Insights

Kathryn recently wrote a gushing piece about the creative freedom we've enjoyed in promoting Boerne Wild West Day, and I'm not one to necessarily argue with her assessment. Being given a blank slate can be liberating.

Boerne Wild West Day is hands-down my new favorite website. The thing that really set this project apart for all of us was the high amount of creative freedom we were granted and the strong level of enthusiasm that followed. For "creatives," hearing the words "do whatever you want" is like unwrapping that amazing gift you really wanted but didn't think you'd get on Christmas morning. I imagine it's how a hair stylist must feel when a client goes in and tells them they have no idea what kind of hair cut they want, but that they trust them, and to "go to town" on their hair. Sometimes you just need to trust your stylist.

This week's newsletter is about going "Back to School," so I'll start with a short bit about school.

It wasn't long ago that I was in school. It's interesting to me that I've spent two-thirds of my life in school, the majority of my time up to this point. But a person twice my age has spent two-thirds of his life out of school, his time defined by what he's done since. It's a funny thing to think about—school becomes less relevant as you get older, to the point that school has almost no relevance to a person in their 90s. Crazy.

Car dealerships have to deal with a number of popular misconceptions, many of them involving their service departments. Jeff Asher, the Parts and Service Director of Jennings Anderson Ford (a Digett client), noted this recently during a discussion about ways to improve the performance of email campaigns announcing service specials. As he said, "We are always faced with the 'stigma' that the dealership is too expensive or they take too long."

You're preaching to the choir, buddy—we deal with misunderstandings more often than we care to admit.

In one of our recent e-newsletters, we decided to feature some recent video work by using a still shot of the commercial with the ubiquitous "Play" button slapped on top. The implication, I hope, was clear: Click here, and you'll see some moving pictures. But we didn't try to embed the actual video in the email.

Why not? Because video playback in email just isn't ready for the spotlight, despite years of pining from desperate marketers, largely because a handful of cranks ruined the fun for everyone.