As I watched the Olympic winter games in Vancouver this year, I kept seeing flashes of green and blue graphics everywhere. Up and down ski courses, around ice rinks and all over Olympic promotional items. Being in the advertising, I of course wanted to know more these outdoor graphics and the design team behind the branding work for the Olympics.

Through my research I discovered that VANOC, the Canadian design firm who created these graphics has a creative process very similar to ours and it reminded me that there are certain steps anyone should follow when trying to come up with a truly creative or noteworthy piece.  Here are just a few of the steps we (and VANOC) follow when creating any new piece of creative:

1. Brainstorm.

Get as many people involved as you can and make a huge white board of ideas. Even if an idea sounds silly, write it down. Sometimes it’s the silly ideas that wind-up inspiring your overall concept.

2. Create a photographic tag cloud.

Find a free wall where you can put your visual inspiration and go crazy. Invite everyone to put up images that inspire them.

3. Get out of the office.

Staying in the office is not a productive way to get to know your client. Go on a field trip, take pictures, conduct interviews—whatever helps you understand your “product” better.

4. Decide on a concept.

Go back to your idea wall and evolve it. Pick the ideas that have gravitas and make them work. For VANOC they decided to create graphics that combined images of the Canadian countryside and Canadian city life—like this image of a stop light combined with a tree and a hydro plane combined with a dragonfly.

5. Live and breathe your idea.

To make their concept come to life, VANOC incorporated their concept into every part of their design. Even the colors they chose came from the colors of Canada itself.

What do you think about the design for the Olympics this year?

Why learn how to write a creative brief? A great brief clearly defines the creative challenge and expectations for your team and your client. And according to my former advertising professor John Philip Jones (and my own personal experience) writing a tight creative strategy will actually yield better and more prolific results from your creative team by honing them in on that one, key product take-away.

Here are some tips to keep in mind:

Research, research and oh yeah, research.

Whether you have five minutes or five months, understanding your target market is key to any good brief. Interview your client, dig around on the internet, go on-site to see where your product is made, sold and marketed, or even give out surveys to current and potential customers. The more you know about your customer the more impressed your client will be with your expertise and the more targeted your results will be.

Visualize your product or service as a person.

Is your product a male or a female? Where is it from? What does it look like? Does it have a mohawk, tattoos and drink gin shots for breakfast? Or wear high heels and only sport pink? Thinking about your product in this way will help you more clearly define your brand personality.

Simplify.

There’s a reason a brief is called a brief. Sure it’s tempting to dump everything you know into a massive document, but in this case less is more. A good brief shouldn’t be more than a page and a half long and should contain only the information that is essential to solving your creative dilemma.

Make your creative brief creative.

Who says a brief has to be boring? Some of the best ad campaigns have begun with an equally inspiring brief.

Take a cue from Wieden and Kennedy. When they first sat down to work on the ad campaign for Nike, they began with the strategy statement “Sport is war without the killing.” The result of this brief? The famous Nike tagline “Just do it.”

Keep your strategy statement short and sweet.

Your strategy should never be longer than one, maybe two sentences long and should have one main point. A bad strategy is like a loud outfit. The more messages there are screaming for attention, the more confusing your campaign will be to the consumer.

The strategy should be the most thought-out part of your brief as this is what the creative team will use to frame their campaign concepts and what the account team will judge the creative on.

Structure your thoughts.

At Bailey Gardiner, we’ve written a brief that we live and breathe by. We fill it out and share it with our clients before every single project we do and sign it with blood (okay, maybe not blood). Here are the sections we swear by:

Who are we talking to? (Audience)
This is where we define the age, gender and habits of our target.

What should we tell them? (Strategy statement)
Writing a good strategy statement takes practice. Use this formula below to help structure your thoughts:

Convince ____________ to _______________ by ______________.

So if I was filling this out for one of our clients (like Hazard Center) I might say:

Convince current customers to complete more errands at Hazard Center by educating them on the unique products and services offered at our stores.

The strategy should never be listed as creating a website, print ad, etc. These are not strategies but media executions.

How can we back that up? (Support points)
This is where we add any additional information that helps support the strategy. For Hazard Center we might list out the stores and what they have to offer.

What do we want them to do? (The resulting action)
Whether it’s buying more goods or raising traffic to a website, the end goal of the campaign is defined here and is what the overall results will be judged on.

What is the brand personality? (Adjectives that describe your brand essence)

What media are we considering? (Print, online, outdoor, etc.)

What are the mandatories? (Logos, taglines, maps, etc.)

Create your own strategic outline… and use it.
Your strategy should work for you, so customize it in a way that fits your goals best. The more you use it the more organized you and your clients will be.

What else do you like to see in a good creative brief?

Bailey Gardiner is looking for an art director or graphic design intern for the spring quarter/semester.
A little about you:

• A college student (junior or senior) majoring in advertising art direction, graphic design or something similar
• Must be able to obtain college credit for the internship
• Willing to commit to a minimum of 16 hours per week, set hours are preferable
• Student portfolio of design work
• Working knowledge of Adobe Creative Suite. Experience in Flash/Fireworks/Dreamweaver is a huge plus
• A well-organized, self-starter who shows ownership over assignments
• Some production experience preferred
• Excellent communication skills – both oral and written
• Must have a good attitude and aspire to do award-winning work
• Eager to learn
• Creative

A little about your responsibilities:
Assist the creative team with the following:

• Assist team members in research, concept development, designing and mounting of logos and creating collateral pieces, websites, identity and stationery packages
• Accompany senior team members to photoshoots, press checks, client meetings and assist in photo and art research when necessary

This position is unpaid and only open to current college students who can obtain college credit through the internship.

The experience you will receive at Bailey Gardiner is invaluable. We will take the time to teach, support, provide you with responsibility and of course, have some fun.

For a little more information about us, visit our portfolio or get an intern’s perspective on working here on the blog by our interns.
If you are interested, please email your student portfolio, cover letter and resume to kelly@baileygardiner.com

No phone calls please.

With the latest news about Tiger Woods being dropped by huge brands like Gatorade and Accenture, it begs the question… are celebrity advertising endorsements just too big of a financial risk?

Current advertising trends would suggest the answer is “yes.”

In the past, there has been a lot of money made on celebrity advertising endorsements. But along with the successes, there have been an equal number of heartbreaks.

One such heartbreak was Michael Vick. After being convicted on dog fighting charges, not only did Reebok stop production of his jersey, Nike pulled his contract and had to cancel the release of his shoe, “Air Zoom Vick V” which was already in production.

Another celebrity endorsement gone wrong was between Celine Dion and Chrysler. After signing a three year, $14 million dollar deal with the singer (which their ad agency BBDO advised against), Chrysler dumped Celine from their ad campaign. Turns out the only sales that increased were for the singer and not for the Chrysler Pacifica she was endorsing.

On the other hand, sometimes, despite a scandal, a celebrity endorsement can still be lucrative. Take Michael Jordan as an example. His partnership with Nike and production of “Air Jordans” brought in millions of dollars for the company despite his many indiscretions including both adultery and gambling.

So, you ask, what will happen to Tiger Woods? Is he too big of a risk to keep as a brand ambassador? According to a poll by Bloomberg, since the fall-out, Tiger Woods has dropped from 6th to 24th in popularity among consumers. Along with Gatorade and Accenture, both AT&T and Gillette have distanced themselves from the famous golfer.

However, Nike is sticking with Woods (for the moment). In the words of Nike Chairman and co-founder Phil Knight, “I think [Tiger]’s been really great. When his career is over, you’ll look back on these indiscretions as a minor blip.”

Perhaps they recognize that the only thing better than a good celebrity endorsement is a great comeback story.

So you built a Facebook fan page.. now what?

Getting the word out about your page is essential. But what happens once someone actually gets to your page? If you’re not providing interesting content, it’s likely they won’t be back.

Whether it’s for your corporation or just for fun, you can use these creative ideas to grow your Facebook fans, attract loyal readers, increase participation and up your consumer brand awareness.

Below I’ve organized the latest tips and tricks:

#1: Do something interesting..fast.

The landing page of your Facebook page is your best opportunity to grab a viewer’s attention and entice them to explore further.

Take Skittles, for example. The colorful and fun video app on their front page allows you to “Holla at the Rainbow.” Through the interactive phone, you can place a call to the rainbow via one of their pre-recorded voices.

On a less expensive note, they also change the status on their fan page frequently and usually the message is pretty hilarious. At the time of this post it reads: “The Rainbow wonders what plastic pumpkins use to collect their Halloween candy.”

* Note – Before you build your custom content, you’ll want to know about the new changes to Facebook fan pages that will launch in January of 2010. They will have a direct impact on any of the content your company creates for its fan page.

#2: Give them something free.

Whether it’s a coupon or something larger, there’s nothing like the promise of gratis goodies to keep consumers coming back.

Our client, The San Diego Museum of Art gives away tickets regularly for correct answers to art questions they post on their page. And Buzztime, the popular trivia company (also our client), frequently holds facebook contests and offers prize packs for correct answers to themed trivia questions centering around sports, books (like Twilight) and more.

Little Debbie, who initially launched their page with low response, launched a sweepstakes for a free Smart car (with the option to become a fan) via Facebook ads. Within 12 hours, their fan base had climbed from 5,000 to 125,000.

#3: Find your voice.

Facebook is a great place to have some fun with your brand.

In fact, Aflac has created a page specifically for their loveable duck mascot. And you won’t just find pictures of him. Here the duck voices his opinion on everything from candy to turtlenecks, shares his favorite videos and encourages participation in Aflac Facebook contests. He’s so entertaining that he has 162,000 more fans than Aflac’s corporate page even though a lot of the content is actually the same.

TGI Fridays has their own spokesperson exclusively on Facebook. Meet “Woody,” the guy who reportedly made a bet with TGI Friday’s that he could get 500,00 fans by Sept 30th in exchange for free burgers for all of them. He encourages consumers to be his Facebook fan (via web banners and TV spots) in return for free food coupons dolled-out over the social network site.

#4: Interact with and encourage fans.

Some of the biggest corporate fan pages weren’t started by companies, but by enthusiastic fans themselves. Coke and Fig Newtons fan pages both have pages that were started by fans. And Jamba Juice’s fan page was begun by an enthusiastic employee.

In all these cases, not only did the companies not take these sites down, but encouraged those who started them to keep them going with company backing.

#5: Give them a reason to come back for more.

Free stuff isn’t the only way to draw users to your page. Regular, entertaining content is one of the best ways to keep users coming back.

On the Food Network page, fans can download a widget that serves them a recipe of the day each day and even ask their favorite Food Network stars questions and have them answered.. right on the page!

And on our very own Facebook page, Bailey Gardiner keeps readers entertained with weekly inspirational quotes. We also showcase our latest client work and post the latest pictures of our clients sitting on our famous orange couch.

For even more great examples of how to market your Facebook fan page, check out our own Callan Green’s Mashable post and the latest from Adweek.

Our long-term advertising client, Brookfield Homes, came to Bailey Gardiner with an advertising problem. Their high end community, Calabria, was close to being sold-out—but traffic to the sales office had slowed down.

They needed to attract fresh blood to boost sales, and they needed to do it fast. We came back with three creative advertising campaigns that capitalized on the unique attributes of the property:

1. Calabria is one of the last, new home communities left in San Diego that’s just a short drive from beaches, downtown, wineries, the airport, fine dining, golf courses and great parks—to name a few.
2. Although it’s location is central, Calabria is entirely surrounded by canyons which makes it feel secluded. Here, there is more wildlife, less noise and even the stars are brighter due to the light pollution.
3. These homes are top of the line. From quieter sinks, stairs and cabinets to floor plans that take advantage of every square inch, these houses are the creme-de-la-creme.
4. At the start of the campaign there were only 9 homes left. Urgency was a key component to our message.

This campaign had to be up and running fast. We presented three concepts that included ideas for behaviorally targeted web banners, eblasts, radio and print ads for publications catering to niche markets (business newsletters, relocators, etc.). Samples of the print for each campaign are below:

Campaign 1: The right combination

Campaign 2: Live far away from it all.. but still close

Campaign 3: Last chance

Brookfield radio spot
And the winner is… campaign #3! And we are proud to announce that since the start of the campaign, Brookfield has sold $5 million worth of homes at Calabria… and counting.

We wanted a website with more. More optimization. More case studies. More pr and advertising creative. More ways to get to know our staff. More on all the great work we do here and why we like doing it.

Here’s what we did:

1. Loaded-up on key words for better search engine optimization.
2. Added more in-depth, results-driven case studies.
3. Put our Twitter stream on every page, so it’s easier to follow us at #bgsd.
4. Gave you more eye candy in our updated portfolio — with a new feature that lets you browse right from the homepage.
5. Made it easier to see the latest topics on our blog via our scrolling homepage “blog roll.”
6. Expanded our Bailey Gardiner staff section with fun facts about all of us BGers, plus all the social media outlets you can use to get in touch with us.
7. Revised  our “Love List” — the list of the brands we “heart” and would be more than psyched to partner with.
8. Made it easier to connect with us, via a streamlined contact section.

And last but not least, we didn’t forget to have a little fun. 

Make sure to drop by our “Creative Graveyard,” where “dead” concepts that didn’t make the cut are still mourned.

Are our ideas worthy or being resurrected, or should they stay six feet under? It’s up to you decide.

Vote a campaign up or down. When it gets enough votes, it’ll be sent to creative hell or heaven. Oh yeah, and don’t forget to check out our hellish and heavenly gatekeepers—you might see some familiar faces. Click on them for a surprise.

Hot on the heels of our full-time graphic designer opening, Bailey Gardiner is also looking for a graphic design intern for the fall quarter/semester.
A little about you:

• A college student (junior or senior) majoring in graphic design, communication design or other applied graphic art
• Must be able to obtain college credit for the internship
• Willing to commit to a minimum of 15 hours per week, set hours are preferable
• Student portfolio of design work
• Working Knowledge of Adobe Creative Suite. Experience in Flash/Fireworks/Dreamweaver is a huge plus
• A well-organized, self-starter who shows ownership over assignments
• Some production experience preferred
• Excellent communication skills- both oral and written
• Eager to learn
• Creative

A little about your responsibilities:
Assist the creative team with the following:

• Assist team members in research, concept, design and mounting of logos, collateral pieces, websites, identity and stationery packages
• Accompany senior team members to photoshoots, press checks, client meetings and assist in photo and art research when necessary
• Must have a good attitude and aspire to do award-winning work

This position is unpaid and only open to current college students who can obtain college credit through the internship.

The experience you will receive at Bailey Gardiner is invaluable. We will take the time to teach, support, provide you with responsibility and have some fun.

For a little more information about us, visit our portfolio or the blog by our interns.
If you are interested, please email your student portfolio, cover letter and resume to nik@baileygardiner.com.

No phone calls please.

This week is the official launch of pedicab advertising campaign for Seaport Village.

Ten cabs from Yellow Bike Cab will be running the ads in the downtown area for the next three months. The ads are an extension of Seaport’s existing advertising campaign and coincide with summer — when Seaport sees it’s largest crowds.

What makes this campaign unique is that not only were we able to buy space on the pedicabs, we also created t-shirts with wording that ties-in to the cab messaging. The shirts will be worn by the cab drivers throughout the campaign.

Check out the photos of the final product below and this video we made showing how the pedicab company applied the artwork to the cabs. Neat!

Shirt reads: “Stop staring at my butt”

Shirt reads: “No weight limit”

Shirt reads: “My other ride is a carousel”

Bicycling is hot.

With the poor state of the economy and the emphasis on “going green,” nowadays it’s as trendy as it is economical. Working on public relations for biking companies like Electra and through our own biking experience, we can attest to that.

So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that bicycle advertising is on the up.

You’ve undoubtedly heard of vehicle sharing programs like ZipCar that allow you to rent a car on a short term basis. Now Clear Channel Outdoor has similarly launched a bike sharing program in Washington, DC called SmartBike. Clear Channel, who is well known for the outdoor billboard space, will be funding the program in part through advertising on the bikes.

But they’re not the only ones jumping on the trend. According to a recent Trend Central article, well known advertiser Alex Bogusky of Crispin Porter + Bogusky is teaming up with healthcare company Humana to create a similar system. Called B-Cycle, it will be powered by solar energy (the stations that is, not the bikes) and feature a descent sized area for advertising on the bike’s basket.

Not one to be behind the trend, the Bailey Gardiner advertising team recently completed pedicab advertising for our client, Seaport Village. The pedicabs are being launched on Monday, May 3 and will run for four months on the cabs in downtown San Diego.

Visit our blog next week when we’ll take you through the process of creating and launching the pedicab creative via video.