Two of Our Clients Win BILD Awards

07 May 2011 Leave a comment

by John Amardeil in Awards, Trends

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I’m honoured to report that two of our clients won a BILD award last Friday. As I’ve said before, the Building Industry and Land Development Association’s awards are probably the homebuilders’ most coveted.

The first of our clients to receive a 2011 BILD award was Empire Communities, who walked away with the Low-Rise Green Builder of the Year Award. This Award recognizes outstanding leadership in the implementation of green building practices, and while it was the first time Empire Communities received it, the company’s green efforts have been previously recognized.

We at BAM played a big part in helping Empire cement itself as a green leader by designing their green program, ECO². This program ensures that every Empire home exceed ENERGY STAR standards, offering homeowners $8,000 worth of cost-saving, green features—for free. Homeowners can also upgrade to the ECOnomical and ECOlogical packages, which provide them with options such as solar panels that they can use to sell energy back to the grid.

Next, Mason Homes’ Peterborough community Avonlea won top honours as Places to Grow (P2G) Community of the Year (Low-Rise) for its combination of smart growth and new urbanism with green building initiative. This is not the first time Mason Homes wins this prestigious award.

The Places to Grow Award recognizes the community development that best reflects the goals of the provincial Places to Grow legislation. At Avonlea, the homes are Green for Life, and the community is designed to include new urbanism ideas and to allow inhabitants to walk to school, work, or the shops, enhancing a more sustainable lifestyle.

For obvious reasons, I’m happy that our clients won such important awards. The future is green and sustainable, and both Empire Communities and Mason Homes are hard at work to ensure they lead the way.

What the New iPad 2 Means to You and Your Business

18 Mar 2011 1 Comment

by John Amardeil in Trends

”Thinner. Lighter. Faster. Face Time. Smart Covers. 10-hour Battery.” – iPad 2

As can be expected, there’s a flurry of excitement over the new iPad. It’s so much more than the old one. It’s new and light, thin and fast. If you don’t have it, you’re soo behind, you’re lead to believe.

Remember when VCRs cost $1000 and things only went down in price once or twice a year? Now new technology launches and sometimes within months it’s already decreased in value. That’s because technology is advancing so quickly; by the time a product launches, the mechanics of things has already vastly changed (remember Flash?).

So what does that mean for advertisers and marketers?

1. Embrace change
As much as you may love doing things the way you’ve been doing them, you’ve got to keep up. Otherwise, you’ll be left behind.

2. Even if you don’t understand it, do it
Whether or not you know what apps or tweets are, get social and mobile. The popularity of the iPad means that your website and blogs should look good on it, and should be quick and easy to read and navigate.

This doesn’t mean you have to have the new iPad to be on top. You just have to acknowledge its immense influence on technology and culture.

Creating a Viral Campaign

25 Feb 2011 2 Comments

by John Amardeil in Strategies, Trends

It should have been impossible.

Old Spice was a tired brand that only Grandpas wore. It was staid and lame and well, it seemed like the world had moved on.

But ad agency Wieden & Kennedy went and produced “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” ads staring former NFL wide receiver Isaiah Mustafa that made the product finally relevant to a young audience. The ads’ irreverence and humour went not only viral, but views of the video topped those of Barack Obama’s presidential victory speech and Susan Boyle’s performances.

 

It just goes to show that you’ve got to be tapped in to your target market. Wieden & Kennedy smartly advertised to women even though they were trying to sell a men’s product, figuring that women often buy bath products for their boyfriends and husbands.

At BAM, we spend a great deal of time honing in on our clients’ products and figuring out who’s likely to buy them. We look at not just their ages and locations, but their interests and buying habits. We also tap into the way people think and what excites them. We want to create successful campaigns that get people texting their friends and forwarding links about upcoming communities/opportunities! Going viral is always an amazing success.

The Ongoing Quest to Go Beyond the Digital Frontier

11 Feb 2011 1 Comment

by John Amardeil in Trends

Here at BAM, we’re always looking for not just the latest thing, but the latest revolutionary thing. The thing that’s going to change the way people live, the way people think.

While you might think of your cell phone as a necessity, as a daily need along with your morning cup of coffee, it’s actually one of the most powerful technological tools that you can have.

And we’re harnessing that, on behalf of our clients.  Take, for example, the recent information compiled at The Next Web:

Cell Phone Usage
Via: Online IT Degree

The numbers are staggering. So we think that we should embrace these statistics and run with them. If people are using their phones to access and process all this info, shouldn’t we be delivering our info to them there?

Recently we’ve been using SMS (text message) campaigns and QR (Quick Response) codes, which enable people to do things quickly and easily while on the go. We can text registrants with to-the-minute news or reminders; people can scan a QR code from one of our client’s signs or ads and be led to their website in a nanosecond; and people can even register or get a link to a video online just by sending us a text message. All of a sudden, sending out emails to convey information seems so 2008.

Technology is rapidly changing and BAM is staying ahead of the pack, bringing info to potential homeowners in the fastest, most convenient and appealing way possible.

Life moves fast these days, so use your phone to help streamline and keep up.  We certainly are.

QR Codes – The Way of the Future. And the Future Is Now.

03 Feb 2011 1 Comment

by John Amardeil in Trends

In the hectic, technology-driven world we live in, it’s hard to imagine life before computers and cellphones. They’re so much a part of our daily life, both in the way we work and communicate with one another.

Here at BAM, we want to integrate technology into everything we do, making it easy for our clients to get the information they need when they need it.

In the hectic, technology-driven world we live in, it’s hard to imagine life before computers and cellphones. They’re so much a part of our daily life, both in the way we work and communicate with one another.

Here at BAM, we want to integrate technology into everything we do, making it easy for our clients to get the information they need when they need it.

So when we launched the campaign for registration for Barrie’s community Just4U, we used technology that is just starting to come into the collective consciousness – QR Codes.

It sounds complicated, but really it’s very easy. A scan code is created specifically for your marketing campaign. You post this on your ad, sign, wherever you want, and people scan it with their smartphone’s camera. The cell/smartphone owner is then offered unique information via this method (many Nokia, Blackberry and Android phones come with QR code readers pre-installed. If your phone doesn’t have it, you can download QR reader software compatible with your specific phone).

There is so much information out there. Don’t go searching for it – let it all come to you!

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