Add this item to the "are you serious" folder of consumer promotions. This week's Advertising Age highlights how White Castle is offering a reservations-only romantic rendezvous for Valentine's Day.
The chain is marketing a "steamy," "candlelit dinner" of 10 sliders, two 21-ounce sodas and French fries for $10.49, "leaving plenty of room in the budget for flowers, candy and entertainment." Staff will also upload a photo of your "romantic rendezvous" to the White Castle website. The restaurants will also be decked out in "theme" décor
In a statement, Jamie Richardson, White Castle VP-corporate relations, said the Valentine's program has been a "huge hit because a lot of our loyal customers -- fondly known as 'Cravers' -- either met in a White Castle Restaurant or have other enjoyable memories they like to celebrate here.
Indeed last year, White Castle hosted nearly 4,000 couples at 157 locations (the chain has 419). The Louisville, Ky., market even played host to a wedding. Their cake was in the shape of a slider. As a market, Louisville led the pack. Participating restaurants hosted 423 couples and had 110 groups on the waiting list.
There's a funny article in the most recent issue of AdAge Magazine suggesting that advertising agencies are willing to do just about anything to promote their client's brands. It seems that the Dallas Cowboys can't find a naming-rights sponsor for the team's gleaming new stadium -- but the city of Irving, Texas, found one to blow up the old facility.
Kraft Foods is marketing the demolition of Texas Stadium later this spring in a promotion it intends to call the "Cheddar Explosion," tied in with its Kraft Macaroni & Cheese product. The company entered into negotiations with the Irving City Council last month, and the council last week agreed to a $150,000 deal to have Kraft sponsor the implosion. The money will be evenly split -- Kraft will pay the city $75,000 in cash to be distributed by charities selected by the city, and the company will also provide $75,000 worth of its products for other local charities.
With all the historic buildings that Charlotte seems to bulldoze these days, you'd think birdsong gregory should be able to attach one of our clients to an event. Maybe a Bloom Boom?
Pantone LLC has announced its 2010 Color of the Year is Pantone 15-5519 Turquoise. Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute® say “{Turquoise} is believed to be a protective talisman, a color of deep compassion and healing, and a color of faith and truth, inspired by water and sky. Through years of color word-association studies, we also find that Turquoise represents an escape to many – taking them to a tropical paradise that is pleasant and inviting, even if only a fantasy.”
As a Charlotte NC Ad Agency, birdsong gregory looks to Pantone for creative and color inspiration. We hope their selection of a color that reflects both serenity and invigoration is an indicator that 2010 will be an exciting and restorative year for businesses. Already Turquoise is making its mark in the retail environment with a variety of tropical-hued items including: furnishings, clothing, housewares, linens, dinnerware and even nail polish!
Popup shops used to be the domain of seasonal stores selling cheap costumes or tacky holiday gifts but the ever changing world of retail and shopper marketing has turned that on it’s head. Popup shops (where a company takes over an unused space for only a few weeks or months and then closes) have now been used by companies all over the world. Cheap chic retail king Target opened up popup shops for their collaborations with both Steve McQueen and Anna Sui. Likewise, eBay opened it's own popup shop showing off some of the things you could find on the site.
These shops are great for testing a new area or launching a new product but their real strength lies in creating buzz around a brand. Giving a consumer an amazing shoppping experience along with a smart product is the ultimate way to earn loyalty and trust. So if you think your brand or product could benefit from a well designed and executed pop up shop, I know a Charlotte Advertising Agency that would be a perfect fit!
Every ad agency in town has a different way of coming up with big ideas. Conversely, not every process works as well, and some shops will deliver creative based on little more than what you see below. So if you're a company looking for a reliable, efficacious marketing partner, make sure you look under the hood.
There was a great article on page 1 of the NY Times business section last Sunday that explored the wild success of Apple's App Store. Featuring tens of thousands of applications that run on an Apple's iPhone and generating increasingly large amounts of both popularity and opportunity, the App Store, as this article points out, is compelling for several reasons. It generates as much as a billion dollars a year for Apple and the legion of third-party developers who create, code, and market apps. And the wide range of available applications means there is a potential market for anything, from a silly game to a sophisticated brand touchpoint for a company looking for a fun new viral marketing channel, a potential new revenue stream. Or both!
Here at birdsong gregory, our Charlotte marketing agency has both programming resources and a couple of good ideas about how help the right company extend it's online persona into the rapidly developing smart phone ecosystem.
Nixon, the über-trendy surf and skate clothing company has a flair for west-coast flavored euro-styling. I'd love to find this watch in my stocking, and the company's use of a super skinny version of Chalet on their website and in their ads is refreshing. Here at birdsong gregory, the design team always keeps an eye on the underground fashion world to help our Charlotte marketing agency stay inspired and informed.
Advertisers watch out ... at least if your products are sold in San Francisco. A recent story from the Examiner details how San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera sent a scathing letter to Kellogg Co. for claiming that Cocoa Krispies and other of its “sugar-laden” breakfast cereals will help boost children’s immunity to illnesses.
In the letter sent to the company’s president and CEO, Herrera expressed “serious concerns” about the large font printed on the Cocoa Krispies cereal box that reads, “Now Helps Support Your Child’s Immunity.”
The city attorney says that is likely false advertising, a potential violation of California’s Unfair Competition Law. He has asked Kellogg’s to prove its child immunity claims within 30 days. If the company fails to respond within that time, the City Attorney will “seek an immediate termination or modification of the advertising claim,” the letter said.
The claim is also printed on the Rice Krispies, Frosted Krispies and Jumbo Krispies cereal boxes. The products began appearing on shelves in San Francisco stores in recent months, Herrera noted.
I'm not sure how many parents are scooping up Cocoa Krispies for their health benefits, but this case does highlight the scrutiny that all advertising agencies and their clients can expect when making controversial claims for their products.
Stay in tune with the latest headlines from the worlds of advertising and design by subscribing to our blog feed. birdsong gregory is an innovative Charlotte advertising agency providing creative branding and marketing services to clients throughout North Carolina.
It was a a good look at the history of the American advertising industry and some of the more memorable campaigns and creative minds of the the last several decades. Unfortunately, the filmmakers presented a rather one-dimensional story about big advertising that focused on the the handful of men and women who have had tremendous commercial success shilling their clients' products. Regrettably, there was no mention of the environmental, psychological, and societal impact of our modern globalized consumption-based corporate hegemony.
Here's a gem of insight from legendary ad man Hal Riney: "The frightening and most difficult thing about being what somebody calls a "creative person" is you have absolutley no idea where any of your thoughts come from really. And especially if you have no idea where they will come from tomorrow"
Perhaps the last entertainment vehicle you’d imagine extending into retail beverages would be vampire-themed True Blood, but that ain't stoppin' Omni Consumer Products (who achieved a modicum of fame by bringing the world Sex Panther Cologne, based on the movie Anchorman's Ron Burgundy character).
Coming to your grocer’s in time for Halloween, this carbonated drink will be called Tru Blood, whose name derives from an elixir drunk on the show when human blood isn’t readily available.
Cleverly labeled with blood type (O positive) and flavor (blood orange), and beautifully packaged in shades of crimson, the drink is meant to be more than a novelty. A New York magazine taste-test gave it a thumbs-up: “Compared to most soft drinks, it's refreshing and not too sweet. It also foams just like real blood.”
At $4 for a four-pack, birdsong gregory is interested to see whether the public’s thirst will accept no substitutes.
Texting may lack the sizzle of other advertising forms, but response rates suggest it may be more effective as Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium recently discovered from its summer test campaigns. To herd visitors to its new Fantasea aquatic show, Shedd Aquarium put a couple of direct-response tactics to the test to see if consumers preferred SMS or web-based calls to action.
At the end of 30-second spots that aired on Chicago’s NBC, ABC and Fox affiliates, the aquarium announced a contest with prizes that included a hotel stay and VIP seats for the Fantasea premiere. The commercials were identical across the networks except for the calls to action: All the ads directed viewers to a website to register for the contest, except one spot, which gave viewers an additional mobile option to enter the contest by sending a text message to a special code.
The SMS call to action generated 325% more entries than the web-based call-to-action, making up 52% of the total entries, though it ran in only 25% of the ads. Want to learn more? Contact Jim Cusson at 704-332-2299 or visit the web site of our Charlotte advertising agency.
A flash mob is a large group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual action for a brief time, then quickly disperse. The term flash mob is generally applied only to gatherings organized via telecommunications, social media, or viral emails.
It's a new form of spontaneous group performance art, but it’s easy to see how this type of viral event could be used to promote a brand or marketing event (the famous T-Mobile Liverpool Street Station flash mob in London)
If you don't get it, please call our Charlotte ad agency and ask to speak to Jim.
Fortunately, here at birdsong gregory, our clients understand the value a strategy-driven, contemplative creative process. But there are nontheless the rare times when such considerations as parodied below surface in our Charlotte ad agency.
Suppose you want to announce or sell something, amuse or persuade someone, explain a complicated system or demonstrate a process. You could tell people one by one or broadcast by radio or loudspeaker. That’s verbal communication. But if you use any visual medium at all – if you make a poster; type a letter; create a business logo, a magazine ad, or an album cover; even make a computer printout – you are using a form of visual communication called graphic design. This colorful (literally) trade, by the way, is one our Charlotte ad agency specializes in.
So here's a link to a helpful explanation of what the different components of graphic design are, and how this infinitely creative process combines art and technology to communicate ideas for companies like yours.
I had the opportunity to attend Charlotte’s first Social Fresh conference. birdsong gregory was one of several Charlotte advertising agencies who gathered with corporations large and small to hear practitioners in the field of social media share success stories and offer advice for companies who want to utilize social media to contribute to their bottom lines. The biggest takeaway? Having a thoughtful and calculated strategy is the most important indicator of success. What’s your plan for social media? How does it fit into your larger marketing and advertising strategy? Want to tackle it together? Give me a call at 704-332-2299 and let’s talk.
Would have to be the spots featuring the credit-healing powers of Reverend Rob and Apple Auto Sales. I'm not sure what Charlotte agency is responsible for this classic (-ly bad) advertising, but it's been a fixture of late night local programming for more than a decade now.
Joe Isuzu was his name, and spoofing sleazy, silver-tounged car salesmen/pitchmen was his calling for the better part of the nineties. I'm not sure who was responsible for this memorable campaign, but I know it wasn't a Charlotte ad agency.
Played by actor David Leisure, Joe Isuzu was a pathological liar who told outrageous and overinflated claims about Isuzu’s cars. The campaign was resurrected briefly in 1999 and continued until 2001 to promote several cars such as the Isuzu Axiom.
A few of his more (in)famous quotes include:
“You have my word on it.”
“If I’m lying, may lightning hit my mother.” (“Good luck, Mom!” appears on screen!)
“It has more seats than the Astrodome!”
“Hi, I’m Joe Isuzu and I used my new Isuzu pickup truck to carry a 2,000 pound cheeseburger.”
“The Isuzu Impulse: faster than a speeding—[catches a bullet in his teeth]—well, you know."
Have you always wanted to know the difference between a pictogram and an ideogram? Or where America's first advertising agency opened its doors? (FYI: it was Philadelphia in 1841). Then check out www.designhistory.org. This wonderfully illustrated site begins with the origin of symbols and type before moving through the various cultural movements (Bauhaus, Arts and Crafts, etc.) that influenced and eventually evolved into the modern digital state of design and advertising.
Here at birdsong gregory, the graphic designers and branding gurus at our Charlotte ad agency are always looking for ways to sharpen their craft and deepen their knowledge of this creative, mercurial industry. So to that end, this site is a helpful collection of facts, faces, and inspiration.
When the economy is troubled and dollars are tight, we continue to see companies invest in expensive traditional media, including digital banners and television spots. These companies are missing an opportunity to interact with their audiences. At birdsong gregory, our Charlotte ad agency, we strive to build brand awareness and engagement around content and community where the target audiences of our clients live. And all things considered, we believe advertising agencies in Charlotte can generate more effective and higher-quality impressions at a much lower price than traditional online and offline media.
Want to find out more about the ways we're helping our clients get more bang for their marketing buck? Simply give us a call.
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