glmtblog

Constant predictions of direct mail’s demise always seem to be a hot topic these days.  Standard USPS mail volume continues to shrink while e-mail spends increases: and consumers environmental concerns continue to influence marketers to evaluate their media choices. 

Competition in the email inbox has skyrocketed.  More than 210 billion e-mails are sent daily worldwide making it more difficult to get your readers attention. 

Well, I’m not sure about you, but from my perspective here’s how it works for me. I get up each morning, check my blackberry and see 18-25 new emails, wow, all sent while I was sleeping, can’t be to important.  Ok then, hit “delete, delete, delete…”, don’t recognize the sender or the topic, need my morning coffee.  Ah…. the day is done, come home, grab the mail from the mailbox, and once again, too many single sheet print pieces advertising, who cares, not interested, walk to nearest garbage can and toss.  Get the picture? 

What if today something different happened, something new and exciting, just what if?  Today I wake up, same old emails, hit “delete”.  Come home get the mail and what’s this, a nicely packaged DVD, wonder what’s it’s about.  Read the information on the sleeve, looks interesting, I think I’ll pop it into my computer and see what’s on it, wow a really interesting video, I think I want to learn more, I think I’ll look up their website.  Guess what just peaked my interest, you got it.

From here the possibilities are endless, follow up with an email a week later, I’ll open it because I recognize the topic, I liked the DVD.    Once I have opened the email, my contact information can be tracked to see where I went on the website, now this is valuable stuff. 

The rest is history, this could be your company, your product or service, and Great Lakes Media is here to help you through the process.  Let us help you develop the content, design and suggest the best packaging for your disc, and we’ll even handle mailing them out.  

Is CD-Rom and DVD still a viable format?  You bet they are!

Going, Going, Going, GREEN!

It seems like everyone is going green nowadays. It is everywhere, so I think it is safe to say it is the “trendy” thing to do right now. In my opinion this trend is one that should stay. I think it is great that companies, not just citizens, are deciding that it is time to think about how we affect our planet. Even Apple has released their first family of Green Notebook computers.

Now I’m no tree-hugger, but I try to do my part in lessening my “carbon footprint.” Recycling is probably the easiest thing anyone can do to make a small impact on the environment. It takes two seconds to throw that can or bottle in a recycling bin instead of your trashcan.

Recently the Milwaukee County Zoo started using compostable plastic cups in the Flamingo Café. These totally clear cups are made from bioplastic. It’s really quite amazing that this plastic can be composted and not have any harmful impact on the environment. I hope they start using these cups in all of their Concessions once they reopen in the Spring.

GLMT has also taken steps in the green direction. We recently introduced our ChooseGreen option for our custom packaging. We have also started offering a recycled green jewel case. The clear green case is made of 30% postconsumer materials and the forest green tray is made of 100% postconsumer materials.

In addition, we are also reducing paper waste by giving our clients the option to receive their quotes and invoices digitally instead of on paper. Any paper waste we do have is recycled, along with plastic, cardboard, glass and scrap discs. It’s hard to imagine the amount of waste GLMT alone would be putting into the landfill if we did not recycle.

As you can see whether your company is making computers, serving concessions at the zoo, manufacturing discs or anything in between, we can all do something to impact the environment in a positive way.

Let’s turn this green trend into something more, and keep our environment healthy!

Chicago Band Wilco Testing Out New Downloadable Technologies

Wilco seems to be on the front lines of a lot of media technology developments lately. Last month Wilco told its fans that the Blu-ray version of their black and white documentary with a single audio track was a “waste of money“. Many have taken this to be a knock on Blu-ray, but I understand it to be a knock on the nessesity of the medium for such a project. This belief is backed up by their touring mate Neil Young, releasing an audio-visual collection on Blu-ray describing the merits of the audio/visual quality supported by Blu-ray as AMAZING.

In light of this quasi-controversy, Wilco is partnering with Warner Music Group to release a MP3/JPEG music application called “PlayApp”. According to WSJ.com, “PlayApps are single file, custom multimedia programs that can contain music, pictures, lyrics, and video. The songs in the “More Like The Moon EP” Wilco music playapp are extractable as 192 kbps MP3 files while the pictures are extractable as high resolution JPG files. PlayApps can be created for any computer system, but are initially being developed for the Windows platform, XP/Vista or greater.”

MP3′s have long got a lot of publicity, rightly so with the hype surrounding MP3 players, but has long struggled with the business model of marketing the music. Without “packaging” a major component of the marketing of an album is lost. So does “PlayApp” take a step in bridging this gap? Post your comments!