Why Dalilu?

Why Dalilu?

Why Dalilu?

Did you know we do Programmatic Advertising?

Programmatic Advertising is a relatively new addition to our company’s portfolio of services. Although we have personally been planning and executing digital campaigns for years, we recently became frustrated with some of our supplier’s lack of attention to detail. This frustration led to our company partnering with Centro, one of the industries best known and well-established companies. This partnership has given us full access to their demand side platform on a self-serve basis.
 
Being self-serve means that we have a full control of how a campaign is run. In other words, we have the ability to optimize campaigns in-house, in real-time without relying exclusively on data focussed third parties out of Toronto, Montreal, Boston or Chicago who don’t know the subtleties of our local market.

Isn’t Data a good thing?

Don’t get us wrong, we love data as much as the next person. However, our years of experience in traditional media have shown us that while data is an extremely valuable component of how media is bought (digital or otherwise), context should always be taken into consideration along with the data.  This is as true today as it was 20 years ago when Michaela was trained to buy TV in Prague for Unilever and L’Oreal. Effectively, this is something that many Programmatic companies gloss over due to scale.

What does this mean for you?

Essentially, this means that we can run any campaign that your objectives require. This includes:

  • Audience Campaigns;
  • Data Campaigns;
  • Hyper Local Campaigns;
  • Mobile App Campaigns;
  • Video Campaigns;
  • Native Ads Campaign;
  • White-listed Campaigns and more.

For more information, please check out our recent post 8 digital display campaign tactics that every Winnipeg marketer should use in 2017.
 
Over the past 6 months, we have been running Programmatic campaigns for St. Vital Centre, Holiday Inn Airport West, and most recently the CPHR Canada. This campaign had 6 different conversions to measure and included retargeting. We targeted each province separately and used 5 different campaign tactics. It was a blast to work on it!

Looking for something else? Here are some of our other services?

As mentioned above, the scope of our services goes far beyond digital media. Having planned and bought traditional media for over 20 years, our team has plenty of national, international and local experience in this field.
 
Here are additional details about some of our other services:

Whether you are in need of a local digital campaign delivered with finesse, or a broad scale Brand awareness campaign delivered across either Traditional or Digital platforms, Dalilu has the experience, expertise, and attention to detail necessary to make your next campaign a success!
 
 
 

Winter is Coming | 2016 Heritage Classic – Jets vs Oilers

Winter is Coming | 2016 Heritage Classic – Jets vs Oilers

Winter is Coming | 2016 Heritage Classic

The air is a bit crisper in the morning, the leaves have started to fall and there is a hint of frost on your car’s windshield in the morning… Surely this can mean only one thing… “Winter is coming” my friends, winter is coming and with it, so are the boys of winter. You might know them as the Winnipeg Jets! Ladies and Gentlemen welcome to the 2016 Heritage Classic!
 
Few people know, but the seed for this game was planted a few years ago when on an opening night of the 2011-2012 season, the NHL celebrated the return of the Jets by hosting opening day festivities at the Forks. Unbeknownst to those around them, the 2011 – 2012 Director of Operations for the NHL Keith “whatshisname” was sitting at a table with members of some local ad agencies and a plus one who happened to be yours truly.

The Historic Event Idea

Basking in the glory of the occasion I was more than happy to engage “Keith” in celebrating the historic event. During this exchange, discussion of a potential Outdoor game came up. Keith asked the question “do you have the facilities to pull off an outdoor game?” Acting like I own the place, I replied without hesitation, “What kind of capacity do you require?”. Keith then replied “40, 000”.
 
Without blinking, I began to tell the story of our new facility Investors Group Field which was expected to be a state of the art facility and that with a few modifications would be able to easily accommodate the league’s requirements and the seed for this event was born.  The people around me were shocked, wondering “Who is this guy?! How can he speak on behalf of TrueNorth, the city, and the province?!”.
 
Truthfully, I am nothing more than a fan (with maybe one or two ties in the spirit of the 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon) who likely had no influence on the event(though I did send out 2 or 3 emails the next day), but it is a story isn’t it? A story that goes way beyond the NHL or the return of the franchise, it speaks to the hearts and minds of the city, it is a celebration.
 

A Brief History

The Winnipeg Jets were born many years ago, existing first as a junior hockey team in the WCHL, then as a professional team in the WHA and then finally in 1979 they moved to the big show, the NHL.
 
Many stories have been written about the Jets of yesteryear, tales of Hull, Nilsson, Hawerchuk and Selanne have been seared into consciousness to the point where they have grown into legend.But that was the past, we live in the present… there is as Teemu Selanne himself said, “a new Sheriff in town”.
 
Patrick Laine is the toast of the town, a Hat Trick in only his second home game, a come from behind win over our fierce rivals from Toronto!But this team goes far beyond the “flashy” new Finn’s charisma and indisputably potent shot.
 

 

Young Up and Coming Stars

This team is about all the young up and coming stars. Mark Scheifele who since his draft day in June of 2011 has yet to say the wrong thing. Scheifele works hard and clearly, makes sure to get his 7 and ¾ hours of sleep each and every night.
 
His attitude, effort and sheer joy for the game must be contagious. This young man and dare I say future captain absolutely exemplifies everything this team and this city is about.
 
But Mr Scheifele is not alone in his quest to take this team to the promised land. There is another, a slightly grizzled veteran on this team. A man who leads by example and puts his desire to win on display each time he steps on the ice. He is a game breaker with dynamic speed and skill. This player can lift fans from their seats and the spirits of his teammates with a dash down the wing.
 
So while Mr Scheiffele may be the captain of tomorrow, “Old man” Wheeler is our fearless leader today. Others before him may have had the passion and work ethic, but it is Blake Wheeler’s added dimension that makes him the perfect general for this exciting team cutting its teeth in the Central Division.
 

The NHL 2016 Heritage Classic – Game On

Now back to the inspiration for this post. The 2016 Heritage Classic is being hosted in Winnipeg at the Investors Group Field. To me, this event is massive on so many levels. First, it is an homage to the greats of teams past. Not only for the Jets but the “other guys” as well.
 
Apparently, this “other team”, the Oilers won a few cups back in their day with some guy called Wayne Gretzky…I don’t know, maybe its bitterness, but I will never forget Mark Lamb whose 3 goals and 5 assists put a swift end to what felt like our team of destiny back in the opening round of the 1990 Stanley Cup playoffs.
 
This event is about tradition, new meets old. Developing continuity of the two franchises and alumni into one entity. The Winnipeg Jets are rich in tradition, the fan base is passionate and patient. This was our team, this is our team and will forever be our team.
 
Lastly, a congratulations and thank you to Mark Chipman, David Thompson, Jim Ludlow and absolutely everyone who made this possible. It’s been 5 years, and I am proud to say that the city is behind you every step of the way! GO JETS GO!
 
 
 

An Adventure in X-theme Customizations

An Adventure in X-theme Customizations

An Adventure in X-theme Customizations

Are you new to using WordPress? Maybe this is your first project using X-theme by Themeco. Or maybe you have used X-theme before, but need to make new customizations. If this is you then please stick with us and we will walk you through all of the customizations we made to our most recent project.

Our most recent project bohemiannordic.ch had several customizations.

  • We had to integrate a language selector and ensure that we had translations that took included the slugs, search form overlay as well as our site’s meta description tags and titles.
  • We had to add 4 custom widget areas and assign them to appropriate screen sizes
  • We had to use custom fonts
  • We had to add a site tagline to the text logo
  • We needed to create a custom layout for multiple screen sizes that incorporated our other customization (widgets, etc)

Responsive design is great, it really has changed the way many of us need to think about designing our sites. BNI was our first project using X-theme and I can tell you, it won’t be the last. I have used many themes over the last few years, but so far X-theme has to be one of my favorites. On the surface, it is very lightweight and is very customizable.  Personally, I would love to be able to have a little more flexibility with some of the choices, but hey anything is possible with a little code right? In our case, the client wanted to have their contact information and social media icons on one side with the language selector on the other. This meant we needed to add two custom widget areas to the header that aligned side by side below the topbar. In order to achieve this effect, first we added the following code to our child themes functions.php file:

register_sidebar(array(
‘name’ => ‘Custom Widget Left’,
‘id’ => ‘custom-widget-1’,
‘description’ => ‘Custom Widget Left’,
‘before_widget’ => ‘<div id=”custom-widget-1″>’,
‘after_widget’ => ‘</div>’,
‘before_title’ => ‘<h2>’,
‘after_title’ => ‘</h2>’,
));

register_sidebar(array(
‘name’ => ‘Custom Widget Right’,
‘id’ => ‘custom-widget-2’,
‘description’ => ‘Custom widget Right’,
‘before_widget’ => ‘<div id=”custom-widget-2″>’,
‘after_widget’ => ‘</div>’,
‘before_title’ => ‘<h2>’,
‘after_title’ => ‘</h2>’,
));

Once we added the code, we needed to modify the copy the parent themes /views/renew/wp_header.php and paste it into the child theme’s corresponding directory. We achieved this by inserting the following code starting at line 18

<div class =”custom-widget-left”>
<?php if ( !function_exists(‘dynamic_sidebar’) || !dynamic_sidebar(‘custom-widget-1’) ) : ?>
<?php endif; ?>
</div>
<div class =”custom-widget-right”>
<?php if ( !function_exists(‘dynamic_sidebar’) || !dynamic_sidebar(‘custom-widget-2’) ) : ?>
<?php endif; ?>
</div>
</div>

Once we created the custom widget areas, we needed to populate them and style them. It wasn’t long before we recognized that we would also have to reconfigure the layout for mobile view. Using a combination of built in X-theme shortcodes and custom media queries, we were able to arrive at the desired look we were going for. After adding 2 more additional widget areas to the functions.php file (same process as before, but make sure you name them accordingly before inserting the appropriately named functions into the the view/global/_nav_primary.php file, which was copied into the child theme from the parent).

We then made the following css customization through the “customize/ edit global css tab” in the WordPress customizer:

General site-wide customization:

/*Custom widget areas, widgets and menu css*/
.custom-widgets .x-container.max.width {
width: 100%;
max-width: 100%;
list-style: none;
background-color: #fff;
}
.custom-widget-left {
width: 85%;
max-width:500px;
display: block;
float: left;
padding-left: 10px;
text-align:left;
font-size: 12px;
color: #000000;
}
.custom-widget-right {
text-align: right;
font-size: 12px;
padding-top: 15px;
}
.mobile-widget-areas .x-container.max.width {
width: 100%;
max-width: 100%;
display: block;
padding: 5px;
list-style: none;
background-color: #fff;
font-size: 12px;
}
.mobile-widget-areas .x-container.max.width a:link {
color:#000000;
}
.mobile-widget-areas .x-container.max.width a:hover {
color: #787878;
}
.mobile-widget-areas .x-container.max.width a:active {
color:#787878;
}
/*mobile search area*/
.mobile-search-area {
width: 50%;
float: left;
margin 0 0 0 0;
text-align:left;
font-size: 12px;
padding-left: 10px;
padding-bottom: 35x;
color: #000000;
}
/*mobile language selector*/
#mobile-widget-area {
height: 10px;
color:#000000;
background-color: #fff;
list-style: none;
}
#mobile-widget-area {
display: block;
text-align: right;
padding-bottom: 35px;
}
#mobile-widget-area ul {
margin: 0 0 0 0;
text-align: right;
color:#000000;
}
#mobile-widget-area ul li {
display: inline;
list-style-type: none;
margin: 0 0 0 0;
color:#000000;
opacity: 1;
-o-transition: 1s ease opacity;
-moz-transition: 1s ease opacity;
-webkit-transition: 1s ease opacity;
transition: 1s ease opacity;
}
#mobile-widget-area ul li.active {
opacity: 0.8;
}
#mobile-widget-area ul li:hover {
opacity: 1;
}
#mobile-widget-area img {
box-shadow: none;
vertical-align: middle;
display: initial;
}
#mobile-widget-area li+li {
padding: 5px;
border-left: 2px solid #000000;
}

/*footer CSS customizations*/
.x-colophon .top {
background-color: #fff;
}
.x-colophon.bottom .x-colophon-content {
background-color: #fff;
}
.x-colophon.bottom .x-colophon-content {
font-size: 12px;
}

For desktop screens (defined as minimum of 1120px using @media queries):

/*hide mobile widgets*/
#mobile-widget-area {
display: none;
line-height: 20px
}
#mobile-search-area {
display: none;
line-height: 20px;
}

For tablet (defined as 650px to 800px wide):

.custom-widgets .x-container.max.width {
width: 100%;
max-width: 100%;
padding: 10px;
list-style: none;
background-color: #fff;
}
.custom-widget-left {
width: 85%;
max-width: 500px;
padding-left: 10px;
display: block;
float: left;
margin: 10px 0 0 0;
text-align:left;
font-size: 12px;
color: #000000;
}
.custom-widget-right {
position: relative;
top: -20px;
float: right;
margin: 0 0 -15px 0;
text-align: right;
}
#custom-widget-2 {
Display: none;
}
.x-logobar-inner {
padding-top: 25px;
padding-bottom: 25px;
}
.mobile-widget-areas .x-container.max.width a:active {
color:#787878;
}
/*mobile search area*/
.mobile-search-area {
width: 50%;
float: left;
margin 0 0 0 0;
text-align:left;
font-size: 16px;
padding-left: 10px;
padding-bottom: 35x;
color: #000000;
}

And for mobile (defined in our case as less than 650px wide):

.custom-widget-left {
width: 100%;
max-width: 400px;
padding-left: 2px;
font-size: 8px;
}

.custom-widget-right {
Display: none
}

In order to achieve the desired look for the language selector, we created a custom horizontal menu and styled it as indicated above. We also needed to translate the search form overlay so that visitors would not get English messages when they were viewing the site in German. We did this by adding the following code to the functions.php file:

<?php

if ( ! function_exists( ‘x_navbar_searchform_overlay’ ) ) :
function x_navbar_searchform_overlay() {

if ( x_get_option( ‘x_header_search_enable’, ” ) == ‘1’ ) :

?>
<div id =”custom-searchform-overlay”>
<div class=”x-searchform-overlay”>
<div class=”x-searchform-overlay-inner”>
<div class=”x-container-fluid max width”>
<form method=”get” id=”searchform” class=”form-search center-text” action=”<?php echo esc_url( home_url( ‘/’ ) ); ?>”>
<label for=”s” class=”cfc-h-tx tt-upper”>
<?php if(function_exists(‘qtrans_getLanguage’)) { ?>
<?php if (qtrans_getLanguage()==”en”): ?>
<?php echo “TYPE AND PRESS ‘ENTER’ TO SEARCH” ?>
<?php endif; ?>
<?php if (qtrans_getLanguage()==”de”): ?>
<?php echo “TYPE UND DRUCKEN SIE ‘ENTER’ ZU SUCHEN” ?>
<?php endif; ?>
<?php } ?></label>
<input type=”text” id=”s” class=”search-query cfc-h-tx center-text tt-upper” name=”s”>
</form>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<?php

endif;

}
add_action( ‘x_before_site_end’, ‘x_navbar_searchform_overlay’ );
endif;

?>

We used the ACF plugin to customize the language specific meta description tags and added the following to functions.php:

//meta tag function

<?php

function _set_meta_tag()
{

//global $nome;
//global $descr;
//global $file;
//global $path_meta;

$output .= ‘<meta property=”author” content=”https://plus.google.com/104573429015560904949″ />’;

if(get_field(‘description’)){
$output .= ‘<meta property=”description” content=”‘.get_field(‘description’).'” />’;
}else {
$output .= ‘<meta property=”description” content=”‘.get_bloginfo(‘description’).'” />’;
}

if(get_field(‘keywords’)){
$output .= ‘<meta property=”keywords” content=”‘.get_field(‘keywords’).'” />’;
}else {
$output .= ‘<meta property=”keywords” content=”‘.get_bloginfo(‘name’).'” />’;
}

echo $output;

}

add_action(‘wp_head’, ‘_set_meta_tag’);
?>

Equally important were the custom fields we created within the plugin. As shown below:

 

 

 

At the end of the day, a company’s website is about sharing information with potential customers as well as communicating brand identity. One of the ways to do this is to prominently display the company logo.

In the case of BNI being an Interior Design company, appearance is quite literally one of the top considerations. This means the logo, the font choice, image quality are all critically important.

As mentioned above, we used a custom font. We toyed with a few different options to display the font and settled on using Adobe Typekit . We installed the plugin, added the relevant code to the document header and then assigned the font using the X-theme customizer.

We then adjusted the font-size and line-height for the title, tagline and nav menus via @media queries and amended the views/global/brand.php file (after copying it from the parent theme to the child of course) to create two new anchor text classes as you can see here:

<a class=”bnisitebrand” href= “http://e61.a10.myftpupload.com/”>Bohemian Nordic Interior</a></br><a class=”bnisitetagline” href=”http://e61.a10.myftpupload.com/”>dresses your home</a>

Lastly, I want to caution readers that if you are planning on using Qtranslate X (like we did), do not expect to be able to use a page builder like X-theme’s cornerstone or Visual Bakery’s Visual Composer.

Personally, I liked the added challenge of working on the page customization manually, but for those of us who are familiar with page builders, or that have time as a major factor, Qtranslate X may or may not be the right fit for your project.

Having said that, if you have the patience to work through its peculiarities and have access to people who are able to translate your message into multiple languages, Qtranslate X is a terrific low-cost open source option (I suggest donating to the project).

On that note, I wish you all the best with your own X-theme customization and as Hal Johnson and Joanne McLeod used to say “ until next time, keep fit and have fun!”
 
 
 

Plugging into the routine After Vacation

Plugging into the routine After Vacation

Hello again Friends

It has been awhile since my last blog post and I will be honest. It has been a struggle to come up with the right topic to speak about. I have lots of topics I would like to tackle. I have been busy working on some projects for clients, I have been traveling and I have been expanding my knowledge base. But nothing seems quite right.  In previous posts, I have focused on business-oriented topics. This time, I want to offer something more personal… something real.

The Return Home

So here it goes. My wife and I recently returned to Winnipeg after a 15 day “Holiday” to the Czech Republic. I put the word “Holiday” in quotations because at times it felt like anything but a holiday. Sometimes, you need a vacation from your vacation. The Czech Republic is a bit of a second home to our family, my wife is from there originally, my children have been immersed in Czech culture from an early age (we forced them to adopt Czech “stuffies” from birth), and our oldest 2 children have been overseas multiple times. But this was our first trip for our youngest Lukas.
 
Lukas is an active 2-year-old and as Don Cherry might say, “it doesn’t take a rocket surgeon to figure out that putting an active 2 year old on a plane for 9.5 hours straight is anyone’s recipe for a good time”.  Don’t get me wrong the experience was great… once we got there. We enjoyed traveling around Prague as well as visiting other lesser known spots through the majestic Czech countryside.  Personally, I made sure to try as many local craft beers as possible while squeezing in at least one stop at a local coffee shop every day we were there.
 
Our kids enjoyed spending time with their Grandparent’s while Misha and I managed to enjoy one afternoon child-free; something we do not get to do very often.  Having said that, I am a creature of habit and a prairie guy by nature, so as hard as it might be for some people to understand, the majestic landscape of rolling hills and sweet pastries paired with coffee were not enough to keep me from figuratively hugging the employees at Tim Horton’s upon our arrival on this side of the Atlantic. I may not have physically hugged anyone, but Misha says my eyes said it all.

Plugging into the routine

So now we are back. Even though we did manage to get some work done on the road; a couple of small jobs,  as well as a full website migration (I had time to kill while waiting for my Father in law to abandon his TV). It is not the same as plugging yourself into a project and really going hard. And that is something I have to say that I missed.
 
So here we are, the month of August is looking busy and I am eager to start. This is what I wanted right? But alas I find myself lacking focus. My ability to concentrate is shot, my mind is still somewhere on a plane. I find myself more drawn to catching up on the TV series I’ve been missing.  How does one simply plug back into work? How can I stop loathing my screen and get the creative juices flowing again?
 
As I mentioned earlier, I am a creature of habit. I enjoy my routine. I do my best to follow the same routine every week. My wife and I enjoy a pretty flexible work schedule and for the most part, we are able to schedule our work around our lives. On top of Dalilu, we each have jobs. Misha is a media planner for Fusion Communications and I work with my brother running a foster home for at-risk youth. Fusion allows Misha to work from home 3 days a week, and my job is mostly on weekends and overnights.
 
During the week, Misha works every morning, I spend time with the kids, take them to the playground, the pool, run errands, whatever we can do to break up the day and keep them away from their screens.
 
On the go I usually will catch up on email, follow up with clients and sometimes just shoot the breeze with friends and acquaintances we bump into on our travels. Monday afternoons are for planning the next 2 days and Monday evening is my chance to blow off some steam at my buddy’s place (Misha affectionately refers to this as Church). Tuesday’s are usually client meetings and new business while Wednesday is reserved for preparing artwork or other design elements we will need for the weekend web development session.

The Work Week

For me, plugging into the routine really means that my work week has started. In my case, mine starts when most people are wrapping up.  Thursday, Friday, and Saturday I log between 40 and 50 of work at my brothers and this gives me the perfect time to “plugin”.
 
For the next 3 days, I like to visualize what I am going to work on before I execute. I  like to think about how I am going to create the look of a specific page, or in some cases what kind of custom work I am going to need to do to get the “right effect”.  Simply put I like to mentally walk through everything I need to do before I do it.
 
Once I start, time flies and before I know it, midnight has arrived and it is time to stop. Personally, I find the morning comes quickly. So If I don’t stop, I can often find myself worse for wear the next day. This process usually repeats itself on both Friday and Saturday, which is good in a lot of ways because I find I am able to the quiet time I need to focus.  I find comfort in it, hopefully, with any luck, things will be humming again in no time!
 
Update: I originally wrote this post back at the end of July. Things did get busy and I wasn’t able to finish the post until September 1st!
 
 
 

Creating an Online Point of Contact for your Customers | Squirrel Construction

Creating an Online Point of Contact for your Customers | Squirrel Construction

Improve your presence online – Be top of Mind

Whether you are small business owner operating a non-profit or a key decision maker for a Fortune 500 company. We all have one thing in common. Our customers work hard for their money, and EVERYONE is asking them to spend it.
 

“Sales is a transference of feeling. Customers buy based on what we tell them and what we show them that they believe.”
 
–       Zig Ziglar

 
However, it goes deeper than that. Not everyone we reach out to is going to be ready to buy when we first make contact. This can be for any number of reasons. People need our product, but they can’t buy it if they don’t know it exists. More importantly, they won’t buy it if it is not top of mind when it is time to buy.
 
This is as true in Business to Business, as it is true in fundraising and retail. As a business owner, how do we make sure we are at top of mind when it is time comes for the customer to make up their mind? Truthfully, there is no easy answer, but we can hedge our bets.

Method to the madness?

Squirrel Construction was built just for that reason, to provide an information resource for potential clients as well as to act as a lead generation tool to increase business by extending the work
 
As you can see in the attached mockup, Squirrel Construction’s website is simple, clean, and straightforward. With that said, it provides potential clients with exactly the information they are looking for. There are elements of branding, a personal message from the owner, a gallery of past projects, as well as an opportunity for clients to provide feedback.
 
Squirrel Construction | Web Development | Web Design
 
The site is straight forward and styled in a way that reflects the image of the owner. Moreover, it is accessible on any platform. Simply put, the site does exactly what the client needs it to do. Sometimes having something basic is all you need to improve your presence online.