Super Bowl XLVI: what worked and what didn’t (ads that is)Feb 8 by PartnersCreative Sean’s #1 pick for best Super Bowl ad — too bad it only aired in Canada. Super Bowl commercials produce almost as much buzz as the game itself and not just in an advertising agency like ours. PartnersCreative agency principal and creative director, Sean Benton, shares his opinion on which ads hit the mark and which flopped in his guest column on MakeItMissoula.com. Doing Good for Good ReasonsDec 21 by PartnersCreative by Steve Falen, Creative Director and Agency PrincipalOur agency has committed to donating our services to nonprofits since the beginning. In fact, our co-founder Susan’s first Missoula client, back in the Ash Marketing days, was pro bono work for Camp Mak-A-Dream. Since then we’ve helped Watson Children’s Shelter, the Missoula Family YMCA, Missoula Art Museum, Five Valleys Land Trust and on and on. (And we still work with the Camp.) Even today in a shaky economy, we continue to provide more than $200,000 in professional services each year. Why is that? We need to make money as much as any other business. Networking? There are cheaper ways. Is it our way of finding clients who give us the freedom to do especially creative work? Not really.  Missoula YMCA Website The reason is is that it’s the right thing to do. Our Montana nonprofits usually are facing a daunting mission without many resources. They are vital causes that can have a difficult time speaking for themselves in a complex market. If we can lend them our expertise, insight and experience it’s likely to be far more valuable than simple cash donations. And doing good feels good. But we know pro bono clients are just as demanding as paying clients, and we believe they are entitled to the same level of quality work. We need to apply the same strategic thinking, and the same levels of insight and creativity. That makes timing and capacity an essential understanding before we make the decision to join a cause. And chemistry is very important. We have to feel it. And feel it we do, the whole staff. Morale always seems high when we are involved with a good cause. Creativity is flowing. We know we’re making a difference.  Missoula Art Museum "Snap Art" Campaign Pro bono partnering with nonprofits is our way of saying “I’ve had a good life and I live in a good place, now I’m giving back.” Doing our thing for reasons that have nothing to do with money, just trying to make this place a better place. Social Media Opportunities: How Does Montana Stack Up?Nov 29 by PartnersCreative
Invited by the Missoula Job Service, I recently presented to Missoula-area businesses about incorporating social media into their marketing strategies, what social media sites they should consider and some tips/tools for how to manage content. In preparation for my social media presentation, I thought about my daily work here at the agency and I took a studied look at social media trends nationwide — and how Montana ranks against the rest of the U.S. And what I learned was quite informative. If you are looking for a snapshot of social media and don’t want to read any further than this sentence, or if If you made it through the video and want to learn more — read on. Seventy-four percent of Americans are online and 65 percent of adult Internet users spend time on social networking sites. In marketing, when usage of a product or service reaches around 60 percent it is considered to have achieved “critical mass.” Social media is not going to go away anytime soon. Interestingly enough, there is no discernable usage difference among users in regard to race, income, education or location (rural, suburban and urban). The only statistically significant factors are gender and age. Smartphone usage is also approaching critical mass across the United States. By the end of 2011, smartphone usage is predicted to grow 85 percent and 30 percent of those individuals use their smartphones to browse the Internet. Let’s take a look at three social networks — Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn — and see how Montana stacks up.
There are more than 155 million Facebook users in the U.S. alone. These users spend 16 percent of their total online time on Facebook.
The average Facebook user:
In less than three and a half years, Montanans’ usage of Facebook has grown an astonishing 746 percent. The following infographics break down Montana users.
Facebook offers some built-in analytics that give you a look at some basic information about your followers such as your increase and/or decrease in fans, gender by age, and geography of where your fans come from. Recent upgrades to what Facebook calls “insights” help people further analyze their pages. This new information that Facebook is collecting will allow you to see which posts are generating the most reach and “sharing” within Facebook. There are also a number of third-party tools that track Facebook statistics. If you are thinking about using Facebook advertising, a few tips to note:
There are only 13 percent of Americans using Twitter and only 4 percent of those users have more than 500 followers. However, 32 percent of Twitter users tweet from their smartphones. (Remember, 30 percent of smartphone owners use their phone for Internet searches.) In Montana, we are significantly behind the curve in Twitter usage. We lag behind all other states in the U.S. except Mississippi. If you are thinking about using Twitter to promote your business to a Montana-only customer base, I wouldn’t recommend spending the time to establish a Twitter presence. However, if your business or service reaches well beyond Montana’s borders, Twitter is an efficient tool for disseminating news and customer service. If you have a business that generates a lot of interesting news, then Twitter could be a great tool to add to your other PR tactics. Or, if you currently have a customer service hotline, a Twitter account would be a great place to set up a “help desk.” Unfortunately, Twitter has no built-in analytics for measuring the return on engagement. There is talk that Twitter will implement some type of tracking to let companies gauge their successes on Twitter. In the meantime, there are third-party services that provide some analytics based on overall Twitter activity and how it relates to your account.
Throughout the U.S. there are currently 48.5+ million users on LinkedIn. Primarily used as a business resource, LinkedIn is a great place to generate interest about your company. You can set up a company profile and your employees can link their personal pages to this profile to further spread the word about your company to their networks of colleagues. Some of the features LinkedIn includes are a company overview, information about the size of the organization, and a Google map locator. The site also lets you go in and add specific products and services — companies with YouTube Channels can include video on their LinkedIn profiles. The most recently added feature is the ability to place a “status” update that has its own tracking analytics, similar to Facebook and Twitter. Nationally, the top five industries using LinkedIn right now are finance, high tech, medical, education and manufacturing. In Montana, there are currently more than 82,600 users. In both rural and urban markets there is a huge opportunity for growth here.
I’d recommend surveying your employees to learn who have LinkedIn pages — you never know who they are connected to that might lead to future business down the road. Recently at PartnersCreative, the PR department hosted a “LinkedIn Lunch” where we had everyone in the organization join us for food and LinkedIn. Profiles were shown off, started or completed; all were connected to our PartnersCreative LinkedIn profile. And remember that an employee’s personal profile page can connect to his or her company’s Twitter, Facebook and blog pages. There are also some built-in analytics in LinkedIn that compare activity on your company page to activity on pages of companies similar in size. And, LinkedIn tracks the number of members who are linked to your page, what industries they work in and in what capacity, as well as the top companies where they are employed. Montana and social media — We’ve made some great strides in embracing Facebook throughout the state. I believe that businesses in Montana are using Facebook more than any other social network. The question is, are these businesses successful with their efforts? I think that Twitter is a much more difficult network for small business owners to successfully utilize — especially in Montana. On a local level, Twitter is much more effective in highly populated areas (i.e., think about a food truck using it to let its customers know where it is parked that day). And with such low usage throughout Montana, unless your company works on a national/international level, it is hard to recognize the immediate benefits of Twitter — especially without any built-in analytics to determine if your company time spent on Twitter is worth the effort. LinkedIn is a key network that I think Montana is still trying to figure out. It does take some work to encourage employees to set up profile pages and it takes staff time to fill out their profiles. It is definitely a more lengthy process than posting 140 characters to a Twitter account. But it also has infinite potential to build your business. While social media continues to evolve as a medium, services mature and individual users across Montana’s urban and rural landscapes increase their time spent on social media, it’s time for Montana’ businesses and professional services to take a hard look at joining the parade. Prioritizing the effort from a business perspective, I’d recommend Facebook and LinkedIn immediately — keep an eye on Twitter for the appropriate time to add that to your PR work. And don’t forget to monitor Google+. Within the last two weeks, Google opened its doors to companies to create profile pages. I really enjoy looking at social media — its uses, its statistics and its possibilities — and would love to field any questions and/or comments. Please don’t hesitate to contact me. I’d love to hear from you. Do Contest Promotions Work for B2B Clients?Sep 8 by PartnersCreativeby Suzanne Elfstrom, Account Supervisor Short answer. Yes. The caveat is working with your client to set realistic goals and objectives and to implement measurement tools to track the return on engagement. However, the key component of any promotion is to offer your prospects a product/service that is worth their time to participate.
Pitch the 406 We work with a number of B2B clients, and in August we launched a new promotion with a contest component for the Montana Film Office (MFO). MFO promotes filming in Montana and encourages filmmakers to use its Studio 406 Incentive Package to “get your picture made” in Montana. As you can imagine, filmmakers are a small audience with further divided niches in the industry. MFO primarily focuses on small, independent films, commercial productions and documentaries. Building on the success of our first MFO contest promotion – “Scout the 406” – last year, PartnersCreative worked with MFO to create a new and larger promotion called “Pitch the 406.”
Measuring return on engagement Setting and managing client expectations is half the battle to a successful campaign. If you and the client have realistic expectations about the success of the campaign, then everyone wins. Determining what key performance indicators you are going to track during the campaign is the other half. For “Pitch the 406” we determined a number of components we will measure throughout the campaign flight. The ultimate measurement of the campaign’s success will be picking a winner that has a legitimate project to bring to Montana. The winning project will employ Montanans, utilize a variety of businesses within the state and enhance our economy. This is the Montana Film Office’s mission. But other aspects of the promotion will be measured as well, including:
Spreading the word The campaign uses a number of traditional and nontraditional media tools to promote the contest. These include:
We built a website specifically around the promotion and shot a short video of industry individuals making their “pitch” to filmmakers to shoot in Montana. The video can be found at http://scout406.com and on the film office’s YouTube channel.
Withoutabox.com is a subscriber-based website for filmmakers and film festival promoters. This site allows filmmakers to enter festivals directly from the website. In addition to hosting content about the contest, MFO is running banners on the site and will be featured in a direct e-newsletter that goes out to subscribers daily.
In addition to our paid advertising efforts, we created specific e-blast templates to target the film office’s database of filmmakers and crew members, along with a list of film school faculty advisers. These emails will be sent out over the next six weeks. We also have an aggressive PR program in place that began September 6, targeting key publications, websites and bloggers.
What’s next The contest concludes November 30, 2011. A talented panel of Hollywood judges will review all submitted entries and a winner will be chosen the first week of January 2012. Internally, we will review all the components of the campaign and measure them against our goals and objectives. Based on the success of “Pitch the 406″ we will decide with the client if we are going to make this an annual promotion and build on the first year’s success. And of course, we will launch another campaign around our winner when the production comes to Montana to film. It will be exciting to see what type of film the winner will shoot in the state and to track the success of the picture. I look forward to sharing this information along with complete results of the campaign, its successes and areas we can make improvements for future promotions. Busting the Myths on Seat Belt UsageJul 19 by PartnersCreativeby Megan Glassburn, Account Executive —Getting in an accident at 30 mph really won’t hurt me. For Montana Department of Transportation’s most recent seat belt campaign, we tried to shatter these myths in a series of raw videos highlighting real-world experimentation. The videos feature these three most common reasons (excuses) for not wearing a seat belt — and real experiments to test their ridiculousness. Ask any 16- to 25-year-old and he will admit seat belts save lives. But how do you get his attention to wear a seat belt every time he gets in a vehicle? The Myth Crashers videos take away the “Debbie Downer” tone and make the message more entertaining, using comedy, gross images and crashes — all the while making seat belt use cool and earning points with teens.
Getting Each Job Where it Needs to Go, When it Needs to Get There — and Don’t Spill the CoffeeJun 30 by PartnersCreativeAccount Supervisor, Suzanne Elfstrom sat down with PartnersCreative’s Traffic Manager/Print Production Manager, Shannon Sariva (and her 24-ounce triple-shot butterscotch/vanilla latte – skim milk of course) to get a behind-the-scenes look at the inner workings of an ad agency. Question: Prior to working at an ad agency, my only reference to “trafficking” came from the movie Traffic, which is about drug cartels and gangsters. What does a traffic manager at an ad agency do?
 Shannon Sariva
Answer: As traffic manager I open each job in our system, set the production schedule both internally and externally, and keep the job moving and on schedule to meet deadline. We typically have between 150 – 200 active jobs running at a time, thus the need for my triple-shot lattes to keep my brain attentive to the status of every job at any given time. I take schedules very seriously. I’m in charge of the entire workflow system, from holding weekly traffic meetings to prioritizing job stacks for the creative department. At each stage of the process, I check to make sure the most recent version of the layout includes the needed changes, a new hard copy is printed and in the file and that the creative director has reviewed and approved revisions prior to the job going to the client. I oftentimes act as the liaison between the creative and account service departments as well. Q: How do you begin and end each day as it relates to trafficking?
A: I start every day, latte in hand, with my morning tour to ensure our in-progress jobs will meet today’s deadlines. I end the office day pretty much the same way, taking my tour to make sure I know that all our jobs are on track, on spec and looking good. And since my department is the last to finish a job, many times we are at the office for a late night buttoning up all the production details for a press run. Lattes are essential for these evenings as well.
Q: An ad agency can get pretty hectic. How do you juggle both positions?
A: On any given day it is not unusual to receive word that a client has a new job request with a “HOT” deadline. No worries, I just put whatever I am currently working on aside for the moment, get the job open, routed, and meet with the creative team to hammer out job specifications. Then I get back to whatever I was working on until the next time I need to change gears. Traffic and print production managers are expert multitaskers. Q: Shannon, how does your role as print production manager different from traffic manager? A: As print production manager I work closely with our creative team to nail down production details, then meet with suppliers to verify print and production specifications as well as secure competitive pricing for our clients. I’m responsible for requesting vendor quotes, issuing purchase orders, writing production memos and reconciling vendor invoices. When the project is complete I have the rewarding task of showing off the finished piece to my office colleagues. Q: So, while some of our clients may only know you by a name on an email, is it safe to say that PartnersCreative’s vendors/suppliers know you intimately?
A: Yes, I work daily with a variety of vendors. But I spend most of my time with print suppliers. With our print suppliers I verify size, paper and ink specifications, obtain competitive pricing options, and assure quality control while our jobs are on the press and in bindery. This part of my job enables me to be even more involved in assuring the WOW factor exists in every printed piece we produce, be it a four-panel pocket folder brochure with specialty varnish, a direct mail piece or a door hanger that is only in use for a matter of hours. I love to talk paper quality, staple locations, specialty folds, postal standards and pantone color bleeds. It may sound tedious, but as they say the devil is in the detail. Q: As you mentioned print jobs seem to take up the bulk of your time. How does a big print job traffic through an agency and is it to your benefit to hold both the traffic and print production manager positions?
A: Definitely. Wearing both of these hats is a strong advantage because both positions are really When the job reaches the proofing phase of production I check in the printer proofs, route internally forreview/verification of specs and color, and relay final approvals to the supplier. If the project is something that will deliver via direct mail there are numerous additional steps involved including working with the USPS to be sure the piece meets postal standards and working with the mail house on mailing lists, required fulfillment and postage. Q: Any last thoughts or comments? A: I know the job may sound hectic, chaotic and/or tedious, but I love it. I thrive on the high energy and fast-paced nature of my job. So while I may not write that catchy headline or create that inspiring design, I make sure jobs get to press or publisher on time, with the proper specifications while looking its very best. Though I may be out of the spotlight, I receive pride and ownership in the end product as I am fully vested step-by-step in each project that is produced by PartnersCreative.
Seeking Perfect in an Imperfect WorldMay 23 by PartnersCreativeby Judy Mills, Proofer/Editor First day on the new job I looked up the word “believe” three times. Really. I’m not kidding. College educated, master’s degree in newspaper journalism, older than 40 years, covered the U.S. Congress and Supreme Court, and I was looking at the word “believe” on a two-color layout spread and I just couldn’t quite be good with how it looked. New job, cool company, good work, funky old downtown red brick office, high-energy (to put it nicely) boss. Boss who for my interview whipped out a 56-page layout, ran through (she never walks) several spreads and said, “We do perfect work here. Can you do this?” So yeah, Webster’s New World Dictionary got opened, b e l i e v e got compared left-hand fingers on the dictionary line with right-hand fingers on the layout. Three times. And the layout moved on to its next step toward the printer well before deadline. Everybody happy. I can spell “paranoia” in my sleep. And don’t say “spell-check” to me. Please. For one thing, this scene involved paper because it was a layout. But I edit and proof 99.9 percent on paper. On paper, looking / reading word by word, hearing it in one’s head with writing utensil in hand is the most foolproof way to edit and proof. (Yes, we recycle aggressively.) I always knew that was the case but in a master’s degree level brain-science-for-educators seminar I learned the neurobiology behind it: Our brains are smarter than we are and know what is supposed to be in the sentence, “sees it” and then our brains tell our eyes that the sentence is correct. Most people don’t see the gorilla, most readers don’t notice the typo or a missing “the” in sentence. And two, spell-check doesn’t care about form – from, choose – chose, their – they’re – there. But the reader does. My client does. A recent favorite: Digtal – nope, it’s digital, especially when referring to the client’s major technology. And you know that breakfast pastry that’s so good with your (not you’re / you are) coffee? I was so very, very sure the plural was pasteries; pastery, pasteries. Just like it sounds when you say it out loud. Really. Before getting to me, this particular copy piece had gone through spell-check and other people as it moved from copy document to layout. I looked at it and looked at it and said to myself, yep, that’s right and sent it on.
Then there was a poem submitted on another Partners job. The poem told of an evening, a Bitterroot ranch pasture, probably a strong moon glowing over the mountain ridge, the quiet horses … and a lama. A priest or monk in Lamaism, a form of Buddhism. I think the writer meant “llama.” And every application season I tell my high school friends about my role on a college scholarship committee and the application that hit the trash when I got to the line noting the college to be attended. “Dennison” is indeed spelled correctly. But the school is “Denison”; it’s in Ohio. Now in my line of work, a typo is not only bad form, in a glossy magazine or in gazillion-point type on an I-90 billboard it is, shall we say, my fault and damaging to my ability to pay my bills. And three, there are some words that spell-check likes just fine but are indeed spelled wrong. Happened again just this morning actually. That’s why my required work tools are: a solid-color plain straightedge, Webster’s, the AP Stylebook, a #2 Do I really want to be the one dropping the “l” in “public” on a billboard? Or not seeing the “r” in beast? It would be spelled correctly. Even at 75 mph, I-90 is a scary place for me. By the way, spell-check with the hyphen is correct; AP Style. I looked it up. Oh, wondering about the gorilla? http://viscog.beckman.illinois.edu/grafs/demos/15.html For more fun with brain science: http://illusionsetc.blogspot.com/2005/01/how-many-times-did-white-team-pass.html.
Strategies to maximize your nonprofit’s Google Grant, Part IIApr 12 by PartnersCreativeby Tony Ferrini, Interactive Director In the first installment of this article, I introduced the Google Grants program that offers free advertising to nonprofits through Google AdWords. In this second installment, you’ll learn how to maximize the Google Grants program for your organization, track results, and I’ll answer some frequently asked questions about the program. The key to increasing exposure in any search-advertising program lies in research, strategy and creative thinking in keywords and ad copy. Most people won’t have any trouble developing the core list of keywords that come to mind right away developed from the core mission, program areas and the nonprofit name. Where many people tend to fall short is in thinking strategically and creatively about the related keywords that may fall on the fringe of core keywords. As an example, let’s use a nonprofit whose mission is addressing climate change. This nonprofit discovers that anglers become interested in climate change issues when they understand how climate change impacts river levels in Montana. An AdWord program can specifically target people using Google to search for fishing guides in Montana —thus connecting that personal interest to the nonprofit’s mission of addressing climate change. Tracking results and developing insights The beautiful thing about search advertising is that it’s highly trackable. Google AdWords provides the ability to track impressions, click-through rates and an assortment of other statistics. Goals can be defined, providing the ability to track conversion rates for keywords and ads.
AdWords provides the ability to make immediate changes to keywords and ad copy, as well as run A/B testing to determine which variables are most effective in generating results. Beyond the benefits of free advertising, Google AdWords is also a powerful tool in developing insights about your audience and what they respond to. These insights can then be applied to other online and offline advertising efforts.
As you track results over time, look to AdWords for suggestions about additional keywords to target. Google will occasionally provide suggestions for related keyword opportunities. Also look to your website traffic reports for keywords that might provide additional opportunity in AdWords. Sharing and questions I encourage you to share this information with your friends in the nonprofit community. If you have specific questions about applying for or managing a Google Grant, we’d be glad to answer them. Feel free to comment at the end of this article, or contact us directly. You will also find a list of frequently asked questions below. Frequently asked questions about Google Grants Q: How do we determine if our organization is eligible? A: Make sure that you have current 501(c)(3) status with the IRS, and that your tax status and EIN number are updated in the online database. Here are the full legal requirements from Google. Q: What types of nonprofit organizations get the greatest benefit from a Google Grant? A: For small community-focused nonprofits it can be difficult to take advantage of the full grant. The amount of search traffic from a targeted geographical area can be limiting. However, for nonprofits with regional, national or international focus, the results can be very rewarding. Q: Where do we go to apply? A: https://google-for-nonprofits.appspot.com/application Q: How long does it take to find out if we are approved? A: We have noticed that it takes between four and six months for approval. Q: We are approved for a grant! What do we do next? A: Determine if you are committed to managing the program regularly in-house or if you should work with an experienced Google Grants consultant. Google puts out a simple “Ongoing Management Guide” to get you started. Q: What kinds of tools are available to help us research and develop our keyword list? A: There are a variety of tools available. The AdWords platform itself provides a keyword suggestion tool. As you input keywords that you’d like to target, Google will provide variations and related keywords. This tool also allows you to input a website and generate a list of relevant keywords. The Google keyword suggestion tool , along with other third party providers such as Wordtracker, offer a great way to see what kind of search traffic is expected for a given keyword. How to Take Advantage of Free Advertising for Your Nonprofit, Part IMar 30 by PartnersCreativeby Tony Ferrini, Interactive Director In this two part series, Interactive Director Tony Ferrini explains why nonprofit organizations should apply for a Google grant as well as strategies to maximize the effectiveness of the program. Do you work for or serve on the board of a nonprofit organization? Does your organization have a website? Did you know that your nonprofit might be eligible for $120,000 in free advertising per year? And if you spend the entire amount successfully, how does upgrading to $480,000 per year in free advertising sound? It almost sounds too good to be true, right? Well, it’s not. The program is called Google Grants, and it’s a fantastic opportunity many nonprofits are unaware of. Let me show you how it works and answer some basic questions to get people started. How does it work? Google Grants provides an advertising grant to use within the Google AdWords program. The initial award is $10,000 per month. You use this grant money to bid on keywords, i.e. “world poverty.” When a Google user searches “world poverty,” your ad appears above or to the right of normal search results (see the example below).
When the user clicks on that ad, they go to a specified page on your site. You pay a portion of your granted money for that click (usually about one dollar). The actual cost for that click to you is zero. Voila! You just introduced someone to your mission. Best of all, if you can maximize the campaign, you’ll get $120,000 worth of free advertising every year. Even if you hire a consultant to manage the program monthly, you’ll get an ad value ROI of roughly 10 – 20 times what you spend. And you’ll be introducing your mission to thousands of people who never even knew you existed. Why aren’t more nonprofits taking advantage of this opportunity? In my experience about 50 percent of the time a nonprofit is completely unaware of this opportunity. The other 50 percent of the time an organization is aware of this opportunity but struggles with results. I can think of at least two incidents, where an organization applied for and received a Google Grant, used the program for a while, but then concluded “it doesn’t seem to be worth the time” because the results were minimal. When done correctly, a basic Google Grant has the potential to deliver 10,000 or more new visitors to your website each month. This is a significant number of new visitors to a website of any size and is often a boon to the average nonprofit. Attaining this kind of traffic any other way can be either expensive or time-consuming. Nonprofits that are able to take full advantage of this initial grant amount await an even greater reward. If you are able to utilize 95 percent of the grant money through a successful keyword campaign in any two of the past 12 months, you qualify for Google Grantspro. This program quadruples the grant award to about half a million dollars per year. To attain a Grantspro award requires a serious commitment from the organization. You must demonstrate advanced knowledge of the AdWords platform — meaning that you not only manage your keywords and ad groups, but also demonstrate the ability to track conversions. Google also requires all Grantspro applicants to take and pass an advanced test with a score of 85 percent or better. Can we manage this ourselves, or do we need to hire someone? It isn’t necessary to hire a Google AdWords expert to run a successful campaign, but experience has shown that hiring an AdWords professional will help you take full advantage of the program. To put this into perspective, let me give an example: In a recent campaign, a nonprofit client applied for and received a Google Grant. The client managed the campaign internally with some success for about six months, but only managed to spend a few hundred dollars of the grant. The client decided to invest a few thousand dollars to hire PartnersCreative in order to take advantage of more of the grant money. After the first year, the campaign provided $70,000 in free advertising. This example does a good job illustrating the value of a hired professional. This is where we’ve noticed nonprofits tend to fall short:
Many nonprofit budgets are tight, so it might not be practical to hire someone to help right away. Managing pay-per-click advertising is not rocket science, but it does take a commitment to regular account management. If you decide to apply for and manage a Google Grant internally, be sure to read the “Ongoing Management Guide” from Google that helps new users to the program. Stay tuned for the second installment of this article on strategies to maximize your nonprofit’s Google Grant. PartnersCreative takes the stage at Montana ADDYsFeb 24 by PartnersCreativeby Lori Warden, PR Account Executive Earlier this month, PartnersCreative employees and owners came home from the Montana ADDY Awards Show in Great Falls with a Suburban full of happy attendees and boxes full of awards. For those of you not in the marketing and advertising industry, the ADDYs is the annual competition, sponsored by the American Advertising Federation (AAF), recognizing the creative work of our industry. As an agency, we have a tendency not to boast about our achievements, but as our PR account executive, I’m quite happy to blow the agency’s horn.
Now, our gold-winning work goes on to the regional ADDYs to compete with agencies from across the Northwest. Stay tuned — I can’t wait to blow the horn again. For an overview of the creative portfolio that won Partners all those shiny Gold ADDYs, read on … Advanced Imaging – “Be Well” Our goal for Advanced Imaging, a medical imaging provider in Missoula, was to increase traffic for elective imaging procedures — particularly mammograms and virtual colonoscopies. Our target demographic was women over 40 and men over 50. Our research revealed that there are two reasons people don’t get imaging procedures done: One, they don’t have time, and two, they are afraid of what the outcome might be. We created “Be Well,” a campaign designed to show that not getting imaging done and finding out you have cancer too late is far scarier than finding out you have cancer when it can be more easily treated. The campaign was so effective it increased traffic by 78 percent, and Advanced Imaging reported people pulling their cars over to the side of the road and calling to make an appointment after hearing the radio ads. Montana Department of Transportation – “Plan2Live”
The popularity of the “Sober Friend” commercial, starring Rooster the horse, took off virally on YouTube and Facebook and brought national attention to the issue. Read more about the success of the campaign on Creative Director Sean Benton’s blog post. Montana Film Office – Studio 406 Webisodes How do you sell Montana as a place to shoot independent films? Make an independent film. Or, at least that was our logic. The idea germinated when a well-known producer from L.A. won a trip to Montana to scout locations for an upcoming project. We sent a camera crew to tag along and shot the whole affair, interviewing key people along the way. The final piece was actually a series of five webisodes totaling around 20 minutes in length. The webisodes were broadcast on YouTube, Facebook and through the film office website. In addition, we virally seeded the project on independent film sites. To date, the films have received more than 5,000 viewings and requests for information on filming in Montana in 2010 were up over 2009. WorkSafeMT – Worker Responsibility In May 2010 we launched a new, multimedia campaign for WorkSafeMT, based on research that showed that workers’ largest concern about work safety was their responsibility to family and co-workers. The new campaign focused on a worker’s responsibility to protect the people around him. The campaign was a great success, generating $95,000+ in value-added media placement and more than $250,000 in public relations earned media. Missoula Art Museum – “Snap Art”
The campaign included outdoor, print, posters, TV and Facebook. More than 400 photos were submitted. In addition, the MAM’s Facebook presence increased from 161 monthly users to 1,399 monthly users during the campaign. Rocky Mountain School of Photography – Catalog Each year we help the school select their best student and professional instructor work including photos that most represent the experiences a student can expect when enrolling in any class. With a focus on how a person sees, develops and connects with others through photography, we designed a catalog that captured both the tangible and intangible benefits of creative education. This catalog is one of the primary marketing vehicles used by the school to promote all levels of instruction, from weekend courses for beginners to international travel workshops to multiple track professional level preparation. |
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Using our time and talents for good feels great. It also helps feed the hungry, improve kids' lives, enrich arts and culture, protect water quality and preserve vital landscapes. We invite you to feel great, too. Connect with the good things these fine organizations do. goodorgs
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by Suzanne Elfstrom, Director of Public Relations and Social Media
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I am very “behind-the-scenes” in my role as far as the client is concerned — in fact, unless they have visited our office, many of our clients know me only by seeing my name cc’d on an email. However, I “touch” each and every job as it runs through our agency from start to finish.
intertwined. For each print job, once the specs are set, I send out estimate requests to our suppliers to determine the best fit for where the project should be produced. Once the layout has been approved I fill out the first section of our custom “Spec Check” sheet that will be completed by our production department, as they are preparing/collecting a job to send out to a supplier. At this point I am also preparing purchase orders and production memos to get paper ordered and secure a production slot with the printer.
Luckily, as professional adults we realize that no one person on this Earth is 100 percent perfect – but between us, all doing our jobs, together we do perfect. (“… it takes a village …”) So the piece all comes back, Webster’s is opened with one hand on the “pas•try, n., pl. -tries 1 flour dough or paste made with shortening and used for the crust of pies, tarts, etc.” I even called in witnesses. This baby was a sign going up on a busy Missoula street in very large type. As a cohort pointed out, trying to be ever so helpful, instead of adding the “e” I could have dropped the “r” … and the client most certainly does not sell striptease equipment.
For our work completed in 2010, Partners took home a total of 16 Gold ADDYs — that’s our best record yet and also 10 more golds than the agency that received the second-most Gold ADDYs. Two of those golds were Best of Show Awards for the judge’s favorite 30-second commercial, called “Jesse,” that was created for our client Advanced Imaging (Best of Show–Broadcast and overall Best of Show). The AAF Montana chapter, the Great Falls Ad Club, also awarded Partners 20 Silver ADDYs. Including bronze awards, we received a total 53 ADDYs.
Five Valleys
