Idea Market is going to the ALTO Awards!
Written by Nicole Braseth Tuesday, 30 September 2008 11:48
Every year Travel Alberta celebrates Alberta's 4th largest industry with the Alberta Tourism Awards (aka the Altos). This year, Idea Market is proud to announce that with our help, our client Central Alberta Tourism has been selected as a finalist in the Marketing Partnership category.
This particular category recognizes the marketing achievements of two or more organizations coming together to work towards a common goal in the the tourism industry. In CAT's case it was 9 communities working together (no small feat!) to create the Alberta Sweet 16.
We've talked before about this project (creating the website and branding), so let's talk results...
• In addition to the 16 main events there were 931 secondary events posted to the website
• 7,643 unique visits to the site
• 9,480 total visits (the set goal was to receive 5000 visits in the April-August time period)
• Our target markets (Edmonton and Calgary and their surrounding areas) were effectively reached through Google AdWords; Edmonton, Calgary and Red Deer were the top 3 locations from which the most visits came from.
But above all, we believe that the success of the partnership was really determined by how much was accomplished in such a short amount of time (CAT will be only a year old in November), and with so many partners. Typically you can count on alot of bureaucracy where each partner has to report back to their communities before making decisions, but in the case of the Alberta Sweet 16, all of the partnering communities did their best to curb the red tape and just get the ball rolling, which is an attitude that will continue to serve them well in the future.
The Alto winners for 2008 will be announced on Oct. 27 in Banff at the Travel Alberta Industry Conference.. we'll let you know how Central Alberta Tourism fares! All of the finalists for the ALTO awards can be found here.
Click on the images below to see the application package that got us in the door!
{gallery}sweet16{/gallery}
New client - Jasper Tramway
Written by Carson Pierce Saturday, 27 September 2008 00:00
We are excited (and perhaps a bit dizzy) to welcome the Jasper Tramway to the Idea Market roster of clients. Steve originally met the Jasper Tramway general manager, Alex Rayner at the 2007 Travel Alberta conferencea and obviously impressed on him that we knew our stuff when it came to tourism marketing. When their marketing plan expired and they needed both an update and a fresh perspective, they remembered us and gave us a call.
As part of our research into developing the the Jasper Tramway's marketing plan, Steve and Carson drove up to Jasper this past weekend to meet with their marketing manager, Todd Noble. At 7472 feet above sea level and overlooking one of the most spectacular views on the planet, it was definitely not an ordinary meeting setting. We also managed to sneak in an interview for the Point B podcast.
Armed with fresh statistics and excited about working with such a prominent tourist attraction, we've already been in contact with Travel Alberta and Parks Canada to get the inside scoop on the marketing challenges and opportunities facing the tramway.
Since they're already doing a great job with things like partnerships and advertising, our focus will be on less traditional elements such as facility upgrades and staff training. We also plan on getting quite in-depth on what the tramway should be doing online, both on its own website and on user-generated review sites like TripAdvisor.
24-7 Video Tours Website Redesign: New Project!
Written by Nicole Braseth Thursday, 25 September 2008 11:59
24-7 Video Tours has asked us to update their website.. both in look and functionality. They've reassessed their website and decided that their needs have changed and therefore, so must the website. There have been some major advances in the online video world (hello, youtube) and we want to take advantage of that in the redesign, showcasing 24-7's client video pages (which used to be separate) and integrating those with the original function of the old site: to market the company. And while we're at it, we might as well update the look of the site.
Stay tuned for the site launch!
Only Women's Fitness Website - New Project!
Written by Erin Bourne Wednesday, 24 September 2008 15:28
Only Women's Fitness is a gym that specializes in providing a fun, comfortable, safe, supportive atmosphere for its members. With cutting edge equipment, bright modern surroundings, friendly staff, a ton of different classes to try, tanning beds and even a child care room there's a lot of things going on; we want to make an fresh new site for them to showcase everything they have to offer and inspire new clients to check them out and get fit!
How To Get a Website Without Losing Your Hair
Written by Carson Pierce Wednesday, 10 September 2008 00:00
Let's face it: usually, getting a website built is not fun. In fact, it's enough to make your hair grey. If you do it for a living, you may even go bald (that beautiful shiny head to the left is living proof). So what's the deal here? Why is this so freakin' hard?
Being the giant nerds we are, we did some intensive research and identified the points where things all fall apart. The results were not exactly stunning revelations. It mostly comes down to communication, which includes education.The communication bit is under our own control, but how do we make sure that you, the client, has the baseline information you need to make informed decisions? If only there was some sort of reference that covered the bases, but was also short enough to fit into your busy schedule...
Oh wait - there is! You know - now that we wrote it. How to Get a Website Without Losing Your Hair is a 20-page booklet that will get you thinking about the things you need to think about with your website project. Want a free copy? Just This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it with your mailing address and we'll send out a copy. In a big hurry? You can read the whole thing right here.
Our Clients Are #1...Part 2
Written by Carson Pierce Tuesday, 09 September 2008 00:00
Not to be outdone by a bunch of asses, another of our clients - country singer Gord Bamford - showed the nation just how good he is. He not only performed on the CBC-televised Canadian Country Music Awards Show, he also scored the Top Male Talent of the Year. Congrats, Gord!
I guess we should also mention that our design of Gord's CD, Honky Tonks and Heartaches, was nominated for Album Design of the Year. The big prize (along with almost all the other awards) went to Doc Walker, but it was an honour just to be nominated. No, seriously - it was!
Our Clients Are #1
Written by Nicole Braseth Monday, 08 September 2008 08:47
It was a great weekend for one of our clients: the Alberta Donkey and Mule Club. Team Mule travelled to the Spruce Meadows Masters to participate in the Battle of the Breeds, armed with hundreds of Team Mule posters we created for them.
Introducing Google Chrome
Written by Carson Pierce Tuesday, 02 September 2008 00:00
Google Chrome was released today! Nerds everywhere got all excited, immediately downloaded it and made it their new favourite program. OK, I confess – I was one of them. Non-nerds everywhere didn’t hear about it and didn’t care. But nerd or not, if you have a website, it Chrome will affect you to one degree or another. So let’s start with the obvious first question: What is Google Chrome?
Chrome is the newest entry into the browser market. (Aside: a lot of people didn’t even know there was a such a thing: you use Internet Explorer to view web pages. End of story. In fact, there are dozens of options out there, each of which displays websites slightly differently. As you can imagine, this is a frustrating situation for website designers – it’s a lot of work to get a site looking and working the same on all of them! Fortunately there are only a handful that have enough market share to worry too much about. At Idea Market, we currently make sure your site works on Internet Explorer versions 6 and 7, Firefox 3 and Safari 3. These four account for about 98% of the market, so we’re pretty safe there.)
(Further aside: as browsers go, Internet Explorer 6 is pretty terrible. If you’re still using this, please consider upgrading to IE7, or even better – Firefox. This is not just a matter of personal taste; it’s about something called ”web standards”. In a nutshell, web standards is a movement towards, well, standardizing the web. Or at least standardizing the way that web browsers interpret and display code. In turn, it drives us designers towards writing code that also adheres to these standards. In the long run, it means a much, much better world wide web for everyone. Anyway, Firefox does a pretty good job at following web standards. Internet Explorer 7 is so-so. IE6 is awful.)
But back to Chrome. It’s just in beta release right now, and only for PCs, but it seems to be a very nice product indeed. First off, it’s in line with web standards, which is good for all of us. Second, it sports an extremely clean design and seems to load pages faster than any other browser out there. Finally, it’s designed to handle online applications more efficiently than traditional browsers, which will prove more and more important as the web continues to move in that direction. There are still some bugs to work out and they’ll need to add some more features before it goes prime time, but it’s sure to take away some market share from the other four before long.
And so by spring we’ll likely have five browsers to make sure your website works well in. The good news is that with the move towards web standards, this isn’t as big an issue as it otherwise would be. (Also, Internet Explorer 8 should be out by January, so IE6 will slowly ride off into the sunset soon after.) Where it might hurt more is with sites built without standards in mind. It’s always hard to tell how those ones might break as new browsers emerge.
Bottom line, though: Idea Market designs with web standards, so – assuming you’re one of our very intelligent (and good-looking) clients – you have nothing to worry about. Sit back and enjoy browsing your site on Google Chrome!
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