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Our new tv campaign for Brashears Furniture is finally on the air, and in an orgy of self-adulation, we’d like to invite you to watch our commercials right here online.
Many thanks to Jay Baker (of Ferguson + Katzman) for his ability to make bad furniture look so good you want to buy it drink after drink and just, you know, talk all night long.
Also to Craig Kauffman for directing the showroom shots and Jeff Hagerman for the edit (both from AVP, right here in town).
Also to Soundscapes for the great VO characters. And finally to our client, without whom our checks would bounce like some kind of super bouncing ball type thing (you might call it a “super ball”).
The CEBA love continues. The Prep Pak Pickles ad for Pinnacle Foods was featured in this week’s Ad Age. That’s us way down in the bottom right-hand corner, as pointed out in the photo below by our resident monkey-handed copywriter.
These really are productive pickles. Last week, a few Marlinites and clients attended the annual CEBA Awards ceremony in New York, and we’re damn proud to announce that Pickle Productivity won its category (annual media budget of $100,000 or more, single page ad or less). We were up against solid work from BBDO Minneapolis and The Food Group but, in the end, pickles prevailed. Congratulations to our clients, Keith Kandt and Joe Saporito, as well Gale Venosdel (Art Director), Chris Rock (Senior Writer), Brian Collins (Designer), Matt Rose (Creative Director), Jessica Wright (Account Supervisor) and Lucy Howell (Account Executive).
Official pictures were taken of Matt, Chris, Jessica, Keith and the tiny yet hefty CEBA Award stand-in pyramid, but we haven’t seen them yet. We might post one here later if it makes us look super cool. Pyramids usually do.
Unfortunately, our gorgeous campaign for Mission Foods—also a CEBA Finalist this year—did not win its category. Our gracious clients at Mission took it all in stride, though. It helped to know that the campaign that did win was actually pretty good. Never sucks to lose to good work. Ok, it sucks a little. But it’s tolerable, especially when followed up with five courses of heaven at Del Posto.
Congratulations to Robin Tobor, Kathryn Brensinger and Bob Smith of Mission, as well as Matt Rose, Chris Rock, Chef Rob Corliss and Chris Heil (Account Executive), for the accomplishment of being a finalist. That sounds like a consolation prize, but we think it’s a damn admirable achievement.
The Grand CEBA Winner this year was Colle+McVoy, Minneapolis, for its excellent New Holland North America “Innovation” campaign (below). New Holland markets tractors and other agricultural equipment.
We’re very proud to announce that the Ketchup, Condiments and Sauces business unit of Heinz Foodservice has named Marlin its agency of record. Heinz Foodservice is the leading manufacturer of condiments for the foodservice industry. In addition to America’s Favorite Ketchup®, Heinz Ketchup, Condiments and Sauces also includes brands such as Lea & Perrins and Heinz 57.
Marlin assignments so far include branding, advertising and promotional development, web development, media planning and placement, and new product launch support.
ALSO,
Heinz just reported 1st quarter profits up 6%. It’s something we can’t take a single bit of credit for, but we’re sure glad it happened.
Interbrand has released its top global brands of 2007. We love their focus on brand value, defined by Interbrand as “the dollar value of a brand, calculated as Net Present Value (NPV) or today’s value of the earnings the brand is expected to generate in the future.”
We also love the fact that four Marlin Network clients (either through Marlin or our sister agency Deep) made this prestigious list of the top brands on the planet.
We’re very proud to announce that Marlin has not one but two finalists in this year’s CEBA Awards. Awarded for Creative Excellence in Business Advertising (thus the fun-to-pronounce acronym…think BathSheeeeba!), the CEBAs showcase the year’s best B2B advertising, as deemed by America Business Media and a host of worthy judges (including, this year, top creative minds from BBDO, McCann-Erickson, The Ashway Group and DiMassimo). And the finalists are:
Pickle Productivity ad for Vlasic® Prep Pack Pickles and Pinnacle Foods Corp. This ad has also been featured in Communication Arts magazine. We think it’s because of the pickle pie charts. Congratulations to Marlinites Gale Venosdel, Chris Rock, Brian Collins and Lucy Howell, as well as our clients Joe Saporito and Keith Kandt.
Flowers 2007 ad campaign for Mission Foodservice. Mission and Marlin have been CEBA finalists before (along with Precision Foods, Foodhandler and ConAgra Poultry), and it’s nice to be here with this great client again. Congratulations to Marlinites Matt Rose, Chris Rock, Chris Heil, Dan Schultz and Chef Rob Corliss for the tasty culinary creations, the good folks at Bruton Stroube Studios and our exuberant clients Robin Tobor and Kathryn Brensinger.
The winners of each category will be announced at the awards ceremony — October 3, in New York in the Allen Room at Frederick P. Rose Hall, Home of Jazz at Lincoln Center Broadway…and yes, we will be going — as well as the Grand CEBA winner, who will receive $25,000 and some fairly large bragging rights for the remainder of the year.
Congratulations again to everyone who made this great work possible.
A double dose of caffeine and exercise actually might help prevent skin cancer. Something to do with the body’s ability to kill off damaged cells before they become malignant. Maybe instead of comfy couches, Starbucks should install treadmills. Replace the drive-thru with a jog-thru. And of course, offer 20 lb. venti cups—one for each arm.
In today’s Extremely Tasty Partnering news, Starbucks and Hershey’s are teaming up to create a “range of Starbucks-branded upmarket treats.” First out this fall will apparently be hot chocolate.
Delicious, yes. But even better, Starbucks reportedly will also be applying their sustainable approach to sourcing, working with Hershey’s to develop “cocoa sourcing guidelines aimed at improving labor standards, making farming practices ecologically sustainable and boosting income for farmers.”
The School Nutrition Association’s Annual National Conference continues in Chicago today. Pinnacle Foods—representing some of the most well-known U.S. consumer brands like Aunt Jemima, Vlasic and Lender’s in foodservice and, of course, one of our clients—is doing a little something different at this year’s show. Pinnacle will be serving up the winning recipes from its Aunt Jemima Morning Stars recipe contest. Prepared by Chef Rob Corliss, the winning recipes all feature an Aunt Jemima® breakfast favorite like French Toast Sticks, Whole Grain Pancakes or Waffles, and were created by school foodservice operators specifically for school foodservice. Check back for actual photos of actual recipes being prepared by an actual chef.
Incidentally, the keynote speakers at this year’s ANC seem like a wildly mixed bunch: energetic life coach (is there any other kind?) Keith Harrell; “Body by Jake” Jake Steinfeld (check out this link…you actually can build your own Body By Jake); Marta Sahagún de Fox, wife of Mexico’s former President Vicente Fox Quesada; and Walter Scheib, chef to America’s President and the First Family for the past 11 years. (What does W. like for lunchies?)
Many Marlinites and clients roared into Chicago for the annual National Restaurant Association Show. It’s always a great chance to see what’s happening in the industry and reconnect with distant clients.
Speaking of which, we had an excellent turnout at our annual Marlin Breakfast at Shedd Aquarium. And everyone was talking about this:
The Marlin breakfast invitation—created by the luminous duo of Judith Garson and Desirae Struthers—featured an ingenious paper butterfly that burst forth when the invitation was opened. More than one recipient commented on its heart-stopping effectiveness.
Also a resounding success was the 2nd Annual Mission NRA Happy Hour. This year’s invitation featured a room keycard that cheekily welcomed invitees up “to our room” at the Sutton Place Hotel. It was elbow-to-elbow at the happy hour, a huge accomplishment considering all the competing NRA events going on around town. It was first class, just like our client, Robin Tobor.
Sweet Street Desserts, a long-standing gourmet dessert client of Marlin, recently appeared on Unwrapped, a nationally broadcast Food Network segment that documents cutting edge food topics. Viewers were treated to a special inside glimpse into the creation of some of the most delectable Sweet Street Dessert treats.
We’re proud to announce that The Oft-Overlooked Science Of Pickle Productivity, a recent print ad for Pinnacle Foods and Vlasic Prep-Pak Pickles, will be featured in the January/February Exhibit section of Communication Arts magazine. Thanks to our clients Hank, Keith and Joe. They didn’t even bat an eye when we told them, “Pickle pie charts are funny.” Here’s the original:
We recently received word that the Randapalooza logo, created for Starbucks Foodservice, was selected for the 2006 CA Design Annual under the category of Trademarks. Many thanks to our clients at Starbucks for helping us achieve this great honor.
