Digital Communications

Visual data is nothing new; graphs and images have helped us understand data for thousands of years, from cave paintings to pictogram style road signs to weather maps on television. Infographics as an art form has its origin in print, but an explosion happened in 2009 around digital infographics, and we haven’t looked back since.Production of infographics began to rocket during late 2009, and have continued to escalate in the two years since. While the volume of static infographics has blossomed, so too has the volume of animated infographics, from 454 in 2009 to 9,570 in 2010, and so far this year, 25,700 animated infographics. Animated infographics tell a story in a way that flat infographics can’t. They present statistics, geographical information, and conceptual ideas in an

After the amazing PM Society Digital Media Awards ceremony last Thursday, Nitro has topped off the week by bagging our second award of the week.In partnership with Ogilvy Healthworld, our work on Boehringer Ingelheim’s The White Room was awarded a Digital Communication Award in the ‘Online Newsroom’ category. We are extremely proud of our achievement and keen to further foster the partnerships we have formed in the process!

It is an understatement to say that we had an exceptionally amazing day yesterday. Syrum, our latest pharma gaming project was amazingly well received at DigiPharm. The game created a real buzz with attendees describing it as ‛a new approach to pharma marketing“. It has even been jokingly claimed that so many people tried to get on it that it caused the wifi to crash!However, the real icing on the cake for us came after the event at the PM Society Awards. After winning the Health Enterprise East Award last year, our VTE risk assessment tool has now also won a PM Society Digital Media Award last night in the ‘Best Digital Tool in a Clinical Setting’ category. We are extremely proud of our achievement and the feedback we have received from our clients and audiences. But it does not

It's the morning after an excellent evening at the PM Society Digital Media Awards. Nitro Digital were up for an award for Best Digital Tool in a Clinical Setting for our work on the Stop the Clot electronic risk assessment tool that we developed in partnership with Sanofi and Colchester Hospital University Trust.We were up against some excellent competition, but really pleased, chuffed, happy and excited that we won! Overall, there was a great selection of work submitted for judgement and the agencies and clients are really showing the industry how far we have all come in terms of using digital as a creative, practical and innovative tool for marketing. We are proud for the recognition from our peers and hope we have many more awards that were as great as

Since the advent of the web, ‘print’ has been subject to the threat of extinction. More and more people are subject to web advertising and less to print, be it through your letter box or in the form of a newspaper, the average growth in web advertising per newspaper has been shown to be 31% with a decline of 10% in print advertising. However for the last 10 years printing has become a lot cheaper than it used to be, this in-turn has become a lot faster and is also a lot more accessible to the average person. But surely this would see an increase in the amount of print required?. The answer is simply no, as the problem of print seems to always be the quality. Modern print methods employed have high standards for those who employ them, but the quality is lower for those who use a

After its success last year, Nitro Digital is proud to be sponsoring DigiPharma Europe 2011 for the second year running. The event will be taking place next week on the 28^th and 29^th September at London’s Millennium Gloucester Hotel and will be hosting some of the key pharma marketing figures in Europe. The conference will be covering issues such as how to comply with the regulatory framework; how to measure ROI; how to monitor social media activity and effectiveness; and effective eCustomer management. With marketing specialist speakers from companies such as Pfizer, Janssen, Bayer, and Roche, DigiPharm 2011 is definitely the must-attend event of the year for healthcare marketing professionals. Will you be attending DigiPharm Europe 2011? If so, make sure to let us know

With an estimated 250 million people playing social games every month, social gaming has seen explosive growth in recent years. You only have to look at the rapid rise of social network game developer Zynga (who has the annual revenue of $850 million) and the likes of FarmVille and Mafia Wars to see the huge business potential gamification holds for companies. Integrating game mechanics into brands, websites and applications is ultimately becoming increasingly popular in consumer marketing as it boosts engagement, which is believed to lead to brand loyalty. The healthcare industry has already been experimenting with gamification. Take the hugely successful Nike+ app, which tracks how far you have run, rewarding your achievements with virtual trophies and placing you on leadership

Hope everyone had a nice Bank Holiday weekend! Here is your chance to catch up with this week's latest social media news! Twitter Reaction to Tropical Storm Irene Hundreds of thousands of US residents have been affected by Hurricane Irene causing 18 deaths, extensive flooding, power cuts, and damage to numerous properties along the East coast. While news of the storm have been extensively covered worldwide, tweets from Hurricane Irene’s Twitter account revealed that a number of tweeters felt thatthe hurricane was in fact ‘overhyped’ with tweets like; ‛Like many young women before her, Irene came to NYC hoping to be as big as she was back in Carolina, only to be ridiculed by the locals.“ What do you think? Has Irene been overhyped? Google Signals Upcoming Algorithm Changes In

In addition to the controversial Facebook commenting policy changes that shook the pharmaceutical industry last week, the social network now also introduced an additional feature to pages designed to help companies better manage posts and comments. Pharma/healthcare companies now have the option to include a new ‘More Information’ section on the bottom of the Wall, which enables them to present important safety information to visitors or redirect them to other sources if they have a specific question about a product. Facebook’s new ‘More Information’ feature can be viewed as the social media equivalent of a disclaimer often used on pharma/healthcare sites. What do you think about these new changes to Facebook? Let us know by commenting below.

Welcome to this week’s social media news! Apple is now the most valuable brand in the US Technology firm Apple has become the most valuable company in the US with its market capitalisation overtaking that of Exxon Mobil. Apple had briefly become the largest US firm on Tuesday, before dropping back below the oil giant. But Apple has now managed to stay in the top spot at the close of Wall Street for the first time. Apple had been in second spot since May last year when it overtook Microsoft. StumbleUpon reaches 25billion clicks Social discovery tool StumbleUpon has reached a new milestone; its famous ‛Stumble“ button has been clicked more than 25billion times. The social media company has been on a roll ever since it was spun out from eBay in 2009. While StumbleUpon