by OnSight | Apr 2014 | Press and Media
7th grader Ryan Shea being interviewed by several local media news outlets.
A talented student in Lakewood could soon have his art on the Google homepage for hundreds of millions to see! On April 29, OnSight worked with Google to announce and publicize the Colorado Winner of its seventh annual Doodle 4 Google Contest.
This year’s contest was open to K-12 students across the United States to redesign the Google logo inspired by the theme “If I could invent one thing to make the world a better place…”
Ryan Shea, a 7th-grader from Creighton Middle School in Lakewood was named the Colorado State Winner for his doodle, “The Universal Nexus”, depicting a connection that would allow humans to explore the universe and create junctions between our past, present, and future.
Ryan’s doodle was selected from the tens of thousands of entries received this year and the students’ amazing ideas ranged from water purification to advanced robotics and nutrition solutions.
To help their favorites succeed, everyone across the USA can vote for their favorite doodle from the 50 state winners. Voting will be open from April 29 to May 9 on this site: http://www.google.com/doodle4google/vote.html, and the public vote will determine the five national finalists (one in each grade group).
Google will announce these five national finalists and one of them as the national winner on May 21 at an awards ceremony at its headquarters in Mountain View, California, which all 50 state winners will be invited to.
The winning student will work with Google’s team of professional doodlers to animate their doodle — for the first time ever! The animated doodle will be displayed on the Google homepage on June 9. The winner will also take home a $30,000 college scholarship and his or her school will receive a $50,000 Google for Education grant toward the establishment and improvement of a computer lab or technology program.
Vote for Colorado’s winning entry!
On hand, along with several hundred enthusiastic Creighton middle-schoolers, were Lakewood Mayor Bob Murphy, school principal Nick Kemmer, and Jefferson County School Board President Ken Witt.
Ryan spoke a few words to the supportive audience, and then stuck around to give several interviews to local media outlets.
Read More:
Denver Post: Lakewood 7th-grader Ryan Shea is Colorado Doodle 4 Google winner
KUSA-TV: 7th grader doodles his way towards Internet fame
KDVR-TV: Doodle 4 Google winner in Colorado now in national contest
by OnSight | Apr 2014 | Campaign, Graphics, politics, Press and Media, Trends
They call it “The Eye”…
Kantar Media’s Campaign Media Analysis Group — a global PR research and analysis firm — has been collecting campaign ads. And now that they’ve got 10 years worth (upwards of 50,000 ads from the federal, state, and local level), they’ve done something amazing with them.
This stunning (and initially kind of overwhelming) interactive graphic breaks down the ads by party, topic, race, and relative airtime. It’s a stunning piece of datavisualization, and it links to every single one of the ads it has tracked, providing not just a graphical representation of an almost ungraspable amount of data, but an actual live database of the component parts (in this case, each unique ad), as well.
In addition,
Filtered by “President” and “Taxes”.
What’s this a reflection of? A smaller battleground in 2012 meant those presidential ads aired across fewer markets, which held down occurrences. But beyond that, the 2012 Obama campaign targeted many of their ads more narrowly, keeping as many as 20 unique commercials on the air at any one time. Many 2012 presidential ads also aired for shorter periods of time than ads in previous races because they were produced to either drive, or take advantage of the news cycle—a growing trend for political ads.
by OnSight | Apr 2014 | Beer, Press and Media, Print Communications
Earlier this month, OnSight assisted Anheuser-Busch and the Anheuser-Busch Foundation in hosting a press conference to announce a $250,000 gift to Colorado State University’s Fermentation Science and Technology program in Fort Collins. This program, launched in the fall of 2013, is the first of its kind in the region, and only third in the nation. Anheuser-Busch has worked to foster a partnership with the department since its development with in-classroom visits, an inside-look at the brewery, and now this sizable donation.
Despite some uncooperative weather, CSU students, faculty, regional public figures and Anheuser-Busch employees joined us for the conference at the A-B Brewery in Fort Collins and enjoyed snacks and beers after the check presentation.
Here’s a roundup of key coverage from the event:
FORT COLLINS – The Anheuser-Busch Foundation today donated $250,000 to Colorado State University’s Fermentation Science and Technology program, to fund the renovation of academic space and the hands-on lab at CSU.
A bachelor’s degree program in Fermentation Science and Technology was launched in 2013 as part of the school’s department of Food Science and Human Nutrition in the College of Health and Human Sciences.
Brewing giant donates $250,000 to help improve academic, lab space for the fledgling Fermentation Science and Technology program.
The gift will fund the renovation of academic space and the hands-on lab at CSU. Before a crowd of university and local officials, representatives from the brewery emphasized Anheuser-Busch’s commitment to community involvement, and praised the accomplishments of the university and its new program.
The Anheuser-Busch Foundation has announced that it will donate $250,000 to CSU’s new Fermentation Science and Technology program.
“Anheuser-Busch and Colorado State University have a shared commitment to excellence and the desire to always keep moving forward,” Kevin Fahrenkrog, general manager of A-B’s Fort Collins brewery, said in an email. “We’re excited to extend our community partnership and look forward to sharing additional details next week.”
by OnSight | Mar 2014 | Campaign, Press and Media, Strategy, Trends, Web Communications
“For political campaigns, reaching younger, more diverse, swing voters through live TV advertising alone is problematic.”
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It’s a multi-layered challenge for political campaigns: TV is still the best way to reach the biggest audience, but media markets don’t necessarily map on to Congressional districts. In a cash-conscious campaign (and aren’t they all?), spending money to advertise to people who can’t even vote on your issue or candidate is bitter pill. Add to that the declining TV audience (or, better put, the increase in non-TV audiences) and the growth of “micro-targeting” on social media, and it raises the question about how best to allocate advertising dollars to reach the most relevant audience.
WaPo goes into more depth in this March 15 article, citing a bipartisan research effort from earlier in the year:
Live TV isn’t going away; it’s just not as dominant as it once was. Seventy percent of those surveyed said they had watched live television in the previous week. But fully 30 percent said that, other than live sporting events, they had watched no live television in the previous week. For younger voters, it’s closer to 40 percent.
Video on demand, streaming, smartphones and tablets have changed viewing habits. In the past three years, according to the survey, the percentage of people watching streaming content — think “House of Cards” on Netflix — has roughly doubled, to 27 percent of the population. Viewing content on smartphones has about doubled to roughly the same percentage of users. Tablet viewing has jumped from 14 percent to 26 percent in less than two years.
These changes in viewing habits coincide with the dramatic growth in the prevalence of smartphones and tablets. Today, two-thirds of the population has a smartphone; more than half said they have a tablet.
The bottom line is the same, political campaign or consumer marketing campaign — reach the people most interested in or persuadable by your message, with the least waste. Or as put by Obama media advisor Jim Margolis, ““The objective is reaching voters where they are. Content is content and whether you see an ad or video on your iPad, your TV or on your smartphone, our job is to get in front of your eyeballs and get your attention. That means looking for gaps in TV penetration, and finding targets someplace else…to do it right requires more work and sophistication than when people were watching four local stations and we were bombing them . . . with ads. The advertising world has changed in powerful ways and reaching voters is more challenging than ever before”
by OnSight | Jun 2013 | Connect for Health Colorado, Press and Media, Print Communications, Trends
Connect for Health Colorado is preparing to open for business in October of 2013.
OnSight’s work with Connect for Health Colorado continues as the insurance marketplace prepares to open in October of this year. Last week Colorado’s Department of Insurance announced that eleven insurance carriers will participate in the state health marketplace. More health care options for Coloradans is a great thing, and we’re excited to to help Connect for Health as they get ready to launch.
Through Connect for Health Colorado, consumers will be able to choose from many health insurance carriers at competitive rates. Prices may be even lower for many Coloradans because of new financial assistance available only through Connect for Health Colorado.
Participating carriers include All Savers Insurance Company (part of United HealthCare), Anthem, Cigna, Colorado Choice, Colorado HealthOP, Denver Health, Humana, Kaiser Permanente, New Health Ventures and Rocky Mountain Health Plans. The health care plans are all designed to be sold only on the exchange, and include doctor visits, hospitalizations, maternity care, emergency room care, and prescriptions.
Connect for Health Colorado kicked off its public outreach campaign with TV and print ads. Groups may request a speaker from the organization to learn more about the health care marketplace, and representatives from Connect for Health Colorado will begin visiting communities around the state this summer.
Individuals and small businesses in Colorado will be able to start shopping for health care this October, and coverage will begin January 2014. Click here to learn more about Connect for Health Colorado.
by OnSight | May 2013 | OnSight News, Press and Media
OnSight Public Affairs is pleased to announce that Curtis Hubbard has agreed to join the firm as a partner. Hubbard, who currently works as the editorial page editor at The Denver Post, will start with OnSight on June 17.
“The OnSight team has developed an outstanding reputation for their public-affairs and political work. The prospect of working on projects that benefit Colorado and the Rocky Mountain region, while also building a business, struck me as an ideal fit as I considered my next professional challenge,” Hubbard said.
New OnSight Public Affairs partner Curtis Hubbard (Denver Post file photo )
OnSight Public Affairs was founded by Mike Melanson and Ben Davis in 2009 following Mark Udall’s successful campaign for U.S. Senate. The firm’s services include project management, strategy development, communications and message development, as well as online fundraising and social media strategies. OnSight’s team members have successfully integrated their strengths into a diverse array of projects including the Hickenlooper for Colorado campaign, US Pro Challenge, and the Denver Post Community Foundation. For a complete list of clients and projects click here.
“Curtis brings a wealth of experience from 20 years in journalism,” said Mike Melanson. “We are looking forward to working with him to deliver an even stronger suite of communications services for our clients.”
Hubbard is a leader in both the print and new media environments. Over the course of his journalism career he has covered some of the region’s most notable news events and developed expertise on politics and policy at the local, state and federal levels.
“We strongly believe that great teams can deliver great outcomes,” said Ben Davis. “Throughout his time with the Denver Post, we were always impressed with Curtis’s focus and professionalism while covering some of the most turbulent and impactful stories in recent state history.”
OnSight team members are confident Hubbard will quickly come up to speed — both outdoors and in the office.
From 2004 through 2006, Hubbard led The Post’s coverage of Colorado and the Rocky Mountain West as state editor. He served as the paper’s politics editor from January of 2007 until June of 2011, when he was named editorial page editor. In his current role, Hubbard has continued the paper’s tradition as a community thought leader while driving new initiatives, notably: launching of The Idea Log blog, developing a weekly on-camera interview series dubbed The Roundup, inviting newsmakers to town hall forums, and pushing reader-driven contests to name Colorado’s Top Thinkers and Women of Influence. Prior to joining The Post, he worked as an editor in Boulder and Jackson Hole.
Hubbard earned a bachelor’s degree from Beloit (Wis.) College and is a graduate of Cherry Creek High School. He lives in Louisville with his wife and two daughters.
Though he may earn the additional title of “slowest guy on the bike”, OnSight team members are confident Hubbard will quickly come up to speed — both outdoors and in the office — and look forward to adding his professional expertise to the firm.
