By Kelly Schermer, Annie Wegrich

Animations are blazing hot sauce in marketing today for good reason. They’re informative, persuasive, and add a spicy zing that keeps your company top of mind—in less than two minutes. With nearly two-thirds of customers preferring to watch a short video over reading a document (Wyzowl), animations offer the biggest bump for your brand. They have the potential to deliver a higher message density (think Scoville Heat Units) per second than other types of video by giving you full control over the auditory and visual elements as well as the interplay between the two.

A lot of animations today target the check-writing, decision-making customer at an organization. Typically, these animations stay at the organization or product level to help business leaders make the best choices for their teams. However, in the B2B technology space, staying at a higher level can sometimes mean burying the details of your main differentiator in technical wikis, docs, and blogs. In short, not giving it the marketing props it deserves.

This strategy can be troublesome as your offering gets vetted down the sales funnel. It forces developers and engineers, who are the key influencers and ultimate implementers of your solution, to slog through technical documents to find and unpack crucial nuggets. Who can blame them if they can’t find your buried differentiators?

A technical animation targets tech-minded influencers  

At 2A, we help B2B clients troubleshoot for these potential pitfalls by considering how a technical animation can be used to round out their marketing strategy. Technical animations target the developer/engineer influencers, homing in on a single feature or capability and describing both how it works and why the audience should care about it—in under two minutes. They can be especially useful if you want to:

Land a technical concept that’s not well understood and explain your product’s advantages

Demonstrate key features and controls you offer that exceed current industry capabilities

Investigate different scenarios and/or environments that might create new use cases

Our technical animations give you the old two-for-one punch by educating influencers about nuanced topics and promoting the value of your solution. If you’ve been relying on classic technical documents to help communicate what sets you apart, you could be missing a valuable chance to stir up more interest with a technical animation.

Spice up a technical story with us!

By Kyle Luikart + the 2A Team

The beginning of the year had me slipping out of the office between meetings, spending what should have been my lunch money on tunes from our neighbor, Everyday Music. Digging through crates of musty cardboard sleeves and jewel cases was a wonderful way to come up for air after being submerged in the world of cloud data platforms and AI/ML. But round about March everything changed, and I no longer found myself next to the record store between meetings. And my commute was axed, so things like FM radio, and podcasts silently slipped out of rotation. My listening habits changed, and I began looking forward to old-music Mondays and new-music Fridays, unintentionally leaning into music recommended to me by algorithms at a time when human interaction had taken a most extreme decline.

Creating marketing materials for machine learning puts an optimistic glow on what technology can do for us, but there’s a lot that goes into how an individual connects with music—time, place, receptiveness, emotion—that’s harder to train into a machine learning model. Just like when your favorite DJ plays a new song on the radio, a good friend suggests an artist they love, or you uncover a gem in a bin after sinking countless hours sifting, discovering new music can bring a tiny thrill of connection.

We hope you connect with some of 2A’s human-selected favorites of 2020.

Adrianne Lenker – Songs (folk/indie) – “Recorded in a tiny Western Massachusetts cabin, Lenker’s songs capture the solitude of 2020 without making it the primary subject. Dreamy finger-picking, gripping vocals, and poetic lyrics make the Big Thief front-woman’s solo album a must listen.” – Mike Lahoda

Bad Bunny – YHLQMDLG (Latin trap/reggaeton) – “Not necessarily what we did this year since the pandemic kept us in and far from concerts, however this album fueled my running in 2020 with its Latin beats and overstimulating electronic arrangements.” – Renato Agrella

Becky and the Birds – Trasslig (R&B/pop) – “Becky and the Birds track “Paris” transports me to a lighter, sexier place, which I needed a lot this year. And those magical, fairly-like vibes carry over to other tracks, building an album that is both moody and uplifting.” – Abby Breckenridge

Chromatics – Faded now (electronic/indie) – “There are so few new albums that I dove into this year, but Chromatics Faded Now is the album that stood out the most to me and made its way into my rotation of regular music pretty easily. Chromatics is such a distinct sound—club bass beats, heavy synth, echoing vocals—and this album follows that legacy. It did really make me miss shows and cocktail bars where this music bleeds seamlessly into the background. Here’s hopin’ for new places to listen to this in 2021.” – Clinton Bowman

Khruangbin – Mordechai (psychedelic/funk) — “This trippy album has been our hypnotic soundtrack for the last several months. It’s been a welcome space to spend time in.” – Daniel Schmeichler

Left at London – Transgender Street Legend, Vol. 2 (alternative/indie) – “Since 2020 had meant staying local, I’ve been listening to KEXP all day long and came across Left at London’s Transgender Street Legend, Vol. 2, which I’ve kept on repeat.” – Annie Unruh

LOOK MUM NO COMPUTER – These Songs are Obsolete (electronic/rock) – “A one-man band and DIY superstar, Sam Battle does some outlandish circuit bending work and skirts using traditional software based production tools to create unique and deftly performed synth rock.” – Kyle Luikart

Neil Cicierega – Mouth Dreams (mash up/electronic) – “Internet titan Neil Cicierega strikes again with his latest ‘Mouth’ mashup album. This fourth installment features remixing and reworking everything from classical orchestra pieces to pop music to commercial jingles to create bizarre, idiosyncratic, and comedic songs. Dreams of a baby wishing it could be a train, a super psycho demanding not to touch his bed, bells ringing on the moon, and rocking Ewoks form a surreal tapestry of sound that had me laughing and baffled in equal measure.” – Thad Allen

Run the Jewels – RTJ4 (hip hop/electronic) – “Killer Mike and El-P released ‘RTJ4’ two days early in response to the protests against police brutality after the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery. This year has been hard, and this album beautifully captures this very raw moment we’re all living.” – Erin McCaul

Taylor Swift – Folklore (indie folk/alternative) – “Like many, I underestimated Taylor Swift. She released not one but two new albums during a global pandemic. “Folklore” is layered and sharp, and it is the album I find myself asking Alexa to play again and again. Taylor’s voice as a true storyteller, musician and songwriter only gets better.” – Laurie Krisman

Yves Tumor – Heaven to a Tortured Mind (electronic/pop) – “Yves Tumor creates funky experimental pop that feels like a romantic fusion of Prince and David Bowie. When I want to escape from 2020 on a psychedelic audio spaceship, I put on this album.” – Nick Dwyer

By Daniel Schmeichler

Image by Daniel Schmeichler

I knew I was going to enjoy Rodolfo Agrella’s Elevating Stories talk because of our common Venezuelan backgrounds and my appreciation for his work. But what surprised me was the pride I felt seeing him showcase so many home-country inspirations to our non-Venezuelan team. It made me nostalgic for the days when I had more reasons to think about architect Carlos Raúl Villanueva’s iconic Universidad Central de Venezuela (UCV). And I realized that the accumulation of time and distance has left me with fewer opportunities to celebrate these cultural influences—with the countless other Venezuelans who have left, and with those who remain.

While telling us about some of the influences on his creative journey, Agrella gave us a quick tour of UCV, which he attended as an architecture student. He shared photographs of outdoor passageways edged by seemingly simple, perforated, cinderblock walls where the strong tropical sun passes through to create an astonishing play of light and shadow. Villanueva’s vision was that the walls would deliver a shifting environment for passersby. Agrella harvested the playful details created by the shadows as a jumping off point for his work.

In a small moment of happenstance, Agrella shared a portrait of Villanueva taken by a friend of mine—the celebrated Venezuelan photographer Paolo Gasparini. The photograph depicts the architect proudly standing in the concert hall he designed with Alexander Calder. What he didn’t show was a beautiful series of photographs Gasparini created decades earlier of the same shadow-and-light passageways at the university. I wrote to Agrella afterward to share the series, and of course he was familiar with them.

In some ways, we are still connected.

By Kelly Schermer

We’re coming into the holidays, and you know what that means—it’s time to add a little sparkle and get a little tinseled. After all, there’s nothing like sprucing up to get attention. You might say it works the same way in B2B technology marketing, although (spoiler alert) it’s highly unlikely that blow-up characters and garish lights will seal the deal for you. Not to worry, we’ve got something better to last the whole year through. 

At 2A, we’ve come up with a full-stack approach to lighting up your marketing assets. We put engaging copy and arresting design into motion, creating a scrollable, interactive web experience. You can full-stack just about any written content—from case studies to ebooks to you-name-it-we-can-do-it! It’s a surefire way to put a fresh spin on an asset that’s just too good to miss.  

Recently, we created a full-stack experience for WeaveWorks to add some twinkle to their GitOps ebook. While the content is the same as our PDF version, the experience appeals to a whole new audience and effectively extends the asset’s reach. 

“Removing the barrier of logging in, downloading and waiting for an email allows us to deliver our ebook content to prospects faster,” said Sonja Schweigert, VP of Marketing at Weaveworks. “Giving ours the full-stack treatment allows people the option of scrolling through the content from the convenience of their phone or tablet instead. It’s a nice change from a typical webpage asset, because we can meet the reader on the device and channel of their choice and still give them the full story. 2A Consulting not only wowed me with timely and superb execution but also delivered an outstanding content and design experience for our clients.”  

Curious about how the full-stack technology works? Erin, 2A’s head orchestrater behind the process, takes you behind the scenes of our case studies on the 2A website.  

Curious about how to make the full-stack experience work for you? Give us a ringle jingle!  

By Erin McCaul

When November rolls around each year, my friends and family who celebrate Christmas divide into two groups: those who put their trees up before Thanksgiving, and those who wait until their turkeys have time to cool. I personally fall into the latter camp—and throw some serious side-eye at anyone who plays “All I Want for Christmas Is You” before Black Friday.   

But this year has been heavy, and 2020 isn’t closing out like any other year. My entire workday has turned digital, and like many families—we’ve decided to take our holiday gatherings digital too. However you celebrate, here are a few tips to help make the holidays special this year.  

Shop early and support small  

COVID-19 closures have hit small businesses hard. If you’re gifting, consider buying local, buying handmade, buying gift certificates for services, or buying from people you know. A key to supporting small is shopping early. Lots of independent bookstores, small shops, and artisans take online orders, but they need some extra time to package and ship everything off.  

And if you’re as sick of your own cooking as I am, consider restaurant gift certificates—or getting takeout over cooking your own holiday meal. Love libations? Many local breweries and wineries are offering curbside pickup as well. 

Get creative with your digital celebrations  

This year, everyone in my family is getting a Christmas package that includes Christmas crackers, over-the-top Christmas costume gear, and paintable wooden ornaments. If I can’t see them in person, I want to see them in reindeer antlers and blinking Christmas-light glasses over FaceTime. If your crew isn’t excited about blinking glasses, consider a holiday slideshow of old pictures to reminisce, or throwing together a trivia night to keep things light. 

Give to a charity  

2020 has brought unimaginable hardships to our communities. Food insecurity—already an issue—is on the rise. Millions of Americans are out of work. Schools are closed. Already vulnerable communities are suffering the most. Consider setting aside some of your holiday budget for charities or food banks, or even setting up recurring donations to give organizations near and dear to your heart steady funding throughout the year.   

I miss hugging my grandma. I miss seeing my friends. I miss schools. I miss my office and sitting in an actual conference room with my team. I miss crowded bars and waiting to be seated at restaurants. I’m tired. But I’m starting to see Christmas lights in yards and in town, like little lights at the end of 2020. And if your Christmas tree was up in October, I now say good for you.   

By Mitchell Thompson

Ask your body. Turn it upside down. Do something boring.

We’ve all heard of thinking outside of the box, but how do you really do it? Famed non-musician Brian Eno and multimedia artist Peter Schmidt developed a unique approach called Oblique Strategies to break through creative barriers. Oblique Strategies is a deck of cards with short phrases meant to introduce constraints or reframe the problem at hand and encourage lateral thinking. Prompts like Ask your body and Turn it upside down help kickstart creativity with somewhat removed and roundabout thoughts.

This year has presented us with a plethora of new challenges to overcome, and it’s obvious that our old way of doing things isn’t cutting it. Curiously enough, the Oblique Strategies hinting at mindfulness have been surprisingly helpful for me lately. I’ve been questioning if I’ve made good use of the time I’ve gotten back from the disappearance of things like commutes and recreational shopping. Strategies like Do nothing for as long as possible and Remember the quiet evenings have a meditative quality and are grounded in gratitude. We’re often so driven by our goals that the pleasure of the moment is lost in the desire to get somewhere as quickly as possible.

There are no correct ways to apply Oblique Strategies. The journey is the destination—lateral thinking puts us in a place to see and understand more. Perhaps the ultimate secret is to stay mindful of where we are and what’s right in front of us. Here are three examples of how to interpret Oblique Strategies to stay in the moment while overcoming obstacles.

Embrace the constraints

A line has two sides. Instead of trying to see through something, look around it. Accept the boundaries you have to work with (like time, medium, or purpose) and spend your time exploring the open space that exists around them. That doesn’t mean accepting things at face value, but truly understanding the box that you’re trying to think outside of. Constraints present a structure, and once we acknowledge the structure, we can begin to create ways to use it in our favor.

Practice the failure bow

What mistakes did you make last time. We’re fallible. To deny that is to deny room for growth. Not all strategies will lead directly to the end goal (they shouldn’t, really), but gracefully accepting failure and letting it flow through allows us to get one step closer to true success. If we look closely at the most embarrassing details and amplify them we are welcoming the opportunity to learn from mistakes and cultivating a culture with less ego. In essence, failure is far more powerful for learning than engineering a string of successes—so celebrate those moments!

Unlearn what you’ve been taught

Discover the recipes you are using and abandon them. Many of the processes we’ve learned were developed for a different time and place, so it’s more important than ever to truly step away from the orthodoxy. When time is of the essence this can be a challenge, but prioritize the idea and allow yourself a moment to view something with a child’s eyes and entertain the ridiculous or unexpected.

No matter what you do, accepting what cannot be changed, welcoming failure, and not being afraid to let go will enable out-of-the-box thinking. But maybe more importantly, just Go outside. Shut the door. And Breathe more deeply.

By Laurie Krisman

Sometime in early March of this year, just when kids exited playgrounds and rushed home to continue learning online, healthcare organizations pivoted. Almost overnight, COVID-19 dramatically accelerated the pace of digitization. Pilot projects like remote patient monitoring, telehealth, and scalable remote work environments suddenly took center stage. And as contact tracing and vaccine management changed our lives, the value of integrated data became more important than ever.

As storytellers at 2A, healthcare marketing is on our minds. Considering how healthcare technology has evolved and patient expectations are changing, now is the time for healthcare organizations to rethink how they engage customers. If you’re building marketing strategies that target specialized clinical personas, here are a few timeless guideposts to follow.

1. Balance self-promotion with education

It’s simple: organizations that create high-quality, strategic content generate more leads than those who do not. It makes sense that customers tend to engage with material that brings them entertainment, new knowledge, or skills. So, when building marketing assets like eBooks, infographics, and whitepapers, aim for a balance of educational and self-promotional content that’s relevant to your customers’ lives. For example, this eBook we created for Amazon Web Services and Infor gives healthcare organizations ready-to-deploy ideas for implementing cloud technologies to become more resilient in the face of healthcare transformations.

To generate new content, it always helps to stay up to date with the latest technologies, news, and challenges, so you can be the first to drive home a new insight. 

2. Aim for re-posts and shares on social

Content is key, but so is the vehicle. When it comes to social media, there are many platforms where you can share your message, but finding the right placement helps ensure you’re reaching your target audience. In B2B healthcare marketing, Twitter and LinkedIn are typically good choices. Why? Because influencers and subject matter experts can re-publish your content, giving it the added component of advocacy. Take this approach a step further by being creative and finding new ways to be seen.  

3. Remember, B2B loves animation

In the world of digital content, animation is becoming the crown jewel. As a response to digital fatigue, when people see a moving illustration our brains make a heroic effort to understand what it’s looking at. Plus, animations usually include expressive visuals, an interesting narrative, and music—a great recipe for memorable content that communicates your business value to customers. Take, for example this animation we created for the enterprise patient mapping solution, Verato.

As innovations in healthcare evolve, we’re excited to drive new content marketing programs that continue to amplify the message with proven tactics. Need more eyes and ears on your latest breakthrough? Give us a ping.   

By Nick Dwyer

America’s trajectory hangs in the balance this November, but one of the ballot measures I’m most excited about is one I cannot vote on. In six days, Mississippi voters will have the opportunity to approve or reject the final design for a new state flag. After more than 20 years of serious efforts to replace the old racist flag, which featured the confederate stars and bars, widespread protests stemming from George Floyd’s murder finally turned the tide with state lawmakers this summer.

I’m excited not just because this marks the removal of a hateful symbol, but because I’m a lifelong vexillophile—a lover of flags. In many ways, what I love about flags is what I love about marketing: the limitations. There is so much to say and represent, but just like marketing, flags depend on simplification to be effective. So, let’s review the proposed flag design through the lens of some classic 2A adages that help shape our approach.

Less is more work

Like our marketing work, the best flags do more with less clutter. Flags flap, drape, and must be recognizable from afar, so they should be designed for practicality. Mississippi’s  new proposed flag benefits from simple symmetry and limited colors, but unfortunately it includes lettering. It’s not the designers’ fault, the words “In God we trust” had to be included. Lettering doesn’t scale down well, is impossible to read at a distance, and makes production more complicated. South Carolina and New Mexico have perhaps the most iconic state flags—in part because they have no letters at all.

Find the nugget

There can be a lot of noise on marketing projects, making it hard to figure out the focal point. One message needs to shine above the rest to communicate what’s most important. In the new flag design, there’s no doubt that the centerpiece is the southern magnolia, Mississippi’s state flower and tree. Trees can be beautifully symbolic, just look at Canada or Lebanon, and this flower is instantly recognizable to anyone familiar with the Magnolia State. While the flower is an effective central element, it would be more emphatic without the ring of 20 white stars, which represent Mississippi as the 20th state.

Know your audience

Everyone loves to think of themselves as marketers, but great marketers remember they’re probably not the intended audience. This flag must represent the people of Mississippi. Polls show that nearly half the state wanted to keep the old flag, but the new flag features symbols with broader appeal than the old icons of division. You can’t make everyone happy, but it’s clear more people can take pride in this design.

If any Mississippi voters are reading this, I’ll leave you with one more aphorism I like to repeat at 2A: strategy is about tradeoffs. This new design cannot include everything you might have wanted, but it pops the right elements to serve your state with dignity and hope.

By Erin McCaul

After reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma in 2010 I became a farmer’s market loyalist. I live for the first tomato of summer, love the sweet crunch of an over-wintered carrot, gush over peaches, and—much to my toddler’s dismay—refuse to buy bananas. So when Claire Lichtenfels and her husband Hal Jackson asked 2A to redesign the website for their small family-run farm, Whitestone Mountain Orchard, I knew it was my chance to put my pastoral passion to use. I instantly clicked with Claire and Hal, appreciating them on another level for their regenerative agriculture practices and support for local communities.

While it’s easy to miss the magic of food in a well-lit grocery aisle or PrimeNow delivery bag, this site was our opportunity to bring some farm goodness back to the shopping experience—and a few apples to your door.

Every heirloom has a story

Claire and Hal chose 2A because of our focus on storytelling. As owners of a third-generation orchard, it was important that their mission to promote the viability of local farms be front and center on the site, with plenty of information about the diversity of fruit they grow. We’re all used to Galas and Honeycrisps, but what about Stayman and Ashmead’s Kernel? Apples and pears are harvested August through January, and Claire and Hal are equally excited about every tree in their orchard. For each variety, we crafted mouthwatering descriptions, elevating the sweet snacks and seasonal stars. Their site has something for everyone, from apple subscriptions to gift boxes, and my personal favorite—the heirloom pie box.

Step into Oma’s kitchen

Claire and Hal radiate warmth, kindness, and good humor. When designing their site, we crafted custom linocut icons and paired them with photos of the farm. It all works together like a patchwork quilt—transporting you straight to the orchard. Perusing “The pantry” section of the site, I can imagine stepping into Claire’s kitchen, where like any fun Oma, she’s ready to show you how to make dried apples, or whip up some fruit butters to carry those fall flavors into winter oatmeal and toast.   

Treat yourself to some fall flavor

In a world of digital conveniences, eating seasonally brings a little magic to my menu. Plus, supporting small, local farms is my favorite way to give big agribusiness and monocropping the middle finger.

If you love apples, consider following Whitestone Mountain Orchard on Instagram and Facebook, or treating yourself to a box of seasonal goodness, delivered to your doorstep. I know I’ll be gifting some lucky friends and family holiday pears and heirloom pie boxes this year!

By Rachel Adams

When I graduated college in 2011, artificial intelligence and machine learning were not topics that surfaced regularly in our graphic design classes. Now, almost 10 years later, as a designer at a B2B storytelling agency, I’m creating technology marketing materials for these abstract concepts on a daily basis. It can be intimidating designing for big tech ideas, but here are a few tips I’ve learned to help navigate the process.

Go with what you know

Certain design metaphors already exist in tech marketing, like a lock representing data security. There is sort of this unwritten rulebook of icons for designers. Sometimes these icons make sense and sometimes they feel like a stretch, either way it is a good North Star. For example, I understand why a cloud represents the cloud but ever wonder why a can represents a database? Assigning a design element to an abstract idea makes it feel more tangible and helps tell a story in a visual way.

Be original

While there are some general tech marketing design guidelines that exist, each project is different. As an agency, we want to give clients unique designs so not every keynote presentation looks the same. Always look to a company’s brand guidelines and try to get creative about how brand details are incorporated. Elements like color, pattern, and iconography are cues we can massage into the design to ultimately delight the client with a final product that stands out.

Don’t forget fundamentals

Even though these tech themes can be abstract, it’s important to keep in mind the fundamentals of design. A website layout still needs to have some sort of hierarchy, words on the page of an eBook need to feel balanced with the visuals, and an infographic should guide the viewer through a story. Using these visual elements in the right way make these big ideas easier to digest.

Eventually we will have to visualize abstract concepts that haven’t been thought of yet. What comes next beyond artificial intelligence and machine learning? It will be interesting to see how the design of tech marketing evolves. I hope it’s something fun and colorful…like rainbows or trolls.