Amidst injuries (Bruce Pugh, Crystal Peterson), travel (Stephanie Massler) and quitters (you know who you are), four from Doe completed the Kentucky Derby Festival Mini-Marathon last weekend: Bill Schelling (team Captain and ridiculously fast), Nick Ray (got beat by a girl), Brittany Campisano (beat a guy) and Lindsey Neely (fought through excruciating pain to finish the race). We all had great fun, are proud of our finishers and invite all other Doe friends and family (did you hear that Bethany?) to join us in our next challenge (to be announced).
Doe-Anderson is looking for a few good men and/or ladies for open positions in the Interactive Department. Before we give you the linkage we wanted to give you a feel for the type of folks you’d be working with so we threw together a quick video.
The Friends of Lou had their first gathering last night at the Kentucky Derby Festival for Glimmer on the Waterfront. About 200 of Louisville’s closest friends shared special Friends of Lou drinks, pulled pork, and some kind of chicken liver thing wrapped in bacon(?) all in a prime location near the stage. Really nicely done. The Louisville CVB’s Stacey Yates was the graceful hostess of ceremonies. The Bourbon Country tent provided perfect digs. Possibility City also showed off its “visitness” last night combining live music, hot air balloons, food-on-a-stick and our favorite bourbon. Hmmn…Shouldn’t Maker’s Mark should have a giant balloon? Better yet! A Maker’s Mark blimp! It could race Goodyear’s! Somebody get on that. But I digress…
Really a good time last night. Lots of different people just chillaxing. Good vibe. The VilleVoice showed up as well, but needed more booze. I’ll never argue that one. Louisville Photography Collective was out in force. They have lots of great pics. Check those out.
Free to a Good Home For Arbor Day, Doe-Anderson will be giving away mighty Oaks that from tiny acorns have grown. Okay, they’re not quite mighty yet (we didn’t have room for the full-grown kind), but they’re well on their way and just need good homes. We’ve got 50 or so for anyone who would like to give back to the earth on this special day. Some of our fellow earth-friendly employees will be handing out these sweet saplings outside of our building at 620 West Main from noon till 1 on Friday, April 25th, Arbor Day!
We’ll be tracking the progress of these saplings right here on our blog, so check back now and again to see what the little guys are up to. Happy Arbor Day!
Nice article by the way from the Courier Journal. “Mighty oaks from little acorns grow,” indeed!
3:35pm….And in the words of President Dubya, “Mission accomplished!”
This blog comes from Ireland and near the end of the Ray-Ray world tour.
Notes scribbled on various bar napkins.
1. Still possible to find the Ireland I fell in love with 30 yrs hence you’ve just got to drive a bit futher out of the ‘big’ cities to do it. Warm engaging people who want to meet you and chat it up over a pint.
2. Pubs are better since u can’t smoke in them.
3. Speaking of smoke, its still possible to catch a whiff of a peat fire in the morning air if u get up early.
4. You know you’re in the true Ireland when you ask the desk clerk what time the news agent opens, and she says, “Oh they open sharply @ 8 but I’d give them til 8:15.”
5. You gotta love folks who proudly serve a porridge for b’fast with ‘whisky, cream and honey’ all mixed in. Bringing back the recipe if I can.
The auto crime prevention program was announced by Mayor Abramson in March. Doe creatives envisoned fake parking tickets to be placed on unlocked cars (the most common reason for car theft) to deter criminals and remind owners to lock their doors. The ticket quickly explains that this isn’t a real ticket which is a welcome surprise and intrigues them to read on for the ticket’s actual purpose. On the reverse side, the ticket provides tips for preventing auto thefts. Initially 10,000 tickets were printed for distribution. The program has been so successful that LMPD has asked for an additional 50,000 tickets.
Earlier this month, Doe-Anderson was recognized at the annual police awards banquet and received the Community Service Award for campaign work for 574-LMPD, the police information and anonymous tips line. The campaign includes the fake parking tickets, bus shelter posters, and life-size criminal stand-up displays with the message, “If criminals were this easy to spot, we wouldn’t need you. 574-LMPD.”
574-LMPD has been an incredibly successful program for the Louisville Police. Doe-Anderson was enlisted to help spread the word even further.
Finally have sat down long enough to both reset my time zone clock and collect a few thoughts.
We have no, zero, nada, zip, understanding of the influence we have. The American subprime mess is having a ripple effect across the globe of monstrous proportions. It is damn near the lead story no matter where you look. Major story in the Asian Times talks about how the mess has caused millions of small investors in the China exchanges to be wiped out. I think the metaphor used to be “when we cough the world catches the flu”. Today the metaphor might better read, “when we flush, the rest of the world gets dirty”. My fear is that we might be on our way from respect and aspiration to being scorned and reviled. Yes I understand that it has to do with massive global greed and stupidity but it gets played out as a failure of America, not complicated financial instruments.
America brands are writ large. This morning over breakfast in a Tokyo restaurant (in the smoking section-it was great) I sat between a couple with an eastern-European accent and an South African gentleman. After breakfast all four of us lit up Marlboros - different health warning languages though. Taking my constitutional later I walked to the nearby Starbucks where I found the same three people. Apparently “Grande cappuccino mocha, latte, half-soy non-GMO foam” is now part of the global vocabulary.
Singapore is clean and very orderly. Well duh!
Watching the Masters and listening to Japanese commentators is weird beyond description. The one word I could understand was Tiger (no last name).
There is a Denny’s right across the street from me. It’s funny though (after our experience across the river that day we picked up Todd); I haven’t even the slightest desire to cross. Here I am, damn near half way around the world, in search of a little bit of Americana, and won’t go there because of what happened in one location in southern Indiana. A brand experience is still a brand experience no matter where you are
The BBC is boring and pedantic and smug.
No news about Brittany Spears, Kevin Federline, Paris Hilton, Barry Bonds, Nicole Ritchie, American Idol, Pacman Jones, (insert other names here) is REALLY REALLY good news.
Later this year, I’ll be co-authoring MARKET SMART: The Best in Age and Gender-Specific Design, pubished by HarperCollins. You can contribute work to be featured in the book. Visit marketsmartdesignbook.com.
I’ll be joining Dr. Daniel Acuff, President, Youth Marketing Systems Consulting; Dave Siegel, President, WonderGroup; and Jim Gilmartin, President, Coming of Age, Inc., who are each contributing an introduction and oversight on a chapter focused on marketing to kids, tweens, and boomers respectively.
My chapter will focus on marketing to Generation X, that skeptical group who were somehow conceived after the widespread use of “The Pill” in the early 60’s. Gen Xers are sometimes called “Busters” for busting up the Boomers’ freedom party that resulted from the demographic tsunami that landed on home shores after WWII.
Generation X seems to be best identified with believing they’ve inherited the problems left by the Baby Boomers. They generally have birth dates sometime between 1964 and 1985.
If you were born during those years, I’d love to know what people, gadgets and events most influenced you early in life.
Born in 1966, I most recall Nixon’s resignation, the end of the Vietnam war, The Miami Dolphins, O.J. Simpson as a football hero, Ali and Cossell, Dr. J, being a latchkey kid, Disco, Nixon, The Exorcist, Jaws, Star Wars, Rocky, Pong, The Pet Rock, MTV, CB radio, video games, the Iranian hostage ordeal, Reagan and an actual computer with floppy disks and a blinking green cursor, in our home. Robots and flying cars couldn’t be far behind. I’m still waiting.
Last weekend the Doe-Anderson Running Group completed the Papa John’s 10-Miler (the final race in the Triple Crown Running Event). Our healthy crew included Bill Schelling (coach extraordinaire and amazing runner), Nick Ray, Brittany Campisano, Crystal Peterson, Lindsey Neely and Stephanie Massler (ever so grateful to be running with this young group). We began our training on a bitterly cold January day when the temperature was about 20 degrees. (Note the very attractive photo.) The next challenge for our running group is the Kentucky Derby Festival Mini-Marathon on April 26th.
Judging for the 6th District’s ADDYs competition takes place on Friday and Saturday, so I’ll be headed to Muncie, Indiana to wade through a few hundred silver and gold entries from the local shows. The AAF 6th District comprises Michigan, Illinois, and Indiana.
[If you’re wondering, judges are recruited from other districts for some semblance of objectivity. That’s not a problem for the local shows. Earlier this year for instance, I judged the Dayton Advertising Association show (extremely well-run by the way), which happens to be in our own 5th District comprising Ohio, Kentucky, and West Virginia.]
I’m told the great thing about judging the 6th District Region is all the great ideas coming out of Chicago and Detroit. A former Windy City creative myself, I know how strong that market is. Meanwhile, the Detroit market is centered around the automotive industry and we all know what a blood bath it’s been there recently — which brings me back to the ADDYs.
The ADDYs competition is like WWI compared with what happens at CA, Cannes and OneShow (see our favorite sites to the right). Think of the ADDYs as a war of attrition. The best work has to survive the local, regional, and national judges to collect the industry’s top honors.
Unfortunately this process also means that some brilliant, but suspect work occasionally gets Simon Cowelled. It’s just like American Idol. You’ve got three judges so unfortunately that means a single judge can torpedo something they don’t like. The whole name of the game is “Don’t Get Eliminated Early.” You just want your work to get a chance at the nationals.
I think of it this way. It’s like getting a job in any hot creative department. Your portfolio is fighting against dozens of others. The dirty little secret of ECDs is that because we’re so busy, we’re looking for any reason (not to hire candidates, but) to eliminate them. That way we can get to the top three to five books quickly, do the interviews, and try to make it home before midnight.
An ECD wants to see great work, but we’re really just trying to separate what’s good from what’s great.The book that only has six pieces (but which are ALL stellar) will win over the book with 15 pieces because that book also includes four pieces influenced by illegal substances. There’s just too much to look at. There’s just not enough time these days for simply “good” work.
So, what’s the secret of judging a show like the ADDYs — or a portfolio (– or something furry and soft in your refrigerator)?
