Let Your Voice Be Your Guide

Your company probably has a brand standards guide – a booklet of standards for how to use logos, colors and other graphic specifications about your brand. But how much do you think about the voice you use to talk to your customers?

Honing in on an irreverent, honest tone for its new product line is why we admire the new advertising campaigns for U by Kotex. Yes, that’s right, we like ads about tampons and pads. The brilliance about these ads is that Kotex took an outdated way of talking to its customers and (ahem) flushed it down the toilet.

With tongue firmly in cheek, Kotex used its own footage from previous advertising campaigns to poke fun at the absurd way the brand previously has talked about periods – women wearing white, twirling on the beach, dancing. Let’s be honest here. Dancing is about the last thing women feel like doing at that time of the month. Based on research of its key targets, Kotex rethought its brand voice. With U, Kotex is encouraging women to talk honestly, and, well, be less ashamed, about their periods. And women have responded positively.

OK, so you may not be selling feminine hygiene products. But it does matter how you talk to your customers. Are you speaking in a way that makes your customers want to listen?

Comment

Penn and Misspeller

It turns out that even criminals need to be branded. According to a recent CNN story, thieves with a clever nickname have a higher chance of being caught and prosecuted. It’s a long-standing strategy that’s helped law enforcement officials publicize crimes and nab culprits like Pretty Boy Floyd.

More and more, criminal nicknames such as the Barefoot Bandit are given careful consideration so the public will remember them. The methodology to catch branded bandits today is akin to a well-mapped marketing strategy.

This makes me wonder: could branding office mishaps help curb the occasional office faux pas? If I hang some “Wanted” posters around the HenkinSchultz office, would fewer people swipe my writing utensils and more people clean out the microwave?

Nah, that probably wouldn’t work. They’d probably just take away my writing privileges.

Comment

Eat Your Brussels Sprouts

We’ll admit it: we don’t know much about Brussels, Belgium. What we do know is that if we ever go there, we want to stay at The Pantone Hotel.

The Pantone Hotel is the stuff of a graphic designer’s dreams. Each room has a different color scheme based on the Pantone color chart, which is the graphic designers’ tool chest when it comes to matching colors. Each room uses Pantone color swatches as art work that set the tone and feeling of the room. The hotel’s overall look embodies clean, European design with lots and lots of beautiful white space. The attention to detail is pretty impressive, too; the bicycles, coffee mugs and even signature cocktails are marked with their Pantone colors.

And, hey, we can even afford to stay at the hotel on a graphic designer’s salary! The only downside of the Pantone Hotel? When we stay there, we probably won’t see much of Brussels.

Comment

Rhymes With Rice

She’s been a lifeguard, a fitness room supervisor, an intern and a phone banker. No wonder Hilairee’s people skills are so good.

Meet Hilairee Griese. (Rhymes with rice, in case you were wondering.) Hilairee, an account executive assistant, is the latest addition to the HenkinSchultz team. She juggles complicated projects for a variety of accounts, and she works with HS’s account executives to make sure clients get exactly what they’re looking for.

Hilairee hails from Platte, S.D., and she graduated from Northwestern College in Orange City, Iowa. During her last semester in college, she interned at the marketing department of Easter Seals in Chicago, so she knows the ins and outs of navigating a corporate system.

We’re pretty impressed with Hilairee’s organizational skills – her ability to keep to a schedule is unparalleled. But what we really, really like about her is her thorough knowledge of the TV show Friends. If the South Dakota Advertising Federation ever sponsors a TV trivia contest instead of a golf tournament, we’re totally going to win.

Oh, and speaking of golf, Hilairee has one mean golf swing. That should help keep the creatives at HenkinSchultz in line.

Comment

Embrace Losing, Embrace a Tree

We at HenkinSchultz may be talented at copy and design, but golfing …. well, golfing may not be our game.

That doesn’t stop us from trying, though. A foursome took to the course for the South Dakota Advertising Federation’s annual Golf Tournament on June 25. And while our drives may not have landed anywhere near the green, we took advantage of every photo opportunity. Guess we just can’t leave our mad advertising skillz at work.

Instead of hitting the green, Justin’s ball hit this tree.

Read more

Comment

Buses Attract Attention, and Most Recently, Awards

We were pretty excited when we first began working with Avera McKennan to design bus wraps for Sioux Falls transit. Turns out, some other people were excited about it, too.

Avera McKennan won a 2010 Silver Aster Award in Outdoor Transit for its bus wraps. The Aster Awards, which are given by Marketing Health Today, celebrate healthcare marketing professionals who demonstrate excellence in advertising. HenkinSchultz also worked with Avera Health, Avera McKennan and Avera McKennan Foundation on the following campaigns that won Aster Awards:

Award: Silver for Newsletter/Internal – Series
Avera Health, All of Us Newsletter

Award: Silver for Publication/Internal
Avera Health, Avera Quality Report

Award: Silver for Publication/Internal
Avera McKennan Foundation, Human Touch Newsletter

Award: Bronze for Special Events
Avera McKennan Foundation, The Big Grape Benefit 2009

Congrats to all the Avera staff members, who are great to work with on fun, award-winning marketing campaigns.

Comment

From the Mouths of Babes

At HenkinSchultz, we think our building is pretty cool: a little bit industrial, a whole lot creative. We take pride in our work space, and we like to have fun. But we looked at it a little differently after hearing what one fifth-grader had to say about it:

“It looks like a toy chest threw up in here.”

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a future copywriter on our hands.

4 Comments

Needed: One Awesomewriter.

Please hold for a message from our corporate sponsor.

Copywriter? More like Awesomewriter!

There’s something different about working at HenkinSchultz. Something different – and pretty darned awesome.

Don’t believe us? See for yourself: HenkinSchultz is currently looking for an awesome copywriter/social media expert. Key duties include:

Send your resume to Joe: joe@henkinschultz.com. And prepare yourself for the most awesome writing job you’ll ever find.

Thanks. Now, back to the blog.

2 Comments

To Inform and Delight

Last night the South Dakota chapter of AIGA (the professional association for design) provided a free showing of Milton Glaser’s To Inform and Delight at Southeast Technical Institute.

From Arthouse Films’ blurb:

For many, Milton Glaser is the personification of American graphic design. Best known for co-founding New York Magazine and the enduring I ♥ NY campaign, the full breadth of Glaser’s remarkable artistic output is revealed in this documentary portrait, Milton Glaser: To Inform and Delight. From newspapers and magazine designs, to interior spaces, logos, and brand identities, to his celebrated prints, drawings, posters and paintings, the documentary offers audiences a much richer appreciation for one of the great modern renaissance men.

Artfully directed by first time filmmaker Wendy Keys, the film glances into everyday moments of Glaser’s personal life and capture his immense warmth, humanity and the boundless depth of his intelligence and creativity.

To Inform and Delight is a wonderful movie chronicling the famed New York designer Milton Glaser and his warm connection with humanity. If you’re in Sioux Falls or the surrounding area and want to catch the movie on your own, make sure to get registered for Adobe Days on May 6th, where AIGA SD will be giving away a copy to one lucky member!

Comment

KFC Doubles Down, prepares for a bust

What’s the difference between flash and substance?

Let’s ask Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Since 2005, Kentucky Fried Chicken (or KFC, depending on the day) has seen its market share drop. It’s not a drastic drop, but it’s enough of a drop to raise concern – especially as the fried chicken industry expands and challengers Popeye’s and Chick-fil-A rise to fill market share.

According to a AdAge report, KFC is down to 30% of the chicken market. Add to that over a 1.5 billion dollars in growth, and a LOT of people are either switching from (or outright shunning) the Colonel.

And that brings us to KFC’s recent flash: The Double Down.

The Double Down, if you haven’t heard, is a sandwich – and that term is being used VERY loosely – that uses two fried chicken breasts instead of bread. Inside is a cheesy goo mixture of bacon and grease.

It’s really nothing more than a marketing ploy – the same type of empty strategy that KFC has used constantly through the last several years. It brings to mind the grilled chicken experiment, which was more “Oprah’s talking about our grilled chicken!” than “we believe you should eat grilled chicken because it’s what you want.”

On the other hand, Chick-fil-A offers healthier options as a matter of principle – not as a marketing ploy. They are enjoying the ride as an underdog, pushing the horses to a cultish status. They use better chicken. They employ people you actually want to buy chicken from. They serve it in stores you actually want to eat chicken in.

Chick-fil-A isn’t depending on decades of market dominance and flashy hype machines to sell chicken. It’s depending on substance.

KFC? Well, they’re doubling down on their bet that you’ll eat anything. And while sales may spike for a short amount of time as people rush to try this monstrosity, they’ll soon fall back to where they were.

Flash vs. substance? One gets you attention. The other gets you loyalty.

Which do you think KFC would rather have?

Comment

— Next Page »

Enter your email address:

Delivered by FeedBurner

About HenkinSchultz

HenkinSchultz is an agency. An advertising and marketing and branding and design and production agency. All of those things, and then some.

But, underneath all that, we're really a bunch of thinkers. As in, we think about stuff, both pertinent and not, with and without boundaries, as if our lives depended on it. And this right here, Post Haste, is where we write about it.

Visit us at http://www.henkinschultz.com.

Twitter

Less than 3 hours to go until the South Dakota Advertising Federation's BBQ. DUNK TANK!

Recent Posts

• Let Your Voice Be Your Guide
• Penn and Misspeller
• Eat Your Brussels Sprouts
• Rhymes With Rice
• Embrace Losing, Embrace a Tree
• Buses Attract Attention, and Most Recently, Awards
• From the Mouths of Babes
• Needed: One Awesomewriter.
• To Inform and Delight
• KFC Doubles Down, prepares for a bust

Recent Comments

• Joe: Your building is one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen –I’m more thinking the kid is going...
• Joe: Your building is one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen –I’m more thinking the kid is going...
• Joe: Your building is one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen –I’m more thinking the kid is going...
• Corey V.: That kid’ll surely be better than the one that just left.
• Mark Cummins: Here’s my awesome copywriter resume: Mark Cummins 6007 S Cliff Ave #204 Sioux Falls, SD 57108...

The Past

• August 2010
• July 2010
• June 2010
• May 2010
• April 2010
• March 2010
• February 2010
• January 2010
• December 2009
• November 2009
• October 2009
• September 2009
• August 2009
• July 2009
• June 2009
• May 2009
• April 2009
• March 2009
• February 2009
• January 2009
• December 2008
• November 2008
• October 2008
• August 2008
• July 2008
• June 2008
• May 2008
• April 2008
• January 2008
• July 2007
• June 2007
• May 2007
• April 2007
• March 2007
• February 2007
• January 2007
• December 2006
• November 2006
• October 2006
• September 2006
• August 2006