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.

Crystals, candles and Ganesha, Hindu lord of success: Our annual Addy send off ritual includes whatever desperate tactic we can think of to impart a little good fortune upon our entries.

The AAF Addy Awards are coming up soon and I’m more than happy to admit, I like award shows. These are great parties with lots of people coming together to celebrate our craft, we get to see where the collective bar is set for our area and it’s an ego boost just to be able to enter some work. But there’s another reason I like the shows: they recognize what I believe to be the most effective, business-building communications out there and honor the agencies that are really trying their best on their clients’ behalf.

Now, there are those agencies who will haughtily claim, “We don’t care about creativity awards.” And usually this attitude really shows in their work. Sorry, but it’s true. And it’s sad. The oft-neglected truth is that the primary purpose for advertising is to simply get consumers’ attention and create a positive impression. Other, equally important marketing disciplines must take it from there. But great ads and great graphic design are always strongest when they are required to simply deliver an emotional roundhouse.

That emotional value is far, far more important than is often recognized in this data-crazed world. But things are turning around. Neurologists are re-thinking the logic of logic when it comes to communications and consumer behavior. It’s now understood that the emotional brain often overrides logic when the logical brain is overloaded with information.

So it follows that, in an information-saturated environment, things like package design, a great logo, an ad’s conceptual direction, a compelling headline — become huge influencers of purchase behavior. Recent research has shown that the part of our brain that processes information actually shuts down a bit when there’s too much information and that the emotional brain takes over. Not only that, the emotional, intuitive side does very well in making good purchase decisions.

Toasting another year of trying our damnedest to do outstanding work.

So if you, too, are entering award shows this year, or submitting work for PR purposes, good for you … and good for your clients. Whatever you do, though, never be apologetic about doing well at the creative part of this business, in my estimation, its most essential part.

Seventh Generation laundry soap is already earth-friendly because it’s free of dyes and fragrances and isn’t tested on cute woodland creatures. But the packaging helps, too. It’s a large clamshell made from recycled material which opens to accept a refill bag. While the refill bag is plastic, the net environmental impact is much less than non-recyclable larger plastic jugs (especially as it contains a twice-as-concentrated product, allowing a more efficient package). Seventh Generation claims a 66% reduction in plastic.*

Puma has extended their innovative touch to their shoe packaging with their “clever little bag.” Made from lightweight recycled material, the signature red bag acts as a handled shopping tote as well as the shoebox top. The total paper savings here is 65%. Plus, like all Puma stuff, it’s a cool statement about the person using it for whatever. Puma won a Good Design award for this idea and has a website which tells the clever story.

In our very own freezer (the side of the fridge without beer) sits a bag of Monk’s Groovy Beans, a coffee with a soulful taste. Monk’s is a socially-responsible company in many ways and this extends to their packaging efforts. Already sporting a bag with plenty of earth-kind kraft paper, they are close to achieving a package which will include a recyclable liner. Keepin’ the earth and the coffee fresh — peace out.

Although Saturday doesn’t do packaging for every client (we would love to!), all this talk of green design reminded me of a map we did for Primland Resort. The resort’s hotel was built to LEED standards and our goal was to make all the marketing stuff as green as the building. When it came time to produce a golf course map, we found a paper that was produced without wasting a drop of water or using any wood — it was made of stone. It printed great and was pretty much impervious to water. Primland case study

So as we head into the season of giving, give environmentally responsible packaging some thought …. it might even save you from a holiday trip to the emergency room with a case of wrap rage.

*Bonus reading material:

Ecology Center in Berkeley, CA: Plastic not as recyclable as we thought.

The request was to give the site a completely new look, update all content, broadening key areas such as MBA (their “Masters of Beer Appreciation” program), and to design/build with a kick-ass Content Management System that would allow this growing franchise maximum flexibility and minimum hassle.

Above: With 22 locations and growing, we gave Brixx a way to communicate about individual store specials and events at the neighborhood level. While this is mostly great for customers, it's also a fantastic way to give local managers a hand in creating up-to-date content for the site and helping the Brixx brand look fresh and alive.

Also raising the importance of evolving their site was that there had been some important new visual changes to the Brixx brand and store environments. In short, the digital space now needed to reflect where Brixx had arrived visually and experientially, and where they needed to go in terms of site management.

We set to work, designing a site that would offer the right mix of eye candy (tasty pizza shots) and useful information (location information, menus, nutrition facts). The result was a more robust site experience that offered information quickly to the task driven user, while providing enough content to keep the casual browser satisfied that Brixx was definitely the right choice for their next meal. Some of the things that helped us accomplish this:

• Expanded menus section with more visuals
• Local content to appease appetites for info about their neighborhood store
• Ability to jump to a location via a modal
• Integrated social media content, such as a blog and promoting sharing
• Easily updated homepage (with 22 locations, Brixx has lots to share!)
• An improved e-commerce experience

Now that a Phase 1 is live, we are now focusing on expanding some sections within the site, making it more social and continuing to improve back-end flexibility via the CMS. A mobile version of the site is also on the horizon, along with a potential mobile app. In the meantime, head over to your closest Brixx and enjoy their awesome pizza and beer. Trust us, it’s the best around.

Saturday’s answers: Out-think, don’t out-spend; Integrate the campaign across a variety of media; Use humor as a way to stand apart from typical healthcare advertising.

We also created a new permanent nickname EC Ortho to improve recall, and make for a shorter url. To push the campaign message of “local,” however, we recommended “localortho.com” for the campaign’s duration. Vanity urls are a great way to expand your campaign message or brand position, especially when space is limited, such as on billboards.

We integrated the EC Ortho website into the effort by adding local-oriented images and campaign messages. The way to maximize a small budget is to integrate everywhere is to leverage whatever media assets are available, including those that are digital — especially digital!

As is typical for us at Saturday, we always have more ideas than client can use (we can’t help it!). But it’s cool: below is one of the alternative concepts that EC Ortho is hoping to use sometime in the future.

Added to that challenge, CaroMont had recently developed new brand standards and a spirit line to underscore their commitment to individual and community health. However, the line, In Love with Life, had yet to be messaged in a way that gave it meaning and emotion. We felt it had a lot of potential and knew that with the right visuals and copy we could give In Love with Life a voice that represented a bigger idea, instead of just a phrase.

Enjoy and let us know what you think!

Google Offers is in 13 cities with more on the way.

I just signed up for Google Offers today. Reluctantly. I mean, frankly I’m not rich enough to save all this money. But perhaps in the future, when I do have a few more disposable dollars to spend on, say, a hot stone massage for my wife, I’ll remember that spa — and that they discounted themselves at one time. Which brings me to the problem a lot of retailers are experiencing in an effort to build traffic: that Groupons, sales and other incentives are often a one-hit wonder tactic and, worse, may damage a brand for anyone who sees the offer, not just those who take it up.

See, whether I took advantage of the discount or not, I’ll remember the brand if it’s something I really wanted. After all, I got the email, I read it, I thought about it and made a purchase/no purchase decision. That engagement is called effective advertising. But it’s also called branding because it gave me an implicit message about the company. And the message to me and apparently millions of other consumers right now is, “You’d be a chump to pay full price at our business.” This is why discounting, though cosmetically attractive, is really short-sighted. Especially if it’s not balanced by other statements about the brand, such as image advertising, community service, great customer experience, etc. (Want a discount-oriented program to drive traffic? Try a rewards or a referral program, both of which promote repeat business and brand goodwill. As a bonus these will please existing customers, not piss them off.)

Actions are branding, and discounting can have a significant impact. Just ask Gap, who nearly became positioned as the low-cost leader as opposed to the leader in accessible fashion basics. A few years of value-oriented marketing to compete with discounters such as Ross caused a multi-year brand image problem and consumer apathy. The low prices did not build customer loyalty as one might expect, nor did it build brand value which gives a company price leverage. Ask GM, too. A while back they tried to find a marketing answer to the Japanese brands and in doing so got into what became known as a rebate trap. They had discounted too much, too often, and this eroded other value aspects of their brand. Basically they trained consumers to never buy GM without a discount, and that’s a very unprofitable business model. As well, it’s something that’s hard for shareholders and employees to understand when they see Toyota enjoying record sales and profits, despite having periodic sales events.

All this may be why many retailers are becoming disenchanted with coupon sites after such a brief period. It might also be why Facebook dumped its Deals program. And as for Groupon, arguably the weather vane for the trend, it could be why there’s talk that their IPO, if it happens, will peg the company value at $5 billion or less. A lot, sure, but not the $6 billion offered by Google and far less than an estimated value of $25 billion, both discussed just within this year. So it will be interesting to see if Google Offers makes it beyond beta. We’re thinking that if Google stumbles, the next deep discount Groupon brings us will be its own.

Let us know what you think about coupon sites: good/bad, here to stay/fad?

Sour grapes
So, a while back we got all whiny about losing the pitch for the 2010 NC State Fair (they went with the incumbent … make gagging noise now, thanks). Our ad agency peers will understand our anguish knowing this all-too-familiar drill: You have an opportunity, you have the right experience, you slog through a completely nonsensical RFP which has only slightly less pages than a King James Bible, you have some kick-booty creative — and you’re technically a minority-owned business fercryinoutloud! You seem the obvious choice, even to that lobotomized review committee you had to present to. Yet after the pitch a month, two months, four months go silently by until YOU call THEM only to find out … you lost. Your first thought is, “Damn, all those color outputs we’ll never recover the cost on.”  And your second thought is that your beloved concept will never grace the top of a cheap folding table, delighting judges at some advertising awards show.

Dear NC State Fair: na na a boo boo
But never say “no” to Theckla Sterrett. Especially don’t say it when there’s some fun work to be produced. Against all probability, Theckla went out and found another fair to adopt our campaign and we were suddenly off to the pig races. Now, the 2011 Cabarrus County Fair is officially “Bunchafun.” Being held September 9th-17th, this is an awesome and wonderful fair. Awesomer than that Other Stupid Fair. It’s also conveniently close to Charlotte. Unlike the Other Stupid Fair in Raleigh, like 450 stupid miles away, the fantastic Cabarrus County Fair is just down the street in lovely Concord at the clean and beautiful Cabarrus County Arena & Fairgrounds. You can bet we’ll be there, acting immature, eating chocolate-covered bacon and anxiously awaiting our turn on the Freak Out. You should go, too.