Because my name is Leslie Kraemer+, everyone always wants to know where the name birdsong gregory comes from. And what the heck it means. Well, it's really not that interesting of a story. Birdsong is my middle name. It is the maiden name of my paternal grandmother. And no, my parents aren't of native american descent. And I wasn't conceived at a Grateful Dead concert. Although those options are so much more interesting. 

Gregory was the name of my former business partner, but since most clients now think of us just birdsong, one day we may opt to simplify what we're called. Until then, however, I kind of enjoy the curiosity around birdsong. People seem to remember it. And I don't even mind the occasional phone call from someone needing help with their parakeet.

To learn more about the online and offline branding, marketing, and advertising services our agency offers, please visit the birdsong gregory website, contact me at 704-332-2299, or stop by the next time you’re in downtown Charlotte.
 

In their new book Happy Money: the Science of Smarter Spending, behavioral economists Elizabeth Dunn and Michael Norton draw on years of quant/qual research to explain how we can transform cash into contentment – but only if we alter our spending habits and adhere to the following five key principles:

1. Buy Experiences – research shows that material purchases are less satisfying than vacations or concerts

2. Make it a Treat  – limiting access to our favorite things will make us keep appreciating them

3. Buy Time – focusing on time over money yields wiser purchases

4. Pay Now, Consume Later – delayed consumption leads to increased enjoyment

5. Invest in Others – spending money on other people makes us happier than spending it on ourselves

As a consumer, I found this to be a very insightful read and a helpful set of guidelines on how to indirectly pursue happiness (thank you, Aristotle) as well as how to navigate the treacherous shoals of our increasingly consumption-driven society.

As the principal of a Charlotte shopper marketing agency and brand design studio, I was intrigued by the authors' exploration of a principle known as scarcity marketing. Happy Money provides valuable information not only for pleasure-seeking consumers, but also for companies looking to increase the happiness of both employees and customers, and describes how the power of limited access has led to fanatical demand of such products as McDonald's "McRib" sandwich.

If you've never heard of the McRib, it's a ground pork patty with barbecue sauce, onions, and pickles. Although pork supplies are steady, the McRib has been continually taken off the market and reintroduced – always for a limited time –over the past three decades. 

And the consumer response? An absolute obsession. Every time the Golden Arches rolls out it in a region or city, company sales go up. In fact, you can even visit the fan-based McRib Locator website, a United States map with a comprehensive list of confirmed, possible, and questionable McRib sightings. 

There are many reasons why a multinational company or brand would redesign its logo. Some are compulsory, such as when there’s a corporate merger or when a company expands its business activities. In such cases, a new logo is a must to reflect that change. On the other hand, a logo redesign may be voluntary, like when a company feels the need to refresh, rebrand or reposition its image; or maybe if they seek to appeal to new kinds of customers.

Whenever a well-known logo design gets remade, the design community tends to be up in arms, but is this just a case of people not liking change? In time, will the following logo redesigns be recognized as a necessary step in modernizing the brand?

At our Charlotte marketing agency, we believe a logo has an important mission –  to help a company “tell” the target market at a glance what the company wants them to know or feel. So here's a great opportunity to take stock and decide, as we take a look back at some of the biggest logo redesigns of the last year. With the benefit of hindsight, what do you think of them now? 

1. eBay

Ebay straightened out its logo in the fall of 201, after 17 years of trading under its famous 'rummage style' style jumble of letters (below). The new logo gives a more sleek, professional and - dare we say it - dull look to the company. The old logo was a much-loved hot mess of lettering that reflected its dot com boom origins.

2. Microsoft

Though they're separate companies, the eBay and Microsoft logo redesigns seemed to go hand in hand thematically. The computer software giant's fairly recent logo redesign (August 2012) had a similarly slimmed-down and straightened-out aesthetic, based on Microsoft's preferred Segoe font. The chunky bold type of the old logo (below), with its 'go-faster' slant, looked immediately dated in comparison.

3. Wendy's

Wendy's opted for a sleeker look with its new logo, to match a change in company strategy. In October 2012, America's much-loved burger franchise decided to give its 1983 logo a long-overdue makeover. As well as stripping back things to its basics – a common strategy in logo redesigns – Wendy herself was also altered to look a little older, paving the way for the company's transformation into a higher-end hamburger chain. 

4. Kraft

In October 2012, the grocery giant Kraft Foods was split in two: the North American business was spun off into Kraft Foods Group, Inc, while the worldwide snacking company changed its name to Mondelez International. Neither company kept the 2009 logo (below); instead the former chose to reflect its heritage by tweaking a version of its classic shield to create a new corporate logo.

5. VH1

The minimal new logo incorporates a plus sign to indicate a broad range of programming. The music and reality TV channel, which worked with Gretel on its new identity, says the name change signifies how VH1 has become "the ultimate mash up of music + pop culture + nostalgia". The new design certainly simplifies the logo, in a way that's almost the opposite to ITV's strategy. VH1 has opted for a more geometric, simpler, single-colour typeface in comparison with the fussy, mutli-coloured design of old (shown below).

From the Smithsonian to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, more museums are now making their collections available online, but the recently renovated Rijksmuseum over in sunny (not) Amsterdam has shifted the paradigm a bit by offering downloads of high-resolution images at no cost for the public to copy and transform into stationery, T-shirts, tattoos, plates, or even toilet paper.

The Dutch national museum, which reopened this April after an extensive ten year renovation, holds masterpieces by Rembrandt, Vermeer, Mondrian and van Gogh and has already made images of 125,000 of its works available through Rijksstudio, an interactive section of its Web site. The staff’s goal is to add 40,000 images a year until the entire collection of one million artworks spanning eight centuries is available.

Until recently, museums had been highly protective of good-quality digital versions of their artworks, making them available only upon request to members of the press or to art historians and scholars, with restrictions on how they could be used. The reasons are manifold: protecting copyrights, maintaining control over potentially lucrative museum revenues from posters or souvenirs and preventing thieves or forgers from making convincing copies.

In recent years, though, as the Google Art Project has begun to amass a global archive of images with the cooperation of museums, and the Internet has made it impossible to stem the tide of low-quality reproductions, institutions are rethinking their strategy.

The Rijksmuseum has been able to put its works online more quickly because much of its collection predates Dutch copyright laws and its staff had an opportunity to digitize the collection when museum was closed for renovations. (It reopened last month after a 10-year makeover.) The digitization project was financed by a million-euro ($1.29 million) grant from the national BankGiro lottery, which provides money for the arts and cultural groups.

To date, Rijksstudio has logged more than 2.17 million visitors since its service went online in October, and around 200,000 people have downloaded images. As a result, the Rijksmuseum won three international “Best of the Web” awards last month in Portland, Ore., at the annual international conference known as Museums and the Web. The prizes are based on peer evaluations by museum professionals.

To inspire users, the Rijksmuseum invited the Dutch design cooperative Droog to create products based on its artworks. Its designers used part of a 17th-century flower still life by Jan Davidsz de Heem as a template for a tattoo, for example; it used a 3-D printer to create a white plastic replica of an ornate 16th-century centerpiece designed by the German silversmith Wenzel Jamnitzer and to adorn it with magnetic miniatures of items from the Rijksmuseum’s collection. 

(A brief SEO moment: Charlotte ad agency, shopper marketing agency, marketing agency Charlotte)

Whether you call it “active packaging,” “smart packaging,” “e-packaging,” or “intelligent packaging,” the aisles of your favorite retailer will never be the same.

Imagine walking through a store aisle while various packages flash, display moving images, or talk to you. Or maybe you tear a coupon off of a label, hold it up to your mobile phone, and immediately discover you've won a promotional contest. Or you refill a prescription at your local pharmacy and discover the label not only has an embedded calculator to determine exact dosage but also monitors when medication is taken and can even prompt the user when it's time to take it.

Welcome to the world of printed electronics and the future of packaging.

According to a recent white paper published by IDTechEx (who also holds the annual Printed Electronics Conference),  the global demand for electronic smart packaging devices is currently at a tipping point and will grow rapidly to $1.45 billion in 2023. The electronic packaging (e-packaging) market will remain primarily in consumer packaged goods (CPG), reaching 14.5 billion units that have electronic functionality by 2023.

From winking rum bottles (see above) to talking pizza boxes, electronics are already used in packaging, but that's really just the tip of the iceberg. The key enabling technology – printed circuit boards – has seen some recent breakthroughs enable the fabrication of inexpensive, disposable, conveniently portable circuits and functional components. Consequently, many leading CPG brands have tasked multidisciplinary teams to find new ways of integrating paper thin electronics into their high volume packaging.

The benefits for retailers, consumer brands, and Charlotte marketing agencies? E-packaging lets you connect with shoppers in unheralded ways by disrupting the path to purchase with micro-targeted interactions. So buckle up and get ready for a louder, flashier, more interactive future of retail.

Got a gadget that needs fixed, a handle that's rubbing you the wrong way, or just an urge to play with the adult equivalent of Play-doh? Get yourself some Sugru ($10-$20). Sugru is derived from the Irish word for "play" (isúgradh), and this exciting new self-setting modeling clay/super glue forms a lasting bond between a variety of materials, and cures to a tough silicone overnight, making it weatherproof, flexible, and generally indestructible. 

Developed by a team of product designers and material scientists, sugru's patented technology is unique in its combination of hand-formability, self-adhesion and flexibility when cured. It feels like modelling clay, and it's that easy to use too. Once cured, its durable properties mean it's comfortable in extreme environments from the dishwasher to the ocean in Antarctica.

If I appear to be enthusiastic, I am. From repairing broken cables and to fixing a loose heel before a big new business pitch, Sugru is probably one of my favorite products we keep on hand at our Charlotte marketing agency. The product has grown by mostly word of mouth, and serves as a beautiful case study for other makers and inventors who have a product that serves a niche market. Over half their customers are in the US, so they recently set up a Michigan base to fulfill North American orders. This has also allowed them to begin supplying US-based retailers including some of the more famous DIY supply sites like Inventables, Makerbot and Sparkfun.

We were very excited to spend some time with Martin Lindstrom recently discussing a potential new engagment for a regional retailer. Martin is providing his retail and branding expertise and experience to the client, and, hopefully, birdsong gregory will have the opportunity to bring the brand to life online, at the shelf, and at every relevant touch point in between.

If you've never read any of Martin's books or heard him speak, make it a priority. His pioneering research in neuromarketing and the role that sensory stimlulation plays in a retail environment has had a strong influence on our agency's work (e.g., the world's first scented billboard)

Martin is a Danish author and a Time Magazine Influential 100 Honoree, whose books include Buyology - Truth and Lies About Why We Buy, Brandwashed - Tricks Companies Use to Manipulate Our Minds and Persuade Us to Buy, and Brand Sense - Sensory Secrets Behind the Stuff We Buy.

Brands are always on the lookout for the next trend to surf. The only problem is they tend to be late to the game.

Scope has apparently figured out that bacon is trending higher than smoke from a grease fire. In an a very thoughtful attempt at an April Fool’s joke (this new product was "launched" on April 1 of this year), the mouthwash brand released a commercial for its new product: Scope Bacon, bacon flavored mouthwash. How refreshing. Here's a link to the microsite

It’s a move that’s sure to get attention. (Our ad agency in Charlotte is writing about it, after all.) But Procter & Gable brand wins few points for originality. After all, the makers of Bacon Salt for years have cornered the market on fake novelty product. They’ve rolled out everything from bacon chapstick to bacon lube over the last couple years. There are all kinds of bacon products from others, like bacon shaving cream, bacon-scented candles, bacon flavored condoms. Now Scope wants in on the bacon action.

Scope, through its agency Publicis Kaplan Thaler, is encouraging people to spread the word about it using the hashtag #scopebacon. It’s a pretty standard example of a brand associating itself with slash poking fun at a kitschy cultural trend, but it works coming from a big brand that you wouldn’t necessarily think has a sense of humor. Mouthwash isn’t the sexiest or most entertaining or products. But just add bacon and voila.

You don't have to be a boutique shopper marketing agency like birdsong gregory to understand the marketing power of well-designed packaging. Not only does packaging have a longer shelf life (pun intended) than an advertising campaign or promotions program. There is no other consumer facing media that creates such a powerful one-on-one experience. From the time a shopper notices your brand on the shelf and then buys it, stores it, and (re)uses it, they have formed an indelibly physical relationship.

Fact: you can renovate or launch new packaging for less than 10-25% of the total cost to produce a TV spot or run a big print ad campaign.

Which is why brand strategies are now being built from the package outward and successful brand managers and designers increasingly understand the value of starting with the package first. In a major shift in the shopper marketing universe, brand expression is now centering in the package design and using that design to architect all other brand touch points.

As part of the 2013 HOW Design Conference, this year's Dieline Package Design Conference will help package designers will discover how to gain recognition and respect by articulating what design means to a brand.

Now in its 3rd year, The Dieline Package Design Conference has become the leading design conference focused solely on the package design industry and package designers. The Dieline Package Design Conference is an extension of TheDieline.com, the popular design blog and the world’s most visited website on package design. 

We hope some other Charlotte advertising agencies will be able to attend HOW Design Live, which takes place June 22-26, 2013 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, California. It consists of four design conferences: HOW Design Conference, InHOWSE Managers Conference, Creative Freelancers Conference, and The Dieline Package Design Conference. More than 3,800 design professionals together will gather for training, professional development and networking with peers at this annual event produced by F+W Media, publishers of HOW Magazine and Print.

If you work in advertising, you spend a lot of their time dealing with ethical choices, and those choices are almost never black and white. They're subtle shades of grey that sometimes require an advanced degree in philosophy to parse.

Telling the truth seems like a pretty basic ethical standard. The world's best example of truth in advertising may be a tiny "Help Wanted" ad that appeared in the London papers in 1900: "Men wanted for hazardous journey. Small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful. Honor and recognition in case of success. – Ernest Shackleton."

Englishmen being what they are, the ad drew an overwhelming response. And Shackleton's Polar expedition turned out to be far worse than his bleak copy promised – a rare case of an advertisement over-delivering on its claims.

Now let's look at a more subtle shade of truth in this infamous Volvo commercial. In a real-life monster truck show, the Volvo was the only car left uncrushed – a great idea for a commercial! But to make the ad, the film company needed to shoot several takes. So they reinforced the beams inside the car to stand repeated squashing. When this came out in the press, Volvo was pilloried and their ad agency got fired, ultimately going out of business. Did it serve them right? Or was it a bum rap? No question the demo was rigged. But what it showed was the truth: if a monster truck runs over you once, you're safer in the Volvo.

Ads for reputable companies almost never lie. They have to be able to prove what they say to their own corporate counsel, the ad agency's lawyers, the network's approval committees and to any number of regulating bodies like the FDA and the FTC. With at least five different government agencies looking over our collective shoulder, the cost of being caught cheating is simply too high. 

So at birdsong gregory, we always strive to tell the truth – but not always the Whole Truth. Like lawyers, our job is to put our clients in the best light. When you go on a job interview or a first date, you don't assume a false identity – but you probably don't make a full disclosure either.

Of course, a lot of people question the ethics of selling consumers things they don't need – which presupposes that we shouldn't have the things we don't need but want anyway. We don't need 90% of the stuff in our apartments. We don't need artwork, among other things. Neanderthals didn't need cave paintings, but they sure brighten up a grotto. Why did so many of us bring bottled water – that we paid for – into this meeting room today, when carrying a canteen of tap water is so much more… rational?

 Advertising isn't just about the things we buy. It's about how we feel about those things – and how those things make us feel about ourselves. And that, IMHO, is what makes it interesting.

Here's a reprint of a very insightful short article that ran in the New Yorker last week about the plight of J.C. Penney and the challenges the current C.E.O. faces:

In January of 2012, Ron Johnson, the new C.E.O. of J. C. Penney, gave a speech unveiling his ambitious strategy for reinventing the hoary old retailer. It was a much anticipated event. Penney was directionless and barely profitable, and Johnson was a retail superstar. He had helped make Target hip, pioneering partnerships with big-name designers like Michael Graves, and had then moved to Apple, where he orchestrated the creation of the Apple Store. Johnson’s presentation did not disappoint. He made it clear that he wasn’t going to just stabilize Penney; he was going to revolutionize it. Coupons and sales, which had become ubiquitous, were going to be replaced by what he called “fair and square pricing.” The stores themselves would be radically redesigned, becoming curated showcases of mini shops, arranged by brand. J. C. Penney, Johnson said, would become “America’s favorite store.”

Fourteen months later, J. C. Penney is America’s favorite cautionary tale. Customers have abandoned the store en masse: over the past year, revenues have fallen by twenty-five per cent, and Penney lost almost a billion dollars, half a billion of it in the final quarter alone. The company’s stock price, which jumped twenty-four per cent after Johnson announced his plans, has since fallen almost sixty per cent. Twenty-one thousand employees have lost their jobs. And Johnson has become the target of unrelenting criticism. Johnson is scrapping his pricing strategy but is sticking by the mini-shop concept: last week, Joe Fresh boutiques débuted in stores across the country. Meanwhile, rumors of Johnson’s imminent departure are everywhere, and last year’s pronouncement is starting to look like the business equivalent of George Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” speech.

The biggest problem with Johnson’s strategy is simple: he misread what Penney’s customers wanted. Doing away with constant markdowns was, on the face of it, sensible: instead of starting with a high price and quickly marking it down, start with a lower price. But Johnson failed to see how attached customers were to markdowns. In most of the retail universe, price is the most powerful motivator. This game of cat and mouse with regular, ever-changing discounts is illogical, but it’s one that lots of consumers like to play. Johnson just ignored all that.

The way Penney implemented its shopper marketing plan also hurt. For one thing, Johnson didn’t test his pricing strategy—perhaps because of his experience at Apple, where market research has always been anathema. In addition, he rolled it out before the stores had been remodelled or filled with new merchandise. This drove old customers away without giving new ones a reason to come in. Offering pain and no gain is no way to remake a company. “Anytime you’re trying to change the way you do things, small wins are important,” Michael Roberto, a management professor at Bryant University, told me. “Small wins help you build support both internally and externally, and they make it easier for people to buy in.”

Given Johnson’s track record, plenty of people are shocked by what’s happened. Yet hiring him was always a huge gamble. As Cohen put it, “He had never been a C.E.O., never mounted or managed a turnaround, had limited fashion-apparel experience, and had no experience in the middle-market space.” Johnson’s champions assumed that, because he had done great work elsewhere, he would do great work at Penney. But the circumstances at Johnson’s previous companies were radically different from those at Penney. Target was a thriving company that had already positioned itself as a trend-aware, fashionable store, so Johnson had plenty of support in the effort to make it cooler. And, while the Apple Store is a brilliant retail concept, its success was surely helped by the fact that it has been home to three of the best-selling consumer products ever.

At Target and at Apple, Johnson was running with the wind, not against it. At Penney, he’s trying to do something very different: remake a company’s DNA. Penney’s board no doubt believed that Johnson’s record guaranteed that he’d succeed. But this perception probably reflects what psychologists call “the fundamental attribution error”—our tendency to ignore context and attribute an individual’s success or failure solely to inherent qualities. (People who watch one basketball player shoot free throws in a poorly lighted gym and another shoot in a well-lighted gym attribute the latter’s greater success to ability rather than to conditions.) Skill is important, but so is context: being great at selling cheap fashion or cool technology products doesn’t mean you’ll be great at turning around a middle-market retailer.

Of course, this cuts both ways. Right now, Johnson looks like a complete fool. But turnarounds are hard to pull off, especially in retail. One study found that efforts at merely getting a money-losing retailer back to profitability succeed only thirty per cent of the time. Radically remaking a major company, as Johnson is trying to do, is even harder. So, if Johnson isn’t as good as he looked at Apple, he’s probably not as bad as he looks at Penney. Indeed, his biggest mistake may simply have been taking the job in the first place. He’s become a living example of one of Warren Buffett’s keenest observations: “When a manager with a reputation for brilliance tackles a business with a reputation for poor fundamental economics, it is the reputation of the business that remains intact.” 

You know Greek yogurt is having its moment when an artisan in Brooklyn is making it from an old family recipe, big city mixologists are using it in a cocktail, and famous chefs are pairing it with fried brussels sprouts and green cauliflower. But how did this thick, creamy, unadulterated stuff become so popular?

It's been a few years since our shopper marketing agency did some work with Chobani, but at that time, the Greek yogurt category had become a $1.5 billion business in the U.S. 

In 2006, Greek yogurt was only a $60 million market in the U.S. (Too sour! Too thick!) But sales have increased 2500%, accelerating through the Great Recession despite the fact that the "Greek" stuff (it's actually more Lebanese) tends to be twice as expensive as normal yogurt. Still the two leading brands – Chobani and Fage – now account for nearly a seventh of the market.

American tastes are too complex to diagnose conclusively, but analysts think the ascendance of Greek yogurt is a case of conspicuous consumption (literally) led by women in the workplace. One theory holds that rich old women in affluent coastal cities are leading the trend that's making Greek yogurt an aspirational product – "So foreign! So classy!" – even if the health benefits are dubious.

The rise of Greek yogurt in the U.S. reflects a larger change in the American culinary consciousness: a desire for foods that are considered purer, simpler, and more natural – in other words, not yogurts purporting to taste like key lime pie or strawberry cheesecake.

But lets get back to what's most important: the cocktail hour. We have working at birdsong gregory a couple of amateur barkeeps, and when put to the task of finding a palatable recipe for an adult beverage that involves Greek yogurt, here was one of our favs. Enjoy!

The Creamy Dreamy

1½ oz of Gin 

½ oz of Pear Brandy (I like Williams - the bottle with a pear in it)

½ oz of basil simple syrup 

1 tbs of Greek yogurt

½ oz of lemon juice

a few drops of orange bitters (Regans)

a little lemon zest

In a shaker, add all ingredients with ice and shake well. Then strain into a martini glass and garnish with 2-3 drops of orange bitters and a candied basil leaf.

Laptops have become tablets, and tablets are shrinking to become our phones. And with the surging popularity of digital devices like the Kindle Fire, Samsung's Note, and the ever smaller iPad Mini, the shopper's little digital assistant for browsing on the sofa or checking prices and reviews in store have become one and the same.

Couple this with faster connections speeds, NFC (near field communication) and instant coupons, and the power of the mobile shopper has reached even greater heights – from the initial trigger to search through purchase and sharing the experience.

What does this mean for retailers and brands? It means they need to develop a holistic digital shopper marketing strategy that covers the entire shopper journey on one device. From providing simply shopping list generators and self scanning apps through to post purchase loyalty incentives, single device campaigns have huge potential to encourage both frequency and long term loyalty.

At birdsong gregory, we work closely with our digital partners to help companies like yours take advantage of the changing ways shoppers interact with your store and your brands. Give us a buzz to find out more.

Cola snakes, lemon gummy hearts, strange chalky hard candies tasting mainly of salt, bi-color gummies that seem to claim medicinal properties, yogurt-covered candies, squishy fruit gumdrops with strange menthol undertastes. 

Recently a couple of members of our Charlotte ad agency were in NYC and stumbled across this blindingly white retail space in the West Village with its rainbow of products. Sockerbit is a Scandinavian sweet shop in NYC's West Village known for its delectable selection of traditional smågodis (little candies) and its pristine, rainbow-lined interior. The shop – whose name literally translates to "lump of sugar" – was opened in 2010 by Stefan Ernberg and his wife, Florence Baras. Specializing in all things sweet and Swedish – with foodstuffs and toys from neighboring Denmark as well – Sockerbit carries more than 149 different candies priced by the pound. All of their candies are naturally colored and free of genetically modified ingredients and trans fats. "Usually there are more adults in here than kids," says Baras. "Our candies may look like other candy, but once people try them they can taste the difference."

When consumers can connect instantly across international borders on social media, does it make sense, from a shopper marketing standpoint, for brands to keep separate identities in different countries?

Doritos doesn't think so, which is why the brand is updating its packaging and logo to give a more consistent look across the 37 countries where the chips are sold. The redesigned bags started hitting stores this week and will be supported by Doritos' first global campaign, called "For the Bold," which is being handled by incumbent ad agency Goodby, Silverstein & Partners.

Doritos is the world's largest tortilla/corn-chip brand, with 39% market share, according to Euromonitor International. But historically the brand has had a different look and feel across the globe. Before the new design, 25 packaging variations existed. Moving forward, there will be only one.

Simplify, simplify, simplify: one of the main creative imperatives of our Charlotte marketing agency.

Forget the size zero supermodels – bigger girls can mean bigger profits say researchers.

A new study from Warwick Business School has found that when consumers are blatantly exposed to idealised images of thin, beautiful women those shoppers are more likely to use a defensive coping strategy to boost self-evaluation by denigrating the pictured woman. This can negatively affect the products these models endorse through the transfer of the negative evaluation of the model to the endorsed product.

The female subjects of this study were put through various experiments including being shown magazine pages that contained different ads, one of which was for a vodka. Some women received ads that did not feature an attractive model, other women received ads that had a bikini-clad model on the opposite page to a picture of the vodka (meaning they were subtly exposed to the idealised female image) and the third had the attractive model on a whole page next to the vodka (meaning they were blatantly exposed to the idealised female image).

This study was published Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes and is called Defensive reactions to slim female images in advertising: The moderating role of mode of exposure.

Here is the download info, if you want to read it for yourself. Or, you can let the insightful minds here at our Charlotte ad agency give you the executive summary – and help you make sure your current advertising strategies are helping – and not hurting – your brand.

As the creative director of our Charlotte-based shopper marketing agency, I'm always looking for online sources of inspiration, and here's a good one.

Tilman Zitzmann is graphic designer in Germany who took a year off to care for his two small children. To keep his designer’s mind fresh, he decided to undergo a daily project in which he creates a different geometric pattern every day. He says he gets “a serious flow “ when he draws these “simple patterns,” and that “doing this graphics project besides my dad duties will keep me on my designer’s toes.” The results are beautiful explorations in shape and color. Check it out here.

2012 was a good year for the global packaging industry. Emerging markets in Asia and Latin America led to a strong resurgence after the global recession, and it is projected that packaging will be an $820 million industry by 2016. However, the voice of the consumer has also never been stronger. To stay relevant in a changing market place it’s important to look ahead at where the industry is going. Here are 5 trends our shopper marketing agency is helping our manufacturing clients leverage in 2013.

1. Bio-Based Plastics: Recyclable PET made from renewable resource is projected to offer significant growth potential over the longer term, particularly as large corporations, especially those in the soft drink industry, are investing heavily in the development of this material.

2. Smart Packaging: The focus of active and intelligent packaging has moved from specific retailer and manufacturer driven benefits like shelf-life extension, traceability and food waste reduction, to include more consumer focused benefits such as food quality and safety, freshness and information.

3. Stand-up Pouches: Packaged food makers are thinking outside the bottle and can. Flexible packaging, especially stand-up pouches provide Maximum Flexibility, Sustainability and Convenience.They are an innovative marketing approach to stimulate the sales of a stagnant brand or increase the acceptance and success of a new product introduction.

4. Retail Ready Packaging (RRP): Continues to gain traction in North America as a greater number of retailers start to consider implementation, and others broaden the scope of existing initiatives into additional categories.

5. Packaging and social media: Getting found by customers. The new age of inbound marketing is about providing value and earning customer loyalty instead of simply pounding a message into consumers heads and hoping it will stick.

The purpose of "purpose marketing?"

In a nutshell: to make you feel good about buying a company's services or products. 

Purpose marketing (also known as "pro-social marketing," "advertising for good," and "conscious capitalism,") woos consumers with information about the values, behavior and beliefs of the companies that sell the products. 

The goal is to convince potential customers that the companies operate in a socially responsible manner, and seeks to go beyond tactics like making charitable contributions or selling a product in recyclable packaging.

As a new subset of shopper marketing, purpose marketing is becoming popular on Madison Avenue because of the growing number of shoppers who say that what a company stands for makes a difference in what they do and do not buy.

Consumers are seeking “authentic emotional connections” with brands, said Mandy Levenberg, vice president and consumer strategist for cause and sustainable living at CEB Iconoculture, a consumer research and advisory firm that is part of the Corporate Executive Board Company. Among marketers, there is a gowing perception that certain “shared values” can increase loyalty and drive basket size.

Such consumers, frequently referred to as socially conscious shoppers, are assiduous in their research of corporate policies. That means a company doing something deemed at odds with its purpose-based mission statement or high-minded advertising campaign runs the risk of eliciting disappointment — or even a sense of betrayal — among socially conscious shoppers who consider themselves misled.

Panera is the latest corporation to jump on the socially conscious bandwagon and use altruistic acts to sell more (flavorless) sandwiches and (watery) coffee (in the humble opinion of our Charlotte advertising agency).

Read all about here in this NYT article.

It seems like just yesterday we opened our doors and started providing a wide range of clients with impactful, strategy-driven creative. Now, ten years later, birdsong gregory is still going strong. In 2012, we reached the Inc. 500|5000 list, which honors America’s fastest growing private companies. And in 2013, we expect the good times and great work to continue. Thanks to all our staff, vendors, and clients who have played an integral role in our agency’s growth and success. And here’s to another 10 years. Cheers.

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.