Google has rolled out changes to this service as well as sponsored “tags” to keep your business listed in the Google 7 Pack. What you once knew as the “Google Local Business Center” is now referred to as “Google Places.” Additionally, those who are currently listed in Google Places can take advantage of a new feature called Tags.

Google rolled out the new advertising stream – similar to AdWords – for local businesses. This feature is geared for local businesses throughout the U.S. who wants to beef up their listings on Google and Google Maps.

If you’re running a local business and you have placed listings on Google, you can enhance your listing with a yellow “tag” emphasizing specific information about your business such as a coupon, video, website, menu, reservations, photos and even custom messages.

Getting this yellow tag to appear on your Google listings is not free though. You would have to pay a flat monthly fee of $25. The tags will not affect your listings’ rank and Google will clearly indicated which parts of the search results are sponsored when you’re local business is displayed. Check out an example of how local business tags are displayed in the sample below.

It’s just another effort by Google to create a very simple advertising vehicle for local businesses.

Each Tasty comes with a flavored, edible strip inside the card. The flavors include cupcakes, doughnuts and margaritas. Dissolvable flavor strips for the recipient to eat.

The possibilities of this could become a trend for many commercial printers. We have worked with a few that already use scented inks, and its only a matter of time until a printer near you applies this technology of taste!

With news that postage rates are going to increase once again. The print industry will need to contiune to look for new ways to entice design firms and others to continue printing their mailing pieces.

We have seen some pretty amazing innovations in the print industry already. A few of which that are combining print and digital media. Augmented Reality and RFID are a couple modernizations creating new experiences for consumers. However, those still appeal to the same senses, this innovation by American Greetings has added the sense of taste to the printing world.

My question to you is, will you try it?

Check out the newest sensory experience in the card aisle and get that cupcake taste without all that cupcake and calories!

The Yellow Springs Experience is an immersion in arts and cultural workshops and performances in Yellow Springs, July 9-18. A Launch Party will kick off the ten days on Friday, July 9, from 4 to 7 pm with live bands, arts exhibits and demos, kids performances, food, beverages, and more! Start your Experience.

More than 80 events are planned for The Experience, which brings together the Yellow Springs Arts Council and dozens of other partners, including area colleges and universities, nonprofit organizations, artists and cultural presenters, to welcome one and all to sample, stay and play for the week as a part of the community.

Wellness classes, arts workshops, readings, women’s retreat, sustainable building and farm tour, street carnival, skate music concert, youth and adult theater and dance are just some of the diverse tastes to enjoy.

The Experience is Yellow Springs’ most expansive invitation to the region and beyond with activities for all ages. Designed to support local artists and cultural practitioners of every stripe, the event represents 13 areas including visual arts, literature, theater, dance, music, environment, culinary, media, 3-dimensional, wellness, crafts, innovation and design. Popular summertime events such as the Antioch Writers’ Workshop, YS Kids Playhouse performances and Glen Helen EcoCamps are included in the Experience schedule.

Events will be held at locations throughout the village, including artist studios, educational sites and community centers. Tickets will be available for purchase online. Advance purchase is highly recommended.

Register at the Yellow Springs Experience.

On one hand, we should be very thankful that in all the years of off-shore oil drilling, that such an accident has not happened. But this single event may easily make-up for all those that never occurred (sadly). Now two months into the constant stream of oil, we only hear news of more oil expected and the damage it is causing.

Should it really be that hard to plug a leak? A lot of people are asking that same question.

Where are most people looking to for answers? Online. From web pages, to blogs, to Facebook and Twitter accounts, the world is angry about the spill, and they have plenty to say!

So, how does a wealthy company like BP go about trying to minimize the PR damage, and deal with the litany of accusations of an angry world? One way that BP has tried to deal with it is by purchasing ad words from top search engines Google and Yahoo!. Take a look at this search for the term “Oil Spill” The first Sponsored Link directs you to BP’s website to show progress of what they are doing to control the spill and to direct information seekers to the company’s official website. BP has received flak from many critics, do you see this as unethical?

On any search site, you will see two types of results, either a sponsored link, which are considered as paid advertisment, or an organic link, which is the popular result that users typically lean towards using.

Most people searching online for a term, are used to seeing the results that show up at the top of the search results pages, often with a colored background or down the right column of the search result. Those are the paid advertisements.

Do users have to pay for them? No. If you find a paid advertisement link, and you take the link to the site, only the company who placed the ‘ad’ pays for it. The other search results are simply a matter of either popular results that other users are tending to choose, or may be sites, blogs, or businesses who are aware of the keywords that users are looking for, and use them in their content effectively.

Today, you can make sure your online promotions are targeting keywords that users are looking for. Almost every search will come back with over a thousand results. Are you really going to search each one for the best deal? Naturally I either go with the top paid ad, or the top results from the non-paid ads. My time is limited and I am too busy to spend hours looking for the ideal vendor. I just want to look at the product, and order right away.

If you did your homework, and make sure your business advertises its products with the keywords that your customers are looking for, then you will be found! If you don’t understand internet keywords, and are not sure how to use them, you might have a great site, but users will never find you because you are not talking their ‘language’. So making sure you can use keywords effectively is hugely important in your website content. If you can’t, then working with a business who does understand them and can assist you is very beneficial.

The other option is going with online advertising. Here, you still are making sure you use the most popular keywords for your desired search results, but you are not just using them in your site, you are paying for the rights to deliver YOUR content to users who type in terms that match your product. But note, prices for paid ads can vary depending on the amount of competition is willing to pay for those same keywords.

So you decided to purchase ad words, the most common paid advertisement is cost-per-click (CPC). CPC bids determine the amount you’re willing to pay for each time someone clicks on your ad when it shows up on the search results. In general, a higher CPC bid can allow your ad to show at a higher position on the page. Your bid amount is combined with your Quality Score to determine your ad’s position on the page. Learn more below.

The other frequently used online advertisement is cost-per-impression (CPM). Which is when each time someone searches for your keyword and your advertisement loads in the search results, the search engines counts that loading as one impression.

Most companies like Google or Yahoo! sell keywords based on user clicking on ads using specific term in a paid search result. So you know that the very customer you are trying to connect with is actually looking for you!

So with that said, BP purchasing ad words, the links are, in all fairness, labeled as “sponsored” but we’re pretty interested to know your take. Do you think it will help or hurt their current PR situation?

We are celebrating Bing Design’s 10th anniversary!

10 years ago, Nick and Cris Gaskins took over ownership of the graphic design business that Bob Bingenheimer had started some 20 years ago here in Yellow Springs, Ohio. Although management has changed and trends are ever evolving, we have never lost our focus on great design, effective solutions and service, and the nimbleness that a small firm can offer.

Happy anniversary Bingers! Congratulations Nick and Cris!!

This Saturday, June 12th, don’t miss the bi-annual Yellow Springs Street Fair. Starting with a 5K run at 9:00, the 2010 Street Fair promises a day of great activity! Over 200 booths selling fine arts and crafts, clothing, jewelry, and an abundance of unique gifts, this all-day festival will have live entertainment from a variety of musicians and street performances throughout the day. The event is free, open to the public, and handicapped accessible, so come out, should be a gorgeous day!

Just a stone’s throw away from the Street Fair that same afternoon, take in the Inauguration Celebration of Antioch University McGregor’s second president, Michael Fishbein, Ph.D., at 1:00pm on their campus. As a proud supporter of the inauguration, there is limited seating, so check the website for availability.

If you are thinking it’s difficult to take in Yellow Springs in one day. The Yellow Springs Arts Council has the “experience” just for you.

The Yellow Springs Experience that is! Ten days – July 9-18 – that will feature workshops and events in a range of categories including performing arts, visual arts, tours, nature, and wellness. Events are for all ages and performances include a street carnivale. Events will be held at locations throughout the village and tickets will be available for purchase online on their website.

Yellow Springs is an eclectic village known for recreational attractions, unique shops, gourmet restaurants, lively arts and healthful living. If you aren’t able to make it out to any of these events, be sure to check out our best of Yellow Springs map!

Two great events – on the same day last week – honored our marketing communications and service towards our clients.

Nick attended the IABC Bronze Quill Awards. Like last year, the event combined both IABC Dayton and IABC Greater Cincinnati chapters. A keynote by James Czar and some lively entertainment provided an energetic award ceremony. Professionals were recognized with awards of Excellence and Merit; each category representing the highest level of accomplishment in business communications. The winning entries reflected the combined areas’ outstanding accomplishments in planning, execution and measurement.

Our work with Terrain SIM and Antioch University McGregor was recognized for the Award of Excellence in the Marketing Communications category of the Communication Management division. With the University’s goal of raising enrollment for the Fall semester, we conducted marketing research and used a variety of multimedia to execute the brand messaging. Messaging was represented graphically for the many facets of the campaign that included an email campaign, direct mail, social networks, and promotional items. With the effective marketing campaign approach, we exceeded the enrollment goal by nearly 10%.

Here’s a full list of Bronze Quill winners. Congratulations to all the entries!

That same evening Roger attended the Greater Dayton Advertising Association’s Mercury Awards. A ceremony honoring advertising professionals in sales and support roles.

Mercury Award Nominee

A list of the honorees and winners for this year.

Now that we tooted our own horn. Back to the daily task at hand, to produce award-winning marketing communications, with a friendly smile on our face.

One of the most painful inabilities to the Apple iPhone, is the lack of Adobe Flash support online.

As a Flash developer and animator, this has really been a personal peeve. I read recently that some are convinced that Apple is trying to push out Adobe! That bothers me more. No other industry has lent to the success of Apple more than we creatives in agencies, studios, and production houses around the globe.

When everyone was jumping on the PC/Windows bandwagon for so many years (which most still do), it was the companies who did print collateral, desktop production, illustration, graphic design, and television/movie production who were Apple through and through.

Now that the rest of the planet is now keen to what the Apple computer is good for (most everything including avoiding viruses), we see an ally turn against the very core of our business: Adobe and its Creative Suite of products.

While the conflict may be limited to Flash Shockwave files specifically, the entire suite suffers for the fact that the iPhone and iPad will not allow SWF files to work on their Safari browser! And rumor has it that Adobe may take this to the court system.

I’m no dummy! I know that a lot of abuse of Flash files online has been wrought by banner ads bouncing, moving, re-sizing on pages. As a web developer, I understand that user overload of Flash ads can occur. But looking at how efficient they are, and how clear they look, how smoothly they behave, it is hard to not like them. No one likes a slow-loading page, and Flash made ads and websites run more efficiently. A lot of talk about Web 2.0 is in regard to AJAX. AJAX is just a mix of JavaScript, HTML, Flash, and XML. Take Flash out of that and the very power and quality of modern web usage is hindered.

Use a computer, and the world is normal. Even use most mobile devices with web access, and Flash is fine. But take the trendy and popular Apple iPhone/iPad and try to see anything with a Flash backbone, and you might be looking at nothing.

When so much is dependent on Flash these days for efficiency, and quality, I am stunned that Apple has not incorporated Flash at the launch of either product. Odd, it seems that the iPhone’s own function is built on very similar technology as Flash and SWF files. Have they adopted the benefits and then put a big X on Flash because they didn’t make it different enough to protect the system software? I wonder….

Meanwhile, something that brings life to the web, and makes getting information and entertainment easy, and is very efficient (usually) is being blocked by my career-long partner: Apple. STOP IT!

Got gripes about iProducts vs. Flash too? The comment line is open!

Bing's Apple iPad

We have been doing some extensive “hands-on” research with our own Kindle and Nick’s recent acquisition of an Apple iPad. Angela has learned how to convert basic HTML with Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) into ebook format. She has been formatting documents ranging from a few-hundred-page paperback books to magazine articles to white papers and PowerPoint presentations with complex content, which may consist of images, tables, and graphs.

For the consumers there are many benefits for converting or using ebook readers. Here we highlight a few below:

1. Ebooks are portable. You can carry an entire library on your device!
2. The user can get instant access to scores of ebooks just by downloading it from the internet without waiting days and days for delivery of the book.
3. The price of ebooks is much less than any of the paper books as the costs of printing, shipping and distribution is almost eliminated.
4. The feature of hyperlinks gives the user the ability to shift to any section of ebook they want.
5. The user has the ability to choose the font that they like. From adjusting the font size to margin size to line spacing.
6. Ebooks are searchable. You can quickly find anything inside the book. Ebooks are globally searchable.
7. Ebooks make reading accessible to persons with disabilities. Text can be re-sized for the visually impaired. And for the hearing impaired, ebooks are capable of a text-to-speech option.

From Angela’s perspective, there is a lot on the back end to get familiar with. Since an intuitive workflow for converting layout files into ebook format has not yet been developed, much of the process involves trial and error and researching methods from many different sources online. A working knowledge of HTML programming also goes a long way. Although a rudimentary ebook can be created without too much effort, a well-designed ebook takes quite a bit more programming know-how, time and patience.

It is having said that, ebook readers will have a larger need for a market that has seen the closing of several library branches across America. For the future of the publication industry, there will be a need for design agencies to create and optimize formats for the affluent readers.

20% of the food sales will benefit the American Cancer Society Relay For Life in Springboro.

You must have THIS COUPON in order for the Shooting Stars group to get credit. And if you have plans that day, please pass along the coupon to friends and family. Tell ‘em Julie sent you!

Thank you!!!