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November 30, 2010: Southwest Transit has extended its successful fall A|B campaign. Targeted at college kids, the campaign was one of the first to target what has quickly become a hot trend in the zeitgeist--the use of text messaging while driving. This campaign quickly achieved both print and local media coverage on Channel 11, Channel 5 and a mention in the national transit press.
November 30, 2009: Southwest Transit has extended its successful fall A|B campaign. Targeted at college kids, the campaign was one of the first to target what has quickly become a hot trend in the zeitgeist–the use of text messaging while driving. This campaign quickly achieved both print and local media coverage on Channel 11, Channel 5 and a mention in the national transit press.
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Entitled "Health.Care.Respect." in January 2010, A|B will launch its latest campaign for MHP. Based on 156 direct intercept interviews and discussions with health care leaders throughout the state, the campaign is targeted at Low-To-Moderate income families.
November 24, 2009: In January 2010, A|B will launch its latest campaign for MHP entitled “Heath.Care.Respect.”. Based on 156 direct intercept interviews and discussions with health care leaders throughout the state, the campaign is targeted at Low-To-Moderate income families. More information on the campaign will become available prior to launch. For additional information, contact Susan Sommers at MHP.
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July 15, 2009: Buzz that brands has new company. The agency welcomes MHP (Metropolitan Health Plan), Memphis Grills, Advent Financial (Kansas City), SouthWest Metro Transit as new clients. A|B Group One will be providing full service social media and advertising services for all these organizations with campaigns breaking in the late Summer. Be looking on bus-sides and--SouthWest transit buses in particular--for new applications of "buzz that brands."
(photo of Jaguar XKSS courtesy of groovyman.com)
July 15, 2009: Buzz that brands is driving ahead at full speed. The agency welcomes Hearthland Products, Advent Financial (Kansas City) and SouthWest Transit as new clients. The agency has also added The Road Rake blog to its groovyman.com webzine. A|B Group One will be providing full service social media and advertising services for all these organizations with campaigns breaking in the late Summer. Be looking on bus-sides and–SouthWest transit buses in particular–for new applications of “buzz that brands.”
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NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- A carefully calculated social media campaign that used newspaper ads and the web to attack national retail brands has drawn wide press coverage--as far away as Montreal, Canada and Paris, France--and new business inquiries for the small Minnesota town of Excelsior. The provocative ads declared that retailers such as Starbucks, Home Depot and The Hard Rock Cafe were not welcomed in the picturesque community.
August 18, 2006
NEWSPAPER ADS ATTACK PLAN STARBUCKS NEVER HAD
PR Stunt by Small Minnesota Town Generates Wide Press Coverage
By Claire Atkinson NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — A carefully calculated social media campaign that used newspaper ads and the web to attack national retail brands has drawn wide press coverage–as far away as Montreal, Canada and Paris, France–and new business inquiries for the small Minnesota town of Excelsior.
Provocative plan
The provocative ads declared that retailers such as Starbucks, Home Depot and The Hard Rock Cafe were not welcomed in the picturesque community of 3,000 residents on the shore of Lake Minnetonka — even though there is no evidence that any national chain had any interest or plans to open a franchise there.
Chris Birt, executive creative director of AB Group One in Minneapolis that created the campaign, said he decided to use brand names such as Starbucks in the ads not because the retailers posed any particular threat to the town but because he believed they represented cultural conformity.
He said he intended the campaign to be controversial in order to draw press attention for the town, which celebrates its 150th anniversary this month.
‘Was scared’
Linda Murrell, executive director of the Chamber of Commerce, said she “was scared” when she first saw the ads from Andrews/Birt. “It did raise eyebrows, but it was phenomenal,” she said. “Our total input has been $7,100.”
The ads, which came in the form of an open letter, explained that town residents rejected the kind of cultural conformity represented by the named national brands. The print ads, published in the local free newspaper The Rake, caused at least one member of the chamber to resign.
New business inquiries
Ms. Murrell said she is in talks with a bakery and a cheesecake manufacturer about moving to Excelsior. “Someone sent me a bumper sticker reading ‘Shop for everything independently.’ [The campaign] has really hit a chord with people.”
Mr. Birt said he achieved what he wanted to achieve with the ads. He claims that National Public Radio recorded an interview with him; USA Today is planning a travel piece on the town; and that CNN came to visit a short while ago. Myriads of local media outlets, including the Chicago Tribune and a host of affiliates, have already written about the audacious advertising stunt.
A regional marketing manager from Starbucks is reported to have visited the Chamber of Commerce to explain its position. Starbucks said that they had no plans to open in the town.
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What do Mao Zedong, J. Edgar Hoover, Batgirl and Casanova have to do with the new Minneapolis Central Library? They're part of an edgy new ad campaign from the Friends of the Minneapolis Public Library -- edgier than the organization even expected. It has generated heated e-mails from as far away as Taiwan, and the campaign hasn't even been formally launched.
They're part of an edgy new ad campaign from the Friends of the Minneapolis Public Library -- edgier than the organization even expected. It has generated heated e-mails from as far away as Taiwan, and the campaign hasn't even been formally launched.
from Minneapolis Star Tribune:
What do Mao Zedong, J. Edgar Hoover, Batgirl and Casanova have to do with the new Minneapolis Central Library?
They’re part of an edgy new ad campaign from the Friends of the Minneapolis Public Library — edgier than the organization even expected. It has generated heated e-mails from as far away as Taiwan, and the campaign hasn’t even been formally launched.
Critics say that promoting the library with images of Mao and Hoover is inappropriate and offensive. But the creators say that misinformation spread through Web logs produced confusion about the ads’ true content.
Still, the commotion is producing the desired result — raising awareness about the new downtown library.
The $125 million, five-story building designed by Cesar Pelli is under construction on Nicollet Mall and is scheduled to open in spring 2006, the flagship of the city’s 15-library system.
“If there is a scandal here, it’s the closed signs in library windows,” said Colin Hamilton, executive director of the Friends of the Minneapolis Library. “We’ve laid off 25 percent of our staff and cut hours by 35 percent. We couldn’t rely on the same images we’d always used, like testimonials from librarians. They didn’t work.”
The ad campaign was donated by the Andrews/Birt agency, creator of such eye-catching campaigns as the city of Excelsior’s “Secede from Starbucks Nation” that caused a ruckus a couple of years ago.
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Most stores seeking to draw more shoppers from their immediate neighborhoods might play host to an open house, hire someone to hand out flyers on the street or post "welcome" signs in their windows, but not Sharper Image.
Excerpted from: Stuart Elliot’s column On Advertising on the Sharper Image’s buzz branding effort:
The idea is “to make a statement about the stores, if you will,” says Chris Birt, principal and creative director at A|B Group One, “and our specialty is ‘buzz that brands,’ when you tap into a zeitgeist and give it a face and a name.”
“I said to Sharper Image: ‘SoHo’s gotten a little bit too clean. A little bit of the soul has been sanitized and I’d like to do something about that,’” Mr. Birt recalls. “I felt that would speak to the zeitgeist.” He and Roger Bensinger, VP Marketing for the retailer determined that the Ionic Breeze air purifier that Sharper Image sells — “our No. 1 product right now,” Mr. Bensigner, said — would fit in best with the concept. The theme of the ads became “Clean up the air, but don’t touch the freaks,” and was launched with a star-studded party in The Sharper Image’s store in SoHo.
The “Freak Show” party proved to be a resounding success according to Mr. Bensinger and increased foot traffic across the Manhattan market for the retailer. The agency worked closely key members of the demimonde in Manhattan to plan the party. Attendees included Boy George and other celebrity freaks including Amanda LePore, the “Man-Made Woman.”
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The venerable nonprofit is sweeping wider to add contributors and digging deeper for more solutions. And there's a new ad campaign. That campaign is getting traction, and looks and talks less like your dad's charity drive...
The Greater Twin Cities United Way hopes to raise $87.8 million for its 2007 campaign.
By Neal St. Anthony, StarTribune
That’s nearly 4 percent more than last year — a stretch, considering that Minnesota’s charitable grand dame fell short of its 2006 goal of $85 million by a half-million bucks.
But the 2007 effort is on track for a record campaign, United Way Chief Executive Lauren Segal said this week. That’s thanks in part to an initiative to build deeper relationships with younger volunteers, smaller companies and emerging community leaders. That campaign is getting traction, according to Segal and others, and United Way looks and talks less like your dad’s charity drive and more like a strategic resource that taps contributors at different levels to focus on the Twin Cities’ most-pressing needs.
“We needed to move the needle,” Segal said. “From being a mile wide and an inch thick, to being more focused on how to solve the key issues.”
United Way funds what its analysis and citizen-led committees determine are the most effective ways to strengthen families and communities through basic needs, wellness and family programs.
“At the end of the day, we are not a fundraising organization [anymore],” asserted Segal, a career United Way executive. “We raise money to achieve impact and our goals in measurable ways.”
United Way still raises a ton of dough the traditional way: a hierarchical approach that starts with major company CEOs and filters down through corporate ranks to solicitation captains who distribute salary-deduction cards, stage rummage sales and talent shows and pass the hat.
General Mills, a charitable elephant, donates about $7 million annually in corporate and employee gifts, leading a dozen companies that give at least $1 million annually.
But the old model, where a couple of dozen CEOs met with the United Way chief at the Minneapolis Club to raise the bulk of the annual take over a few days in the fall, has passed. Reasons include corporate downsizing, employee rebellions inside companies (that’s resulted in more democracy over where the money goes) and the departure of headquarters companies such as Honeywell, Wells Fargo and Ceridian.
“The company campaigns are spectacular,” said Irv Weiser, chairman of the United Way board and retired CEO of RBC Dain Rauscher, itself acquired in 2001 by Canada’s biggest financial conglomerate.
“That $7 million General Mills raises on an $88 million campaign ain’t chump change. But the big-company base isn’t growing.”
Know where the money goes
Weiser said the old concept of “We’ll take your money and trust us to give it to the right people” has changed, too. “People now want a say in where the money is going, to volunteer and to know the money is well spent. … We haven’t solved all the problems or the accountability issues yet. But I’ve been around here a long time, and we’re working on it and we’re bringing in more young people as volunteers.”
Lynn Casey, another United Way board member and CEO of Padilla Speer Beardsley, runs a small business that provides communications and investor relations services to a lot of emerging technology and other growth companies.
“It’s not either-or,” Casey said. “United Way must retain the generosity of the large corporate community. But if the growth engine of the economy is small, growing businesses, [then] you owe them the courtesy of the same relationship as the large companies. And the United Way hasn’t sufficiently tapped into those small companies in the past.”
Casey said the effort is now much more strategic and focused. “After all, Medtronic and General Mills were once small companies, and somebody at United Way got a relationship.”
New initiatives include United Way’s “emerging leaders” program designed to engage young professionals; a women’s leadership forum; employee groups engaged in year-round volunteer projects at targeted programs and United Way-sponsored social events to attract fledgling philanthropists.
But the most visible change may be the new ad campaign. The old spots created by Campbell Mithun featured individual contributors and connected them, for example, to the “834 at-risk preschoolers” they funded or the “23 cars” that were repaired to transport working-poor moms to jobs.
But Minneapolis ad agency A/B Group One this fall gave United Way’s “helping hand” a manicure, with a campaign targeting a younger, Internet-savvy audience. The message seeks to transcend the differences between the city and the suburbs, Democrats and Republicans, even blonds and brunets.
The campaign seeks to attract divided groups, whether liberal or conservative, even Vikings and Packers fans, and particularly young people, who tend to volunteer more and give a lower percentage of income than older folks, according to Chris Birt, chief creative officer of A/B Group One.
The edgy agency a few years ago got national attention for a Minneapolis Public Library capital campaign featuring Chairman Mao, a guy not known for his literary range.
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What do Chairman Mao Tse-tung, J. Edgar Hoover and Batgirl have in common? A hint: the Friends of the Minneapolis Public Library (FMPL) are posing the intriguing question as part of a quirky campaign to preview the Spring…
Downtown library asks the tough—and amusing—questions
by Jeremy Stratton
April 25th, 2006
What do Chairman Mao Tse-tung, J. Edgar Hoover and Batgirl have in common?
A hint: the Friends of the Minneapolis Public Library (FMPL) are posing the intriguing question as part of a quirky campaign to preview the Spring 2006 opening of Downtown’s New Central Library.
Minneapolis design firm A|B GroupOne created the campaign for free, according to Colin Hamilton, FMPL executive director. Posters, bookmarks and print ads - in space donated by local media - will debut in May.
The first of three ads will compare the former leader of China to the future New Central Library. What’s the connection? China sports the world’s third largest economy, while the library claims the nation’s third largest collection of books (per capita.)
It’s a stretch, and a little weird, but it made us look, and that’s the point.
“We want to pique people’s curiosity and get some buzz,” Hamilton said. “If we had a million dollars to spend, we could do something straightforward. We have zero dollars. To get attention, we need to challenge viewers.”
Early reviews were mixed, according Hamilton. “Some were amused, some were intrigued, some didn’t get it,” he said.
So? Do you get it? The Mao/Hoover/Batgirl implication is that all three were librarians, but it’s not exactly true. Batgirl was head librarian at Gotham Public Library prior to her career as a crime fighter. Mao Tse-tung became a convert to Marxism while working as a librarian at Beijing University prior to launching a communist revolution in China.
Hoover was never a librarian, but worked as a clerk at the Library of Congress while pursuing a law degree. Hoover would have made chief librarian, according to biographer Curt Gentry, but he quit in 1919 to take a position as special assistant to the Attorney General, where, coincidentally, he directed raids against Communists. As you may have heard, he later worked for the FBI. (Skyway News)
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I will have a chance to see a preview of the media campaign later this week, it should be very interesting. Thank you to the Friends of MPL and to design firm A|B GroupOne for their generosity.
- for more information on A|B GroupOne: 76.12.90.229
- for more information on the Friends of MPL: www.friendsofmpl.org
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It's not that people have anything against Starbucks. Most of them have tried a latte or Frappuccino. Many of them even enjoyed it. But the 2,400 residents of this historic town on Lake Minnetonka are trying to battle what…
Minnesota small town just says no to ‘Starbucks Nation’
by Debbie Howlett
October 1st, 2005
It’s not that people here have anything against Starbucks. Most of them have tried a latte or Frappuccino. Many of them even enjoyed it.
But the 2,400 residents of this historic town on Lake Minnetonka are trying to battle what Mayor Lynn Johnson calls “corporate sameness.” They don’t want the big chain stores that have cropped up across America, such as Starbucks, Home Depot and Wal-Mart.
“We are not big-box. We are small town all the way,” Johnson says.
To make that point, the town hired a Minneapolis advertising agency to craft a campaign for Excelsior’s image. The firm, A|B GroupOne, developed advertisements in the form of cheeky letters to Starbucks, Home Depot and the Hard Rock Cafe. The letters bluntly say no thanks to corporate franchises.
The tag line in the ads: “Secede from Starbucks Nation.”
Three of the ads ran in June, July and August in a free alternative newspaper in Minneapolis. A Starbucks regional manager, based in Denver, met with civic and business leaders to emphasize the importance of good corporate citizenship and respect for community values by the coffee company, which has 7,000 stores worldwide.
Hard Rock Cafe officials were unavailable for comment, and officials at Home Depot did not return phone messages.
Starbucks remains a bit perplexed by the ads.
“I don’t know if I understand what they mean,” spokeswoman Lara Wyss says. “We don’t have a store in Excelsior. We weren’t looking to put one there.”
Still, the first-of-a-kind ads resonate with many young adults who might have a skeptical view of corporations in the aftermath of Enron and other business scandals. Some observers call it part of a backlash rooted in the protests at the World Trade Organization meetings in Seattle in December 1999. A concern about corporate globalism — and the idea that bigger is better — has begun to seep into mainstream American towns.
“People are beginning to realize, especially in small towns, that while they can pimp themselves for corporate dollars, that’s not going to keep the economy going 30 years from now. It’s not sustainable,” says Pratap Chatterjee of CorpWatch.org, a group that opposes globalization . “And it’s definitely young people at the forefront of this movement.”
And one aim of Excelsior’s ad campaign is to attract younger visitors — “the 20-to-40 crowd,” says Linda Murrell of the Chamber of Commerce.
Excelsior, which celebrated its 150th anniversary in August, was a summer resort in the early 1900s with a casino and 100-room hotels. In the 1950s and ’60s, a new amusement park and dance hall drew visitors. But for the past 25 years, the town has struggled to find a similar niche.
Many of the current visitors arrive on tour buses to shop at antique stores and other shops. The town could have been lifted from a Norman Rockwell canvas. At its heart is a three-block stretch of Water Street with an ice cream parlor, barbershop and movie theater. At the end of the street is a public park with a band shell and picnic benches.
The nearest Starbucks is in an upscale town across the lake: Wayzata, population 4,113, where the Pillsburys and others built mansions.
Some residents believe that the outreach to young people has already changed the town.
“This used to be a working man’s town,” says Tom Knowlton, 66, a carpenter who has always lived in Excelsior.
“It’s different now,” he says. “You knew everybody in town back then. Now people with money are coming in, inflating prices and changing things.”
The town is creating a “revitalization master plan” to be finished this fall. A draft says, “The vibrant downtown is beginning to lose some of its luster.”
The first step to revitalize the town was to find a non-traditional advertising agency to hone its image.
“We don’t look for the big idea. We look for a buzzy idea,” says Chris Birt, a partner in the agency. “We want something that ties into a cultural zeitgeist, something everybody is feeling but nobody is talking about.”
After walking along Water Street, “We said, ‘Bingo!’ This place has soul, and no place else in the vicinity does,” Birt says. “They offer soul and uniqueness rather than conformity and sameness.”
Birt says he came across the term Starbucks Nation “either in Wired or The Wall Street Journal.” No matter its origin, it became the centerpiece of the ad campaign.
Not everybody appreciates the ads.
Bill Mason, whose family has owned a Chrysler car dealership since 1922, is opposed to the ads. “It connotes negativity. It’s like we don’t want franchises. Hello! I’m a franchise,” he says. “I’d just rather say what we’ve got than what we don’t want.”
But Ed Zembrycki, owner of Tony’s Barbershop, which his father opened 69 years ago, says, “The ad carries a good message. And it spices things up a little.”
“If they ran a Barnes & Noble letter, I wouldn’t mind,” jokes Ann Nye, who seven years ago opened Excelsior Bay Books.
And when Rosemarie Pedersen and Sheri Beck left their jobs in the law department at American Express in Minneapolis a year ago, they opened a coffee shop on Water Street. “We wanted to be in Excelsior,” Beck says.
They opened their Dunn Bros. coffee shop in January. Business has been brisk. And while Dunn Bros. is a chain of shops around Minneapolis, Pedersen points out that the shop is locally owned and operated, not part of a corporate behemoth.
“We feel so heartened,” Pedersen says. “We brought a business to the community, and they have completely accepted us as one of their own.”
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Buzz branding is all about the unspoken but deeply felt perceptions of people on a grassroots level. Branding works from the bottom up and top down-from the logical and the emotional. "Buzz branding gets people talking among themselves," Macri points out.
January 6, 2007 — Already generating $76 million, or 10 �percent of Denver’s estimated 2007 revenue, the National Western seeks to grow during its 101st celebration this year.
Frank Macri and Chris Birt, partners in A|B Group One, are spearheading an expanded marketing campaign for the centennial edition of the National Western Stock Show. Using the occasion to speak at a seminar for members of the International Association of Fairs and Expositions, the pair previewed plans for the 101th anniversary Stock Show and showcased how buzz branding” can deliver a much-needed boost to fairs, expositions and events nationwide.
National Western Stock Show President and CEO Pat Grant notes, Westerners share two main characteristics-they love the land and they admire the magnificence of its animals. “We aim to get people buzzing about these remarkable animals-the true stars of the Stock Show-along with the educational, entertainment and cultural components.”
Birt adds that central to the buzz branding message for the 101th Stock Show is the context and comfort of old-time western traditions. At a time of concern and stress over events that we as individuals cant control, ‘comfort in the form of traditional values provides relief. How much more comfortable does it get than the National Western Stock Show, an all-American event grounded in the best of our western culture and heritage?”
According to Macri, buzz marketing is all about the unspoken but deeply felt perceptions of people on a grassroots level. Branding works from the bottom up and top down-from the logical and the emotional. Buzz branding gets people talking among themselves,” Macri points out.
About the National Western Stock Show:
Denvers National Western Stock Show is the world’s largest livestock, rodeo and horse show with annual attendance surpassing 600,000. The American Business Association lists it as one of the top 100 events in the United States. From its humble beginnings in 1906, when the Stock Show drew 15,000 stockmen from Kansas City, Omaha and Chicago, revenues have grown to $76 million factoring in employment, consumables, services, accommodations, retail, and ticketed events. The National Western Complex is now rented out year-around.
