What did her achievement entail?

1. On-the-spot creativity –Competitors don’t even know what they are designing until the timer starts.
2. Quick Action – Competitors only have 45 minutes to create a masterpiece.
3. Over-the-shoulder pressure –Spectators circulate around designers, watching their design process.
4. Favoritism –the audience determines the final winner by vote.

This year’s competition was designing a poster to raise awareness of the nonprofit, Imagination Library, which encourages youth and their parents to read more. Competitors use computers loaded with Adobe InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop to create their 8.5 x 11 design.

Laura took the word “Imagination” from the nonprofit’s name to inspire the visuals in her design, from the words to colors and images. Her youthful, energetic design is attention grabbing for all ages, while promoting the organization’s benefits and mission.

In addition to personal gratification, Laura received a $200 gift card to the Apple Store. Congratulations Laura! We know you can handle any design hot seat with your cutting-edge, creative capabilities.

Pinterest is one of the hottest new trends in social media and the marketing world is now starting to catch on to it’s potential.  This “virtual inspiration board” has been gaining popularity among women and has big potential for brands with this target market.

Pinterest earned a spot on Time magazine’s “50 Best Websites of 2011” list and attracted 17.8 million monthly unique visitors in the U.S in February 2012 (which is up more than 4,000 percent from unique visitors last May – that’s right, four thousand percent), according to comScore Inc.  Site visitors spend an average of an hour, so it is only natural that savvy marketers are finding ways to integrate it into their social strategies.

The key to successfully marketing on pin boards is to downplay traditional promotions and use it as a way to tell a larger story, the bigger picture.  Connect your brand’s pins to similar areas of interest, inspirations and images of your target market, and throw a product or two in the mix to keep it relevant.  Pinterest is a place for customers to explore, dream and organize, so be sure to align your strategy with the same thought processes.

To track Pinterest success, watch your number of followers, likes, comments and “repins” and keep your boards updated and current. Welcome to the new world of window shopping.

For more information, visit pinterest.com

As a program of the Anchorage Chamber of Commerce, the Athena Society is a local chapter of an international organization dedicated to:
- supporting, developing and honoring women leaders,
- inspiring women to achieve their full potential, and
- creating balance in leadership worldwide.

To encourage the potential of women as valued members and leaders of our local business community, the Anchorage chapter added 11 new members to their already impressive roster, honoring Margie Brown of CIRI with the Athena Award for 2012.

As the bios were read of the new Athena inductees, I leaned over to Christine Klein of Calista, a member of Athena herself, and asked how in the world do these women find the time to do all that they do. The list of organizations and causes to which they dedicated energy, time and emotion to was endless. I was exhausted just listening, and of course, impressed. I left the room wanting to be a more productive member of society, a more involved citizen and a better mother, sister and friend.

Social Media Statistics 2012

Communication Through the Ages

Texting Trends

Timing of Email Marketing

The Social Media Effect

How are Mobile Phones Changing Social Media?

Everything That Happens In One Day On The Internet

LogoLounge is a must-have resource for inspiration. The goal of LogoLounge is to create a more efficient way for designers to find reference materials for logos. The online database is searchable by keywords, client and industry – making it easy to find exactly what you’re looking for to help jumpstart your creative project. And knowing what your client’s competitor’s logos look like sure is smart, too!

Logolounge.com

I’m sure you have all heard the buzzword ‘teamwork’ many times, and probably felt it to be overused. We all remember the college ‘team’ projects where one person wound up with the majority of the work-load, and the rest drank a few beers and played video games. It doesn’t work that way at Solstice – teamwork really does work.

It starts simply . . . with a client, and sometimes with a defined need. What we do is bring everything to the team and organize a kick-off meeting. Everyone comes to the table prepared, ready to throw out their best and worst ideas for the team to review. We laugh, we kick-back (sans the beers and video games) and analyze each idea. When we all walk out feeling like we have a winner, the work begins. The result is a concept that can be developed into a successful deliverable.

Literally working in the same room, side-by-side, the real work ensues. Copy begins the process, followed by art and it’s all mixed with account management.

It works, obviously.

Thank you PRSA – we like it when our work is acknowledged.

From a copy perspective, creating a holiday card can be fun but also challenging. As our world has become more diverse in ideas and beliefs, it’s important that you say something meaningful and warming without potentially offending the recipient.

Here are some tips for writing a business holiday card message for a mass audience:

• I like the word “holidays” because it’s generic enough to cover all celebrations. Words like “Christmas” and “blessings” may be too controversial.
• Try to connect your greeting with your visuals. For example, if you use a picture of a sunset or fireplace, write a greeting that incorporates those elements in it: “Wishing you a warm and bright new year!”
• Try to acknowledge the recipient in some way, whether it’s thanking them for their business, hard work or their existence.
• And of course always have someone look over your copy to check for spelling or grammar errors.

Be sure to check out some of the holiday cards Solstice designed for clients this year:

I LOVE Anchorage! After four years of living here, I’m still in the honeymoon stage. That’s why when Solstice was asked to help the Anchorage Economic Development Corporation (AEDC) create a new brand for their Live. Work. Play. campaign, I was more than ecstatic to put my passion for this place into some promotional design. For those that are unfamiliar with the campaign, the goal of it is to have Anchorage recognized as the No. 1 U.S. city to live, work and play in by 2025.

After the Solstice team met with AEDC and did some secondary research, the client’s needs were identified and a game plan was devised. As a designer at Solstice, when we are given new projects, we are also granted the creative freedom to generate unique designs that meet the client’s goals. We generally try to present them with one design concept that’s comfortable, while also providing additional design options that position their brand in a new, refreshing and cutting-edge way.

After getting internal design feedback on our branding ideas, we were able to provide the AEDC with three impressive, on-target comps (mock-ups) for the client’s review.

The following are the three original concepts for the new Live. Work. Play. brand. You can click on each logo to view the associated mood board, which provides a peak into how each brand could have been fully developed.

It was a tough decision for the AEDC, but they were eventually won over by the simplicity of Option C. They were convinced that the carefully selected colors, fonts and graphic selection would really resonate with their target audience and represent Anchorage in a powerful way. The creative process for the campaign branding worked really well, with terrific client input and final delivery.

The chosen Live. Work. Play. brand was unveiled at the AEDC’s annual luncheon meeting on November 9, 2011.

While 2025 is a long way off, I will continue to love this city and do what I can to keep making it No. 1.

It was nice chatting with folks at the Alaska Marketing Association today about Word of Mouth Marketing. If you missed it — here is the powerpoint.

Word of Mouth: Talkable and Spreadable Brands

Thank you,

Lincoln Garrick

You know how when you access a beautifully designed site from your phone, but it’s completely useless because it was designed for your full screen?  That’s where responsive design comes in. Those programmers should make the site responsive to the type of device from which it is being accessed. Here’s a great link about the value of responsive design:

http://www.webmonkey.com/2011/09/the-boston-globe-embraces-responsive-design/

I’d like to take credit for finding this great link, but alas, I was busy trying to research a new tablet. You can thank Scott at SA for this great find.

Here’s how it works: Last week I was detained by a personal obligation for a good portion of the morning, and had scheduled a rather pressing client meeting for immediately after the lunch hour. When I finally raced to the office around noon (without technically breaking any speeding laws, because I wasn’t caught), the entire team had prepared me for my meeting, complete with copy edits, graphic presentations and management oversight. I basically had to walk in and everything was done – that’s how it is supposed to work, and that’s how it does work at Solstice. We communicate continuously and fluidly, which provides a great benefit to our clients through a work system that that combines and capitalizes on the strength of each employee. It’s good for business, and great for employee morale. What more could you ask for? (insert happy face here)

Returning one year later for my second summer internship, Solstice Advertising is a completely different agency. I expected the company to be relatively the same as the year before in terms of size and work, but actually the company had undergone a complete overhaul. Solstice has tripled in size since last year and they are growing their business by serving new clients in a variety of industries.

At first, I thought advertising was just showing commercials and putting ads in newspapers to sell various items. With my new Solstice Advertising summer experience I had this year, I learned that there is much more to advertising than just commercials and newspaper ads. I learned that it’s a partnership where a company puts their trust in an advertising agency to create an image they want to portray, or creating a brand that will represent their company accurately.

I think that great advertising is when an agency is able to accurately create an image or brand based off of the client’s wants and needs, and present the client’s brand or image to their intended audience successfully.

The rapid growth Solstice has undergone in a short amount of time shows me that they are doing something right. Solstice is committed to constant improvement and growing to meet the needs of all their current and prospective clients.

I ran across a viral video series that I fell in love with and couldn’t wait to share with as many people as I could.  These videos were visual, impactful and inspiring all within one short minute of my time.  Being an account executive, I thought to myself, “If only more companies utilized this formula and inspired people to do something that can impact their lives in a positive way through advertising.  Set aside the negativity, the stereotyping, and the ‘noise’ and think of what could come of that.”

Hoping to find a deeper association to these videos, I was pleased to find out they were commercials!   STA Travel, the world’s largest student and youth travel agency, sent three travelers around the world in six weeks to put together three, one-minute spots to inspire the masses.  Do you think it works?  It certainly inspires me to “Move, Learn, and Eat” regardless of my student status.

http://youtu.be/-BrDlrytgm8

http://youtu.be/Xc0d510zTA4

http://youtu.be/EcOgjrRWx_Q

Many of us know that YouTube is a great place to view and share videos with others.  Old Spice is a company that launched their video into the social media world and succeeded with brand awareness. “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” was a campaign that succeeded in making their brand stand out and be easily memorable.  “In the first 24 hours, this video had six million video views. This number of video views is more than Obama’s Victory Speech video, Bush Dodges Shoes, and Susan Boyle’s video”, according to Mashable.com.

Isaiah Mustafa is Old Spice’s spokesperson who made their videos humorous and interesting. After seeing this video, people wanted to be him, look like him, and women wanted their men to smell or look like him. Check out how this has evolved with Fabio at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUvBTb-0lH8.

The Wall Street Journal’s Web page displayed this campaign video but with commentary afterwards also. The interview grasps the essence of what made this campaign so successful and why Old Spice is on everyone’s mind.

Using an icon such as Isaiah Mustafa, was a favorable move for Old Spice because people already know who he is as an ex-NFL player. What is interesting about this ad, is that it didn’t become famous from broadcast TV, but rather from the ad going viral on the internet through social media. This video took a normal everyday product that has been on the shelves for years and turned it into something new, exciting, and reviving without anything more than a man talking about Old Spice in a unique way.

Jack Neff from Advertising Age in 2010 said, “Yet the recent viral-video successes of a marketer legendary for finding and relentlessly institutionalizing winning formulas suggests one does exist and that it’s been discovered. P&G’s Old Spice and Isaiah Mustafa videos have been this year’s viral phenomenon. But beyond that, Old Spice has had Mustafa-free videos hit the top 10 in Visible Measures and Ad Age’s weekly viral-video chart.”

It is obvious that Old Spice took an ordinary, everyday product and turned it into an enjoyable experience. This is what companies look for when making videos and ads, and it is something that is even harder to grasp in the social media world, but the Old Spice Company has done just that. They have grasped the audience’s attention and everyone just wants to see more.

Even though it has been almost a year since the first video was launched, it is still topping the charts. According to Techprone.com in its 10 Best Social Media Campaigns, the “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” campaign is ranked at number two for 2011.” It is amazing that even after over a 180+ videos have been released through social media, the audience still is anticipating when the next Old Spice ad will come out.

Jonathan Salem Baskin from Advertising Age summarizes the Old Spice campaign perfectly: “The Old Spice campaign is the latest variation on this very old idea, with some important caveats. It isn’t classified as commercial, but rather social, so there’s no message at the end like ‘ Shoot the brute some Old Spice.’ It riffs on its own prior creative content, so it’s not really about the brand as much as about the brand’s branding and giving entertainment to in-the-know viewers. It’s an inside joke, really.”

Old Spice is of course just one company who has successfully used a spokesperson as their icon to revitalize their brand. Old Spice is no longer looked at as something for dad or grandpa, but as something everyone should want to use everyday. Their brand is memorable and is looked forward to in the social media world.  It just goes to show that branding is important for the most effective social media world.

Evolution is a constant in the world of social media. When I was in junior high, Tagged was the hip social media site, then it was Myspace, then Facebook, then Twitter … There seems to be little product loyalty with these sites, as the majority of people tend to abandon their site of choice as soon as something new comes out. It’s probably half trend and half dissatisfaction. I stopped using Myspace because the pages took too long to load – there were errors on people’s pages because of all the additional material they were uploading, increased site advertising and viruses. I didn’t jump right on the Facebook bandwagon, but its user-friendly intuitive design eventually won me over.

Now I’ve been introduced to Google+. It looks as though Google doesn’t want to be known just for being a search engine any longer, it’s now diving into the networking world and looks to give Facebook a big competitive kick.

Two weeks ago, Google leaked a mini-launch, kind of like Gmail did years ago, allowing people to only join if they’ve been invited. The trick is, however, those who are signing on to Google+ can only invite a certain number of people (originally they couldn’t invite anyone) – it is invitation-only from the top.

VP of Product at Google, Bradley Horowitz, recently commented on the TechCrunch site that Google was going to roll out the new Google+ very slowly.

“We launched Google+ in a Field Trial in order to test the product out and gather more feedback,” said Horowitz. “As part of the Field Trial, we may open and close Google+ to new users at any time. We’re psyched so many people are interested in trying out a new approach to online sharing.”

And it does seem to be a very new approach. I’ve had a peek into the new site – and Facebook should probably be concerned. Google+ offers all the things one would expect of a social networking site, along with an array of new features, like “circles” and “hangouts.” It’s a site that might turn out to be more than just posting pictures and updating a status – it is potentially a true social networking site.

As many people seem to be twitting, messaging and blogging: Google+ is not necessarily about mass sharing, but rather sharing with a targeted audience – particular social groups. This system is called Circles. What’s great about Circles is that the focus of the targeted groups will be more effective than letting friends and friends of friends in on what you are doing. To date, no social media outlet has created a very successful friends list and that might be what helps Google+ leap over its competition. Circles also has some great little additives, like allowing you to click and drag your friends to different lists, and an easy drag away that deletes them from a friends list. Wow! Un-friending made easy!

Circles is not the only feature that Google+ will have available, it will also allow users the ability to have group video chats with up to 10 people at once, downloadable apps for your phone, and much more.

Since you’re sure to be invited to Google+ eventually, you ought to be hip to the new verbiage:

• Circles: This allows you to create special targeted groups of people. You can have a circle of just family members, another circle for just friends, one for followers, and another for acquaintances. This feature will likely allow you to have a more personal connection with some while keeping a more professional connection with others.
• Hangout: This is a video group chat feature. (“Wanna hang out?” Just became a confusing request.) This allows you to chat with those who are in your circles. If you are in one circle chatting with that group, the whole group will have the option to group chat. There can be up to 10 people on the hangout at once, but once someone leaves the chat, another person in your circle can join in. It is a lot like group conferencing, but with friends and in a more personal way.
• +1 Button: Just like the Facebook button you see on most web pages today, this will allow others to share articles, posts, etc. on their Google+ profile. This is the feature where the competition could start to get sticky with Facebook because it is all about analytics.
• Sparks: A very interesting and creative feature, Sparks is a place on Google+ where you can enter your interests and the site will find you information that it believes you would like to see based on your interests.
• Huddle: This is a smart phone feature. It allows you chat with those who are in your circles, but from your phone instead of the computer.

There is sure to be more terminology to arise from this new site. In my effort to stay hip and with it, I’ll stay in the know and report back on it right here on my Solstice blog.

Here is a humorous take on the situation: http://holykaw.alltop.com/google-vs-facebook-comic?tu3=1