We feel extremely honored to have won the 2014 Interactive Media Awards™ Best In Class Real Estate category for the website and video we created for Linda May Properties. Entries were judged by an impressive lineup of IMC members, and submissions were scored for their usability, feature functionality, content, aesthetics, and cross-browser compatibility. The Best In Class title is only awarded to contenders that receive a close to perfect score on every scale.

We feel extremely honored to have won the 2014 Interactive Media Awards™ Best In Class Real Estate category for the website and video we created for Linda May Properties. Entries were judged by an impressive lineup of  IMC members, and submissions were scored for their usability, feature functionality, content, aesthetics, and cross-browser compatibility. The Best In Class title is only awarded to contenders that receive a close to perfect score on every scale.

IMC is a nonprofit organization founded by leading web professionals in New York City. Their mission is to promote the best practices, and push the leading edge in website design, application development, usability engineering, privacy protection, e-commerce security, accessibility, standards, advertising, publishing, and corporate communications.

Recognition Begins With Our Clients

Consistently ranked in the top 1% of Coldwell Banker Realtors® internationally, Linda May Properties needed to distinguish and exude their luxury brand of pristine standards, well-earned credentials, extraordinary experience, and unparalleled customer care. Linda May and her business partner, Guy Levy, asked us to develop a rebranding campaign that showcases their reputation as preeminent luxury real estate specialists. From understanding their target market to storyboards to messaging, we developed the "Live Your Luxury" campaign, which was adapted to their digital and traditional media touchpoints.

Every effort you make to communicate with your market either enhances or dulls their perception of your brand. In order for your company’s identity to stand out across all media platforms, an intentional and cohesive campaign is needed.

For Linda May Properties, we saw the website as “home base” for the "Live Your Luxury" campaign. This platform would best convey their team’s distinction, prominent name in real estate, and encourage interaction with its growing global audience. Utilizing a clean, media-centric layout, our team strategized to develop and produce a branded video series that communicated the team’s unique client-broker process, or, as Linda May herself refers to it – its philosophy.

Recognition Valued

The Best In Class Interactive Media Award™ is living proof that “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” Linda May Properties and our team of professionals converged to create something truly impactful.

To learn more about STARMEN’S award-winning work, click here.

You won’t reach the people in your market if you don’t understand them, and you won’t understand them unless you pay attention to their context. Context is the compass that guides all successful branding and marketing. It’s about delivering the right content to the right people at the right time.

You won’t reach the people in your market if you don’t understand them, and you won’t understand them unless you pay attention to their context. Context is the compass that guides all successful branding and marketing. It’s about delivering the right content to the right people at the right time.

It’s important to create marketing communications in response to the context within which the people in your target markets (stakeholders included) live.

When Context is Ignored

Blockbuster and Borders failed to understand the context in which their industries were operating. They were blind to the behavior of their customers and the increasingly competitive marketplace. Both companies — Goliaths of industry — continued doing the same things in the same ways even though the makeup of their marketplace was shifting thanks to then-relative-newcomers like Netflix and Amazon. Chevrolet’s Nova is another example of a giant brand misstep due to ill-attended context. “No va” in Spanish means, quite literally, "no go". As one might guess, the car flopped in every Spanish-speaking country.

Here are two more examples of context gone awry. A nonprofit provided foot-operated pumps to African villages, free of charge. Although these pumps could functionally meet the villages' dire need for clean water, no one would use them. The nonprofit was flummoxed, but rethought its approach. Rather than give the pumps away, they sold the pumps to the men in the villages, and the response changed dramatically. Why? Initially, the nonprofit saw the need for water, and assumed that its solution would be embraced immediately, but they failed to pay attention to the very human context at play. The men of the villages were too proud to receive handouts, but their dignity and self-respect remained intact when the pumps were purchased.

Elsewhere, a nonprofit built wells in the sandy soil of several villages in Zimbabwe. They used costly Western construction equipment and technology. Two months later, all the wells collapsed because the organization had ignored the fact that the soil was far different in this part of the world than what they had previously experienced. The great thing about this particular story in relation to context is in what came afterward. After the wells collapsed, a member of the nonprofit decided that it was in their best interest to ask the villagers for their ideas on digging a well. Communally, they came up with a cost-effective design that involved old tires, cement, and simply digging by hand. Each well cost under $100 to produce, and they're still in use today.

Content, An Important Aspect of Context

When a sculptor was asked how he carved such a beautiful elephant out of a block of stone, he replied, “I simply remove that which is not the elephant.” And that is precisely what impactful content does! Excellent content, regardless of media format, is free of that which is incongruent with its end goal. It is uncluttered, simple, and of course, about the customer.

Apple Inc., a globally recognized brand is widely known for its branding strategy. Apple is a storyteller, and its marketing quests always begin with the consumers’ need for a better life. What are their emerging needs? Their wants and desires? What compels them to buy? All of Apple’s content — visual and verbal, across all media platforms — is meticulously designed to reach consumers on a deeply intrinsic, emotional level.

The good news is that there is a methodical way to avoid following in the footsteps of fallen giants when it comes to targeting context, and it doesn't require Apple's marketing budget to pioneer. The below diagram outlines key areas to emphasize.

1. Community Influence - Be involved with the people in your markets to make an impact.
2. Emotional Factors - Consider people’s emotional connection when developing targeted marketing communications.
3. Cognitive Factors - Influence your market’s environment through physical and emotional content.
4. Market Demand - Focus on the demand for your specific group of customers.
5. Competitive Advantage - Find your niche by developing attributes that your competitors do not possess.
6. Creative Value - Speak to your audience by expressing your company’s unique appeal through creative marketing.

Contact STARMEN for a strategic branding partnership that will deliver the right message within the right context.

Client satisfaction is our gold standard, but being recognized by the prestigious Hermes Creative Awards for our digital advertising work for One Dress A Day feels pretty wonderful, too. While client satisfaction is our real reward, we’re deeply appreciative that our work won a Hermes’ Gold. 

Client satisfaction is our gold standard, but being recognized by the prestigious Hermes Creative Awards for our digital advertising work for One Dress A Day feels pretty wonderful, too. While client satisfaction is our real reward, we’re deeply appreciative that our work won a Hermes’ Gold.

“Honoring the messengers and creators of traditional and emerging media,” the Hermes Creative Awards is an international competition for creative professionals. Hermes judges, members of the Association of Marketing and Communication Professionals (AMCP), examine each entry from the standpoint of concept, writing, design, and media. The judges viewed and assessed over 5,500 entries in the 2014 competition. 

One Dress A Day is an online clothing retailer that aims to help foster better fashion decisions at a faster pace by releasing one new, unique dress each day of the year on its website. The award recognizes our work to create a digital campaign for the company's launch in 2013. We created the concept and design for the advertisement with the client's goals in mind to successfully launch the brand, stand out to viewers on websites, and drive traffic to the new site. As the featured advertisement on People.com, our campaign exceeded traffic expectations and sign-ups on the teaser site. These web leads created the initial user-base, and equipped One Dress A Day with the opportunity to further "win" the loyalty needed for their brand's growth.

Want to know how STARMEN helps brands earn awards? Contact us today to learn more. 

Brands are beginning to wrap around people in every which way. Much like a first introduction to another person, a consumer's relationship with your brand is launched from the first impression. So, what makes this initial interaction so memorable and impactful? When crafting a brand experience that people can identify with, it comes down to the integrated combination of business strategy and design. 

Brands are beginning to wrap around people in every which way. Much like a first introduction to another person, a consumer's relationship with your brand is launched from the first impression. So, what makes this initial interaction so memorable and impactful? When crafting a brand experience that people can identify with, it comes down to the integrated combination of business strategy and design. 

Take your street smarts — what you know about your customers, the market place, and everything else in between— and apply it to design. The world is cluttered with it (consumers can’t escape it). So, the challenge is to stand out from the noise. But how? With intelligent, well-thought out design concepts that leave the best first impression, as well as communicate properties in line with your business strategy.

The number of people who are embracing Instagram and Pinterest is exploding — even Twitter and Facebook are shifting to more dynamic, well-designed interfaces with a stronger emphasis on photos and videos — because visual content has the biggest impact.

However, design must marry business strategy in the art of visual communication. A brand might need to be adaptable, and appeal to a large range of clients, and that’s where the strategy might get a bit trickier. The goal then becomes to take the core of a brand, and communicate it in a way that appeals to a wide array of people. 

As the adage goes, you only get one chance to make a good first impression. People's immediate response to your brand design will influence them to either take action or walk away.  You can throw together a hip logo, but it’s only going to stick when it is communicating what is at the heart of your brand. Does your brand tell a visual story? Does it elicit a sentient response?

So, you know that expert design strategy is needed to create a powerful brand, but integrating your business strategy builds a strong foundation, from which you can launch all your marketing initiatives. We are a brand innovation factory, and possess the experience and knowledge required to merge your business strategy with design, so that you can reach your branding goals. Let’s talk.

The start of 2014 brought a wave of accomplishments at STARMEN. We’re pleased to share that our video for "Discover Your Path" won two Telly Award Bronzes for Best Promotional Branding and Cause Marketing.

The start of 2014 brought a wave of accomplishments at STARMEN. We’re pleased to share that our video for "Discover Your Path" won two Telly Award Bronzes for Best Promotional Branding and Cause Marketing.

The Telly Award is the premier award honoring the finest film and video productions, groundbreaking web videos, commercials and films, as well as outstanding local, regional and cable TV commercials and programs. Now in its 35th year, the Tellys are embracing an atypical judging process. Rather than competing against other work, entries are now being judged solely based on their creative merit as individual submissions. The judging panel consists of members from the Silver Telly Council, a distinguished group of media professionals dedicated to upholding the fundamentals upon which the competition was established. Another intriguing detail about the Telly Awards is that its trophy statuettes are designed by the same firm that does the Oscars and Emmys.

Our video for "Discover Your Path" was also awarded Best In Class at the 2013 Interactive Media Awards. Check out the case study, here.

Photo credit: Adweek.com

Most people assume that extending their brand’s reach to the masses will be astronomically expensive, costing hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars. General opinion suggests that the more embraceable the brand messaging is, the more it will cost. However, this is no longer necessarily the case.

In this day and age, brand messages travel at the speed of a click, with content being consumed on an array of different devices, and across platforms, including YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and Google+. Create compelling messaging in the right format, and it won’t be your brand doing the heavy lifting. Instead, the people your message reaches will evangelize your brand through all of their own communication channels. 

Photo credit: Adweek.com

Most people assume that extending their brand’s reach to the masses will be astronomically expensive, costing hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars. General opinion suggests that the more embraceable the brand messaging is, the more it will cost. However, this is no longer necessarily the case.

In this day and age, brand messages travel at the speed of a click, with content being consumed on an array of different devices, and across platforms, including YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and Google+. Create compelling messaging in the right format, and it won’t be your brand doing the heavy lifting. Instead, the people your message reaches will evangelize your brand through all of their own communication channels. 

Catalyzing word of mouth ‘buzz’ is the new, smarter and less expensive way to generate and promote brand awareness. In today's beautifully integrated world, it’s more viable than ever to create compelling content economically. Crowdsourcing king, Frito-Lay, developed 'Crash the Super Bowl', an annual commercial competition wherein entrants submit their homegrown commercials for a chance at a monetary win, and the chance to see their work aired during that year's game. This is a win-win situation for the Doritos brand that enables them to cut production costs almost entirely (apart from airtime, and the monetary portion of the prize package), all while dramatically increasing brand awareness, community, and loyalty.

In another campaign, Chevy partnered with MoFilm’s creative community, inviting filmmakers to create their own 30 and 60-second spots highlighting ‘significant human moments’ with the Chevy brand, with the winning commercial airing alongside other Chevy spots during the Academy Awards telecast. The ultimate example of ‘spend less, win big,’ though, is a Tesla commercial called ‘Modern Spaceship’ that two recent college grads — James Khabushani, 25, and RJ Collins, 24 — made on their own for $1,500. Tesla and CEO Elon Musk loved the spec commercial, and the project garnered tons of publicity for James and RJ, who created the commercial in one 12-hour day using their friend’s home and Tesla Model S.

These case studies stand as a true testament to the fact that you simply no longer need to spend big bucks to create quality brand awareness. An evolving and innovative generation is using technology to produce content of the highest quality at an extremely low cost, and usergenerated content is a wonderful way to build a communal relationship with your marketplace. We’d love to help your brand shine, and be über-sharable across platforms … affordably.

Creating award-winning work is always our goal here at STARMEN, but when two of our clients, Hampton Inn and Discover Your Path, each earned a distinguished accolade in the Interactive Media Awards we were particularly excited. Both organizations launched a revitalized website to highlight their refreshed brand identity, and we’re so glad to have been involved in each of these respective endeavors.

Creating award-winning work is always our goal here at STARMEN, but when two of our clients, Hampton Inn and Discover Your Path, each earned a distinguished accolade in the Interactive Media Awards we were particularly excited. Both organizations launched a revitalized website to highlight their refreshed brand identity, and we’re so glad to have been involved in each of these respective endeavors.

Check in at Hampton Inn

When Hampton Inn approached us about redesigning their website, we wanted to assess their objectives for consideration during the design process. The goal was to create a microsite linking to Hilton’s booking system that would increase online bookings, and further enhance their digital presence. The new site specifically aimed to distinguish the Sherman Oaks location as a unique destination by highlighting local attractions, and using bold hotel imagery.

We utilized a clean layout with easy navigation to let potential guests easily find the information they were looking for. To help people get a feel for the Hampton experience, we added photo galleries for all room types and amenities. We then took it a step further, and incorporated interactive tours for every room so users can enjoy a virtual 360 before even checking in. We’re thrilled that the new site earned the Outstanding Achievement Award for Travel/ Tourism by the IMAs!

Discovering yourself with DYP

When faced with adversity, what’s the best thing to do? According to former Olympian contender, Heather Hennessy Howell, and Dodgers pitcher, JP Howell, you should stay positive, and exercise your strength to overcome life’s obstacles. This dynamic duo have triumphed over some incredibly difficult personal challenges, the culmination of which inspired them to co-found Discover Your Path (DYP). DYP encourages youth to achieve their goals by making good decisions, and staying focused.

Heather and JP wanted to share their journeys in a highly visual way, so we produced a branded video that lets users “Discover DYP.” Along with the video, we rolled out ‘PathPacks’ — a kit with t-shirts, journals, and other swag, including daily reminders to remain on a positive path. The website also features tools to help kids get involved, and connect with each other’s stories. DYP’s rebranded website earned IMA’s Best in Class title in the IMA Charity category!

Congratulations to Hampton Inn and Discover Your Path on these prestigious achievements!