When I started Mavin Digital in 2008, there was one goal: to deliver memorable creative body with the sophistication of evolving technology. In the beginning, we positioned the company as a production partner to traditional advertising agencies who were seeing movement of brand marketing dollars to digital. When Madison Avenue decided to wet their feet in digital, there was a big learning curve in the production life-cycle. Improving efficiencies and resource management were a few of their obvious challenges. Accounts suffered from a continuous shortage of resources while account teams were constantly churning with new faces. While I was on staff as a producer for various campaigns, I witnessed a few $600.00 per hour charges by top ad executives (who knew nothing about the account) on already over budgeted accounts! I was shocked!

I thought I could help change the inefficiency of Madison Avenue by offering creative and production services through flexible resources. At Mavin Digital, launching two content sites in one night or producing an audience activation site for a superstar in two weeks is very doable. We fill-in and fix things where internal account teams falter.

A number of agencies were delighted about our presence. Then we experienced a shift. We were seen as competitors.

I took a year off (sort of. I was moonlighting for a few consulting companies and learned to kiteboard). I wanted to take a step back and think about what I wanted to do next. Do I continue as a solo-preneur? Look for funding (we’re 100% self-funded)? How do I grow the company? These are the burning questions that fill the days of every entrepreneur.

The epiphany for Mavin Digital 2.0 came while I consulted for a number of clients. I witnessed how small, medium and enterprise businesses struggled with storytelling and creatively applying technology as a channel and distribution platform. This is what Mavin Digital is really insanely awesome at telling stories using relevant content and memorable creative design, while applying the sophistication of technology. We’re communicators in the social web and a mobile first world. Our passion for technology and design gives us the edge to create, curate and connect your brand stories with your audience using rich visuals and compelling story lines for audience activation, brand recognition or even to support your news stories.

I gathered the troops. Laid out my plan for a re-launch. And carved out the vision. So what can you expect?

We believe in the beauty of simplicity. This is what we strive for in every creation. To start with, we have a shiny new website! We’re in soft-launch so pardon the dust. We’re showcasing our body of work in web, user experience, design, advertising concepts, mobile, print and more! The juiciest part: The Collective in New York City and San Francisco joining forces in both Coasts! This was the reason for my bi-coastal lifestyle: bring together exceptional talent to create insanely great work! More importantly, we have aligned with partners you can trust including Wildfire App and The Open House Gallery. New partners and wonderful surprises will be shared in the coming weeks!

Mavin Digital is here for small, medium and enterprise brands to create compelling stories on the social web and mobile platforms. We want to help you get your users excited about what you do and communicate the change you want to help make the world a better place. Don’t be shy, say hi on Twitter! Let us know what you think of our new site – we’d love your feedback.

Coming from a traditional print design background I am particularly happy when I see clean, streamlined information provocatively presented in mobile apps. It doesn’t happen a lot but when it does, it makes quite an impression. Designing for small yet high-value real estate in a mobile app is not an easy feat. Unlike an iPad or tablet app, mobile apps have a very small amount of space to accomplish their task – capture a user’s attention.

I liken the approach of mobile app design to the challenge of designing book covers. Because increasing amounts of people shop for books on digital devices the cover is now displayed at a size not much larger than that of a postage stamp. As a result, the type usually dominates along with a visual that must be simple and iconic to communicate quickly and easily.

The same challenge holds true for mobile apps and clean, strong graphics, good typography and conceptual execution always attracts users.

A FEW OF OUR FAVORITE MOBILE APP DESIGNS

Starbucks, so beautiful and so functional, it’s almost a joy to get sucked into their cleverly presented marketing schemes. There’s a pay in advance functionality, rewards program, store locator, menu, nutritional information, social network, even a job board. The reason they can communicate all this varied information so well is that categories are distinguished with fresh, simple, iconic illustrations on the home page. Deeper pages are just as cleanly designed.

Maurizio Cattelan: All HD, at the Guggenheim. This app highlights the artist’s exhibition as well as houses extensive videos and documentation. Like the Starbucks app, this is a good example of containing a great deal of functionality beautifully and easily in an easy to navigate format.

Weather Quickie. Nice typography and colors simply tell the weather in the context of current conditions. This is a sheer delight for users.

MUJI Apparel Catalog. Super simple presentation and shopping. Large graphics and no extraneous detail. Users can jump to an online shop or map for current store locations.

TECHNOLOGY INFLUENCING LIFESTYLE DESIGN

Personally, I prefer the adventure and outdoor type adrenaline rush sports including kiteboarding, snowboarding, cycling or climbing. What I didn’t realize until recently is that I need an “in-between” exercise program that keeps my body active when I am unable to engage in my preferred sports. I decided to hire a trainer and go back to the gym. Finding time to workout is not easy for an entrepreneur. In a recent tweet, Randi Zuckerberg asked her followers where fitness ranked in priorities for an entrepreneur. Apparently, it is one of those lifestyle up-keeps that is challenging for entrepreneurs to maintain — and I totally agree!

Then Yufit came along.

The eve of their official launch, I caught up with Yu Hannah Kim, Co-Founder and President to learn more about her inspiration behind Yufit. Her passion for fitness and health as a vivacious young lady from Davis, CA led her to a degree in Physiology. She excelled to become team captain for the division swimming group. After graduation, her career blossomed as a personal fitness trainer at Equinox.

Inspiring people to live an active and affordable lifestyle moved Yu to start Yufit. With fitness exercises that you can squeeze into your busy daily routine and hectic travel schedule Yu feels that Yufit can make a difference by bringing affordable exercise programs that you can access anywhere. The big differentiator? You get to access as many classes as you want and the Yufit instructor team creates two fresh new classes per week and members can interact with our instructors, and our instructors answer questions, offer help, and even incorporate member suggestions into the workouts.

Visitors to Yufit can sign up for a free 14-day trial with no credit card required to sign up for the trial. After the trial period, and for a limited time, Yufit is only $9.99/month for one year (regularly $14.99/month). More about Yufit on Venture Beat.

Are you an entrepreneur? How do you maintain a healthy and active lifestyle? Don’t be shy, share with us on Twitter!

I’m asking because as a former TV producer for the Today Show and writer/reporter for MSNBC, I get calls all the time from start-ups or from speakers/writers asking me how do they get on cable news or the Today Show? Their premise? If I am recognized there, I’ll be recognized everywhere.

Maybe.

There’s no question that getting your company or product on a major television show will help sales or drive people to your website. We have all heard of the Oprah effect on products like Spanks or books such as Simple Abundance, an Oprah endorsement drove sales and national recognition of these products. But Oprah is an exception rather than the rule, the stories of other products launching that big through a single television appearance are very rare.

The process of getting recognized and covered by a reporter whether its for a television show or a newspaper article has as much to do with your online publicity as it does with your offline one – especially with television which generally follows stories that appear in print and more and more so on the web.

So what does this mean for the new fashion start-up that came to me a month ago and wanted ideas to improve their publicity and get more awareness? Their CEO told me that Facebook ads had provided them with strong leads, and when they did post content on their Facebook site it was getting comments, traction and readers. Television appeared to be a logical step because the founders were unsure how to scale from just their Facebook audience.

And that’s where the new rules of advertising and public relations come in.
In a content driven medium – which is what the internet and social media are – if a start-up already has interest in its content, and is winning viewers and readers through web ads and blog posts, the best way to get noticed by major fashion writers and producers is to produce more content. The goal should be to build an online following through videos, regular writing and engaging with their present community, and then leverage that as a way to get onto a television show. In this example, the founders of this start-up become “the experts” whose views are sought after and who, because of their sizeable online following, have an opinion that carries weight. This will win the attention of fashion writers and producers who do follow online blogs, and that will hopefully provide the big “get” in terms of television. The irony of course is, if you can build that large online audience, then you are probably raising your sales too. A TV spot might just be the icing on the cake.

Is it as easy as I just described? Not always, but if you already have an interested audience you’re a step ahead of many other similar companies. Your goal should be to grow that audience through the medium that you’re currently using to reach them and then take that audience as proof that your site/product/blog/book/speech is a reason that the bigger guys should pay attention. Think of it as finding a way to percolate up in terms of awareness to influencers rather than go after something big that will trickle down to a lay audience. Both ways will work, but for start-ups with fewer resources relying on yourself rather than the hope of a television show to bring you an audience may be the best course of action.

So back to the original question: what comes first in terms of publicity and marketing prowess – the new social web or the old fashioned television appearance? Right now both work, but I’ll bet that as media becomes more integrated there won’t be as much of a distinction or preference between the two.