Who’s hiring nowadays?

Here are a few things we’ve come across recently:

Duft Watterson is looking for an Account Manager and an Art Director/Designer.

Mitchell + Palmer is on the hunt for a Director of Media and a Designer + Production Artist.

Suds Creative is after a Digital Marketing Manager and a Digital Media Coordinator.

And of course there are plenty of marketing-related jobs for those who are interested in life on the client side, including Digital Marketing Coordinator and Creative Content Coordinator with the Grove Hotel, or Graphic Designer with Block 22.

Other openings we should know about? Drop us a line.

Job opening: Digital Designer

Another recent job opening, this time from our friends at Mitchell + Palmer:

We’re adding a Digital Designer to our creative team! If you are a doer, builder, and maker of all things digital with a portfolio to prove it, let’s talk. Here is a little more detail on exactly who we are looking for:

You’re a renaissance artist. A Swiss army knife. The mortar holding every creative team together. You can design, build, execute, output, wireframe, and maybe even tweak an occasional line of code. You understand the big idea and build to strategy in realizing the vision of the brand or campaign. You can take a single piece of creative, a look, an idea and build it out into a dozen new pieces, sizes, shapes and formats. You collaborate well with other creatives and take direction and input from other designers. You understand the basic tenets of digital, UI/UX, choosing the right dev platform, and can develop and drive a wireframe through to handoff of finished dev assets. You’re incredibly skilled and fearless in Adobe CS and constantly learning newer, better, smarter ways to work. You are fearless with digital thinking and you stay on top of what’s in, what’s out, what’s possible. You make mistakes and just own it. You appreciate process, but aren’t obsessed with it. If there’s a fire that needs putting out, you don’t add more fuel. You’re not into game playing (unless it’s pool, foosball, shuffleboard, darts, or an occasional evening of poker). You’re very good at what you do, but above all you’re a great human.

RESPONSIBLITIES:

  • Design and create digital assets for various brand & campaign deliverables, including display advertising, social content, web/mobile/app development, and related creative components.
  • Demonstrate a proficient graphic design acumen with a studied eye for composition, layout, color, typography and use of imagery.
  • Aid in all facets of digital front-end development, including wireframe, layout, asset creation, and template/platform integration.
  • Work closely with Art Directors and Creative Director to build out projects and campaign elements.
  • Ability to multitask and balance project workloads.
  • Ability to crossover into traditional/print work is a plus.

SKILLS + EXPERIENCE:

  • A Minimum of an associates (2 year) degree in advertising / communication design, or related discipline.
  • 3+ years creative experience in a professional environment, preferably in an creative or marketing agency.
  • Well versed in the Adobe suite (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign) and Web design applications such as WordPress, Dreamweaver, Muse, html language, etc. is a plus.
  • Able to produce quality work while under tight deadlines and external pressures.
  • Excellent communication skills, both verbal and written.
  • Positive, effective team player; with confidence to inspire, persuade, and collaborate. Possesses a “whatever it takes” mentality

Full details about the position and how to apply can be found in the job posting on LinkedIn.

Rockies – the winners

Saturday evening, The Rockies happened. As an in-person event. Outdoors.

There was sun, and rain, and wind, and even some lightning in the distance. But Idaho spring weather aside, much credit to the Boise Advertising Federation and Idaho Advertising Federation for pulling off the show, making it comfortable for those who attended in person, and for offering a livestream for those that chose to watch from afar.

And now, a few highlights.

Best of Show

Duft Watterson
Idaho Transportation Department, ITD Distracted Driving Image

Gold Rockies

Mitchell + Palmer
Idaho Lottery, Goodness at Play

Mitchell + Palmer
Tobacco Connection, Uncle Bob – Wisdom | Trouble | #1

Duft Watterson
Washington Trust Bank, Can’t

Duft Watterson
Idaho Transportation Department, Ice Chest Stickers

Duft Watterson
HiRoad, HiRoad Car Mailer

Porter Pro Media
Bison Boys, Bison Boys

Duft Watterson
ITD, Distracted Driving Image

Name Brand
Mill 95, Here for the Hops

Drake Cooper
Light & Motion, Stella Pro Identity

Porter Pro Media
Bison Boys, Bison Boys Trailer

Name Brand
44 North Vodka, Vodka Grown in Idaho

Drake Cooper
Drake Cooper, 100% Employee Owned

Redfox Visual
#StopTheSpread

CLM Marketing & Advertising
Flying Pie, Flying Pie Brand Box

CLM Marketing & Advertising
Flying Pie, Flying Pie Brand

Gold highlights from the livestream, for those who are interested.

Silver Rockies

Far too many to list, but highlights from the Silver Awards portion of the show started here.

District XI ADDY Awards

Following the Rockies judging, all Gold winners are automatically forwarded to competition at the regional level, and Silver award winners had the option of forwarding their entries as well. Among those receiving ADDY Awards at the regional level were:

Silver ADDY
Porter Pro Media
Bison Boys, Bison Boys Trailer

Gold ADDY
Drake Cooper
Drake Cooper, 100% Employee Owned

Regional ADDY Best of Show
Against
Payette Brewing Company, Payette Can Redesign

The National ADDY Awards Show will be held virtually on June 11th.

Missed the show, or want to watch it again? The full livestream — including the evening-ending fireworks — is available on YouTube.

Congratulations to all of the winners.

The cycle repeats itself

If you follow an industry long enough, you start to see the same patterns and cycles repeat themselves every so often. The ebbs and flows of staffing as clients come and go through different shops. The shouting from the rooftops PR pushes, followed by periods of radio silence.

This one is no exception.

Every decade or so, there’s another wave of new businesses that make an appearance. Call them agencies, call them creative shops — whatever label you choose to put on them, it happens like clockwork. Some survive, some thrive, and others wilt away.

Often, those new agencies are formed by senior or experienced staff from other agencies that want to be in charge of their own destiny.

A decade ago, it was the likes of Carew Co., Red Sky, Sovrn, The Agency Creative Network, and Mitchell Palmer who made their grand entrances.

And like clockwork, another chapter in this story is being written.

It started a little over year ago with Duft Watterson, whose namesakes split from Stoltz Marketing Group to hang up their own shingle. Our friends at Boise Dev recently published a piece on them.

It continued earlier this year with the launch of Against. Founded by former Drake Cooper staffers Jennie Myers and Brad Weigle, Against bills themselves as a creative company that “focuses on helping companies define their purpose and rebel against the norm.”

Collectively, Myers and Weigle have over 20 years of experience, and have worked with clients in myriad industries, from finance and technology to consumer packaged goods, real estate and much more.

In addition to launching Against, Myers and Weigle have also developed a unique certificate of innovation and design (ID:EA Certificate), offered through the College of Innovation and Design at Boise State University.

Once again, the cycle repeats itself. The question remains — who else will join this latest group?

On a personal note

Forgive the personal nature of this one…

After more than a decade in and around the agency business, including a long tenure with Stoltz Marketing Group and a summer fling with Mitchell + Palmer, I decided it was time for a change, professionally. I’d had this nagging feeling in the back of my mind for a while, and it wasn’t going away: The agency business just wasn’t as much fun to me as it used to be. I know it’s not a new story, but that continuous drum beat of clients wanting more, faster, and for less can wear anyone down after a while.

And I was at that point.

So I’ve made a change.

Recently, I took a position with HP in Boise, on a small, newly-created marketing team. Being on the client side will certainly be different, but will be a nice change of pace, I think. After years worrying about clients’ businesses, budgets, timelines and everything in between, it’ll be interesting to be on the other side, and see where things go from here.

But enough about me. On to the really pressing question you have right now — what’s going to happen to this site? Well, for the foreseeable future, nothing will change. I’ll still continue to post – likely on the same infrequent schedule – as I have been for the last several years. One thing that may change, however, is the perspective. Since I’m no longer at one specific agency, I won’t have to worry about a perception of bias one way or another on the things that I do, or don’t, choose to write about.

Don’t get me wrong. I still enjoy this crazy business we call marketing, advertising, or whatever it’ll be known as down the road. That much will probably never change. But for me, it was time for something different. Does that mean I’ll get back into the agency game at some point? Possibly, if the right opportunity presents itself. I’ve got way too much industry and institutional knowledge to completely give up on it.

For now though, the scenery has changed, and it’s on to the next great adventure.