Today, our vision for Cubic has led us to its next evolution. Cubic has merged with Libby & Co., a 3-year-old strategic branding firm with clients all over the U.S.  The result is a better, more strategic creative agency with an even broader range of services. Our shared corporate cultures, vision and approach to strategic branding add additional depth, substance, innovation and creativity to what we will deliver to our clients. We believe the result will be exponentially better for you.

Our company will retain the name Cubic, with four partners:  Billy Kulkin, Jeff DeGarmo, Winston Peraza, and Libby Bender.  On behalf of our talented team at Cubic, we want you to know that we are truly excited to be working together, and are looking forward to showing you why.

1. Stay Busy – even if you have finished whatever your task may be, there are usually plenty of things to do around most offices. There is always filing, dishes (kidding… but not really) (yes I am), mindless tasks that can help the day-to-day function of the business. If you improve the way things roll it won’t go unnoticed. Sometimes your supervisor may be too busy to check in with you. If that is the case check in with others and see if they have anything you can help with. There is always something to do.

2. Ask Questions – A LOT! – You are here to learn, period. “Why did you use san-serif on that logo?” “What kind of research can I help with for this project?” “What are you working on?” If you feel like you are being annoying, that is good… you should be. Invite yourself to meetings, even if they have nothing to do with you. It is all good experience and you will be just a fly on the wall taking it all in.

3. Nobody likes a kiss ass – Be yourself. Laugh… if you think it’s funny, people naturally respond better to genuine emotions. Be subjective, share your opinions, show your personality.

4. Ask for a review when the internship is nearly over. This is something you will probably have to do for class anyway, but these evaluations are a very valuable testament to your performance in a professional environment.

5. Use Grammar. We all know you can text insanely fast and probably know acronyms for just about anything, but when you are corresponding professionally, internally or externally, use punctuation and spell check.

6. Be Punctual. Even in the most relaxing environments, it is important to be relatively on time on the days you are expected to come in, especially if you are working on a specific project.

7. Follow Up. Before you leave each day be sure to let whomever you are helping for that day know where you are leaving off and where the files are located. You can send an email or verbally check-in, but it is important that they know where things are.

8. Make it fun. Wearing a smile goes a long way and happiness is contagious. Having a positive attitude at work is priceless.

This new update would finally address over optimization or as Google called it “Webspam”, and in true Google fashion the official name would be something completely unrelated “Penguin.” Penguin has addressed a number of spam factors, including keyword stuffing, linking schemes and others that Google felt it couldn’t mention do to not tipping their hand to web spammers. This new update was expected to impact an estimated 3.1% of English queries in Google search.

All in all I see this as step in the right direction in allowing quality websites to have an opportunity to rank  properly in Google search results. It also means good creative marketing and creative thinking can make a site more compelling, increase the user experience and not penalize the website in search engines.

Want to learn a little more about this update? Check out the Google blog post. Do you think this new change will live up to it’s potential? Let us know what you think in our comments section.

On the flip side, to create really great work obviously takes talent, but it also means working your butt off to make sure that you have created enough to verify that your final solution, product, work, is the best it can be.

The video below is a great example. It features Sir George Martin, who produced the Beatles music, along with his son and George Harrison’s son. About halfway through the clip, George Harrison’s son turns on a solo guitar track that Harrison had created but they never used in the song. “Here Comes the Sun” is one of the most recognizable songs in music, but the version we have all been listening to didn’t include every part of the song. It only includes the parts that made it great. Nothing more.

Social media is a great tool the US Armed Forces is using to manage their image with the public. It also helps families of soldiers to keep in touch with their loved one’s combat unit and share pictures and words of encouragement.

Just another creative way social media is helping both individuals and organizations!

No One-Trick Ponies Allowed!

Cubic is big enough to have diverse skills and many in-house services, but small enough that no one person can be a “Uni-tasker.” Many Cubicans have been involved in various research projects including observational studies, ethnographic studies, interviews, focus groups, triads, online surveys, usability testing, and even secret shopping. But no one Cubican is an expert in all methods, audiences, or industries, and you won’t find too many statistical analysts in a true Creative agency.

No apologies.

Research is too important to not get right, and it is a sizable investment in many cases. Our intention is not to make our tools fit your needs. Instead, we will select the best tools for you and manage them with your best interest in mind and without emotional attachment to the outcome.

How is that going to work?

We provide professional research management that taps into a network of industry professionals. We will identify and manage the perfect moderator or analyst for your job from a national and local network. Focus groups, usability testing, and surveys can be conducted seamlessly online or in-person. We will provide whichever combination is best for your audience and need.

All we ask is…

Join us for a discussion. Ask us your burning questions. We will design the right research path to get to the answer.

Upcoming research blog topics include:

• Website Usability Testing – Whether your website is your storefront or sales funnel you need to build it for the people. Test it. Improve it. Maintain it. It isn’t about you or Cubic. It is about the users.
• Customer Satisfaction – Always ask. Make it count. Build loyalty.
• Brand Identity – Perception is everything. Perceptions can and should be measured and monitored for ongoing course corrections.

What we do is provide advertising and marketing solutions via the implementation of creative strategies and tactics. Those may include branding strategy, a logo, a brochure, a website, a tradeshow booth, a video, etc. What we do is the tangible expression of what we sell. Every freelance designer, design shop and ad agency does the same thing. Some are better than others at the execution. I admire the aesthetic work of many including those that might be seen as competitors, locally, nationally and internationally. We are very good at what we do. However, it is very clear that what we do does not differentiate us from the rest of the crowded playing field. What we sell is what differentiates Cubic. So, what is the answer?

Cubic sells the creative effectuation of

Clarity, Coherence, and Consistency.

Let’s first define those.

Clarity – clearness or lucidity as to perception or understanding; free from ambiguity

Coherence – logical interconnection of ideas; overall understandability

Consistency – steadfast adherence to common principles; harmony among the various expressions of a complex idea

In every strategy we develop and in every supporting tactic we implement, these 3 core concepts define our execution of the work – what we do.

Clarity

Clarity is a goal throughout the entire development process at Cubic. The first step to any project is to understand clearly the problem and the goals. We must have clarity in this regard in order to provide on-target recommendations and sound strategies. When developing marketing strategies clarity in messaging ensures that our clients’ customers do not experience any ambiguity in the interpretation of that message regardless of how it’s delivered. At the end of the day, the clarity of the message is the essence of the consumer’s connection with a brand.

Coherence

Coherence is an essential requirement in today’s advertising landscape. Coherence speaks to the ability to deliver a brand’s core message regardless of the delivery method or audience. It used to be that people experienced a brand’s message with a similar group of people via the same device at the same time. Think about the early days of radio and TV. Consumers huddled around those devices and advertisers knew to whom they were talking, when and where their message would be heard and the exact format for the delivery of their message. With the onslaught of media platforms and delivery systems and the global integration of cultures, diverse audiences are now experiencing brands nonstop through a variety of channels and in a variety of locations. As well, the format of the content now ranges from multi-million dollar commercial productions to 140 character tweets. Organizations must have an unwavering belief in the brand idea – the clarity of the message. This preeminent conviction makes it easy to translate the message across varied media and different cultures.

So, how do you ensure coherence? To paraphrase an excerpt from Language as Dialogue: From Rules to Principles (Edda Weigand), coherence is created in the minds of the individual in their attempt to comprehend the “different visual, perceptual and cognitive means at their disposal.” Coherence extends to the relation among text, imagery, sound, smell, taste, touch … all of a person’s sensory preceptors. Based on 20^th century American Philosopher, Brand Blanshard’s teachings, truth (the heart of a brand) is a property of a whole system of interconnected propositions and that this whole must be so interdependent that every element (brand touch point) in it necessitates, and even entails, every other element. That’s a powerful concept. With coherence, the message does not have to be the same in every case. But, it must adhere to the brand truth in every case.

Consistency

Consistency has been the focus of advertising philosophies since the early 1990’s. Then, and to an extent now, consistency meant delivering the same creative output across all brand touch points regardless of locale, culture, delivery platform, etc. This notion of consistency should be retired from all advertising and marketing mantras.

For us, consistency relates more to the way in which we provide clarity and coherence. Clarity in messaging is not an option. We must consistently listen to our clients, analyze the problem, determine the goals, research the industry and competitors, and provide sound strategies. Not just in the beginning, but in every interaction with our clients and their brands. As well, we must be consistently coherent in our approach to employing the tactics that arise from the established marketing strategy. Today’s advertising environment dictates that the popular understanding of consistency take a back seat to the importance of coherence. Consistency, in its archaic definition, does still have it’s place in marketing, but is now limited to providing consistency within much smaller markets and delivery platforms.

In essence, at Cubic, we consistently provide clarity and coherence for our clients’ brands. The value in that is immeasurable when compared to the countless things that we do day-to-day.

The value is in what we sell, not what we do.

Everyone has different ways they interpret media. Me, I think of it to be all types of communication whether traditional or online. Both are forms of communication each with a multitude of delivery options. While statistics show that ‘traditional media’ is not getting the same allocation of marketing dollars as they did before internet, it is also true that consumers are still being exposed to traditional media. How you use it is what matters. A good healthy combo of traditional and online can be the perfect mix for success.

Bottom line… media is not dead. But instead has adapted to the changes in human behavior. The way humans consume information has changed. This is why we as marketers cannot just look at traditional or online media but instead a good mix of both that will reach our target audience.

I found a blog post from Samuel Parent’s Blog with great statistics about how consumers use each medium. Some numbers may be out of date, but it gives you a good perspective.

Let me know your thoughts on, Is Media Dead.

You see, brooms can stand on their own any time of the year; it doesn’t take a special planetary alignment to do so. That’s thanks to their low center of gravity and stiff bristles. Oh, and by the way, gullible is still in the dictionary.

In the last few years social media has taken the world by storm. It’s brought simple, fast communication to the entire world. We now have the ability to absorb more information than ever and we don’t have to spend a fortune on a set of encyclopedias to do so.

But, there is a problem. Somewhere along the way we got lazy in our vetting process. We sometimes fail to appreciate that in online communication, we lose the ability of intuition, where we might discern things not readily apparent in the written word alone, such as a telling glance or body language that can portray sarcasm. We want to be the first among friends to pass on information, to be a news source. As we rush through our busy lives, taking a moment to check out the latest up to the minute information, we see a post that seems logical, but isn’t, and decide to share it with others. In the blink of an eye, this false fact has gone viral, person after person failing to take a minute of their time to fact check.

Recently we’ve seen people attributed to quotes they didn’t actually say… a wealthy banker’s measly tip which turned out to be photoshopped, and a limitless string of false celebrity death reports. Now, though some of that misinformation sparked controversy and discussion, it didn’t hurt anybody, but other misinformation very well could have. During the recent school shooting in Ohio, students who were trapped in the school turned to social networks for answers. The problem was that multiple stories were being posted and no one knew the truth, which could have made an already dangerous situation even more so.

Today we have blazing fast, always on connections on our phones allowing us unlimited access to information. It’s all too easy to read a juicy tweet and instantly decide that others need to see it as well, unknowingly passing on false information, easily ruining someone’s career even if a correction is made. We literally have at our fingertips something that is changing the world for the better. We just need to take a step back and use some common sense and logic to really harness the power that social media offers. The internet has made the world into a small town and with that comes small town gossip multiplied. But we’ve got to be smart, look through the gossip and misinformation and become that tight knit community small towns can be.

Social media can save you money, connect you to your customer base, share information about disasters, save lives, and it will continue to change the world. Let’s be smart, and use it for such.

Have an example of misinformation spreading via social media? Tell us about it in the comments.

Nike is reinventing fitness and how we stay motivated. You already know Nike for their running shoes, but you may not know they are so much more than that. Nike is totally reinventing how we get healthy and stay healthy. With mobile apps to track your workouts and online fitness management software, Nike is becoming as much a technology company as they are an apparel maker. Driving much of that transformation is Ian Spalter of RGA, a design firm in New York City, who recently visited Tulsa to speak about this transformation. Check out his online profile at www.ianspalter.com