Birdsong Gregory

and have a look around!

I think we have a pretty cool office over here at birdsong gregory, thanks to some help from our friends at Dialect Design. We get a fair number of comments about it, even though we are a bit hidden, so I thought it might be fun to post a few pictures of our space. And if your ever in the area, feel free to swing by and say hello!

Through our work with Britax, our shopper marketing agency in Charlotte has gained experience and expertise in the "mom/baby" space. So lately we've been making contact with prospective clients who go to the market through the same channels and have similar target audiences. One such company is Boon Inc. They are commit ed to "... creating nothing but the most innovative gear—and keeping it affordable." And I must say, their design sensibilities are top notch. Every product they produce looks museum quality. The video above shows me feeding my daughter Charlie with a traditional spoon (what a mess!) and then using Boon's Squirt spoon - what a difference. I suspect Boon designed the spoon after hearing from Moms how much of a pain it was to feed kids on the go. So the food itself is contained within a squeezable reservoir in the spoon. For a Dad like me though, it's just means a whole lot less food on my kids face.

A new research report from the Grocery Manufacturers Association, Shopper Marketing 3.0, reveals that in-store marketing elements are more influential than out-of-store advertising elements in shopper's ultimate brand selection. This highlights an opportunity for smart brands to implement strong shopper marketing programs to lift sales. While price is the most influential factor across categories, insights gained from shoppers can be used to gain attention and shift the focus away from price towards specific product attributes. To learn more  about birdsong gregory's shopper marketing services, contact Jim Cusson at 704-332-2299  

One of my good friends from high school, Adam, went to college to get his degree in Historical Preservation, and I made fun of him for it for years! I just couldn't see the need for something like that. Maybe it was the fact that I was in Boston, and the history of that city is everywhere you look. Well, since I've moved to Charlotte, I've completely changed my mind about the need for people like Adam. While there are beautiful buildings in Charlotte, the Bechtler Museum being the newest and most amazing, there aren't many historical buildings. A lot of buildings with real character were torn down in order to build new high rises and apartment buildings, and I think people are starting to realize they should have put more effort into saving those places.

This latest initiative, called Save Our Signs, is trying to maintain some of the visual history of Charlotte and I think it's a great idea. Their goal is to register the historic signs of Charlotte to protect and preserve them so that people in the future will get as much enjoyment out of them as we have. So hats off to this group and I can't wait to see the JFG Coffee sign back up soon!

This week, the Charlotte Chapter of AIGA, the professional association for design, is screening the documentary Proceed and Be Bold. The documentary covers the life and works of Amos Paul Kennedy Jr., an African American letterpress poster designer. At 40 years of age, Kennedy abandoned the traditional American Dream to follow his own. Unsatisfied with his comfortable, middle-class life, Amos traded in his computer for a printing press and his white collar for a pair of overalls. Armed with life, liberty, peanuts, and a meager yearly income of $7,000, Amos cranked out a new, mutinous declaration of independence.

Charlotte graphic design professionals and letterpress aficionados won't want to miss this screening! Proceed and Be Bold will be shown this Thursday, February 25 at Johnson C. Smith University. Doors open at 6:30, and screening starts promptly at 7:00pm. Click for further details.

Want to make your bookshelf look both smart and stylish? Charlotte graphic design professionals should check out Penguin Classics' series of hardbound classic novels with beautifully patterned cover designs by Coralie Bickford-Smith. Titles include Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility. Books available for purchase at Anthropologie.

There's a cool little app called MousePath (mouse movement tracking) that runs on your desktop. It tracks the movement of your mouse (and in-turn your eyes) across the screen. Big dots are where the mouse stands still. The above illustrates my Monday morning mousing from 9-11. No wonder my eyes and arms are so tired by Friday! Not sure if I find this image beautiful or disturbing. You decide.

We did it! Set up a new project management software that is. It was a long and confusing journey and based on the number of options out there, it will be for you too. I relied on reviews and information from other companies around the world to narrow down my choices and now it’s our turn to contribute.

For us, we wanted to be able to track jobs, tasks and time at a bare minimum. Above that, we were looking for invoicing capabilities, a great calendar, contact management and robust reporting capabilities.

There are lots of programs out there that do the required tasks and some are better than others. Basecamp is certainly the most well known of the simpler project management pieces and Teamwork PM is a newer and more powerful version. Of the two, Teamwork PM was by far our favorite and while they are planning on adding capabilities in the future, it just wasn’t enough for us at the moment (their responses to our questions were above and beyond every time for what it’s worth). Both of these options were relatively inexpensive and could be set up with a minimum of effort.

On the very opposite of the spectrum (both in cost and in capability) was Function Point. This is meant to be a Microsoft Project replacement and is just as complex. It really was amazing program and it seemingly had the ability to do EVERYTHING. For us, it was overkill. We aren’t managing offices all over the world and projects with 200 vendors (yet) so using this program to its maximum would have taken more time than it was worth. Workamajig is the more well known player in this space and it is equally capable but be prepared to be rejected if you don’t have 10 or more people… they won’t take you.

We needed to meet in the middle and for us, the choice was Copper Project Management. It’s from an Australian based outfit called element software and it’s used by companies like Apple, with good reason. The interface is clean and pleasant and all of the information can be accessed quickly and easily. Tasks are easy to assign to multiple people and can be monitored easily from the Dashboard. The time tracking and update systems are both time stamped so we can see exactly when projects were updated. Above the base level needs, Copper also has a great contact management system, billing capabilities, a drag and drop calendar and ways to pull reports for custom time intervals. It really puts the budget in perspective and makes it easy to track.

To be fair, we’ve only been using the system for a couple of days now but so far so good! I’ll certainly come back in a few weeks to update our progress in the system but in the meanwhile, don’t hesitate to reach out to me if you are considering copper as well.

It's good news for Shopper Marketing agencies like birdsong gregory when national brands declare the continued need for increased spending on advertising, in-store promotion, shelf signage, coupons and packaging. Turns out the recession has persuaded many shoppers to "trade down" to private label store brands and the big guys are feeling the heat. We'll see increased spending on traditional advertising, but I suspect investments at the shelf level will see the biggest jump as brands employ shopper marketing strategies and increase consumer promotions to lift sales.

Who doesn't love tracking Social Media? Ad Age has recently started tracking the 10 most popular brands on twitter and it makes for a good read (check it out here). This in itself isn't what concerns me, it's more the content that is being tweeted. If Justin Bieber, whose fans are so young I'm surprised they can even use twitter, can make on the list who knows what will be next on that list? A terrible remake of another Nicholas Sparks book? Oh wait...

Why settle for your average Hallmark card when you can show your love with some creative flare. The team here at our North Carolina ad agency turns to esty.com – an online market for handmade goods – to find unique ways to express our inner Cupid. Some of our finds include cards from The Craft Pantry, Happy Deliveries, Birdcage Press, Color Box Design Letterpress, Enid Wilson Studio, Letterpress Delicacies, Firecracker Press, and Riley Noehren's Shop.

 

That's right. UK retailers have been pioneers in the private label branding wars which continue to erode the market share and brand recognition of big, heavily-advertised national brands. So it was no surprise when Selfridges, the fancy English department store, recently rolled out a new high-end food line. Here's what the agency responsible for the package design had to say:
 

"A re-branded food range that echo the store’s forward thinking and contemporary attitude towards retail. Although there were over 100 own brand products within the store it was somewhat unrecognisable and lacked shelf presence. Our approach was to create a range that was unique; that did not follow any traditional sector cues. Color coding everything black would make an incredible statement with only the type to reflect what was inside for example strawberry jam would have pink type. The typeface used was trade gothic range left and all the same point size across the range where possible. This ensured clarity and uniformity.”

 

You keep hearing about the continued SKU and brand optimization efforts by America's powerhouse retailer, and, in the latest round of retail brand consolidations, Wal-Mart has sent Glad and Hefty packing from its food storage shelves.

Similar axes are likely to drop later this year, as Wal-Mart continues its efforts to streamline the it's product range, usually to the benefit of its fast-growing Great Value private label brand – and the national brands with enough shopper marketing savvy to survive.

My husband's sister lives in England, and on her occasional visits back to the US - or when we hop the pond - there is always a shopping list involved. Apparently, you can't get beloved retail CPG brands like Lucky Charms or Oreos in England. Not true, of course, but now I understand why I'm always being asked to pack boxes of sugary cereals in my suitcase. Because in the UK, American food goods are damn EXPENSIVE.

$8.00 for a jar of Jif? Over $6.00 for a box of Kraft Mac & Cheese?
Here's a link to some other delicious outrages found in the aisles of Selfridges.

 
The tremendous growth in store brands, at the expense of heavily-advertised national brands, has been fueled by a number of factors, including the greater range and quality of store brands, consumer demand for a better price-value relationship, and more sophisticated shopper marketing tactics on the part of retailers.

This insightful white paper delves into the challenges that established national retail brands face and looks at how a more nuanced, richer understanding of a product's perception in the marketplace - in terms of perceived benefits and consumer needs – can help drive revenue and market share.

By creating a market map with "concentric spheres of consumer interaction" (seen above), a savvy brand manager can better understand how the market is organized, what the real competition is, and how to identify and prioritize the most viable innovation opportunities.

That's the big idea, anyway, and here at birdsong gregory, we're excited to read about it.

Our family hosts a party each year for the Superbowl so I rarely get a chance to watch the game - much less the commercials - until about the second half. So the morning after I usually catch up on the advertising and marketing highs and lows. Advertising Age posted the commercials here . I didn't see much to rave about this year. How about you? Perhaps the economy is still at an awkward phase and marketers are reluctant to really let loose.

This blog post is from birdsong gregory a Shopper Marketing and advertising agency in Charlotte NC.

I love vintage design. Especially when it comes to consumer goods packaging. And all graphic designers know that what was once vintage will come back around to be new again. Check out some old soda can designs collected by TheDieline.com. Mountain Dew has already brought back their vintage can design. Who will be next?

BMW has picked Jeff Koons to design the newest BMW Art Car for the programs 35th Anniversary. It's the ultimate in Packaging Design for the "ultimate driving machine". Art Cars have always been close to my heart because of my love for both cars and art and the combination has never been less than amazing. Jeff Koons has done some amazing work (check him out here) so it's a great move by BMW to pick him. I wish him well, but he will certainly have a hard time living up to my all time favorite Art Car by Roy Lichtenstein. I can't wait to see the results.

Not being much of a football fan, I primarily look forward to the Super Bowl not for the guts, glory and game but for the clever advertising sandwiched in between the heroic plays and crushing tackles. Also as a member of the Charlotte graphic design community I found it interesting to take a look back at the 44 year history of the Super Bowl logo.

Hasbro, the makers of Monopoly, will be releasing a new circular version of the game to commemorate the 75th anniversary of its release. The new packaging design and shape is apparently an homage to one of the original prototypes built before the game was launched. This particular version does away with the cash system, though, and gives players cards and PIN numbers to automatically handle the banking.

Now if only I could bring myself to actually finish a whole game...