In a GLG Minute: December 2011 | Interactive Agency Newsletter

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December 2011

Saving a Life? There’s an App for That

It’s not every day that a mobile app saves a life, but when Philips Healthcare asked Garrigan Lyman to create a mobile guide for a new line of automated external defibrillators (AEDs), we took the project to heart.

The Philips Healthcare mobile app guides iPad users through the steps required to save a life in the event of cardiac arrest. It’s a companion piece to online product demos GLG created earlier this year for the Philips AEDs. When GLG Web Producer Jenny Provenzano encountered a six-year-old boy at a local shopping center who was unconscious and not breathing, she took what she had learned during the mobile app project and performed CPR on the boy until medical aid arrived. So, while we’re certainly proud of the new mobile app for Philips Healthcare, we’re ecstatic about one of our own coming through when it really mattered.

Also in this issue:

Who’s Behind the Looking Glass?
The Death of Mobile Flash
Businesses Jump On Board Google+

Quick Hits

GLG Ranked #1 Agency

For the third consecutive year, The Garrigan Lyman Group has been named the #1 Design Firm in the Northwest by the Puget Sound Business Journal. We’re honored and grateful to everyone who made it possible.

Bangers, Mash, and Email for Breakfast

According to an ExactTarget poll, 58% of US consumers check email first thing in the morning, as compared to 73% in the UK, though the top morning fodder for teens was—no surprise—Facebook.

Tablets Catching Up to PCs

Tablet owners are almost as likely as PC or laptop owners to make purchases on their device, with event tickets, daily deals, and apparel being the top sellers on tablets.

Social Media No Longer a Toy

Fewer companies are describing their social media efforts as “experiments.” Nearly two-thirds of those surveyed report their social media efforts as heavy or average.

Small Business Going Large

Forty-one percent of surveyed small businesses will increase their social media budgets, with another 40% planning on bumping up email marketing.

The Language of Tweets

While English is the most popular language on Twitter, Arabic is the fastest growing, with a 6,600% increase in the past 15 months, says a recent Semiocast study.

Who’s Behind the Looking Glass?

To paraphrase the Cheshire Cat, “If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.” His advice is well heeded when you want a better media strategy.

If you extend that feline wisdom to media planning, you get, “If you don’t care about results, then any audience will do.” With an infinite combination of demographics, psychographics, lifestyle, and emotional triggers, any audience is most certainly the wrong one. To keep you from going down the wrong rabbit holes, GLG uses a powerful array of research tools that delivers rich and real-time insight into your customers’ life stage and mind-set, painting a vivid portrait of who they are. Besides helping us create more compelling and relevant messaging, that picture helps us find the perfect place to put your message. With the right consumer insight, the next questions—What? When? Where? and How?—begin to fall into place.

This is the second in a six-part series about the questions you should be asking when planning your media strategy. Curiouser and curiouser about the remaining questions? GLG Media Director Joe Huber is here to help.

The Death of Mobile Flash

Adobe’s recent announcement that it will soon stop providing Flash support for mobile devices has created quite a buzz. Garrigan Lyman looks beyond the noise to see what it means for your mobile strategy.

Apple’s refusal to support Flash may have been the biggest punch in the initial battle, announcing that it would abandon Adobe Flash support for mobile in favor of HTML5 in April of 2010. But when Microsoft recently piled on by announcing that the Windows 8 Metro style touch-screen version would not support Flash, it may have been the knockout blow. Reasons cited by Apple and Microsoft are battery life as well as security, reliability, and privacy for consumers. GLG continues to advise companies to leverage open technologies and build mobile experiences across platforms. Next month, we’ll share how Garrigan Lyman can help you create custom web and mobile experiences that align content with your target audience. To get a jumpstart on that discussion or any questions you may have about maximizing your mobile marketing, contact our CTO, Chris Geiser.

Businesses Jump On Board Google+

Google recently launched Google+ pages for business, the long-anticipated follow-up to its personal pages, and we think companies would be smart to include them in their social media strategies.

Although it only sports a tiny fraction of the users that Facebook has, Google+ seems poised to address the unique business needs that Facebook is not meeting. Businesses will easily be able to directly integrate Google’s most popular services, like YouTube and Gmail, into their Google+ pages. Its “Circle” feature will allow companies and brands to target specific groups and demographics within their database of users. Combine that with the full firepower of its analytics and SEO development, and we expect Google+ to make a lasting impact on social media. Get social and talk to one of our experts, Sara Ochs, about what Google+ can do for your business.

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