Why Eight Major Retailers Need a Holiday Season Miracle
For consumers, Amazon is the gift that keeps on giving. For legacy retailers, however, the online retail giant is poised to be a holiday Grinch of epic proportions. With the brick and mortar retail industry in serious trouble, the holiday season has become absolutely critical to the prospects of businesses such as Sears and J.C. Penney. Profits earned during November and December can help keep legacy retailers afloat in a sea of shrinking margins. This year, the need to prosper over the holidays is even more acute. According to USA Today, 17 major retailers have defaulted on their debt in the last two years, including names such as David’s Bridal, GNC and Payless. Making things even more dire, these brands are struggling while consumer confidence has reached an 18-year high and the federal unemployment rate sits at just 3.7%. USA Today recently identified the eight major retailers most in need of a holiday miracle in 2018. Let’s take a closer look at how they got there — and how your own brand can learn from their mistakes. Sears The Problem: Outdated business model, lackluster branding, and deep financial trouble. Though it has strong brand recognition and a rich history, Sears is a case study example in failing to adapt to, and evolve with, the market. The stores are entangled in retail generalist mode, attempting to be everything to everyone. Walking through a Sears is like walking with the Ghost of Retail Past — a sad, wistful experience. The Prescription: In an age of retail specialization, Sears needs to find a new niche — while updating its in-store experience and advertising for the 21st century. The Prognosis: Likely terminal, but we may have another holiday season or two together. Bed Bath and Beyond The Problem: Overextended (too many locations), underfunded (too little digital revenue) and undistinguished (no cachet). Bed Bath and Beyond’s sales have plunged since 2014, with the company’s stock hitting an 18-year low in September. The Prescription: An online transformation. Bed Bath and Beyond’s digital offerings (both e-commerce and marketing) have been utterly insufficient compared to those of Target and other competitors. The Prognosis: Critical but stable. Though Bed Bath and Beyond’s sales figures are in a shocking state, the company doesn’t carry much debt, which could buy it some time. J.C. Penney The Problem: Like Sears, J.C. Penney has struggled to evolve from its original (and deeply dated) model. Unlike Sears, J.C. Penney has thrown everything at the wall in order to change this. They’ve introduced appliances, toys, “permanent sale” pricing gimmicks and in-store Sephora locations. However, nothing has truly moved the needle. The Prescription: A vastly better retail experience. If you’re not going to give consumers specialization or IKEA-level prices, you’d better offer them a magical in store experience. Can you say experiential marketing? The Prognosis: Grave. J.C. Penney’s financials aren’t as precarious as Sears, but the company ultimately needs to do more than eke out enough holiday sales to survive. Long-term this is a company that needs to be re-imagined from the bottom up. Neiman Marcus The Problem: A debt tsunami and digital despair. Neiman Marcus still has strong luxury branding, but its yet another legacy retailer creaking into a brave new world. The Prescription: Burdened with debt and teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, Neiman Marcus needs a buyer or an investor to go with a revamped e-commerce strategy and updated brand messaging. It’s a classic brand — but not a particularly relevant one. The Prognosis: Critical and unstable. The financials are a mess, and a new buyer may be the only way to keep this enterprise afloat. Your favorite mall chain: Claire’s, Charlotte Russe and J Crew The Problem: Mall foot traffic is down and mall vacancies are way up, as more people prefer the ease of e-commerce. Claire’s, Charlotte Russe and J Crew are all struggling with debt and declining in-store revenue. The Prescription: Mobile smartphones apps, location-based marketing, and revamped in-store experiences. The Prognosis: Critical — and conjoined. The fate of these three stores is tied to the viability of the shopping malls that house them. And malls — much like the stores inside them — are under siege and in need of innovative new thinking. What’s in store for your holiday season? Forget the sugarplums and fairies. Our holiday visions help brands create dynamically creative marketing campaigns and branding that can outlast aging trends. Contact us today to get the most from your holiday marketing push.
Determining Your Marketing Budget Sweet Spot for The New Fiscal Year
In the world of high technology, you’ll sometimes hear about a line being drawn between those who make and those who sell. The implication, of course, is that those who make require more talent than those who sell. Upon even the swiftest examination, however, that argument falls to pieces. After all, Steve Jobs wasn’t a coder. He didn’t build things. But, he had a genius for defining what people wanted — usually before they were even aware that they harbored such desires. He knew what resonated; what made an audience see a product and feel “that’s me — I’m the kind of person who owns this.” In other words, he knew marketing. Marketing and advertising spend: By the numbers It hasn’t always been easy to quantify the effect of a marketing or ad campaign. With today’s advanced analytics and metrics, however, that task has grown much easier. Determining the right percentage to budget toward marketing and advertising is another question that many small to mid-sized firms wrestle with. For the most prominent enterprises, the numbers are impressive: The top 200 largest spenders were responsible for $155 billion in ad and marketing expenditures in 2017. Amazon alone spent $3.4 billion in 2017 on ads and marketing promotions. According to research from Deloitte and the Wall Street Journal, marketing budgets comprise about 11% of the total company budget for the average firm, though the level of spending varies by industry. This means that for smaller companies, the process of determining a marketing budget figure should also be influenced by the sector in which a business operates. The disparities between industries can be fairly stark. Consider the following industry averages for marketing as a percentage of the total budget: Consumer packaged goods: 24% Technology: 15% Communications/Media: 13% Retail: 10% Banking: 8% Manufacturing: 8% Energy: 4% So, what’s driving these budgetary decisions? According to the research, nearly 40% of companies identify marketing as the leading revenue growth driver. Companies that report marketing as being primarily responsible for revenue growth dedicate 14.5% of their total budget to marketing. Firms that do not identify marketing as the leading growth driver average around 10%. Interestingly enough, companies that integrate marketing analytics into their decision-making have marketing budgets that are 70% higher than those of companies that do not — perhaps an indication that analytics are helping companies get a better grasp on marketing campaign ROI. Finding the budgetary sweet spot If you have a small to mid-sized firm, you’ve probably heard that 10% of revenue is a common yardstick for marketing spending. Larger firms spend a bit more, smaller firms a bit less. There are also other models you can use to arrive at a figure. As the data shows, however, it’s critically important to consider the industry in which you’re operating. Spending varies widely among industries, and the more “consumer-facing” a sector is, the greater the need for marketing and advertising. Product or service type also plays a role. Companies with a strongly differentiated (or patented) product or service and a deep competitive moat may not need to rely on marketing and advertising to the same degree. The size of the business — and the growth stage — also need to be considered. The Small Business Administration suggests that firms with under $5 million in revenue should allocate around 7 to 8% of these revenues to marketing. If you’re a retail business in the early brand-building stage, however, spending 20% of sales on marketing is typical. All of these figures should be taken simply as a rough estimate, as there is no universal method for building a company. Many of today’s fastest-growing technology firms, for example, devote 30 or even 40% of their revenue into marketing. The takeaway With the beginning of a new fiscal year, now is the ideal time for businesses to examine their marketing spend. Given broader industry trends, improved data analytics and the link we’ve seen between higher marketing spending and growth, it might be the perfect time to experiment with a more substantial marketing budget. Contact our team today to make sure you are spending your marketing and advertising budget properly.
Amazon Scout: The Newly Debuted Pinterest Competitor
Few would deny the globe-conquering vision of Jeff Bezos and Amazon. When others were scoffing at the potential of e-commerce, Bezos was busy laying the groundwork for the world’s first “everything store.” Yet what if flipping retail from something you do in a store to something you do in your pajamas is only the beginning? What if you could turn the act of online shopping into something truly personalized and social? That’s the premise behind Amazon Scout, a new service that aims to integrate some of Pinterest’s personalized functions with Amazon’s wide-reaching e-commerce platform. How Amazon Scout works The idea is simple: Today, our impetus for visiting Amazon is generally need-based. When batteries or food supplies run low, Amazon is but a mere click away. Amazon Scout offers consumers a new way to interact with the platform, one that mimics the experience of window-shopping. By liking or disliking products, users receive recommendations from Amazon’s sophisticated machine learning algorithm. The ultimate goal is to deliver an experience that surprises and delights a consumer. After all, there is little joy in simply ordering a new set of replacement batteries. Yet discovering an item that you never knew you wanted is deeply appealing (just consider how much better a favorite song sounds when you randomly stumble across it on the radio, rather than going through the process of cueing it up yourself). Amazon Scout is currently in its testing phase, and the company is deploying the service in especially visual product categories such as home decor and women’s shoes. By rolling out Scout, Amazon hopes to outmaneuver Pinterest’s development of “buyable pins,” while also incorporating some of the personalized elements that have allowed e-commerce competitors such as Stitch Fix to carve out a niche in the online retail space. Amazon is taking on Pinterest: Is your brand ready? Though Amazon has previously attempted to update their browsing experience with additional curating or personalization, Scout seems to be a broader-focused (and possibly more significant) development. With Scout and Alexa, Amazon hopes to gently guide consumers away from traditional modes of product search into something that’s deeply-informed by their own data and preferences. Amazon’s vast library of visual imagery and a treasure trove of data should make Scout one of the more-powerful recommendation engines of its kind. Given the critical importance Amazon holds for today’s brands, it’s a smart idea to pay close attention to Scout’s rollout. This means studying how the recommendation algorithm works, discerning patterns and then optimizing (for image quality and other variables) whenever possible. At the moment, Scout’s usefulness seems somewhat limited, as the algorithm tends to frequently deliver repeat suggestions. Yet as with any machine learning tool, Scout’s performance should improve with use, as more data is collected. Scout represents the next phase of Amazon’s larger plan to create a more personalized and social shopping experience, and as such, brands should make every effort to leverage this development for their own benefit. We are ready to help you make that happen. Whether we’re developing powerful Alexa Skills or creating high-impact multi-platform marketing campaigns, BIGEYE has the tools to help brands derive maximum value from Amazon marketing.
Why Pop Up Trade Schools Need Great Technical College Marketing
Pop up restaurants — all the rage a few years ago — allowed people to break the usual dining mold by eating in homes, temporary storefronts and other non-traditional dining spaces. This concept has now been extended to education in the form of pop up schools, which offer a cheap, easily replicable model for learning in non-traditional spaces. It’s a trendy idea — and a potential challenge for those involved in technical college marketing. How do traditional technical colleges compete with the innovative trend of pop up learning? Let’s take a closer look. Pop up schools explained The idea for pop-up schools was borne of the difficulty in ensuring access to affordable educational services across the globe. The cost of education has risen significantly in recent years, and barriers to education (particularly in the developing world) have risen. Pop-ups such as Bridge International seek to introduce a new, highly replicable model that promises affordable education — a model that is in some ways based on the idea of fast food franchising. Bridge International, for example, hoped to scale up to 3,000 schools in Africa alone by using a franchise model, enrolling as many as 25 million students by 2025. The pop-up model has influential backers (The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, among others) and plenty of market opportunity, positioning it as a potential competitor for the traditional technical school model. All of that raises an important question: How can technical college marketing benefit your school and help you stand out? How smart technical college marketing offers a competitive edge The idea of pop up education is an attractive one — at first glance. However, it’s not a model that would currently serve the needs of most technical college students. Virtually all pop-up schools are pure profit-making ventures; curriculums are rote, inflexible and uniform across each school. Salaries for instructors are kept very low to manage costs and there is very little focus on specific trade or technical skills. Pop up schools instead are more broadly focused. Still, it’s an innovative model and one that could soon find more traction in other educational markets, as politicians and other leaders are always looking for cost-competitive solutions. In order to fend off this kind of competition, the value proposition offered by technical schools should be reflected in its marketing content. Some of the best ways to do this include: Developing sophisticated buyer/student personas Creation of compelling, multi-channel marketing content that reflects the interests of those personas Developing materials that emphasize the benefits of the technical college model (shorter, less expensive, real-world skill development, etc.) Developing materials that emphasize the proven and durable nature of the technical school model — the pop-up model is new and unproven, and no student wants to attend a school that may not exist in five or ten years Use of social media platforms and advanced data analytics to support marketing efforts Partnering with the right agency The tips outlined above may seem fairly straightforward, but executing them at the highest level is no small task. Many smaller schools do not have the resources or the expertise to create a sophisticated modern marketing campaign. At BIGEYE, we help schools stand out from the competition by creating deeply resonant and highly targeted marketing campaigns. If your school could benefit from working with a top Florida advertising agency, we urge you to contact us today.
5 Takeaways from Working 365 Days at an Advertising Agency
I crossed my college graduation stage, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, just 446 days ago. My job at an advertising agency called BIGEYE was secured, and I had just 26 days off between that walk across the stage and my walk through the front door of the agency. While I can not possibly write everything I’ve learned between then and now, I’m hitting a few highlights of my lessons learned in this first year of being a full-time, functioning adult. Over the past year working in an advertising agency, I have learned a lifetime of knowledge. If you’re even slightly thinking about a career in the advertising industry, be sure to keep reading, as I unpack 5 key takeaways from this last wonderful, whirlwind of a year at an ad agency. 1. Keep a warm heart, but grow a thick skin In the advertising industry it is important to be open and develop relationships with those you work with. Producing creativity requires a lot of vulnerability. However, growing thick skin is essential because our jobs require us to chip away at a marble block of ideas until we’ve created a true work of art for each project. You can not afford to be overly sensitive. 2. Agency casual vs. college casual A common misconception is that because agency office environments tend to be more innovative and less corporate, there is a lower expectation of professionalism. Which to many people translates into ripped jeans and rolling in to work right on time. However, advertising agencies are still functioning businesses with clients and deadlines to meet. All of those professional advisories you heard in school still ring true in an agency setting. So, wear your hipster glasses or those ripped jeans you love, but do so with style, class, and professionalism – you’ll never know who you are trying to impress. 3. Play hard, but work harder Work life balance is something everyone looks for in a job, but can be difficult to find. While the advertising industry is known to run on a vicious 24/7 cycle, finding a company like BIGEYE who respects those boundaries is crucial. Agency life is not for the faint of heart, there will be late nights and early mornings. But, if you’re not uncomfortable, you’re not growing. Plus, there is nothing like the comradery of your teammates pouring a beer and giving a cheers to a job well done! 4. Jack of all trades Collaborative environments allow for the opportunity to dive into multiple projects, opportunities, clients, etc. Be a sponge – soak up and absorb all that you can. Coming straight out of college I lacked real world experience and didn’t know where inside the agency I belonged. I’ve learned that regardless of the department you’re placed in – you can always learn more about the industry itself. Make it a goal to learn all you can about each department in the agency. Stay proactive and make lasting connections. Make your absence be felt and have the courage to jump in and contribute. 5. Home is where the culture thrives Talent is nothing without the right environment and culture to thrive in. The BIGEYE team members are more than just my co-workers, they are my family. These are not just people I see from 9am-5pm, but the ones who I make plans with on the weekends, who bring me soup when I’m out sick, provide meals and helping hands when my house had hurricane damage. Protecting agency culture is important. Build a team with people who will be the best fit, not just because they have the best resume. We can teach skills, we can’t teach attitude and drive. The takeaway “Five hundred, twenty-five thousand, six hundred minutes…” are lyrics from an incredible broadway show and a great reminder that there are countless moments in a year that measure our knowledge, our passions, our failures and our successes. Working in an advertising agency this past year has taught me more about myself and my capabilities than any other experience I’ve had before. The hustle and bustle of a non-stop, unpredictable day is not for everyone. It is for the bold, it is for the courageous, and it was the perfect choice for me. Author: LeAnne Ball, Agency Coordinator
Attribution = accurate measurement for customer touch points
Many marketers struggle to understand how to accurately measure the impact of each and every touch point that individual consumers are exposed to, across all devices, channels, and campaigns, both online and offline. And according to e-marketer, only 60% of marketers use accurate measurement tools to evaluate their channel performance. Of that group, most track each channel on its own and then optimize performance evaluations and spend based on channel-specific results. Only 20% use attribution modeling to gain a clear picture of how each touch point is working together to create a holistic marketing mix, leaving the majority of marketers in the dark. The Drum beautifully explains why that 20% needs to increase: “the primary objective of attribution modeling, is to provide holistic, accurate information about the financial return [all your marketing] activities are delivering so you can refine them, adjust what you’re doing, and use the same budget to deliver more value to your business and customer.” Taking the first step toward attribution modeling: Before you can begin seeing the big picture of how your marketing campaigns are working together, you need to have the right data collection tools in place. Online tracking tags are a great place to start when measuring digital activity, but don’t forget your offline channels as well. Use customizable promo codes and loyalty programs to start understanding offline behavior, then consider partnering with big data providers from reliable third party sources to round out the big picture. A trusted agency partner, like BIGEYE, can help you understand which data is most important to your brand and how to find what you’re looking for in the sea of data providers. Our attribution services blend your data with external data to round out your blind spots and make your attribution models more accurate. Choosing the right methodology: Once you’re tracking the right information … what do you do with it? This is where most marketers fail. It’s easy to get information about how each channel is performing based on the KPIs and success goals for that channel. It’s less simple to link the value of performance on one channel to another and evaluate how they are supporting each other. Attribution marketing is the first defensible, mathematical methodology to begin cracking that question. While attribution may not be able to answer every question perfectly yet, it is still a more nuanced and intelligent way to understand your customer journey and make informed decisions about your marketing mix. You wouldn’t make an accounting or revenue decision with only half the information — why should marketing decisions be any different? The trick is choosing the right attribution model to frame your analysis. If you’re just starting the journey toward attribution marketing, we can work with you to understand your business and choose which model makes the most sense for your business type. Typically, we recommend some form of weighted, curved, or machine learning approach that gives credit to each of your channels as customers move between devices and media formats along the path toward a sale. Unlike first or last touch attribution, which gives credit to the channel where customers either start or end their purchase journey, we believe that a weighted model more accurately mirrors the non-linear path most people take from discovery to point of sale. Putting learnings into action: Use attribution to support your existing testing and analytics programs to make statements about your ROI rather than what’s happening along the way. Your CEO and finance department will thank you for this later, we promise. Click here to learn more about our attribution services and how you can start understanding you data in new, more meaningfully ways.
The top three most common advertising myths debunked
Fact versus fiction. Fairytale versus reality. With an influx of industry buzzwords, tales of lore, and books, blogs, and the like, all speaking to the virtues of best achieving your marketing goals and objectives, how do you siphon out the true misnomers? There are most certainly plenty of these truths that abound on advertising industry websites and in trade publications, even delving into what it’s like to work at an agency (certainly far less Scotch than MadMen depicts – and a lot more Diet Coke). However, there are a few myths and misconceptions about the industry that can potentially hurt your brand. Here we present 3 common advertising myths, debunked: 1. Advertising is too expensive Contrary to popular belief, successful advertising does not always require a multi-million dollar media budget. While a smaller budget may seem restricting, it can also lead to an outside-of-the-box approach. Razors-by-mail company, Dollar Shave Club, received widespread recognition after launching it’s first YouTube video entitled, “Our Razors are F****** Great,” featuring founder and CEO Michael Dubin. The video went viral, and prompted 12,000 orders in a two-day span after it was released, and has received over 17 million views as of January 2015. The cost of the video? Just $4,500. Much of the success was due to Michael Dubin’s background in improv and video production; in fact, the video was so funny that many people thought it was a spoof. Within the first hour of it’s release, the heavy flood of Internet traffic actually crashed the website. As a small startup, the Dollar Shave Club just didn’t have the revenue to promote the brand the same way Gillette and Schick do, so they had to find a way to reach the masses on a small budget – and they most certainly did. 2. If the product is good, there’s no need to advertise It’s easy to assume that if a product/service is the best of it’s kind in the market, it’ll simply ‘sell itself’. It’s a logical argument; why would people buy a subpar product over the superior one? Well, for the same reason people choose Microsoft over Apple (is my loyalty too obvious?): perception. Dunkin’ Donuts offers free Wi-Fi and serves good coffee at a reasonable cost, yet people aren’t hanging out or working on projects and papers in the Dunkin’ Donuts “lounge.” Despite having 20 years less experience than Dunkin’ Donuts – and a higher price point – Starbucks continues to remain the long-standing market leader in coffee shops. Why? Brand perception. Starbucks certainly wasn’t the first of its kind, and some could argue it’s not even the best of it’s kind (don’t tell that to Megan, our Marketing Manager, though), but it is perceived as the best- and that’s really all that matters. So if being first doesn’t matter, and even being the best doesn’t matter, then what does? People interact with each other on an emotional level, and the same holds true for people and the brands they choose. Coke isn’t selling soda: it’s selling happiness. It’s selling the nostalgia of sitting on the front porch in the summertime with Grandpa, sipping an ice cold Coke through a straw. I couldn’t give you a rational, logical reason as to why I pick up Tide instead of Gain – I honestly have no clue as to which gets my laundry cleaner – yet Tide is what my mother used, and the smell reminds me of going home (I could ask her why she buys Tide, but she probably couldn’t come up with a better reason either). [quote]People buy stories. People buy emotional connections. [/quote] People buy lifestyles. But loyalty doesn’t happen by accident and it doesn’t happen overnight. Gaining recognition through advertising, building trust with the consumer, and positioning your product or service to be perceived as the best is strategic, continuous, and necessary for new and long-standing brands alike. So even though I’d get the same caffeine jolt from a pot of coffee as I would from a $5 latte from Starbucks, there’s just something about that green and white cup that says, “Bring it on, day. I’m ready for you.” And that’s just what Starbucks intended. 3. Social Media is Easy Social media is simple – not easy. While your 13-year-old niece might have more Instagram followers than you, it wouldn’t be wise to hire her on as your company’s social media director. We’ve witnessed so many social media mistakes in the past year alone; you’d have to wonder if these companies really did hire their teenage niece to run their Twitter account. Jumping on a hashtag without looking into it, posting irrelevant or too-personal content, being inconsistent with your brand’s values – these are common mistakes that companies continue to make, year after year. But social media blunders aren’t just the cause of red-faced embarrassment; in fact, they can cost your company millions of dollars. In a survey sponsored by Symantec, participating in social media can cost major corporations an average of $4.3 million. That is a huge loss for a misstep that could have been easily avoided. The power of social media is strong and has done wonders for brands and consumer engagement (see: Taco Bell’s Twitter), but it’s only useful if done strategically. Actively participating and listening to customer needs, complaints, and opinions is what makes a brand feel authentic through social media. Bombarding consumers with promotional statuses every day? Not so much. Your brand has a voice and social media is your microphone- but you have to be consistent, genuine, and relevant. Otherwise, no one is listening, or worse, they’re furious (just look at the backlash from companies using MLK Day as a publicity tool. Yikes.) As you decipher fact from fiction, our uber-talented team of marketing professionals stands at the ready to help you achieve your goals and objectives – all while exceeding your expectations. Contact our Florida advertising agency today to develop strategies to enhance your brand, and positively impact your ROI.
BIGEYE welcomes the addition of its newest team members
ORLANDO, Fla. – January 27, 2015 – BIGEYE, a full-service integrated firm based in Orlando, announced today that Dani Alfonso has joined the creative team as a designer, and Christopher Judge, as one of the newest web developers – adding two esteemed employees to the ever-growing agency, and continuing the company’s advertising agency growth strategy. “We’re extremely fortunate to be poised for growth in the coming year – we’ve added a number of new accounts to our portfolio, while continuing to deliver expanded strategic marketing expertise to our existing clientele,” said BIGEYE’s CEO and Principal, Justin Ramb. “In this regard, both Dani and Christopher bring tremendous skills to the agency, and will provide additional support and partnership to our valued clients to assist them in achieving their stated business goals and objectives.” A Cuban native, Alfonso gleaned proficiency in design during her collegiate career, and successfully facilitated internships in freelance web and creative design. She comes to the Orlando agency after receiving her bachelor’s degree in Spanish, and minor in art history and Latin American studies from the University of Central Florida, and an associate’s of science degree in graphic technology & interactive design from Valencia Community College, and was recognized as a member of both the President’s and Dean’s Lists respectively. Judge is also a graduate of the University of Central Florida, where he received a bachelor’s degree in Digital Media: Web Design, and served as a founding officer of Design + Code @ UCF, a student-run organization at the college. Born in New Jersey, he grew-up in Sarasota, Florida before relocating to Orlando. Alfonso and Judge joining BIGEYE make up several new team member announcements in recent months, – since August 2014, BIGEYE has welcomed seven new employees in total, including Marketing Manager Megan Bobiak, Account Manager Lauren Steckroth, Designer Justin Sooter, Account Coordinator Aubrey Rangel, Project Manager Kendra Strink, Account Manager, Ashley Tice, and most recently, Alfonso and Judge. Since last year, the number of employees at BIGEYE has more than doubled. Currently, BIGEYE is also looking for a seasoned copywriter. For more information on career opportunities, visit https://www.bigeyeagency.com/careers/. [featured] If self and industry growth drives how you work, BIGEYE wants you to join our team – we want to know what you’re able to bring to the table! [/featured] About BIGEYE BIGEYE is a highly creative and strategic advertising agency that establishes meaningful connections between brands and consumers through the fulfillment of consumer needs and wants. Founded in 2002, BIGEYE was recently named Central Florida’s Best Ad Agency in the Orlando Business Journal’s 2014 Readers’ Choice Awards. For more information, please visit bigeyeagency.com. Contact: Megan Bobiak BIGEYE 407.839.8599 x204 megan@bigeyeagency.com
The city beautiful: We are more than a tourist magnet
I have been living in Orlando my entire life. Both my mother and father are Central Florida natives and attended Winter Park High School and Edgewater High School. When I started my journey here 30 years ago my mother, father and I were living in a little house in College Park on Bryn Mar Street. Since then I have lived in Wekiva, Winter Park, Altamonte Springs and now as an adult, I am back in College Park only a few blocks away from where I began my journey. Life in Orlando has changed tremendously in the last three decades and continues to evolve as a great place to work, live and play. If you live in Central Florida and have ever visited a place outside of the Sunshine State you know that saying you live in Orlando immediately gets some sort of Disney comment. I always feel the need to correct people and inform them that Disney is in fact in Kissimmee not Orlando and then I encourage them to come see the “real” Orlando. Usually people do not listen to this nonsense and continue to ask me if I go to the Magic Kingdom like everyday. Us “Orlandoians” (yes that’s a word, I just invented it) actually have a pretty sweet deal. We have a huge amount of tourists pouring over to the I-drive area (which they think is Orlando) all year long providing our economic stability while we get to live in the actual Orlando, a big city with a small-town feel. There’s downtown Orlando itself with the hip Thornton Park area, Lake Eola park, Orange Avenue night-life, not to mention all the little pockets of artistic and alternative culture like Virginia Drive/Leu Gardens area, Lake Ivanhoe district and College Park. Thanks to developers like Craig Ustler not only do we have Thornton Park and the 801 North area, but we are looking forward to welcoming the Creative Village in the near future; a massive live, work, play city within a city that will house people, businesses, higher education facilities and so much more. If you aren’t familiar with the Creative Village concept I urge you to check out their website; as an “Orlandoian” I am very excited about what these ventures are doing for our city. You know, it’s funny how my whole adult life I have schemed up ways to move somewhere else, yet here I am living in the same area where my life began. Every time I think about moving away something else in my life comes up and makes me realize how much I love this city. I work two miles from my home and I can walk around Lake Eola Park on my lunch break, it really doesn’t get a whole lot better than that. Most larger cities require you to be in a certain income bracket to live so close to the downtown area, here in the City of Orlando you can truly live, work and play while maintaining that small town feel with the benefits of a large city. Orlando is also home to a small, yet thriving advertising and marketing industry. There are many successful Orlando advertising agencies located throughout the city, employing some very talented people, as well as numerous nationally recognized schools that keep our market alive with top-rated talent. Schools like Valencia College, University of Central Florida, and Full Sail University feature impressive Florida web design programs, in addition to high-tech computer graphics, music production, and design programs. I am so grateful to be a part of an Orlando marketing agency that pushes me to think BIGGER so as a team we can form long-lasting relationships with our clients just as I have formed with my city. What do you love about the City of Orlando? Written by Ashley Ripley Marketing and Brand Coordinator at BIGEYE Creative Photography by Micah Ripley
