But on the subject of Webcasts, Aquent has two upcoming ones you may be interested in:
The first is Managing Your Excel Addiction given by Dan Neff, president of Aquent IT Solutions.
Is your marketing department addicted to spreadsheets? Overwhelming majorities are admitting that the answer is yes. While Excel spreadsheets are the preferred choice to segment, merge, and analyze marketing data, Excel was not designed as a data management tool. In this free and informative Aquent/AMA webcast, Dan Neff, president of Aquent’s IT Solutions, will illustrate how conflicting marketing data is more often the result of a process problem, not a technology gap. Neff will also provide practical examples for working your way out of a spreadsheet nightmare so you can improve your marketing efficiency.
It's on Thursday, May 29th at 10am (PDT) and absolutely free, as usual.
Next up Web Design for ROI: How Design Impacts the Bottom Line with Lance Loveday and Sandra Niehaus from Closed Loop Marketing.
Learn how to prioritize your design efforts by identifying which elements have the greatest impact on Web page effectiveness. Using a practical, how-to approach to design, Lance and Sandra will discuss the most important concepts and elements for effective landing pages, home pages, category pages, product pages, forms, shopping carts, and checkout processes. They will share guidelines, show case studies, and look at current examples to illustrate what works—and why. When it's your job to make a site beautiful and profitable, you'll want to start here.
This will be on Thursday, May 22nd at 10am (PDT) and is also incredibly free.
One of our favorite Marketing campaign pundits, Liz Goodgold, is putting her Tah-Duh! Awards newsletter to rest.
Awarding Marketing gaffes such as Sears' recent email campaign that addressed each one of its customers the same way ("Dear Donna Robinson") to Wendy's restaurants, trying to up the good coffee ante, announcing that they've started serving Folgers ("Yum, hon. These Folgers crystals are dynamite.")
And, being the ever transparent Marketing Maven that she is, gave a three-point reasoning in her last newsletter why she won't be continuing (#1: All brands must evolve - myself included. As more of my business comes from corporate consulting, speaking and training, many an executive is none too thrilled to be DUH'd by me, and less apt to turn around and hire me!)
You can access the last of her Awards newsletters by clicking here and Liz, if you're listening, we'll miss you.
And for all those Bad Marketers of the World, rejoice!
If Customer Segmentation gives you goose bumps and Email Opt Out Preferences keeps you from paying close attention to Flavor of Love 3, then the DMA has just the thing for you.
Yes, a full 8 virtual seminars on everything you wanted to know about Direct Mail and Marketing in general.
No, they're not free.
But they're virtual, so you don't have to pay for parking.
By now you've heard the expression Greenwashing, right? A marketing team decides they want to join the Eco Bandwagon (which, by the way, is getting pretty full) so they play up some "green" part of their company.
Say run two-page spreads during Earth Day featuring their regular products with eco tips interspersed throughout, as Macy's did.
Or build minimal impact LEED gas stations, as BP has done.
Many times marketers, it seems, confuse the playing field for their own company's profits. Not that I mind playing up the green part of a company and telling the world about it (I did it myself when we ran an FSC certified direct mail piece), but to pretend your entire company is out to save the planet to make a buck is about as honest as selling snake oil.
Look, snake oil salesmen weren't curing tuberculosis with their bogus medicine and BP sure isn't making a dent with their gas stations considering they make most of billions in gas and oil revenues.
So what's a company to do?
Patagonia may just have the answer.
Fast Company has a terrific article on Patagonia's challenge to 10 employees to "track five products from the design studio to the raw-materials stage to Patagonia's Nevada distribution center".
The company decided to post the employees findings, good and bad, on a microsite called The Footprint Chronicles. The site covers 10 products' journey to the factory and its energy consumption, CO2 emissions, waste generated, and distance traveled.
They then ask for the consumer's feedback and post the feedback on their Cleanest Line blog.
This is no bogus marketing ploy, this is honest-to-goodness "put your ethics where your wallet is" marketing.
Congrats to Patagonia for, again, raising the bar when it comes to corporate, and marketing, honesty.
No one said working for yourself would be easy (except, of course, Donald Trump), but it does have its perks.
Say working close to your toaster.
Or learning an awful lot about the personal life of your postman.
On the minus side is learning to cope when people keep telling you, "OMG, the economy is in the gutter!"
Especially if its your postman.
Happily, the fine folks over at Creative Pro (Terri Stone in particular) put together a "boat-load" of articles from their Business section on, well, the business of creative.
"...marketers of all stripes are bombarding consumers with green promotions and products designed to get them to buy more products—some eco-friendly, some not so much. And while that message seems to contrast with the event’s intent, the oxymoron seems to have been lost on marketers jumping on the Earth Day bandwagon in record numbers. This year it seems that just about everyone has found a way to attach themselves to what is fast becoming a marketing holiday that barely resembles the grass-roots event founded in 1970."
As much as I'm never a fan of buying things to celebrate a national holiday (or even to celebrate the weekend, much to my wife's chagrin), I'm not sure I agree with Ms. Zmuda's point.
Americans are, by their very nature, consumers. I think Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is the only holiday I'm aware of that doesn't inspire Sit 'N Sleep to slash prices on affordable bedding. Labor Day, Memorial Day, and Presidents' Day have nothing to do with white sales, free shipping, or moving merchandise on the sidewalks, and yet there they are, staples of the modern American landscape. Is anyone surprised businesses have hopped on board to sell merchandise on Earth Day?
What's more, the merchandise they're moving actually is aligned with the day itself, which is more than I can say about buying a new washing machine Columbus Day. ("He hated filthy clothing, you know.")
So, instead of just picking up trash for one day out of the year, by buying one fluorescent bulb you could be using(according to ENERGY STAR) 75% less energy than a standard incandescent bulb. And that one bulb will last 10 times longer than the incandescent one.
If Home Depot and Lowes can help people in America pull that off, then I for one am all for it.
Just make sure to bring your reusable bag to take home your purchase.
(A side note, how, exactly, does Advertising Age run an article about consumerism out of control? Is that or is that not like an adult film star asking the FCC for Howard Stern to tone it down?
That is, until I found the final piece of my daughter's pink MALM 3-drawer chest I was assembling was nicked. And I rang customer service to find out how they wanted to go about replacing the piece. And I rang. And rang. I rang for 10 minutes. And no one answered. I rang for two days. And still...
Nor did anyone answer at the HQ IKEA number (they redirected me, after much pushing of buttons, back to my local store where it rang some more.)
There's a lot to like about IKEA, but what's not to love is their customer service. (Please see Danielle Crittenden's blog "Why I Hate IKEA" at the The Huffington Post.)
Maybe one of the execs from the Scandinavian giant will take a moment to attend the latest AMA/Aquent Webcast:
Optimizing the Profitable Link Between Employees and Customer Loyalty Behavior
Michael Lowenstein, Vice President and Senior Consultant at Harris Interactive, points out that research indicates "at least 70% of your customers’ behavior is driven by their interactions with your employees."
Which would explain why there's no rush for me to hustle on back to that big blue and yellow store to get more furniture.
But enough about my allen-wrench assembly skills, here's the delio on the Webcast.
In this free and informative Aquent/AMA webcast, Michael Lowenstein, Vice President and Senior Consultant at Harris Interactive, will present critical insights about the relationship among profitability, employee behavior, and customer loyalty, which will prove that true customer commitment is attainable only when the entire organization understands and performs its roles in providing superior customer experiences.
You will learn how to:
Effectively measure and understand customers’ perceptions
Pinpoint which employee attitudes and actions affect customer behavior
Leverage employee positivism and customer focus
Identify and eliminate employee sabotage
Develop a customer-centric culture
The AMA recommends attendees of this Webcast should include Senior Executives and Managers of:
You know there's a lot to be said for friendly competition, which is why I'm going to let you know why our resident Minister of Enlightenment and HQ Blogger, Mr. Matt Grant, has a blog well worth visiting.
For one, he gets access to incredibly interesting people in both the Marketing and Creative fields.
Two, he podcasts a lot, so you can listen on the way home or in the comfort of your own Elliptical Machine.
Three, he's incredibly smart and insightful.
Yes, it sounds as if I might marry him.
Not to worry, he's taken.
And is really, really not my type.
Really.
To prove my point this week Matt has a two-part conversation with James Intriligator, a man who received his doctorate in psychology from Harvard and now has a post in the Center for Neuroscience and Consumer Psychology at the University of Wales, Bangor.
James is currently doing quite a bit of work on how the brain perceives brands and how brands build up in brains over time.
Though it's no man rapping about sectional furniture, it's pretty compelling stuff.
How's this for Marketing snafus? (By way of Duh! Marketing Awards) The Bedder Get It Together Award
Honorably awarded toWoolworths–a chain of furniture stores in Britain - for introducing "Lolita", a bed targeted for 6-year old girls. Yikes! The retailer claimed to have never heard of the famous 1955 novel in which the narrator becomes way too involved with his 12-year old stepdaughter. Really? The lesson: Names must always be screened for negative overtones, sexual innuendo, political influences or unintended double entendres. This branding effort should have been covered up.
Wow, the retailer never heard of the movie.
Interesting study in marketing: a cheap (10 cent) pill doesn't kill pain as well as an expensive ($2.50) pill, even when they both are the same placebos.
Crazy, huh?
Dan Ariely, a behavioral economist at Duke University, published his findings in a letter in the March 5th edition of Journal of the American Medical Association (full text is $15 or read the Science Daily article here or listen to it on NPR's Morning Edition here).
Ariely said, "Physicians want to think it's the medicine and not their enthusiasm about a particular drug that makes a drug more therapeutically effective, but now we really have to worry about the nuances of interaction between patients and physicians."
And cost. Don't forget perceptions based on cost.
Consider that researchers from the California Institute of Technology and Stanford's business school "have directly seen that the sensation of pleasantness that people experience when tasting wine is linked directly to its price. And that's true even when, unbeknownst to the test subjects, it's exactly the same Cabernet Sauvignon with a dramatically different price tag."
Researchers found that with higher priced (which were identical to lower priced wines) more blood and oxygen was sent to a part of the brain "whose activity reflects pleasure".
The researchers added: "Contrary to the basic assumptions of economics, several studies have provided behavioral evidence that marketing actions can successfully affect experienced pleasantness by manipulating nonintrinsic attributes of goods. For example, knowledge of a beer's ingredients and brand can affect reported taste quality, and the reported enjoyment of a film is influenced by expectations about its quality.
And, back to the $2.50 pill, "Even more intriguingly, changing the price at which an energy drink is purchased can influence the ability to solve puzzles." ( By way of CNET News.)
Which is why you shouldn't blame me if this post stinks. As I opted for coffee at home to help me write rather than the $4.50 latte up the street at Starbucks.
In January our Marketing deparment sent out a direct mail piece, as they are wont to do, a fairly funny board game based on the current complexity of Marketing efforts, called "Complextra".
The thing that impressed me, though, was the appearance of the Forest Stewardship Council (or FSC) logo on the piece itself. FSC is a non-profit "devoted to encouraging the responsible management of the world's forests with a commitment to environmentally sound business practices." It has blessings from Greenpeace, National Wildlife Federation, Sierra Club and World Wildlife Fund.
Mary Anne, in our Marketing department, chose Mohawk's Chorus Art, 100# Silk Test which is 50% recycled and 15% post consumer waste for the run.
Just by this ONE choice in the production of the piece, according to Mohawk's environmental calculator:
They may be baby steps, but I think those numbers a danged compelling.
And these were environmental savings reaped by the choice of just one or two key people.
See Mohawk's site (under envrionment) to see what the savings will be for any project by putting in pounds of paper used, recycled content, coated or not, and whether the product was made with windpower.
Right before Spring is another, fifth season: The Season of Creative Contests.
I'm not kidding (did you think I would?), AIGA and CommunicationArts are opening the floodgates for contestants for their Illustration, Design, and Photography competitions.
Starting with AIGA's 365 Design competition:
Work in all media that has been designed, produced and used in the marketplace between January 1 and December 31, 2007. (The contest) represents the best work across all disciplines of communication design and strategy and "50 Books/50 Covers" represents the 50 best book covers and 50 best book designs for the given year, both chosen by a jury of industry peers.
The contest includes: Brand and identity systems, Corporate communications design, Package design, Editorial design and illustration, Typographic design, Promotional design and advertising, Experience design, Entertainment design, and Information design.
Deadline is March 7th. Entry fees are $35 for members, $55 for nonmembers, per individual entry.
49th Annual Communication Arts Illustration Competition
Any Illustration first printed or produced between March 14, 2007 and March 11, 2008 is eligible. Selected by a nationally representative jury of distinguished designers, art directors and illustrators, the winning entries will be published in the July 2008 Illustration Annual. Over 70,000 copies of the Illustration Annual will be distributed worldwide, assuring important exposure to the creators of this outstanding work. As a service to art directors, designers and art buyers, a comprehensive index will carry addresses and telephone numbers of the illustrators represented.
Categories include: Advertising, Books, Editorial, For Sale, Institutional, Motion/Animation, Self-Promotion, and Unpublished.
Deadline is March 11th. Entry fees are $30 for a single entry, $60 for a series.
49th Annual Communication Arts Photography Competition
Any photograph first printed or produced between March 14, 2007 and March 11, 2008 is eligible. Selected by a nationally representative jury of distinguished designers, art directors and photographers, the winning entries will be published in the August 2008 Photography Annual. Over 70,000 copies of the Photography Annual will be distributed worldwide, assuring important exposure to the creators of this outstanding work. As a service to art directors, designers and art buyers, a comprehensive index will carry addresses and telephone numbers of the photographers represented.
Categories also include: Advertising, Books, Editorial, For Sale, Institutional, Motion/Animation, Self-Promotion, and Unpublished.
Okay, maybe not the appropriate posting title for a Marketing Webcast, but I was trying to make it sound exciting.
By referencing a 20-year old work of music.
Regardless, Aquent and AMA National are sponsoring another of our wildly successful Webcasts: 7 Steps to a Stellar Online Reputation, hosted by Andy Beal, author of the award-winning Marketing Pilgrim blog.
(See, you knew the reference would come around, didn't you?)
Here's the lowdown:
Companies spend millions of dollars building and promoting their brands online by creating engaging multimedia content, building and maintaining a blog, and improving rankings in search engines. Yet despite these best efforts, it is possible for a single negative review – on a social networking site, a blog, or YouTube – to destroy a company’s reputation.
Reputation management requires new skills in a world where the power to control a brand is shifting away from traditional media and corporate monologues on Web sites. Marketers must now build strategies for managing, monitoring, and maintaining their online reputations.
(This Webcast) will outline a seven-step action plan that will give attendees the tools they need to maintain a stellar online reputation by:
devising online media strategies and objectives that engage customers,
developing a monitoring system will work best for their company, and
implementing a crisis management plan when the company’s reputation faces attack.
Andy's worked with Motorola, GlaxoSmithKline, SAS, Lowes, Quicken Loans, and NBC and has been published in BusinessWeek, Search Engine Guide, and WebProNews.
Another one from the "I just like it, 'cause it's cool" files: Y Water.
Yes it's Organic with a capital "O". And "nutrient rich" (which I'm on the fence about since it's got sugar in it.) And low calorie.. feh.
It's the bottle that's to love.
Y Water founder, Thomas Arndt, teamed with San Francisco-based design firm, fuseproject, to come up with the new product and brand concept. Each bottle can be linked with other bottles by way of YKnots, a connector attached to each Y Water bottle.
The product isn't even hitting Whole Foods shelves until mid year, but they're already making their rounds in Business Week Magazine and Eastman Innovation Lab's site (the bottle itself is made from Eastman's Eastar copolyester).
I think the hefty price tag of $1.69 each might be a bit of a deal breaker for many parents out there.
But maybe not our kids.
GenY indeed.
(Bottom image courtesy of Eastman Innovation Lab.)
They quote Mark Constantine, the brand's chief executive, commenting on the recent sale of Burt's Bees to Clorox: "You couldn't have a more dramatic difference in image from a chemical bleach company and a natural cosmetics company based on honey and bees."
They also point out other "natural" brands who have sold out in recent years, among them, Bare Escentuals and UK's Body Shop (to L'Oreal).
Of course, I'm just hitting the tip of the iceberg here, but I think that's the point: Now that you know Clorox owns Burt's Bees, will it affect whether you buy the product or not?
There are, I'm sure, myriad reasons that sale happened (outlined in the NY Times article), but does that change your perception when you actually choose which brand to buy? What if Clorox told you they'd stick by the original mission of the Burt's Bees company? (Their site states: "It's a great opportunity to help us better deliver against our mission of making truly natural personal products available to everyone, everywhere.")
Yes, it takes a lots and lots of money to expand a brand globally, but I'm not sure consumers who consider themselves "ethical" buyers really care how big their shampoo company gets.
But, then again, does a company like Estee Lauder really need them when they can turn a brand like Aveda into a global powerhouse?
And you will be too, after you hear Jeremiah Owyang, Senior Analyst at Forrester Research, discuss the latest trends in social media in this free IABC Webinar.
Cosponsored by Dow Jones, next week you'll be tons smarter when you:
Discover how social media is being deployed throughout the enterprise and how listening to the conversation can help you identify your audience and their drivers while seizing opportunities and mitigating risks.
Using advanced text-mining and visualization technologies Dow Jones Insight helps you easily discover what's being said about your company in blogs, Web sites and message boards. Learn how to easily monitor and understand the latest news, market trends, and business challenges relevant to your organization and your customer
In fact if you are not tons smarter by the end, I will personally refund the money you spent to get into it.
Yes, I'm just that confident this free Webinar will be of interest to you.
Because, as you may well know, there are times when you read an article by someone smarter than you and you end up thinking, "Man have I been passing a lot of bad information around."
So it comes as no surprise that just days after I applauded Apple on the beauty of their iMac that I'd see this article in Gizmodo exclaiming that many Apple products spearheaded by Designer Jonathan Ive are incredibly similar to Dieter Rams' designs for Braun during the 1950s and 60s.
(If you are dying to see something eerie, check out the similarity of the Braun T3 pocket radio and Apple first generation iPod.)
Before we all shout "stealers!", the author of the article is quick to point out "in a world where industrial design and art is constantly being recycled into new work, I just see Apple's products as a great evolution to classic concepts. Now, as I look at Rams' work I can't help but to wonder: which of these old Braun designs will Apple revive next?"
Which makes me feel much better about stealing his article for use here.
I don't know about you, but when I hear the expression "Marketing Ops", I picture MBAs stalking around in black ninja outfits using collateral as throwing stars and nunchaku.
But then again, I work in a very small Marketing department.
If yours is a bit larger, you may want to listen in on another one of our uber popular Aquent/AMA Webcasts: Do More with Less: Put Marketing Operations to Work in your Department
Marketing leaders in many industries and in companies large and small are responding by launching transformation initiatives to operate more efficiently, to improve the effectiveness of marketing initiatives and programs, and to better align and measure what marketing does against company objectives. Critical to a transformation are new enabling technologies like Marketing Resource Management (MRM), adoption of a measurement mindset, and the establishment of a centralized Marketing Operations function.
In this Aquent-Sponsored webcast, MarketSphere National Practice Director Mayer Becker will discuss the importance and role of a Marketing Operations function in a marketing organization and will lay out a 5-step approach to achieving a successful transformation. These steps include:
I've been passing by the new BP gas station on Olympic for about 6 months now and for the life of me I can't figure out what the company is doing.
Here's a gas station who rents (or owns) the billboards and bus stop surrounding it, promoting messages with flowers and messages like: "Put the petal to the metal", "A little better", and "Everyone into the carpool."
I bought gas at 7pm last night and it was a bit like an other-worldly experience. A woman in a BP shirt named Rita came over, introduced herself to me, asked my name, and wondered if she could answer any of my questions. I didn't ask any (because I was about to faint from overstimulation) but...
What's up with the hip music pumping out of the speakers?
Why is there a light show going on at your gas station?
Why, on every monitor on every pump, is there a video talking about conserving water, gas, paper, and reducing emissions?
Lastly, what kind of gas station has really, really clean, modern bathrooms?
I've since come to learn that the whole station is a LEED certified project, which is a green building rating meaning that it meets certain criteria for "environmentally sustainable construction".
I understand the desire to create better buildings, encourage conservation, but isn't a funky, trendy, ultra-clean gas station an odd place to do it?
Daniel Gross over at Slate agreed, several years ago, that BP's environmental stand is a little crazy, as the world's seventh largest company "generates the overwhelming majority of its $160 billion in annual revenues from the oil and gas business."
So what's driving BP? Real concern for the environment, craving for the discerning consumer, or confusing bloggers who are in dire need of petroleum?
Visiting my local Subway Sandwich Emporium the other day I noticed the familiar face of Jared was missing. You may know him as the Subway spokesperson who lost so much weight from eating their sandwiches.
In his place I saw character Peter Griffin from Fox's Family Guy hawking Subway's biggest, fattest sandwich ever, The Subway Feast:
"Heaping piles of roast
beef, salami, pepperoni, turkey and black forest ham, all wrapped up in
American cheese on freshly baked bread. It's the kind of concrete
slippers that hunger fears the most."
An odd step for a fast food chain who has (happily) marketed with healthy techniques like teaming with Trek bicycles to offer bike goodies for kid's meals and teaming with the American Heart Association. They were also, as far as I know, the first fast food place to offer apples and yogurt as sides, instead of chips.
So, in their lineup of "Fresh Fit" subs, carb-free options, and weight management tips, is this a marketing misstep or just playing to the American public's appetite?
Aquent and AMA national are doing another in a series wildly popular Webcasts at the end of this month.
Global vs. Local: Seven Key Insights for Global Marketing and Brand Management
Though the words "Seven Key Insights" makes me think of The DaVinci Code, I think it's more down to earth than that:
Don DePalma, President and Chief Research Officer at Common Sense Advisory and author of "Business Without Borders: A Strategic Guide to Global Marketing" will outline seven key considerations for marketers charged with managing and maintaining their brands across borders. From the best practices to the pitfalls, Don will provide insights on taking a website, sales and marketing promotions, and documentation abroad.
Don is an industry analyst, author, and corporate strategist with expertise in business- and marketing-focused application of technology. He lectures, writes, and is frequently quoted on the topics of online marketing, content management, multicultural marketing, localization, return on investment, and website globalization. His book, "Business Without Borders: A Strategic Guide to Global Marketing," is widely used in universities and in business training courses.
Yup, much more down to earth.
Weird that I was looking for something more elusive, eh?
Story of my life.
Regardless, the free Webcast will take place on November 29 at 10am, PST .
Account/Client Services Supervisor
Fulfillment Project Manager
Sr. Designer
RFP Specialist
Production Artist
Traffic Manager
Web Project Manager / Producer
Production Artist
Sr. Designer
POSITION: Account/Client Services Supervisor
TERMS: Freelance-to-Permanent (On-Site)
MUST HAVES!:
Experience managing team of Account or Marketing Managers
Heavy client service and marketing experience
5 to 10 years of experience
Ability to mentor and lead a dynamic and disparate team
PERKS!:
Leading non-profit company in the U.S.
Perfect job for someone who likes the challenge of pulling a team together
MUST HAVES!:
2 years of experience writing RFPs
Excellent writing, editing, and proofreading skills
Great time management and organizational skills
Position is writing only, no research
MUST HAVES!:
Ability to work in a fast-paced environment
Experience working with job jackets, setting schedules, and deadlines
3+ years of experience
Extensive knowledge of pre-press
MUST HAVES!:
2+ years of on-line project management experience at an agency
Solid understanding of lifecycle of Web development initiatives
Organized and able to manage deliverables and assets
Eye for design
PERKS!:
Good work environment
Company promotes well-being
MUST HAVES!:
5 to 7 years of experience
Packaging experience a must!
Solid skills in point of purchase displays, advertisements, catalogs, brochures, and logos
What, exactly, is an "Aqualung"? What did 80's hair band Poison mean by the "Unskinny Bop"? Can anyone, anywhere, name a Golden Earring hit?
Sometimes Rocktober brings about more questions than answers.
Happily we're bringing you only solutions this week, in the form of fantastic Aquent Talent guaranteed to impact your company's bottom line and make your work life better.
Which will free you up to accomplish important life goals...
Say, getting the Trans-Am off those cinderblocks and out of Mom's yard by Thanksgiving.
You can thank us with a PBR down by the river.
Don't forget to follow the links for profiles, samples, and resumes.
Then call us for our Classic Rock hold music (we won't be long).
Enjoy!
FEATURED TALENT THIS WEEK
Thomas M. - Print & Web Art Director | Designer
Coburn H. - UI Design | Developer
Sokrates F. - Copy Editor | Proofreader
Chris G. - Jr. Flash ActionScriptor
-------------------------------------------
Thomas M. Print & Web Art Director | Designer
With amazing experience in CPG, entertainment, automotive, beauty, architecture and non-profit, look no further for your next print and Web superstar!
Well, just a little further, we're not done telling you about him.
Tom's conceptual as well as hands-on skill can be seen on work for companies such as National Geographic, NBC, Mazda, Infiniti, Nestle, Ziba Beauty, and many more. He has agency experience from Rare Medium, Sandy Creative, and CRDG Hollywood and is an expert at creating stellar packaging, POP, signage, marketing collateral, direct mail, Web sites, Flash animation banners, and HTML emails.
Looking for a team environment to call home (either permanently or freelance), he'll make all your campaigns truly shine!
Professional Categories: Graphic Design, Art Direction
-------------------------------------------
Coburn H. UI Design | Developer
Now available after finishing up work for Ignited Minds, Coburn is a gifted Web Designer and Developer who has led creative teams in custom software development, internal- and external-facing sites, ecommerce environments, and much more.
With strong design skills and technical acumen, he's done excellent work of us at NBC Universal, Public Interest Advertising, and Earthlink. While on staff at Venice Consulting his client roster included Hilton Hotels, Buy.com, Fox Sports, Goldsmith Seeds, Shea Homes, Morgan Samuels, Millie & Severson, Pure Link, and Ladera.
His hands-on skills include some seriously strong HTML/DHTML, CSS, Photoshop, PHP, plus JavaScript and ASP.
Speaking of serious, if you're interested, call us today. We know he's not going to be available for long!
Skills: Adobe Acrobat, Adobe ImageReady, Adobe Photoshop, DHTML, HTML, Macromedia Dreamweaver, Macromedia HomeSite, Microsoft IIS, Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Windows NT, Microsoft Word, Visio
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Sokrates F. Copy Editor | Proofreader
A spot-on Copy Editor and Proofreader with over 8 years of experience, Sokrates recently nabbed one of the highest scores we've ever seen on our arduous proofreading assessment.
Fluent in Chicago, AP, and AMA styles, he's guaranteed accuracy and clarity for dozens of elated clients including Microsoft, adidas, Best Buy, Coors, Disney, Ford, Levi's, Northwest Airlines, Bayer, Bristol-Myers Squibb, GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis, and Novo Nordisk.
With a background including advertising, legal and medical communications, public relations, and marketing, we think you'll find his commitment to the written word (whether it be on paper or on the Web) is second to none!
Professional Categories: Editing, Proofreading, Content QA, Proposal Editor, Content Editing
-------------------------------------------
Chris G. Jr. Flash ActionScriptor
We know he's going to be big.
Chris has just over a year of professional experience under his belt and he's already working on a notable client roster working on projects like full life cycle development of American Film Institute's prestigious (and extensive) 100 Years, 100 Movies site.
We'd also be foolish not to mention his high scores on our rigorous Actionscript assessment.
Ready to start immediately, he has the awesome hands-on skills and potential to get your site(s) to the next level!
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makes his way to a quiet place outside where he can talk/smoke.
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had their licenses revoked.)
SERVICE: Remotely Locking/Unlocking Door
DESCRIPTION: You lock your keys in the car and can't get back in.
BENEFIT: You'll have quick and easy entry into your vehicle.
Just give the RockStar Advisor your secure PIN and they'll send a
signal to unlock your door. (Please note that there may be a time lag
while the RockStar Advisor tries to remember where he put the codebook
containing PIN numbers.)
If you've forgotten to lock your doors once you're away from your
vehicle, a RockStar Advisor can send a signal to lock them for you.
(Keeping in mind, of course, that RockStars are extraordinarily
forgetful and often cannot remember to pay rent, send birthday cards,
or call their mothers. RockStar LLC is not liable for a RockStar
Advisor forgetting to lock your car resulting in finding your vehicle
stripped and up on blocks.)
SERVICE: Emergency Situations
DESCRIPTION: If you find yourself or another person in a
situation where you need immediate assistance from police, fire, or
emergency medical services (EMS), simply press the red emergency
button.
BENEFIT: Your location information is transmitted and your call
takes priority status on RockStar Advisor's screen. (However, if at the
exact same time a pizza is arriving at the RockStar Advisor's front
door or he is in the middle of a really good part of a DVD, this may
take precedence over your emergency call. Do not panic, the Advisor
will get to you as soon as the Pizza Guy is paid or the good part of
the movie is over.)
SERVICE: Driving Directions
DESCRIPTION: Helpful RockStar Advisors with up-to-date computer maps are a great way to make sure you're headed in the right direction!
BENEFIT: Get directions without stopping. Upon your request,
Advisors will use a global positioning system to locate your vehicle
and give you clear(ish) directions to your destination or guidance to
nearby motels, ATMs, seedy bars, all-night diners, and places to get a
20-foot,16-gauge speaker cable at 3am. As many RockStar Advisors have
previously been Pizza Delivery Men or Bicycle Couriers themselves, they
know the shortcuts (both legal and through front yards) to get you
where you're going quickly.
SERVICE: Ride Assistance
DESCRIPTION: Should you or your vehicle not be suitable for driving home, a RockStar Advisor will call a taxicab at your request.
BENEFIT: A (mostly) reliable way to make it home. If no cab is
available, the RockStar Advisor or one of his out-of-work band mates
will come pick you up in a van. Please do remember there may be some
lag time if the RockStar Advisor is asleep or lapsing in and out of a
drug-induced coma.
SERVICE: Stolen Vehicle Tracking
DESCRIPTION: If you determine that your vehicle has been stolen,
RockStar will help the police determine its location. Contact a
RockStar Advisor from your vehicle. Ooh, wait, your vehicle's been
stolen. Right. We'll get back to you on this one.
BENEFIT: None yet.
SERVICE: RockStar Concierge
DESCRIPTION: Having trouble finding the perfect restaurant for a
romantic interlude? A Zagat Guide might be your first choice, but if
you're looking for a cheap place for burritos or one of those places
that won't kick you out no matter how loud and inebriated your table
gets, contact your RockStar Advisor for guidance that can't be found in
any book.
BENEFIT: RockStar gives you the one source for rock
recommendations and information for most major U.S. cities (in which
your RockStar Advisor has personally toured). Sample inquiries include:
Where's the best place to crash when your girlfriend kicks you out?
What's the difference between a 1968 Fender Telecaster and the 1969 one?
Where can you get chicken and waffles on the same plate? Only your
RockStar Advisor knows for sure!
SERVICE: Roadside Assistance
DESCRIPTION: Whether you need gas, a tire changed or your car towed, a RockStar Advisor may contact help. Then again, they may not.
BENEFIT: Minor at best. This service really depends on the mood
the Advisor at the time of the call. We apologize in advance for any
inconvenience. You may want to consider also joining the Automobile
Club.
Thank you for joining the many satisfied customers already using
RockStar In-Vehicle Safety and Security System to help make life easier
and a little more rockin'.
And if your vehicle is a minivan, you can use all the rock n' roll lifestyle you can get.
Remember, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, a RockStar is only a button away.
