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When people think of public markets in the Pacific Northwest, it’s likely they think of the world-famous Pike Place Market in Seattle, but a few dedicated volunteers have been working hard on a dream of a Spokane Public Market in hopes that may not always be the case.

The Spokane Public Market, which officially opened for business last week, hopes to become a community gathering place and cultural variety center of fun and education for families and visitors. The Market plans to offer produce, fruit, flowers, honey, meat, seafood, dairy, baked goods, music, artisan wares and much more. It occupies the 21,000 square ft. historic warehouse at the corner of Browne and Second Ave in Downtown Spokane and will serve shoppers Thursday through Saturday year round.

BHW1 was proud to partner with the Spokane Public Market to build a brand that matched their ambitious goals. BHW1 created a brand identity that reflects the spirit of a self-sustaining economy while continuing to elevate the Spokane brand and give tourists and locals one more reason to fall in love with Downtown Spokane.

The campaign developed for the Spokane Public Market includes:

• New logo and identity package
• New promotional brochure
• Market wayfinding system
• Outdoor advertising and signage
• New website
• A communications campaign

Outcomes:

• Increase in brand awareness and education
• Significant coverage by local media members — Read the recent Spokesman Review story here.
• Increase in funds raised for developmentHigher rates of engagement with community members

Client: Spokane Public Market
Website: http://www.spokanepublicmarket.org/
Campaign Goal: Awareness, Education and Community Involvement
Strategy: Create an identity that strengthens the brand and builds awareness of the Spokane Public Market. Use effective design and messaging across multiple platforms to engage with the community on the importance of sustainability and local economic development. And, of course, also build appropriate hype for this very cool project.

Looking for ways to communicate to your audience? Want to know more about logo design, brand management or interactive development? Tell us your goal, together we can make it happen.

Facebook recently announced Facebook Messaging–a new service of the social media giant that will attempt to corral all forms of communication (including text, chat and email from multiple email addresses) in one “social inbox.”

The service is planned to be introduced by invitation only to the more than 500 billion members over the next few months . While Zuckerburg believes people will not automatically give up current email accounts, he is hopeful the up and coming generation (who are “already used to the instant stream of communication”) will forego the traditional email address and opt for the Facebook system.

The system will feature an exhaustive message memory: it will remember every ounce of communication, no matter how trivial (ok, see you later), and said information never be deleted. The idea is that Facebook messaging accounts will be the place where you can receive and send all forms of communication (the email to end all email, if you will). The system will organize contacts into appropriate lists and appear as Facebook messages currently do, along with photo and name.

While some call it the “Gmail killer” (or Hotmail or Yahoo), it remains to be seen whether this system will be as useful as it claims…and if people will abandon other systems. Staggering success in one niche doesn’t necessarily translate to staggering success with other tools. Just ask Google, which all but owns search, but has stumbled with offerings such as Google Buzz.

And, it must be said, there’s a darker side to all of this (as those of you with a flair for conspiracy theories, Big Brother, and One World domination may already be feeling). PC World, in a recent article, doesn’t mince words in an article titled Facebook Messages: The Worst Thing That Ever Happened.

Already Facebook has experienced backlash for security and privacy issues, but if the past is any predictor of the present, this system will have serious implications for the powerhouses of the web and how we communicate—issues or not.

Business (and personal) implication:

• As Facebook knows more and more confidential information about you, remember to adjust privacy settings to protect yourself. Be smart and make sure you have security settings established at your desired level.

They are forming alliances, strategizing and bolstering defenses.

It’s not an episode of Survivor; it’s just another chapter in the ongoing battle for world wide web dominion—and the online world’s most powerful players are pulling out the big guns.
First Yahoo announced a partnership with AOL and a strategic partnership with Microsoft. Now Bing’s latest venture with Facebook aims to redefine the search engine—socially.

So what does Bing + Facebook mean for you?

It means the “Like” will be more powerful than ever. The new tool will rank search engine results using the “like” recommendations from friends within your social network. Looking for a new vacuum? The brands your network of friends have “liked” will emerge on top of search results—ideally making search results much more customized, trustworthy and relevant.
And it’s not limited to products or brands. Looking for a news story? The ones your friends have read and “liked” will show first. Looking for a person? The ones closest to your network rank first. Read Facebook’s explanation

Underdog Bing, with 11.2 percent market share, hopes this newest partnership will give the needed boost to give the world’s largest search engine Google a run for its money.
However, on the tails of Bing and Facebook’s announcement, Google had news of their own: $2.17 billion in net revenue for third quarter (its biggest ever).

So will market share change in light of all this? The crystal ball is looking cloudy at the moment, but share isn’t the most important take-away (unless you’re one of the key players involved). The key take-away is: Social search is growing in importance.

Business implications:

• Customer service experience and users’ online engagement are paramount. If you aren’t getting “liked,” your search ranking will suffer (maybe not today, but soon). So now, more than ever, you need to take polls, engage users, and encourage sharing.
• A related corollary: if you don’t have a strategy or plan for finding and interacting with key content producers, now’s the time to start. Getting content and links into the hands of taste-makers is going to affect your search engine optimization on two important levels: on the surface, at the pure data level indexed by robots; and on a deeper social level, driven by the likes and dislikes of people who command a large circle of influence.

Wired magazine’s September edition trumpets that the “web is dead,” and goes on to explain how the world wide web’s share of overall internet traffic has dropped by about half in the past decade. From its high point in 2000—when it accounted for more than half of all internet traffic—the web has since shrunk to 23% of internet activity.

We point to this for a couple of reasons. First, in the minds of many, it seems, the world wide web = the internet. The two are one and the same. This has never been the case, except in perception: for years, the web has been the poster child for the internet. And even though its share of traffic has decreased, its share of mind hasn’t.

Perhaps knowing this will open eyes to new opportunities.

Topping that list of opportunities (and the truly interesting part of the article’s graphic, if not its content): video. We’re a visual species, and internet video now accounts for more than half of internet traffic, according to the Wired graphic. (Cisco’s VNI forecast puts the current figure for video traffic at 40%.) This also flies in the face of some long-held conventional wisdom that interactivity trumped passivity in online content: we were told for so long that the “web” would kill TV because it promised a new level of active involvement.

Not the case, folks, as the internet now moves more video than anything else—whether that’s through the web itself (via browser or a web-based application), or through native apps (Android, iPhone, download boxes from NetFlix, Vudu and others). More eye-opening data comes from Cisco’s forecasts for 2014:

By 2014, the various forms of video (TV, VoD, Internet Video, and P2P) will exceed 91 percent of global consumer traffic….Global online video will approach 57 percent of consumer Internet traffic (up from 40 percent in 2010).

And while the Wired graphic (and accompanying article) are puzzlingly silent on mobile as a total portion of internet traffic, Cisco’s report also emphasizes the importance of the mobile platform:

Globally, mobile data traffic will double every year through 2014, increasing 39 times between 2009 and 2014.

That’s 3900% increase in four years for mobile traffic. Increasingly, we’ll see people pulling content to themselves via mobile devices, rather than going out and finding that content via the web.

Business Implications:

• If internet video isn’t a major part of your content plan, it should be. Whether you’re biz-to-biz, biz-to-consumer, a wide-ranging consumer product/service company, or a niche-oriented business, video should undoubtedly be one of your core offerings.
• At the very least, your current web site should be optimized for the mobile platform. But now is the time to begin planning content that lives specifically on mobile platforms, pushing data to your customers/fans/clients through specialized apps, widgets, and SMS.

BHW1 has hired Tony Hines as Director of Creative and Social Media Services. As director he will manage the creative department and oversee social media marketing strategy.

“Tony is both a world-class creative director and a guru in the social mediasphere,” said BHW1 partner Greg Birchell. “His strengths further position the agency for the exciting direction in which our industry is headed.”

Hines has a 20-year career in advertising as a writer, creative director and agency principal working on accounts such as Intermountain Healthcare, OneEighty Communications, Sun Valley Resorts, Weider Sports, Salt Lake Convention & Visitors Bureau, Montana Tourism and GlidePoint. His work has garnered regional and national recognition in both advertising and public relations including Telly Awards, Golden Spike Awards, Silver Microphone Awards, inclusion in the Print Magazine Design Annual, and others.

“BHW1 has an established track record of solutions that are both strategic and creative,” says Hines. “We all share that vision for both traditional marketing and social media, so I think this is a perfect fit all around.”

Hines’s social media experience has earned him interviews and coverage with Publishers’ Weekly, Media Bistro, and dozens of radio stations, blogs and social sites. Capitalizing on his social media work, Hines launched Social Media Scout in 2009, a company which helps businesses monitor and manage their brands through online interaction and conversation. His company was a strategic partner with BHW1 prior to his hiring.

Hines is also a multi-published author, writing what he calls “Noir Bizarre” fiction in the books Waking Lazarus, The Dead Whisper On, The Unseen, Faces in the Fire, and The Falling Away. His fiction has appeared on the annual “25 Best Genre Novels of the Year” list compiled by Library Journal.