A year to remember

As we close out not only the year but the decade, it seems apropos to reflect a bit on where we've come from and where we're going. It's hard to believe tomorrow will mark the first day of 2010. It doesn't seem like all that long ago that the world trembled at the prospect of Y2K, with the more intrepid worrywarts stockpiling canned goods and avoiding technology. (Don't worry, for those folks, they can now wait with bated breath for 2012 and the Mayan calendar's prognostications of doom and destruction.) A lot changes in a decade .... ten years ago, it would never have occurred to me that I'd end up working in advertising, or that I'd be an entrepreneur before I hit 30, or that I would come to love cooking, soccer (um .... Fernando Torres in specific), and the color pink. Who knew?

It's odd to think back even a year ago. Crazy Savvy was as yet nothing but a gleam in our eyes (ha ha) and a plan for the distant future. We would never have guessed that opportunity would come knocking so soon, or that we'd have the wherewithal and the gumption (and, let's face it, the luck) to get our business up and running so quickly and so smoothly. Yes, 2009 was a good year in a lot of ways, for both Erin and yours truly .... professionally and personally, we've embarked on plenty of adventures and turned over lots of new leaves.

Speaking of adventures, it's time to recap our 2009 Crazy Savvy Fan-Mail-Extravaganza. As promised, we will be crowning our postcard contest winners early next week (prizes to follow!) .... Erin and I will confer and pick the cream of the crop. In the meantime, though, let's take a trip around the world together as we revisit some of our favorite bits of fan mail.

Since we sent out our call for letters in early August, we've received postcards from 4 continents and 7 different countries. Our longest distance love letter arrived from Johannesburg, South Africa (8,979 miles) — although Kyoto, Japan was a close second at a distance of 8,682 miles. Our nearest bit o' fanmail came from Grand Marais on Minnesota's North Shore — a mere 289 miles from C/S headquarters. The postcard arriving from the place with the warmest average temperature would be my lovely missive from Negril, Jamaica (oh what I wouldn't give to be back there right .... about .... now), while a letter from Finland takes the cake for the coldest. Every time we check our mailbox and find that a new note awaits us, we're giddy with delight .... so keep 'em coming in 2010!

We wish all our fans, friends, and followers a very happy new year and best of luck in 2010. As for me, I'll be ringing in the new decade with Veuve Clicquot and plenty of exciting plans for 2010 and beyond!

Madcap Holiday Recap

From the shores of snowy Lake Superior to the banks of the mighty Mississippi, both Jen and I got some travel in this holiday season and I'm happy to say, we're no worse for the wear (if a little tired!) — and that's saying something given the weather bookending our travels!

As Jen mentioned, I was off in St. Louis visiting with my main squeeze's near and dear. Great conversations, terrific food, adorable children, and lots of laughter — in short, everything a holiday should hold. All too quickly, we were on our way back for round two of celebrations closer to home.

Jen did her traveling in reverse fashion, heading off to a beautiful inn on Christmas Day for some much-deserved pampering and fireplace time.

Finally, for those of you who may not have yet seen them, here's a peek at Crazy Savvy's original holiday card, featuring the original illustrations of artist Anthony Kamstra. Happy New Year!

A Crazy Savvy Christmas

With t-minus 3 days until Christmas, it's time to send holiday cheer to our C/S fans ... and then take a well-earned break! The past week at Crazy Savvy headquarters was as busy and bustling as the Elves' toyshop up there at the North Pole. In addition to posting our holiday cards (thanks for all the great feedback!), baking and delivering chocolate chip oatmeal cookies to clients and vendors (and maybe eating more than a few ourselves ... ), and tidying up our accounts and bookkeeping in anticipation of the year's end, we also saw the completion of a major project ... phew!

For this particular client, Santa came a little early, as we were able to deliver their annual report (lookin' pretty awesome, if we do say so ourselves) from the printer — ahead of schedule, no less. To say they were thrilled would be the understatement of the year. Woo-hoo!

With this checked off our to-do lists (going to find out if we've been naughty or nice ...), it's time for a holiday roundup. My wonderful business partner is currently vacationing in St. Louis (no doubt warmer than it is here!), and will return to the Cities in time to spend a peaceful Christmas at home with family. I am reversing the trend, first spending Christmas Eve with kith and kin, and then heading up to Bayfield, WI for a peaceful long weekend at a bed & breakfast on the shores of Lake Superior. Merry Christmas to us, indeed!

These relaxing holiday trips will no doubt leave us feeling refreshed, energized, and ready to kick off 2010 in high style. And speaking of high style .... today's image is a snapshot from last weekend's birthday-holiday soiree .... I feel like, with a dress this rockin' (thank you Betsey Johnson), who needs actual ribbons and bows under the tree? (Well, ok, I probably still do. You know our PO Box address ... ha ha ha!)

So, we're wishing all our fans and friends a very merry holiday season. We'll be back in action soon, but in the meantime, have fun, drive safe, and stay warm! (Oh yeah, and send us postcards .... because when we're back from Christmas respite, we'll conduct the C/S Card Contest 2009 and crown our champion!) Happy holidays to all!

Spreading holiday cheer... And a few extra calories!

With our holiday cards in the post, Jen and I turned our attention to matters of a culinary nature yesterday.

Armed with a recipe developed by a friend of ours who happens to be an extraordinarily talented chef and food stylist, we cranked up the holiday tunes — everything from classics like Nat King Cole to punk rock renditions that made Jen cry.

We had the good fortune to find an enthusiastic young assistant who specialized in quality control — are those chocolate chips up to snuff? Better try another just to make sure.

I totally put Jen to work in the kitchen. I'm happy to say she rose to the occasion. Just look at her wielding that spatula! You'd never guess that this was the first time she's baked cookies as an adult.

The results were so delicious — and a select few of our beloved readers (and clients!) have firsthand knowledge of this fact! — that we have decided to make this an annual Crazy Savvy tradition.

A recipe for fun

Ingredients:

2 business partners, slightly addled

1 great holiday card concept

1 bottle of wine (not cooking wine, s'il vous plait)

10 sheets of notebook paper, to be used for sketches by a decidedly untalented sketch artist (ie, yours truly)

4 sheets of drawing paper, to be used for sketches by an artist who can actually .... draw (that would be our talented illustrator Anthony)

2–5 hours in InDesign, depending on who's using the program (considerable time is saved if this is Erin and not me)

4 lines of whimsical, slightly irreverent copy

1 hour of focused proofreading (optional, but highly recommended)

Liberal use of the color pink, as garnish

Directions:

Combine business partners, holiday card concept, and bottle of wine; mix well. Add irreverent copy and sketching paper. Remove sketches by Jen; insert sketches by Anthony. Garnish with a healthy dose of the color pink and complete the process with a highly focused round of proofreading (Note: this step particularly useful if amount of wine added to the recipe is increased.) Send cards to printer; await delivery with bated breath.

Yield: 250 amazing holiday cards

And folks, they're in the mail now! Check your mailboxes this week for some holiday cheer, as only we can provide. (Yes, we will eventually post pictures of our cards, but not until they've been received and thoroughly drooled over by our fans. There's no way we're spoiling the fun here!)

And to compound the holiday cheer, this afternoon the principals of Crazy Savvy will find themselves in the kitchen, whipping up delicious confections for our most beloved clients and vendors. As anyone who knows me well can attest, this would have been a highly frightening proposition a year ago .... but my cooking skills have rather improved since then. My eating-cookie-dough skills, though, remain unparalleled. Mmmmmmmm .....

On an unrelated but equally tasty note, today's postcard comes to us all the way from the Czech Republic! Our literary postcard (thankfully featuring Kafka himself and not, say, a cockroach ... ) arrives from Prague, city of gorgeous buildings, music, and really good beer. Thanks, Jen & Scott!

Hot off the presses

The digital age has revolutionized the creative industry. Darkroom magic tricks give way to the miracles of Photoshop, illustrators with pen and ink have been largely replaced by Illustrator (though not completely .... see our holiday cards for proof that this fine art is still alive and well!), and promotion these days is as much about social media and viral buzz as it is about media buys. For us in the field, this often changes the nature — though not, one hopes, the spirit — of the day-to-day work we do.

That’s why there’s something oddly fun about the printing and production process. Wait, wait — hear me out. Yeah, no one in their right mind likes 4 a.m. press checks or frantic calls from proofreaders on Saturday nights. But there’s something viscerally satisfying, at least for me, in getting to lay my hands on a piece we’ve created as it comes hot off the presses.

So few things in our line of work are tangible, tactile. We create websites and other interactive applications, but the work itself is something off in the ether (behold: my amazingly sad grasp of how the Internetz actually work ... ) You can click it, send it to a friend, tweet it ... but you can’t touch it. It’s a similar phenomenon for branding initiatives, in my eyes anyway. We may create an identity system and work on the collateral it generates ... but just as often, we hand off a logo, style guide, and identity system to the client, and step away (and pray that our hard work isn’t bludgeoned to death in bad in-house PowerPoint presentations and internal communiques .... but that’s another ballgame entirely!) Needless to say, this sense of distancing is true in our pure consulting work as well.

I’m not in any way complaining .... variety is the spice of life, and for a creative, it seems as necessary as trendy glasses and an iPhone. But it’s always a secret (not so secret anymore, I suppose) delight to work on a print project and see it through production. It’s nice to hold the finished product in your hands and think .... this is mine, my baby, my precioussssss .... (cue creepy music). It’s a nice reminder of the way things used to be, although I certainly wasn’t alive to see them that way! (Thank you, Mad Men.)

Anyway, that’s been the week’s experience for us ... a project we’ve been working on for months is at last at the presses (oh, more beautiful words have ne’er been spoken!) A more perfect end to our week could not be imagined!

Oh the weather outside is frightful...

Today is the kind of day that I'm so glad that I get to call the shots. You see, the first big snowstorm of the season is under way in Minneapolis right now. It's ugly out there. And yet the true Minnesotans all around me are trudging forward. (Needless to say, I do not count myself in this hardy group.)

You can't turn on the news without hearing words like "blizzard," "snow emergency," "winter storm warning," and "wind chill."

I would like to replace those words with "down comforter," "laptop," and "coffee."

And the beautiful thing? Voila! Done. I am the mistress of my own working environment, after all. Which is not to say that I'm not working today, for I most certainly am. But in our line of work, I've always failed to see the reason for trudging through snow drifts and traffic jams to congregate in an office setting. If ever there was a good reason to collaborate via technology, I'd say winter in Minnesota qualifies nicely. And dare I say, working with a down comforter close at hand might even boost my productivity.

Keep warm out there, locals!

The art of naming

When I hand someone my business card (a treat that, honestly, will probably never grow old), one of the first things that I almost always hear is .... Crazy Savvy, huh? Where did you get your name?

Well, it's a fair question. When Erin and I began to finalize plans for our business, of course we devoted ourselves to the momentous task of picking a name. Much like naming a child (something I know nothing about) or a pet (something I know all too well!), choosing a name for your business is a Very Big Deal. It sets the tone for who you are and what you do, and very often makes the difference in whether or not you can successfully market and promote your business. Too bland of a name and people are liable to forget who you are. Too avant garde, and people may not take you seriously. (Thankfully, working in advertising gives us a bit of leeway on that account. Crazy Savvy works fine for an ad agency, but maybe not so well for, say, an insurance company ... or school ... or mental health services provider ... )

Plus, there are pragmatic concerns. Can people easily spell your company name if they're looking for you in a search engine or if you tell someone your information over the phone? Are there other companies in your industry or in the local marketplace that share your name or have something so similar it will lead to confusion? Does that oh-so-witty name that you thought up have other connotations to broader audiences, connotations which may be less than savory? We've seen all too many cases where these factors aren't considered, leading to emails lost to the void, embarrassing mixups, last-minute name changes, and worse. (With a last name like Emelianova, I am empathetic to business owners with complicated-to-spell company names .... but I vowed, this time, it wouldn't be me!)

So .... the naming process. One of the first things we did was fill a gigantic whiteboard with adjectives that described who we are and the sort of agency we envisioned ourselves running. Crazy and savvy consistently rose to the top of this list. We liked crazy because it spoke to creativity, to a certain willingness to push the envelope, the desire to take risks in pursuit of creative solutions. We liked savvy because it seemed to capture the other side of what we do ... strategic, canny, intellect-driven, worldly, eyes open to our constantly shifting milieu.

We tried to come up with names that reflected this notion of duality, names that would convey the connotations behind crazy and savvy in a succinct, memorable, professional way. To put it mildly, we failed. As writers, we could come up with plenty of names .... and we did, oh believe me, we did ... but nothing quite felt right. Indeed, the process grew so protracted that we took to calling our company by shorthand, using the two adjectives we liked best — crazy and savvy, natch. Our business plan near completion, launch strategy in place, legal forms and accounting procedures double-checked ... and we still had no name, aside from the Crazy Savvy moniker we had come jokingly to use.

And then the lightbulb went on.

Why don't we just, well, call ourselves Crazy Savvy?

The rest is history. I can still recall the precise conversation in which our name was decided, and the deep sigh of relief we both breathed (at the exact same time, of course) as we realized we'd both been secretly hoping to call the agency Crazy Savvy all along. It just .... fit. It was pithy, easy to spell, rolled nicely off the tongue. It was fun to say, fun to write, and memorable. It spoke to our capabilities, our approach, and our identity, and it provided the foundation for tying together our brand and promotional materials cohesively. Most of all, it was unequivocally, organically us.

These are some of the lessons and experiences we return to now as we do naming and brand development work for clients — often, work that involves devising taglines, naming products or services, crafting a messaging platform around a brand identity. As Scrabble and crossword puzzle aficionados, it's work we enjoy greatly! And each and every time we sign our name to a proposal, contract, or letter (or, you know, sign autographs for our adoring fans ... ha), we both smile a little as we remember the adventures through which we became Crazy Savvy.

Confess-o-meter

I have a confession to make.

I don't really watch TV.

Disclaimer: It's not exactly true to say that I don't watch television, period. I do tune in to the Daily Show whenever I remember to do so... (Oh Jon Stewart, how I adore you.) And my Mad Men predilections are well-documented. It's just that...my evenings do not routinely involve turning on the television.

Digression: This was aptly illustrated last night, when I did, in fact, turn on the television with my children to watch Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. At the first commercial break, a look of horror came over my four-year-old's face and she wailed at the sudden and cruel disappearance of the show. It quickly became apparent that she does not know what a commercial break is.

So is all of this just awful of me to confess as a marketing professional? Shouldn't I be immersing myself in pop culture, after all? Don't I need to tune in to keep up with the latest trends in advertising and branding? Well, actually, no, not at all. I do just fine via the Internetz and other media consumption, thankyouverymuch.

And of course I do have Jen to fall back upon in case I need someone with more authentic broadcast cred....at least when it comes to the NFL, anyhow. (Uh, go Colts?)

Guilty pleasures

We are lucky, here at Crazy Savvy. We choose our own clients. If we don't want to work with an organization or company .... we don't. It's pretty simple. Both Erin and I have learned, from our years in the industry, that life is too short to take on migraines knowingly .... life is bound to throw you some one way or another, but there's no sense looking for trouble. One of the myriad advantages of owning your own agency? You get to make decisions like that ..... no means no.

Others in our field aren't so lucky, though. And that's why this website has become our newest guilty pleasure (well, that along with Go Fug Yourself, Garance Dore, and Kickette, of course).

Happy reading! More later this week .... right now we're busy putting the finishing touches on a big project and sending it off to press. Happy December!

Giving Thanks

As I sit down to write this, I've just enjoyed a piece of homemade pumpkin pie with fresh whipped cream (ah, the advantages of having a kitchen at the ready!). After a long weekend full of gourmet delights and laughter with friends and family, it's only fitting to consider a few of the things I am thankful for this year at Crazy Savvy:

• First on the list, natch, is the birth of Crazy Savvy! As faithful readers are well aware, the fates aligned and we took the big step to open our doors for business earlier this year and we've never looked back. The experience of building a communications agency from the ground up has been such a satisfying endeavor.

• Which brings me to a most important entry on my list: Our clients! We feel so blessed to have the opportunity to work with smart, engaging, creative individuals. You know who you are. Look for a more tangible token of appreciation in the weeks to come!

• Of course, we are also thankful to have a growing corps of talented, trusted collaborators with which to partner. From photography to web design, proofreaders, and many other talented professionals, we work with the best. (Want to join the ranks? Drop us a line at info AT crazysavvy DOT com. We'd love to talk.)

• Go ahead, call me shallow, but I also give thanks each day for my MacBook Pro. It's a thing of beauty. 'Nuff said.

• I'm also so thankful for the support of my family and loved ones and thankful for the flexibility that being a business owner affords me to be present in their lives. (Oh what a wonderful feeling it is not to have to explain that you will be late to work, again, because of a parent-teacher conference, school performance, doctor visit, fill-in-the-blank.)

• Finally, I'm thankful for a business partner who is the yin to my yang. The savvy to my crazy. (Or depending on the day, dare I say the crazy to my savvy?) Seriously, I couldn't ask for a more talented, dedicated partner in business.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you from Crazy Savvy!

Post, Script

Happy Monday! We're busy, busy, busy on deadline so this will be brief .... but speaking of deadlines, if you want to be considered for the coveted title of Crazy Savvy's Coolest Fan (ok, maybe we can work on a wittier name for that ..... hm ....), you'd best get your postcards in by the end of the year! We'll announce our favorite letter at the close of 2009, and the winner will get .... something. A prize, glory, undying respect .... yeah, still working on the incentive program, too.

To inspire y'all to great epistolary works of genius, here is a postcard we just received in our mailbox today. It's from none other than ..... me ..... and it was sent two whole months ago from Jamaica. (Take it slow, mon, indeed.) I never thought I'd get it. But, better late than never, right?

Now, kidlets, get writing!

Happy Anniversary!

We are very excited to say that this week marks the six-month anniversary of the founding of Crazy Savvy. Of course, we had been dreaming and scheming, planning and hoping for a long time beforehand. But it was this week in May, six months ago, that we finally made the jump — and we haven't looked back since. (Today's photos come from our celebratory excursion to Blackbird .... yum-a-licious.)

It's hard to believe that it's been six months. On the one hand, it feels like no time at all. I can blink my eyes and recall the very first days, when we were so busy getting things up and running — talking to our accountant, determining our legal structure, filing all the requisite papers, developing our business plan. I remember how giddily we turned to the task of creating our website, our brand, and our promotional materials, and the many Saturday and Sunday morning design and concepting meetings that accompanied these endeavors. I recall (with great fondness) the day we signed our first new client, and how validating it felt to be able to take it (quite literally) to the bank. It seems hard to believe, in light of these vivid memories, that we've already been running full steam ahead for a whole half-year.

On the other hand, though, it feels like we've been doing this forever (maybe because, in one capacity or another, we have been!) It was a dream for both of us for so long that finally being able to live it feels right, feels natural, feels ... well, feels great! When we look at our base of clients — spanning industries, corporate & not-for-profit sectors, geographic locations, project types, and more — and the identity materials, operations procedures, and routines that have come out of running C/S, both Erin and I feel like they've been there practically forever. Our lives have changed in so many ways over this past half year, and yet it feels incomprehensible that we were ever — or could ever — be doing anything but this.

We want to thank you, Loyal Readers, for accompanying us on this adventure! We've been truly blessed by the support, encouragement, expertise, and connections that our C/S faithful have shared with us. We hope to return the spirit of the favor by taking on some interesting pro bono work around the holidays — more on that later, too! As we look ahead to the next six months, we're excited to continue growing our business, honing our skills, exploring new partnerships, and creating great (we hope!) work.

The timeworn axiom goes: The more things change, the more they stay the same. In many ways, we've witnessed the very inverse of this statement, as our lives have been marked forever by the C/S experience, in ways we are only starting to understand. But in some fundamental fashions, the axiom also proves true .... for all the change and upheaval and newness we've experienced, we still love working together, still experience the thrill of getting paid to (essentially) be creative, think, and have fun. We still drink too much coffee, duel at Scrabble, giggle a little too loudly (in the privacy of our own office!) We're still, at heart, crazy and savvy ... and that, folks, is what it's all about.

Crazy Savvy Mishmash

I don't think "busy" even begins to describe the current state of affairs here at Chez Crazy Savvy. But since idle hands are the devil's playthings — and since we're both looking forward to Christmas shopping, vacations, and other fun holiday-time expenditures — you'll hear no complaints regarding workload from us. What you will hear (um, read), though, is a brief update on what we're up to right here and now!

Client work is cracklin'. After a wonderful presentation to a client's Board of Directors Wednesday night, we're busy putting the finishing touches on a big marketing and communications piece designed to hit our client's doorstep just before the holidays. Since we're doing much of the design, in addition to all of the writing, creative/art direction, and production in-house, it means our lives have been taken over by InDesign and Photoshop .... oh joy. We're also getting acclimated with some new clients and projects, meaning scores of meetings and creative briefs are on our to-do lists. A website we've been working on is getting ready to go live in December, touch wood, so we're certainly looking forward to that, too!

On the C/S home-front, we're continuing to pursue business development leads .... some exciting things on the horizon ... and of course throwing ourselves into the design and concepting for our annual holiday card extravaganza. Phew! My brain hurts just thinking about it all. And these are but snippets of everything that's on deck here at Crazy Savvy ... yet, of course, we wouldn't have it any other way. As Thanksgiving approaches in (yipes) almost a week, we're so grateful for the opportunity to do the sort of work we love, partner with amazing clients, and have a fun time at the office each and every day. (Indeed, moments of stress are quickly diffused with an inane comment or quip, usually resulting in prolonged giggling fits.) We'll be back soon, ladies and gents, and in the meantime — don't forget to write!

MNAMA '09 Recap, Part III: Get Your Shop On

Happy Friday! (And Friday the 13th, no less .... ) I'm afraid we'll be spending our weekends working, but that doesn't mean we can't breathe a sigh of relief that Friday has, at last, arrived. This has been one heck of a week here at C/S — wonderful, undoubtedly, but I don't think either of us has been able to catch our breath!

I did want to take the opportunity, though, to reflect on another great presentation from the MNAMA conference while it's still fresh in my mind. Entitled "Leveraging Customer Marketing to Drive ROI at Retail," the session was led by Amy Dragland-Johnson at SC Johnson and Shelly Sinas at Pepperidge Farm. The dynamic duo provided a fascinating overview of customer marketing — a topic about which I had much to learn!

Customer marketing, the guru-istas explained, essentially means approaching marketing from the retail perspective. Insights are developed from the shopper's point of view, and leveraged in retail situations to facilitate product purchase. There are tons of opportunities for creative approaches here — the presenters discussed, for example, an initiative debuted at Target stores that paired Ziploc baggies and Goldfish snack crackers on aisle endcap displays. Brilliant! Like Forest Gump would say, they go together like peas and carrots .... heh. The initiative was a smashing success, leading to sales growth for both products and resulting in increased overall brand visibility for both companies.

It was fascinating to take in this unique marketing perspective. As someone with an agency-side background, most of the work we do for retail products is complete well before the actual item hits stores. We're used to developing the back-end concept and creative for products, but tend to have very little interaction with the actual retailer or the consumer at point-of-purchase. It seems to me that there's a wealth of opportunity for enterprising agencies to utilize their creative talents to devise strategic customer marketing solutions — and both presenters echoed the client-side desire to work with agencies that can bring this skill to the table. Definitely something we'll explore more here at C/S!

But now, back to InDesign, photo selection, copywriting, and those other parts of The Biz .... Happy Friday, one and all!

MNAMA '09, Part Two: Social Media Roundup

Now that Jen has had the opportunity to share a few of her impressions about the MN-AMA conference, it's my turn to dish a bit about the social media presentations we attended. I'll admit this right up front: I was curious to see if the presenters would be building up the Social-Media-as-Panacea Phenomenon that I see all too often. I was happy to see that my common sense manifesto was the prevailing theme of the day.

To shamelessly paraphrase James Carville, "It's the relationships, stupid."

As a social media consultant, I see my role as demystifying social media — taking down the veil of mystery (and the accompanying wave of panic!) that social media represents for so many savvy, intelligent people. Jen and I live and breathe social media — it was a no-brainer that it would be a core element of our business model. Just imagine the look on our faces when one of the introductory speakers for the keynote address was discussing the (large) proportion of Facebook users who log in daily and she extemporized, "Who are these people?" Seriously? At that point, I began to wonder just a bit at what the day was to hold for me on the "social media" track.

My fears were quickly assuaged when I entered the hall where the Geek Girls — Nancy Lyons and Meghan Wilker of Clockwork took the stage. Entertaining and engaging, they had me cheering internally with their message that social media is less about "fabulosity" and more about forging real connections. I guess you could say they were preaching to the choir.

My favorite moment in the presentation came when an audience member asked a statistical question and moments later, an iPhone-wielding librarian in the audience handily provided the answer. Now that's the power of technology (not to mention librarianship) in action.

Next up was John Olson, who also aimed to back up from the "noise" surrounding social media, focusing his speech heavily on connection. In a professorial fashion, he took us from La Belle Epoch to Palermo's grassroots anti-mob campaign fueled by black-and-white flyers up to the use of Twitter in the Iranian election in June in his overview of how various tools have been used to forge connections. It was refreshing to see social media given a bit of grounding in a historical perspective.

I was surprised when Olson — who spoke at length about his agency's approach to thinking in social circles — claimed to utterly neglect his own Facebook profile. "I don't really understand broadcasting your life," he opined. "Perhaps someone here could explain it to me." I didn't take him up on that particular challenge, but I did note with no small amount of irony he followed that rejoinder up with an incredible story of how through Facebook he was able to reconnect across countries and languages with a former caregiver for his adopted son. Pretty incredible stuff.

So there you go, folks. Social media offers you a new set of tools to be used in service to the timeless human goal of creating connections with those around us. This is true whether you are thinking in terms of your private life or your business. Not exactly groundbreaking in terms of my own professional development, I'm afraid, but a most enjoyable day all the same.

MNAMA '09 Conference Recap: Keynotes, Lovemarks, & Other Compound Words

Hi. Now that my brain has stopped spinning from the endless PowerPoint presentations (and my feet have stopped bleeding from my adorable but not very practical Burberry heels), let's reflect on this year's MNAMA conference, entitled "Get in the Game: Smart Moves to Optimize Marketing ROI." (Wow, the very title gets my blood pumping faster .... not.)

I'll add some miscellaneous notes at the bottom, but for the moment I'll focus my attention on the morning's keynote speech. A la our beloved Wonkette, I'll try to recap the presentation somewhat line-by-line .... though with considerably less profanity than Wonkette serves up (alas).

The presentation was called Lovemarks: The Future Beyond Brands and was delivered by John Bowman and Peter Hubbell of the NYC-based ad agency Saatchi & Saatchi. Clearly they were smart guys, and with impressive credentials to say the least. My stream of consciousness thoughts appear below, along with the speakers' remarks.

They introduce the presentation. Lovemarks .... hm, makes me think of how my mom would refer to hickies back in high school. Interesting. The term is intended to denote brands that inspire "loyalty beyond reason" in their faithful consumers. Affection beyond reason? Hm, definitely reminiscent of high school!

So apparently in this brave new world of post-recession marketing, emotion, rather than reason and analysis, leads to action. Great, I agree completely. But it cracks me up that they then proceed to show myriad charts and analytics to substantiate this point. Gee, practice what you preach? But the graphs plotting the concepts of love and respect on a matrix do have their own amusing charm .... reminds me of marriage counseling or an Aretha Franklin song.

After a lot of great ad clips from brands like Toyota, Cheerios, and T-Mobile, we get to a rather astonishing denouement: people like things that make them feel good. I want to laugh at the obviousness of this statement, but then it occurs to me that perhaps, for many people in the marketing world, it isn't all that obvious. They can think of a thousand points of jargon (ha) and point to mile-high stacks of market research and analytics, but when it comes to understanding what motivates the consumer, I think our industry is often guilty of not seeing the forest for the trees. Marketing, to me, is fundamentally about common sense, and I think a lot of people in our field get paid a lot of money to complicate things .... which gives us all a bad rap. But rant over, back to the presentation.

The gurus sayeth: We should look at consumer relationships not as transactions but as means of involvement, participation, and relationship-building. "Join" has become the buzzword for the new marketing world order. Yeah, okay, I buy this. I think one of the reasons social media has taken off is that people want a dialogue, not some endless advertising soliloquy. But phrases like "participation economy" make me want to cry. The way to galvanize consumers to "join" isn't by replacing sterile phrases like "return on investment" with the equally (in my humble opinion) impersonal notion of "return on involvement." But maybe that's just my affinity for semantics coming out .... we don't like marketing jargon here at Crazy Savvy.

The gurus continue: Effective advertising means telling a story. Yes! Indeed! Brevity is key — the biggest laughs of the morning came when the presenters showed a series of ads, Life Compressed By Stuffit. Brilliant! But I am sick of hearing about "journeys." The presentation ended with advice for the industry. Most of it was great, but I had to laugh when they told us to "boost mystery, sensuality, and intimacy." Hm .... well, I will suppress further commentary here so as to not offend the sensibilities of any delicate reader, but that sounds more apropos for a Viagra ad or a honeymoon to me.

OK. So some random thoughts on the rest of the day:

• It's freezing here at the RiverCenter .... for the love of all things wonderful, can someone turn up the heat? (No. No one did.)
• If I see any more bad stock photography in PowerPoint presentations, I will gouge my eyes out. Although I suppose I should fortify myself for the eventuality ....
• The visual theme and motif for the conference this year was chess. As somewhat (ok, "somewhat" being a massive understatement) of a chess aficionado myself, I found myself wandering around the various booths wanting to sit down and play at one of the chess boards on display. Even the culinary highlight of the day was a piece of dark chocolate in the shape of a chess piece (the queen, natch). Mmmm.
• On the matter of giving presentations: Presenters, please assume your audience is functionally literate. There's no need to read verbatim off your slides. Kthnxbai.

All in all, my snarkery aside, it was a great day — met some wonderful people, gleaned interesting insights, arrived at new business ideas for C/S and our clients. Erin will check in tomorrow with more on the social media aspects of the day, so stay tuned!

Notes from the underground

Manic Monday begins ..... oops, not now, but quite a few hours ago. We are busy! But it was a nice weekend. Business Partner Dearest took on the gargantuan task of repainting Crazy Savvy's world headquarters .... why do I have a nagging suspicion that my lack of involvement in this project may be due to my conspicuous predilection for pink paint? Heh. I kept busy enjoying the surprisingly temperate weather here in the Twin Cities, taking Pushkin for a long hike one day and spending tons of quality time with my wonderful pony on the other. But enough frivolity! We have business to attend to, after all.

It's a crazy (savvy) week for us indeed. After a wonderful client presentation first thing this a.m., we're energized and excited about the progress on our project together — a communications calendar for 2010. Tomorrow will find us heading off to the AMA's annual conference here in Minnesota, where we'll be up close and personal with one of the fantastic presenters (and a great friend!) Meetings, project drafts, proposals, and marketing materials round out our busy week. Phew!

But I would be remiss if I didn't mention one of the most fun (and near to our hearts) projects that we've got on our hands right now. Yes, the annual holiday card brainstorming has begun! We have a concept that we love, and are working on details and production specs as we speak (um, type). Try not to be too excited ..... cards won't be in the mail for another six or so weeks .... but, as with most of our other endeavors, they'll be well worth the wait! We promise. And if you know of any great design interns or illustrators who'd like a crack at this (and many other fun gigs) .... well, you know where to find us.

Fodder for Your Procrastination

Jen and I often spot typos, egregious errors, and assorted grammatical failures in our travels. However, it just wouldn't be nice to share them with you here, now would it? (Little known fact: we once ran a blog that did just that in our pre-entrepreneurship days!) Still, I know we're not alone in our proclivity for enjoying English-language mishaps so I thought I would share a few of our favorite destinations when we need a respite from deadlines and the to-do list.

First off is the "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks. I will never tire of this site! It makes my head spin that so many people truly and utterly Do Not Understand the function of quotation marks. Always a pleasure.

We've also spent many a moment laughing ourselves silly over at the English FAIL blog. Good times, lovelies, good times.

Perhaps you are not a grammar geek? Well in that case, might I suggest you check out the ever-dependable Passive Aggressive Notes. It's always a happy distraction, I promise you.

Finally, anyone who has spent much time on Etsy will undoubtedly enjoy Regretsy. I'd tell you more, but, frankly, this is one you just have to experience for yourself.

And thus concludes my brief little tour of Internet amusements — my go-to sources for when I need a little pick-me-up. Got a good one I missed? I'd love to hear about it.

Casting call

First off, hope all of our Devoted Readers had a very happy Halloween. We sure managed to keep busy: my beloved business partner attended a costume party and took her darling children trick-or-treating. (I am sure she's just thrilled with the copious amounts of candy they managed to snag ... nothing like a sugar-high before bedtime!) Yours Truly had a quieter night ... whipped up some homemade curry that was scary-delicious and lazed about on the couch watching horror flicks. Perfection! It was also a birthday weekend for moi ... Sunday the first found me older and, perhaps (if I'm lucky) wiser, too.

All in all, an eventful weekend.

But back to work. We’re excited to announce an opportunity to join the Crazy Savvy team! We’re looking for a talented, motivated graphic design intern to work with us on both client projects and some nifty promotional materials. Flexible schedule, roughly 10/hrs a week, and a great window into the Minneapolis creative world ... pretty cake, if you ask me. Tell your friends! Although we may be more-than-slightly biased, we think C/S is a pretty fun place to work.

If you go to MCAD, you can check out our job posting here. If not, shoot us an email at info@crazysavvy.com with a letter of introduction detailing your qualifications and interest in the position. (No unsolicited portfolios, please, though links to online portfolios are just fine.) We wait with bated breath ....

Les belles lettres

I sometimes pause to consider just how exactly I ended up in this industry. As a kid, I wanted to be a microbiologist — until I paused to consider the number of math courses I'd have to take in college and beyond. High school had me thinking law. College found me, at various times, planning to pursue my career on Wall Street (I pause to breathe a sigh of relief) or enter international relations. Postgrad, I certainly pondered the academic life — get my PhD in Literature or History and teach keen young minds. And yet, here I am, an entrepreneur, working in advertising and communications, writing for others (though I won't pretend there aren't a few ... or more than a few ... half-finished manuscripts on my hard drive, too). But how did I get here? And what was the draw?

It finally occurred to me. I've always loved words — crossword puzzles, Scrabble (I'm vicious competition, warning you now!), and of course literature. I feel particularly drawn to poetry — Milton, Pushkin, Robert Browning, Richard Wilbur: the neatness of form appeals to me in some deeply satisfying way. The same way, I realized, that developing the perfect line of copy nourishes something within me.

Then the gears clicked. Hello, Jen .... they both appeal to you because they're functions of the same thing. Good copywriting is like poetry .... really. Hear me out. It requires word economy, discipline. You don't get more than a line or two to make your impression .... and the best impressions, I think, are engaging, slightly provocative, multivalent, tightly crafted — like you'll find in the finest poetry. To hint at, allude to, suggest imagery through just a few carefully chosen words .... isn't this both poetry and copywriting at its best?

I think so, anyway. For me, the pieces have at last fallen into place. I may not be hidden away in some ivory tower (thank God; I'd probably want to paint it pink), but I still get to play with words and ideas for a living .... I once recall being told by a creative director who crossed my path, "Good copywriting isn't exactly rocket science." At the time, I was ready for some serious eye-gouging, but looking back, perhaps this individual was correct. Good copywriting isn't a science: it's an art.

(Not) Just Another Manic Monday....

It’s with sweet, sweet sorrow that I post this and bump that lovely image of Don Draper from our last post. But I want to talk marketing plans, and it had to happen sooner or later, right?

Part of our business planning at Crazy Savvy included the launch of Marketing Mondays, a dedicated stretch of time to ensure that we are updating — and implementing — our marketing plans. (I know, I’m sharing this with you on a Wednesday....that’s because I was busy....marketing....on Monday.) You see, we didn’t want to fall into the trap so many organizations and businesses find themselves in: neglecting marketing and communications in favor of other activities somehow deemed more essential to running an entity.

It’s not that I don’t understand the temptation to put marketing on the backburner. (And in case you are wondering, no, communications agencies are by no means immune from this problem! It happens more than you’d think.) After all, we live by the rule that client work takes precedence. True enough, but hardly an excuse. And let me say, as an introvert, I can understand how the art of self-promotion can be daunting at the least. I’ll toot my client’s horn any day, but my own? It doesn’t come as easily. (Luckily, my lovely business partner has no such qualms!) But as we’ve already established, marketing truly isn’t a dirty word.

So, Monday mornings find Jen and I brainstorming, making connections, following up, and researching (not to mention blogging, and tweeting, as always). No matter how manic our Mondays might be, we’re dedicated to putting in the effort.

(Confession: I’m so listening to the Bangles as I write this. Good thing Jen’s working off-site today!)

Draper iconography

So I don't actually read the New York Times (sorry folks .... but my business partner does!), but this was brought to my attention by a Crazy Savvy fan. Aha! The latest bit of Draper-related ephemera. After taking a moment to pay my proper respects to the lovely picture (hope there are no drool stains...), I dug into the article — only to discover that it has nothing whatsoever to do with Mad Men, and is only tangentially related to the notion of advertising at all.

Hm. What could this mean? It strikes me that Mr. Draper, in all his fedora-ed glory, has become a symbol .... a proxy not just for the ad world itself, but for brand awareness, mystery, style, je ne sais quoi. The article discusses the symbolic implications of car ownership in the 21st century .... but pose Don Draper in front of a fancy Zipcar and the piece becomes a meditation on, what?, consumerism? brand-as-self-image? As far as I can tell, Don is the brand — for a certain type of man, a certain image. Fine, fair enough. I can think of a few Draper doppelgangers from my experiences in the biz.

But what does this mean as a modern woman in advertising? What do we bring to the table? Who is our cultural icon, our symbolic representation of what it means to be, well, us? In short, I don't know. I watch, I observe, I raise my eyebrows in surprise or consternation or amusement at times — and then I go back to doing my thing, and not worrying too much about what it all "means." Nevertheless, this latest Draper caper is highly intriguing .... it's fascinating to watch our cultural vocabulary twist itself around this icon-as-idea. But love him though I do, I'll leave Mr. Draper his tweed coats and skinny ties and zeitgeist-altering mystique.... I'll take my Betsey J and call it a day, thank you very much.