Our grocery client Bloom is at it again with another scented billboard - this time using peach to promote the fresh offerings at its new store location in the Dilworth neighborhood of Charlotte. If you're in the Southend area of Charlotte roll down your windows near the Chik-fil-A and soak in the peach. The chain achieved international attention earlier this year by erecting the nation's first scented billboard to promote its Sheffield & Sons beef brand. That charcoal and BBQ scented board drew the ire of PETA, but was generally praised on the internet for its innovative approach. Learn more about our Shopper Marketing agency by visiting www.birdsonggregory.com
That's right. birdsong gregory is beefing up its shopper marketing capabilities to help retailers and manufactures spend their marketing dollars in a more effective fashion, i.e., where it counts – at the store level.
We have a couple of new hires that will be starting this month who have worked for big, global retail branding agencies – and small retailer brands you may not have heard of - like WalMart. ;)
Together with our existing team of designers, writers, and brand strategists, we have some robust expectations for what lies ahead. We'll keep you posted…
Here at birdsong gregory, a Charlotte-based shopper marketing agency, we've known for years that in-store advertising is a great way to reach people in that critical "moment of truth" where decisions are made on which brand of charcoal or cat food to buy.
And now Bloom, one of our retail grocery clients, is making a bet that broadcast ads delivered between the aisles will be an effective way to reach the kind of purchase-focused, motivated audience in a way that top-of-the-funnel living room broadcasts cannot.
Automated Media Services plans to test its system, 3GTV, this summer in Maryland and Virginia at nine Bloom stores. Known as A.M.S., the company has been working for years on a system that would deliver television in retail environments; and one that would enable ad agencies to plan and buy commercial time in stores just as they do on the networks, channels and stations shoppers watch at home.
We'll keep you posted on what Bloom's shoppers think
Bob Noorda died last week. As the designer known the world over for giving the New Your City subway system its iconic modernist design, Noorda introduced simplicity to what (to me) still appears to be a confusing welter of express trains, dank passageways, and garbled announcements. At least the signage is friendly.
Here's an excerpt from his New York Times obituary:
"Mr. Noorda had helped found Unimark in 1965, teaming up with a group of American and European designers, including Mr. Vignelli, who initially set up shop in Chicago and Milan. Theirs was among the first international design firms to base their work on the Modernist principle that a good design could have a positive effect on all aspects of life, not just on business. An early proponent of unified branding -- the consistent use of distinctive type and imagery to identify a company -- Unimark has been credited with awakening the corporate world to Modernist design thinking."
Here at our Charlotte branding agency, we're following in Mr. Noorda's footsteps and trying to help our clients adopt and successfully use unified branding systems. Not always easy, but the payoff can be huge.
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?
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!
Brought to you by birdsong gregory's favorite computer/application/smartfone/digital lifestyle company – delivered in their own fun, clever, rapacious flavor of brand personality.
And from all of us here at our shopper-centric Charlotte agency, have a safe, peaceful, meaningful end of the year and a bitchin' Yuletide.
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.
Some of the luckier folks here at birdsong gregory, a Charlotte branding agency, scored coveted tickets to the Neko Case show at the new Knight Theater – which adjoins the still unopened Bechtler Museum of Modern Art. The theater is on the left, museum on the right, but from the second floor of the Knight lobby a wall of glass lets the Warhols and the Giacomettis join the party.
Designed by Thompson, Ventulet, Stainback, and Associates, the Knight Theater is a 1,150 seats theater that will be the primary venue for the North Carolina Dance Theatre, and will also feature performances by Opera Carolina and the Charlotte Symphony, as well as plays, lectures, films, and epic performances by bands like the notorious Deer Tick (who opened for Neko).
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.
Although technically still in the food business, supermarkets now find themselves increasingly looking at their operations from the perspective of a media company. Why? Because sixty percent of all in-store purchases are unplanned, according to James Maskulka, associate professor of marketing at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. This means our snacky impulse purchases can be influenced by a variety of in-store marketing communications: everything from coupons and end-of-aisle displays to digital cart screens and networked kiosks. Even better, a grocer's in-store marketing efforts can be accurately measured for ROI and efficacy, unlike traditional print advertising or TV spots.
To find out more about how our Charlotte, NC branding agency can help your company bring harmony and results to today's increasingly competitive retail environment, please call Jim Cusson at 704.332.2299.
For a Charlotte, NC branding agency, we like think we're wide open when it comes to using viral craziness to promote a product, service, or good cause.
Remember the guy who said he’d get a tattoo if 25,000 people joined his Facebook group? Or the lady Well at least that was entertaining (and novel) for the time. Now, however, people are starting to plumb the depths of bad taste and internet-fueled excess. Yes, a man is offering to name his son Batman if he can get 500,000 people make him their Facebook friend.
There are currently about 486,000 fans, so chances are he’ll have reached his goal by now. This questionable parent is also encouraging fans to give him their e-mail addresses so that he can e-mail him the birth certificate once his son is born.
Sounds to me like the “media” company behind the whole thing just wants 500,000 e-mail addresses.
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.
Since 2003, Roger Federer has sported a monogram on all tennis-related clothing. But now the intertwined “RF” is back. It’s big enough to be legible in photographs. And it’s everywhere: on Roger Federer’s shoes, his duffel, his jackets, his racquet cases. Forget all the subtle functions a monogram used to perform – discreetly personalizing a gentleman’s wardrobe, helping the servants sort the shirts. What three years ago seemed a plausible, if affected, style on the part of an athlete has now transformed this international tennis superstar into a master of personal branding.
Along the way fans and the media have speculated that the idea for the monogram had been his all along or whether his primary sponsor, Nike, made him do it.
The font – a slightly redrawn version of Bodoni, which with its cousin Didot, has been the basis for logos for Vogue, Giorgio Armani and Louis Vuitton – is a signifier of fashion at the high end, and here at birdsong gregory, our Charlotte branding agency is glad to see the stuffy old monogram emerge as clean, modern logo with loads of branding potential.
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.
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.
Here at birdsong gregory, our boutique Charlotte ad agency, we specialize in the lost art of simplification and clarity. So as the world's obsession with social media deepens, we've taken it upon ourselves to translate this exciting and complex new landscape into a client-friendly version that doesn't raise more questions than it answers. Here you go . . .
Social media is as simple as its component parts – social interaction meets media – the sites, events, communities and resources that enable people to share with each other, collaborate, communicate and reinvent.
Social media marketing is harnessing that media to drive conversation, build awareness, and spark word of mouth around a brand, individual or particular subject matter.
The big take away? If you company is headquartered in Charlotte, social media can deliver a global audience.
Want to find birdsong gregory on the web? Search for Advertising Agency Charlotte, Branding Agency Charlotte, Charlotte Graphic Design or even Charlotte Social Media. These are just a few of the keyword phrases we try to optimize against because we recognize when prospective clients hit Google to research potential agency partners, it's what they'll be searching for. The more competitive or broad the phrase, the more difficult it is to win. For instance North Caroilina Advertising Agencies is one we continue to pursue, but it's a long haul.
Are you on page one for your company's keywords? If not, give Jim Cusson a call at 704-332-2299 or visit our site at www.birdsonggregory.com
Though recent high-profile media coverage suggests that a large percentage of the US population participates in online social networking and microblogging, more than half of Americans (51%) do not use Twitter or participate in either of the two largest social networking sites – MySpace and Facebook – according to a recent Harris Poll from Harris Interactive. This gives a Charlotte marketing agency or a Charlotte ad agency something to consider.
The survey finds that just under half (48%) of US adults have either a MySpace or Facebook account, and that only 16% update their page at least once a day. Usage statistics are much lower for Twitter, with only 5% of Americans saying they currently use it, Harris said. And as expected, Harris reports that there are substantial differences in who is and who isn’t using these selected social networking sites:
Three-fourths of those ages 18-34 (74%) have a Facebook or MySpace account, but this quickly drops off the older people get. Just one-quarter (24%) of those ages 55+ have an account.
Tweeting is also slightly more prevalent among the young, but not by much; only 8% of 18-34-year-olds use Twitter, while 7% of those ages 35-44 use it, 4% of those ages 45-54 and only 1% of those ages 55+ use it.
While men and women use Twitter at the same levels (5% each), women are more likely to have a Facebook or MySpace account (52% vs. 45%).
There is an educational difference in usage of MySpace and Facebook. Two in five people with a high school degree or less (40%) have a Facebook or MySpace account, compared with 55% of those with some college and 52% of those with at least a college degree.
To learn more about how our Charlotte advertising and marketing agency can help you create a measurable, unified online brand, please visit birdsong gregory or contact Jim Cusson at 704-332-2299.
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