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    As people and businesses are moving away from traditional online advertising, the need to provide value and build relationship with customers is at the top of every marketer’s mind.  The upward trend of gamification is one that is greatly due to its unique ability to appeal to consumer behavior while also leaving a memorable impression.  To sum it up, gamification is essentially applying “gameplay” tactics to contexts that don’t normally involve games or play to in order to increase interest and engagement.  These tactics could include challenges and competition, ranking and scoring systems, rewards programs, or gamified giveaways (like a spin-to-win wheel)! 

    People associate games with fun, so when gamification tactics are involved, you can tap directly into the consumer’s innate need for fun, adventure, and competition to grab their attention and motivation.

    While having fun is a motivating factor in itself, there are numerous other benefits to gamifying your digital marketing campaign.  


    1.  Improves User Engagement 

    Did you know that the average attention span of a human is only EIGHT seconds?! Insane, right? Now let’s take that into consideration when we think about marketing a campaign.  Too much text can easily lose the attention of our audience before we know it, so interaction is KEY to successfully getting your message across.  Gamification has skyrocketed in the field of marketing and sales over the recent years because of exactly this. Seeing a pop-up spin to win wheel is a great way to ignite curiosity in your viewer, which leaves them finding it hard to resists playing the game (again tapping into that innate need to have fun!)


    2.  Increases Conversion Rates

    With gamification, there is almost always an incentive or a “prize”.  If a Spin-To-Win Wheel pops up with a selection of prizes to be won by simply entering an email or name, there won’t be any reason not to proceed with the game! Your audience will be more encouraged to take actions when it comes to a game than if they were simply shown a traditional advertisement, which therefore leads to more engagement and higher conversion rates.


    3.  Increases Brand Loyalty

    While it is always satisfying to know that you have gained a new customer, it is ever better to know that you are able to retain your existing customers.  Gamification is provably known to attract customers through engagement and “play”, but it can also work when it comes to keeping your existing customers happy.  For example, try hosting a giveaway for your existing customers through the use of a Spin-To-Win Wheel to reward them for their loyalty.  Every time a customer makes a purchase, reward them with a discount or points to use on their next purchase! Or if you are running an internal giveaway, reward your employees with a discount code to redeem a free item from your Swag Store!


    Brands around the world are seeing success by gamifying their marketing strategies.  Let’s take a look at some examples of success from the use of gamification in top brands:

    • After using points and badges to gamify their website, Verizon Wireless boosted browsing time by 30% among half their users.
    • Gamification helped Volkswagen China’s crowdsourcing project go viral. As a result, they gained over 33 million hits and nearly 120,000 ideas submitted.
    • Ford Motors increased sales by more than $8 million and boosted Facebook likes by 600% with gamified content.



    Spin-To-Win wheels are a perfect way to add gamification to your Swag Store.  Try out one of your own in your next marketing campaign to gain excitement and engagement with your customers and employees.  We are here to assist you through it all, from setup to design, to ensure that your campaign runs smoothly and successfully! 




    Check out the NorthPoint Swag Store to see our Spin-To-Win wheel in action!
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    In a time when so many things may seem gloomy and hopeless, we must search for even the slightest of inspiration to ignite our inner creative spirit. Creative inspiration can be found in any and every aspect of life, from street signs and architecture, to nature, movies, music, and even through the words of others.

    It may be true that public opportunities for inspiration are limited due to the pandemic, but that’s not to stop us from searching the glorious world wide web that we are so lucky to have access to! 

    If you have ever listened to a Ted Talk, of any subject for that matter, you are quite likely to have taken away some feeling of inspiration or deeper thought and understanding of a topic. Below we have gathered some of the top Ted Talks recommended for designers to share with you in hopes of sparking inspiration when you may need it the most!


    1. "How giant websites design for you (and a billion others, too)”

    By Margaret Gould Stewart


    Margaret Gould Stewart, Facebook’s director of product design, outlines three rules for design at such a massive scale.  For companies as large as Facebook, one small change has the potential to affect billions of people across the world, in either a good or bad way, as Stewart touches upon.




    2. "Designing books is no laughing matter. OK, it is."

    By Chip Kidd


    The enthusiastic and humorous graphic designer, Chip Kidd, is known for his extraordinary book covers that fully embody each book.  In his Ted Talk, he shows the art and deep thought of his cover designers.




    3. "The first secret of design is… noticing”

    By Tony Fadell


    The man behind the iPod and Nest thermostat talks about how we often get stuck in “habituation” and “the way things are”, but as designers, it is our job to search out the opportunities where things could be better.  Fadell shares some of his tips for noticing and driving change and innovation.



    4. "Your elusive creative genius"

    By Elizabeth Gilbert


    In the creative field, there is always the pressure to do better than what you’ve done in the past.  As author of “Eat, Prey, Love” Elizabeth Gilbert shares, artists and geniuses are constantly being expected of the impossible, but she poses the idea that instead of the rare person “being” a genius, all of us “have” a genius.




    5. "How Airbnb designs for trust”

    By Joe Gebbia


    The co-founder of Airbnb explains how good design can help to foster a community and connection, instead of isolation and separation, and how this helped to build a company mainly centered around trust.


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    Price Point: $2.26-22.44


    Production Time: 7-10 Working Days


    Available Colors: Mittens: Beige Tweed, Black / Ice Scraper: Black


    Perfect For: Employee Giveaways/Client Gifts/Corporate Swag Store Items/ Swag Store Real Estate/Campaign Ideas/Kit Ideas/Self Promo Items


    POV: Your alarm sounds at 7:30 AM…you viciously hit the snooze button a few times before cracking open your eyes in pure agony! UNFORTUNATELY, you are not one of the blessed ones that has an automatic start for your car on a drop dead freezing cold day! (Absolutely lovely!) We are smack dab in the thick of winter, and besides a much-needed vacation full of beaches, sunshine, and drinks with cute umbrellas, NorthPoint can provide you with some essential tools to help tackle the colder days of the year. This week's hot items include a bundle of the Long Boy Ice Scraper and Brush, as well as a Fingerless Glove/Mitten Combo. The scraper brush is a perfect auto accessory that is made up of plastic and wood to help save your car from an ice/snow demise without scratching it! The Fingerless Glove/Mitten Combo is made up of rag wool on the outer shell and a 3M thinsulate lining with a soft leather palm and elastic wrist, plus a hook and loop fastener tab to hold the mitten flap in place. We’ve got to make sure all of those glorious phalanges are toasty warm! 

    Besides Tom Brady and Bill Belichick, NorthPoint has yet to see a more dynamic duo. Bundle these mittens and scraper together for the perfect winter kit, and let us help you on your next campaign journey – even if it is through the cold!


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    With motion and video becoming the highlight of the web and a trend throughout social media, GIFs have naturally made their way into the spotlight.  Instead of the flatness of a still image, GIFs add motion to an image and can create a more interesting story in just a few seconds.  They are the perfect way to convey big emotions in the convenience of a short video loop.  Follow along to learn how you can create your own GIF from a series of pictures or even from an existing video…in only minutes!


    There are two ways that you can go about creating a GIF in Adobe Photoshop.  The first is to take a series of still images and put them together so that they are played sequentially to create the illusion of movement. The alternate way to go is to break a preexisting video into separate frames and adjust from there. With either method, the goal is to create a motion loop from a batch of individual frames.  Let’s see how it’s done:


    1) Create Your Document

    Choose the dimensions (in pixels) and resolution of your GIF.  You want to keep your file size as lowest as possible with GIFs, so a resolution of 150 with a maximum of 500 pixels for the height and width is recommended. Finally, since GIFS are made to be shown on screen, set your color mode to RGB.  


    2) Import your images or video

    To import a series of images, go to File > Scripts > Load Files into Stack and select the Browse button in the Load Layers window that pops up.  Select your images and then click “Open”. Photoshop will create a layer for each image uploaded which can be found in the layers panel in the bottom right hand corner. 

    To import a video, go to File > Import > Video Frames to Layers.


    3) Add layers into your Timeline

    In your Timeline panel, click on “Create Frame Animation”.  Next, expand the Timeline flyout menu and select “Make Frames From Layers” to move all of your uploaded layers into your timeline. 

    To change the timing of each frame, select all layers and click on the arrow on the bottom of one of the layers.  Change the time from “0 sec” to something greater.



    4) Set the looping cycle of the GIF

    Have the looping cycle set to “Forever” like a traditional GIF, or limit to play only a certain number of times.  Click on the bottom left toolbar in the timeline panel to make these adjustments.


    5) Export your GIF

    Click File > Export > Save for Web (Legacy), name your file, save, and share!





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