Blood Treasure

See the ad above? It just appeared in Medical Journal Houston. It announces the upcoming AMA Healthcare SIG event, April 4th, 2007.

This case study is so good, it’ll make the blood rush to your head. (Sorry, couldn’t help it.) So make your reservation now – don’t be put off by that bland online title. You are going to have fun!

Our speaker is a treasure: Annetta Morris oversees The Blood Center’s successful Commit For Life blood donor program. She’s one of the most engaging people I’ve ever met.

So you’re going to hear about the Commit For Life program, that uses [1] regional marketing research to develop The Blood Center’s integrated marketing plan, and [2] a series of tactics that has boosted the number of donations and prompted current donors to donate more.

If marketing’s in your blood, you’ll find out how The Blood Center keeps on persuading donors to help people throughout the region. You’ll discover how to “envision” a comprehensive marketing approach to a core audience, whether it’s for external (public) or internal (employee) use.

And you’ll learn more about executing such a marvelous integrated marketing plan.

Morris has 15 years in the blood-banking industry, including experience in donor collections, donor recruitment and information systems. She’s using this experience to help The Blood Center increase the retention rate of donors…and she’s going to share her story with us on April 4th.

Morris’s department is responsible for recruiting and educating donors, volunteers and donor groups: a huge job. Under her team’s direction, The Blood Center partners with businesses, religious organizations, community groups and educational institutions in the Gulf Coast region to permanently increase the blood supply in more than 220 health care institutions in a 25-county area. It’s an award-winning marketing program that’s being copied all over the country.

I alerted you last month that this was coming. Now I’m throwing some red-blooded promotional language at you, so you’ll make your attendance April’s don’t-miss thing.

(And I’m not even close to running out of bad puns.) So come on down to Trevisio’s in the Texas Medical Center on Wednesday, April 4th. I’ll see you there.

Weightlifter Bob

We spent the weekend visiting with Bob and Edith Fusillo in Atlanta. He is the “Weightlifter Bob” of song and story. We spent much of the time sitting on their back porch, talking and eating and drinking…a real getaway.

If you haven’t been following this particular story line, Weightlifter Bob will travel to Kazincbarcika, Hungary in August for the IWF-World Masters Weightlifting Championship:

At 80 years old, I’m reportedly the oldest super-heavy weightlifter in the world. I didn’t start lifting until I was 67. Since then I’ve won dozens and dozens of medals in competitions all over the US. In 1999, five years after taking up the sport, I won a gold medal in the World Masters Championships competition, in Glasgow.

Now I’ve qualified for the World Championships to be held in August, 2007. Few 80-year-olds compete. It’s traditionally dominated by Russians, Hungarians, Cubans and Chinese, but I think I can bring back both a gold medal and a new world record. I already hold three Pan-American records and five American records. To win a Worlds at 80 would be a major thrill.

Read the entire “Weightlifter Bob” story here – it’s a blog we keep up to pass the word about Bob and Kazincbarcika – this oddly named city of 32,000 in the far northeast of Hungary. Barbara and I had a terrific visit with them…always do.

Bob’s wearing a special T-shirt, obtained since the last time we went to Atlanta. Missed out on Nempnett Thrubwell? The entire silly story is here. (Edith is the one not wearing the T-shirt.) Thanks so much to both of them for a wonderful time.

Old Forester

Is this brand story true? Brown-Forman Distillers Company of Louisville, KY, has been running an advertising campaign for Old Forester, which the company says is “America’s First Bottled Bourbon,” complete with a trademark.

The company has got this story behind the campaign: In 1870, George Garvin Brown, a young pharmaceuticals salesman in Louisville, Kentucky, saw the need for a consistently high-quality whisky that met medicinal standards. With $5,500 in saved and borrowed money, Brown and his half brother started J.T.S. Brown and Bro. They sold Old Forester Bourbon Whisky exclusively in sealed glass bottles to assure its quality.

It’s the kind of classically designed campaign that has come to characterize the upscale liquor market – lots of emphasis on heritage and purity and very nice looking with it. Brown-Forman is working on the brand. But…is the claim factual? I seemed to recall seeing Civil War-era engravings with bottles of bourbon (so labeled) on shelves – that would pre-date the foundation of the Old Forester brand story.

I tried contacting Brown-Forman…got nothing.

Fortunately, the people at my own favorite bourbon company, Jim Beam, were much more attentive. They asked their PR agency to work the problem and I got an outstanding call from Layton Meng, one of the Directors at Qorvis working on the Jim Beam account. (She left a message that I didn’t get immediately, driving through the middle of southern Louisiana’s Atchafalaya Swamp at the time as I was.)

Meng had spoken with Jerry Dalton, Jim Beam’s Master Distiller. His research says that Abram M Bininger & Co. was actually the oldest known source of bottled bourbon: he started doing it in 1848. Nevertheless, it is Brown that’s recognized in the industry for being the first distiller to mass-produce and sell branded bourbon in bottles.

So the answer is, yes…Old Forester is the first bottled bourbon brand. Brown-Forman is correct and the story on the Old Forester website is a good one. (Always tell good stories about your brand.)

For me, though, the stars of this one are Jim Beam and Qorvis – so my special appreciation to Dalton and Meng: more responsive to customers, thank you very much. It’s way early for a drink, but mine will be Jim Beam when the time comes, not Old Forester. Maybe I should have used a photograph of a Beam bourbon bottle instead.

Pumpkin Centrism

“Baptist Pumpkin Center” is today’s subject. I’m not the only person to notice the sign on I-12, the one that Barbara and I pass once or twice a year going around the New Orleans area, on our way to and from Atlanta. Thousands of drivers see it coming and going and it’s too much fun to pass up. Bill Rempel posted about it briefly here.

That would be Exit 35 on this short “intrastate” Interstate. It really does mark Pumpkin Road on the west side of Hammond (or Ponchatoula, depending on your point of view. Whatever.) It’s likely there are Baptists on Pumpkin here – although you’re more likely to find a bunch of them on Pecan here; Immanuel Baptist Church is on Pecan Street in Hammond.

Friends, I think today’s text is about opportunity. The Exit 35 sign is pretty specific: this here’s a Baptist Pumpkin Center. Not your Methodist or even your high-church Episcopalian Pumpkin Center. Certainly not your namby-pamby, ecumenical “Christian” Pumpkin Center. Down here north of New Orleans, there’s room in folks’ hearts for just one center of squash fruit, or Cucurbita Cucurbitaceae as pumpkinados persist in saying, and that’s the Baptist Pumpkin Center.

(Sigh. A pumpkinado is a person who’s a squash enthusiast – a fan – but that’s for another post.)

Other religions could have the own pumpkin centers. I’m surprised that the Catholic Church hasn’t already established its own pumpkin centers on a worldwide basis. There’d be a good deal more ceremony attached to these. Perhaps Brandeis University has established its own pumpkin center, a Jewish pumpkin center; or, since there’s already been a considerable effort to plant trees in Israel, a global effort to establish pumpkin centers in the Holy Land will soon appear in synagogue religious schools throughout the US. Then the issue of whether the patches would be Orthodox or Reform pumpkin centers would rear its unattractive head…pumpkins are kosher for Passover as far as I know.

Muslim pumpkin centers might suffer from the same kind of doctrinal split: Sunni or Shia? Buddhists might welcome the peaceful nature of their own pumpkin patches, wherein the Eight-fold Way could be contemplated.

I do not advocate proselytizing insofar as pumpkins are concerned – no. A person’s pumpkin preference ought to be his or her own, I say. So really, Pumpkin Centers could be like those all-faith chapels one sees in airports (praying that you aren’t trapped on a delayed flight can address any form of deity…and pumpkin).

It’s possible to blame this all on Charlie Brown and Linus’s search for the Great Pumpkin. But I’m thinking that “Pumpkin Centrism” is older than that, rooted deeply in America’s spiritual reawakening in the early 19th Century. And the Baptist Pumpkin Center in Louisiana is one of the last visible remnants of this nationwide urge toward gourdish worship practices.

Well, I thought this would be a good day to bring it all to your attention – and my thanks to “Lyria” (T A Noonan) for the photo. May the Great Pumpkin watch over you and keep you, no matter in what Center you worship.

American Chocolate

“Say, do you have a Chocolate cell phone?” You bet, buddy. Just click here and Creative Chocolates of Vermont will have one delivered – no contract, no hype:

This cellular phone is solid milk chocolate with white chocolate buttons (with all your basic keys). Designed to look just like a real cell phone, this delicious electrical wonder is the same size as a normal cell phone (5 inches x 2 inches x 1/2 inch; with an additional 1 inch antenna).

Please note that it was originally designed to compliment the company’s Roadside Construction Cone Basket – I gotta get me one of those. The company was created in 1982…so it’s safe to say it’s found a sweet spot in the choco-biz.

Still have a yen for a chocolate phone (aside from LG’s fancy model)? Just click here (see No. 17) or here. Personally, I think the Vermont company has the tastiest-looking technological treat. Personally, I think the Vermont company has the tastiest-looking technological treat.

Think of this post as an expansion on the recently expressed idea that someone may look at your cell phone and say, “Wow! That’s chocolate!” LG isn’t the only chocolate phone provider in the market. Think American: there’s a whole…candy store…out there for you to explore.

Coming soon: chocolate skulls! Ooooh!

Photo courtesy of Creative Chocolates of Vermont, with thanks.

Thermos® Lives

The Thermos brand lives on, registered trademark and all.

In Sunday’s post, I began talking about brands – and the possibility of losing them. I mentioned escalator and cellophane. Tim Orr, principal of Barnett Orr Marketing Group, Inc. in Nashville, wrote, “One was Thermos. In fact, Thermos deliberately tried to make its trademark a noun, synonymous with vacuum storage bottle. When a challenge finally arose, in another manufacturer's wish to call their product a ‘thermos’ bottle, it went to court, and Thermos lost.” More than a few authorities consider the trademark vacated. But it seems to have more lives than one.

When a brand is more than 100 years old, compressing its ups and downs into a few ‘graphs is daunting. The company, the brand and its products have had a varied history – not least of which was seeing the “Thermos” brand become generic.

Just Google up the name and see how many references you get using “thermos” with a small “t.” The company has also changed ownership more than once.

For example (to quote the United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit): In January 1989, Household International, Inc. (“Household”), decided to divest certain assets, either in spin-offs to shareholders or through outright sales to third parties. The Thermos Company (“Thermos”) was one of the subsidiaries formed as part of Household’s reorganization plan…In June 1989, after an intensive weekend negotiation, Household entered into a 139-page purchase agreement (“purchase agreement”), to sell Thermos to Nippon Sanso K.K…(the latter two entities collectively “Nippon”).

Here’s where you can find a goodly part of the company’s history, which started with the invention of the the “vacuum flask.” It was first manufactured for commercial use in 1904, when two German glass blowers formed Thermos GmbH. They held a contest to name the vacuum flask and a resident of Munich submitted “Thermos,” derived from the Greek word therme meaning “heat.”

The company, based in Rolling Meadows, IL, is still part of Nippon Sanso Corporation and operates as an LLC. A relatively new management team has been working overtime not only to modernize its product lines, but to vigorously re-establish the brand. (The company has five lines, under Thermos®, Thermos® NissanTM, Element 5®, Raya® and Foogo®.)

Wheatley & Timmons, a brand-oriented PR agency in Chicago currently handles the Thermos account. Rich Timmons, one of the principals, told me, “The current management has done an absolutely stellar job of reinforcing the brand strength and building relevance in terms of the contemporary relevance.”

As demonstrated over the last five years particularly, the Thermos management team, led by Rick Dias, is extraordinarily brand-conscious. They understand the company’s point of difference in being the leaders in insulated vacuumware*.

Timmons says that Thermos has dominant awareness in the category and a leading market share. You’ll find a case history of what he calls “brand recharge” on the Wheatley & Timmons website, under “Case Studies.” You want to see outstanding brand revival in action, click on “Watch the Video.” Outstanding work. (And no, I don’t think it’s a sin to applaud a job well done.)

Another correspondent, marketing manager Ryan Libson in Minnesota, wrote about the previous post, “The greatest aspiration of a brand should be to become a noun. What a problem to have.” I don’t think the Thermos LLC management team agrees with him.

*Interesting word, “vacuumware.” Google it and you’ll find that the Top 3 mentions are attached to Thermos Nissan. At the bottom of each web page, Thermos LLC notes, “Thermos is a registered trademark in over 115 countries.” Special thanks to Rich Timmons and Bob Wheatley; and Abbie Knoepfler at Thermos LLC.

Free Chocolate

I suppose it’s inevitable that Barbara and I would be exposed as the older-than-Pizza-Hut’s-Market people that we are. We both misunderstood the flyer that came attached to the pizza delivered to our door last night. A bright green oblong was titled thusly in great big red letters: TURN THIS CERTIFICATE INTO A FREE* CHOCOLATETM by LG.

A great big Pizza Hut logo was right underneath, followed by tiny little type with double asterisks that said, “See back for details and restrictions.”

Both of us thought there was some sort of chocolate candy on offer. Being fond of it, I read a bit further and discovered that Pizza Hut was promoting the new cellphone by LG, in conjunction with Verizon Wireless. If you buy a “Cheesy Bites” or any large pizza, and if you activate a two-year customer agreement with the aforesaid wireless service provider, you can get this neat new gizmo.

Two challenges confront me about this. First, I was hoping for chocolate, the real stuff, sweet and likely not good for me. I’m not the only one who misunderstood this offer right off the top of the box:

“I didn't see the Verizon part of the title at first which led me to believe that Pizza Hut was unveiling a new telephone-shaped dessert,” posted by mst3kzz on Fat Wallet.com; and “I thought at first I was getting a chocolate phone I could eat,” posted by BoNg420, same place.

Okay – I’m out of the swim when it comes to new technologies and forgot that “Chocolate” is one of the new, cute brand names that are floating around in the marketplace. (One look at the people pictured on the Pizza Hut website assures me that I am at least 30 years outside Pizza Hut’s demographic.)

Second, though, I wonder about trademark issues. I have always been taught (and have therefore generally practiced) that a trademark is an adjective, to be used when defining a noun. Here, “Chocolate” – even when followed by a TM – is used as a noun. A careful reader would discover the adjectival usage only in the fifth line of extraordinarily tiny type on the back of the flyer: “Get a free LG Chocolate phone…”

“Escalator” and “Cellophane” lost their trademark status because these words became so well known that they were universally used as nouns. Johnson & Johnson almost lost “Band-Aid” the same way, and went to extraordinary lengths to begin protecting the trademark, even changing its wonderful jingle at the time.

Today, J&J carefully refers to its product as BAND-AID® BRAND ADHESIVE BANDAGES.

J&J does it; Coca-Cola doesn’t. Neither does LG or even Pizza Hut, itself a registered trademark. Who’s right? Well – of course it’s the lawyers…whom in 30+ years of advertising experience I’ve never known to be consistent.

The Federal government, which grants trademarks, doesn’t appear to issue a standard in this regard. But the HTML Writers Guild does state, “A trademark or service mark is always an adjective – never a noun or a verb – and always begins with a capital letter.” And the danger of misuse is worth quoting from this website:

While these distinctions may sound like insignificant details, consider the plight of Otis Elevator Company. Years ago, that company produced an advertisement with a similar error in the copy, certainly a detail nobody deemed momentous at the time. However, that one sentence in that one ad helped Otis lose its trademark: Escalator. (See my mention above.) So now any manufacturer of moving staircases can call their products escalators. You’ll want to avoid making this costly mistake with your trademarks, so if in doubt, err on the side of over-protection.

So I ask LG, Pizza Hut and Verizon Wireless: What’s your thinking here? Any answers? I’d appreciate hearing the rationale for presuming that “Chocolate” is anything other than a sweet.

Cigar Rhymes

Way back about 18 months ago, I ran across some verses I’d written during one of my cigar phases and published them here under the title “Stogie Limericks.” I found a couple of more today, so they’re my last burnt offerings from the old days. I promise.

The “doper” tribute:
Said an aficionado named Stilla,
“Cigar-smoking’s really a thrilla.
I get a big rush
From my head to my tush.
At this rate, who needs sensimilla?”

And the “racy” one:
An I-talian Miss known as Mona
Dated only big wheels from Verona.
Said, “In choice of erection,
I’ve got a selection:
Demi-tasse – Robusto – Corona.”

Ashby’s Joke

A couple made a deal that whoever died first would come back and inform the other of the afterlife. Their biggest fear was that there was no afterlife.

After a long life, the husband was the first to go. True to his word he made contact, his ghostly voice whispering in her ear: “Mary. Mary.”

“Is that you, Fred?”

“Yes, I've come back like we agreed.”

“What's it like?”

“Well, I get up in the morning, I have sex, I have breakfast, off to the golf course, I have sex, I bathe in the sun, and then I have sex twice. I have lunch, another romp around the golf course, then sex pretty much all afternoon. After supper, golf course again. Then have sex until late at night. The next day it starts again.”

“Oh, Fred you surely must be in Heaven.”

“Not exactly. I'm a rabbit in Suffolk.”

With thanks to Paul Ashby in the UK, whose blog is about a completely different subject (mostly).

Monika Maeckle

Ha! Thank you for the kind words – and for sending it to me in a very Web 1.0 email format! Why didn't you use my picture? ;-)

That’s the note from Monika Maeckle responding to yesterday’s Signalwriter post about the Business Wire seminar (see immediately below). It’s a fair cop: I “shoulda, coulda, woulda” included Monika’s photo.

She’s a great story-teller and she should be…prior to joining Business Wire, she spent more than 20 years in media and marketing; had her own PR shop, the Brava Agency, in San Antonio; and before that she was a reporter in Costa Rica, El Salvador and Mexico City.

Story-telling runs in the family. More than a decade ago, in December, 1998, San Antonio Express-News reporter Philip True vanished during a solo backcountry trek in western Mexico’s Twisted Serpent Canyon, a 150-mile long gash that twists and plunges through the heart of the Sierra Madre. The story of True’s disappearance was followed as closely from Houston as it was from San Antonio.

Five days later True’s editor, Robert Rivard, was part of a small search party that, nearly miraculously, tracked a trail of feathers that had leaked from True’s sleeping bag to find his hidden grave. Rivard is Maeckle’s husband; his book about True’s disappearance is a real-life thriller.

Ms Maeckle, my apologies. Your picture appears upper left.

Web 2.0

Sometimes I feel like I’m actually catching up with the technologies at our disposal in marketing and public relations. This AM was one of these times ‘cause Judi Swartz of Business Wire threw an outstanding seminar to talk about “SEO and Web 2.0” and demonstrate the company’s new EON product.

I’m trying avoiding puffery here. Maybe I just don’t get out enough. But I did learn more in an hour and a half than I have from a whole bunch of surfing and reading. It gave me an opportunity to connect some of pieces that I hadn’t been able to put together before, from pinging and trackback to RSS feeds and social media.

It took two people to make these connections for me and it was worth every minute. Too bad you missed it.

Monika Maeckle, Business Wire’s Southeast Regional VP and David A McInnis, founder and CEO of PRWeb (left, obviously: does that look like a “Monika” to you? ) did an outstanding job of covering needs and solutions in layman’s terms.

The challenges are: How can you (agency or client) increase the certainty that your “news” will hang out longer on the Internet? Reach more people virally? Improve your company’s visibility in the new world of Web 2.0?

BTW, Web 2.0 refers to a second generation of services on the Web that lets people collaborate and share information (to quote one of the seminar’s handouts). That’s what I do with this blog; that’s what we do with press releases…especially the ones with real news in them.

One current answer is EON, this “enhanced online news” service that Business Wire is offering in partnership with McInnis’s PRWeb, a leader in direct-to-consumer PR distribution. EON is a collection of tools you can use to optimize the language of press releases for higher search engine efficiencies; make the PR releases more…interactive; and measure results. It’s pretty slick.

More important, it really helps to know that there are resources “out there” that have been thinking and perfecting a lot of these mechanisms. Then getting the right people in a room to listen to. (A boatload of thanks to Business Wire for this alone.) I don’t have to do it myself – not that I could. It’s kind of like a college education. If you’re a genius, you’ll memorize everything. If you’re somewhat shy of that level, you’ll at least know where to go to get the information and the help you need.

When it comes to Web 2.0, McInnis probably recalls the words of Max Bruinsma from around the turn of the century (and doesn’t that sound weird?): The content and effectiveness of communication have become strongly context-dependent, not least because the audience…has…matured. In contrast to the impression created by many communication products – from advertising to news bulletins – the recipient is usually not stupid.

The customers and prospects that want to read our sales and marketing messages are probably looking for them right now. The stuff in today’s seminar demonstrated one way to make it a lot easier for them to find our “news.”

“Commit” Date

One of the best integrated marketing and community involvement programs related to healthcare in the region (in my opinion) will be showcased on Wednesday, April 4th, 2007.

The American Marketing Association-Houston’s Healthcare Special Interest Group (SIG) will host the Gulf Coast Regional Blood Center’s presentation of its high-powered, multi-faceted “Commit for Life” program.

You could call it “Marketing for Blood,” but thanks to everyone who participated in this program last year, donations helped save thousands of lives and helped The Blood Center exceed its 2006 goal of 273,000 units. (In 2007, the need has increased to 290,000 units.)

The Commit for Life program is a partnership between everyone in the Houston region and Gulf Coast Regional Blood Center that’s focused on saving lives, today... and in the future. Today, The Blood Center has grown to serve more than 220 health care institutions in the 25-county Texas Gulf Coast region. Developing the willingness to give blood on a regular basis is tough but effective work, as I think you’ll see at this AMA SIG presentation.

I started giving blood when I was a teenager, back in Atlanta. Now I participate in the “Commit for Life” program myself. I’m delighted to learn how The Blood Center encourages blood donations so effectively. I think you will be too.

So…commit your time for April 4th. Write it down. The SIG program will run from 11:30 AM to 1:30 PM – place to be announced. And watch this space for more info as SIG program is developed.

Addams, Laocoön

How to tell this story as succinctly as possible? Start with marketer/author Robin Landa. She recently asked a question in one of my discussion groups: I submit to you that any art director worth his or her salt should be able to discuss Picasso’s work intelligently. That art director should be well read and versed in the arts. This should be a given. How can anyone who aspires to design or communicate through a visual medium not be interested in all things visual and the related arts, such as, painting, literature and film? That said: Please list the essential films, books, and/or art works that any art director should know.

A number of members pitched in (me and my big mouth included). We suggested a variety of materials, plus what some of us felt ought to be “driving forces” behind every creative person’s education. Generally we thought it should be quite broad.

Yesterday, taking a break from writing direct mailers for point-of-sale terminals, I looked through an old cartoon book from my collection: Favorite Haunts by Charles Addams. The cartoon above appears on Page 42. It struck me that this, in part, is an extreme example of what Landa was asking about.

This cartoon is at least 30 years old, maybe more. Addams was extremely popular in those years. His sense of the humorously macabre showed up in cartoons everywhere, from The New Yorker to Playboy. He invented “The Addams Family,” after all, fabled in TV and film. When I worked at BBDO, we even commissioned an Addams cartoon for a Honeywell ad in the wee ’80s. (Addams died in 1988 after a very long career.)

Charles Addams presumed that quite of lot of people, particularly those who read The New Yorker, would recognize his visual play.

Those with a “classical” education, or spent way too many years reading Greek and Roman myths, would. It’s the cartoonist’s take on the statue of Laocoön and His Sons. Also called the Laocoön Group, this is a monumental marble sculpture that’s now in the Vatican Museums in Rome.

Thought to have been created in the 1st or 2nd Century BC, it shows Laocoön and his sons Antiphantes and Thymbraeus being strangled by sea serpents. Why? Because Laocoön attempted to expose the ruse of the Trojan Horse. According to Virgil’s Aeneid, the god Poseidon (who was on the Greeks’ side), sent the sea serpents along to get these doubting Trojans out of the way.

Addams replicated the scene using sausages in place of sea serpents – which is amusing to look at, and reasonably funny if you get the in-joke. Now it’s 30 or more years later? Do you recognize the cultural reference? How about your buddies in design, art direction, advertising or what-have-you?

Creative people should have curiosity bumps the size of Stone Mountain. We trade in metaphors and allusions (when we’re lucky) and we should be in touch with enough history and art to give us some extra horsepower when it’s time to create memorable messages.

On the other hand, the Addams cartoon’s pretty extreme (perhaps there was a copy of the statue on display in a New York museum), but especially today. Cultural references shift from decade to decade, even year to year. Go too far outside the cultural mainstream – a stream that’s gotten shallower but broader in the last generation or two – and you’ll lose your audience.

Don’t let that stop you from knowing, though. The more you stuff into your mental attic, the more likely you’ll find a good answer to a tricky challenge…like man-devouring sea serpents.

In addition to serving as a Distinguished Professor in the Kean University Department of Design and running her own branding firm, Landa is the author of ten published books on creativity and design, including Graphic Design Solutions. Her articles have been featured in HOW, Print and Icograda magazines. Favorite Haunts © 1976, Charles Addams. Thanks to Stacy Allen for the technical assistance.

Drillinginfo Collaborative

Ever since Roger Edmondson became marketing officer for Drillinginfo, he’s been working to put the Austin-based oil & gas information company into a new space vis-à-vis the market.

Drillinginfo is an active network of 10,000 North American oil and gas stakeholders, in about 3,000 companies, dedicated to providing and expanding the digital availability of current and historical oil and gas data.

Because it’s open source, engineers, geologists and landmen can use Drillinginfo on-line to expedite the process of looking for leasing opportunities in specific areas of interest. It’s also disruptive – any subscriber can access any data in the system any time, anywhere. (We used the words “unprecedented access, exchange and management of knowledge” to get the point across.)

What are “landmen,” you ask? For those of you unblessed by working in the patch, a landman is a company employee or self-employed individual who secures oil and gas leases, checks legal titles and attempts to cure title defects so that drilling can begin. If you’re politically correct, there are as many women as men who are landmen…which is why we often call the category “land services.” But out here, it’s still landman. Which leads, of course, to this chestnut: “What is 1+1?” The engineer answers, “Exactly 2.0000000.” The geologist says, “About 2.” And the landman responds with, “What do you want it to be?”

You can see the first portrayals of the company’s new position above. Roger and I worked hard to position the company against the competitive field and we arrived at the “Open to Explore” idea at the same time, in the same conversation.

Then Steve Willgren of Willgren-Rios Design brought the idea to life in a clean, effective way by combining classic type, “wide-open-spaces” photography, and white space (oilpatch marcom’s most precious commodity). Standing out in the oil-and-gas data space ain’t easy, yet here they are, one brochure for geologists and engineers and one for land services.

The copy inside is collaborative: I wrote on it, Roger wrote on it, even Drillinginfo’s Chairman, Allen Gilmer, wrote on it: more words than I’d like, fewer words than Allen would have used…but the message gets across clearly in each brochure. We supported the text with screen captures of Drillinginfo software tools and lease maps. Screen captures are standard for this part of the industry; but we kept ours large, supported them with captions to keep that stuff out of the brochure texts, and maintained white space. It’s worth holding the line on this design discipline, because wide open spaces are critical to the new position.

The company’s founders (and Roger) are classic Texas. I think that the “Open to Explore” position, created by us, visualized by Steve, is fresh and spacious. Thanks to everyone for letting me work on these: good examples of a productive partnership.

Anna Nicole

As a Smith of the broad family of that name, Anna Nicole Smith did more for jeans than “Trade” and “Mark” ever did for Smith Brothers cough drops.

Though she didn’t last as long, Anna Nicole Smith was one of those arresting people that occur at the intersection of human being, personality and brand. I confess, I liked her. I’m sorry that she’s gone. Life will be some less colorful as a result of her death. I remember when she first appeared in the Guess ad campaign and boy, howdy, those were great days. (I’m not alone on this – see Sheila O’Malley here.)

Smith replaced supermodel Claudia Schiffer in the Guess ads – not just for jeans, but for the whole Guess line in sultry black and white photographs. The one to the left is the one that I remember so well, though.

Guess was one of the first companies to create designer jeans and during the 1980s it was one of the most popular jeans brands. Because of shady labor practices (as well as the overtly sexy content of its advertising), the company struggled in the ‘90s. By the turn of the century, though, with Guess promoting a different look and sense of style, the controversy that surrounded the company during the nineties had been pretty much forgotten.

Then, the Marciano Brothers (quite distinct from the bearded Smith Brothers) brought sex back. Guess’s sales began to take a turn for the better. By 2005, Guess was catching the eye of a lot of people (mainly teens) who didn’t recall Guess's earlier history. The company still grabs celebrities, sometimes people like Paris Hilton who are famous for being famous. But to me, Paris ain’t no Anna Nicole Smith, and I think her image has always part of the brand package. Today, Guess Inc. is selling at about $85 a share.

According to CNN and AP, Paul Marciano, CEO of Guess, has said: “She had something magic…from the first day I met her, every moment was filled with excitement and drama. Her personality was very complex, but she had a charming, sexy and seductive side.”

You want your brand to buzz? Then you can hardly beat the use of these kinds of personalities. Anna Nicole Smith is beyond the buzz now – and I kinda miss her.

Ad © Guess Inc. All rights reserved.

Collier’s Type

We’ve had posts here and here about designing type and designing with it. Today, Steve Collier, a former Houston designer/illustrator now living in Seattle, is guest-posting about the same subject. He began with this quote from classic type designer Giambattista Bodoni: “The letters don’t get their true delight, when done in haste & discomfort, nor merely done with diligence & pain, but first when they are created with love and passion.” Here’s Steve’s own words.

My first encounter with type was during my graphics training years at the University of Southwestern Louisiana through a staff professor who was just absolutely incredible, John Sniffen. He worked in New York for a number of years in the advertising profession and for reasons I am not certain, he signed on as a professor in the Commercial Art department teaching lettering. From the old school of crafting type with tools of the trade, brushes, chalks, pencils, sticks, etc., his hands moved with precision, balance and design to form the most beautiful typography I had ever seen or experienced. It was truly an amazing act to witness, unbelievable.

Through four years of college, then working in graphic design for many years, I was fortunate to have encountered numerous other professionals who specialized in typography, crafting and mastering the art such as Herb Lubalin (a founder of ITC, editor of its magazine U&lc. In 1984 he was posthumously awarded the TDC Medal, the Type Directors Club award), Tom Carnase and Michael Doret, to name a few.

Conservatively, there are about 1894 people working in type design; 191 working in the field of typography listed on the Internet; and I would be afraid to quote how many designers who daily overlook the necessity of good typography. There is a need to devote the time and effort in making good typography an essential part of executing any design project. The Herb Lubalins, Tom Carnases and Michael Dorets are people whom I have been inspired by and learned from through the years. To this day they and others contribute to my growing and learning.

With all this in mind, I have taken on personal projects involving type, like the alphabet series (see “Airplane,” above). It was originally created for the Corbis web site, which I have been associated with for several years. The alphabet series was designed with its intent to be used as posters, book illustrations, learning aids or whatever suitable applications the imagination of designers could conceive. It was an exercise that allowed me to project back to the basics of the alphabet integrating visuals and color in exploring the possibilities of incorporating type with graphics.

I experimented with the three elements that make up most projects: letterforms, colors and graphics. It was one of the more interesting and “fun” projects I have completed. I recommend reaching back into the past, forgetting about computers that demand too much of our attention and time, forgetting about deadlines and revisit the art of typography in the privacy of our creative minds and knowledge banks. Good typography is an art that demands attention to detail and dedication in seeing the letters in relationship to each other, space and form. A few tips may be in order (compare these to Susan Kirkland’s tips):

- Don’t mix more than three type styles in one page

- Use sans serif in titles and serif in body text

- Use italics sparingly

- Create contrast

- Don’t use display fonts or too many colors in body copy

- Don’t forget typography is supposed to make the text easier to read

- Use light colored backgrounds with black text for best readability.

Herb Lubalin said, “You can do a good ad without good typography, but you can’t do a great ad without good typography.” ­ From Seattle, my best to all in Houston and watch the kerning….Steve.

Thanks to Steve, now Senior Designer of GalleryPlayer, Inc. The company offers to the public high-resolution art and photography for big screens: rear projection, plasmas and LCDs. Currently, he is designing the packaging for the DVD, SD products and support materials for GalleryPlayer partners like The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; MoMA; and The de Young in San Francisco. He’s still involved in the Houston market with several of his original clients, and with good friends who enjoy his gumbo extravagantly.

Digital Spain

Barcelona is hot, with Europe's major annual mobile phone conference, the 3GSM World Congress, going on this week in Spain’s second city. Yahoo!, for example, has announced, for example, that it’s signed up top corporate advertisers to use its advertising system to run brand ads on mobile phones in 18 countries. Lots of exhibitors, like AdMob, are pushing the mobile marketplace hard as the place to advertise. (AdMob’s website shows an instantaneous update of ‘Live Ad Requests,’ which is compelling.)

A correspondent of mine, Paul Ashby, has just returned from a holiday in Spain – in a more restful portion of the country – and sent these brief notes along:

The advertising/marketing scene in Spain is, not surprisingly, remarkably similar to that in the rest of Europe. Online is attracting increased spend and the Spanish advertisers believe that that is because the key features which they are beginning to find attractive are:

1. It shows what works and doesn’t.
2. Accountability has driven success, driving further investment.

In Spain, as elsewhere, what has emerged is a market polarisation. An increasing number of marketers are committing significant resources to making a success of online business, while a bigger number have done little or nothing.

As one Spanish ad man said to me, “They’ve spent the past 10 years doing what worked…and now it doesn’t!”

The work ethos is taking hold in Spain, best expressed in this little story told me by my Spanish advertising friend, “Sell your soul. Make full use of your spare time; if you already have a second job, take on a third!”

One interesting theory emerging from Madrid is that digital and paper will retain their distinctive strengths and may often be able to promote each other, in other words, during the course of this year print and pixels can enjoy a symbiotic, profitable existence. Spanish agencies seem to be panicking now, desperate to associate themselves with digital. “Putting it at the heart of the company” and even putting it in their job titles.

One of Dialogue International newer members, BelowGroup, is cool enough. It has offices in Madrid, Barcelona and Sevilla, Spain; and Lisbon, Portugal. A look at its website will give you a visual hint (see its BeOn operation) about what’s happening with digital advertising on the Iberian Peninsula. I don’t know if any of the Below people are attending 3GSM this week…maybe they’ll send me an IM.

Paul Ashby, whose blog you can read here, has been pioneering interactive communication to the advertising and marketing community for 30 years. He intro’d the first regularly scheduled interactive game show sponsored by P&G, and has used interactive techniques in print, radio, TV, and direct mail. As a result, he’s built up a large body of experience and independent research that helps compare how effective interactive communication (properly executed) is to regular advertising. Thank you, Paul, for the contribution.

Consulting Tactician

Will you see a clip about a “consulting advertising tactician” on YouTube? No. Is there room in life for one more title? Maybe. Will you read about it here on my weblog? Yes.

After several years’ mulling, I have coined consulting advertising tactician as the best way to describe what I generally do for a living – It encompasses my “copywriting, advertising tactics and branding” language into a holistic approach. The new phrase knits my capabilities together and defines the value I add to my clients’ efforts.

Look at it from the top down. Clients (or good marketing agencies) are supposed to define business and marketing strategies. The whys and the wheres are strategic matters and should be decided at the upper levels of a corporation – even though they sometimes are not. In classic military thinking, a strategy is the art of using battles to win campaigns or entire wars, operating on a different scale: regional, national, global.

Strategies are absolutely necessary for tactics to have an enterprise-wide effect.

But frequently, the tactical plan needed to make the strategy a winning one goes missing. Sometimes, implementers jump directly to the tactics they know (ads, direct mail, events, brochures and so on) in the hopes that getting a sales message out in these forms will win the war. Sometimes, mid-level decision-makers don’t quite know how to develop a comprehensive approach to taking the strategy to market…or don’t realize that there may be new elements which can become powerful tactical weapons.

When “battles” are fought out individually, divorced from the strategy, without assembling the tactics into a strategically embracing campaign, there is no overall victory. Each battle may be successful: the direct mail campaign may have a terrific result; the webinar may pull in hundreds of participants. But the strategic effect is lost.

Nope, this isn’t a flashback to marketing warfare. Yep, companies recognize that something is missing. Agencies do too, which is why some people have titles like ‘strategic planner.” This term is vague; it’s never quite captured what the job is.

I am a tactical planner as well as an executor of the tactics themselves. It was one of my jobs as Creative Director for many years. Now, because I freelance, I’m a consultant.

So clients who have needed plans that connect their strategies to their tactical executions have called on me to develop these plans for them. A consulting advertising tactician does three things (at least, this one does).

First, fit together a company’s marketing objectives with an experienced and nuanced view of a particular market – and the customers at whom the tactics will be aimed.

Second, represent the customers’ human nature and the appeals of the company’s products or services to it.

Third, work directly with clients to produce a step-by-step plan for getting the strategy into the marketplace, define the nature and the timing of individual tactical elements and propose measurement of results.

Condensing consulting advertising tactician into an elevator statement isn’t immediately easy – but that’s one of my jobs as well. So consider this a work-in-progress. Stay tuned for the next development.

My thanks to War in the Age of Intelligent Machines, by Manuel de Landa. Photography © Photographer: Jonny Mccullagh Agency: Dreamstime.com

Be Silly

Today is Saturday. Do something with yourself. Be ridiculous. Get out of the house. Go on. Get!

Typeface Comedy

In “Invisible Numbers” here, I pointed a finger at architects and builders who delight in hiding street numbers, making them impossible to see while you’re driving by.

I also introduced myself (and you) to APHont, designed specifically by the American Printing House for the Blind for “low-vision” readers. It’s worth noting that APH doesn’t use this font on its own website. (And you should really take a peek at the Society of Typographic Aficionados’ site. It’s worse.) Paul Nini was subtle in his criticism about it, as you can read in the February 4 post. Which lead us to into the realm of type and design.

Designer/writer Susan Kirkland is very direct in “Tips on Type.”

Personal computers have lifted the barriers to copysetting and I know more than a few typographers who get their share of hearty laughs each time an award show goes up. The amateur typesetters are everywhere, sitting at their keyboards pecking away at the regression of professional typesetting. I hope when they see the new readable typeface for the visually impaired, it inspires them to take the lead and design something beyond APHont.

The “history” of type can be comically short. Designing type started just after the printing press was invented. Designing with type became an art form in the past couple of hundred years max, with particular emphasis on the last century. Wrecking a layout with bad type, ignoring the wise rules of type design: these have been with us forever. Sometimes it’s hanging right in front of us. If you can’t think of an immediate example of your own, just Google “bad typography.” The results are laughable – or downright ugly.

There’s no substitute for a talented eye on the font front. I’ll admit I’ve been lucky. I’ve worked with designers and art directors who genuinely cherish great type. Susan is one. Rosario Laudicina of Pensar LLC is another.

But just as the advent of “desktop publishing” empowered everyone to make their own brochures, the computer (as Susan says) makes miss-designing with type too easy. There are plenty of typefaces to go around and most of them are used badly. Learn the rules – or team up with a great designer – and produce outstanding creative.

To start with, read more about good type design in Susan’s recent post.

Patricia Breen Treat Seeker Ornament from Neiman-Marcus. No longer available, thank goodness.