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.

I just read a long blog post about the origins of April Fools Day, and it didn't say a thing about the explanation for the day that I had heard and liked best. So here it is. I'm not sure it's true, but it's the one I like the best.

In the middle ages, much like today, everyone was real concerned with what people thought of them. So in every little town throughout Europe, the baker did his best to just act like a normal baker, the blacksmith acted like a respectable blacksmith, etc. No questioning the status quo. No funny stuff.

But just about every town also had at least one "village idiot." Idiot or not, their job seemed to be to do whatever the hell they wanted — sing in the streets, cause a scene for no reason, whatever. These citizens were treated like outsiders.

For 364 days a year, anyway.

At some point, people started to realize that, crazy or not, these "idiots" seemed to be happier, freer, more expressive and more creative than they allowed themselves to be.

So on April 1st, everyone gave themselves permission to act like the village idiot, doing whatever they felt like without worrying about what people would think. It was a powerful break from the rules and expectations the villagers lived under every day, and you can still find remote town squares filled with people on April 1st, screaming, juggling chickens, talking to themselves... playing the part of the village idiot for a day for the betterment of their souls.

True or not, I think this explanation for April Fools Day is great. At Meyer & Wallis, we're all about creativity. You can tell the second you step off the elevator that we exist to feel free to be as creative as we can be. But while our ability to think beyond traditional models and approaches has made us one of the top advertising agencies around, it's our ability to execute to a well-defined brand strategy that truly sets us apart from the rest. Hence, our motto: Think inside the circle.

So even though we can act like a bunch of village idiots at times, there's a method to our madness that consistently pays off for our clients. And we like it that way.

So take some time today to act like a fool today. You just might enjoy it. Happy late April Fool's Day, from Meyer & Wallis!

It's a well known fact that with the proliferation of reliable, up-to-the-minute news available on the internet, newspapers are struggling. So what's the solution? Better reporting? An updated format? How about coverage you can taste?

US Ink has unveiled edible inserts that they believe could save the newspaper industry. Imagine a coupon in your Sunday paper for a new sports drink that, if licked, tastes like the product it advertises.

It's actually almost shocking we haven't seen this already.

But, with more families cooking at home now, this could be a great way to sell them new food products.

Now, I'm not sure whether this is going to "save" the newspaper industry. But it certainly is innovative, and all good marketing is. Maybe an ad you can taste is exactly what you need to connect to your customers. Then again, maybe your product just needs a better brand strategy from one of the top advertising agencies in the midwest.

Call us for more information on our new Smell-o-vision banner ads, or the assortment of more common marketing tools we've been using for over 40 years.

(Just kidding about the Smell-o-vision, though. That's still a couple months off.)

New research out today shows that consumers are more likely to have confidence in those financial institutions that are still advertising, whether they're actually struggling financially or not.

While I'm guessing that no one at AIG is reading this post, these findings have definite implications in the retail world. Further down in the article appears this gem:

“This research shows that ‘out of sight’ can mean ‘out of business.’”

So, simply put, remember that if your business is not a daily destination for your customers, the only thing letting them know you're just as open for business as you were last time they visited you may be your advertising.

This is a good time to be fiscally wise, but not a good time to stop advertising.

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.

Chicago, IL, October 15, 2008 - Meyer & Wallis won two awards — platinum and gold — at last year’s HealthLeaders Media Marketing Awards held at the Art Institute of Chicago. Each year, HealthLeaders Media honors the nation’s best healthcare marketing campaigns. This year, Meyer & Wallis took Platinum for “Best Branding Campaign” and Gold for “Best Integrated Marketing Campaign,” both for their “North Campus Grand Opening” campaign for Community Health Network based in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Judges for the 2008 Marketing Awards used a variety of criteria to make their selections, with an emphasis not only on the look and quality of the campaigns, but also on their effectiveness, including ROI.

Community Health Network is one of Indianapolis’ oldest and most established healthcare systems. Already boasting three of the area’s leading hospitals and dozens of primary care physician practices, CHN reopenned a $170 million renovation of their northeast campus earlier this past year. For the launch, which also served as the effective beginning of a massive rebranding effort, Meyer & Wallis created a comprehensive campaign that included Radio, TV, outdoor, print, direct mail, and a blog. As a result, on a sunny sunday afternoon in April, more than 7,000 members of the curious public showed up for free tours of the new facility during its open house. Since, the facility has been a huge success, as has Meyer & Wallis' rebranding effort on behalf of Community Health Network.

Congratulations to Community Health Network, and congratulations to all those at our Indianapolis office who worked hard to pull off this comprehensive campaign!

While we like to fancy ourselves jacks of all advertising trades, I'd be kidding you if I didn't tell you that healthcare marketing is one of the things we do best.
We know the world of healthcare better than most because we've been serving hospitals, clinics and blood centers longer than many agencies our size have been around. We'd love to talk with you more about the success of our campaign for Community Health Network and others. Contact us today!

A while back, I wrote about Campbell's introduction of a huge line of healthier soups that it introduced to compete head-to-head with competitor Progresso. For a company whose oldest products are notoriously high in sodium, this was a daring move that would require nimble and precise marketing messages.

Well, Campbell's efforts have proven highly effective, and Marketing Daily just named them their food marketer of the year. You can read the whole article here, but I just wanted to point out a couple interesting facts for the sake of this blog.

First, Campbell's introduced several new products last fall. They accompanied this introduction with an intensive multimedia campaign. Both these efforts surely required a large amount of capital, amids an economy that was already showing signs of instability at the time of their launch. But get this: when the mortgage/credit crisis struck its first big blow on September 29th last year, Campells was the only company in the S&P 500 to show gains on the stock market that day. But they didn't stop there. As the ecomony continued to reel, Campbell's quickly adapted their marketing messages to tout the frugality of a meal made with Campbell's soup. At the end of the year, company-wide sales were up 8% to $8 billion and net earnings were up an astounding 36% to $1.17 billion. In their first fiscal quarter of 2009, condensed soup sales alone are up 14%. Campbell's is in a comfortable position to release more new flavors this year and continue their marketing push.

What can careful advertising in a down economy do for your company?

That.

Hats off to BBDO New York for a great campaign that included use of cross promotion with Kraft and interactive text messaging. If you're in the Midwest and you find your company struggling in this economy, some skillful marketing by one of the area's most experienced retail advertising agencies might be just the trick. We can't say this enough -- marketing in a down economy works! And Meyer&Wallis knows how to do it.

Sometimes you build market share by taking it from the other guys. At other times, however, your potential market may remain largely untapped. This almost always happens at the introduction of entirely new products — like the television or the iPod — when almost all of your potential customers would be first time buyers. But recently, a cunning retailer realized it was happening right under his nose with a product almost as old as civilization itself.

Winemaker E&G Gallo did some research on behalf of Food Lion, and found that 75% of Americans find the wine department at their local supermarket completely overwhelming. And since the remaining 25% of savvy shoppers accounted for 68% of total wine sales, Food Lion realized this was a market that had real growth potential. So they and E&G Gallo conducted some research and developed some in-store merchandising designed to educate and empower their shoppers. The result? Wine sales are way up, of course!

Sometimes the best solution to a problem is the most obvious one. But how come no one with shelves and shelves of wine thought of this before? Because sometimes the most obvious solutions aren't the most obvious. Strange, but true.

When it comes to marketing in retail, Meyer&Wallis has done it all. From national name brands to scrappy local competitors, we know how to reach potential customers where they're at. And, since "where they're at" is increasingly online, I should mention that our online advertising strategies are so cutting edge, we've even taken out a trademark on one of our concepts. Wherever your potential customers are, Meyer & Wallis can find them. Even if they're in a place so obvious it hurts.

At Meyer&Wallis, we know a thing or two about hospital marketing: How to differentiate a facility from its competition, how to identify unique services or characteristics and claim them in the marketplace... but, in this economy, it seems like the task of healthcare marketing isn't just about which hospital anymore, it's about going to the hospital at all.

According to a recent survey of adults 45 and older on The Best Life, by Philip Moeller:

• 22% have delayed seeing a doctor or other medical professional;
• 16% have cut back on preventive care activities, such as flu shots or annual screenings;
• 15% have either skipped doses of their prescribed medications or taken less than the prescribed dose;
• 14% have decided not to fill a prescription at all;
• 14% have cut back on their medical care;

Virtually every provider of healthcare is facing a downturn in traffic in this economy. That's not only bad for business, it's bad for our health!

So, if you're an individual, remember that one of the best investments you can make is in your own health. Don't stop taking care of yourself, even in this economic downturn.

And if you work at a hospital or other healthcare provider currently experiencing the phenomenon described above, maybe we should talk. Meyer & Wallis is a full service advertising agency with years of experience working on behalf of hospitals, blood centers, etc. Let us help you not only keep patients coming to your hospital, but choosing you over your competition.

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.

You might be interested to know that, despite our economic conundrum, "Online ad spending approached $5.9 billion during the third quarter, an increase of 11 percent versus the same quarter in 2007 and up 2 percent versus Q2 of this year." Read the full article over at Media Week here.

You know, the ad industry in general still hasn't quite figured out what to do with online advertising. We don't seem to trust it the way we trust a nice 30 second TV spot or the safe simplicity of a billboard. But lots and lots of people — looking for news, or new jobs, or an entertaining escape from the real world — will be heading online in the months ahead. This is a GREAT time to advertise online (if you've got an agency who knows what they're doing). Want some help with that from an established yet unbelievably digitally-minded midwestern ad agency? Give us a call or write to us today.

Alright. So a couple days ago, I discussed Obama's campaign from a marketing perspective, and said that retail brands — not just politicians — will likely be studying it for a while. Turns out I'm not the only one who thinks so.

On her Retail Industry blog, Barbara Farfan talks about how local retailers — not just retail brands — can learn something from the Obama campaign. Her three main points are:

1. Employees Want a Mission
2. Employees Want Clarity
3. Employees Want to Celebrate

Especially in the current economy, I feel like these are three things in danger of being pushed to the back burner. "How can we celebrate at a time like this?" "Mission?? Our mission is to keep our doors open!"

If there was ever a time for small, measurable goals and celebrating their completion this is it. Even here at Meyer&Wallis, we'made an intentional effort to celebrate small successes and scale back our expectations in this troubled economy. What we've found is, by adjusting our goals and celebrating as a team when we achieve them, we feel more hopeful and motivated.

So whether you manage a large national brand, or a local retail store, give your employees the gift of a clear, attainable mission, and celebrate little successes with them along the way. It'll help get you through this tough economic season, and might even get you elected president some day.

Just saw this on another blog, and it turned me all reflective on the work we do here at Meyer&Wallis.

So often, when trying to differentiate yourself in the marketplace, the impulse is to talk about your brand, your method, your product. After all, you truly believe it's superior!

But consumers don't want to hear how much you know about what you're selling them; they want to hear how well you know them. Which is a great argument for the existence of ad agencies in the first place. It's your job to know your product, and it's our job to know your customer. We're the ones who take all the effort and passion you've put into your product(s) and try to communicate that to the heart of your customers. There are plenty of ad agencies who can make compelling claims about your product. There are far fewer who can confidently, accurately talk directly to your potential customer. This is what we've been specializing in for 40 years.

Retail marketing is all about insight about the consumer. With proprietary research methods that have been perfected over decades, we're confident at Meyer & Wallis that we have the edge when it comes to knowing who you're talking to as an advertiser.

One of my recent posts was about our work on behalf of Meijer. They were facing a huge full-on attack by Wal*Mart in most of their markets, and bracing for tremendous losses. We told them that we had some ideas, but first, we needed to talk to some of the consumers who chose to shop and chose not to shop their stores. After several quick focus groups, our strategy changed in light of what we found. Based on the numbers, the only way Meijer could survive was if they spoke directly to those who had already rejected them. And how do you talk to a consumer who has already decided she doesn't like you? You talk about her. And it worked.

Or work for Meijer was a huge success. They have expanded their business and continue to thrive, even though they were once bracing themselves for extinction.

This is why we consider Meyer & Wallis to be a turnaround specialist. When time is of the essence and options seem slim, there's no one with a more proven ability to identify your key strengths, communicate them to consumers in a way that feels focused on them, and generate immediate, mesurable results.

Well, another presidential election has come and gone. And while I can't say (and won't say) what we think the next four years will hold for our country politically here at Meyer&Wallis, I can say for certain that in Barack Obama's multi-front, multimedia campaign, we have just lived through the first modern political campaign of the new millennium. His approach made such effective targeted use of every media available to him, that he was recently named Marketer of the Year by Advertising Age. And he deserved it.

In a campaign season seemingly engineered to juxtapose the old and new ways of politics, Senator Obama consistenlty utilized new media to achieve things previously thought unimaginable. For example, Hillary Clinton, his rival for the Democratic nomination, used her party connections to secure most of it's available funding, hoping to choke out rivals. But Obama, through his incredibly targeted, consistent, and useful campaign website and email communications, raised more money from individual donations than Clinton or any other presidential candidate has raised before, by any means.

Even before his campaign was fully underway, its biggest strength was its consistency. Said Brian Collins of Collins Branding in Advertising Age, "Across towns, counties, states — and with thousands of volunteers, no less — across multiple media platforms, they've managed to drive a potent, singleminded design and messaging coherence that should shame many national brands." While other campaigns switched slogans, color schemes, and messages, Obama — and all his communications — remained incredibly uniform.

Not only was his message consistent, but Obama demonstrated an early respect for the power of social media, and it paid off in spades. By carving out an early presence on Facebook, MySpace, and similar internet communities, Obama already had a self-organized network of fans when McCain started trying to spur on his own. No one ever caught up to Obama's level of volunteer organization, and it depended heavily on his social media efforts. Not only that, but Obama soon enjoyed the kind of user-generated media — fan videos, music montages, testimonials (the kinds of things that go viral)— that you can only hope for as a marketer. And every time McCain's campaign found a consumer-generated video in their favor, it was the first in their column against Obama's dozen just like it. From the moment Obama made his message known online in such a powerful and new way, every other candidate was playing catch-up (and never did).

The millions who signed up for email alerts from the campaign did not find their inboxes flooded with spam. On the contrary, concise, well-timed, content-rich emails — sometimes as often as one a day — were sent to alert recipents to the state of the campaign, a recent speech or event they might have missed (with a link to view it, of course) and, as November 4th drew near, information about voter registration in their area and their nearest voting location. These emails never felt intrusive, as they were never repetitive, always informative, always highly targeted, and always on-message with the campaign as a whole.

Finally, as a young "Brand," Obama's campaign helped establish for him what he alone could not, great speaches and all. It portrayed him as a steady, consistent, unshakable, seasoned politician. This was especially effective against the contrast of John McCain's frenetic message changes.

Like him or not, Barack Obama's presidential campaign made the most of who he is, and the most of social media's potential for mobilizing a base of loyal fans. Mr. Collins was absolutely right when he said Obama's "messaging coherence ... should shame many national brands." They, and every presidential candidate from now on, will be studying Obama's marketing playbook.

According to Crain's Chicago Business, Wal*Mart is poised to take advantage of the current economy and to muscle out even more of its competition in the Chicago market. Over the past year, Wal*Mart has almost doubled it's share of Chicago's $12 billion market, to the detriment of local competitors Dominick's and Jewel-Osco. With stronger capital and distribution chains at its disposal, Walmart is up to the challenge.

What's worse, in previous years, both Dominick's and Jewel-Osco have lost market share to upscale retailers like Whole Foods. Now, with the economy taking a turn in the other direction, they will be feeling competition from the bottom as well as the top.

What are Dominick's and Jewel-Osco to do? Well, Meyer&Wallis happens to be a retail marketing specialist. And in the not-too-distant past, we actually took on Wal*Mart in a similar situation, and won. What? When? How??

A few years ago, we had the Meijer superstores as a client. After years of impressive growth and rising market share, Meijer caught the attention of Wal*Mart, who then opened stores directly adjacent to many Meijer locations, many in the suburban Chicago area. Meijer expected to lose considerable market share to the more established Wal*Mart. In fact, they felt their very existence was in jeopardy.

Meijer’s first instinct was to lower prices, but under the agency’s counsel, knew this was not a sustainable long-term solution. The agency felt the only way to survive would be to attract customers who had rejected Meijer as a shopping destination. Out of our own coffers, we commissioned research to find out who had rejected Meijer and why.

Armed with research findings, we created television, radio and print ads that spoke to and empathized with female rejectors. We appealed to the belief that they were the “CEOs of their households” and offered them a shopping experience that would save them both money and time – two of their greatest concerns.

Due to Wal*Mart’s significant presence, Meijer did indeed lose 9 share points to Wal*Mart. However, we gained 11 share points by winning over previous rejectors.  Bottom line...Meijer actually gained 2 share points despite Wal*Mart opening stores in 40 of Meijer’s measured markets, and they continue to thrive today.

Incidentally, we've also had Dominick's and Jewel-Osco as clients, helping them survive similar challenges within the supermarket world.

When it comes to retail marketing, especially supermarket marketing, no one has more experience, or has engineered more successes on behalf of their clients, than Meyer & Wallis. That's just the truth.

Is your business in the shadow of the Wal*Mart of your industry? We might have a few ideas for you...

There's a great article over at Barbara Farfan's Retail Blog about the different responses retailers are putting forth during this shaky economic environment. While many businesses are posting losses, several are still making money. And they think they know the secret to staying profitable: keep making and marketing fantastic products.

For example, accessories manufacturer Coach Inc. made more than they expected to last quarter. A bit of quick research revealed that the reason may be because consumers believed in the quality and uniqueness of the products they were offering. So for this holiday season, Coach Inc. is rolling out virtually every product in their development pipeline in the hopes that their consumers will continue to be "dazzled" and presented with products they're willing to buy.

Several of our own clients have expressed trepidation about the current economy. And with good reason! But I'll say here what our president and CEO have been telling them: Even in this economic downturn, people will continue to respond to advertising, and, per usual, the advertiser with the most unique message will stand out. The thing is that, in the coming months, most advertisers will get very conservative with their advertising, not to mention their product development and deployment. But in doing so, their brand will fade into the consumer's background, almost encouraging the reduced spending they fear. The advertisers who continue to find ways to stay in front of their consumers during this economy will not only reap modest benefits now, but huge benefits later on when the economy begins to recover and their brand is already top-of-mind.

Read Barbara's article here.

 Just wanted to share another great ad we did for Batteries Plus, a retailer of — you guessed it — batteries of all kinds. How do you say "If you need a specific kind of battery, we probably have that kind of battery, because we carry lots of batteries" in an entertaining and memorable way?

Like this:

This probably goes without saying, but a lot has changed in the advertising world in the last decade or so, and most of these changes have been brought about by technology.

When I was a kid, I used to come into this office (my dad has worked here for a while) to play with the art markers. At that young age, seeing a sea of dozens of different, vibrant colors in each of the art director's offices was almost mind numbing. I'd find a free desk and challenge myself to use as many colors as I could in one drawing.

I can also remember hearing the gentle whir and not-so-gentle clackity-clack of IBM Selectric typewriters. But they were mostly for the accountants and secretaries; the writers scribbled out their ideas longhand.

Today at Meyer&Wallis, we still have a set of art markers. I've seen them used twice in my tenure here. And our last Selectric died about two years ago. It sits in the copy room with a note taped to it that half-seriously suggests we should have it gilded or stuffed, lest we forget where we've come from.

Like virtually every other industry, advertising has been transformed by technology. Tasks formerly done by hand are now more quickly and elegantly tackled with a computer. Where we used to send out a physical monthly newsletter, we now have our website, and this blog. And some assignments — like banner ads or web pages — can only be done with the aid of a computer.

But there's something about Meyer & Wallis' long history that sets us apart from newer shops. Read any book on advertising (such as Luke Sullivan's excellent Hey Whipple, Squeeze This), and you'll see that while there's an art to writing creative ads that can be learned at school (or in a book), there's a science to writing creative ads that work that only comes with experience. And when it comes to experience, Meyer & Wallis has more than we know what to do with. Literally. Every time we've moved offices, we've had to throw out part of our archive of past work. Because after more than 40 years of doing this, we just don't have room to keep copies of all the great work we've done. Having been around for more than 40 years (and having several current employees who've been with us for decades — a couple at least 35 years) gives us a foundation of experience no digital startup can touch.

And while so much has changed, a lot has stayed the same. Namely, people are still people, and the things that grab our attention, make us think and challenge us to try something different are all the same. This is where Meyer & Wallis shines. Now only have we developed proprietary research methods for pinpointing what consumers currently think/need to think about your brand, but even our "gut instincts" have gotten uncannily accurate after a few decades.

So it's been a long time since we've used those art markers for any production work. It's also been a long time since we've engineered a campaign for a client that wasn't a complete success. That's what experience can do for an agency that even the freshest, fanciest digital technology can't. That's not to say we don't do digital. Our recent interactive campaign for a display of Roman art from the Lourve at the Indianapolis Museum of Art helped draw the largest crowds in their 125-year history.

That's the standard of excellence we set for ourselves, no matter the media, no matter the client.

Incedentally, Meyer & Wallis is now kind of a best-of-both-worlds kind of place. With our vast experience with traditional media, even our media buying strategy is light years ahead of anyone else (probably because we have relationships with all the local television and radio stations that date back to, well, when they became stations). We can get more bang for your media buck than anyone else. Period. And our UK style account planning puts proprietary market research and insight behind your brand strategy in a way your current Account Executive might not even understand. But we also happen to have one of the most progressive, strategically grounded interactive departments around. There are things we're implementing digitally in the coming months that we think we might be the first to do, so I can't even tell you about them. Yet.

It's not a perfect marriage of old and new here, though. Creative Director Tom Dixon still prefers to scribble his ideas on a pad of paper. And his iMac? Usually playing a steady stream of Johnny Cash in the background.

It may not be a perfect marriage, but at least it's a civil union.

That's our slogan.

Think inside the circle.

And our logo is a target:


It's like there's a theme going, here.

Take some time to look around the web at some other ad agency websites. (Go ahead, it's okay.) There are a lot of (younger) agencies out there that pride themselves on being able to think up the most outrageous, off-the-wall, outside-the-box ideas. And they'll prove it to you. Check out their sample work: lots of ads with images and headlines that are often more memorable than the message given about the brand being advertised.

See, "creative types" are born creative. It doesn't really take a whole lot of experience to think up an ad people will notice. What comes with experience is having seen hundreds of successful and unsuccessful ad campaigns and figuring out what makes them different. What comes with time is the discipline to think up outrageously creative marketing that ALSO adheres to a specific brand strategy.  Did you know Meyer&Wallis uses proprietary research techniques that we've perfected over the past 30 years? Only after we feel we've nailed the ideal marketing strategy do we start working on the ads. And if there's one thing we feel sets us apart from other ad shops, it's that our campaigns are consistently successful. They may not all be funny or famous, but they work. And what's more important to an advertiser than that?

So we think the essence of great advertising is execution to a precise strategy. Go check out our sample work if you haven't already. Some of it might make you smile, some of it might make you think, but all of it should tell you something about the brand being advertised.

Thinking outside the box may get people's attention, but often misses the mark when it comes to achieving a marketing goal. We'll let the kids do that stuff. After more than 40 years, we prefer to think inside the circle.