Category: Copywriting

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Instagram in the Operating Room Using social media to bring awareness and comfort to others 1200x600 c default
Instagram in the Operating Room Using social media to bring awareness and comfort to others 1200x600 c default

I never thought when making the switch from nursing school student to an advertising major in college that I would have the opportunity to witness an open-heart surgery on a small child. But that is exactly the experience I had last month. BIGEYE had the honor to be asked by our client, Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children, to produce a video about their cardiology program. As part of that video, our crew was graciously allowed in the operating room to witness an amazing surgical team, lead by Dr. William DeCampli, repair little 3-year-old Emily Stone’s heart.
We literally got to participate in history being made. The hospital broke ground by trying something relatively unheard of in healthcare: using social media to share a live surgical operation with the entire world. The hospital posted images and updates of the surgery every 10 minutes through the photo sharing application Instagram, pushing the updates out via their Twitter and Facebook profiles, as well as their blog. For me, it definitely brought new meaning to a photo app that I primarily use to apply artistic filters to pictures of my food.

The response was overwhelming as the world watched and cheered on little Emily with amazing words of encouragement. It was awesome, in the truest sense of the word, to be so openly allowed into a world that is usually very closed off to the public. Pushing the envelope will always bring on a slew of questions: Why did they do this? Does social media go too far? What role can social media play in healthcare? The very nature of social media encourages debate and provides a portal for honest discussions.

Mike Schmidt, director of digital media at Arnold Palmer Hospital, said it best: “Healthcare is behind the rest of the world in being able to tell stories well through social media. There are thousands of amazing things that happen here at the hospital each and every day, and we want to share that with our community.”

Advertising, taglines, slogans and pictures of happy patients all have their place in healthcare. They play a role in communicating to the public a hospital’s message: who they are and what they stand for. But what about showing, not just telling, what really goes on? There may not be anything “pretty” about surgical procedures, but they are real, raw, and honest. We’re talking about humans saving other human’s lives. Arnold Palmer Hospital and Emily’s family were ready to take that leap by sharing this life-saving procedure with the world. The fact is, surgeons and healthcare professionals alike live and breathe this every day, and that’s what has a true impact on their patient’s lives.

Social media is here to stay and will continue to evolve and change. Yes, seeing pictures of a beating heart on your Facebook timeline may not be for everyone, but I do commend the hospital on using a tool that we are all familiar with in a new and interesting way in order to keep people informed of what’s going on behind the curtain. It breaks down barriers and can remove the mystery of the “unknown” for families that may be going through something very scary, hearing their child has  congenital heart disease.

On a very important side note, Emily is doing well. It was a joy to get to know her and her family throughout this process. She’s a brave little girl!

You can see how the story unfolded on the hospitals blog, Illuminate.  Warning: some of the pictures are graphic in nature.

Written by, Laura Adams, BIGEYE Creative Account Manager

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Audience Branding Campaign Creation & Development Consumer Insights Content Marketing Copywriting Creative & Production Messaging Strategy & Positioning
Ben Jerrys Twitter Treats 1200x600 c default
Ben Jerrys Twitter Treats 1200x600 c default

Most Twitter users hardly ever use all of the allotted 140 characters they’re allowed to tweet. Ben & Jerry’s decided to utilize this fact to promote a witty campaign called Fair Tweets (see the video splainer – a BIGEYE favorite), not only for its company, but also for a good cause.
On May 14, in honor of World Fair Trade Day, Ben & Jerry’s asked Twitter users to donate their spare characters to raise awareness of Fair Trade. They created a user-friendly application that allows people to type tweet whatever they’d like and automatically fills in the remaining unused characters with a Fair Trade message and hyperlink. So, if your tweet is only 20 characters, Ben & Jerry’s will immediately fill in a 120-character message about Fair Trade for you … and they might even throw in a link or hashtag too.

Once your message is created, you simply click the “Tweet It!” button, and your Fair Trade message is sent off to Twitter for all of your followers to see. It takes two seconds (depending on your typing skills), and spreads awareness for Fair Trade around the world. Not to mention, it leads people to Ben & Jerry’s as well. Promoting a cause through your company is always admirable, but Ben & Jerry’s showed us how to make it clever and fun too. We think they deserve two thumbs up for promoting themselves and a good cause in a cool, non-garish sort of way. Don’t you?

To learn how to effectively incorporate twitter into your campaign, contact us here!

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Branding Content Marketing Copywriting Creative & Production Insights Paid Social Photography Strategy & Positioning
How to Identify Different Types of Ad Agencies
How to Identify Different Types of Ad Agencies

Advertising is one of the earliest concepts of human economic activity. This has developed with the coming of every new technology and continues to grow each day. Drawings, printing, telephone, television and more recently the internet and social media marketing have all made their mark in the history of advertising, and who knows what tomorrow might bring.
Advertising can be done individually, or by the use of a marketing agency. Depending on the kind of product or service that you wish to market, and the population that you wish to meet in terms of the strata of the population as well as whether the population is local or if you are looking for a worldwide distribution, you will want an ad agency that is able to handle your proposal effectively as well as reach the target population.

You will also have to make this choice based on the advertising strategy that you think is efficient for you and thus make sure that the agency you chose is specialized in this aspect of advertising.

[quote]Ad agencies are normally classified based on the media that they specialize in, and because of this classification, it is easy to see ad agencies that specialize in television ads, radio ads, newspaper ads and more recently web and new media ads. [/quote]

Marketing agencies are usually classified based on their scope. You might want to check if the agency serves a particular location as in a Orlando marketing agency or if the agency is has a global network and therefore a wider reach.

However in marketing, the term “type of advertising” is used to describe the primary focus of the advertising message and it can be classified as:

Product-Oriented Advertising

Image Advertising

Advocacy Advertising

Public Service Advertising

Therefore we can infer from these that type of advertising agencies will also fall within these categories.

Product-Oriented advertising

A product can be an idea, a service or a good that is the result of a company’s or a person’s activity. Product oriented advertising refers to advertising that is meant to promote this product or service to a particular audience. Here Ad agencies may use informative advertising to furnish information about the product; persuasive advertising where the approach is to try and convince people to buy, and comparative advertising that tries to show consumers how the product compares with others on the market.

Image advertising

Image advertising is the type of advertising that focuses on building up a company’s image to make it more attractive among its peers. They use strategy that increases the importance of a company and as such do not focus on particular products. This strategy is usually used in cases where a company has taken on a new name due to mergers or change of ownership, or due to negative publicity a company may need to rebrand itself.

Advocacy Advertising

These are usually advertising efforts that use the company’s public stance to voice certain opinions as concerns them or their future. In this way they companies can even sway public opinions on political issues and other debates that may affect them in one way or the other.

Public Service Advertising

These adverts are usually free of charge depending on the country and the policy of the agency that handles the advert. They are usually for the public good. It is important for nongovernmental organizations and humanitarian organizations to publicize themselves and to call for financial resources and personnel such as volunteers.

There are ad agencies that do not specialize in any one of these sectors, but embrace all the different sectors. There are also some that specialize in one or two of these and it will usually be to the advantage of the advertiser to choose the marketing agency whose profile is adapted to the kind of advertising he wishes to undertake.

Interested in obtaining more information about your target audience, and ready to enlist the expertise of an ad agency? Contact us today to schedule a consultation!