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Matthew Lindner recently joined Launch as an intern writer. Shortly thereafter, he was handed an assignment, which necessitated the use of the third person in its execution. Shortly after that, the universe exploded. This is his story.
Matthew is a native Texan and currently a Masters student at SMU in Dallas. His area of expertise is random; not in the sense that his expertise is varied, he just excels in generating random thoughts.
His free time is spent on the Internet experiencing how others experience the world. Being a child of the Ritalin generation, he enjoys video games, movies, and the company of like-minded people, but only in spans of 45 seconds. Rather than long walks on the beach, he prefers to stay indoors and contemplate the structural integrity of specific buildings in the ever more likely event of zombie or genetically re-engineered raptor outbreaks. He also has an OkCupid account, if anyone is interested. Let’s be honest after all that you really shouldn’t be.
Spoiler alert: There is more information about him after the jump. If you want to be surprised should you ever meet him in person, or if you just don’t want to know any more about him, please do not continue. I’m sure he’ll understand. <– See what I did there?
Capote Goes to India.
Q: Do you have any Internet aliases?
A: Yes. I can’t tell you who they are. That would be dumb.
Q: Do people often tell you that you look like Philip Seymour Hoffman?
A: Yes, as well as Star Wars Kid, but I don’t think it was a compliment.
Q: You seem to be fairly well acquainted with nerd culture.
A: Is there a question in there somewhere?
Q: Do you have any vices that could be used by agents of a foreign government to gain leverage over you?
A: Not unless Diet Coke counts.
Q: What would you do for a Klondike bar?
A: Absolutely nothing.
Q: Your nickname is December?
A: Yes
Q: Why?
A: I lost a meter-stick duel.
Launch is happy to have Matt aboard, and, with any luck, will still be so after reading this. You can view his website at iamdecember.com.
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While social media continues to grow as a consumer marketing tool, most agencies have yet to appreciate the impact it can have on their own self-promotion and new business efforts. That was the focus of a recent 4A’s seminar entitled “Fueling Ad Agency New Business Through Social Media” from new business guru Michael Gass.
His key insight?
80% of decision makers say they found their vendor, not the other way around. As Michael explained, creating a blog with a distinctive point of view is critical today for new business success. Agency websites can continue to serve as online brochures, but a well-positioned blog can be a powerful outbound attractor.
Michael outlined several best practices for creating a successful blog, including these 10 essential first steps:
Have a clear objective. Are you trying to attract new customers to your e-commerce site? Building a following for a new product? Building a database of customer email addresses? Spell it out.
Identify your target audience. The better you can define and narrow your audience, the more successful your blog will be. For example: My target is U.S. leisure marketing pros.
Compose a descriptor statement: A subtitle that states emphatically what your blog is about (i.e. Your expert guide to finding local deals on designer fashions). The more specific the better.
Create a unique title for your blog. It’s helpful if you can tie in the title with a URL that you own. Copyblogger.com says make it: readable, pronounceable, memorable, unique and concise.
Buy the URL associated with your blog title, instead of having a WordPress.com, Typepad.com or Blogspot.com URL. That way if you move your site, you get to keep your audience.
Identify the key words that you want to dominate in Google Search. Consistently include your key words in your post titles, and in the copy of your post.
Start with a simple blogging platform that you can easily switch from in the future. Michael Gass suggests WordPress.com.
Make your blog easy to navigate. Use top posts, categories, tags, and such. Install a search widget that is included in your blog’s sidebar and located above the fold.
Use the inverted pyramid style of writing like a newspaper reporter. Lead with the conclusion and use bullet points, short paragraphs, and an average of 350 to 450 words.
Set a goal for writing 50 posts within 30 days. This will help you to develop your research, resourcing, writing and publishing skills. The discipline of writing the first 50 will help you later.
For lots of other useful ways to leverage social media for agency self-promotion, visit Michael Gass’ blog, Fuel Lines.
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Last week, I attended the DrivingSales Executive Summit with longtime Launch client, Rob Sumner of Park Place Dealerships. Besides taking in a little Vegas nightlife, we learned how automotive dealers can differentiate themselves and build their brands online.
Scott Monty, Ford’s Digital & Multimedia Communications Manager (a.k.a. social media guru), shared their strategy and how it helped Ford become Ad Age‘s “Marketer of the Year.” We also heard from Jeremiah Owyang, author of the popular blog Web Strategy – one of Ad Age’s “Power 150″ Top Blogs – and Dan Zarrella, award-winning author of The Social Media Marketing Book, along with several industry experts.
Almost universally, the speakers talked about the importance of being accessible, transparent and authentic online. Woody Allen once said, “90% of life is just showing up,” and the same holds true online – 90% is just being where your clients are, be it Facebook, Twitter or Foursquare. As with any relationship, yours should be built on listening and understanding. Listen first and only then respond. Add value to the conversation. Provide support by answering questions and solving problems. (Best Buy allows 200 employees to answer on the company’s behalf.) Encourage dialogue, then advocacy, as you build an online relationship with your clients. Over time, your advocates may help your brand innovate, like Mountain Dew recently did by crowd sourcing to develop a new flavor.
On Twitter, the key is to find and target your influencers, and then personalize your messages towards them. The more fresh and relevant your content is, the more valuable it will be seen – and the more likely it will be re-tweeted. Other tips? For every self-promoting tweet, send 8-12 others about news, useful information, etc. Avoid a negative tone. And for the best odds of your content being read and shared, post on Thursday-Sunday, when fewer people are posting.
Location-based services (LBS), like Foursquare, are growing as smart phones proliferate. 63% of iPhone users are on LBS every week, and the audience is a desirable bunch – almost 40% are considered influencers. You can encourage usage by offering rewards; for example, Starbucks awards discounts to each location’s mayor.
So marketers, take a cue from Ford, Best Buy, Mountain Dew, and Starbucks—join the conversation. Chances are your clients are already talking about you online. By participating in a meaningful way, you can grow your brand and advocates online.
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Art Director Madison McDaniel rounds out the Launch summer intern team (Copywriter, Account Service, and AD) as her student portfolio and design skills landed her the art director internship. Madison joins us from UNT’s Communication Design program where she also earned this year’s Launch Outstanding Achievement Scholarship for Art Direction. See for yourself how good she is on her portfolio site.
We gave Madison a break from computer layouts just long enough to ask some telling questions:
![Madison 1[5]](http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4071/4700473992_2e6dbdceef.jpg)
Q: Are you an ocean
or lake person?
A: Ocean.
Q: Pen or pencil?
A: Pen.
Q: Favorite video game?
A: Mario Kart.
Q: Which platform?
A: N64.
Q: Favorite color?
A: Black.
When asked what her favorite flower was, Madison couldn’t think of one. (Perhaps this has something to do with her favorite color. After all, we’ve never seen a black flower.)
Q: Are you on Twitter?
A: Yes. @/_sealion.
Q: So you like sea lions?
A: It’s a Fiest song . . .
Q: So you like Fiest?
A: Yes.
Q: What do you want to accomplish at Launch?
A: I’d really like to go on a photo shoot, but I mostly want to immerse myself in the agency environment.
Well, good news for this small town (Brock, Texas), Johnny Cash-loving girl turned art director: she’ll become more immersed in agency life than she ever could have imagined. Welcome aboard, Madison!
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Caitlin Christopher is a Texan, born and bred. She was a dancer growing up, but now she’s a recent graduate of SMU, from the prestigious Temerlin Advertising Institute, with a major in advertising (and a minor in Spanish).
While in school, Caitlin completed an internship at The Richards Group, focusing in account planning. She also spent a summer studying abroad and visited Mother UK, Naked, Pentagram and Tribal DDB London. With that background, experience and eagerness to continue learning, Caitlin bested many other qualified candidates to earn the coveted Launch internship gig.
Caitlin may be an account service intern, but we tested her creative thinking with a round of Q&A.
Q: Paper or plastic?
A: Paper.
Q: Favorite nail polish color?
A: Fiji – by Essie.
Q: If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go?
A: Greece. I’ve just always wanted to go there.
Q: What’s your favorite website?
A: Does Google Reader count?
Q: What do you want to get out of your internship at Launch?
A: I want to better understand the management side of advertising because my prior internship focused on account planning.
Q: What’s your favorite place in Dallas to get take-out?
A: Green Papaya. It’s like Vietnamese food, on Cedar Springs. Or Eatzi’s. (Eatzi’s, a former Launch client, is on Oak Lawn).
Q: What’s your favorite flower?
A: Stargazer lilies.
Q: What do you do in your free-time?
A: I dance a lot — in the car, sometimes walking down the street. Then I catch myself and realize other people can see me.
When she’s not dancing to a meeting, Caitlin is quietly tapping her feet under her desk.
Welcome to Launch, Caitlin.
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A new Mercedes-Benz dealership will open soon in Grapevine, Texas. To help Park Place Dealerships tout the groundbreaking, Launch Agency created invitations to the ceremonial event using some groundbreaking printing techniques.
Printed on Cromática lavender paper, the invites have the nostalgic look and feel of architectural blueprints. Art director Reuben Miller and print producer Laura Carroll worked closely with the printer, Colormark, to attain the right effect – first adding a layer of flood metallic blue ink to create the architectural “grid,” then double-bumping the white type to make copywriter Alex Slotkin’s copy pop off the page. The invites were sent in a white mailing tube to current Park Place customers and City of Grapevine VIPs.
Launch also created an online version of the invite using the same theme. To see it for yourself, check out the animated invite.
Despite impending thunderstorms, the May 20 event counted more than 100 guests, including the mayor of Grapevine, the head of the Grapevine Chamber of Commerce and a representative from Mercedes-Benz USA.
Park Place Motorcars Grapevine is expected to open in August of 2011 and will feature a 27,000-square-foot showroom, a service shop with 71 bays, and one of only two Park Place BodyWerks paint and body shops in DFW.
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Launch Agency welcomes a new digital specialist to the team. He answers to Jon, not Muse.
With the addition of Jon Fullrich, Launch is expanding its digital creative capabilities. David Wilgus, Launch Principal, Creative Director raves, “Jon is incredibly talented. He enhances our current offerings to our clients and can provide new innovations, which will allow us to lead our clients in the digital content arena.” Jon has a Masters Degree in Visualization Sciences from Texas A&M University, where he “learned everything I could about animation, video, and motionography.”
After a stint at interactive shop imc2, Jon freelanced for several top digital agencies, including Tribal DDB, and Click Here. In addition, he was part of some award-winning project work for Launch, which is how this beautiful relationship began.
We dove deeper and asked Jon some more revealing questions:
Q: Favorite sport?
A: Basketball and football . . . and some baseball. I played basketball in high school.
Q: Favorite spare time activity?
A: Watching sports and playing poker. I just played in my first real tournament and placed 106 out of 600.
(Not a bad debut.)
Q: Favorite animal?
A: I always liked penguins.
Q: Bow tie or Ascot?
A: I don’t know what an ascot is, so bow tie.
Q: Any pets?
A: A chihuahua named Bobinot and a black cat named Pepper.
Q: Most played song on iTunes?
A: “Home” by Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros.
Q: What’s one of your favorite artists?
A: M.C. Escher. His art is a blend of engineering, architecture, and optical illusion.
We’re happy to have Jon on the team.
Jon and his wife Leigh at a U2 concert
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Randall Kenworthy, recent SMU grad and standout by-product of its Method Creative program, is assisting Launch this summer as our writing intern.
Fresh from a trip to NYC for the One Show Education Festival, he’s looking forward to expanding his portfolio, learning more about the craft of copywriting and the advertising agency business and doing his part to “punk” the other interns as they come join Launch.
Randall’s one of those rare types who knew way back in 9th grade what career path he wanted to pursue. Check back throughout the summer to see how the real ad biz jives with his lifelong expectations. To learn more and check out his stellar student portfolio, visit randallkenworthy.com. You can also follow his exploits on Twitter.
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Launch Agency is pleased to welcome its newest addition to the squad — Linda Powell. She’s our Director of First Impressions, receptionist and office den mother. To find out what’s really behind her wonderful smile, we ran her through a little Q & A.
Q: Where’s your hometown?
A: Moyers, Oklahoma, a pleasant town in the southeastern part of the state near the Kiamichi Mountains.
Q: How long you been a Texan?
A: 42 years!
Q: Favorite vacation spot?
A: None other than the home of mariachi and all-inclusives. Cancun, Mexico.
Q: Favorite movie you’ve seen recently?
A: It’s Complicated, with Meryl Streep, Steve Martin, and Alec Baldwin.
Q: Secret snack food preference?
A: I gotta stick with the whole-baked goodness of Goldfish. I just can’t get enough of those little things!
Q: Top celebrity crush?
A: Patrick Swayze by a long shot. Have you seen Dirty Dancing? Enough said.
How’s that for a first impression? Just wait until you meet her in person. Needless to say, Launch is glad to have her onboard.
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Launch proudly took home six trophies at the 2009 Dallas ADDY Awards, including BEST OF SHOW – Print for the Park Place/smart center Dallas poster campaign.
Our work for smart center Dallas also won Gold ADDY Awards in the Collateral Material category and two additional Gold trophies in the same category for the “status thimble” and “carmeleon” posters.
To cap off the night, Launch took home two Silver ADDY Awards in the Consumer/Trade category, one for an ad touting Brazilian steak house Fogo de Chão and another for Park Place Dealerships’ “Website Grand Opening.” Among the Launchers who contributed to the award-winning work were Richard Wezensky, Alex Slotkin, and Launch Creative Principals, Diane Seimetz and David Wilgus.
Next, the smart campaign went on to regionals. At the Tenth District ADDY Award Show, we walked away with three trophies for the smart center Dallas work: one Gold ADDY Award for the poster campaign, another Gold for “status thimble” and a Silver for “Carmeleon.”
Continuing the streak of victories, the smart center Dallas poster campaign was also awarded a Bronze at the Dallas Society for Visual Communicators Show.
See below for the Launch winners:
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