I give you Michigan Apples. Apples are Michigan’s largest and most valuable fruit crop, with an estimated economic impact of $700 million annually. Along with a website overhaul, we developed a new logo for the Apples folks to use in their promotional materials.

Check out the photo below and view the results in a local Meijer supermarket. Seeing our designs come to life is something special that never gets old!

-provided more than three million meals this year, nearly half of which went to children?
-rescued more than 500 thousand pounds of food this year?
-maintained 90 community gardens featuring more than one million square feet of space?
-entered its 31st year of helping feed the hungry?
-can feed a family of four for six days with just a $60 donation?
-collected, purchased, and distributed food through 22 Ingham County pantries, as well as 36 human resource agencies, including community kitchens, shelters, and other food pantries?

For some, daily life serves as a stark reminder of the challenges found in society; specifically, the threat of hunger. The right to food is a basic human need.  Fortunately, there are local organizations that are doing their best to wipe out hunger year-round, such as the Greater Lansing Food Bank.

The GLFB has been in existence since 1981. Originally known as the Greater Lansing Food Alliance, the organization has expanded to become not just a food pantry, but now includes services such as the Garden Project and Food Movers. The former began in 1983 and quickly established numerous community gardens and backyard gardens for low-income residents, while the latter specializes in rescuing perishable but wholesome food from restaurants, commercial kitchens, bakeries, grocery stores and delivers this food to pantries, agencies and subsidized housing complexes.

None of the GLFB’s efforts could be accomplished without the generous giving of local citizens, coming together to provide support by donating and volunteering to sustain this worthy cause.

Do your part this year and help eliminate hunger. Visit www.greaterlansingfoodbank.org for more information, or contact their offices directly at (517) 853-7800.

Listen to Joe Wald, interim executive director of the GLFB, explain just what the food bank means to the community at Spartan Podcast (www.spartanpodcast.com/russ/JoeWald.mp3).

What are the odds that three women in a 10-person office would all show up in black and white sweaters on the same day? Patty had the inspiration to take a photo, post it on the blog and invite your captions. So hey, it's audience participation time!

Keating led a tutorial workshop for creating a tablet version of a publication, using as an example MUSES magazine (designed by BCP), the annual publication of the MSU College of Arts and Letters. Using a PDF of the magazine, he “cut it up” to enable him to reorganize the information in a tablet-friendly manner.

Unfortunately, a number of the laptops that were provided to participants had various software and access issues so many participants were not able to follow along. However, much was still learned from observing Keating at work and listening to his tips and techniques.

Keating emphasized the importance of designing a layout that is appropriate to the subject matter and readership. Some publications are best designed with an emphasis on images, with copy being available as a secondary “button,” while others may function better by giving priority to text.

He also emphasized the importance of providing a clear and well-designed how-to-use navigation section at the beginning of a publication.

Keating said that while tablet and other forms of electronic publications are most definitely on the rise, he believes it will be many years before we see the end of printed versions of most of them.

The Michigan Apple Committee has a website which we proudly designed.  Check it out here: http://www.michiganapples.com. As well as highlighting a sleek design and many informative sections on growers, news and where to buy Michigan apples, the top portion of the website has easy-to-view links to the organization’s social media, which include an RSS feed, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Here is a snapshot:

The ease with which a visitor can quickly find these links is something I want to stress to businesses and organizations when designing a site. And it is not just having links to a social network which is important; any widgets that I have seen for things like including a Twitter feed directly on your site can pay huge dividends. It aggregates more content in an effective manner making things easier for site traffickers.

Then, on your social media pages, include links back to the main website and your other social networks so everything is well connected and easy to maneuver between. Small things like this are components that should not be forgotten when considering effective web and social media strategies.

Besides working on social networks here at BCP, I also have had the responsibility of maintaining campaigns for publications as well as my band. So where do we begin?

Two things stand out to me when working with social media.

A successful social media campaign must 1) be monitored at a consistent level to maintain the most up to date content and engagement, and 2) provide some sort of ROI (return on investment). Let’s break it down into these individual parts based on my experiences running social media.

First comes the monitoring aspect. With the use of platforms such as Hootsuite, it’s easy to just plug-in your interesting links and share them with followers in an automated fashion. While there is nothing wrong with this, in order to build meaningful relationships online, time and effort must be spent to forge relationships in a more personal, real-time manner.  This will make your followers feel more engaged in what you have to offer. A carefully chosen method of using programmed content and real-time engagement is what I have found works best. “Set it and forget it” by itself rarely creates a meaningful following.

Next is the topic of ROI, which is the goal of most marketing campaigns but can be quite different for social media.

Traditional ROI goes something like this: (Change in revenue – investment)/ investment x 100.  Companies have used this to help determine whether money spent for an ad campaign is worth the result.

With social media however, it’s not always about this model. For brands, creatively engaging customers and building loyalty can be part of the top line of that equation. Promoting social good through charitable efforts also can help build a company’s following and presence online. Basically, there is a whole new set of rules when it comes to ROI for social media. A client needs to have a specific goal in mind when starting a campaign so that time and effort can have worthwhile results.

These are just the basics of any social media campaign, but are extremely important in determining a successful outcome. Also, I would like to give a quick thanks to the people at SocialMediaToday.com for all their great articles. I suggest checking them out if you are interested in this subject!

If you have any questions or would just like to talk about social media, contact me directly at: pete@blohmcreative.com.

Love it or hate it, advertising IS and forever will be part of our daily lives.

As a recent graduate (the ink still fresh on my diploma) of Michigan State University, I have had the opportunity to work at Blohm Creative Partners as an intern since my undergraduate courses ended. Originally a journalism major, I have seen my career prospects shifted by the collapse of the print newspaper model and my burgeoning interest in advertising and public relations.

My previous experience has been doing writing and video production for PR materials that fronted one specific organization. Never have I had the chance to experience life at an ad agency managing (or juggling) the projects of multiple clients.

So, you may ask: what has this experience been like for a trained journalist? What has your job experience entailed working for the “dark side,” as those in news circles call it? To be frank, I have been extremely pleased with my experience here at BCP. And that is not just because of the scrumptious cake provided at weekly meetings.

Here, the day-to-day environment is quite special and incomparable to any place I have ever worked. There seems to be a constant energy in the office as creative ideas are formulated and marketing strategies are born. Everyday brings new challenges, new clients, that pose unique situations for the team here at BCP.

And that’s not to say that everything is always peachy around the office. But there is open communication between all members of the BCP team allowing for constructive criticism and sharing of ideas. The traditional hierarchical nature of the office setting is nearly non-existent. This model seems to provide a recipe for success, something more companies, in my opinion, should embrace.

For me, being able to find creative solutions to tell the story of a client’s brand is extremely enjoyable, more so than objective reporting. As a journalist, my education was primarily writing-based. Here, design, graphics, photos and video are the name of the game.

In my limited run here, I have had the pleasure of getting to know the entire staff and can truly say that I come to work each day with a enthusiasm to help getting the best out of each project. And while it may not be as glitzy and sexy as Mad Men, AMC’s award-winning show about the New York City ad world, I still have been impressed by the quality of work and fun had here at BCP.

So, if this truly is the “dark side,” then baby, it’s good to be bad.

It's not quite as clear-cut anymore–a realization that usually hits me when I'm writing a proposal and trying to describe our capabilities without it sounding like we do everything but hang drywall.

It's not just that the Internet has changed everything (although it has). I think it's also that the arts of communication, marketing and advertising overlap more than they used to. Let's face it: every organization, large or small, public or private, is selling something. And every written, spoken, video, web or other communication that comes from an organization either contributes to that selling effort or detracts from it.

That means that the people in charge of influencing their organizations' target markets (those influencers would be our clients) are charged with ever more complex responsibilities. You can't just build a website and assume people will go there. No longer can you do a brochure or a TV spot and expect them to do all the heavy lifting. And "reaching your target audience" may leave you staring at more potential ways to do that than you ever thought possible.

Here at BCP, our capabilities have continued to expand to meet the expanding challenges facing our clients. "Traditional" advertising–creating print and broadcast and buying the time and space to put them in–is still very much a part of the mix. Web design and development, banner advertising and social media now occupy a large and fast-growing segment. People still need brochures and posters and trade booths and annual reports and data base management and corporate videos and even help writing their letters and emails, and we do all those too. Thanks to the judicious choosing of the players by the guy whose name is on the door, we all bring a lot to the table and we fill in each other's gaps.

But perhaps the best thing we do is not just "do stuff" for our clients, but help them figure out what they should do. Not just respond to their requests, but anticipate them. Not just create the deliverables, but create a context for them. But so far we don't hang drywall.

Through even the toughest economic times—the very times that have caused ever greater numbers to seek help from GLFB—people have continued to give. Even those who have little themselves are moved to share what they can. It is a privilege to be a part of this amazing effort.

Last year, thanks largely to the holiday envelope campaign–its single largest fundraising effort of the year—the Greater Lansing Food Bank was able to provide nearly three million meals to our neighbors in need: Elderly folks who might otherwise have to make the unthinkable choice between
food and heating their home, or taking the medication they need. Children whose parents work, but still struggle to make sure the kids don't go to bed hungry. And now as never before, the Food Bank is serving clients who never dreamed they would have to ask for help.

Thanks to the efficiencies and resources of the Food Bank, just $60 will feed a family of four for six days. But every single dollar helps. And every single dollar donated stays right here in Ingham, Eaton and Clinton counties.

This holiday season, we ask that you consider giving whatever you can to help the Greater Lansing Food Bank feed the hungry in our community. You can donate easily and securely online at greaterlansingfoodbank.org, or pick up the familiar red and white donation envelope from partner
organizations–including the Lansing State Journal–in the area. It's one gift that really makes a difference.

Thank you.

When an organization approaches marketing on a project-by-project basis, itʼs kind of like buying a clothing a piece at a time. Itʼs a good way to end up with a whole bunch of elements–each of which may be perfectly fine pieces–that have nothing to do with each other. You know, a closet full of clothes (or disparate brochures!) and nothing to wear.

Years ago (to continue in the chick-like vein), there was a book that exhorted people to wear only colors suited to their “season,” as defined by hair color, eye color and skintone. The science may have been suspect, but focusing on the color palette that was theoretically right for me accomplished at least one great thing: it narrowed my options. It made me stop to think how, or if, a piece fit my self-imposed parameters. And, over time, it resulted in many more pieces in my closet “going with” many other
pieces. Much easier to put together an outfit.

So back to marketing. Instead of a brochure here, an ad there, or a spanking new website thatʼs expected to generate results just by being there, we encourage clients to let us help them develop a comprehensive
marketing plan. Yes, of course weʼll do “one off” projects, and do our best to make each one great. But we believe weʼre doing clients the best service when we can help them identify big picture. A marketing plan
keeps them focused on their goals–and helps them avoid “impulse buys” that donʼt help them accomplish them.