Are you ready for the Winter Olympic games? You may have noticed that Coca-Cola® has been gearing up.
You might have seen the Coca-Cola®
snowball commercial or the collectible cans…but have you checked out the
website? You can get into your own snowball fight or go snowboarding. Pretty
cool.
Starting with the
logo, Office Peeps has also rolled out the new look on their website,
storefront signage, and print materials. A teaser newspaper campaign slowly
revealed the company’s new identity during the week of the unveiling.
Insight Marketing
Design was excited to rebrand the 50-year old office sales and service
business. We created a complete array of integrated campaign components.
"We learned
that the company’s greatest value and strength was its employees,” said Insight
Principal, Candy Van Dam. “The rebranding puts the emphasis on people, rather
than products.”
Not that products
aren’t important. Office Peeps carries over 50,000 products, and offers them at
competitive, low prices. “By being part of buying groups, Office Peeps’
purchasing power rivals that of any mass merchandiser,” said Van Dam.
“But because the
staff is so experienced, many with 20 or 30 years at the company, they really
know the products – and the customers – inside and out,” she said.
Over the last two years
Insight Marketing Design has created a series of campaigns for Sioux Falls’ own
Howe Heating and Plumbing. One of the most recent projects was
an e-newsletter that has received national attention.
Insight’s use of piping as
graphic images and fun retro conventions earned us a spot in the Campaign
Monitor’s email design gallery. This gallery showcases some of the great
designs that Campaign Monitor’s customers come up with.
See Howe’s and other
awesome campaigns at: http://www.campaignmonitor.com/gallery/entry/2904/howe/
Or sign up to receive
Howe’s e-blast at: http://www.howeinc.com/newsletter/subscribe.php
It’s SWELL!
Insight Marketing Design is excited to sponsor the October 15th program for South Dakota Advertising Federation with guest speaker Jeff Hayzlett, CMO for Eastman Kodak.
Jeff's keynote is "Redefining the Kodak Brand through Digital and Social Media." Here's Jeff to tell you more.
Looking back on August and September, we've launched some outstanding websites. Here's a peek:
Henry Carlson Company
Henry Carlson Company (HCC) asked Insight to create a website that would instantly communicate to visitors that HCC is the premier general contractor in this region. Insight developed a design direction that was unique and cried out CONSTRUCTION. The site features silhouettes of workers engaged in many aspects of building construction. Flip around the site to see different actions. (Also note that the figures are all wearing proper safety equipment.)
Chicagoland Community Church
The Chicagoland Community Church wanted a fresh, new look that would appeal to 20- and 30-something urban church-goers. Insight created a number of pieces for the church, including this awesome website. The site incorporates the church blog and features a rotating flash navigation at the top.
Ask the CEO
Security First Bank wanted to start an online conversation with customers through an "Ask the CEO" column. Insight suggested the use of a custom formatted blog to not only allow for question submission but also to create a gallery of the answers. Posts are arranged in categories for organization and search-ability. It is our hope that in the future this blog could serve as a search-able FAQ section for the site.
What do you think? We'd love to hear your feedback!
One day I went to throw
away my fudge bar stick, thinking I should save all of these so that my
daughter and I could make a fun craft project together.
But they are sooooo
boring. Why haven’t they made some fun popsicle sticks?
Not only could they
look cool, they could have fun messages or even advertise. Check out how
Colgate effectively reminded consumers to brush.
Granted you aren’t going to able to make too many craft projects from these Popsicle sticks, but the idea is pretty clever.
Long, holiday weekends are a good time to catch up on “professional reading.” One of the articles I read was on the importance of CSR – Corporate Social Responsibility from Second Wind. The article ended with this statement:
That made me start thinking about Insight’s CSR initiatives, how we select them and the impact they’re making for our clients.
From our launch in 2003, we knew that we wanted to help non-profit organizations with creative solutions. But how to choose? We started with causes that were important to us. For Doug, supporting the arts community is vital. I wanted to help organizations that have child-centered missions. And, as we’ve added staff, our list of Corporate Social Responsibility has grown as well.
Here’s a quick look at some of the CSR campaigns we’ve worked on recently for the Arts:
• Sioux Empire Community Theatre – we’re in our fourth season for SECT, promoting membership and ticket sales.
• First Night Sioux Falls – a one-night event that celebrates the arts and family entertainment on New Year’s Eve. Each year we’ve been able to better define our core audience.
• Bike Rack Art – working with the Sioux Falls Visual Arts Commission to solicit art rack designs. Look for the first new racks this summer or fall.
For organizations that serve children and their families:
• Little Red Stocking Campaign – a major fundraising campaign for Children’s Home Society of South Dakota.
• YWCA – a re-branding effort for one of the community’s largest daycare providers.
• Bike-a-Paloosa – a neighborhood event to raise funds to provide bikes for children in need.
• South Dakota Voices for Children – a video and website to help this child-advocacy group increase awareness of mental health issues.
• Volunteers of America – a “day in the life” video used for fundraising throughout the state .
But as I mentioned, we also work with a number of organizations that are important to Insight staff, including
• Family Connection – branding, collateral and website for this organization that serves the families of people in prison.
• Chicagoland Community Church – branding, collateral and website for this urban congregation in Chicago.
And, sometimes we work for friends in the community, such as
• Help!Line Center – newsletters, Trends Report and other collateral to help this organization that touches so many other organizations in our community and our state.
These are just a few of the non-profit groups that we work with. We see this work as a win-win for us and for our clients:
• We get to work on causes we’re passionate about with the understanding that the creative will not be substantially altered.
• Clients receive top-quality creative work at no charge or at a fraction of its value.
How do we measure the success of our work? Sometimes it’s easier, like in the case of increased ticket sales for Sioux Empire Community Theatre. Or by reaching donation goals for Children’s Home Society.
Other times it’s more intangible, so we rely on the feedback of clients:
Pam Bollinger, VOA President and CEO, “Thank you for your commitment, your willingness to understand, and for making a difference that will last well into the future.”
Carol Muller, HELP!Line Center Executive Director, “Once again we've received wonderful responses to our Trends Report. It tells the HELP!Line story so well.”
To all our clients, thanks for letting us help.
OK, so now I've had some time to process the wonderful gush of pure creative brilliance from the minds of Joe Duffy at AIGA and Alex Bogusky with SDAF this week. The design samples and creative process insights from Mr. Duffy were overwhelmingly inspiring. The quality work of Duffy & Partners speaks for itself. The refreshingly insightful and focused ad strategies of Alex Bogusky leave a lasting impression. The campaigns of Crispin, Porter + Bogusky are pure genius.
Finding the common threads of success among these heavyweight industry champions is not difficult at all, and can be roughly summed up in two points:
1. Include your client in the creative strategy at the very beginning. Trust their instincts to help lead the creative. Listen to them. Partner with them in their marketplace presence. You'll both benefit immensely in the end.
2. Really great design = long-term market impact and success. It is an investment in the future of your client and your own creative agency. No brainer.
So, thanks Joe Duffy and Alex Bogusky for being so transparent and wonderfully inspiring in your presentations in Sioux Falls this past week. It is apparent that you both seek to elevate and improve the standards of design and advertising in our community and abroad.
We're all the richer for it.
I just came across an article on Ad Age about a major blunder that Pepsi made this weekend.
Apparently Pepsi planned to run a promotion and announced that they would be giving away 200 some free tickets to the Yankees' game yesterday. People lined up and waited for hours, only to find out that there were less than 200 tickets and many people were, of course, a little unhappy. So they shouted "Pepsi sucks!" and poured Pepsi products on the ground while media captured the whole thing.
Pepsi screwed up. They know it. Today they announced that they would be giving away 500 tickets (fingers crossed) and a bunch of free product to make up for their mistake. Probably a good idea.
Interestingly, as I watched the video on Ad Age a couple other thoughts came to mind.
1) The crowd really seems to be playing to the cameras, If news crews hadn't been surrounding them, I wonder if the angry New Yorkers would have gone as over-the-top with their griping (which they were most certainly entitled to).
2) Why didn't Pepsi handle this better right on the spot? They ran out of tickets and just said, "Oops, sorry, that's it, you can all go home empty handed"?
Why wasn't someone thinking?!?! Grab some paper, get some pens, get people's information. Apologize profusely, but promise to make it up to them. Tell them you'll mail them tickets to a game. Not just tickets this time, but good tickets. And some free stuff. Apologize again. And again.
Some people get to go to the game with Pepsi's free tickets, happy now. Some leave unhappy that they were unable to attend this game, but looking forward to Pepsi making good on its promise to make it right, happy later.
Sure would have resulted in better PR.
The last time I was in Rotunda B at SDSU, I was a journalism student. On Wednesday I was back in Rotunda B, this time speaking to students in a Principles of Advertising class. An hour later, in the old Printing and Journalism Building (now a beautifully modern and remodeled Yeager Hall), I spoke to Media Research students about my experiences in advertising.
I talked about how Insight helps build brands for our clients -- from logos and unique promotions to packaging and interior graphics. Students asked some great questions about working in advertising, about our staff and how we work with clients. It was a wonderful day.
That evening I received a Distinguished Alumni Award from the Department of Journalism. Each year the Department recognizes the professional achievements of alumni. I was very honored to receive the award and I want to thank Professor Roxanne Lucchesi and Department Head Dr. Mary Arnold for inviting me to be part of this group.
Submitted by Candy Van Dam
