Big Brothers Big Sisters Mentor Campaign

A friend of mine passed this along to me, and asked if I’d help to spread the word. Sharing it here is the least I can do…

The United Way Day of Caring, benefiting the Big Brothers Big Sisters of Southwest Idaho is coming up on October 19th. This event gives people a chance to become familiar with the BB BS program, and learn more about becoming a mentor to a child in the program.

These pro-bono spots were done by Stoltz Marketing Group, and produced by North by Northwest.

For more information, you can go to either www.bbbsidaho.org, or www.unitedwaytv.org/doc.

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Review: Hop On Board Campaign

I’ve had a chance to catch most of the Hop On Board campaign that es/drake recently did for Valley Regional Transit and ACHD. Overall, I think they’ve done a good job with this campaign.

The message of this campaign is appealing on several levels. It offers a solution for those who are environmentally-conscious, and concerned about the effects of automobile pollution. It offers an alternative to those concerned about the growing traffic problems and congestion on city streets in and around the Treasure Valley. It also presents itself as a stress-reliever of sorts, in that riders need not worry about the stress of driving, traffic, etc.

Admittedly, I did not catch the “massive downtown event” (as per the es/drake news article), so I have no comments about the effectiveness of that event. Here are, however, a few of the highlights of the campaign (based on what I’ve seen so far):

Television Spot — Probably the single most effective visual example of what Valley Regional Transit and ACHD are trying to accomplish. A number of individuals were seated, at roughly the distance from each other that they would be if they were each in separate vehicles. The next shot is those same people, spaced at roughly the distance they’d be from one another if they were all on a single bus. The visual is striking, and it delivers the message(s) quite well.

Radio — I recently heard a traffic report on the radio, sponsored by Valley Ride (Valley Regional Transit). This sponsorship ran during the 5 o’clock hour, and was well placed spot to reach the very commuters who could benefit from the service.

I do think, however, that there are some areas that could be improved, or in some cases where es/drake has missed the boat:

Transit — I see a fair number of buses and commuter vans on a daily basis. Since this campaign broke, however, I have yet to see the Hop On Board message on any of these buses. Its not for a lack of available space, either. Several of those same buses have been running with empty panels recently.

Look and Feel — Looking at it from strictly a design standpoint, I like the “urban, contemporary, and bold graphic design” of the campaign. Putting it into the context of the audience, however, I don’t know that it will appeal to / get noticed much by the 35-40 year old professional who commutes from Meridian to downtown Boise every day. I see it being very effective with a younger crowd, college-aged, perhaps, but the message seems to be directed toward the “working professional” who is also a homeowner, has mortgage and car payments, and could see the financial benefit of commuting.

Website — I do like the fact that the website has the same look and feel as the rest of the campaign, and give es/drake credit for that. The think that stuck me immediately, however — the tagline of the entire campaign is “Hop On Board” however the URL of the site — RideLine.org. Why not take the extra step to make sure that your website’s URL is easily associated with the rest of the campaign? A quick check revealed that (as of a few days ago) HopOnBoard.org, HopOnBoard.com and HopOnBoard.net were all available to register. Huge disconnect, in my opinion.
I do like the Savings Calculator feature on the site, but I don’t find it useful personally, as my daily one-way commute is less than 15 miles. I’d be interested in seeing what I could save by using public transportation, but I don’t have that option.
Finally, why not put the television spots up on the website as well? You’ve already done the work on them, it serves as one more way to engage the customer/visitor, and provide just that much more incentive to use the available services.

There are other suggestions that I could make that would, in my opinion, improve this campaign, but I’m going to take a wait-and-see approach. I don’t think that this has completely played itself out yet, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the folks down at drake have more pieces to this campaign that just haven’t been seen yet. If they do, great — it’ll build on some strong initial work. If they don’t, this is still a good campaign that will generate some good response and better involvement in public transportation.

Overall, I commend the staff over at es/drake for a good campaign for their client. I think that they missed out on a few opportunities to make it a great campaign, though.

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Craigslist Job Posting – Advertising Media Buyer

From the Boise Craigslist website: Advertising Media Buyer

An interesting little bit that I picked up on from this post — they’re looking for someone who has the “ability to engage in high-level negotiations with media sales representatives, utilize market and media research, work with basic media software…” However, in the “Compensation” field at the bottom of the page is listed as “Entry Level.”

To me, that says that the employer (whomever they may be), wants to find an experienced media buyer, but they’re only willing to pay an entry level wage. In today’s job market, I just don’t see that working out very well for them. Sure, they might catch someone just out of school, but I’d think its the wrong time of year to take that approach.

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And as a follow up…

…to the previous post about Supervalu/Albertsons, the day after the move to Dailey & Associates was announced, Adweek reported that the former agency Duncan & Associates would be closing.

Conventional wisdom, and some basic business knowledge, says that in this type of business you shouldn’t depend on one client for the majority of your business. The general rule of thumb that I’ve heard over and over is that if more than 50% of your business comes from a single client, you should worry. This is a glaring example of why that is the case.

Overall, I believe that most of the agencies in Idaho do a pretty good job of not falling into this trap. Every once in a while, though, it helps to take note of examples such as Duncan & Associates, to prevent it from happening in your own shop.

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Local work for large clients – does it happen?

I ran across an article yesterday on Adweek’s website, noting that Supervalu has shifted some of the work for its chains to a new agency. While this happens on a daily basis, and I wouldn’t normally take too much notice of it, part of the article got my attention:

Interpublic Group’s Dailey in West Hollywood, Calif., takes over on the Albertsons, Acme, Jewel-Osco and Shaw’s/Star Market properties. Independent Duncan & Associates in Los Angeles had handled those accounts.

So here we have Dailey & Associates in West Hollywood, California, taking over the portion of the Albertsons business that Supervalu purchased back in June. This portion of their business was previously handled by Duncan & Associates, in Los Angeles, California. For those keeping track, Albertsons was founded in, and had their corporate headquarters located in Boise, Idaho.

This got me thinking — when was the last time that an agency in Idaho handled any significant amount of business from Albertsons? Ever? Sure, there are piece-meal projects that likely pass through the local shops, but they come no where close to the $137 million in media alone that Albertsons ($100M), Acme ($20M), Jewel-Osco ($15M) and Shaw’s ($2M) spent in the last year and a half.

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