The Commonwealth of Puerto Rico is reviving a campaign that first launched in 1954. They are using the same agency, the same basic layout, even the same photographer.

The original Ogilvy & Mather print ads caused a buzz because they featured a beautiful, artsy photo accompanies by copious amounts of text. (One of the original ads ran almost 1,000 words!)

But the new campaign is not intended to work on nostalgia. As it was 50 years ago, Puerto Rico is a diverse land with many attractions, and a verbose, visually rich campaign seemed to fit the bill. A new media-rich website mirrors the ads' appearance.

The campaign has just launched in New York. Not sure when it'll make its way to Milwaukee or Indianapolis.


Top: one of the original ads. Bottom: one of the new ones.

If this kind of thing is going to become a trend, boy, are we in luck. With over 40 years' experience, Meyer & Wallis literally has hundreds of great campaigns we could resurrect! Now we've just got to convince all our clients that that fits their retail marketing strategy.

Just kidding. The campaign for Puerto Rico looks pretty nice, though.

Advergirl is one savvy marketer. On her blog, she's recently been doing a series called "The Media Crisis." Here's a link to Part One. Be sure to navigate forward to read parts 2, 3 and 4.

These are interesting times to be in advertising. As a Milwaukee Ad agency with 40+ years of history, we can remember the advertising renaissance of the 1960s, and the the effect the internet first had back in the 1990s. Now, we'd like to be around for another 40 years or so, and that will involve navigating another sea change in the way advertising is done. Advergirl is on to something here. Read it, and comment below if you'd like.

Milwaukee has an interesting newspaper history. Though many might consider us a "small" city, Milwaukee had two rival newspapers for decades — The Milwaukee Journal and the Milwaukee Sentinel. They merged a few years ago, and the Brew City no longer has two papers vying for our attention.

But that's neither here nor there when it comes to these interesting infographics from Mint.com. I guess the amount of information Mint has aggregated to pull these stats together makes this one of the most comprehensive views of the newspaper industry so far:



Okay. It looks like 24 of the nation's top 25 papers are DOWN in circulation. (Good job, Wall Street Journal.) But this graph didn't really tell me anything I didn't already know.

Then I saw this part:


Sure, in this graph you can clearly see a sharper decline in circulation starting in around 2004. But the most interesting thing — to me, anyway — is the fact that newspaper circulation basically peaked in the mid 1980s.

The 1980s!?!

Alright. I'll allow that the internet has taken a healthy bite out of print news in the last few years. But since 1984?? I think not.

I think newspapers have something besides the internet to blame lower circulation on. I think it's a marketing problem. How do you sell a newspaper to a generation that grew up with more alternative sources for news than any before it?

You know, these days, everyone is clamoring to brand themselves as an internet ad agency. But the internet is doing fine. Looks like print media is the one that needs some help, and we've got some ideas. Meyer & Wallis has been a turnaround specialist since our inception, and we think we know how to improve newspaper circulation. More on this in the future. In the mean time, check out the whole infographic here.

For several years now, Meyer & Wallis has created the posters for the annual Veterans' Day Parade here in Milwaukee. It's an event we believe in, and it's been our pleasure to support it by donating our time to make these posters. As we work on our designs for this year, here are some examples from previous years:

2003:


2004:


2005:


2006:


The rest will come in a later post. Incidentally, we've added a couple new artists in the past few years, making us a pretty darn good graphic design company. You'll see this in the remaining examples.

If you're in the Milwaukee area, be sure to stop by and support our veterans at the Veterans Day Parade on November 7th!

I like beer. In fact, Meyer & Wallis likes beer. While our intake falls far short of the kind you see on Mad Men, we've been known to wrap up a busy workweek with a round of ice cold "art supplies." Clever, we know.

And it makes sense, too. Meyer & Wallis started over 40 years ago here in Milwaukee — home to four nationally recognized breweries at the time: Schlitz, Pabst, Blatz and Miller.

But where are they now? Schlitz has just recently returned to brewing in Milwaukee, but is owned by Pabst, now headquartered in Illinois. Blatz is being brewed once again by Miller, but Miller has merged with Coors, and, you may remember if you follow marketing blogs like this one, has moved their marketing headquarters from Milwaukee to Chicago. Yup, of the original four independent, local breweries mentioned above, not one remains. The largest domestic brewery left in the US? Sam Adams.

Now I'm sure these breweries have good reasons for merging and moving as they have, and I'm also sure that product quality, not profit, remains at the top of their lists. (Wink.) But how have consumers responded to the mass production of beer that's happened over the last few years. Well, have you been in a Whole Foods lately?
 


Sure, there's a section for your Big Name Beers, but a gloriously massive amount of space is devoted to smaller, local, craft beers. Why? Because they taste better. Because they manage to get something right that the bigger breweries can't.

What does this have to do with Meyer & Wallis?

There's this assumption that bigger is better, even with Ad Agencies. Bigger means more resources, more talent, more sway. Or so it seems at first. But really, when it comes to Ad Agencies, bigger means that your account is only one of dozens. It means if your ad budget isn't in the tens of millions, your campaign gets crafted by inexperienced interns. It means you get to pay for all that a big agency says they have at their disposal, while getting none of the personal attention required to leverage those benefits for your brand. To revive the metaphor, it'd be like paying $5 to drink a bottle of Schlitz when you could have a bottle of Lakefront East Side Dark Lager for $3.50. You haven't heard of it? It's delicious.

Meyer & Wallis is a small, independent, local ad agency with offices in Milwaukee and Indianapolis. We aren't owned by another company. We have relationships with the media going back decades. Our experience in retail marketing management is second to none. Our UK style account planning approach means every campaign is carefully researched and and planned and executed by the same team of people, utilizing a proprietary planning process. We come to know the unique needs of each of our clients as only a small agency can.

So if you're sick of the watered-down taste of your current ad campaign, and yearn for the full-bodied, unique flavor that only comes from a local agency, give us a call. We're the ad agency that made Milwaukee famous.

We've talked about Starbucks here before — the veritable icon of the personal luxury that characterized pre-recession America — and the trouble their brand is in. McDonalds billboards touting their cheaper line of coffee drinks with the simple headline "Less Bucks" hit Starbucks right in the beans. Stores have been closing across the globe.

Will Starbucks remain viable? Can they reinvent their brand in time?

It's funny. At least here in Milwaukee, several locally based coffee shops have popped up all over the place over the last decade, almost in response/defiance to Starbucks. They've sought ways to differentiate themselves, and have found quite a few — live music on the weekends, local pastries and produce... some have even taken to serving select wines and beers.

Well, it seems that Starbucks is now looking to the local coffeehouse scene it helped create for its own salvation.

in an experimental move, the company just dropped the Starbucks name from one of their Seattle-area stores, and the rebranded cafe is adding beer and wine to the menu.

Will this brand strategy be the future of Starbucks? Will the one-time hangout of yuppie teenagers become the future hangout of yuppie 20- and 30-somethings?

They sure seem to hope so.

Read the full article here.

Though we're but a local Milwaukee ad agency, we've had several supermarkets as clients over the years — located throughout the midwest and beyond. You could call retail marketing one of our core competencies.

Anyway, many of them offer private label brands along side the local and national ones. As private labels are less expensive by nature, the recession has caused many to consider them. And a new study indicates that 91% of people who have recently switched to store brands because of the economy think they'll make the switch permanent.

WOW.

now if only supermarkets actively advertised their private labels.

Meyer & Wallis has set up shop in some pretty cool spaces over the years. Our first office was in the oldest building on Wisconsin Avenue in downtown Milwaukee. Twenty years and three offices later, we find ourselves on the corner of Jackson and Mason.

This is the first space we've had that we've been able to build to suit. It's pretty cool. With in-house facilities for everything from media buying to broadcast production, we really are a full service advertising agency.

The first space you enter off the elevators is our reception area.



Behind the hiding receptionist, and below our target logo, you can see a few of the awards we've won over the years.

There are more of these. In fact, we have a couple "walls of intimidation" throughout the place.



And another:



In fact, we've won so many awards, they can be found throughout the agency, anywhere there's shelf space. Like here, with our software manuals:



I'm not trying to brag. It's just that, well, we've won a lot of awards for our work. Anyway...

Our walls are covered in galvanized steel on which we can display our work however we wish.



We've also been known to display some personal "Flair" outside our offices, as well.



The floor really feels like a creative space. Even our common area feels fun and inviting. On the back wall: the famous Meyer & Wallis Christmas Card Retrospective.



And, finally, throughout the agency you'll find these unique displays representing beliefs that our company has been built on:



They remind us why we do what we do, and why we do it better than most.

If you'd ever like to get a closer look at the place, Bob Meyer loves giving tours. Just a warning: he'll probably want to talk about your advertising, too.

One of the oldest and biggest companies here in Milwaukee is Briggs and Stratton. They are one of the largest manufacturers of small gasoline engines in the world. And, at 101 years old, they're the latest long-standing company to try to go viral.

Eddiegram.com allows you to send, surprisingly, an "Eddie Gram" to a someone. In your Eddie Gram, a creepy lawnmower with a human head will brag about the beauty of your lawn, or deride the lackluster status of your recipient's. This, hopes Briggs & Stratton, will turn your mind to lawnmowers, which, in turn, will help Briggs & Stratton sell motors.

If you think this is a stretch, wait until you see the site.

Remember kids, interactive media is no automatic guarantee of popularity... especially if the most engaging thing you can think of is a creepy humanoid lawnmower. This was someone's first idea.

Several years ago, there was a supermarket chain here in Milwaukee called Kohl's. It was a higher end food store, and dominated the local market with about 45% market share. That's far more than any one of its competitors. 

The company that ran Kohl's food stores had also recently opened some department stores, also under the name Kohl's. Long story short, ownership of all the Kohl's brands changed hands, and the new management was much more interested in the department stores they had acquired than the food stores. So they started running the food stores almost as an afterthought, devoting no resources or attention to them at all. Within months, market share had plummeted from 45% to about 12%, and public opinion of Kolh's food stores was downright abysmal. People were actually angry over what had happened to the chain.

About this time, Meyer & Wallis (R.L. Meyer Advertising at that time) was asked to help. Bob Meyer's pitch was pretty simple: "You've lost the trust of consumers because you've mislead them. You've changed a store they've come to know and love without any forewarning, and you will continue to hemorrhage customers until you start telling them the truth. I've got a plan that will save this company, but for it to work you have to tell your customers the absolute truth from now on." They agreed.

The first TV spot that aired was much like GM's. It was an apology; an acknowledgement of the trust lost and the expectations unfulfilled. "But give us a couple weeks," the ad asked, "and we'll show you a whole new kind of super market."

Over the next couple weeks, and with our help, Kohl's reevaluated their practices and prices. They got back in touch with what had once made them so popular, and redesigned their stores around these strengths.

The stores reopened as a new TV ad began to air. It rebranded the stores "Kohl's II," and promised a new shopping experience to consumers, combining the high quality they remembered with low prices that might surprise them. Within weeks, Kohl's food store's market share climbed back up to about 21% — nowhere near the 45% they once enjoyed, but almost double where they had been. (As I talked this over with Bob Meyer, he was quick to make an important point here: it's much easier to hang onto market share than to regain it. Getting Kohl's back to 45% market share could have easily taken years, because repairing a brand is a slow process.) After losing money for 10 straight months (sometimes millions per month), Kohl's food stores were able to buy a nearby grocery chain with the sudden and unexpected revenue the campaign helped generate.

Alas, this story does not end well. As happens all too often, management at Kohl's was quicker to credit themselves for the stores' turnaround than our marketing campaign, and cut ties with our agency in favor of a marketing direction they could feel more in charge of.

After losing money year after year, all Kohl's food stores were finally closed in 2003. Nowhere near 12% of the market missed them.

Anyway, there are two morals here: (1) Meyer & Wallis are turnaround specialists. We excel at identifying the unique claims a struggling business can make within their industry and helping them make them in a cost effective yet highly creative way, with the ultimate goal of getting results. Time after time since the Kohl's campaign, we have proven our ability to do this. We'd love to talk with you about it. And yet, (2) No campaign, no matter how effective, can save a brand that isn't willing to match the claims it is making. If a company makes its own advertising claims out to be lies, it has no one to blame but itself if the public picks up on the inconsistencies.

We'll all find out soon enough if GM can match its marketing claims.

Design by Committee:

Stories are flooding the internet of consumers who look right past this container in their search for their beloved Tropicana Orange Juice, consistently mistaking it for a generic store brand. Why? Because it looks like a generic store brand. I'm sure the Arnell Group (the group also responsible for Pepsi's new logo) has plenty of research to suggest that this packaging had broad appeal in focus groups. Vanilla has broad appeal, too. Because it's vanilla.

Whose idea was this? One guy? An entire design team? What do you think they had in mind — current Tropicana consumers and the product they'd come to know and love, or expressing their own ideas about branding via their clients? (Remember the new Pepsi logo?)















Design by Strategy:


This is one of several packaging designs we did for one of our clients, Palermo's pizza. They're a family owned business based right here in Milwaukee, and they make some of the finest frozen pizza money can buy. (And I'm not just saying that. It's good.)

Their pizza is good because it's based on generations-old family recipes from Italy.
What other regional frozen pizza company can make that claim? Probably not a one. So we wanted their packaging to reflect their unique offer — frozen pizza that tastes like authentic pizzeria pizza because it actually is. So the packaging is imbued with subtle, rustic Italian imagery. Nothing groundbreaking, really. Just stubbornly on target. We wanted the package to really suggest the taste of the product and the ethos of the company that makes it.

And what happened in both of these examples? Well, sales of Palermo's Frozen Pizza have pretty much been steadily up since. More than any other regional frozen pizza maker. They've launched in new markets and introduced new pizzas. (There's even reason to suspect other manufacturers have tried to copy their packaging layout and color scheme.) As for Tropicana, they've pulled the new packaging in favor of the old, familiar carton we'd all recognize. That was an expensive experiment!

Here at Meyer & Wallis, we don't just do retail advertising (although you should hear the radio spots we've done for Palermo's). We're also a graphic design company. We're media buyers. And we're good at all this stuff. We won't run an experiment on your brand. Instead, we'll leverage our 40+ years of experience to achieve exactly what you need us to. That's how we roll.

Here's another TV spot from our recently unveiled ad campaign about Milwaukee's economy.

They say history repeats itself. And, for sure, America has seen the likes of this economic recession before. Your parents or grandparents might even have well-known stories about their experiences in past economic hardships (walking uphill both ways, etc.). But they’ve got nothing on what recently went down here in Milwaukee, WI. This ain’t your grandma’s recession.

 

Meyer & Wallis has been hard at work on an ad campaign and event for Milwaukee area retailers for several months. See, we realized that most of the dire economic news we’d hear about was happening elsewhere, yet was being presented as if it were happening everywhere. Bank closings in New York, foreclosures in California, unemployment in Detroit, etc. Maybe it isn’t as bad in Milwaukee, we thought. So we did some research, and sure enough: business IS better here.

 

So to make a long story short, a couple weeks ago, more than 250 local retailers gathered to hear speakers from across the country talk to them about how to market in this down economy using every media at their disposal. We had a doctor of consumer psychology, the mayor and county executive of Milwauke, representatives from Meyer & Wallis, and speakers from each of the major media bureaus. As far as we know, they’d never been gathered together for one event before. Ever. The day was jam-packed with insight and information designed to help area retailers stay afloat and weather this economy, coming out stronger on the other side.

 

But in addition to the great speakers, we unveiled an ad campaign we’ve been working on for some time, designed to instill confidence and optimism in Milwaukee consumers. Because, after all, business is better here!

 

So here’s one of the ads we did for this campaign. I’ll be unveiling more as the days go by. But be sure to also check out the website at businessisbetterhere.net
 

I just happened upon an article that is not only written by a company whose logo bears a striking resemblance to a slice of our own, but contains some well articulated truths about one of the ways marketing is being affected by the digital cultural shift we find ourselves in.

In the recent past, as the article suggests, it was the norm for marketers to tell consumers stories about themselves. When life was about keeping up with the Jones's, telling us that the Jones's want what they sold and we should, too, was basically enough. But, as the article asserts, we are increasingly less concerned with what the masses have and more concerned with niche products and services that fit our unique wants. This shift is powerfully supported by our present ability to get information about niche interests and needs like never before, via the Internet. Within the vast community of the World Wide Web, we find others using the same products or services we're interested in, so we can find out about them and research them in unprecedented ways. But as we've turned to virtual communities for information about these niche interests, we've come to trust them immensely, often more than the marketers themselves. I'm pretty sure I've blogged here before about the rising percentage of consumers who consistently research significant purchases online instead of in person — like reading several user reviews of a Toyota Camry before ever considering an actual test drive. Thus, when we hear advertising messages from marketers, our instinct is increasingly to go corroborate what we've heard with stories from consumers like us. The article puts it pretty well:

As more brands (have to) go niche and therefore tell stories that aren't known to the masses, and as experiences and non-consumption-related expenditures take over from physical (and more visible) status symbols, consumers will increasingly have to tell each other stories to achieve a status dividend from their purchases. Expect a shift from brands telling a story, to brands helping consumers tell status-yielding stories to other consumers.

What a fascinating thing to say: "Expect a shift... to brands helping consumers tell status-yielding stories to other consumers." But I'd argue the shift isn't just in who's delivering the message, but it's also in the content of the message itself. As consumers, we're moving from a sales-pitch mentality to a narrative mentality. So if you're an awesome Milwaukee ad agency like Meyer & Wallis, you see double opportunity here. I'll explain.

First, we excel at telling stories. That's what much of the best advertising has always done — given the consumer a narrative picture of what their world would be like with you in it. I'd argue that, given our vast experience and exemplary creative department, we get this better than virtually any full service advertising agency our size.

But second, our understanding of interactive media and online advertising strategies are second to none. Our VP of Interactive is one of the most forward thinkers when it comes to utilizing digital media, and I'm not just talking about websites. Several of our recent campaigns demonstrate there are plenty of ways to use digital media to get your message out, including, in more than one instance, giving consumers a chance to tell their stories on behalf of clients.

And when these two competencies are married into one integrated campaign, our results are consistently remarkable and measurable.

So check out the article linked above. The trend they're talking about is very real. If you have the slightest suspicion that your ad agency doesn't get how to use digital media for all it's worth, maybe you should give us a call.

Meyer&Wallis has been named the agency of record by Carpet Town, one of the leading purveyors of flooring and interior design in the Milwaukee area for more than 35 years. Meyer & Wallis will provide Carpet Town with marketing and advertising services.

Founded in 1971, Carpet Town quickly grew from a “cash-and-carry” carpeting warehouse to one of the largest retail flooring stores in the greater Milwaukee area. It has repeatedly earned The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Consumer Analysis Award as the number one choice for flooring. It has also won multiple awards from the Metropolitan Builders Association, and is proud to be one of 200 retail stores nationwide chosen as a Stainmaster Flooring Center.

Throughout our 40-year history, Meyer & Wallis has built up a rich foundation of experience working with a wide variety of retailers. And, despite our being a midwestern ad agency, many of them have been from all over the country, including supermarkets, realtors, manufacturers, and several specialty retailers. Through our prorietary planning methodologies, award-winning creative abilities, and innovative media buying strategies, Meyer & Wallis intends to help keep Carpet Town on a trajectory of success and growth!

Visit Carpet Town by clicking their logo above, and visit our main site to see what else we've been up to.

On November 7th, National Philanthropy Day, the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP) will be honoring Meyer&Wallis at the Partners in Philanthropy luncheon in Milwaukee.

Horizon Home Care & Hospice, an AFP member and client of Meyer & Wallis, has chosen to honor us at the event. Horizon has served Milwaukee, Ozaukee, Washington, Waukesha and Dodge counties for nearly 20 years, and started truly looking at philanthropy as part of its organizational mission in 2006. In their words:

From day one, Meyer & Wallis has been a true philanthropic partner, showing support through sponsorships, donations, in-kind services and attendance at fundraising events. Meyer & Wallis provides a shining example of what a true partner in philanthropy is to the greater Milwaukee community.

Well, we at Meyer & Wallis couldn't be more pleased that Horizon's experience with us has been so positive, and we're very honored by the recognition. Meyer & Wallis truly believes that a business can only be as successful as the community it calls home, and we're always happy to support our clients' efforts, philanthropic or otherwhise. We've always desired to forge not just a business agreement with out clients, but a relationship. And relationships go both ways.

So thanks, Horizon. We're glad to help!

Meyer&Wallis is a Milwaukee ad agency. It's also an Indianapolis ad agency. Since 1990, we've operated two offices, allowing us to serve clients from a wider area.

But with one office in Milwaukee and another in Indianapolis, how do you suppose Meyer & Wallis continues to move forward as one company, sharing talents, ideas and responsibilities?

Technology, you might say. And it's true. I have a video conference at least once a week with one of my coworkers in Indianapolis. He and I can easily work on the same project because we have access to the same file servers in each office via a dedicated, high-speed connection. We also have an agency wide conference call every Monday morning to talk about open jobs, work coming down the pipeline, and the latest Colts-Packers match-up. Well, that was just this Monday. But did you see that game?!?

So while we're separated geographically by 275 miles of Midwest earth, we're able to work quite closely as one team dedicated to your brand.

But this doesn't set us apart from anyone. Any agency with multiple offices that can't videoconference and share files between them these days probably has bigger things to worry about (like whether there's a fresh ribbon in the secretary's typewriter or if the president's dictaphone has recently been oiled).

No, what I think sets Meyer & Wallis apart is that, even with all this technology at our disposal, there's usually at least one of us — if not three or four — driving between Milwaukee and Indianapolis each week. Why? To make a delivery? No. FedEx does that. Super-important meetings? Not really — we have important meetings all the time over the phone. I think we just really like connecting with each other. Advertising is about making connections: between your company's goals and your brand's development, between your brand and consumers, and, most recently, amongst consumers via interactive media, where many of them connect about your brand via social networking and blogging. Connecting is what makes an ad a compelling message, and our passion for helping you connect with your customers is matched only by our collaborative desire to connect with each other.

Know that with Meyer & Wallis as your advertising agency, you have at your disposal a group of people who love making connections. If we'll regularly drive 275 miles just to stay in sync with each other, imagine the lengths we'll go to for your brand. (Or call and ask. We'd gladly share some success stories.)

If I didn't see that coworker from Indy that I work closely with in person at least once every other week, it wouldn't be normal. And if I don't, I can only assume the perpetual construction in Chicago must be especially bad, or the Colts got spanked by the Packers again. Did you see that game?!?

Today, thousands of bloggers across the web are making it a point to talk about poverty. I think this is a great idea, because precious few of those participating have the luxury of actually writing day-to-day for a cause/company/purpose that directly relates to the topic at hand. The rest of us - the majority - are challenged to think ourside the box (or inside the circle?) about how what we do affects poverty.

What is advertising? Simplistically, it's the artful suggestion that you should buy product A instead of product B. We may convince you with words, a compelling visual, humor, logic, or an appeal to your emotions. What does this have to do with poverty?

Almost nothing.

But advertising is what we're good at. It's what we know best. And, at its heart, it's about ideas and persuasion.

These have plenty to do with poverty.

For over 40 years, Meyer & Wallis has committed to spending a percent of its time on pro bono work for clients who improve the condition of society, especially here in Milwaukee. We've done work for America's Black Holocaust Museum, rasing awareness about the racism against African Americans that has persisted in our country long after the end of the civil war and the civil rights movement. We've worked on PSAs relating to drug abuse and cigarette smoking. We've also done campaigns for the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music, a public music school that has shown an amazing committment to providing even the underserved populations of Milwaukee with access to quality music lessons. Interestingly, some of our pro bono work has garnered us international attention, leading to several new paying clients. We've even been known to donate to a worthy cause or two that relate to poverty in our city.

Meyer & Wallis thinks part of what it means to run a good business is to be a good citizen of the community we live in. We can't all work directly with the poor. But we can get clever about ways to use what we already do to make a difference. Whether it's donating our time or our money, Meyer & Wallis remains committed to finding creative ways to use our gifts and talens to combat not just the symptoms, but the precursors of poverty. And in this age of technology and globalization, who knows what we'll be able to "do" about poverty in the coming years that we haven't been able to before?