You will be experienced in designing and delivering impactful effective marketing campaigns, either within the public or private sector. You are a strategic thinker and understand how marketing theory works in the real world. You will have some experience of managing a team and budgets and a keen eye for detail combined with the drive to achieve the highest quality work in everything you do. You also have experience of online and digital marketing and a passion for exploring how these evolving channels can contribute to achieving marketing objectives.

You’re also someone with strong values who can develop and manage projects spanning corporate, consumer, public affairs, digital, internal communications and more.

You will have experience of:

• Delegating to staff and managing teams
• Strategic campaign development and delivery including budget control
• Project planning
• Design and development of online and offline marketing campaigns
• Ideally knowledge and experience of social marketing
• Metrics and report writing

If you love the buzz of agency life and are feeling the pull towards sustainable public sector marketing campaigns, then diva is for you. We need a Senior Account Manager who will work with our team to deliver high profile social marketing, media relations campaigns and research projects on environmental, health and social issues across a range of clients.

Please submit your CV to info@divacreative.com or by post to: Human Resources, diva creative, Workstation, 15 Paternoster Row, Sheffield S1 2BX.

Web browsers are responding more swiftly to these changes than they used to, resulting in a faster and often compulsory upgrade cycle. Google’s Chrome browser, for example, has been silently updating itself on your computer with each new release (currently it’s up to v17). And although there are still some discrepancies with the agreed standards, all current browsers will recognise (most of) the latest HTML5 and CSS3 features.

But what about those of us without the luxury of administrator control on our work computers, who can’t authorise a download or an update? In many cases across the public sector, employees are at the mercy of whatever web browser their IT department last installed – and more often than not, this is the web developer’s arch-nemesis, Internet Explorer 6.

Although launched in 2001, IE6 maintains a 1.4% share of the UK browser market ¹; not much compared to the ballooning figures for Firefox, Chrome and mobile web browsers. However, many of our clients within the public sector see a vastly higher figure than this – sometimes as high as 40% – and usually do not have access to software later than IE8, itself nearly three years old.

These skewed statistics present our web team with some tricky design challenges. Clients naturally want to exploit the latest web features, as do we, and want their audience to get broadly the same experience regardless of where they’re coming from. Many professional developers have come up with tempting ways to sideline IE6 users, such as serving them a simplified ² or unstyled, text-only ³ layout. Whereas these options are clever, timesaving ways to offer all users a semantically correct experience, they are not feasible for us to use with our higher than usual set of IE6 users.

At diva we use a web design approach known as progressive enhancement – adding layers of visual and interactive fidelity to a solid structure that will work even in the obsolete web browsers of a decade ago. This way, all visitors will receive the same information and general experience, and the vital content of the site is made accessible to all.

However, this design approach must go hand in hand with client education, to make sure there is an understanding that their website will not look identical across all browsers, and the reasons why. Progressive enhancement creates browsing benefits that can’t be seen – smaller page sizes, future-proofing, even better search engine rankings – but it can sometimes be hard to see past any design discrepancies. ⁴ It also exposes the limitations of creating initial designs as a flat image rather than a working, interactive prototype.

The number of our clients and customers still using older browsers is much higher than average, but progressive enhancement is a positive, flexible approach for any web designer. Our champagne is already on ice for the day that IE6 eventually dies off completely, but the ever-changing mobile web landscape promises to offer a whole new set of challenges, making us better designers every day.

1. http://www.ie6countdown.com/
2. http://jonikorpi.com/leaving-old-IE-behind/
3. http://stuffandnonsense.co.uk/blog/about/universal_internet_explorer_6_css
4. http://boagworld.com/design/where-are-my-rounded-corner

I for one still go back to the old version for one very good reason. The new version does not support PDF reports as yet, which is a really useful feature for marketing meetings and sending performance summaries to clients and colleagues. Google have heard the outcry for this feature on their forums and have promised to add it to the new version shortly. Power to the people!

Here’s a quick round up of the main features and how we’ve been using them.

Dashboards

You can now create multiple dashboards to suit the type of reports you are interested in. For example you could create a dashboard called ‘SEO’ (Search Engine Optimisation) that will instantly show you all the metrics that you need to find out how your site is performing with search engines.

Real-time Reporting

This feature really makes sense now the web and social media have become so reliant on being responsive. Real-time reports show the traffic on your site immediately as opposed to before, when it took around 24 hours for stats to appear.

This feature is really addictive as it can let you know who is visiting your site right now, what that person is looking at, where they came from and what device they are using.

Example of use – Monitoring the impact of a tweet or email campaign

Keyword Clouds

If you remember the popular trend of tag clouds on websites a few years ago, you will recognise this type of feature. Keyword clouds essentially gives a visual representation of the search keywords visitors used that ended in a visit to your site. Finding trends is now far quicker and easier to understand.

Flow

This is a really handy feature that I think will help draw attention to key stats which you may have previously overlooked due to how difficult it was to evaluate them. This feature visually demonstrates the “flow” of visitors through your site, showing which order pages were visited and at what points visitors left the site.

This sort of tracking is especially prominent in e-commerce sites to identify where in the checkout process customers leave which can inform improvements in user experience (UX).

Site Speed

How fast your site loads is obviously really important not only for SEO and whether a visitor bothers to carry on viewing your site but also because mobile searching is now becoming more popular and connection speeds are usually slower.

The biggest search engines actually use your sites speed when working out your page rank, as they would rather serve their searchers with a faster page than a slow one. This new feature allows you to easily track each page of the sites response times and even shows how it performs on different browsers. Pass these reports on to your web developer for advice on improvements.

Improved Mobile Reporting

We are being asked for more and more mobile development (both Web apps and Native apps) so this new improved feature really helps us to understand our clients’ sites visitors and make decisions about which smart-phone devices to prioritise development on.

This feature now includes a comparison of mobile traffic and non-mobile traffic to your site; great information to convince stakeholders of the importance of a mobile optimised site. You can also get a report on the type of devices, phone brand and carrier of the mobile traffic, which even includes a photo of the devices named in the report.

Here is a great learning resource if you would like to get the most from the Google Analytics service. http://www.google.com/intl/en/analytics/iq.html

If you would like any help with your Google Analytics please post a comment below.

The ‘Sefton Shorts’ competition was designed by diva to engage young people in sexual health and relationship issues in a creative way.

Working with local colleges, the diva team supported students to create a series of short films. The competition entries have been received and now it’s up to the public to find the next Martin Scorsese or Kathryn Bigelow!

The ‘grand prix’ award for best film will be announced at a Hollywood-style awards ceremony on 23rd February 2012 at The Plaza in Crosby.

Winners for Best Audio, Best Editing, Best Script and Best Actor will be chosen by a panel of judges, which includes Dr Mark Fremaux, Programme Leader for Television and Production at Edge Hill University, Liza Williams, Health Reporter for Liverpool Echo and Morag Reynolds, Public Health Lead at NHS Sefton.

To watch the videos and cast your vote for the best film, visit the Sefton Shorts website.

Infographics take complex information and data sets, and make them easy to digest in a visually stimulating design. They aim to be a unique and interesting form of “data visualisation” (or “data viz” if you want to be down with the kids.) The Internet is stuffed with information and the infographic helps visualise that information simply, accurately and clearly.

Design trends come and go but infographics are here to stay. Brands like The Guardian, Google and The NY Times use them regularly. Even President Obama can’t get enough of them (http://www.whitehouse.gov/auto-industry-resurgence). All sorts of organisations are using infographics to build their brands, educate their audience and drive traffic to their sites. And since infographics show information in such a highly shareable bite-sized format you can also use social media to spread your message far and wide.¹

The best infographics are “simple enough to read but creative enough that to make you look twice.” So what’s the best way to go about making sure your infographic stands out from the crowd?

Be Obvious: Your infographic should demonstrate key ideas clearly and concisely. It can show other facts and information but don’t let the main conclusion of the data get lost in the shuffle. Think about what you’re showing and what you really want to focus on.

Be Helpful: It shouldn’t need a Statistics degree to understand your infographic so make sure you build your data and explanation right into the heart of the graphic. Put simply, if your readers need more than a few seconds to understand your infographic, it’s no good!

Be Honest:  Don’t bend the data to better suit your conclusion or design. Cite your data sources and allow readers to dig deeper into the data if they want to. It’s just like they told you at school, “always show your working.”

Be Clear: Design isn’t just about making things pretty. It’s about making things work, and in the case of infographics, that means representing data accurately and clearly. When creating infographics spend the time to properly analyse and understand the data because then the really interesting story behind the numbers and spreadsheets will shine through.

For the last couple of years infographics with little substance still made an impact simply because they were something new and fashionable. Now you need to try a little harder. Put in the time to think about the story you want to tell and show some clear insight. The point of infographics is to help the reader to understand the data, show the hidden patterns and make complex ideas easily understandable.

And if they just so happen to look beautiful then that’s the cherry on top.

¹ http://www.marketingcharts.com

diva has worked with ITM Power since 2010, designing their websites as well as providing creative design and printing services for product launches, signage and the company annual report.

As the momentum continues to build around their ground-breaking work, we look forward to supporting the ITM team into the future.

Co-created by service users, for service users, the smokefree mental health resource tells the stories of people who have quit or reduced smoking and offers tips and advice to help inspire others to do the same.

Following a public vote in which the video competed against other entries from around the world, it was announced that ‘Today I Can’ had made it into the top five videos.

The competition was developed by the WHO as part of their response to the globalisation of the tobacco epidemic and the WHO’s work to support people’s right to the highest standard of health.

Watch the video below:

For the 86,000 people in Leeds who are under 65 and have heart, kidney, liver or neurological problems, immunosuppression, diabetes or chest problems such as asthma and COPD, catching flu could be very serious and can even kill.

Following scoping by diva, the ‘Flu Wiped Me Out’ campaign was developed. Alongside work with GP practices, a PR campaign and targeted letters, leaflets and posters, a video was produced featuring the real story of Kirsty Gamble from Armley in Leeds.

Kirsty has asthma, which means it’s always a bit harder for her to breathe when she gets a cold. But when she got flu last year, it hit her so hard that she was unable to look after her two young children.

Watch the YouTube video below.

1. For _____ Get Smash.
2. _____ made to make your mouth water.
3. Any time any place any where, that’s _____
4. A  _____ a day helps you work, rest and play
5. A finger of _____ is just enough to give your kids a treat
6. The _____ _____ are on me
7. _____, it’s the real thing
8. I’m a secret lemonade drinker, _____

(Post your answers in the comments below)

If you grew up in the 1970′s and 1980′s you may be able to recall some of the products that used these lines in their ads. The TV adverts of that era, the stories they told, the straplines, and especially the jingles made life so simple! These days with all the visual metaphors in play, sometimes it’s hard to be sure what the advertiser is trying to say.

We can often enjoy the creativity of the ad, the beautiful way it has been filmed and the humour, but fail to recall what the actual product was. Is this the outcome of ads no longer being directed by copy writers, but by brand specialists?

In the early 90′s I began my career as a marketing executive at a travel company; looking back I can see that client-agency relationships have changed.

The travel company had three agencies only, one that looked after the creative, marketing, advertising, one for sales promotion and one for PR.

Jump forward 15 years and I was working as a consultant for a large Health and Beauty company where in a pan agency meeting I found myself surrounded by representatives from our Creative Agency, Direct Marketing Agency, Web Design Agency, SEO Marketing Agency, PR Agency, Media Buying Agency and Online Media Agency.

This is reflective of what has happened throughout the 90′s and noughties with the emergence and growth of specialist agencies, most recently around digital media.

But that’s where diva is different to a lot of other agencies, as all of our services are in-house. Over the last 12 months we have delivered fully integrated social marketing programmes, using a combination of creativity, social media and community engagement.

Being able to offer our clients a full service approach, a bespoke package of services or an individual service provides them with both flexibility and control.

This approach has been recognised and rewarded by our peers at the 2011 How-Do Public Service Awards. We were fortunate enough to win awards for both complete marketing programmes as well as specialist services:

• Best Agency
• Best use of Social Marketing
• Highly Commended for use of Social Media

We feel very proud of these achievements and it has inspired us to continue doing what we do best; to be responsive to our clients’ needs and be adaptable enough to meet them.

Now if we could only get an award for our jingle writing my marketing life would be complete!

The new website features a refined navigation system, easier to use order forms and a refreshed logo design.

CHIV staff are now able to manage the website themselves through a customised WordPress content management system. A new ‘tagging’ function also allows the CHIV team to easily categorise all content, publications and courses related to a specific topic. This means visitors can view all content around a topic in one place.

Since the re-launch in July, visitors to the website have increased by 38% and time spent on the site has gone up by 72%.

Visit the website at www.sexualhealthsheffield.nhs.uk.