Mass Effect, BioWare’s latest role-playing game, is one example. It really pushes story and engages the player with well-defined characters with whom s/he can relate. Naturally, real world scenarios come into play, in this case, sex. Good old-fashioned digital gaming sex!

Now, let it be known that these in-game sex scenes are totally mild. Just like in film, games have a rating system to help prevent minors from playing them. So why would it be any different for a game to introduce sexuality and real emotion, especially considering the increasingly wider demographic that gaming represents? The production director for Mass Effect 2 describes,

“When I play a game, I always find it odd when I’m just running around shooting things and beating things up without understanding why I care. I need a personal reason to care. That’s something that the characters offer.”

This gaming trend got me thinking more about how sex may be spreading to other new media, namely the Internet. And no, we aren’t talking pornography here, which practically started the internet. Instead, the focus is on companies that were originally more conservative and have completely rebranded themselves around that famous phrase: Sex sells.

American Apparel is my primary example. They are HOT! From one look at their home page, it is clear that this brand isn’t afraid to show some skin, literally. Their suggestive promotions leave customers wanting more. In other words, they have brought sexy back.

Just as we play games like Mass Effect to immerse ourselves in a fantasy and connect to its characters, we visit the American Apparel website in hopes we’ll find sexier duds for the avatar that is our real identity. The engaging photography, beautiful models and seductive marketing keep us browsing and fantasizing, until (in their hopes) we arrive at an item we simply must have.

Of course, American Apparel isn’t the only retailer with an unorthodox way of marketing. There are plenty of others, including one of our well-known quality denim suppliers, Diesel, pictured below.

So what does this mean? That our heads are stuck in the gutter and more brands are giving in too? I don’t think so. Rather, these companies have capitalized on a part of life that is captivating and, frankly, always on our minds. Their marketing strategies have shifted to a more progressive way of thinking to keep pace with changing generational attitudes and globalization. The younger crowd is less squeamish about the human anatomy than its predecessor, as are several Westernized cultures across the Atlantic. Like it or not, get used to seeing even more sex than you’ve seen before. As graphics technologies have begun to create interactive experiences that more closely mimic our sensory world, never before have we been so captivated by websites and games. Buckle up, it’s gonna be a risqué ride!

Obviously Anderson was rooting for the Colts. And we all know how that story ends. (If you don’t, the Colts lost.) The significance of this whole bet, however, is rooted in the publicity that each museum garnered. In addition to Twitter, this smack talk was also discussed on the Modern Art Notes blog, meaning that anyone who follows their tweets or that art blog most likely followed the course of the bet.

In publicly announcing the bet and egging one another on, the two museums were actually generating interest through social media, whether they realized it or not. They rallied their art history communities around something entirely unexpected — home team pride — and in the process caught the attention of folks outside their average orbit.  xiik did something similar when we realized that we had more Facebook followers than our friends over at another Indy firm, Mediasauce. See the humorous post here. In this case, we inspired several comments and feedback about our little popularity contest. You know what they say: any publicity is good publicity.

Unfortunately, it looks like Max Anderson and the IMA were just a tad over confident with their art wager. The Saints’ 31-17 victory over the Colts proved quite a few people wrong, including most of us xiik geeks. In a final tweet to end the Super Bowl bet, IMA declared, “Congrats to the Saints & @NOMA1910 on winning the Super Bowl bet. #Indy-be sure to see the JMW Turner before it heads to New Orleans!” Now that’s good sportsmanship! As Twitter continues to broaden its utility to interactions such as money transfers or one-on-one interviewing, we will likely see “tweeple” using the service in more creative ways, like smack talking, to entertain and thus promote their brand.

So, how does a company like xiik relate to an athlete like Shaun White?

Like him, there are some mad skillz here at xiik. Maybe not quite his snowboarding skills, but we’re pretty savvy when it comes to marketing. We have years of marketing experience, boat loads of creativity and the ability to execute those ideas through web, video and print. Every day we challenge ourselves and our clients to pull out the “big guns” and craft up a product that will be mind-blowing. If Shaun White needed an interactive website, video, marketing materials or anything else to sustain his brand, he could come to us and let us “put down tricks” in the form of interactive marketing.

If our team took a vacation to go take snowboarding lessons from Shuan White himself, I’m pretty sure none of us would be doubting what the pro instructed us to do. We would let the professional do his job because he has mastered his craft! Sure we can give our suggestions where we see fit, but at the end of the day we respect his gold medals. The same can be said for our company. We love getting input from our clients and should always be a part of the creative process, but our expertise helps us guide our clients down path safely and effectively. We might not be competing in Vancouver this winter, but for everyone here at xiik, a client’s success is our gold medal.

Read more about White’s accomplishments here. Read more about xiik’s here.

Some people still like print. It’s intriguing. You can physically touch it, carry it with you, hold it and turn pages. You can even smell it, if you’re into that. For a lot of folks, interaction is an important factor when they sit down to read a book or a newspaper. That is a main reason websites are becoming more interactive and engaging. Staring at a computer screen for long periods of time can be stressful on your eyes and some people just cannot handle that. Print may always be their preference.

Now consider the alternative. Amazon’s Kindle was one of the most popular gifts this past holiday season. The Kindle might be good for people on the go, a lightweight, portable alternative to bulky books and newspapers, but at the end of the day it isn’t the same as turning the pages of your favorite book.

Another argument in favor of electronic media is the ease with which information is at your fingertips. A quote that really stuck out to me in an article by Fast Company is “Too many of the ideas trapped on pages end up, at best, in unused archives or, at worst, in recyclers’ pulp, when they should be online: searchable, discoverable, linkable, part of the conversation.” – Jeff Jarvis. I can easily search Google for an excerpt from a book, but it would take much longer to search through thousands of books to find the same excerpt.

Just make sure your web sources are reputable. When you read a physical publication, most of the time you can be sure the source is reliable (unless you’re reading a tabloid you picked up while standing in line at the grocery store), but with electronic media, you could end up reading news stories on The Onion and anyone who’s heard of that site knows you don’t want to end up there if you are looking for real news.

I was also lucky enough to stumble across some funny excuses why print is still alive from Web Pro News and had to share. In my opinion these don’t count, as true as they may be.

-Newspapers are convenient for entirely different reasons than online news sources. When they develop a computer screen that a puppy can pee on, then print is surely dead.
-What are you going to wrap your dishes in when you move?
-There are coupons in the newspaper—ones that require only scissors.

Where do you see the world of media in 5 years? Will we be using tablets that we download the latest news to each morning replacing newspapers? Will the Amazon Kindle replace printed books? Will your nanny be replaced with a robot? Who knows!

While there were definitely bright moments in the ads , like the Doritos commercial, where the little boy slaps his mother’s new boyfriend across the face and says “Don’t touch my mama, don’t touch my Doritos,” the overall trend I noticed was far more disturbing – that of bashing and degrading women.

Grandmotherly Betty White was tackled to the ground in a Snicker’s commercial and a short while later Tim Tebrow tackled his mother during the controversial Focus on the Family ad. Men were told that buying a Dodge Charger was the last stand against women dominating their lives and then there are the GoDaddy ads, which are just blatantly trying to sell mediocre Web hosting using sex.

I’m a woman AND a football fan. I know that the vast majority of the Super Bowl ads are not targeted to my demographic, but I couldn’t help but sit and wonder what the sentiment was in the creative agencies this year that determined these were the best ads. Maybe it says something that the best commercials in my mind were those created by Doritos fans, not by major ad agencies. Fresh ideas and fresh content, not more of the same.

When a client or prospective client contacts xiik to develop a Web site, brochure or marketing campaign, one of our first questions is always going to be, “What do you want to accomplish?” We ask this because every company has different goals. It also helps us to learn more about a client. Often, but not always, a client may not have an end goal in mind, but just think they need “marketing.” However, marketing without a purpose is like trying to shoot a target in the dark. If you’re not sure what your goal should be, here are a few things to consider:

• The Status Quo: Think about your company from an outsider’s perspective. If staying objective is too hard to do, literally ask people (not employees!) what they know about you or your company. Do they know who you are and what you do? What you stand for? Is their perception of you positive or negative?

• The Goal: What do you want people to know about your company?

This is just the beginning of the strategy process. Although strategies may take some time and planning to develop, a solid strategy acts as a roadmap for achieving your goal(s). Just like a good coach won’t send his team into a game without an end goal (winning) and a series of plays to achieve the win, a good marketing firm won’t run a client through a gauntlet of marketing options without knowing the intended result. Anyone can shoot an arrow in the dark, but turning on a light always helps with hitting your target.

Bing is offering a tab in their searches for users who type in a food, such as chicken. Clicking on this tab will pull up an array of recipes pulled from recipe sites and databases all over the Web. Not only do the recipes pop up, but the search also allows you to sort by ratings, cuisine and convenience.

I’m not deleting my bookmarks quite yet, but I think searches like Bing can really help the everyday cook have a little more fun in the kitchen.

For more information, visit here.

Everyone has heard of Netflix in some way or another by now. The ads are everywhere and the service has rapidly become a household staple for many.  I finally took the plunge myself and purchased a membership. Like me, most people used to drive to Blockbuster only to find that the movie they wanted to rent wasn’t in stock or was being rented by someone else. This obviously wasn’t cutting it for the “fast lane” society that, at the time, we were becoming. So a couple of dudes from California thought up and pitched a service that would allow customers to rent movies from a website on a pay-per-rental basis, and it eventually evolved into the flat monthly rate service it is today. So, how did this all come to be?

Since their launch, Netflix has encountered several other start-ups trying to sell the same service, but nobody has been able to do it as well as them. Wal-Mart and even Amazon (in Germany and the UK) have tried to release similar online services through their companies to their already loyal customers, but they eventually fizzled out. Wal-Mart now even has a cross-promotional agreement with Netflix! A partnership like that is huge — consider how pervasive Wal-Mart is and the comparatively tinier size that is and always will be Netflix. No offense to Netflix, we can’t all be Wal-Mart.

Now to my favorite part: the website. Netflix’s usability is amazing – from recommending movies it thinks you would like, to letting you stream many of the popular movies straight onto your computer or X-Box 360, PS3 and soon, the Wii. As a new customer, it only took me a couple minutes to get used to the site and how it all worked. That is incredibly important to keep in mind when designing the functionality of your websites. You could have a beautiful design, but if the layout is jumbled or confusing, it will not keep the user engaged and you’ve just lost a visitor or potential customer.

Another thing I love about the Netflix site is the way everything is interconnected. As I’m browsing through the legions of movies in the Netflix database, I have the option of adding them to my DVD Queue or Instant Queue. The way the site is connected through your personal profile is by the rating system and movie recommendations. As you rate more and more movies, Netflix gets smarter and better at guessing what movies you would like. Just an FYI, my queue is already big enough to last me months!

Netflix is also changing the business plans of other similar companies. More and more Blockbusters are closing their doors and driving to the movie rental store on a Friday night may soon be obsolete. We’ve also seen other businesses pick up on the practices of Netflix. Gamefly is one example of this. They have a similar site as Netflix for video game rental. Most hardcore gamers hate leaving the couch, so having their next game delivered right to their front door changes everything. Genius!  Red Box is a bit different, but nevertheless changing the way we rent movies. You can find these in places like McDonalds or neighborhood grocery stores. Red Box is, quite literally, a red box that has several new release movies in stock. Just slide your credit card, choose your movie and the box pops out your DVD. Consider it a vending machine for movies. Movies are only one dollar per night, so you won’t have to worry about late fees.

The changing movie rental industry is easy to use, personalized and fun, which for me equals addictive. Entertainment is a booming business integral to our lives and culture, so there will always be new and classic films to watch and great services allowing you to do so. People will always be searching for the perfect movie for their next date or, for aspiring filmmakers like myself, research and inspiration for professional endeavors. Whatever the need, Netflix has really started a revolution in entertainment, putting practically any film and TV series at the tips of our fingers. Go check it out and consider the free 14 day trial. After all, it’s FREE! Do you already have a Netflix account? What are your thoughts on the service?

My guess is you’re probably asking “What the heck is SIGGRAPH?” Fair enough. You have to be on a whole new level of nerd/hardcore computer graphics fanaticism to recognize it. I won’t lie, I am! Just check out the picture below of my conference badge and how much stuff is on that thing.

SIGGRAPH is the largest international professional organization “to promote the generation and dissemination of information on computer graphics and interactive techniques.” In other words, it hosts a conference every year in North America (usually in a major city) where thousands and thousands of students, educators, researchers and  professionals get together for a computer animation festival, huge exhibition, art gallery, emerging technologies, classes, behind the scenes amazingness and so much more. Let’s not forget about the parties. Oh, you heard right. Nerds can throw down!

Anywho, they just recently started hosting a conference in Asia halfway through each year, starting in December of 2008 (the original conferences are held in early August). It was a huge transition and a big step forward for the field of computer graphics and Asia, but also came with a lot of struggles such as language barriers. To our surprise, it wasn’t bad at all! There were great reviews and as a student volunteer, I was able to help most  every case that came across my path. I’m not saying it wasn’t hard though. Either way, the blending of cultures into one huge mesh of the most talented artists in the world is one of the most fulfilling experiences I’ve ever had. You literally pass people who helped create the films you watch everyday, the technology you use, the games you play and the amazing visuals that accompany every single aspect of our lives.

That’s most undoubtedly a true statement. In Japan, I was able to talk to owners of animations studios, producers and artists from Pixar, big guns at Lucas Film Animation and even the winner of best in show in the computer animation festival. That alone is worth the trip! Since I could practically write a book on my experiences at SIGGRAPH, I’ll leave you with some pictures of my trip. Some are from the conference and others are around the town of Yokohama. Enjoy!