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We’re pleased to share the news of our recent wins at the 2010 ADDY awards! A big thank you to our clients that allow us the opportunity to not only work on their projects, but to add creativity, thought and process behind them. While we only entered 5 this year, we’re happy with the results - four awards!

Toombs County Development Authority

Silver ADDY - website
Bronze ADDY - sales packaging collateral material

CREDITS

Clark Creative - Design
Tim Johnson - Photography
Karl Stauch / Coastal Marketing Group - Copy
eMarketSouth - Web Development
Rapid Press - Printing

Savannah Development and Renewal Authority

Gold ADDY - cross platform campaign
Best of Show ADDY

The Official Release for the Best of Show award for “My Savannah Is” campaign:
Savannah, Ga. – The Savannah Chapter of the American Advertising Federation (AAF) awarded its “Best of Show” highest honor to the team of Coastal Marketing Group, Clark Creative and Spyhop Productions last night at its 2010 ADDY awards dinner. The award recognized the exceptional work the team produced for the Savannah Development and Renewal Authority’s (SDRA) television and print ad campaign launched in August 2009. The ADDY Awards held every year in February recognizes the top creative work in advertising, design, packaging, web/interactive and related fields.

The campaign entitled “My Savannah Is…” was developed for the SDRA by the creative team of Karl Strauch at Coastal Marketing Group and Cari Clark from Clark Creative Design. The creative team selected Spyhop Productions’ veteran director Jim Carswell and producer Mari Carswell, to lead the broadcast production, working with cinematographer, Mehmet Caglayan. Motion-graphics were created by Andrew Davies with Paragon Design Group and still photography was produced by Kevin Banker of Banker Optical Media.

In all, the team of Coastal Marketing Group and Clark Creative were awarded four awards. Spyhop Productions also won a Silver award for Cinematography for the campaign.

“As you can see, it was truly a collaborative effort and a lot of fun” said Clark (Art Director), who along with Strauch (Writer) served as Co-Creative Directors for the entire SDRA campaign effort.

“It’s a good feeling” added Strauch, who also penned the new Downtown Savannah tag line It Never Gets Old. “This is a creative community and there was a ton of good work out there. We did not enter as much volume as we saw from others but we won the whole enchilada for a 5th award at the end of the night - and it was the best recognition of all.”

The award caps off a recent run of brand development & creative assignments that the team of Coastal Marketing Group and Clark Creative has collaborated on in recent months – and economic development appears to be a niche. Both Strauch and Clark have worked together on assignments for various municipal chambers, economic development bodies and tourism clients not just in Georgia but the southeast region including South Carolina and Florida.

However, on this night, it was all about Savannah and pure teamwork. The SDRA bought into the vision, the approach and contributed greatly to the creative team’s success and the creative team itself spent months in focus groups, research and planning even before concepts were generated. Early in the process, Strauch had also sought out Spyhop Productions, knowing its reputation for quality work. Ultimately, Spyhop was selected to execute the broadcast effort adding tremendously to the final product.

“Jim doesn’t just hang lights and roll the cameras out” said Strauch, “he and Mari spend a lot of time dissecting the concept and improving upon it. That’s what we were looking for in a collaboration”.

“I think one of the reason’s this campaign worked is because the team focused on connecting emotionally with the viewer” said Jim Carswell. “The day and age of “selling” is gone. Today’s marketing needs to resonate with and engage those we are trying to reach.”

As Gold and “Best of Show” award winner, now the team moves on to see how it fares regionally in AAF competition.

“Maybe we have a good shot at winning that too” mused Clark. “After all, the brand is Downtown Savannah and shows most beautiful place in the world. Who wouldn’t love that?”

The Process:

Check out behind the scenes shots of the photo and video shoots. This concept sketch (below), drawn by SCAD graduate Vincent Zawada, is one of many we presented in the process of pitching our ideas to SDRA. We envisioned showing a coffee house scene at Gallery Espresso. In the end, it made much more sense to show the exterior of the business, showcasing it’s beautiful location next to one of Savannah’s beautiful historic squares.

More about the ADDY’s…
“The ADDY’s is the advertising industry’s largest and most representative competition, recognizing and rewarding creative excellence in the art of advertising.

All across the country, local entrants are vying for recognition as the very best in their markets. Local winners then compete against other winners within their regions in one of 15 District competitions. District winners are then forwarded to the National ADDY Awards competition. Entry in the Savannah Advertising Federation ADDY’s competition is the first step toward winning a National ADDY’s.

The competition begins with a call for entries in late December. Then selection of the most creative entry in each category is effected by a scoring process in which a panel of judges evaluate all creative dimensions of every entry. In each category, a Gold ADDY is recognition of the highest level of creative excellence and is judged to be superior to all other entries in the competition. Entries that are also considered outstanding and worthy of recognition receive a Silver ADDY. The number of awards given in each category is determined by the judges, based on their opinions of the quality of work in that category.” SOURCE

Fast forward about 12 months – another meeting with Office Services. Got to take a peek at their beautiful HON furnishings design showroom. Great design details and workspace throughout. Turns out, they needed assistance for their 10th anniversary celebration. Do we offer event planning services? No, we sure don’t. But, after some support and “you’d-do-a-fantastic-job. we trust you” type conversations, we said yes. After all, there were invites, signage, collateral, and promo items to be designed (oh, and logos to put on custom cookies!). So, we employed the talented Tammy Ray of The Detail Department to help us pull it off.

We constructed a talented, experienced team and conquered something we hadn’t done before under the name Clark Creative. Services included orchestrating, developing and / or designing the following:

Invitation Design

Rack Card Design

Promotional Items (bags, cookies, notepads, pens)

Signage

Print Production and Management

Mailing

Budget Management

Event Planning (Catering, Guest List, Tent Rentals, Photography, etc)

Continuing Education Class for design professionals (working with HON)

Ribbon Cutting Ceremony

Public Relations

In the end, the event was a success (and we have photos to prove it). The weather remained cool and dry; food was great; an elected official assisted with the ribbon cutting, which was a feat within itself since it was Savannah-Chatham Day at the Capital and most of the other elected officials were in Atlanta.; and the crowds showed as we all celebrated 10 years of business and a beautiful showroom.

Congrats to Office Services - and thanks for the “you can do it!” attitude!

I came across this interview that I did with Mark Tate of the Tate Group Law Firm in early 2009. I seemed to have started that year with this optimism. Why not? How else can you possibly start 365 days of life? Enjoy.

Topics include: business in downtown Savannah, economy, crime in Savannah (or lack there of commercial crime), cSpot, TCCa, branding, marketing, networking, new business

What’s Geekend? Straight from the geek squad, “An annual gathering of the geek tribe in Savannah, Georgia. Geekend is what you might call an interactive conference with some truly awesome parties. It’s the kind of event that you’ll be texting, tweeting and Facebooking from and all your friends back home will be super jealous.”

Cari Clark Phelps / Clark Creative teamed up with Janna DeVylder / SCAD, Andrew Davies / Paragon, Ariel Janzen / brightwhitespace to present the session entitled “How to be a Great (Interrogator) Designer.” We presented a 30 minute presentation about simple how-to’s for clients and designers alike. What questions to ask or prepare for, how to make a project stand out to generate results, consideration of the environment in which work will be placed, and subjects including context and competition were discussed.

Andrew Davies, Ariel Janzen, Cari Clark Phelps chat with inquisitive minds after our session

And we made the front page of the (insert Exchange Section) Savannah Morning News!

With plans to attend another session if only 10 people showed up, we were pleasantly surprised to have a packed room with attendees overflowing the provided seating, making a comfortable spot on the floor and leaning up against the back and side walls. Thanks to all those who showed their support!

Savannah Bee Company – Ted Dennard
Savannah, Georgia
It was probably in 1999 when I started working with Ted Dennard, owner of Savannah Bee Company. I was working part-time then at a printing company in Downtown Savannah. Our first project involved the smallest label for the all-natural lip balms he sold in stores around the area. For the next 8 years, I learned a lot about the honeybee and its products. I was fortunate to design all the honey packaging you still see today. Ted learned the craft of beekeeping as a child in South Georgia from a man he knew as Old Ray. He has kept bees ever since. Ted is passionate about beekeeping and taught me so many interesting historic facts about the honeybee - and importantly, how to eat it. Delicious! I’m proud to see these products across the United States - gorgeous golden award-winning artisan honeys. It’s wonderful to see such a success story and someone living from the fruits of their passion. Plus, branding the product with the city of Savannah’s name on it does wonderful things for this creative coast.

Savannah is… on the map. Everyone’s checking it out. Most recently, we had three guys whom I had met in Vegas visit us all the way from the land of Oz (Australia). Why Savannah? Because they heard it was a cool place. You betcha!

(yup, those are my feet)

But, we have one slight problem on our hands. Locals - even Savannahians - forget how cool and great we’ve got it. The Savannah Development and Renewal Authority tasked us with promoting and supporting businesses in the downtown historic district. They hired us Clark Creative and Coastal Marketing Group to develop a campaign to get locals to come downtown. With the tremendous talent and help from Spyhop Productions (music and talent sourcing; video production) and Paragon (the animated swirls and bubbles), we produced these two beautiful spots. Enjoy - and come visit us!

“On a Saturday afternoon in San Francisco, Mogilner and her co-author’s six-year-old sons set out to sell lemonade along a path in a park. Every 10 minutes or so, Mogilner switched the sign that publicized the lemonade stand according to one of three messages: “Spend a little time, and enjoy C & D’s lemonade”; “Spend a little money, and enjoy C & D’s lemonade”; and “Enjoy C & D’s lemonade.” To further test the impact of the messages, customers were told they could choose to pay anywhere from $1 to $3 for the product. Forty out of 391 people who passed by the stand that day purchased lemonade, and customers were surveyed about how they were feeling while they sipped. When the results were tallied, Mogilner found that a greater proportion of passers-by bought lemonade when the sign mentioned time rather than money. What’s more, customers who viewed the time message paid more for their cup of lemonade, and enjoyed the product more.” Published: September 16, 2009 in Knowledge@Wharton

Read more…

Ah, the taste of lemonade! Isn’t it worth the time?

Thinking Differently…
We’ve heard it all before - statements that start out with “well, in this economy…”. And I will… In this economy, we must think differently about business. How to market. Where to trim. What we excel at. Through this process we develop a meaner, leaner more productive machine. Sometimes we must look at how we operate our business and find opportunities in the otherwise dark holes.

Case Study: Savannah Mall
Large retailer Steve & Barry’s announced their closing in the first quarter of this year. Occupying an enormous footprint of 90,000 sq/ft in the mall’s center, all knew this couldn’t be a pretty void. In normal markets, a leasing manager would seek other tenants. At this grand scale, the odds were slim for 2009. Enter creative thinking and strategy. The Savannah Mall is launching an innovative concept - an indoor marketplace supporting smaller retailers with complimentary products, making it easy for both shoppers to find all they are looking for while provide store owners lower rent and easy storefronts to get into.

We hope you’ve seen the campaign which launched mid-July and the series of digital billboards, personalized direct mail and print ads placed throughout the creative coast, tempting might-be entrepreneurs to take these tough times as a tool for empowerment and business ownership.

Check out the interview and report, aired on July 27th, on Fox Business News. Clark Creative is responsible for many of the marketing concepts, media plan (with support from Sandy Traub for Public Relations and Senea Crystal, Marketing Manager of Savannah Mall, for the expansive radio blitz), direct mail, copywriting and tagline, “Retail - Redefined.”

Positive Thinking
And just for fun… the advertising world is being clever about how to think positively in this ‘down time.’
Check out this commercial for VW Passat.

How do you think?
We all use both hemispheres of our brains to some degree, but typically, for most people, one side dominates. I’ve always thought I must be 50-50 in terms of use. A creative thinker and graphic designer – but heavily focused and involved on the business side and problem solving as well. I took a test and found out I’m actually 49% - 51%. Pretty dang close.

Take this quiz and see how you rate.