Category Archives: Marketing

Hear ye, hear ye

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There’s a new gazette in town: one that’s all about you or your event.

I think the founders of McPapers, Matt & Paige McPheely, may have answered a number of soon-to-be-bride’s wishes for an elegant compliment to their shabby chic dreams.

What better way to tell your family and friends about your latest news than via personalized newspaper?

We’re getting hitched! We’re pregnant! We’ve bought a house! We’re having a baby!

All of those are great reasons to give these personalized papes a whirl, but there are definitely a number of other events for which these would be appropriate and adorable as well.

Do you have a retro themed (or Mad Men themed) fundraiser coming up? Did you just graduate? Are you hosting a murder mystery party? Are you finally empty nesters, now that all five kids are out of the house? Are you planning to celebrate grandpa’s 90th birthday?

Any of these would be great reasons to let people know via the classic (and nearly extinct) newspaper. Not to mention that was the only way people knew what was going on in the world for quite a long time (aside from hearsay and later radio, of course). So there’s still something ultra-special about flipping the tangible pages. And it only takes a few short weeks, before your beloved family and friends / guests / dedicated donors could be awaiting a perfectly printed 4 to 16 page spread of deets about your special event.

And for those of you in NYC, there are even a couple of key stores I think would wildly benefit from sending their next corporate newsletter or exclusive deals for long-time customers via McPapers as well. Let me know if you agree or if you have local suggestions (for wherever you are):

Brooks Brothers Flatiron storefront.  Their 7200 square foot, three level, man cave is such a nod to retro that it would pair perfectly. Photo from WWD.

Stumptown Coffee, with their Newsies-esque pageboy baristas. Photo from newyork.seriouseats.com.

Glow

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After watching Tron: Legacy with the hubby the other day, it got me thinking about the tons of ways we can now use glow lighting. Chris Brown’s performance at the 2012 Grammy Awards was a testament to the fascinating fantasmic of LEDs.

But there are lots of small ways to add cool lighting to an event, merely with old school glow sticks. Here are a few ways to check out:

Cotton candy on a rainbow colored glow stick. These immediately made me think of school carnivals. Sometimes all it takes is something a little more unique to keep the attention of parents and kids alike. Not selling these until dusk could convince a few more patrons to participate in the raffles later in the day just by incorporating a less traditional ‘stick’ for the cotton candy. Small difference, big win.

And how about these glow lanterns for sleepover birthday parties? Or ‘camping’ in the backyard? Or for actually lighting your jack-o-lanterns at Halloween? Check out the link for instructions here (and definitely check out the comments section there too for additional tips and tricks).

And if we were to color coordinate, these uplit patriotic slushies could be big July 4th hits as well. Or hits for any summer party, for that matter. These tasty snow cone-like treats keep your guests cool by the pool or refreshed at the hot tub (with cucumber or mint influenced syrup). But all in all, great for outdoor, summery, night time fun.

Lastly, though it’s nearly a year away now, I can imagine that glowing Easter egg hunts could also gain better attention from older school-aged children or visiting family members. Though I don’t imagine churches switching their traditional Easter egg hunts to night events, this could easily be implemented at home. It’s as easy as winding up glow bracelets and packing them into the plastic eggs.

Enjoy!

Marketing+Wedding = a movie promo’s happily ever after.

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Though “Violet Barnes” & “Tom Solomon’s” wedding website may not be searchable on The Knot, it is absolutely worth finding.

As brought to light by one of the most captivating wedding bloggers I know, Jacqueline Weppner of Merci New York, here‘s a quick link to the faux blog for promotion of the movie The Five-Year Engagement, in theaters April 27th.

Not only did they create a blog to promote the movie & its characters, but it has imbedded YouTube videos & a Facebook page as well. The entries and various typical wedding blog pages are sure to make you smile all the while coaxing you into becoming more and more interested in seeing the film. In fact, if you’re feeling inclined, you can even sign their ‘wedding’ guest book here!

Now that’s smart marketing. Such a great way to drive interest with their prime demographic pre-release and so fun to browse and interact with.

Here’s the trailer for those interested, but I’d suggest checking out the blog as well. Gotta love the blend of Jason Segel‘s slapstick funny and Emily Blunt‘s British humor!

And a Soirée it was…

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I’m so excited to bring you our first guest blogger: the fabulously sparkling millennial, Kate Hayes. Kate is already a powerhouse in NYC and has a passion for helping teens and women by day and by night. She writes for SocialForward.org and StraightUpNewYork.com, while still dedicating herself full time to an organization benefiting NYC students, Minds Matter, Inc.  

As you may have read in previous post: “Budget: not the most important element for nonprofit events“, we recently came together to execute another annual fundraising event for Minds Matter and the day has finally come for us to tell you all about it and reveal the photos! Take it away, Kate! 

The Minds Matter Spring Soirée is the largest fundraising effort for Minds Matter of NYC. Each year, a significant portion of our operating budget relies on the revenue from this event. 2012 marked the eleventh annual Soirée. Playing host to over 1,100 guests and raising over $240,000, this year’s Soirée was a huge success for the organization.

As the event evolves each year, there is a continual need to bring it to the next level; this includes raising additional funds for our direct programming, increasing awareness of our organization, and of course, throwing a great party for our guests! This year we surpassed our previous successes in each of these three areas.

Raising over $240,000 was a huge accomplishment for Minds Matter. This year we diversified our event revenue, including an enormously successful silent auction, ticket specials (such as 1 day “2for” special), and our first ever sponsorship tiers. The team (led by Laura) worked very hard to negotiate rates with all vendors, resulting in completely donated space, alcohol sponsorships, and reduced prices on other services.

Organizationally, we are working hard to build the Minds Matter brand. In a competitive market, it is important that our external audience knows who we are, what we do, and why they should get involved. For this year’s Spring Soirée we greatly improved our marketing and promotion of the event. By having consistent and engaging communications, an enhanced ticket sales website, and night-of marketing (including a step & repeat banner, intelligent lighting shining the organization’s logo and an engaging video), we were able to further the organization’s profile and increase our brand recognition.

Lastly, as you can see from the pictures, it was of course important for us to throw a great party. With four floors of guests, entertainment including stilt walkers, a contortionist, and a magician, live and silent auctions, catering by DavidEllis, and a hosted bar, our supporters had a great time. I cannot wait until next year’s event!

Kate Hayes
Minds Matter of NYC, Inc.  

Kate Hayes writes for SocialForward.org and StraightUpNewYork.com.

Entertainment provided by Smash Party Entertainment.  All photos courtesy of A De Vos Photo, Inc. 

Packaging doesn’t have to be boring…

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This morning, I received a chain email (which I’m not usually keen on), but this one was a pleasure to view. It was a glimpse at a couple of the most creative packaging ideas I’d seen in a while. After tracking the images down on BoredPanda.com I found some additions as well (here).

If I were packaging products rather than providing services, I would absolutely have my wheels turning at the sight of these. Very clever. Had to share.

Credit to BoredPanda.com. (Advertising Agency: Kempertrautmann)

Credit to BoredPanda.com. (Designer: Niklas Hessman)

Credit to BoredPanda.com. (Designer: Goodmorning Technology)

Credit to BoredPanda.com. Agency: TBWA, Istanbul

Credit to BoredPanda.com. (Designer: Corinne Pant)

Credit to BoredPanda.com and to (unknown) Japan designers.

Credit to BoredPanda.com. Art director: Yosef Khouwes | Copywriter: Bipin Jacob

Credit to BoredPanda.com. Advertising Agency: TBWA, Philippines

Budget: not the most important element for nonprofit events.

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It’s true. The all-important, ever-dictating budget still comes second to one very important factor for nonprofit events of any kind (volunteer recruitment, fundraisers, donor appreciation, celebrations). So what’s #1?

Branding.

Branding your organization through your interactions with people on every level is wildly important. Branding allows you to keep your organization in attendees’ minds, consciously and subconsciously. It allows your organization’s personality to shine through your brand to the forefront of your attendees’ experience. (Yes, your organization has a personality all on its own whether you see it from the inside or not.) And it allows your stakeholders to have more personal conversations with, connections with & affects on your potential donors/volunteers/etc as they can afford to soften the hard sell. These strengthened personal connections are what will perpetuate gifts to your organization. People want to feel connected to the organization they give time and/or money towards.

We recently planned an event for the NYC chapter of a national nonprofit and kept the importance of this in mind. Consistently branding the organization & its event from the ‘save the date’ through social media posts to the post-event thank you cards, allows space for the organization’s & event’s uniqueness. The event itself is tomorrow night and we’ll be back to show you photos of the evening, soon following. Can’t wait to share!

Exclusive or social network?

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Well, both. The  craze is sweeping the nation just behind (1) Lin-sanity and (2) Whitney Houston’s demise. Yes, it’s exclusive and yes, it’s social, but it’s so much more than that. I’ve been asked a number of times now (mostly by men), “What is Pinterest”? In short, I’ve told them that it’s a place to house any and every dream board a girl (or boy) could imagine, but it’s time to elaborate.

Pinterest is an online platform that allows you to collect images you found and love and ‘pin’ them to digital ‘boards’. People are using it to keep track of images for planning their dream wedding, designing their dream house, tracking recipes, finding inspiration for working out/losing weight, and eyeing the latest fashion trends. You can even create multiple boards to keep your image categories organized or separate.

Pinterest can also be used socially to connect with others, compliment another’s images, or even just find likeness in interests. It can be thought of and used in much the same way as a blog (but of photos rather than words). Images can still be liked, commented on, or repinned (aka shared/retweeted). It can be linked to your Facebook or Twitter accounts, for added social depth, and can incorporate @mentions in much the same way as well.

With over 4 million users and already one of the top 10 most-visited social networks, it’s inevitable that the platform will eventually cave in to providing ads for corporate dollars. While it’s still ad-free, it’s definitely worth diving into to learn more about. That is, once your request for an invite has been granted (it is still invite-only after all).

Powerful stuff, I’m tellin’ you.

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Not even sure where to start with this one…so many questions… Check out this video and tell me that experiential marketing isn’t unbelievably effective. These are views from a five year old.

Having a two and a half year old niece who’s already pairing letters with words and associating images with known people/objects/etc., this is entirely believable to me. And I’d think the goal would be to become the ‘coffee’, the ‘soda’ or the ‘place where grandpa works’. Natural associations that become facts in the mind of five year olds could continue to grow into strong allegiance for the company years down the road. It appears that GE could be the strongest emotional tie this five year old has with any company. It keys in to a very personal emotional connection with her grandpa (as age old companies like GE have done with many of our grandpas over the years). The whole purpose of experiential marketing is to build that personal, emotional, lasting connection with consumers and this video is just a sample (albeit a very small sample of 1) to show what companies have been effective with the upcoming generation so far.

I wonder how many of these brands would have had similar affects on my generation at age five and what the emotional ties looked like then compared to now. Would the ties and allegiance to those companies have grown with time (as companies might hope)?

Challenge: How do you act on your own views of brands? Do any tug your heart strings? Do you have an affinity for one soda brand rather than another for reasons beyond taste? Were any of your parents’ brand preferences especially influencing in your youth? How has that affected your purchasing habits?

This one little video invokes so many questions for me. And those question are what drive my passion for keying in to what people want/crave/buy/think. This is the reason I get excited about events. Effective events have a way of connecting consumers to brands in a more tangible and personal format than flat advertisements do. Even birthday parties, weddings, happy hour events can leave you with another impression of your host and what they value.

What do your events (aka. your tangible marketing outlets) tell others about you?

And circle gets the square!

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For those of you out there developing marketing campaigns and looking for great mobile solutions, check out SnapTags. I started to hear about them as fall started, but the buzz didn’t really pick up until recently. These simplistic, photo-friendly, and scannable codes can aid in leading your clients to your brand.

Their website is pretty explanatory. They’ve even listed descriptions of how people from various viewpoints would define SnapTags (including a Kindergartener!).

I love that these allow brands to include their logos in the center of the circle, so it can continue to brand the org where placed, unlike QR codes. I appreciate the crisp, clean, aesthetically-pleasing design of SnapTags as well.

So, okay, they’re not free, like QR codes are. And they aren’t meant to be used as one-offs. However, they provide so many more benefits from use that they may give your brand tangability it’s yet to have with your clients/consumers… And gaining insider stats on your consumers’/fans’ purchasing cycles? A huge necessity and bonus.

Many of their benefits for brand engagement are included in the infographic below, but there are also some pretty compelling and brainstorm-generating details here.

QR Codes vs. SpyderLynk SnapTags: The Infographic

Amazing.

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Quite possibly even genius. After seeing a glimpse of the work Jamie Beck & Kevin Burg do, in a Mashable post, my mind started to race toward the hundreds of ways this new photography could change advertisements, event promotions, and boring old eblasts.

I’ve pictured new ways to send Christmas cards, with snowball throwing in action. I’ve pictured bridal shots with just her hair and dress flowing with the wind. I could see eblast ads with the models actually moving around in your static inbox. I mean, I am utterly fascinated by this idea. Such a refreshing way to liven up the static in our lives.

I tell ya, though, I would LOVE to see the new trend become everyone’s stagnant LinkedIn profile pics, with mini laughs and smiles in motion, giving life and honesty to the ever-fabricated resume. For socially requiring roles, it would/could greatly benefit many of us with social ease. Wouldn’t that be a stunning and happy dream?!