Our latest top 20 list of inane musings from the Brainstorm office white board: Top 20 Most Memorable Valentine Gifts

(at right)

A successful HTML-based email campaign
may mean tabling the whole idea.

Back to the Future

Many of today’s email clients function like mid-90s browsers. To consistently display HTML-based, asset-laden HTML email designs and layouts, we often turn to font tags and tables instead of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) to finesse creative boundaries and ensure consistent browser display.

Web-based and desktop email clients interpret HTML-based email differently. Some even strip CSS styles altogether, necessitating extensive testing and modifications during the development process.

Cheaters Never Prosper?

Beyond the arcane cheats and excessive work arounds, there are other concerns that may dissuade the faint of heart or non-technical professional from embracing the medium: Email authentication, white-listing, audience acceptance, and—should it actually run the gauntlet unscathed—trust, proper brand messaging, and design.

For all its idiosyncrasies, delivery issues, and purists like Jeffrey Zeldman who deplore graphically enhanced email, ours is a visually responsive culture. And HTML email response rates bear that out.

To Table or not to Table

Like any marketing medium, proper strategy, integration, appropriateness and understanding of design limitations are key.

We sometimes advocate the use of text-based email to drive recipients to a landing site where graphically intensive design is more appropriate. And yet, we’re just as likely to use HTML email when the circumstances warrant it.

Whether HTML or text-based, never table the idea of integrating permission-based email into your brand marketing planning.

Think of it as a TinyUrl with residuals.

Short, but Sweet

LinkBlip is a new URL-shortening service perfectly suited for micro-blogging sites like 140-character max per message Twitter. As an added plus, when someone clicks on a LinkBlip-shortened URL, the link creator is automatically notified via email with the user’s general location (city and state).

Future Growth Opportunities

Matthew Inman, the developer of LinkBlip, is looking to add functionality, saying, “I want to add multiple URL tracking and the ability to be notified every time someone clicks a URL, not just once.”

Pros and Cons

Unlike TinyUrl where a click creates a shortened URL in your clipboard, LinkBlip does not, yet. And use of a third-party geoIP database sometimes serves up the user’s ISP location instead of the user’s.

LinkBlip does provide a browser button, and the minor inconvenience of adding your email and copying the new URL is offset by the potential benefits LinkBlip’s feedback provides.

Think of it as a TinyUrl with residuals—worth the paste. We think they’re on to something.

Click on http://lburl.com/f3bhf, Brainstormbrand.com’s small URL and let us know you stopped by.

Community Health Network wins an International Academy of Visual Arts (IAVA) silver award for a grand opening website promoting their new North campus facilities.

Congratulations

Brainstorm doesn’t usually enter design competitions, but sometimes our customers do. Congratulations to Community Health Network for their 2007 Silver W³ Award from the International Academy of Visual Arts (IAVA) for the Community North Grand Opening website, designed and produced by Brainstorm.

Community Health Network joined CNN Money, Abercrombie and Fitch, Big Spaceship, Communication Arts, Discovery.com, Disney, and NASA, among others, in the winner’s circle this year.

About the W³ Awards

The W³ Awards honor outstanding creative sites, advertising, and video developed for the web.

The W³ is sanctioned and judged by the International Academy of the Visual Arts. Sponsors and partners include The Creative Group, the world’s leading creative professional staffing company, and ADWEEK Magazine.

About The International Academy of the Visual Arts (IAVA)

The IAVA is an invitation-only body of top-tier professionals from acclaimed media, interactive, advertising, and marketing firms such as Alloy, Brandweek, Coach, Disney, The Ellen Degeneres Show, Estee Lauder, Fry Hammond Barr, HBO, Monster.com, MTV, Polo Ralph Lauren, Sotheby’s Institute of Art, Victoria’s Secret, Wired, and Yahoo!.

For more information, and a full member roster, visit www.iavisarts.org.

See the award-winning Community North site. As hospital’s go, it’s a winner.

1 : 20 An appealing ratio.

The Story of Stuff Teaser #1

This one minute video employs the old adage: “Tell them what you’re going to tell them. Tell them. Then tell them what you told them.”

A simple storyline, childlike line art, straightforward logic, and narration combine verbally and visually to reduce a complex issue to an easily understood, engaging message.

Turning Less to More

The video culminates in an opt-in question designed to entice the viewer to engage in a 20-minute video that expounds on the basic communication. It’s served up in manageable segments at the viewer’s discretion. Nothing is forced or difficult to understand, just the way we like it—a concealed appeal.

See the longer video, produced by Free Range Studios, at storyofstuff.com.

[ via: Pat Coyle ]