15 Year Anniversary: Reflections on Running a Small Business

I can’t think of a job I’d rather have. And so, on this 15^th anniversary, allow me to share why it is that we love what we do—and are energized as we look to the future and contemplate even better ways to do our work. 

1. We help other companies be successful. In partnership with their marketing and communication teams, we’re able to create communications that brings measurable successes.
2. We’re creating jobs. It’s ever so gratifying to know that you are able to help others sustain themselves and their families by offering them meaningful work. Especially during a time of global financial instability, we feel like creating jobs is a very real way we can make a difference.
3. Small is nimble. Having worked in national and international corporate settings (from which I learned much), I can say that I love the responsiveness that comes with being a small business owner. We can make decisions quickly—unhampered by long review and lead times or bureaucracies—changing course when needed in the blink of an eye.
4. We have skin in the game. As a business owner, I don’t look at work as a stepping stone to my next job. This company is our destination—so we’re fully immersed in making it successful. This lends a continuity to a company because of the consistency of steady leadership.
5. We are beholden to no stockholders. As a privately held company, we have the wonderful luxury of making decisions for the company that are in its long-term best interest—without being beholden to producing quarterly results that are sometimes produced at the cost of the future.
6. We get to pick the people we work with. Most of us spend as much or more time during the week with our co-workers as we do with our families, and so the task of selecting high quality, motivated individuals who share one’s views of work is indeed one of the great benefits. In our company there are certain things we just don’t tolerate—laziness, sloppy work, lack of resourcefulness or an unwillingness to tackle whatever it is that needs to be done. The result is a highly productive, satisfying and collegial environment that allows individuals to do their best work—without wasting energy on distractions.
7. It’s never boring. Not only do we work with all kinds of communication tools, but we work in different markets and in several industries—each of which teaches us something new.

The past 15 years of running this business have given us the chance to meet and learn from fascinating people doing interesting work. On any given day we might traverse the continent—talking with a client in LA in the morning and one in Denver in the afternoon. Each one brings energy, vision and their own unique approach to work that makes our lives interesting. We are always learning from and inspired by them.

Owning your own company isn’t for everyone. But for those of us who love to have a say in forging our futures, it’s the job of a lifetime—and not a day goes by but I am grateful to our team and our clients for being a part of this dream.

The Difference Between Good and Bad Writing is Sales

We decry the plethora of pedestrian copy that populates the world of business communication and sales. Why must it be boring? Tiresome? Mediocre?

An idea, after all, is no good whatsoever if you can’t communicate it to a prospective client, consumer, donor, board member, community leader. Surely an idea worth having is worth investing in the time and talent to convey its value. 

If you want a customers to change their buying or loyalty habits, your writing must do these three things:

• Get their attention. (Yes, amid the noise of ALL the daily voices they hear.)
• Get them to absorb your message. (Draw them in, hold their attention.)
• Deliver something they care about—in a way that motivates engagement. (Not the job of novice writers.)

If your writing doesn’t reinforce the superiority of your product or service, doesn’t give them reasons to change or reinforce the consumer’s behavior or viewpoint, then it hasn’t done its job. Good writing is more than good grammar—it must move people to buy, try or support your product or service.

Need some inspiration? Here’s an example of a piece we wrote for our own Web site. We dare you to stop midway.

15 Year Anniversary: The Results are In!

The secret to success is often no secret—it’s execution. Pair good strategy with strong creative and a market need, and you can almost guarantee that you’ll see a shift in consumer behavior. We’ve seen it happen countless times.

If any one of those is off, however, it’s much harder to get results. But it’s can still be possible. In this motion graphic, you’ll see a few examples of some the most notable successes we’ve shared with our clients over the past 15 years.

Eight Reasons to Celebrate Your Company’s Anniversaries

CMBell Company was in Los Angeles at White Memorial Medical Center last week to begin work on the planning for their Centennial

A company anniversary provides an opportunity to breathe new life into your organization—to offer a kind of oasis in the press of daily work. A strategically planned anniversary celebration can:

1. Recognize the people who make your success possible
2. Deepen bonds with your community, customers and staff
3. Inspire deeper engagement
4. Infuse the workplace with meaning
5. Shift internal focus from problems to achievements
6. Reinforce your culture, mission and values
7. Attract positive press
8. Provide a foundation for casting vision for the future

There’s no rule about which anniversaries you should celebrate. Whether it’s f a 15th (ours, next year), a 20th, or a 100th, these occasions provide valuable time for reflection and celebration—both of which yield subtle but important fruits in the work place.

Client Showcase: St. Anthony North 40-Year Collateral Piece

This is the final piece in a campaign to promote St. Anthony North Hospital's achievements via its 40-year anniversary. This printed piece serves as both a direct mail and a brochure that tells the hospital's story and casts a vision for its future. The campaign theme, "We," celebrates the team's efforts in reaching this milestone, while creating enthusiasm for the hospital's future. It pairs well with the employee video, where we build on a reality-style production to show what "we" means. 

 

The campaign included transit, outdoor boards, mall displays, building banners, kinetic typography, Web content, videos, and print ads. 

 

The focus of the messaging was not just about their accomplishments and plans for the future, but was a way to celebrate the achievements of the team, which always infuses energy into an organization.

We can't wait to see what they do together in the next 40 years.

 

How are you celebrating the achievements of the people who make your business successful? What company do you know that does this well?



Hospital Anniversary Campaign: Entertain, Celebrate and Communicate with Video

We departed from the more serious style of the anniversary campaign interviews (which will post next Monday) to produce something fun that showcases the hospital employees, who were happily cooperative with some of our creative directing. We loved being able to capture the wonderful spirit of the people at St. Anthony Hospital North, and think this video not only does that, but can help generate internal enthusiasm for this celebration.

 

Whenever a production can be entertaining, it increases its chance of being distributed virally. While this one will be posted on their web site, You Tube channel and Facebook page, we hope viewers will also send their friends links to the video.

 

Check back next week for the final installment of this campaign: testimonial videos featuring the leaders of St. Anthony North.

Hospital Anniversary Campaign Incorporates Kinetic Typography

Kinetic typography is a new way of telling your story. It’s essentially a mini-ad that can be used in a variety of ways. Here’s how St. Anthony Hospital North used it as part of their 40-year anniversary campaign:

• Posted on their You Tube Channel
• Posting it on Facebook
• Posting it on their hospital Web site
• Sending links virally—to employees, physicians, donors and key stakeholders

Click the links below to see some of our other kinetic typography projects:

• Dimensions Pain Management 
• Independent Colleges of Washington

And check out some of the other ways that companies are using animation: 

• Good Magazine Infographics 
• (Starbucks)Red Campaign 
• Starbucks Tribute Days 

Check back tomorrow to see our outdoor advertising solutions for this campaign. 

Hospital Anniversary Campaign: Mall Displays and Exterior Banner

If you joined us yesterday, you saw the evolution of the icon for our client's 40-year anniversary that is launching this week in Colorado. Here's the winning campaign icon; you can see how it was applied in the designs below.

For the mall displays, we decided to break the rules that suggest using 7-10 words on outdoor advertising. We didn't intend for viewers to read every word on the ad, but instead to walk away with an overall impression of how much St. Anthony does in partnership with its community. 

 

Note that on the bottom of the display, you'll see a QR code. Viewers can use a smart phone app to scan the code, which takes them to a special 40-year animation (check back later this week to view the animation, or if you click to enlarge the ad you can scan it now). The print ad echoes this design and also features the QR code.

 

What do you think. Did we meet the goal?

 

Print Ad

 

Mall Display

 

As a part of the overall media buy, we like to use a client's facility to communicate, since it's a cost-effective way to reach people already interested in the organization. There are no media buy fees, and it reinforces the campaign message with the staff, who are important advocates. Similar interior banners on stands are located in the two main entrances of the hospital.

 

Exterior Banner

 

Check back tomorrow to see what we developed as part of their social media campaign.

Case Study: The Evolution of an Icon for a Hospital Anniversary Campaign

What's a 40-year anniversary about? For St. Anthony North Hospital in Denver, Colo., it is an opportunity to celebrate milestones, honor their staff, confirm their distinctive role and cast a vision for the future.

 

A combination of outdoor, print and social media provided the platform for communicating their contributions to and partnership with their community. The message—We: You, me and St. Anthony North, Side by side for 40 years—celebrated the past as a shared achievement and staked out their independence as a separate entity from their founding hospital,while still honoring their shared history.

 

For their campaign which is launching this week, the client wanted an icon that would appear on the various campaign pieces to create continuity. Before we began working on the icon, we established these goals:

1. Must have 40 in it, to clarify the anniversary aspect of the message
2. Must differentiate the hospital from its founding facility, which has a similar name
3. Must be flexible for use in many types of application
4. Must be simple
5. Had to work with the logo and corporate graphic standards

Here's our original idea shown on a sample ad.

 

 

Since the hospital is in Colorado, the first icon was created using rocks—reinforcing this region's beautiful natural resources. However, after gathering feedback, some felt this too abstract, so we went back to the drawing board and came up with some new icons. 

 

  

 

 

Which one is your favorite icon? Check back next week to see which icon the client chose—and to see a different campaign element featured each day, including the light-hearted employee video.

Client Showcase: A Direct Mail Piece That Won't Be Ignored

For their 100 year anniversary, the law firm of Gresham Savage wanted a direct mail piece for community leaders, clients and prospective clients that would make an unforgettable statement about their firm’s legacy. For this, we worked with them to create a handsome gift box that paired a brochure with a Gresham Savage pen and five custom-developed note cards that featured historical images of their community.

This allowed us to not only tell their story but to acknowledge the role their community has played in reaching this milestone. The vintage note cards showcase local sites and leave the recipient with a handsome collection of cards and envelopes to use as they see fit. It isn’t often that a direct mail piece delivers something of value to the recipient, but when it does, you can guarantee a higher level of impact.