For all those media doom and gloom reports about the economy and all of the woes you may be experiencing right now, there is still plenty to be done. Remember, readers, we are the keepers of our destiny and have the power to make it happen.
Peep these tips for all you creative folk out there.
———
Jinean Robinson is a CCIO (Chief Creative Infections Officer) specializing in creative strategy and implementation, 360 branding communications, and brand development. Join her at http://twitter.com/germllc or her firm’s website at http://germonline.com/
Chicago – Dallas – Los Angeles – San Francisco – New York City – Seattle: These placement gurus have got some good work and clients brewing. Go get you some work and you are free to send all commission checks to me via Paypal 
Seriously, lots of great work and opportunity for freelance. Let me know how it goes!
———
Jinean Robinson is a CCIO (Chief Creative Infections Officer) specializing in creative strategy and implementation, 360 branding communications, and brand development. Join her at http://twitter.com/germllc or her firm’s website at http://germonline.com/
Finally, an opportunity to write on a bus shelter without consequence. Interactive e-cast billboards have been erected by Sharpie around cities, allowing people to deface at will. Pick a Sharpie and leave your permanent mark on a bus shelter, telephone booth, or, for the brave ones, a billboard.
———
Jinean Robinson is a CCIO (Chief Creative Infections Officer) who has been in the communications industry for over 8 years, specializing in creative strategy and implementation, 360 branding communications, and brand development. Join her at http://twitter.com/germllc or her firm’s website at http://germonline.com/
Ever wonder, “what does it really take to develop great ideas?” I mean the big ones. The juicy, sloppy, wet ones that drench the culture and live soaked in society for decades. Well, there is a great Cannes Selection film, “Art & Copy,” that does just that. Or, shall I say instead of wondering, the filmmakers decided to Just Do It!
Check out a screening in your area: http://www.artandcopyfilm.com/screenings/
While in Atlanta, I’m gonna go to the screening on Wednesday, April 22nd as part of the Atlanta Film Festival. Tune in Thursday for my review–like you care what I think–but I’ll let you…
Don’t you just love a photographer that can show a portfolio with many sides? Don’t cha wish you could curl up with one? Allow their depth of focus to take your design to a whole other level? Don’t cha wish your photographer was hot like this guy…don’tcha (sorry couldn’t resist)! From still to portrait to fashion this dude is GOOD!!! With clients changing things at the last minute down to the camera click it’s good to know that someone out there can handle it. Harold Daniels is one of my back pocket goodies that I’m itchin’ to use.
———
Jinean Robinson is a CCIO…
With the economy continuing in its downward spiral, last week’s start of baseball season saw the owner of Major League Baseball’s Detroit Tigers announce that prime signage locations that the automotive companies occupy at Comerica Park would be allowed to keep their billboards spots at NO CHARGE! Why? Mike Ilitch wanted to do something to help the Big Three and subsequently the city of Detroit.
Ok. Gonna tell you a little secret….
I know we can get caught in our rut of, “how much bigger do I have to make this logo,” “must EVERYTHING have to be sketched, comped, and spelled out to buy off on just the concept?,” or “do I have to work with the brand marketing all-star team from the 60’s?”
But on my way to meetings yesterday, I got a quick reminder of how lucky we are. I was riding on the interstate and saw a car on the freeway hit the guard rail only to be thrown into oncoming traffic. This reminded…
Ahh, now I know where awards are and the money to pay for entering can be found.
To those of you who dream of seeing your name grace the gold pencil, running in meadows with gold lions, or at least getting in the table of contents of design award annuals: get ready to pay up. I have been amazed at the fees participants must pay for entering design shows. Ok, ok, maybe I can understand the big bucks for Cannes, One Show, even CA, but all types of “award shows” are now asking for exorbitant amounts for just one entry in…
Ok, ok…how many of you guys out there feel my pain.
“Jazz it up, add great graphics and make it snappy!”
This was literally copy and pasted verbatim from an email I once received from a client. Teaching clients the value of what we do is getting old and I refused to forward this to my creative teams because I value them waaaaay more than jazzy, great-n-graphicy, and snappy (sounds like the 8th, 9th, and 10th dwarf). So, glad I didn’t here my all time favorite, “make it pop.”
So I open the floor to two questions:
1) Why, oh why, do strategic communication…
I love billboards. The sheer magnitude of their size always invigorated me. The challenges. The possibilities. These are some examples of the best that’s out there, coming to a field of vision near you. http://www.toxel.com/inspiration/2009/01/05/clever-and-creative-billboard-advertising/ 
Joel Kirstein is a Creative Director who has been in the ad agency trenches for 25, specializing in shopper marketing, branding, and retail. Contact him on Linked In and www.coroflot.com/joelkirstein
One of the oldest forms of OUT-OF-HOME advertising is the public bench. Here are some top shelf examples: http://www.toxel.com/inspiration/2008/12/04/clever-and-creative-bench-advertisements/
Joel Kirstein is a Creative Director who has been in the ad agency trenches for 25, specializing in shopper marketing, branding, and retail. Contact him on Linked In and www.coroflot.com/joelkirstein
So, what is the answer?
In a world of competing designers where everyone with Arial and a Sharpie are now the next Paula Scher, how do you compete for work? Is spec the answer?
Well, as lines have been drawn, there are two sides to the work-for-free war and boy oh boy are the jump drives flying.
One side believes that designers must take a united stand to not give free labor and belittle our purpose and industry. The other side says that in this overcrowded, over-saturated, and any other “over” word you can think of, it is just part of the evolving world…
I hear you….I hear you over there!
“I have mad skillz…I mean I’m a design machine.”
“No one can touch me!”
“Just wish someone other than my mac, cat, and mamma knew how ill I am!”
Well there is an answer to your prayers a great way to promote your work! Facebook has a new group called “Artists Group” utilizing FB new iSnap application.
iSnapChat is a new Facebook application. It is a sophisticated visual communication tool to enable artists, photographers, designers and others to and promote their work. To find out more and learn about the launch join this group or click image:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=76846695232
EXCUSES ARE…
TNT’s new Dramedy series TRUST ME episode 3 is all about recognition, or lack thereof, loyalty and trust.
What Can You Pack Into A SNAPSIL? A great delivery system that is so unique in it’s product innovation, I believe that we will be seeing a lot of SNAPSIL for a very long time. Remember that you heard it here first!
SNAPSIL is a proprietary portion control sample and utensil that combines both an industrial design sensibility that makes so much sense and it’s tactile ease-of-use for a high level of functionality and flexibility. The promotional possibilities and opportunity SNAPSIL offers is the icing on the cake. This is an outstanding example of problem solving at it’s best and it richly deserves…
I learned about this company On Product Publishing about a year or so ago and was intrigued by their unique delivery system of combining promotional publishing content in a multiple of formats and varied executions.
Besides stupid people and abject nonsense, they’re a given. We all do things that don’t help our own cause and make what we normally do very fluidly, into a battle and a struggle. Shalu Wasu a creative consultant with a terrific website that offers some great “reminders” on how not to be your own worse enemy. It is a simple, effective read that will be useful: http://tickledbylife.com/index.php/15-elephant-tethers-that-stop-you-from-being-creative/
Here’s a taste of what Shalu Wasu identifies as the many things creatives use to tether themselves to failure:
1. What will people think?
2. But I’ve never had any great ideas!
3. What is the right answer?
4. I don’t…
Successful branding is all about “BEHAVIOURAL MOMENTS” that are a set of actions that happen in the real world that actually drive sales an repeat business. “Once you decide, We Are Not In The Image Business, We Are In The Behavior Business, It Empowers A Different Conversation About Everything.”
PRISM is an industry-wide Shopper Marketing initiative that was universally well-received, intended to measure in-store media on a par with other media using similar measurement standards.
10 – Our Troops all coming home ahead of time, safely and being appreciated for doing an impossible job!
9 – More Talented, Smart Creative people being rehired in Advertising
8 – The Ad Industry coming to their senses that Creatives are the muscle that drives our industry
7 – The economy rebounds from the current melt down as fast as possible!
6 – The price of gas continues to plunge and we’re paying under a buck a gallon by February and it doesn’t stop going down there… (Oil companies going under would make my millenium!)
5 – Wall Street Interlopers, Scum Bag Politicians, Predatory…
10 – More Jerry Seinfeld-Bill Gates Microsoft commercials (Give up, you suck!)
9 - More GEICO Caveman and GECKO commercials (Unwatchable)
8 - Any Advertising of any kind with Paris Hilton in it (Just go away already)
7 - Any Political Campaign ad or commercial… (I think we had our fill in 2008 to last a lifetime?)
6 - Any Politician saying “I approved this commercial.” (If you can’t put together a good tv spot,
how can you think you can run anything?”)
5 – Stop talking about “Change We Can Believe In” (and actually start DOING some of that change!)
4 – More New Brand launches…
Shopper Marketing is the employment of any marketing stimuli that has been developed based on a deep understanding of shopper behavior, and which is designed to build brand equity, engage the shopper and lead him/her to make a purchase. It can range from on?pack promotion to price promotions, placement, point-of-sales activity or sampling.
Shapeshifter Media has been at the forefront of this category with their patented process method for representing an image on a stepped surface and staircase. Very often, the more challenging the physical nature of the “odd ball” type of area to work with, the more interesting the result is. “Destination Brand Engagement!”
Professionally speaking, some people get all giddy over things that most others would find very strange. For me, it’s POP/POS/Displays! I always have and always will get a thrill, kick out of and smile from going out into stores and movie theaters and seeing what the brands and entertainment companies are doing when it comes to POP/POS/Displays. I went back to the stores a few thousand times to ask the managers for these displays, standees, POS, etc. They realized that it was easier to give in to me and give me the object my obsession, just to get rid of me. I loved the dimensional nature. The size. Maybe it was the stench of stale popcorn and corrugate? Who knows?
We are entering some pretty hard times. I know of four major Florida newspapers where the Advertising Departments have been hit really hard–stories abound of being outsourced to India. I was indeed expecting to take a slow start in a new design studio that I’m particularly invested in. However, we have had to jump on a bullet train with a demand in web site design. Whether it’s new upstarting companies, non-profit organizations, or existing companies, there seems to be a non-stop demand for on-line presence for businesses, and one-stop shopping when it comes to advertising/marketing/graphic design/web design.
So, even though there…
http://www.skinit.com/
When I watching my PITT Panthers lose their football game on Saturday, the highlight of my night was a commercial that caught my eye. That should tell you how crappy the game really was. Similar to the pro sports licensing concept that exploded on the scene five years ago, Fathead, SKINIT takes the same idea, but to a smaller arena: cell phones, gaming devices, laptops, DVD and MP3 players, digital cameras and camcorders, even tiny cellphone headsets.
The idea, which by the way I had 10 years ago and everyone said, “No Joel, no one will do that, it’s tacky!” Well I…
Where do we go from here with cell phones go? What is your professional opinion in regards to what we the masses, can expect next?
clients are always looking for maximum impact that is invertly proprtionate to the their acceptable level of investment! the secret of survival in trench warfare is “Adapt, Overcome and then Make It Happen!”
Joel 
