Tom Buchok - Interactive Producer at Preston Kelly

My muse best comes when:  Listening to music.  When I’m jamming out to Rhapsody with my Sennheiser HD-280 headphones ,  I’m able to get my best work done. Lately, I’ve been listening to Delta Spirit and Pela .  I’m always looking for new tunes; if you have any recommendations, leave a note in the comments section.

Your idea about the perfect working day: We’ve got this great coffee shop, Taraccino, near the agency.  Good days start with a large coffee from there.
As an interactive producer, the perfect work day includes any of the following:
- Helping scope out a brand new online strategy
- Working with my developers to solve a tough problem
- Seeing fresh, innovative designs that accomplish all of the campaign objectives
- Getting everything done early

I’d say that’d be a pretty good day!

Your favorite interactive campaign : 

 Lean Mean Fighting Machine’s “Non-Stop Fernando” for Emirates.  The concept was brilliant - Fernando talks for 14:40:00 about his home town of Sao Paolo, the amount of time of the new direct flights from Dubai to Sao Paolo.  The rich media banners did a fantastic job of delivering the idea - and tied-in perfectly to the campaign website.  Social media was used to connected to Fernando, as well.

And the attempt to get a Guinness World Record was a smart add-on.  In terms of design, there is a nice continuity between the overall campaign concept and the continuous  hand-written-looking motif.  It is no surprise such a great campaign came from Lean Mean Fighting Machine - they are rockstars in the digital space.



Other sites I visit for inspiration:  By far, the most inspirational site for me is Bannerblog .  The founders and site moderators are dedicated to finding the absolute best online ads and posting them to Bannerblog.  I visit Bannerblog often because they keep it fresh, interesting and current.  It’s a great site.  (And also where I saw Non-Stop Fernando for the first time.)

Some other sites that I find helpful are: A List Apart,- Gary Vaynerchuk’s site,  37Signals’ blog - Signal vs. Noise ..and all of the wonderful people I follow on Twitter give me inspiration daily

Changes that need to take place in the industry: Dean Donaldson wrote a post on this blog about moving away from click-through rates - I think that’s an important aspect to the evolution of the online ad industry.

I think the industry is doing a good job working towards online-specific content, and I want to see that continue.  It’s no secret that content meant for a :30 spot or full-page magazine insertion doesn’t necessarily translate into online advertising. Recently, I’ve been thinking about the publishers’ role and I’d love to see some comments about it:

Publisher websites need to do more to improve display advertising.  There are just too many websites out there selling low-impact, derelict placements.  How can advertisers feel confident about their media buys if many sites aren’t optimized for ad visibility and engagement?

Over time, we’ve seen major players improve their sites: CNN.com is a good example.  They’ve added that 336×280 placement to their homepage over the past 18 months or so.  That’s smart.  Silicon Alley Insider has similar, high-impact 300×250 placements on its site.

The smaller sites need to follow this lead. I see too many sites selling placements that are 728×90s in the footer, or 160×600’s below-the-fold, etc.  While these smaller sites may offer nice targeting - especially geographic - the media they’re selling isn’t as powerful as it could be.

What do you think?