Tag: imported from One Degree

March 20, 2006

  • Spore — New Worlds, New Marketing

    Have you heard of “Spore” — the new game from Will Wright, creator of SimCity and the Sims? The PC game won’t be released for at least another 1 1/2 years but right now I’m pretty sure it is the best video game ever made.

    How can I say this? Well, I’ve seen Will Wright walk-through and talk-through what Spore is in both a “one-hour presentation” from the 2005 Games Developer Conference and an edited 35-minute version.

    I’m still getting my head around “micro-chunking” as a marketing strategy but I think there is something really big here.

    Spending 35 minutes watching Wright talk about his latest obsession is entertainment in itself. Heck, watching this on my Mac beat out watching CSI on TV one night last week. But it is also one of the best ads for a new product I’ve ever seen. Really a 35-minute infomercial full of passion and ideas that made me “ooh” out loud. We need to start thinking much more about making marketing that is inherently compelling AND entertaining AND incredibly easy to pass along. I found this on “Google Video” via “boing boing” and now you watched it on “One Degree” and if you took the time to watch the video my guess is you’ll be talking about this and passing it along to.

    Now, does anyone know if “EA” released this video intentionally, or was it a fan that put this online? Either way, this is a glimpse at the future of advertising.

    Originally published at www.onedegree.ca on March 20, 2006.

March 15, 2006

  • Webnames Names One Degree One Of Canada’s Best

    It was nice to see that this month’s issue of The Server Room newsletter from Canadian domain registrar webnames.ca had some nice things to say about what we are doing here at One Degree:

    One Degree’s tagline is “where Canadian Internet Marketers gather” and Ken Schafer (One Degree’s publisher, contributing editor and recognized Internet marketing authority) has certainly pulled together an impressive roster of industry experts to share their knowledge on the gamut of Internet Marketing activities. The blog is updated daily, features Canadian-specific examples and covers topics as wide-ranging as affiliate programs, public relations and viral marketing. We consistently find the postings both thought-provoking and informative — definitely RSS or subscription worthy.

    Stop. We’re blushing. You had us at “impressive roster”. I don’t think we’ve ever been called “subscription-worthy” but we’ll take that as a high compliment in these days of overloaded inboxes. Of course, as soon as webnames.ca published this we fell off the wagon and didn’t publish for the better part of a week!

    Originally published at www.onedegree.ca on March 15, 2006.

March 8, 2006

  • The Impact of Toronto’s WiFi Blanket

    Patrick Dinnen is a volunteer with the Wireless Toronto community group. Wireless Toronto launched in Spring 2005 with the goal of encouraging the growth of wireless networking and building community in interesting and innovative ways. Since their launch, Wireless Toronto has formed partnerships with local businesses to create a network of free-to-use WiFi hotspots across the GTA. As well as hotspots in cafes, bars, and restaurants Wireless Toronto switched on a free WiFi network covering the St Lawrence Market building in November 2005, creating Toronto’s largest public WiFi zone.

    One Degree: “Patrick, what does the “Toronto Hydro WiFi blanket announcement” mean to Toronto and to the “Wireless Toronto” initiative?”

    Patrick Dinnen: Thinking about these questions I come back to the goals of Wireless Toronto ‘a not-for-profit group dedicated to bringing no-fee wireless Internet access to Toronto. Our aim is to encourage the growth of wireless networking and to build community in interesting and innovative ways’. From that point of view, I think there’s much to be positive about in Toronto Hydro’s announcement. Although we got some more details from Toronto Hydro today there are still a lot of unanswered questions. But right now, here’s what I feel: Availability of competitively priced WiFi Internet access in 100% of the downtown core, which Toronto Hydro’s plan calls for, is a great move forward for Toronto residents, businesses and visitors.

    But more than that, blanketing the downtown core with seamless, and lower-cost network access opens the door to multiple opportunities for innovation in access to information and communication for residents, community groups, underserved communities and small businesses. I strongly hope that those broader opportunities are seized. In terms of what the announcement means for Wireless Toronto as a group, again it’s good news. This will give Torontonians a huge boost in terms of awareness and accessibility to WiFi. That will increase the number of people who use the free Wireless Toronto hotspots (which range from Oakville to Scarborough, Woodbridge to St. Lawrence Market). This increase in WiFi awareness can only help in Wireless Toronto’s goals of working with volunteers and partners to explore the opportunities for communication and community offered by WiFi. I’d encourage One Degree readers to visit the Wireless Toronto blog. We hope to help people keep on top of the deluge of news and opinion around the topic of WiFi in Toronto, this is just beginning.

    Originally published at www.onedegree.ca on March 8, 2006.

  • Hand-written Notes In A Digital World

    I got a pleasant surprise in my mailbox the other day — a hand-written thank-you note from “fellow blogger” and CMA course instructor Mitch Joel:

    <image lost to link decay>

    The note was short, essentially thanking me for help on a few things that I was happy to collaborate on. He’d already sent quick e-mail thank-yous but this added touch really jumped out at me.

    By breaking free of “business as usual” he got my attention. It was even better that it was done by hand and that his script looks a bit like “hugh macleod’s gaping void style”.

    My guess is that the more we move business and personal lives online the more “old-fashioned” modes of communication will become valued. When was the last time you received or sent a hand-written note? What was the reaction?

    Bonus question: Do you even have the physical addresses of those that you count as friends and colleagues so that you could do this?

    Originally published at www.onedegree.ca on March 8, 2006.

March 6, 2006

  • Half of Oscar Night Ads Have No URLs

    How are big advertisers doing at moving people from TV to the web? What better way than to use a global “must see” event like the “Academy Awards” to take a look at who’s pointing people to the web and who’s missing their big opportunity. Of the 69 spots shown during 12 breaks (some shown multiple times), 36 had URLs. That means that almost 50% of the spots didn’t even try to move people to the web to continue talking to them. Seems like a real waste.

    Here is a full list of all the ads and links to all the sites that were mentioned. I think if you review this you’ll find a few very interesting things — eBay doesn’t put URLs on TV ads? WTF?

    I’d be interested in some comments from you the esteemed One Degree reader on the strategies shown here. Click through on some of these URLs and see what the companies are up to. Some were clearly thinking about the value of the web and for others, it seems an afterthought. And some seem to have good intentions but poor execution — personally I’d have spent a few bucks and registered something a little more memorable than “www.health.gov.on.ca/babyvaccines”.

    (This analysis is based on the HD version of the CTV broadcast in Ontario)

    First Break

    • Toyota Camry “thenewcamry.ca”
    • Stayfree Drymax
    • Acuvue — “acuvue.ca”

    Second Break

    • Neutrogena — “neutrogena.ca”
    • Rogers On Demand
    • Ontario Government — “ontario.ca/smokefree”
    • Coffeemate (Zoot) — “zootreview.ca”
    • Stella Artois — “stellaartois.com”

    Third Break

    • McDonald’s
    • Lady & Tramp — “www.ladyandthetrampdvd.com”
    • Nissan — X-trail — “nissan.ca”
    • Staples

    Fourth Break

    • Acuvue — “acuvue.ca”
    • A&W
    • Mazda — “mazda.ca”
    • CIBC
    • Rona — “rona.ca”

    Fifth Break

    • Mission Impossible “missionimpossible.com”
    • Ford Fusion — “ford.ca” (mouse type)
    • Scotiabank — “findthemoney.scotiabank.com”
    • Neutrogena — “neutrogena.ca”
    • Rogers On Demand
    • Ontario Government — “ontarioculture.ca”
    • Canada Post
    • Saturn — “saturncanada.com”

    Sixth Break

    • “Inside Man”
    • Kia
    • Lipton’s Soupworks
    • Visa — “visa.ca”
    • Gilette Fusion
    • Walmart
    • Pantene
    • Slimdown — “slimdown.ca”

    Seventh Break

    • Subaru — “subaru.ca”
    • Mastercard — “mastercard.ca”
    • Rogers On Demand
    • Ministry of Health — “www.health.gov.on.ca/babyvaccines”
    • Fancy Feast
    • Best Buy — “bestbuy.ca”
    • L’Oreal Preference

    Eighth Break

    • L’oreal
    • Da Vinci’s Code — “thedavincicode-movie.com”
    • Tostitos
    • Cadillac Escalade — “cadillac.gmcanada.com”
    • Scotiabank — “findthemoney.scotiabank.com”
    • L’oreal — Natural Match — “naturalmatch.ca”

    Ninth Break

    • Ford Escape — “ford.ca”
    • Kraft — Philadelphia Cream Cheese
    • Aveeno — Active Naturals
    • Aveeno — Daily Moisturizing
    • “I Walked The Line”
    • Ontario Government — “ontarioculture.ca”
    • eBay

    Tenth Break

    • Nissan — X-Trail — “nissan.ca”
    • Neutrogena — Deep Cleaning — “neutrogena.ca”
    • CHFI
    • “Special 8” Lottery — “olgc.ca”
    • Stella Artois
    • Revlon — Remmel
    • Lean Cuisine — “leancuisine.ca”
    • Ministry of Health — “www.health.gov.on.ca/babyvaccines”

    Eleventh Break

    • Blockbuster
    • Colgate Total
    • Aero Chocolate Bar
    • Scotiabank — “findthemoney.scotiabank.com”
    • Wendy’s

    Twelfth Break

    • Jeep — “jeep.ca”
    • Canadian Forces — “forces.ca”

    Originally published at www.onedegree.ca on March 6, 2006.

  • Net Marketers Can Learn From Direct Marketers

    As President of Wiest & Associates Inc. — “The Customer Acquisition and Retention Company — Daniel G. Wiest has long been considered one of Canada’s leading direct marketers, and now one of Internet marketing’s innovators.

    One Degree: “What skills or techniques from the direct marketing world do you think are most lacking in Internet marketing and what do we lose by not having them in our online toolkits?”

    Dan Wiest: I apologize in advance if this response rubs a few readers the wrong way, but please scan my entire answer before deciding how loudly to cheer or jeer. In return, I promise not to sound too much like my grandfather’s “when I was your age…” ramblings in the process. One big shortcoming I see too frequently is the absence of leveraging that core knowledge we’ve already gained from offline testing. I’m not saying that pure Internet marketers don’t generate rich information and insights. Quite the opposite. In fact, I think we’re kicking the pants off of the traditional media holdouts with the wealth of actionable data we’re able to produce. And we’ve become the masters (sometimes…) at turning that information around to produce even more relevant communications and offerings. But the preceding decades have rewarded us with vast resources of test results, analytics and careful study of the factors that motivate people. Somehow these historical treasures seem to have gotten pushed aside in the excitement surrounding all of the new tools and techniques. Forget about the new tools for a moment, and consider this: I don’t imagine for one second that human needs and wants were somehow genetically altered by the arrival of the Internet. Yes, the techniques and media options for matching and delivering solutions those human needs may have changed dramatically. But human behavior itself hasn’t. So why not begin with the knowledge of what consumers have already been proven to respond to?

    In defense of the pure online guys, they’re masters at testing things like e-mail subject lines, clickthrough stats on content and time spent navigating specific pages. And this stuff is absolutely wondrous and critical to advancing direct marketing. But do they truly understand why some of that stuff is working? And could they have started with a stronger proposition in the first place if they were working from a strategic approach that was grounded in offline learning? Allow me to roll back the clock for a moment. I suspect many online newbies may never have read John Caples’ “Tested Advertising Methods.” Perhaps you are even saying who the heck is John Caples? Caples was BBDO’s creative director for years. He also happened to start his career in the 1920’s and published this book in 1932. It may calm your ancient fears to know that this book’s been in print almost continuously since that time, and Caples was even elected to the Copywriter’s Hall of Fame in 1973, and the Advertising Hall of Fame in 1977. Why bother reading a book from 1932? Because Caples was not only a brilliant writer, but he also happened to invent many of the techniques that we use today for split creative testing. This book is still holding up as a direct marketing copywriter’s bible of testing wisdom. Caples doesn’t just analyze what works, but he always matches those quantitative results up with why it works. Are the examples used in the book outdated? They’re painfully outdated. But the analysis of those examples is more astute than most direct marketing copy tutorials I’ve seen published since. If you’re still hanging in there, now I’ll raise another toast to the strictly-online guys. I never wish to discount the experience of those who only have the benefit of learning from digital executions — they have absolutely moved direct marketing forward by leaps and bounds. All I’d like to do is save them from having to re-discover what’s been fine-tuned for them already. What are we losing by sometimes lacking this historical knowledge in our toolkit? Lots. Pure online folks might be able to start their construction of campaigns at a strategic level of understanding what is likely to generate a response, as well as why it’s likely to motivate. This understanding obviously helps improve initial response metrics. But I think it also makes you lots smarter about your post-campaign analysis of why particular elements of a campaign worked; and how to take advantage of those findings. I also think that online marketers might be a lot tougher on themselves if they had the benefit of direct marketing media training and analysis. Parting shots: I’m excited about the possibility of Internet marketers taking greater advantage of this knowledgebase from the offline world. The Internet marketers can leverage that learning far more than the traditional marketers were ever able to. That’s going to make our business more enriching for marketers. And more enriching for our prospects and customers.

    Originally published at www.onedegree.ca on March 6, 2006.

  • Scoble Brightlines Memeorandum

    Recent One Degree interviewee, Robert Scoble is often seen as an edge case (although he “hates being called that). I think Robert sees himself more as “canary in a coalmine” — out ahead of us but doing what will one day become common practice. The term edge case implies a way of using things that will never be seen as normal. In any case, whether Robert is an edge case or not, I’m starting to think that he is a “bright-liner”. You might not know that word, so let me digress for a moment to explain what it is before saying why Scoble might be one and why it might impact your brand.

    The term bright-line rule is gaining common use but still doesn’t show up in most dictionaries. I fell in love with the concept after reading Virginia Postrel’s New York Time’s article on resolutions. In it she deconstructs Professor Thomas C. Schelling saying in part:

    Another approach is to use bright-line rules, which make it harder to cheat through clever reinterpretation. That may explain why many people find it easier to eliminate whole categories of food, like carbohydrates, rather than simply to cut back on calories. “Just as it may be easier to ban nuclear weapons from the battlefield in toto than through carefully graduated specifications on their use, zero is a more enforceable limit on cigarettes or chewing gum than some flexible quantitative ration,” Professor Schelling wrote. He once resolved to smoke “only after the evening meal.” That rule “led to tortured reasoning Thanksgiving afternoon, or flying west across the Atlantic with perpetual afternoon, and it stimulated lots of token sandwiches on leaving the ski slopes to drive home.”

    Yesterday Scoble decided to stop reading Memeorandum. No “I’ll only check it at the end of the day” or “just when I have a few minutes between meetings” kind of stuff. This is a clear brightline. Scoble’s approach to Memeorandum is similar to his stance on full vs. partial feeds — Scoble won’t subscribe to partial feeds. Full stop. Why does this matter? Besides showing us a bit more about Scoble as a person, it also points to the increasing stress we all have in keeping up with an overly complex world. My guess is we’ll see more arbitrary brightlining (like “I don’t watch anything with Ryan Seacrest in it”) in the future. What happens when your brand becomes “dead to me?”

    How will you ever get me back?

    Originally published at www.onedegree.ca on March 6, 2006.

February 21, 2006

  • Two Weeks With Gordon and Frank

    Last week we did a one week update on our little “gordonandfrank.ca” experiment. Here’s what we see after two weeks:

    • 21,026 pages served (a bit less than half of One Degree traffic).
    • 4,032 people clicked through to the real Bell site.
    • 2,001 people got here by searching on phrases using Bell, Beavers, Frank, or Gordon.
    • “Bell Beavers” is the most common search term. 683 people got to One Degree using that phrase!
    • 89 people got here because of Norm MacDonald. They’re still angry about this.
    • 46 people have taken the time to post “often gushing” comments about the mascots.

    Here are the top twenty “beaver-related” searches driving our traffic:

    1. bell beavers
    2. frank and gordon
    3. bell canada beavers
    4. frank and gordon beavers
    5. rankandgordon
    6. frankandgordon.ca
    7. frank and gordon bell
    8. bell canada commercials
    9. bell beaver commercials
    10. gordon and frank
    11. frank and gordon commercials
    12. gordonandfrank.ca
    13. bell canada beaver commercials
    14. voices of frank and gordon
    15. bell frank and gordon
    16. frank & gordon
    17. “frank and gordon”
    18. bell beaver
    19. bell canada beaver
    20. bell commercials

    Interestingly enough, traffic is increasing over time, not dying down as I assumed it would.

    Today’s lesson: You never know when you’ll blog something that has a *huge* impact on your traffic and the profile of your site. My quickie post about an ad I saw during the Super Bowl now accounts for half the entire one-year-old site’s traffic — after only two weeks!

    Originally published at www.onedegree.ca on February 21, 2006.

  • Do Real People Know About Agencies?

    I’m not sure that the average Bob and Betty on the street have that much appreciation for the role of advertising agencies in the ads they see. If they do it’s probably a stereotypical Darrin Stevens or thirtysomething concept of what goes on.

    The reason I ask this is that the folks commenting over at Gordon and Frank seem to be very quick to talk about Bell’s agency. For the first week, most of the comments on our post were generally negative towards the ads and to Norm MacDonald’s involvement. Then on Monday, February 13th the posts took a turn and became overwhelmingly positive. I’m not sure what might have caused this — maybe the ads changed or something. Anyway, here are a few representative posts:

    Hilarious. It’s about time we show our great Canadian sense of Humour. How about stuffed animal mascots for sale. Great fund raiser for our future Canadian Athletes. I buy a pair. Keep up the great work.I’m proud to be a Canadian and a Bell subscriber.

    Hooray to the Bell Marketing department to hire a company with a sense of humour. Enjoy the ads, breaking up the sometimes dry CBC commentary.

    Frank and Gordon have to be the BEST ad on TV for a long time. In fact, the advertisers at the Super Bowl paid millions to have their ads seen and I dont remember one of them!!!! SO Frank and Gordon have certainly outrated even the Super Bowl.. They are wonderful, funny, and all Canadian. Right on Bell for picking the right ad for the 2006 Olympics, I hope we see more of Frank and Gordon for other events, you’ve got a winner there. Good One.!!!!!

    I love the Frank and Gordon commercials! They are so much fun to watch. Great work for whoever came up with these commercials! Keep up the good work!!!

    Half the fun of watching the Olympics this time around is seeing Frank & Gordon in the commercials. Their website is great too. I would love to buy the stuffed version of the duo. And if you think about it, its just funny that Norm is the voice of Frank, the patriotic beaver. Because, I, for one, haven’t watched this much CBC in a long time. I wouldn’t even think of turning to an American station to watch the Olympics.

    Relax people, don’t get political, it’s just a commercial and a good one at that. Cheers to the advertising agency that came up with this one. They are fun to watch and I’m sure the US would love to see our Bell commercials on their TV. Toques off to Frank and Gordon.

    I have not seen any commercial that makes me want to split a gut. Hats off to who ever created Frank and Gordon. I simply Love them!!! Its nice to have a hardy laugh at the end of a work day. Kudos!!!!!

    I’ll be honest, I’m a little suspicious. I’ve been checking IP addresses as these comments come in and I’m not seeing anything that says they are planted. They come from all over the country through many different services providers at all times of day. Given the traffic, these pages are getting there aren’t even an abnormally large number of comments. Besides, people seem to really like the beavers.

    In fact, CFRB’s Daily Poll is about Frank and Gordon today and “love” is beating “hate”, 84% to 16% as I write this. So maybe Bell does have a huge groundswell of support for these new mascots. Maybe they’re the next Spuds Mckenzie. But I have to ask, do you know anyone in the real world that talks like this about advertising? Anybody have examples of ad forums, TV discussion boards, etc. that show similar passion for ads? I’m just curious.

    Originally published at www.onedegree.ca on February 21, 2006.

February 17, 2006

  • Someone Is Paying Attention To gordonandfrank.ca

    Well, we still haven’t seen anything official from Bell or Cossette about our little “gordonandfrank.ca” experiment, but a sharp reader did find proof that someone at Cossette is paying attention.

    “gordonandfrank.com” redirects to the official “Bell Beavers” site at “frankandgordon.ca”. A quick WHOIS shows that “Fjord Interactive” (the interactive side of Cossette) registered gordonandfrank.com on — February 10th — five days after One Degree registered the .ca.

    Domain Name: “GORDONANDFRANK.COM
    Registrar: DOMAINPEOPLE, INC.
    Whois Server: whois.domainpeople.com
    Referral URL: http://www.domainpeople.com
    Name Server: NS1.FJORDINTERACTIVE.NET
    Name Server: NS2.FJORDINTERACTIVE.NET
    Status: REGISTRAR-LOCK
    Updated Date: 10-feb-2006
    Creation Date: 10-feb-2006
    Expiration Date: 10-feb-2007

    Originally published at www.onedegree.ca on February 17, 2006.

February 15, 2006

  • One Week With Gordon And Frank — So Much To Learn

    This whole “Gordon and Frank” thing is offering some really interesting insights into cross-channel marketing.

    Not up-to-speed on the saga? Here’s a recap:

    1. Superbowl Sunday — See Bell Beaver ads tagged with “frankandgordon.ca” URL, wonder if they registered “gordonandfrank.ca”. They didn’t.
    2. Register the domain.
    3. Monday, February 6th — write an “article for One Degree” explaining why Bell probably should have bought the alternate domain and point gordonandfrank.ca at it.
    4. Read “the Marketing Magazine article” and realize this is a huge campaign that will go well beyond the Olympics.
    5. Wait for someone at “Bell” or “Cossette” to notice.

    So, after one week, where were we:

    • 6,618 pages served.
    • 1,225 people clicked through to the real Bell site.
    • 745 people got here by searching with words like Bell, Beavers, Frank, Gordon.
    • “Bell Beavers” is the most common search term that gets people here.
    • 34 people got here because of Norm MacDonald. A lot of them are angry.
    • Then again, some people love the beavers so much they’re looking to buy Frank and Gordon plushies.
    • The National Post’s Mark Evans “talks to” “Frank and Gordon”.
    • Still no word from Bell or Cossette.

    Things we can learn from this exercise:

    1. Typo domains can drive real traffic. Don’t expect your customers to remember exactly what your URL is and help them in any way you can. In particular register variations on all your marketing domains.
    2. Think like your customers. Bell and Cossette might be on a first-name basis with Frank and Gordon but to many of them they are the “Bell Beavers”. Bell should be buying AdWords on that term to get people to the right site and similar terms should be part of their SEO strategy.
    3. Listen to the blogosphere. We’ve been talking about this for over a week now and “others” “have” “been” “pointing” “to us” but Bell has yet to join the conversation.
    4. Check your logfiles. We sent over 1,000 people to the real site in the first week (over 1,600 as I write this). I have to think we’re the top non-Bell referrer but Bell doesn’t seem aware of this.

    I love the idea of driving traffic from one channel to another and I commend Bell for doing that. I’m even growing fond of Gordon and Frank (the kids think Gordon — the one on the right — is WAY cooler than Frank). I also commend them for the overwhelming task that a unified all-company marketing platform must be to create. But if we’re going to do this we have to do it so it really works for the customer and that will take more care in the future. So dear One Degree reader, do you see any other lessons to be learned from our little experiment?

    Originally published at www.onedegree.ca on February 15, 2006.

February 9, 2006

  • Beavers And Caribou Drive One Degree Search Traffic

    Man, this is turning out to be a very weird week. Our traffic is through the roof because of two innocent posts — one about “Bell’s Beavers” on Tuesday and the other about “Google’s Caribou” last March.

    On Tuesday I wrote about how I felt that Bell Canada’s “Beaver Ads” should have anticipated that people would get confused on the exact URL for the campaign — “frankandgordon.ca”. I registered “gordonandfrank.ca” to see if my theory was correct and pointed that domain to “my post” on the topic. After DNS updates kicked in we started getting hundreds of visitors to that page and the traffic seems to be increasing each day. So, in the spirit of learning and sharing, here are the top 100 searches people did to get them to One Degree so far today:

    • bell beavers
    • bell canada beavers
    • google caribou
    • gordonandfrank.ca
    • frank and gordon beavers
    • degree by mail
    • frank and gordon
    • frankandgordon
    • frankandgordon.ca
    • leevalleytools
    • liberty village toronto
    • miles nadel, mdc partners
    • “blast radius” toronto
    • “frank and gordon” bell
    • “gordon and frank”
    • “jane motz hayes”
    • “ok go” video dance routine
    • “toronto” + “b2b lead generation”
    • “vice president”
    • “service development” wireless
    • “zip.ca”
    • +frank +gordon +bell +commercial
    • .frankandgordon.ca
    • 15earn
    • 247 internet sales toronto
    • account supervisor
    • adwords research
    • airlines trivia
    • ajax web sites
    • alex tew next venture
    • alexander younger
    • beavers
    • beavers and bell
    • beavers on the bell commercial
    • bell beavers commercial
    • bell canada beavers commercials
    • bell canada beavers gordon
    • bell canada frank and gordon
    • bell canada norm macdonald
    • bell commercial norm
    • bell commercials beavers voices
    • bmw search marketing banning
    • campaign banners
    • can west interactive canada
    • conservative party commercials download
    • caribou gmail
    • cma ken schafer
    • commerce in canada during the 1900s
    • ctv cto
    • download googleearth
    • eloqua email deliverability spam test
    • frank and gordon beavers pictures
    • frank and gordon bell
    • frank and gordon bell canada
    • frank and gordon commercials
    • frank and gordon norm mcdonald
    • gmail caribou
    • gordon and frank
    • gordonandfrank
    • how much do marketing degree get paid
    • idleagent
    • jane motz hayes
    • kraft globe mail advertising rfp
    • kraft recipe
    • liberty village + toronto
    • liberty village porn
    • link:http://www.campaigner.com/
    • list distribution channels
    • kraft canada
    • maclaren mccann
    • maclaren+mccann%2c+sony+canada
    • marketing themes
    • marketing, brand extensions
    • mitch joel
    • number of subscribers to sympatico in canada
    • one degree
    • online social network for teens
    • online vs paper percentage of canadians who shop online
    • podcasting projected growth 2006
    • recipes from kraft
    • rogers launches wireless broadband
    • sned mail to one account and have it automatically forward to another
    • subway promotion
    • subway scratch and win
    • super bowl xl
    • “frank and gordon”
    • sympatico beavers gordon
    • ten percent rule
    • the birth of internet advertising
    • the essential message
    • the target new yorker
    • the voices of frank and gordon
    • toyota yaris tv campaign
    • trivia questions insurance professionals
    • voices of bell canada beavers
    • web design contractor job in vancouver
    • what degree is the one for me?
    • what is 15earn
    • yahoo canada
    • yaris toyota commercial song

    Note 1: A full 43% of our search traffic is coming from Frank-n-Gordon related searches — two days after we first posted about them. I’m not seeing any paid search adds on these terms that could drive people to the real site and the site itself doesn’t seem to be fair too well on many of these searches.

    Note 2: I hope that Bell and their marketing partners are watching and listening to the blogosphere as there seems to be a storm brewing about Norm MacDonald doing the voice of Frank. Apparently, LOTS of Canadians have no fondness for ex-Canuck MacDonald.

    So it seems that Bell and their agencies should:

    1. Figure out what to do about gordonandfrank.ca
    2. Buy a ton of search terms to collect up all the people obviously interested in the site and unable to find it
    3. Deal with the *”Norm Storm”* that is building just over the horizon
    4. Start reading One Degree regularly (no Bell or Cossette IP addresses showing up in our logs as far as I can tell) 🙂

    Originally published at www.onedegree.ca on February 9, 2006.

  • New Gmail Features About To Launch?

    Garrett Rogers at ZD Net was nice enough to link to our almost one-year-old What is Google Caribou? article in his very interesting speculation that Google is testing added Gmail functionality. Rogers speculates that Google may be following Yahoo in offering a domain-based version of Gmail for site owners and corporations.

    Google’s GMail has been firing on all cylinders, but it could be on the verge of getting even more horsepower. Based on information found buried deep within the javascript source, we can start to see the bigger picture for GMail — what else could they possibly add to this mail client? Their next big move will likely be GMail for domains — a powerful way for anybody who owns a domain to utilize GMail as a mail server, not just a client. Yahoo has their own small business mail product which does precisely this, and now evidence suggests Google is planning the same.

    While he notes that this is speculation it is a logical step forward for Gmail (one I’ve been waiting for) and the case he makes by poking around in Gmail JavaScript is compelling. Would you move your corporate e-mail to Gmail if you had the option?

    Update: This story is getting real traction and right now (very early Feb 9th) it is number 4 on Memeorandum. Ironically I wrote Gabe Rivera earlier last night suggesting he take a look at One Degree and consider adding it to the Memeorandum feed pool.

    Originally published at www.onedegree.ca on February 9, 2006.

  • Oglivy PR Gives One Degree Props

    Ah, the things you find in your web stats. We started getting some traffic from a new site yesterday and in checking out the link I found Ogilvy BlogFeeds.

    Here’s how Ogilvy characterizes the site:

    The Ogilvy PR BlogFeeds are our feeds from some of the most influential blogs out there. The ones we’re reading every day. Visit any of the categories below to get a snapshot view of all the headlines. Pick and choose blogs to add to your own personal RSS feed aggregator — or just bookmark these pages to always get the latest headlines from blogs relevant to you.

    I was honoured to see that they had this to say about One Degree:

    This collaborative blog brings together thinking from numerous contributors in the Canadian Online Marketing industry. The blog covers and interesting range of topics and offers a great non-US perspective.

    It was also nice to see that they included us up there with other blogging luminaries like Seth Godin, MarketingVox, John Battelle, and Duct Tape Marketing among others. Good company!

    Originally published at www.onedegree.ca on February 9, 2006.

February 7, 2006

  • AIMS Discussion List Is No More

    AIMS General Manager Dave Forde just sent out the word that the ADL (AIMS Discussion List) has ceased publication.

    For years, many of you have enjoyed the ADL (AIMS Discussion List), a bi-weekly newsletter full of great discussion and debate on various Internet marketing topics. It gave marketers a chance to connect and pose questions to one another with answers in the following issue. Over the last year we’ve seen a dramatic shift, or decrease in the amount of discussion for reasons such as inboxes being overloaded, work loads increased, etc. Therefore, I now think that it is time we say good-bye to the ADL and retire her at issue number #622.

    I think the big unspoken reason content on the ADL has been thin lately is that there are so darn many real-time sources of news and opinion. Blogs (like One Degree) and the feeds they push out have made it much easier to stay on top of industry happenings without the need of a weekly moderated discussion list.

    So, fellow ADL readers, if you are looking for:

    • Commentary from industry insiders
    • A spot to contribute your opinions
    • A place to have Internet marketing conversations, or
    • A way to get job and event listings in front of the net shakers in Canada then I humbly suggest One Degree is your new best friend.

    I hope the best for AIMS — as one of the founders I wish it nothing but continued success, even without the ADL I used to moderate. I know from conversations with many others over the years that the ADL was considered the primary value they saw in AIMS so it will be interesting to see how AIMS keeps its connections with the members without this important channel.

    A special note of thanks to our own June Macdonald who I convinced to take on the incredible challenge of moderating the ADL when it first launched. June was the best moderator the ADL ever knew and I don’t think it was the same after she stepped down years ago.

    Originally published at www.onedegree.ca on February 7, 2006.

  • Black-hat SEO Earns BMW.de PageRank Zero

    For your reference — a warning call via IM transcript:

    Ken Schafer: What’s the point of having a site if it can’t be found?

    MarketerDood973: None.

    Ken Schafer: What’s the number 1 way people will find your site?

    MarketerDood973: GOOG

    Ken Schafer: Would it be bad if Google banned you from search results?

    MarketerDood973: very

    Ken Schafer: Would Google be right in banning sites that violate their guidelines…

    Ken Schafer: sites that use tricks to artificially boost their rank?

    MarketerDood973: Of course they would. Don’t want little scam sites getting unfair ranking. kick’em out.

    Ken Schafer: Do you know if *your* site is using any so-called “black hat” SEO techniques?

    MarketerDood973: Uh, what?

    Ken Schafer: Do you know that your “SEO expert” is living within the letter and spirit of Google’s guidelines?

    MarketerDood973: Well, uh, I trust them to do the right thing. They’re getting great results and the pages look fine. I don’t see a problem here…

    MarketerDood973: Besides, we’re a big brand…

    MarketerDood973: Google isn’t going after real brands, just the little scammers.

    Ken Schafer: Uh, what about BMW.de? They just got banned by Google. Check their site — PageRank = 0.

    Ken Schafer: Dood — check out Google Blogscoped and Matt Cutts if you don’t believe me.

    MarketerDood973: gtg

    If you have hired anyone to “do SEO” on your site you must immediately look into what they are doing.

    You can’t afford for someone else’s “over-aggressiveness” to land your brand in search result purgatory. Could you explain to your boss why your site completely disappeared from Google like BMW’s German site did last week or like Ricoh’s German site is about to?

    Originally published at www.onedegree.ca on February 7, 2006.

February 6, 2006

  • gordonandfrank.ca

    Bell’s new mascots — two talking beavers named Frank and Gordon — have an eponymous website — frankandgordon.ca. I’m glad to see that the folks working on the site heeded One Degree’s recent advice and allow people to drop the “www” and still get to the site. I also really like that they registered the .com version of the domain but still use the .ca in the ads to make it clear this is a Canadian thing.

    Unfortunately, they didn’t read an older One Degree post called How To Add Spell-check To Your Domain Names (go read it, I’ll wait). Now there might be some obvious typo domains that they could have registered (and they may have for that matter — I didn’t check them all), but I know they missed a really big and obvious problem with that domain. Imagine this scenario which is close but not quite what Bell’s marketers imagined happening:

    Jimmy: “Dad, those beavers are funny. Can we go to their website to expand our brand experience interactively?”

    Dad: “Well Jimmy, what do you say we get on the ol’ interweb and Google some beavers.” (Okay I might have just found the second problem.)

    Jimmy: “No Dad, the commercial had their address at the end.”

    Dad: “What was it, Jimmy?”

    Jimmy: “Uh, well it was the names of the beavers — Gordon and Frank. Yeah, it was gordonandfrank.ca.”

    Dad: “Okay, let’s go to gordonandfrank.ca”.

    See the problem? It’s frankandgordon.ca, not gordonandfrank.ca. And Bell didn’t think to register the alternate. What would Gordon say about this clear case of favoritism? So, what do you get when you go to gordonandfrank.ca you may ask? Why (after DNS updates), you get the very page you are now reading.

    Originally published at www.onedegree.ca on February 6, 2006.

  • Major Canadian Brands Launch New Looks

    My guess is there will be lots of Monday-morning quarterbacking about three big marketing events this weekend:

    • Bell pushed their “talking beavers” branding campaign featuring Frank and Gordon into high gear.
    • The Globe and Mail rolled out a new version of their globeandmail.com website featuring a very blog-like approach.
    • Global Television introduced their re-branding during the Superbowl.

    We’ll most likely have analysis on the first two shortly but wanted to give you folks a chance for early reactions. What do you think of the new Bell, Globe & Mail, and Global campaigns? Any thoughts on the wisdom of tying these things so closely to the Superbowl when loads of deep-pocketed American brands are trying to get the attention of the press and public?

    Bell’s new mascots — two talking beavers named Frank and Gordon — have an eponymous website — frankandgordon.ca. I’m glad to see that the folks working on the site heeded One Degree’s recent advice and allow people to drop the “www” and still get to the site. I also really like that they registered the .com version of the domain but still use the .ca in the ads to make it clear this is a Canadian thing.

    Frank. Or is that Gordon?

    Unfortunately, they didn’t read an older One Degree post called How To Add Spell-check To Your Domain Names (go read it, I’ll wait). Now there might be some obvious typo domains that they could have registered (and they may have for that matter — I didn’t check them all), but I know they missed a really big and obvious problem with that domain. Imagine this scenario which is close but not quite what Bell’s marketers imagined happening:

    Jimmy: “Dad, those beavers are funny. Can we go to their website to expand our brand experience interactively?”

    Dad: “Well Jimmy, what do you say we get on the ol’ interweb and Google some beavers.” (Okay I might have just found the second problem.)

    Jimmy: “No Dad, the commercial had their address at the end.”

    Dad: “What was it, Jimmy?”

    Jimmy: “Uh, well it was the names of the beavers — Gordon and Frank. Yeah, it was gordonandfrank.ca.”

    Dad: “Okay, let’s go to gordonandfrank.ca”.

    See the problem? It’s frankandgordon.ca, not gordonandfrank.ca. And Bell didn’t think to register the alternate. What would Gordon say about this clear case of favoritism? So, what do you get when you go to gordonandfrank.ca you may ask? Why (after DNS updates), you get the very page you are now reading.

    Originally published at www.onedegree.ca on February 6, 2006.

February 2, 2006

February 1, 2006

  • Building Trust — Explain How You Make Money

    Best Practice: Explain how your site makes money, or how and why it is funded if this is not apparent. This adds to the site’s credibility and overcomes fears that the site may be a scam of some sort.

    Rationale: Not all sites are what they appear to be and people are becoming wary of new sites as an increasing number of online scam stories are covered in the media and passed around as an urban myth. People are taught (rightly) that “if it is too good to be true, it is”. This has implications for legitimate corporate websites and web-based applications (Web 2.0 take note).

    Many new users, particularly those not familiar with your brand offline, will be very skeptical of your motivations until they get a sense that they can trust you. Design, ease of use, trustmarks, and real-world contact information all contribute to trust. But if people coming to your site cannot determine how you make money or why you built the site, they are likely to assign nefarious goals and may be reluctant to use the site. If it is not clear how your site makes money or how you benefit from making the site available, it is advised that you provide an explanation.

    Tip: Providing an explanation doesn’t mean linking to an essay justifying your site’s existence. Just adding “a free service to support users of our products” for example can ease concerns.

    Best Practice in Action: Ta-da List by 37 signals offers a simple free service but explains why the service has no cost despite being ad-free. Well done!

    Originally published at www.onedegree.ca on February 1, 2006.

  • Do Overly Specific Subject Lines Impact E-mail Response?

    I just got my weekly e-mail newsletter from Ticketmaster Canada and — like it does every week — my mouse went back-and-forth between the “delete” and “open” buttons as I decided what to do. Take a look at the newsletter as it appears in my inbox:

    <lost due to link decay>

    Now that the kids are older there isn’t much chance we’ll be going to Disney on Ice, so my first inclination is to hit delete. But, if I decide to open the message despite it looking like a completely unappealing offer to me, I find something very different:

    <lost due to link decay>

    I wonder how many Billy Bragg or Kris Kristofferson or Violent Femmes or Rob Thomas fans will be missing these shows because the subject line turned them off?

    This problem isn’t unique to Ticketmaster — it is a fundamental flaw in newsletters. Because you are addressing more than one topic per e-mail, the subject line can never be both explicit and concise. One Degree faces this problem every week. We send an e-mail digest that provides lines to a week’s worth of articles. Usually, we pick a few hot topics and highlight those in the subject line, but we can never mention everything that might be of interest to all readers. Has anyone come up with a solution to this problem, or is it just something we have to live with and test to minimize the impact?

    Originally published at www.onedegree.ca on February 1, 2006.

January 30, 2006

  • Some People Think TD.com Is Always Offline

    Do you type the www. whenever you want to visit a site? No? Well, you are not alone.

    Just as we learned that we didn’t need to say “http://” when promoting a domain, many marketers are now dropping the www as well. And since most sites are set up to redirect users to the website even without the www, people are learning they can cut out four keystrokes by skipping the “dub-dub-dub”. But what happens if your website isn’t configured correctly? You end up turning customers away like the TD Bank has been doing for years now. Try going to “td.com” — here’s what you see:

    <image lost due to link decay>

    Loads of visitors will look at this message and assume that their site is down (or has been hacked or something). Some might guess that TD just misconfigured their servers and try again with the www but the vast majority will assume the site is down.

    Even if only a few thousand people over the course of a year do this, what kind of an impression does it leave on those people when they get this message? “Their site is down? I’m not sure I want to trust them with my money then!” Or (in this case), “maybe they don’t want me at their site — it says I’m not authorized. But I have an account there — did they lose it?” So here’s something for you to do *right now* — type all your domains without the www and see what you get. If you don’t get your official site, you know what you’re working on this afternoon!

    Originally published at www.onedegree.ca on January 30, 2006.

  • Every Business Needs A Blog

    I truly believe this — every business must have a blog. Well, to be honest, every business should need a blog — I’m just not sure when we’ll go from “should” to “must”, so get one now and avoid disappointment.

    Way back in 1995 I would tell anyone who’d listen that they had to have a website because eventually everyone would use the web to determine what companies they were going to deal with. As hard as it may be to believe, this was a radical idea at the time and many scoffed. Few would scoff now — can you imagine doing business with any company that had no Internet presence? The next frontier isn’t the dissemination of information via corporate websites — that’s now table stakes. Increasingly businesses will need to convey authority and enter into conversations with their “fan club” (in the Seth Godin sense of the term).

    That’s what blogs do. Mark my words — by 2010 you will not trust any company, politician, pundit, author, or anyone else looking to promote an idea or service if they don’t have a blog. By default, people will assume you have a blog and if you don’t they will say “they must have something to hide”. Agree? Disagree? Are there some companies that will never need a blog?

    Originally published at www.onedegree.ca on January 30, 2006.

January 24, 2006

  • Where Did Your Privacy Policy Come From?

    Let me play David Blaine for a moment and channel your inner thoughts. Think about your privacy policy. Imagine the first line of it. Read it silently to yourself in your mind and I’ll see if I can make out what it might be. Are you thinking “Your privacy is very important to us”?

    I had a client recently who provided me with the copy for their privacy policy page and it looked very sophisticated — and included privacy coverage for things we weren’t planning on doing on the site. And that got me to wonderin’…

    A quick Google search on “We offer certain features that are only available through the use of a “cookie”” revealed where they had found their policy. It looks like they aren’t alone because (at this moment) “We offer certain features that are only available through the use of a cookie” reveals that 718 other sites had the same idea. So where did your privacy policy come from?

    Originally published at www.onedegree.ca on January 24, 2006.

January 12, 2006

  • The Big Six For 2006

    I have been invited to speak to the Council of Communications Directors for the ministries of the Ontario Government tomorrow morning. The topic is “The Big Six For ’06 — The Six Big Internet Trends In 2006″.

    Here’s the list I’m working from:

    1. Blogging
    2. Feeds
    3. Findability
    4. Search Marketing
    5. Simplicity
    6. Moving Beyond Text

    I’ve only got one hour to cover all this which means it will be a whirlwind tour of these key themes impacting all businesses using the Net today. My goal is really to snap their heads back and make them focus on how the Net — and our ideas about what is important online — are changing. Feedback on the list and how it impacts government would be appreciated.

    Originally published at www.onedegree.ca on January 12, 2006.

  • Zip Is Amazing, But How Would You Know?

    While I would never want to invalidate Tessa’s critique of Zip.ca I did want to rise to their defense and say that after you are a subscriber the service is just fantastic. I’ve been a customer for over a year now and just love them. The site is a bit quirky but once you’ve used it a few times you get the hang of it and everything works just as it is supposed to. They’ve been amazing at delivering and collecting information about my DVDs and their shipping status and responsive to customer service requests. And they use e-mail really, well-personalized information about my account when sending regular shipping notifications that my whole family has come to depend on. Still, Tessa’s points are valid.

    If new users are frustrated during the sign-up process they’ll never get to experience the service. Another issue Zip has is that it is not entirely intuitive to non-users how life-changing DVD subscription services are. I use it as an example of the Net fundamentally changing business models — Zip is so much better than the local video rental place they’re in an entirely different league. But when I’m discussing the concept most people have a ton of questions about how it works, why I signed-up, lots of misconceptions, and a fixation on price and process. I think the same thing holds for other technologies that I consider life-changing — broadband, Macs, PVRs, digital cameras, HDTV, iPods, podcasts, and feeds come immediately to mind. Have you found technologies or online services that “rocked your world” but you still left you unable to make others understand why you were going on about them so passionately?

    Originally published at www.onedegree.ca on January 12, 2006.

December 8, 2005

  • Can You Take “Less” Too Far?

    To follow on from my “Getting Clients Involved In Less” post, I thought I’d share what I’ve done with my corporate site at “schafer.com”.

    My site has gone through many changes in the just under 10 years I’ve been running it (the site will be into double digits in January). It shrinks and expands in direct proportion to the clarity I have around what I’m offering my clients. Usually, when I introduce a new service or change what I’m doing, I end up adding more to the site to make sure people understand the new stuff we’re offering.

    But after a while, I realize that most of what I was saying didn’t really matter and could be done away with. Then the site starts to shrink again. A few weeks ago I launched a new version of the site — probably the sparest iteration since our “hello world” page a decade ago. It’s four pages long. The logo is the only image on the site. Nothing dynamic, web 2.0, Flash-enabled, or even particularly exciting.

    I like it — but then again I’m already sold on my services so maybe I’m not the stereotypical site visitor we should be building for! I guess I have a bit of a concern that this might be too much less — that I’ve taken out something that a new prospect would expect to see — that I’ve created a disconnect that will cause potential clients to pause and think twice about using our services.

    This is a particularly sticky situation because our primary services are helping people make “their Internet strategy smarter” and “their website better”. So if I’ve done a bad job on my own site, I’m not going to get a lot of clients. So here is the issue. I think this site is a fine example of getting the job done with less, which I feel is a critical skill these days. But will clients — who probably haven’t thought about the benefits of simplicity — look at this the same way I do? Or will they see it as an underdeveloped site where they were expecting brilliance?

    Your feedback on the site is welcome. Take a look at “schafer.com” and let me know — did I take minimalism too far?

    Originally published at www.onedegree.ca on December 8, 2005.

  • Getting Clients Involved In “Less”

    There is a growing movement towards “less design and more constraints” in designing for the web — much of it sparked by Jason Fried of 37 Signals. At last month’s Torcamp I had an interesting conversation with Jon Lax about this concept and how the biggest problem facing companies that want to adopt “less” as a design sensibility is client buy-in. Clients typically want more not less. When you’re paying for something the first reaction is that more is always better, but of course that isn’t the case.

    Probably the most dangerous point in the process is when you unveil a mock-up or prototype to the client’s team. Invariably people will say they like it “but…” — and with that but we start getting a laundry list of enhancements. “Wouldn’t it be cool if…”, “I think a user might want to be able to…”, “I don’t see anything for User Group F, G, and H on the site, could we put in a new section…”. You know the drill. The same thing happens when teams brainstorm the next iteration of a site. We naturally default to adding rather than taking away. To focus people on “Less” instead of “More” I suggest that we switch the goals of unveilings and brainstorming.

    Rather than saying “what’s missing”, “what next” or “what else can we do for people”, let’s try asking these questions:

    • What can we take away without impacting the user experience?
    • What words can we remove without looking meaning?
    • What can we get our servers to do so that users don’t have to?
    • What can we remember from visit to visit so users don’t have to repeat themselves?
    • What processes can we reduce?
    • Where can we user simpler language, plainer English, and a less formal voice?
    • How can we make pages smaller so they load faster and require less scrolling?
    • How can we anticipate what users will commonly want to do next and make that painfully obvious?
    • Can we do this with fewer people, less time, less technology, less money, and less pre-planning?
    • Can we create artificial constraints that will make us look for more elegant solutions?

    If we set up our processes to reward these questions — if we encourage “less thinking” instead of “more thinking” we’ll all benefit. Have you had any success in convincing clients that simpler is better (but still worth paying for)?

    Originally published at www.onedegree.ca on December 8, 2005.

December 7, 2005

  • Seth Godin’s Squidoo Launches

    Squidoo is now live in beta and is definitely worth checking out. They may have my favorite homepage right now (see above). How’s that for minimalism! I was one of the alpha testers for the site and did what I think many people will do — I built an About Ken Schafer Lens (Squidoo’s term for a web page). Actually, I don’t mean that everyone will make a page about Ken Schafer, I mean lots of people will build lenses about themselves — just in case you thought my ego was completely unchecked. Earlier today Heath Row of Squidoo sent this e-mail to all the alpha testers:

    You may notice something special about Squidoo today. We have quietly — and completely — moved out of the closed beta test… and into a public beta. That means that anyone can visit Squidoo, find lenses, claim lenses, and build their own. We’re thrilled to open our doors to the public, and to let everyone use the platform that you’ve been helping us test and improve these last few weeks. But we’re not going to tell anyone yet. Except you. So, now’s the time for you to share what you’ve been working on during the secret beta test. Email your lenses to friends. Post a lens to your blog. Tell your mom. And, for a limited time, your friends will be the only people to know that Squidoo is finally live. Thanks for working with us over the past two months. We can’t wait to see how the general public responds to what you’ve been building!

    Ready. Set. Squidoo.

    Heath Row

    Senior Director of Community Development Squidoo

    P.S.: Yes, it’s OK to blog about this.

    It will be interesting to see how people respond to the public version of the site. There was a lot of initial buzz when Seth started talking about it followed by a lot of “whatever” kind of posts. I think this is a natural outcome of early hype on products — blogs can generate some much heat so quickly, but it often isn’t a very lasting effect. Take a look at Squidoo (maybe read my lens and create your own), then add a comment below with your initial thoughts.

    Originally published at www.onedegree.ca on December 7, 2005.

December 2, 2005

  • Canada.com Redesigns Around Content Channels

    If you’ve been to canada.com in the last few days, you’ll notice that Canwest’s flagship site has been given a makeover.

    Earlier this week Chris Powell at Marketing Magazine posted a brief overview of the changes:

    The revamped site–which draws content from 43 websites, including CanWest’s 11 daily newspapers, the Global and CHTelevision sites, and vertical sites including the recently relaunched driving.ca, remembering.ca and working.com–boasts a new look, greater navigability and new “targeted content channels” including travel, health, video and lifestyle. Additional content and features include event and restaurant listings, city guides, local shopping guides, telephone directories and maps. Canada.com has also partnered with what CanWest Interactive president Arturo Duran calls “tier-one companies” such as Expedia, Mapquest and Google on associated features like travel, maps and content and search-related advertising. CanWest says the revamped site will also give advertisers the ability to integrate their products and services “with the most relevant content environment that best reaches their target consumer.” The site also offers access to the latest digital technology, allowing participating advertisers to “leverage multiple rich media platforms” to carry their message. Current advertisers on canada.com include Saab, Dell and Rona.

    It’s interesting to see this relaunch of the site that has three million unique visitors per month coming hot on the heels of the driving.ca launch and so close to the holidays. I know that tradition has it that e-commerce sites shouldn’t muck around with their sites after Thanksgiving, but maybe it’s okay for content sites to use this time from some end-of-year housekeeping and redecorating.

    Originally published at www.onedegree.ca on December 2, 2005.