Driven For Inspiration

by Aimee Drysdale

In the creative industry, inspiration can come from anywhere and at anytime. With creative juices constantly flowing, we decided we needed a place to capture ideas, interesting news, articles, ads, and notes. tba needed an “inspiration board!” What started so simple an idea, ended up being quite a team effort. Read on for some inspiration.

MATERIAL CHOICE | STRATEGY
After doing a lot of research on large bulletin boards, magnetic boards, cork boards, blogs, etc. I came across this post by Shiso Mama and this one by Martha Stewart. We decided that by using a recycled material and painting the board we would be able to help the environment and get exactly what we wanted at the same time. So Homosote it was! I called Lowes, Home Depot, and every other local hardware spot in between and the majority of the people I spoke with responded with confusion and comments like, “Homo-what!” Finally, 84 Lumber in Pearisburg, VA, who has great customer service, by the way, said they would be able to get a 4’ x 8’ board shipped to the Salem, VA store in two days! I was there by noon that day to pick it up.


On my way back from 84 Lumber in Salem, VA with the Homasote board in tow

Thomas and Chris helping to carry in the board from Carolyn’s Explorer
Chris and Thomas unloading and carrying in the board

Christina admiring the board before it got painted

DESIGN | STRATEGY
We really wanted the board to be simple and not take away from the pieces we hung on it, so we decided to paint it white and use yellow and red stripes to match our space. Luckily we had a few old cans of wall paint that Lowe’s kindly shook up for us. I applied two coats of primer and two coats of white. Then Christina and I adhered painter’s tape, to make sure the lines were perfect! For the stripes I put down two coats of tba red, and two coats of tba yellow. Ariel and Carolyn then had a lot of fun removing the tape. And we were finished…or so we thought.


Ariel and Carolyn removing the painters tape!

After several days of painting and clean up, I began the detail work

HANGING | CREATIVITY
After painting, we ran into the issue of hanging the board on a wall that had no studs or support! Lowe’s in Christiansburg, VA had a solution. They suggested we use ¼ inch Steelworks Systems Toggle Bolts (and we ended up using all eight!) Thomas, Chris, Ariel, Dave, Christina, Sonja & I made sure the board was hung properly and aligned on the wall. We all contributed to make sure the inspiration board was a success (and not a liability). This was a true team effort!


Thomas helping screw the board into the wall

Carolyn and Ariel making sure everything is straight

The inspiration board up and painted!

PURE INSPIRATION | RESULTS
Since the board was hung, there have been several posts from our employees, both internal success stories and work from outside inspiration.

From this day forward we will be able to share and contribute our ideas and success stories. We hope that you will do the same and tell us about it!


The first posting on the board!

Monday morning quarterbacks: tba's Super Bowl sound bites

Naturally, when you work at an advertising and PR firm, you spend the Monday following the Super Bowl rehashing the ads. We all become office-chair QBs, with our Monday morning staff meeting dominated by discussion of the ads, what we liked, what was weird, and what completely bombed. Some sound bites from that discussion follow for your review. Let us know your thoughts as well. And please vote in our poll for your favorite 2010 Super Bowl spot.

After a year of bad economic news, unemployment and political discourse, it’s refreshing to see humor make a comeback. Yet, despite all the cleverness, it’s nice to know a simple ad concept from Google can be so memorable. –Thomas Becher

Someone Please Sack Betty White Again. A note to all advertisers: The more Betty White gets sacked, the more product you sell. Simple. –Mike Quonce

There were movie trailers galore and free Grand Slams at Denny's. Men with no pants and women like Betty White getting tackled. But it seems to me Doritos has gone off of the deep end and E*Trade can't top shankapotomus from last year. I think it's time for some new ideas and a new trend of humor. My favorite was the Dodge Charger spot, it was hilarious to me. –Christina Knapp

It’s the one night of the year when people actually look forward to the ads as much as the content and aside from a few standouts, it was a disappointing year for advertisers. The cheapest ad to produce had the most impact on me. Google’s simple and captivating “Paris” spot was my #1. It left me wanting to see other story lines and executions – perhaps one with more humor and less sap. The Doritos spots were all over the place; I did enjoy the little tyke slapping the mom’s date, but the coffin spot left me with a WTF feeling? From a strategic perspective, Snickers seemed to do well combining humor with a message (when usually only humor comes through in Super Bowl spots). As far as the worst: GoDaddy. Their spots are a tasteless embarrassment to Super Bowl advertising and make me want to buy domain names elsewhere. –Carolyn Kiser

The Audi Green Police spot creates a fun twist on a much discussed topic, the environment. I thought it was successful at captivating the audience’s attention by using a classic tune and then waiting till the very end to give the product’s name away. –Aimee Drysdale

I really enjoyed the ads from Google, Hyundai and CareerBuilder.com, but I think the beaver spot from Monster.com was my favorite of the night. I was disappointed by Focus on the Family and the U.S. Census Bureau. Both generated a lot of controversy just by advertising, but their ads were dull and poorly written. –Ariel Clark

Last year an estimated 95 million people tuned in to watch the Super Bowl and with all the hype surrounding the commercials, its no wonder companies spend millions upon millions to have their messages and brands splashed across the television screen. But another interesting approach to the big advertising showcase is to create an ad that won't air, which in turn drives a media storm, along with viral sensations and an exploding blogosphere of the things we didn't see. But you have to give credit (or at least marvel in the strategy) of taking advantage of the Super Bowl advertising hype. And ManCrunch and Focus on Family are the clear winners. These spots have not only lit up the newswires, blogosphere, social networking sites, etc. but have strong potential to be talked about in year's to come. Don't believe me? Do a quick Google News search and see what comes up. Or just Google "Super Bowl ads we didn't see" and sit back and enjoy. Well played. As the old adage goes, "any press is good press" and especially when Super Bowl season comes around. –Mike Quonce

The Bud Light house spot is so different from anything I have seen and gives a fun and comic edge to drinking Bud Light. It’s definitely gave me a laugh out loud moment! –Aimee Drysdale

Would your brand get a golden ticket?

by Carolyn Kiser

As I was watching the American Idol auditions these past few weeks, I couldn't help but think about all the hopefuls as brands. And that is what they all are and that is how they are being evaluated - whether they have the package to become a national (or international) pop icon and brand.

There are four basic categories of people who audition for the show: (1) truly talented people, (2) people with a decent voice, (3) people that just want 15 minutes of fame and (4) the people who are tone-deaf but actually believe they can sing. Brands exist in each of these groups, of course. But in this stage of the competition, the real branding is with the people in groups 2 and 3 as described above. Let's start with the second group.

There are thousands of people in the second group - the people with a fairly decent voice. And because they may not get in front of Simon and the judges based on their voice alone, they have to somehow make themselves stand out. That is where the branding comes into play. Among the above-average hopefuls - it is the ones that differentiate themselves who actually get a chance to make it in front of the panel of judges for a shot at the golden ticket. Think of some of the more recent notorious Idol-wannabes: Bikini Girl and Norman Gentle from Season 8 and from this season - Guitar Girl, the former Barney child-actor with the whip, and of course, Ski Bo Skii. In these cases, it was definitely not their voices alone that got them to Hollywood, but their ability to break through.

And the fame-seekers in group 3 have a similar strategy. They have all seen the show and know they need to do something truly outrageous to get in front of the judges. Bikini boy, weird voices, terrible dances, crazy outfits, you name it. But the best of the fame-seekers was this year's singer/songwriter "General" Larry Platt and his "Pants on the ground" act. The general has turned his brand into the craze of American Idol Season 9, with Pants-on-the-ground t-shirts even being sold on AmericanIdol.com.

So what do the Idol auditions teach us about brands? It reminds us that in a sea of sameness, it is critical to differentiate yourself in order to stand out from your competition and ultimately impress your target audience. How is your brand different?