Eric L. Steckel

eric@bars-tone.com

@EricSteckel

As BARS+TONE has evolved, we have moved from being a tactical service provider to a Creative Video Agency. But, what does that mean?

• Creative  means we come up with ideas that are compelling and engaging.  We want our client’s efforts to catch the eyes of their audience and keep them there as well.

• Video stands in the middle and represents the foundation of much of what we do. However, as we grow, our client’s needs change, as does the technology, which has become just a part of what we do.  We’re video pros! But, a good marketing strategy includes more than that these days.

• It’s the agency side of the equation that probably represents the most important part of our evolution. Simply put, we have moved from producing tactical marketing communications services to developing strategic solutions for our clients.  The most engaging and compelling content is worthless if it isn’t strategically placed and included with an encompassing set of tactics.

It is important to understand the difference. A strategic solution will reach your target audience, engage them and elicit the desired response because your messaging and creative is grounded in sound research and an understanding of your target audience. Tactical elements are the tools that a marketer uses to reach that audience, be it an online video, a banner ad, a website or a mobile application. Based upon a sound strategy and a finite budget, a good marketer will choose the appropriate tools to reach their audience. We’ve built our reputation on providing those tools and now we want to help our clients with the strategy.

Producing tactical elements is an important part of an integrated marketing solution. However, in a vacuum, or outside of a strategic plan, tactics do not always equal the sum of their parts. When asked to produce tactical elements, we always ask about the research that went into creating these tactics, the messaging and creative. It is important that all of these elements are clearly thought out in order to ensure that the tactic is indeed effective. Otherwise, you run the risk that a well-executed tactic might not reach and engage its audience.

What makes BARS+TONE A Creative Video Agency? As an Agency, digital or otherwise, it is far better for us to work collaboratively with our clients in putting together a strategy that is grounded in the fundamentals. From there, the tactics will stand a much higher chance of increasing your ROI.

We know, We know…normally we don’t pick a game as an “App of the Week”, because we don’t want to get caught playing one at work.  Having said that, this is our new favorite game.  Brought to us by our hometown hero: Zynga, “Scramble With Friends” must be their most addicting words game yet.  Most people know about the “…with friends” games, but this one is fairly new.  Scramble with friends gives you a 4×4 square of letter, with which you have to come up with as many words as possible in a certain amount of time.

Sound easy? Well, try it for yourself.  See how anxious you get trying to pull words out of the top of your head!  We’ll give you a first time pointer: A whole bunch of really short words could gain you a ton of points.  Use your coins to purchase Power-Ups, you’ll need em’.  Use “Freeze” to give yourself extra time, Inspiration for a little extra word help, and Scramble to well…yeah scramble the words.  The thing that makes this game so much fun is the social aspect.  Play your friends on Facebook or  a smartphone.

So go on! Download this one for free (or pay 1$ for no ads).  You’ll have a blast challenging your friends to the ultimate vocabulary battle.

What’s  your favorite app right now?

This App (and website) is based out of Seattle and is similar to Pinterest, in that users share photos and create “board-like” collections.  The main difference is that Lockerz rewards its users with points that they can use to to purchase prizes for their sharing, viewing, and collecting efforts.  They even give you 500 “ptz” just for signing up.

The site seems to mostly revolve around decalz.  Decalz are pictures that you can create collections of.   The user earns points for grabbing decalz from the web and sharing them on the site.

The ability to earn points  from watching music videos was what sold us!  Why not? The first video we watched was “Fat Boy Slim – Weapon of Choice”.  Shortly after the video ended, the “ptz” were deposited in our “ptz” bank.  We’ll be playing around with this app for a bit.  After all, we could all use a new pair of headphones for our desks…

Download this app from the App Store for free today (and play with it on the full site as well)!

What apps are you using to make life awesome? Share em’ with us!

Austin Allen

@austin_sf

austin@bars-tone.com

With Social Media Week fast approaching, (#SMWSF) we’ve compiled our Top 5 To-Do’s During Social Media Week SF!  These are the events you will probably see at least one BARS+TONE team member at, and let’s face it, wherever we go there’s a party going on.  Keep in mind, there is a ton of interesting content, but these are some of our favorites!

#1 February 13th 2pm – 4pm: “Email & Social Media: The New Rules of Engagement” @ Trulia.  Come learn how to grow your business with email and social media working together in harmony! The folks from Constant Contact will be lending their knowledge to the masses and we hear a certain Social Specialist (@justinSF) might be on the panel as well…

#2 February 14th 3pm – 3:50pm: “Social Insights Shoot-out” @ Razorfish.  Check this one out to learn how to use social insights to develop takeaways on a specific topic.  In this event, 4 contestants will compete to show the audience what they found using social data and vote accordingly.

#3  February 15th 4pm – 6pm:  “Zipcar Networking Happy Hour” @ Dada.  This one should be rockin’!  Of course we’ll be there in full force, after all BARS+TONE is a big supporter of green initiatives!

#4 February 16th 4:30pm – 7:30pm: “The Social”, hosted by yours truly BARS+TONE and Scoutmob SF @ The Penthouse, 1550 Bryant St.  What would Social Media Week be without the most awesome happy hour complete with full bar and views of the city.  This is the event where folks will go to see, and be seen.

#5 February 17th 6pm – 9pm: “Social Media Week San Francisco Official Closing Party” hosted by Beyond @ 111 Minna.  Of course we’re gonna close out SMWSF with a bang! Super excited to hit up this event  for the food, drinks, and music.

Alright, so maybe we’ll be doing a lot of partying next weekend. But what is Social Media if you don’t wake up the next morning and have a Facebook tag that you don’t remember?

As video people, we found this app exceptionally cool!  Showyou connects to some of your favorite social media accounts and aggregates the videos your friends are sharing.  With multiple devices supporting the app: iPad, iPhone, Apple TV, and on your web browser, ShowYou makes collecting your favorite videos easier than ever. The app is compatible with Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Vimeo.  I’m sure more platforms are on the way…

The “Grids” tab displays a feed of videos from channels you are following, and a feed of popular videos being shared on the app.

Easily add videos to the “Watch Later” tab to store them for future viewing when you don’t have time to watch all the videos your friends are sharing.

When you watch a video on Showyou, you can easily comment, add to grid, and share the video to your social media accounts with one click.

Austin Allen

@austin_sf

Austin@bars-tone.com

For this “That’s HOT @ BARS+TONE” I chose 5 videos, from artists I’ve never heard of or listened to, that blew me away with awesome music video greatness.  As a Creative Video Agency, we strive to expand the boundaries of creativity and video production; these videos hit the mark! They are weird, edgy, quirky, musical, and more.

I choose this video for it’s smokey yet eerie look combined with some pretty cool electronic sounds.  The chorus of the song is catchy in a weird sort of way.  Watch their eyes at the end…

This video puts the band members (among others) in some very creative environments.  My favorite one was the head in fishbowl.  I’m not sure what exactly they were going for with this but I love it!

Had to throw this one in for Justin, but really, this is an awesome music video.  The choreography and general weirdness of her videos makes them more interesting than your garden variety pop videos.

I decided to include this video because of the animal puppets.  That’s it.

Nostalgia.  The clothing, dancing, cinematography and music all seem to bring the viewer back to a different place.  The floating in mid air was cool as well.

There you have it. Five awesome music videos that I would argue have broken out of the norm.

Got a cool music video to share? Post it below!

This one is for those of you who like to travel (who doesn’t)!  Hipmunk is a relatively new start-up that resides right here in the Hamm’s Building with us, so you know they’re hip.  The brains behind this company include some of the founders of Reddit.  We love the mascot for this awesome app, a chipmunk dressed to travel around the world!  We would love to see a hipmunk themed YouTube series on this character.

Hipmunk will help you find the best deals on airfare and hotels by compiling all the different dates, times, and prices into an easy to see timeline.  They include all different hotels and airlines in their searches.  The hotels have trip TripAdvisor stats listed and the potential traveler can click on any hotel to find out more information.  The airfare side of the app allows you to pick your class of seating and even shows Amtrak fares for an easy comparison between flying and taking a train.

For now, the app does hotels and airfare only, but we can see some great potential for this app to expand it’s reach to all different travel businesses.  What grabbed our attention for this app is the simplicity of the user interface and usefulness of the app.  We’ll probably be booking our next trip through Hipmunk.

Got a cool app to share? Post it below!

Travelzoo is a deal app geared specifically towards travelers! It has a larger selection of vacation packages than it’s fellow deal sites such as Livingsocial and Groupon.

The app interface is pretty straight-forward; we love the simplicity and user-friendly interface.  The home screen has a couple different sub-categories that are easily distinguishable.  Check out the Top-20 for ideas, or search through local deals in your area (make sure to put your location in the settings first).  You can also see deals by city or click “travel deals” and narrow your search to  airfare, car rentals, cruises, and more!

Our favorite tab was the “photo mosaic” tab under “inspire me”.  This tab will show you a mosaic of pictures from the deals they recommend.  Click on one of the pictures and be shown more info about that deal.  Great for someone who doesn’t know what they want to do! Vegas anyone?

Download this one from the app store today, and check back next week for another great “App of the Week”!

This week’s App of the Week award goes to ShopKick!  Check in to your favorite local restaurants and shopping destinations and earn points just like Foursquare.  But what sets this app apart is the ability for users to redeem points for gift cards and other cool prizes.  Invite your friends and gain points from that as well.  Some stores earn you more kicks than others.  Save up 6,250,000 kicks and use them to buy a Princess Cruise Trip!   We thought it was cool that they even let you suggest rewards to add to their rewards store! Talk about user friendly…

From a marketing perspective this app is pretty cool because business small and large alike can partner with them to offer deals and promotions.  A few companies that are working closely with shopkick are Best Buy, Macy’s, and Target.  These companies tend to earn you more kicks but are also some of the gift card options for redeeming points.

Get rewarded for your check-ins with shopkick.  Download it for free from the App Store today!

Got a cool app? Share it below!

As expected, our Ugly Sweater contest triggered a lot of interest. Many of you uploaded images that included both animated facial expressions and clever copywriting skills in the captions. What we didn’t anticipate were all the masks, costumes and pets. True creative engagement, but beyond our initial plan.

When we assembled finalists, we were faced with a quandary. Although we were impressed by imaginative thinking “outside the box,” only some of the entrants followed the contest instructions, using their own faces and adding a caption. One of those, Bret Blount, made it into the finals.

Because he abided by the original concept without relying on pets, outfits or props – aside from the sweater cut-out – our top winner is Bret. However, we applaud the outstanding creativity of the other finalists and we will be sending each one of them a special prize.

This outcome is quite ironic, since Bret happens to work for ALCHEMYcreative, a friendly rival of BARS+TONE!

It’s often difficult to predict how people will respond to first-time promotional contests. Yet during the judging, we felt a need to remain impartial, objective and stringently fair in selecting a winner who played by the rules – even when that now means tipping our hats to a respected competitor.

Congratulations, Bret! And may “Cheer and Joy” continue to be yours in the New Year.