Relive the fun

The party’s over. But the celebration continues.

We’re still buzzing about our recent soirée and are so happy so many of you could join us.

It’s hard to believe 20 years have passed. But then I remember being one of the first agencies to go “digital,” with a MacIntosh SE with 2 MB of Ram and a 20 MB hard drive. I remember buying our first fax machine.  I remember drafting tables and amberlith and rubylith and non-repro blue.

Without a doubt, our world has gotten even more colorful, as anyone who’s ever visited our offices can attest.

So today we start storing memories for the next twenty years. The first ones to go into the memory bank? These great photos from our Twentieth Anniversary Celebration. And yes, we included some food shots for those who asked.

We hope you enjoy the slideshow. And we hope that those who couldn’t be with us can still share in the fun.

To all of you, thanks for your support and friendship in helping us reach this milestone.

So I don’t have to

I have been a lifelong fan of the Scrubbing Bubbles®.  You know the guys, the helmeted bubbles with the bristle legs who march in formation eliminating your bathtub grime, who do the work so you don’t have to! What an awesome identity and campaign that has endured for 30+ years.

Last night I saw a new commercial for one of their shower products that made me laugh out loud (I am amused easily.)  It made me think about this brand, this long-lasting campaign that I think is really brilliant.

The animated mascot charmed me as a child.  I really wanted my mom to buy the product so I could watch the cartoon bubbles do their magic.  The mascot gives a great warm personality to bathroom cleaners, surely some of the least-glamorous products on the household goods market.

I am a loyal consumer of Scrubbing Bubbles, and I think it’s mainly because of their commercials.  I don’t know if it’s the best product on the market, or the most price competitive.  As a child it was the mascot that drew me in, as an adult it’s the allure of the tagline “We work hard so you don’t have to.”  I love that! They must know that I really don’t want to work hard to keep my shower clean.

To this day, when I spray the foam on the shower wall, the child in me envisions a league of happy bubbles scrubbing away with those bristly legs.  Doing the work so I don’t have to.

So now I wonder, what products or services choices do you make because of advertising?  Please share your story in the comments.

Crisis communications when there’s a storm on the horizon.

I was so impressed last weekend with the crisis communications executed by Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana.  After watching him speak for just five minutes, even I knew what his key messages were.

Today I have been working with our client TriSure to share some important communications to help their clients prepare for Hurricane Hanna that is approaching North and South Carolina.  It’s true that preparing for a possible insurance claim is too easy to overlook while you’re busy protecting your assets and gathering provisions for your family, friends and pets.

There are a few pointers on their web site at http://www.trisure.com/hurricane.html that will help not only TriSure’s clients, but also businesses throughout North Carolina manage their risk and expedite the claims process.

As TriSure told its clients today: Prepare for Hurricane Hanna.  Keep an eye on Ike.

It’s all about positioning

As someone who spent her formative childhood years growing up in Orlando in Mickey Mouse’s shadow, I simply ADORE Disney World. I love every cheesy, magical and aggravating thing about the place and try to visit at least once a year. My parents and I just went with our 3-year-old daughter, Katherine.

When we checked into our offsite resort, the front-desk receptionist notified us that the complex now levies a $10-per-day fee for “resort amenities.”  Mom – who doesn’t like surprises, especially about money – demanded a full accounting of said amenities. The receptionist obviously heard the request before because she promptly whipped out a card listing details.

At the top of the list was “complimentary self-parking.”

That’s right – we were paying to park our car for free.

The list went downhill from there – maid service, cable TV, clean towels, free local phone calls. The same amenities any self-respecting Hampton Inn in the United States provides gratis.

My mom grumbled about the $10 daily amenities fee for the rest of the trip. Now, had the resort just charged $10 more per night without labeling it an “amenities fee” and boasting about free parking and clean towels, she wouldn’t have cared one whit. But because the resort positioned the fee as buying us something special – that really wasn’t special – she felt ripped off.

Companies, give your customers credit for being intelligent and discerning beings who are capable of knowing that paying to park one’s car for free isn’t an amenity.

FYI – I answer emails

I recently received an email marketing message from a local Public Relations professional. In this message, she touts her public relations expertise and says she’ll be sending out a series of short messages with a “PR Secret” once a day for the next four days. Her message ends with this sentence:

As always, please feel free to send me an email if you have any questions.

I recognized the name, and was reminded of a recent newspaper article whereby this same person tells us her system for managing and replying to email.

In the article, she bemoans email, saying that she must do something to manage the more than 500 pieces of mail she receives per day. So, she has chosen to respond to email only three times per week, and publicizes this by adding a message to her email signature: “In an effort to maximize my personal productivity … I will be addressing email messages only three times a week.”

I immediately smile. Isn’t it funny that a person who not only subscribes to this theory, but pitches her story about it to the local media, has chosen to execute an email marketing campaign as part of her business development efforts? And that we should feel free to send her an email if we have any questions?

Being in the marketing and public relations business myself, I believe that communication in all its forms is critical to the success of our firm – and to any firm in the PR and Marketing business. And that includes email. If we were to stop responding to email on a regular basis, I doubt we could do our jobs effectively or efficiently.

I did get the additional emails with the “PR Secrets,” and as I was writing this, I went back and re-read them. I wasn’t surprised to see that none of the “secrets” had to do with consistency of message.