Grady Britton

The GB Grant for 2009 is on. Where one local PDX non-profit can profit from the creative juju and smarts that comes with Grady Britton. $25,000 of creative juju and smarts, to be exact.

Here’s a bit of what we did for last year’s winner, S.M.A.R.T.

So send your favorite non-profit our way for more info and an application. HURRY ›› APPLICATIONS CLOSE JULY 3, 2009.

Twitter. Facebook. LinkedIn. And those are probably just the ones you’ve heard of.

With the ever-multiplying list of social networks available for our audiences to engage with — and, let’s be honest, even Oprah’s talking them up — you need to know what Social Media is, who’s using them, and how they’re affecting your brands and business.

…continue reading ‘Social Media. Maybe you’ve heard of it?’

We’re so green we don’t even walk. 

Nice story from the Oregonian on GB’s move to the Eastside and the goings on in this growing, developing and newsworthy part of downtown Portland. That it happened to feature our own Frank Grady effortlessly gliding down the hall on his scoot, bonus.

This way to the article.

What if… what if we called it something else? It would still be home to all of our everyday musings and goings on. So it was still a blog but we gave it a tad more meaning. How about “Intelligence”? That is kind of the whole point of it.

Let’s go with it, see what happens.

What more fitting tribute to Labor Day weekend than… actual labor? After 18+ years on SW Washington, Grady Britton made the leap to Portland’s bustling Eastside to SE Washington over the long weekend.

We’ve been looking to change things up in our workday world for a while now; the big yellow Olympic Mills building with its focus on sustainability and creative industry, aligned perfectly with where we wanted to be and what we wanted to associate ourselves with.

Months of preparation and packing – recycling and rehoming old materials – became a reality when the moving trucks pulled up. In true “because we can” fashion, several of us decided to make the adventure more adventurous by loading up bikes and bike trailers for the move across the river.

Still somewhat of a work in progress, our new space is awesome and promises to be a stimulating new environment for us to shape our next 30+ years! Progress reports to come… but meanwhile, check out a sampler of the activity.

In addition to providing our world with sparkly new rays of advertising sunshine, they make great extras in your commercials. Your attention please at :28 in…

Our way of saying thanks to Bryan “What Talent Release?” Davidson and his two weeks with us.

A slowdown like the one we’re in isn’t fun for anyone. But it has inspired some interesting possibilities for how savvy marketers approach campaigns. If what we’ve been spending on is coming under such scrutiny, what better time to put how we spend under the microscope? All of this to ultimately connect better with our audiences (and prove our budgets’ real worth.)

For instance: First Independent was eager for new clients who’d open new checking accounts. As engaging as checking accounts are in and of themselves, we tweaked First Independent’s offering to be a checking account for Control Freaks.

A mobile texting campaign, initiated by a strategically placed outdoor board, along with TV spots on local cable, each prompted viewers to unleash their inner Control Freak online. All to spark engagement, connection with a brand – that paid off in new numbers for our client. It wasn’t about a blast of big budget; it was about applying the budget more creatively.

Another quick example: ICS, a company who makes concrete cutting chainsaws (yes, chainsaws that. cut. solid. concrete.!) needed help in getting awareness and acceptance in their construction market. Our solution: a viral web video twosome, along with real attention-getting print ads, that self-selected an audience who’d start the chatter after visiting the companion sitelet we developed. Dark, funny, and just right.

The point? You don’t have to hammer a medium to be effective; use each channel for its greatest strength. Create the right message for each channel. Then connect the dots. Connect one message to another, to another, to another so that each one spins up the momentum of the campaign effort, and ultimately, of your brand.

Cutting budget and going dark to your audiences is really not the relief you need in a tight market. Your audience is still there, and they’re looking. For engagement, for brands who get them. Understanding who your audience is, where they are, how they interact with your brand is where real creativity is today. Less wiggle room in a budget requires you to work a lot smarter – and potentially look even better than before.

And we can work with that, bigtime.

Much like a good margarita, our recipe for top-notch creative juice is always open to tweaking. An addition there, an experiment there. That’s why we’re participating in an innovative internship program via the Portland Ad Fed called the COLABORATORY. For six weeks, we’ll have three different interns in the nest, as they learn the agency ropes and prepare a pitch to a local clothing design company.

We’ve already been following our first intern, Bryan Davidson, but …continue reading ‘Mixin it up in the COLABORATORY: fresh juice’

Trying to pick which local charitable organization is going to get your commitment of $25,000 of in-kind marketing services isn’t easy. But the winner of our first annual Grady Britton Grant has been picked… just not announced. Yet.

June 12 and 13 brought a flurry of applications for our way of giving back to our community. That type of last-minute drive brought a smile to our faces here; so very reminiscent of, of, of ourselves, really. We knew it would be hard to go wrong with our choice.

But choose we did, with the grand proclamation to come very soon, as early as even this week. To all of the applicants, thank you. You showed what a wonderful community we live in, one lucky enough to be served by you, and we hope to work with all of you someday soon.