Archive for the ‘Anoroc’ Category
Thursday, October 21st, 2010
You don’t have to work with Anoroc very long to find out this is one fun bunch, wound tight. You release that spring and you’ll never know what you’ll get. Crazy wacked out design ideas, or words flowing from the copywriters that send most of us to our dictionaries. Mostly what jumps forth is energy.
That’s what we bring to our hospice clients. Energy, tons of it, plenty to share with everybody! We share the energy with our clients and look for opportunities to extend this energy through the organization to each employee as they roll out the re-vitalized brand. Rebranding and logo redesign can be very personal to employees so it’s our job to create enthusiasm and success with your internal market.
My top 10 ways to a successful rebranding:
10. Organization wide involvement. Get them involved early in the process.
9. Find out their insights on the current brand, where it’s going, what it really means to your employees.
8. Get the CEO and Key Stakeholder’s backing to ward off the potential “de-railers”.
7. Don’t jump straight to the pretty external stuff. It’s not a shallow cosmetic exercise. It’s the company’s public perception. It’s a change in thought and work processes.
6. Make your employees feel they are #1. Keep them involved, achieve commitment. After all they are #1. Right?
5. No surprises unless they are good for all involved. You don’t like surprises. The CEO doesn’t like surprises. And the Board of Directors sure don’t like surprises.
4. Be honest.
3. Create a process to track success.
2. Create positive buzz.
And the #1 way to a successful rebranding is………………………………………….
A Celebratory Launch Party (with an explanation of the meaning of the new brand, messaging, logo, colors, mission statement and values of the company).
Tags: anoroc health, Hospice, hospice and social media, hospice marketing, hospice marketing companies, hospice social media, marketing hospice
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Wednesday, September 15th, 2010
One of our recent SnoopBlog posts begins: It’s hard to tell exactly how many air miles Anoroc has clocked over the past several months. We’ve been jetting around the sunny West Coast to Bean Town and onward to the Cape. We’ve learned to travel light, light with suitcases but relentless packed with landscape altering ideas.
We’ve been fortunate to be invited into several organizations; all of who are working in one way or another toward the common good. I am constantly moved by my clients. I am not sure how rare it is for an advertising agency/branding company to say that. But at Anoroc we know how good that feels. Recently two of our clients shared their journeys to Africa with us. One just back, one leaving in two weeks. Another has been emailing from Columbia and Haiti.
This morning at our Wednesday Round Chair Meeting, after the current projects were discussed, time tables reviewed, deadlines set. After Cindy share outcomes of her recent trip, the studio share concepting on a new brand, and we laughed at someone’s story about going to the wrong room in the hotel they were staying at, we talked about how much we loved what we do. We do that a lot here.
I think it is a combination of a couple of things. One we simply have a blast working together. We have an amazing team at Anoroc. It is also the nature of our business, one that takes us from intense focused strategy to sheer boundless creative. But at the end of the day it comes down to our clients. Our clients have a rare combination of vision. They welcome us really pushing ideas. They harbor the ability to think beyond what has been done before. They combine almost a renegade out look with keen business sense. And they care about the world outside their boardroom. They devote time and energy to proactively trying to change things for the better. For us, it’s the icing on an already quite luscious cake.
Tags: Anoroc, anoroc agency, anoroc health, raleigh advertising agencies, Raleigh design firms, raleigh social media
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Tuesday, August 17th, 2010
We took bets tonight on how late we’d be in Anoroc’s studio. We’re putting the final touches on a big brand re-invention. Someone just made a fortification run to MoJoe’s, food and beer always helps at this point. We’re almost to the printing stage. Just finished final proof reading. So printing and binding are next. As we crank up to print I have a spare moment so it is blog time.
It’s always such a team effort at Anoroc, literally everyone pitches in. We even just got a call from one of our AE’s husbands, with an offer to drive everyone to the airport tomorrow. That’s one of the many things I love about this company, how everyone feels it is their company, everyone’s commitment and dedication right down to our team’s families. Someone else is calling to make sure we have a dog sitter. I like to say we’re family here, and I believe we are. And that just feels good. So maybe we’ll be here to midnight or til later, but it doesn’t matter. Beatles are playing loudly. The food has arrived, the dogs have been walked, and someone is laughing hysterically. Yep, that’s Anoroc.
Tags: Anoroc, anoroc agency, raleigh marketing agencies, raleigh media agencies, raleigh social media, raleigh social media agencies, raleigh web design
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Sunday, August 15th, 2010
I am sitting here with a great cup of coffee (Alex’s home brew, among his many talents he is a great coffee roaster), the dogs are milling around and it’s a beautiful sunny day. I can see the top of my Art Deco record player, yes the kind you have to crank, a couple of 78s are scattered about, “All Shook Up”, “Blueberry Hill” and “My Blue Heaven.” We played them Saturday night after arriving home from celebrating a dear friend’s 40th. He began as a client of Anoroc, but they often become life long friends. Life feels good.
This sounds like a personal diary entry, but it actually spurred from working this morning. It’s Saturday but that’s OK. I was reviewing two different concepts, each from a different Anoroc designer we’re preparing for an up coming client meeting. I love branding enough to give up my Saturday morning for it. But somehow these concepts struck such a deep cord with me I had to stop and write about it. I am actually delaying shoe shopping so if you know me, you know something must have struck deeply.
Casey’s concept moves from iconic images to photos. There is the very record player I had as a child, the kind that sits in a case you can close. It has a handle on top making it easy to take to a friend’s house for a sleep over. I played “Bang Goes Old Betsy” on it ‘til I wore it out. My dad bought both the record and the record player for me. He loved the song too. Rachel’s leads with an aged black and white photo of a young couple in a paddleboat, they are looking over their shoulders smiling at whom ever was holding the camera. There are old faded photos in an album I keep a bookcase in my family room just like it. It is of my aunt and uncle when they were young.
The concepts are for a Hospice agency. It’s hard to market hospice, there are a lot of complexities in the decision cycle. Anoroc has been researching and marketing hospice for close to two decades, tons of hospice decision cycle focus groups, secondary research, analyzing obstacles to choosing hospice care, so on. But when you can distil it down to a memory of falling in love on the lake and a little girl’s favorite record, obstacles can tumble into dust. As always, it’s about insight.
“Human nature hasn’t changed for a billion years. It won’t even vary in the next billion years. Only the superficial things have changed. It is fashionable to talk about changing man. A communicator must be concerned with unchanging man – what compulsions drive him, what instincts dominate his every action, even though his language too often camouflages what really motivates him. For if you know these things about a man, you can touch him at the core of his being. One thing is unchangingly sure. The creative man with an insight into human nature, with the artistry to touch and move people, will succeed. Without them he will fail,” Bill Bernbach.
I am proud of our 20-something designers and their artistry that touched me this morning. Even though it will inevitably result in a longing for the Louboutins left behind.
Tags: anoroc health, healthcare social media, Hospice, hospice marketing, hospice social media, marketing hospice, redefining hospice
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Saturday, August 14th, 2010
We are in the midst of creating a brand reinvention for a client. As you know, there are almost endless hours of research involved. This particular client occupies a very emotional healthcare segment. Amongst them and their competitors services are close to being the same, mainly that is due to regulations. So the brand strategy becomes somewhat more intense because we’re fighting to differentiate. But that’s great, we like to fight hard, at Anoroc. But beginning this project with the goal to build a brand essence that allows my client to ‘own’ a compelling belief, must start with an in depth clarity about the intended target.
Though my client has several mid-size competitors they also face growing competition from national companies (one that recently sold for several billion dollars). During the competitive analysis I expected to see pretty great branding from these ‘big boys’. But what began with an expectation to see great work, incredible consumer engagement strategies, in-tune social influence marketing, emotional branding, ended with me banging my head on my desk and moaning. OK, so I am sounding a little mean here, but it was that bad.
They forgot to listen to Bill. “You can say the right thing about a product and nobody will listen. You’ve got to say it in such a way that people will feel it in their gut. Because if they don’t feel it, nothing will happen,” William Bernbach. The websites, collateral, every brand touch point was completely void of any indication these national companies had any understanding of who they were speaking to, what their best prospects believe, or how to motivate engagement.
Copy was written as if the reader was a test subject. For instance, an article on how to cope with the passing of our loved one during the holidays called the reader “the bereaved person”. Brand imagery focused on the ‘service’ rather than outcome. Think of an oil change ad where the gloved mechanic is smiling over the open hood of the car. Now put him in a nurse’s uniform add harsh lighting, and throw his arm around grandpa who looks like he just ate road kill. Get the picture. And I’m not exaggerating. Believe me, Forrest would run.
What do we buy as healthcare consumers? We don’t buy the oil change. We buy the car speeding down the open road, in tune, running well and on it’s way to Willoughby.
Tags: anorac, Anoroc, healthcare and social media, hospice and social media, hospice marketing, raleigh advertising agencies, raleigh marketing agencies, raleigh social media, raleigh social media agencies
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Thursday, August 12th, 2010
Depending of course on numerous client dynamics, we often, very often choose emotional branding over conventional branding when creating or re-inventing brands. I just personally believe in the power of storytelling to inspire and captivate. My opinion is not solely based on the fact that I am an admitted sap. It’s also based on close to two decades of calculating ROI ‘til my hair hurts. We’ve seen how impactful story telling has increased our client’s market share by 300%. In any book that is a home run. And we’ve hit those balls out of the park most of the time. Emotional branding’s strategic objective is to forge unshakable and meaningful bonds with consumers. Through these bonds brands become a significant part of a consumer’s life story, aspirations, self view and an important link in their social network. Do you know anyone who owns a Harley?
What I recently found interesting is the history of emotional branding and how to a very real degree a history that is repeating itself. Though the term “emotional branding” officially arrived in the 1990s, it has its roots in public relations campaigns of decades ago. Who can forget Edward L. Bernays’ 1923 Torches of Freedom march.
In the 1920’s, working for the American Tobacco Company, Bernays sent a group of young models to march in the New York City parade. He then told the press that a group of women’s rights marchers would light “Torches of Freedom”. On his signal, the models lit Lucky Strike cigarettes in front of the eager photographers. The New York Times (1 April 1929) printed: “Group of Girls Puff at Cigarettes as a Gesture of ‘Freedom’”. This helped to break the taboo against women smoking in public. Bernays actually sponsored my application into PRSA. That was a great day.
Jump forward to the 1930’s and the Great Depression. Job loss, savings loss, bankruptcy and displacement made citizens feel that corporations could not be trusted, were greed driven and needed supervision – sound familiar? Almost overnight they needed to find ways to regain trust and bring consumers back. Companies like Standard Oil (now Exxon) hired PR strategists to help them reposition themselves as “identifying with the average American vs Wall Street”. Standard Oil continued their foray into emotional branding when they hired Roy Stryker to work on their public relations documentary project from 1943 to 1950. In selecting photographers for the project Stryker looked for those who possessed an “insatiable curiosity, the kind that can get to the core of an assignment, the kind that can comprehend what a truck driver, or a farmer, or a driller or a housewife thinks and feels and translate those thoughts and feelings into pictures that can be similarly comprehended by anyone.” Emotional branding at its best.
Jump to today. Once again companies are shuffling to gain trust and position themselves as ‘one of us’. Here’s one of my favorite examples – Chrysler Group’s campaign for the 2011 Jeep Grand Cherokee (http://www.jeep.com/en/2011/grand_cherokee/sitelet/). The ad focuses on the spirit and craftsmanship that once made the United States the country it was. The campaign, created by the advertising agency Wieden+Kennedy, also introduces a new tagline for the brand—“The things we make, make us.” How’s that for generating warm feelings of community? It even has cowboys for God’s sake.
I am going to end now as I need to go to Lowes so we can build something together. Think I’ll take the Audi instead of the BMW cause I prefer winning to loosing.
Tags: Anoroc, anoroc agency, branding agencies, emotional branding, Greart Depression, Public Relations, raleigh advertising agencies, Raleigh design firms, raleigh social media, The History of branding
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Tuesday, July 6th, 2010
Last week Marilynn Marchione of the Associate Press wrote a story aptly titled: Americans Are Treated, And Overtreated, To Death.
The first line read: The doctors finally let Rosaria Vandenberg go home.
This is a pretty personal issue here at Anoroc, because it is a story we hear too often and it is why we crusade so passionately for our hospice clients. No family should have to experience what the Vandenberg’s experienced:
‘The doctors finally let Rosaria Vandenberg go home.
For the first time in months, she was able to touch her 2-year-old daughter who had been afraid of the tubes and machines in the hospital. The little girl climbed up onto her mother’s bed, surrounded by family photos, toys and the comfort of home. They shared one last tender moment together before Vandenberg slipped back into unconsciousness.
Vandenberg, 32, died the next day.’
Marchione’s story echoes so well what our clients preach every day- have the conversation about end of life care. Make choices now, while you still can.
“That precious time at home could have come sooner if the family had known how to talk about alternatives to aggressive treatment,” said Vandenberg’s sister-in-law, Alexandra Drane.
Instead, Vandenberg, a pharmacist in Franklin, Mass., had endured two surgeries, chemotherapy and radiation for an incurable brain tumor before she died in July 2004.
Too often we find ourselves sitting around the boardroom tables with our hospice clients talking about the patients ‘we lost’, patients that came to hospice too late. Sure our health division, Anoroc Health, is a strategic marketing company who works to make our hospice clients category leaders. But in all reality it is beyond that for us and it is beyond that for our clients. It is also about educating families that there is a choice in end of life. There is an alternative to aggressive treatment for incurable, terminal illness. I am happy Rosaria got to touch daughter once more, but we want the Rosarias of this world to have more, much more.
Tags: advance directives, choices in end of life, dying in America, end of life care, end of life care planning, Hospice, talking about end of life care
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Monday, June 28th, 2010
Performics (www.performics.com), the performance marketing expert inside Publicis Groupe, recently released results from “S-Net (The Impact of Social Media),” a report from ROI Research Inc. (www.roiresearch.com) sponsored by Performics. This is quite an interesting study as it looks beyond usage and explores how social media permeates consumers’ lives. By that I mean how social media affects communication, shopping and other activities. The findings illustrate how social networks continue to drive changes in consumer behavior. Looking at how various segments of consumers use social networks in their daily lives, specifically with regard to the purchase process for different types of products and in relation to other media channels.
Most interesting to me was that the study of 3,000 U.S. social network users tackled not only general behaviors and platform preferences for social sites; but delved deeper into how social sites affect family and friend relationships and consumer attitudes towards brands and products.
Stats include:
- Fifty percent of Facebook users click on Facebook ads to “like” a brand
- Thirty-seven percent learned about a new product or service from a social networking site
- Thirty-two percent of respondents have recommended a product/service/brand to friends via a social networking site
- Thirty-two percent of Twitter users re-tweet content provided by a company or product
- Eighty percent of respondents have an active Facebook account, and 23 percent of those without an active Facebook account plan to join in the next six months
- Sixty-seven percent of respondents have reconnected with people through social networking sites that they never would have otherwise
- Thirty-nine percent of Twitter users respond to other people’s tweets once a week or more
- More than thirty percent of respondents access Facebook and/or Twitter from their mobile phone (through a browser or application) once a day or more.
- Specific to Facebook, for example, nearly 90 percent of respondents said that at least some of the companies and/or products they are a fan of are doing a good job providing relevant content. More than a third said most or all of them were doing a good job.
- More than 50% of participants identified social networks as the best way to communicate with family and friends.
Hello, word of mouth! Let me say that again. Hello, word of mouth!
“Users are not only satisfied, they want more, which is a good sign for marketers,” noted Scott Haiges, president of ROI Research. “Respondents expressed a strong desire to get more printable coupons [49 percent], notifications of sales and special deals [46 percent], and information about new products [35 percent] from companies or products on Facebook, and this rings truer in some industries more than others.”
“Social networks have made real and substantial changes in the lives of their users, in part by empowering them to more actively participate with brands and each other,” said Daina Middleton, CEO of Performics. “More than a third of all respondents reported using a search engine to further learn after seeing an ad on a social networking site, for example, and more than a third think social networking sites are good sources of information about companies and products.”
“Social networking has greatly contributed to the shift from strict consumerism to more lively, two-way participation between brands and everyday customers” added Middleton. “It’s a groundswell of technology-enabled word of mouth, and many of the brands involved in these active discussions are effectively satisfying their fans.” Amen to that, Sister!
Tags: Hospice, hospice marketing, hospice social media, north carolina social media agencies, raleigh advertising, raleigh social media, raleigh social media agencies, social marketing, social media
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Thursday, May 6th, 2010
Just finished reading a great article by Tim Bradshaw of Financial Times, Who Wants To Friend A Brand (http://bit.ly/8YxE5V). In his article he points out how social media has fundamentally transformed marketing from a monologue to a dialogue. If you’ve read many of my blogs you’ll know this is what Anoroc refers to as moving away from ‘Sham Wowing’ and onto real communication.
I love what he says here: “When first faced with the prospect of marketing on social networks, many people ask a reasonable question: how many people want to be friends with a brand? The answer – surprisingly, perhaps – is: millions do, on a daily basis.”
And as experienced brand managers at Anoroc we know this is true.
Much of our brand research begins with focus groups that ask: “How do you want this brand/company to communicate with you?” And unsurprisingly enough we hear social media as a chosen platform most every time.
Bradshaw points out that more than 10m people each day become a “fan” of a brand on Facebook. The world’s largest social network – with well in excess of 400m members globally – plays host to more than 1.4m branded fan pages on Facebook. BrandZ Top 100 brands such as Coca-Cola and Starbucks, along with other smaller brands outside the Top 100 such as Adidas (brand value or BV of $3.3bn in the latest MBO list), have each “befriended” millions of people.
“A lot of our best brand builders are also some of the best companies using social media,” says Joanna Seddon, chief executive of Millward Brown Optimor, which compiles the BrandZ ranking. “A lot of the leadership in social media is really centered in the top 100 brands.”
When Anoroc reviews ROI studies from our campaigns we’ve learned that Bradshaw is speaking Gospel here: “Social media has matured rapidly in recent years. Sites such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter offer scale and reach to rival Google – still the most dominant single site for online advertising – and many television channels. The best advertisers use social media alongside these traditional channels for a combination of brand-building, direct sales, customer service and PR. The worst simply ignore them, blissful only until they realise the complaints and accusations that disgruntled customers are telling other would-be consumers.”
“Social media have given consumers a voice to respond, as well as hundreds of channels through which to do so,” says Debbie Klein, joint chief executive of Engine, a UK-based agency group. “These websites have fundamentally transformed marketing from a monologue to a dialogue. Brands cannot hide.”
And brands that hide, may never be found.
Tags: Financial Times, hospice and social media, NC advertising agencies, raleigh advertising agencies, Raleigh advertising companies, raleigh design, Raleigh design firms, raleigh social media, raleigh social media agencies, raleigh social media companies
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Wednesday, April 7th, 2010
It has been studied and proven that understanding traditional and emerging media trends is a way to reach a new generation of consumers – the millennials or those born between the years 1985 and 2003. This group is said to be the most technologically savvy, team-oriented, and skilled multi-taskers. The millennials are also one of the largest generations yet who possess a great deal of consumer power with large disposable incomes; thus, as marketers we know that it is important to focus our strategies in a way that will interest them. A 2009 study shows important statistics about this generation. The results show that “84% of the teenagers report owning one or more personal media device, and 87% use the Internet; 51% report going online daily (Considine, Horton, & Moorman).”
More specifically, research suggests that today’s generation has evolved from interruption to permission marketing. For example, millennials who are pushed and forced into buying or liking products, or in other words interruption marketing, is not a successful strategy. In opposition, we should simply present the product, service, or idea in a non-invasive and manipulative manner so that the consumers will not feel taken advantage of or undermined (Henrie and Taylor). Another study conducted in 2008 says that“83 percent of the surveyed 14-24 year olds reject traditional ‘interruption and repeat’ advertising efforts.” (Kim 2008) Thus, it is important for members of this generation to use media channels such as blogs and social media sites so they feel the products are more personalized into their everyday lives and focused on individual values. This style also calls for more of a personal connection between consumer and product/service/idea. It allows the consumer to willingly seek out information rather than being bombarded with repeat and unwanted advertising efforts.
So what explanation can be provided for these generational media consumption behavioral changes? It’s obvious that today’s generation of consumers is drastically different than it’s parent generation, the baby boomers or those born between 1946 and 1963. This 2000 study conducted by Edwards, La Ferle, & Lee gives some insight into the posed question. “Bandura’s (1977) social-learning theory suggests that people observe the actions of others and learn to model their own behavior when faced with similar situations.” (Edwards, La Ferle, & Lee) The findings from this study suggest that the social-learning theory may be an explanation for the boom in new media channels, especially social media and mobile marketing. Researchers from the same study report, “it is unbelievable how much information does not come out of direct experience but how much of it does come from other people and the mass media (Edwards, La Ferle, & Lee).”
Thus, this ample amount of evidence shows the importance of permission, not interruption, style marketing when it comes to the millennials. As marketers, obviously we must understand the importance of new media channels and how it effects today’s generation of consumers as discussed in the aforementioned research. However, all of these studies allude to what we must never forget as marketers. It’s the most classic and might I say, still most popular, marketing style – word-of-mouth. If you can get today’s generation of consumers talking positively about your product/service/idea, they will incorporate it into their new media channels, such as blogging and tweeting, and will only lead to further success for your business and your client.
Tags: Anoroc, branding agencies, client relationtionship, facebook, Marketing, Mobile, new media, raleigh marketing agencies, raleigh social marketing companies
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