a certain promotional product in mind, contact us today! We can create the best promotional products that will take your marketing efforts – and the overall success of your business – to whole new levels!

Serving Grand County Colorado, Summit County Colorado, Winter Park, Fraser, Granby, Kremmling, Silverthorne, Dillon, Breckenridge, Frisco for all your Promotional Products. To contact O2, call us at 970-726-8021 or email [email protected] . To view our promotional products page, click here!   Click here for our last blog post: O2 helps to Save the Fraser River