Ant Hill Marketing

Saturday was what I would call a Win-Win-Win day. From 8:00 a.m. to midnight, Siobhan and I were at the Art Institute of Portland for their annual web raising event. For those of you who don’t know what the web raising event is — it is basically a barn raising for websites.  Each year, AI schools around the country select a local non-profit organization, gathers a team of volunteer students, and develops a website in a day.

This was the first time an agency has been involved and it elevated the event to a new level, allowing students to see the brand we developed for the client and what they have to work with for the site development. Ant Hill guided AI students to build a website for our client Virginia Garcia Memorial Health Centers.

The day was long. I’m talking really long. But it was a really exciting day. The students worked so hard and developed an amazing site that will help Virginia Garcia communicate their core mission and brand. At midnight, the site was about 95 percent completed but wasn’t quite ready to go live, so we will be picking the development back up next Saturday to finish the site.

If you want to see a play-by-play of the event, just check out the twitter stream.

Here are a few photos from the day.

The schedule. (Crazy)

Morning food spread.

Teamwork in action.

Reviewing first set of designs.

Shiv chowing down on some Webraising food.

We look forward to seeing the final results next weekend!

-Erin

Can’t deny that we’re going through a digital revolution. We see and hear so many messages today it’s no wonder many suffer from communication breakdown. But where is it all going and what implications do these new (and future) digital tools have on people? On business? On our communities?

This evolution is visualized in a most insightful digital ethnography video titled, The Machine is Us/ing Us by Michael Wesch, a professor of cultural anthropology at Kansas State University (he’s also on Twitter @mwesch). Turn up the volume and watch it. Closely. What you see will make you think.

Companies spend a considerable amount of time and energy differentiating their products and services from their competition. But often times they fail to follow through with the imagery they choose to represent themselves.

Take these images from two successful brands:

iMac product shot. Photo courtesy of Apple.

Apple: The style is modern. The tone is cutting edge and clean. Obviously a computer for the rest of us.

adidas Soccer Ad

adidas: Style and tone combine to show the passion, individuality and action of sport.

Picture perfect.

We’ve all heard the adage “A picture is worth 1000 words.” Its true. The style, tone and subject of imagery all say something about a brand. And if you want the most out of an image – that “something” needs to support what your brand stands for. Not to mention that there is nothing more embarrassing for a brand manager (or a designer) than having your ad show up with the same stock photo as your competitor.

Granted that original art doesn’t come cheap, even for large companies, especially when measured as just one line item when developing one piece of collateral. But, when you consider its value to the overall image of a brand, its an investment for the long run. Original artwork also gives you the ultimate control over the message behind the image and adds to the uniqueness of a brand. The right image and visual language of a photo will communicate, engage and identify with your audience in ways that words can’t.

So I ask you dear reader, how have you made the case for original art? And what do you do when you can’t?

Last night Jon and I attended the “Working in a Creative Economy” event that was put on by the University of Oregon. (I am a Beaver, so it was a bit hard to step inside the White Stag building (which I admit is beautiful) and be immersed in Duck land… but I survived.)

The event was a panel discussion on how those in the creative industry can/should deal with the current economic situation on a personal and business level.  The panelists included Jolie Giese from Nau/Horny Toad, Randy Higgins from Vizwerks, Steve Potestio from 52 Limited, and Susan Hoffman from W+K.

Overall, it was actually a really inspiring event. The attendance was huge (over 100 people) which is telling of how relevant the topic was. What I took away from it is a reminder that we all need to come together as a creative community and work with each other to help strengthen the industry as a whole. There was also a lot of great discussion about Oregon Creative Industries (OCI) and the work they are doing to try and unify the voice for the creative economy (creative services is one player) and give us a seat at the table.  It’s tough times for a lot of people and agencies, but it’s also helping our industry realize that we need to support each other to remain a viable part of the economy.

Plus there were also some good laughs…Susan Hoffman threw out the F’bomb a few times and got the crowd energized.

-Erin

That oh so memorable soundtrack at 10:00 p.m. tells you to hold on and get ready for the one hour adrenaline rush through the eyes of our favorite Chicago emergency room. Who knew that this one hour slot of time was to turn into a TV and cultural phenomenon? In fact, several networks passed up on the ER pilot believing its mastermind, the late (and great) Michael Crichton, to be out of his Jurassic Park. Why would anyone want to watch an hour of drama focused on what goes on in an ER? The previously successful hospital primetime program was St. Elsewhere but that was more of a sitcom mix. This was something entirely different and the networks didn’t really know (or understand) what to do with ER. In the end, NBC bit (but not at first blush) hoping for another L.A. Law or Hill Street Blues.  What they got was much more.

Fast forward 15 years, 122 Emmy nominations, 22 Emmy awards, and we’re at the end of a very long (and profitable) series. ER’s developers, producers, actors, directors – the entire program team redefined the TV drama. One of the best program brands today. They didn’t take a cookie-cutter approach and try to pigeon-hole their script into an existing program format. They took risks. Were consistent. Had passion. Were courageous.  And built community.

Businesses might learn from ER’s success. Think about it. Do you have a distinction in your market? Are you unique? And do you have a community that supports you both internally and externally? In today’s extremely difficult marketplace, businesses must be true to their brand. While the business and CEO mantra today is retrench, it should be step up. Now is the time to take stock in your brand, readdress it and see if it is truly the valuable asset it should be.

So CEOs, business owners and marketers alike, when you sit down tonight to watch the final episode of this 15-year run, before you flatline, ask yourself, “Is my brand dying?” And, more importantly, “What am I going to do about it.”