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A Real Life Pitch – Part 2
It’s fun to get an inside look at what an agency goes through when pitching a new client, isn’t it? Perhaps more fun though, is seeing all the great ideas that are created for a pitch, many of which never see the light of day.
In our first post, we shared just some of the work developed for CaroMont Health, in our (successful!) efforts to win their business.
Next we would like to share some work we did as part of an RFP for UNC Pembroke, back in early 2010.
The main goal of the RFP was to create a recruitment campaign that would increase inquiries, applications and enrollment. This was a really fun RFP, because the school had fully embraced social media (still new to some smaller schools at that point in time), so we were able to come up with lots of integrated ideas to try and attract students. One idea you’ll see in the creative asked prospective students to personalize a mini cooper online and share with their friends, for a chance to win a real mini cooper of their own.
It was also really important that we positioned UNCP in the right way. The university offers an extremely attractive college experience for many students: small class size, personal attention from faculty, low cost and cultural diversity; yet it is often a “back-up” choice for many students. Our goal was to try and make UNCP a “first choice” school by highlighting the personalized nature of the education and positioning UNCP as a university that offered high quality education in an easy to manage environment.
A Real Life Pitch – Part 1
Ever since AMC announced its new show, The Pitch, all of us at Saturday have been eagerly awaiting TV-land’s latest foray into the ad world. For those of you not familiar with the show, The Pitch is a docu-drama that follows two advertising agencies as they compete to win a piece of business from a major brand, like Subway. The first episode aired this past Monday – and for the most part, we’re hooked.
Since the show aired, the blog world has exploded with reviews of the show. While we could certainly add our own two cents into conversation, that’s not what this post is about. Rather, we’d like to share some of our own personal pitch experience over the course of several blogs. This includes work we’ve developed for pitches that never saw the light of day beyond the original presentation. Read more…
Saturday Gets Political
We typically try and avoid “politics in public” but this year one of the candidates for District Court Judge is a close friend of Saturday’s and we’re showing our support the best way we know how.
We worked closely with Kary Watson to develop her brand identity, and also partnered with her on all of her marketing efforts, including social media, direct mail, event invitations and signage.
With early voting underway (find out more here), we wanted to share the work we’ve done so far…and give Kary a small plug while we’re at it. She really is the best candidate for the job, a fact that was echoed by the North Carolina Bar Association who gave Kary the highest rating in legal ability and overall highest rating of all candidates running.
Vote Kary Watson for District Court Judge on May 8 (or before)!
Introducing the 2012 Cabarrus County Fair Theme
Since the mid 1950′s the North Carolina State Fair has used a creative and catchy theme as a way to draw attention to the fair (you can see a full list of themes here). The idea has been adopted by fairs near and far, including our own client, Cabarrus County fair.
Last year we reminded folks just how much fun could be had at the fair with “Bunchafun.” Bright colors, catchy slogans and some cool social media extensions, like a “bunchalingo” twitter campaign, the campaign was literally a bunch of fun. And thanks to near record attendance, despite bad weather, a success to boot.
This year we wanted to have a little fun with the fact that it’s an election year. Since this is county government we knew we couldn’t push it too far (though we couldn’t help ourselves and did come up with a few risque lines that were killed – “Pork. Bad for politics, great for the fair.” – really? No go? c’mon!)
The result? A fun, relevant campaign that asks residents to Vote for Smiles and come to the fair. Hey, in today’s political climate, it may be the one thing everyone can actually agree on.
Here’s a sneak peek at how the theme will play out in advertising:
And a look at how we’ve evolved/tweaked the logo to reflect the fact that it’s a milestone year for the fair – they celebrate 60 years of fun this September.
For more, visit CabarrusCountyFair.com
There’s Always More at Brawley’s
We love clients like Mike, from Brawley’s Beverage. He’s always up for anything and constantly looking for new ways to promote his brand, be it though-provoking or envelope-pushing. Plus the pay is great (who wouldn’t want to get paid in beer?).
Check out some of the latest fun things we’ve done for Mike and his awesome little beer shop. We’ll have even more in the next few weeks!
Tuesday night I was fortunate to get involved with a great AIGA program called Mentorship Match Up, the kick off being held at the coolest church around, Warehouse 242. (If you’re not from my industry, AIGA is America’s oldest and leading association for design students and professionals.) My Saturday partner in crime and senior art director, John Howard, joined me for the gig. (As such, I suspected the evening would be fun and end up at a drinking establishment. Correct on both.)
The goal of Mentor Match Up is worthy: match-make the experienced with the emerging, one-on-one, for a few months of tutoring, guidance, collaboration, networking, portfolio critiquing, general exposure to the bad-ass, real world of design and advertising, and God knows whatever else. The best part about the concept is that it’s really open-ended, ensuring a truly personalized experience benefitting both the mentee and mentor. As I said in a brief address to help kick the night off, this is a program that could have saved me a few missteps in my early career.
The AIGA Charlotte team really did the event right, drawing a good crowd (including an impressive group of experienced mentors), providing noshables and mixing up the evening with a few different activities. First off, everyone was matched by way of aliases. Mario and Luigi. Cookies and Milk. Mine was Michael Jordan, so I knew who to look for. I searched out “Scotty,” AKA Edwin, and we had a chance to chat briefly about the possibilities that lay ahead with the mentorship. Good friend and dedicated AIGA Charlotte leader, Tim Rebich, Adams Outdoor, invited me to share something from my own history. I did so with a small collection of tweet-sized observations. Things I’ve learned — or learned to believe — that I would have liked to hear when I was entering the business.
To wake people up after my presentation, we had a spirited session of speed dating; one minute to meet a student or recent grad and talk about an issue, answer a question, or just chat. This was fun, although my short-term visitors and I kept going over the time limit, eliciting cranky looks from John who, to the right of me, was routinely left waiting. I never could meet a deadline.
Watch for future posts about how this thing plays out.
johnshoward
markconachan
theckla 2.0
