With the month of short weeks over, a looming election 🗳️, and the end of the financial year 💰 just weeks away, I’ve found planning regular holidays the most useful activity to stay fresh in mind and body 🧠💪. It’s relatively easy to become stale in your day-to-day thinking and adding in some sunshine 🏖️, fresh air, and new sights and smells is like a 🧉 recipe book from an exotic location. ✈️
It means I can apply fresh ideas and approaches to each of our client projects and our team growth & development. As they say, a change is as good as holiday. 🥂
If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always have what you’ve always had.
If you’re ready to change and grow, so are we.
Valentina xxx
When To Use a Website Carousel Header
This seems to be a common conversation at present:
Client: “Can we add a carousel of images and videos to our website header?”
Banter: “Why would you want to do that?”
Not only is it a designer’s worst nightmare 😱 to include a carousel header on a website design – there’s very good reason for the pain-factor.
There’s a time and a place for a slider, and you should at least have the power of knowledge to make a good decision, or at the very least, an informed one. You see, carousels can do the exact opposite of what most brands think they do:
- A carousel’s design and frequent movement can make people think it’s an ad, leading them to ignore it
- Moving elements can negatively impact accessibility, especially for those with motor skill issues
- Many people can have a hard time reading all the text before a slider advances (that’s totally me)
- Since each slide’s content is only visible some of the time, content may easily be missed (yep, me again)
Before you go redesigning what isn’t broken, take a read of this comprehensive blog, sharing all the best practices for when to use and when NOT to use website carousels/sliders/slideshows. It may just change your mind and save your relationship with your design team at the same time.
Image Credit: Webflow
NFTs are coming to Insta
Starting with the basics, NFT stands for non-fungible token. What’s that? It means it’s unique and can’t be replaced with something else. For example, a bitcoin is fungible — trade one for another bitcoin, and you’ll have exactly the same thing. A one-of-a-kind trading card, however, is non-fungible. NFTs can be anything – like 🍷 wine or 🖼 art, and they can even be purchased for ‘futures’ – items that don’t yet even exist.
NFTs are finding their place and increasing in value as they mature. What’s interesting is that Zuck has announced the exploration of NFTs across Meta (Facebook & Insta) and what integrations may look like. There’s not much clarity as yet, but consider:
Could you sell a popular post as an NFT? Or mint NFTs that act as passes to let people see specific stories? Or minting your avatar’s clothing as an NFT and taking “it between your different places.”
Out metaverse is definitely changing and that’s going to put a lot of pressure on brands to stay relevant to the audiences using new technologies.
Image Credit:
1. Laava 2. Getty 3. Trevor Andrew 4. Logan Paul 5. Wallace and Gromit: The Wrong Trousers via The Verge
CBD fire corner in Bowral gets a makeover
The Bong Bong Street, Bowral fire of 2021 was a devastating blow for several businesses, including neighbouring businesses that were closed off from pedestrian and vehicle access for safety. 🚷
As the redevelopment plans roll out, we feel privileged to play our part in the design of the temporary hoardings.
Working with Wingecarribee Shire Council, our brief was to create a wondrous exploration of our region and its history, using QR codes for ongoing information and to assist visitors and locals alike to uncover businesses in the area.
Professionally installed by Spartan Creative on vinyl, we hope our design brings that little bit of history and excitement to the corner.
Finally! A Senior’s Mobile Phone That’s Easy
Our team loves to work with a product that truly solves a problem and BigPurplePhone is exactly that! It’s the new, simple mobile phone and service for senior Australians who struggle with technology. It’s an end-to-end video chat, photo sharing, and messaging app between you and your loved one, using Telstra’s vast network and Nokia’s smarts. 📳
Launching this new phone to the market is a heart-warming😍 opportunity for Banter. The pandemic kept us separated from loved ones and trying to remotely teach video calls and Zoom to our ageing family members was near impossible.
We work with our clients to develop their video and image assets for brand marketing across social media, the website, and paid media management, including concept creation, campaign planning and copywriting.
Check out the big phone, with a big heart 💜💜 – without the fandangle. Congratulations to our client too on bringing their amazing concept to the hands of our families.
Image Credit: Big Purple Phone
Less than 5 min reads for you
This section: Short reads, 👀 not just about marketing.
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TikTok: Should you? And if you should, how?
There are so many questions right now about using TikTok. TikTok is different to Insta and Facebook as a social platform. To show you a little bit of difference, we found a teacher using TikTok during lockdowns as a good example.
👩🏫 The teacher’s students complained her YouTube videos were too long and suggested she instead post her videos on TikTok. Within her first four days, she had amassed over 10,000 followers. Her “teachable moments” have delivered an inbox full of over 100 requests for content.
It’s such a great example of the adaptable and innovative use of platforms based on HOW YOUR AUDIENCE consumes media.
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52 Free Tools To Generate Ideas
Who doesn’t love a free tool? This wonderful resource combines 52 free tools that help you create ideas, quickly. All you need to do is pick a tool one after the other, and be prepared to note down your ideas 💡💡 when they start rolling in. The more ideas you generate, the better the chances of nailing the big one. You’re going to love this.
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5 Things To Hate About Email Marketing And How To Fix Them
Not all marketers are equal! This is a great summary of pet peeves in email marketing and how to fix them. And they’re pretty basic too – but if they’re so basic, why are marketers still using a ‘no-reply’ email address? Seriously, it’s been a two-way communication channel for 20+ years, it’s time to have a reply function. 📧📧
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On the blog: Email Marketing – Optimising your email marketing with brilliant testing techniques
Our email marketing series continues with Series 4: testing techniques. Jump on the blog to find out the two most common techniques, A/B testing and multi-variant testing. Learn what they are and how to do them, complete with examples and a ✍️ shopping list of things you can test. There are more options than you might think!
Testing really easy things in email marketing can deliver instant results, supporting your marketing to be as effective as possible, always.
Solar Panels Look Like Bricks or Glass or Wood!
☀️ Solar panels were *once* reserved for the wealthy – that is, the ones wealthy in roof real estate. With every industry looking for innovation in the norm, how great is it that someone has re-thought the materials for solar energy? First, we had solar roads (dating back to 2016) and now a Canadian company can turn almost any vertical surface into a source of power. ⚡
Mitrex created a building integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) material that looks like a regular stone, brick, glass, or wood facade. Capable of matching almost any design, the material provides architects and government planners with near-limitless options for integrating solar panels into new or existing structures.
Now that’s a change that’s as good as a holiday!
Catch you next time 😃
