Test schmescht.

Yeah! That's what we always say! Testing creative sucks!

Actually, what we actually say always is this: testing is useful in a direct proportion to your willingness to ignore its findings. Right. That's not confusing, is it? Here's what we mean: test away, get your copy tested and your tv tested and test 'til your heart's content and your ass is covered out the wazoo, but don't be a slave to the findings. Learn what you need to make your creative more of what you want it to be. Don't use the findings to make your creative something that you didn't want it to be: a watered down version of an interesting idea.

You're probably wondering why we bring this up. Yes, yes, you are. If you read this far, you are. Admit it. We brought it up because the other day we accidentally got some focus grouping that saved our bacon on a creative project.

Here's how it went down:

The problem

Client radio Unleashed is a nationally syndicated radio program and they wanted to send out a letter to prospective stations that might be interested in picking up their show. "A letter?" we said, with full-tilt maximum disdain and condescension, (we're trying to become more tactful, really we are), "letters are stupid!" (see above parenthetical note) "What you need is something that will cut through the clutter." It's true, it's totally true. Our point of view on letters is exactly that: you send a letter to a prospective client, that client's secretary isn't even gonna read it. Send something fun and funky. Somethign that makes your point in a way they haven't seen before. Something memorable. And so that's what we came up with.

The creative solution

Pee. Yup. Pee. Specifically pee stains on a piece of newspaper. Make pee stains on a piece of newspaper and send it out to your people with a little note on the bottom of the paper that says something like "Good radio is no accident." Fun. Different. Gross. Still, it will totally cut through. How many times do people get something like that in the mail? And if your whole branding is your dog logo and your line "music with teeth", then it's perfect. No? Yes! (see branding case study here.)

The creative

So here's how we did it. Yellow food coloring in a spray bottle sprayed on newspaper pages, a sticker on the bottom and nice printed letterhead envelopes. Like so:

Genius! Everyone said so and we were so happy to have once again come up with a great idea! The only rub: half of the people who were looking at it were looking right through the pee stain and reading the newspaper behind it! Nooooo! That's not the point! "It's the pee!" we screamed. (silently)

While at lunch, Dave, the radio Unleashed client gave the envelope to Richard, the proprietor of Bistro-to-go, where we were dining and Richard (no dummy) opened it up and started reading the article on the newspaper under the stain.

What to do? Well we came up with a simple solution that addressed what we'd learned through our small sample of testing. And here it is, on the back of the envelope:

Simple. Write on the back of each envelope: "(not real pee)" Fabulous!! It serves so many purposes. First, it intrigues. Come ONNNN! You gotta open an envelope with that written on the back. Right? Secondly, it focuses the reader's attention on the pee once they open up the envelope, and draws their attention AWAY from newspaper text. Lastly, and most literally, it helps diminish the gross factor. Yay! And since we're only sending out 200 pieces, it's easy enough to execute.

So here's how it goes now: (sorry, we took the photos and we're gonna use them)

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the true story of how a little focus group feedback made our creative a lot stronger. Live and learn.

New and improved with double-plus yum yum!!

Being old and grouchy as we are and having been around the block quite a few times, we usually approach these "how-to" things with a little bit of an "I'll tell YOU how to!" attitude. And that's exactly how we approached this list (but we clicked through on it anyway! see notes below on the effectiveness of top 10 hoo-ha.) brought to us by something called Copywriting 101 through LinkedIn. Lots of attitude and a modicum of condescension. But it was great! We actually learned something. So you can just take your "old dogs . . . " homily and shove it someplace new and improved.

Click here to read the article: 7 scientifically-backed copywriting tips.

The story

Here's what came to us on the old FB the other day:

Whenever the owners of this house with a pool came home, they found puddles
of water near their pool. 

They believed the neighbours’ kids waited 'till they went out, to use the pool……
So they installed a camera and this is what they saw……



How awesome is that?! It was shared and shared and reposted out the wazoo and why not?! It's a great story.

The best part of this story though is the fact that it's entirely fabricated. The camera is moving, someone is obviously filming and a simple search of youtube finds a longer version where they actually move in on the dog. Filming their dog in their pool with their camera while they watch, poolside. No mystery. The real story appears to be:

Our dog likes the water slide in our pool.

Not nearly as exciting.

Hemmingway said all you need to tell a story was 6 words. He supposedly provided the following to illustrate his point:

For sale: baby shoes. Never used.

The moral of today's post: tell a story. Stories are sticky, stories are fun.

The end.

WOC Digital

Someone asked for our digital portfolio. The links below should give a decent top line:

The company primer on email marketing:
http://woodstockorganicconcepts.blogspot.com/2012/09/email-marketing.html

A short assortment of email images:
http://woodstockorganicconcepts.blogspot.com/2012/10/email-creative-case-study.html

Woodstock Organic Concept's take on going viral:
http://woodstockorganicconcepts.blogspot.com/2012/11/viral-schmiral-redux.html

Website design work:
http://woodstockorganicconcepts.blogspot.com/2011/06/web-design.html

Norm's educational app company:
http://www.fishthemousemedia.com/home/welcome.html

January is poster month!

Well, it's been a good January for us here at Woodstock Organic Concepts, we've learned a few new tricks in the kitchen just in time to not need them since we're now getting all our food from our new client, Blue Mountain Bistro to Go. And boy is their food delicious. Owners Mary Anne and Richard are a pleasure to work with and a joy to dine with. Stay tuned for some fun work we're doing on their behalf.

In the meantime, January brought us an opportunity to get a lot of personal work done (read: kinda slow again) and do a few posters for various clients and good causes.

Top: A fun poster for Performing Arts of Woodstock's 2013 Winterfest. It was fun bending the fork and coming around the corner at the office just as the sun ducked down toward the horizon and seeing that the long shadows of winter were perfect for this shot.

Dj and all-around great guy Dave Leonard is once again raising money for a good cause with his annual pisces party. After we made this poster, we recommended that people with pisces tattoos get in for free. (You'll still be hit up to donate to the cause though.)

Client Rhinebeck CSD PTSO needed a poster for their cool cookie-gram idea.

We threw in the new logo (bottom) for free. 

Mission statements

Over the years, we’ve really developed a healthy respect for the power of putting your business and marketing ducks in a row.  Toward this end, we always like to start our branding efforts by taking a gander at our client’s mission statement and, if there isn’t one, we get them to write one. Oh sure, we’ll wordsmith it for them later, but as we always say (okay, this is actually the first time):

More than any other piece of communication that will be developed during the course of a marketing and image management campaign, the thoughts behind a mission statement need to come straight from the client.

So. Why does a company need a mission statement?

A mission statement is your company’s reason for being. It should perfectly and honestly reflect why your company exists and what you want it to do.

Is your mission to make people happy?  Walt Disney company’s mission statement: To make people happy.

Is your mission to make people money? At Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, our mission is to help you build a secure financial future.

Is it to save people money? Wal-Mart: To give ordinary folk the chance to buy the same thing as rich people.

Is it to save the environment? Patagonia: Build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis.

Is it to save the world? Google: Google’s mission is to organize the world‘s information and make it universally accessible and useful.

Or maybe it's to explore the universe? The USS Enterprise's 5 year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.

A mission statement is your organization’s reason for being. It succinctly states the goal(s) of your business and, if it’s done well, it can and should be an inspiring and useful guide for the bulk of your business decisions.

How does one go about writing a mission statement?

Here are some guidelines:

• Make it super honest. If your mission is solely to build up your soda pop company so that you can eventually sell it to Coca-Cola, say so. If the mission of your association of evil geniuses is complete global annihilation, say that. Don’t be shy and don’t be coy. Say what it is that you dream. Make it personal.

• Make it short. Seriously, the best mission statements can be easily remembered by everyone who has a hand in making it come true.

• Make it clear. Please. No jargon, no needlessly big words, no attempts to make it sound important. It IS important already just by the fact of it being your mission.

• Make it simple. So that it will look good on a bronze plaque and on a cotton/poly blend t-shirt.

• Make it inspiring. Make it important, make it meaningful and evocative: dream big. This thing is going to be your road map for a long time.

• Make it about you and about them. Unless your business only exists to profit itself, include your customer in your mission statement.  Disney, Morgan Stanley and Wal-Mart (above) all do so explicitly. Patagonia and Google do so implicitly.

• Keep it current. If you wrote it 5 years ago, your mission might have changed since then. Revisit and start again at the top of this list.

Mission statements vs.vision statements

Many marketers split up the mission statement into two distinct-ish parts: a mission statement that answers the question “what do we do?” and a vision statement that answers the question “why are we here?” Some use the vision statement to put forth their grand goal (“To make the world a better place for humanity”) while others put that in their mission statement. Some use the mission statement to share how their company might make that grand goal a reality (“A laptop in the hands of every person.”) while others put that in their vision statement.

Here at Woodstock Organic Concepts, we like to put them all together in a mission statement that answers both questions: what does your company do and how will it help your customers.

A strong mission statement provides a strong foundation upon which you can build a strong company. If your company doesn’t have one, just sit down and write one, there’s nobody better equipped to do so than you.

Once you’ve got your mission statement done and you’re ready to move on to the next step of image management, give us a call, because…

The mission of Woodstock Organic Concepts is to help clients to better understand and leverage their 
inherent strengths in an increasingly competitive marketplace.

Holiday card smorgasbord

Every year, just before Hallowe'en, we start getting calls from clients wanting to rush to press with their holiday cards. This year was no exception. Here below (we still think "herebelow" should be one word) is an assortment of holiday cards we've done for one of them. Enjoy, and happy holidays to each and every one of youse.

The top 10 subject lines of all time

Nah. Just trying to get your attention, that's all. But here's our theory: the very best email marketing is top 10 list stuff.  People love the top 10 lists. Or top 5 list. Or even, in this case, the top 1 list:

TOP EMAIL SUBJECT LINE OF ALL TIME.

You just read it.

Now, I think you get our point.

Make it about them

Reading through this morning's emails from my assortment of marketing experts, we came across a theme, one idea that has appeared in so many of these "articles". (Seriously, the content marketing is getting a little bit cumbersome these days.) It's the idea that you shouldn't make the story you tell all about your product. You need to make it about your customer. Make the customer the hero. Now this brings up old Rosser Reeve's fabulous and timeless USP concept, naturally, (the basic format of which is "if you buy this product, you will get this unique and meaningful benefit.") but it also brought to mind "The smart growth manifesto" that we posted about a few years ago. We revisited, we re-loved, we've reposted. Re-enjoy:


The smart growth manifesto

Tired of looking backwards and finding, each week, something new upon which to hang the blame for our current economic woes?  Look forward for a sec with Umair Haque of the Havas Media Lab, as he lays down a road map for Capitalism 2.0:  The Smart Growth Manifesto.  Its basic pillars are:

1. Outcomes, not income.
2. Connections, not transactions.
3. People, not product.
4. Creativity, not productivity.

Read the whole short thought-starter of a piece right here: http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/haque/2009/01/davos_discussing_a_depression.html

After a long, divisive race...

Someguy did this.

 AKA Brian Singer. The Coke/Pepsi analogy has been used a lot this election cycle by people disgruntled by this lousy two-party system of ours. "Someguy" went out and made it real. You can see his site here: http://www.iamsomeguy.com/

Viral schmiral redux

One thing we never promise to create for a client is a viral video.  Who the hell knows what is going to 'go viral' and what is not?  Not us - people find a crazy variety of things to be wildly fascinating, some of which we might not even find to be mildly fascinating.  

This beautifully executed video below has a paltry 20,000 hits on YouTube while the laughing farting cat has 1.7 million.  We love them both, of course, but might have put our money on the wrong horse in this race to engage the masses.  Don't get us wrong here: we're not saying that marketers shouldn't try to create a super contagious message, we're just saying that the best bet to make on going viral is to get a money back guarantee from anyone who promises they're gonna do it for you.

Constant okayness?

A slow(ish) day at the office allowed us a fun personal(ish) project -- art directing this interesting quotation from Pema Chödrön. (Just in case you're wondering is she really truly all that badass, yes, she has TWO umlauts in her last name.) Soon, we'll be taking our massive digital file to our new, hot-shit local analog letterpress people to have it printed/pressed/molded onto a piece of impossibly thick paper. Can't wait. Call us if you want one, we just might share. (click on the image to see it bigger.)

Pascal Baes

Way back in the day. Early 90's perhaps. This guy was making the coolest videos we'd ever seen. The Paramount Hotel used him in for a series of commercials, which can be seen on this page from the now defunct Yellow House production company, which is now part of or known as DogAndPony. Enjoy thsi short non-commercial film, "Come back to factory". It's what we used to call video art and it's still impossibly cool stuff:

http://www.yellowhouse.tv/friends/pascal_baes/factory.html

Send your email marketing between 8 and 9!

MarketingProfs.com recently reported on a study from email marketing company GetResponse.com. Here's what they found: The study found that 23.63% of all email opens occur within the first hour after delivery. Within the second hour after delivery, the results drop by half.

 The top engagement times for email are as follows: in the mornings, 8 AM to 9 AM both for opens and click-throughs; and in the afternoons, 3 PM to 8 PM for opens, and 3 PM and 4 PM for click-throughs.

Volunteer

One of the nice things about volunteer design work is that we usually (not always, mind you) get to do something that we think is cool. This year, the local elementary school's fall festival was adding a bunch of new games and a new attitude and wanted a poster to reflect it. The upside down leaf is a fine symbol for fall, simple and clean, so we adopted it as one of our two design constants that we used throughout a series of posters relating to the event. The other was the autumnal color bar on the left of each poster. 

One other art directorial note here: sometimes when we get a long list of items to include in a printed piece, we like to treat that list as a design element rather than a list with bullet points or dashes or what-have-you. That's what we did here with the list of activities one could play at the fall fest. We think it not only looks great, but also is actually more inviting to read than a plain old stack of stuff.

Woodstock Film Festival

Well, the film festival has left town and with it the last glance of the season of impossibly hip movie and city types gracing the sidewalks and eateries of Woodstock. This year, after the umpteenth person mentioned that we should really do the poster art, we decided to share the creation we made for the film fest a few years back. It still looks good: Overlook mountain adorned with the famous sign, slightly jiggered for our needs:

What is branding? (or: the lazy KY)

What is branding?

Branding is the act of burning a letter-based design onto the side of livestock with a hot iron stamp.

It’s also the creation of an important, intellectual and emotional connection between a product or service and the consumer who may use it.

But let's stick to the cattle kind of branding for a while, because our pal Jim from Missouri explained it to us not too long ago and it seemed to present a lot of useful parallels for the modern day concept of "consumer" branding. Both leave indelible marks, both require a certain amount of skill to do just right, are easy to do wrong, and can be incredibly useful to protect or create profits.

Behold below an instructional image from the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association "Texas Brand Registration" page on "How to design a brand".

Front and center in this lovely chart we can find the Woodstock Organic Concepts rule #1 for creating a consumer brand: keep it simple. Complication equals confusion and let's not forget the words of the infamous cattleman Oscar Wilde, who said: "to define is to limit". The more we define the brand with needless complexities, the more we have defined it into a narrow corner. Pigeonholed our cow, so to speak. Not a good idea. Simplicity in the branding will allow for complexity in the messaging later, if that's really what we need.

Now let's look at the painting below: "The lazy K Y", by Charles Marion Russell. Look closely and you'll see a brand on the steer. The "K" is on its side so it's called a "lazy K" and the "Y" is to the right or below it so it's read second.  The brand is, as the title of the painting says: the lazy KY.

This brand, the lazy K Y, happens to be a really good brand. Why do you think? Here's what Jim from Missouri told us:

Well, for starters, it nicely embodies rule #1: it's simple -- a "K" on its side and a "Y". Not complicated in the least. Secondly, the letters are not easily transformed into different letters by the addition of lines. Here's what we mean . . . take the letter "F" for example, burned onto the side of a hypothetical cow. A cattle rustler could, with the simple addition of a short arced line, transform the "F" into a "P". A branding design flaw. A vulnerability. In the same way, an "I" could be easily turned into a "T" or a "V" into a Lazy "A". (an upside down "A"). Not good at all, but it brings us to . . . 

Branding rule #2: make it ownable for you and not ownable by your competition. Now this is a great rule but there are a lot of ways to do it. One way is to cultivate your brand's honest eccentricities, i.e., what is it that your brand has that your competition does not. Kent cigarettes famous "Micronite filter" from the Mad Men days or Ivory soap's "99 44/100% pure", which is still in use today. No competitive brand can make those claims, as opposed to, say, Nike sportswear company's claim "Just do it." Those 3 words, so well-owned by Nike, could actually be used by lots of different companies: "Weight watchers . . . Just do it!", your local car wash or bowling alley, and "Trojan" to name a few. It's just not inherently ownable.  BUT!!! Nike has spent a gadjillion dollars connecting those words and the thoughts behind them to their company. And now they really and truly own that sentiment. So that's another way to own it: burn it into people's heads with repetition on a large scale.

So back to the lazy K Y, it's a brand identity that could be put on anything: a cow, a horse, a barn, a ring, a t-shirt, a print ad. It's versatile. Which brings us to branding rule #3: it should work everywhere -- in all media and for every story your company needs to tell. The brand part is the umbrella under which all your communications can comfortably fit. If you're Volvo and you need to introduce consumers to a new car, you can tell them about the engine and the suspension and the chassis and the interior and you can discuss how all those important elements add to the overall safety of the vehicle, that is, you can discuss them all under the umbrella of "safety".

But the branding here goes both ways: the micro feeds the macro and vice versa. The details support the umbrella, which in turn shades the details. It's what we here at Woodstock Organic Concepts have dubbed a "reinforcing branding loop": the details validate the overarching brand idea which validates the details and so on ad infinitum. And ad nauseum, too: it works in all media: print, radio, tv, web, outdoor, etc. WHEN it's executed just right.

Another strength of the lazy K Y brand is that when it's executed, it's not likely to become confusing. Just suppose you're burning that brand onto your cow and you hold the iron in place a little too long or maybe the cow's hide is wet and the lines you intended spread out and fill in in ways you didn't intend. Well, in the case of the KY, those lines are not likely to touch, so they're not likely to be confusing. They radiate out from their centers and are easily recognizable. Which brings us to branding rule #4: make it clear. This will help you to avoid creating confusion in the minds of consumers when things go well and even when things don't. You can probably guess by now why the lazy QO might be confusing. Beware of traps like that.

To review: simple, ownable, versatile and clear. These are the elements of good branding. (As we've identified so far.) Piece of cake. Now let's look at some examples. In the marketing arena, not the livestock arena. Who are the companies that elicit an immediate visceral reaction just when you hear their name or see their logo? -- Apple. Volvo. Nike. Starbucks. Google. To name a few. Not surprisingly these companies, these brands, beyond creating an emotional connection, have backed it up with an intellectual underpinning: smart, safe, striving, delicious, helpful (respectively). This combination of appeal to both emotion and intellect creates the simplest, most versatile, clearest, and most ownable branding.

It's something that every company, big or small, should have to help them communicate most effectively with their clients. It's the difference between generic and premium.  Between "that'll do" and "I've gotta have it". It's the difference between a product and a brand.

Branding, as the landing page of our site puts it, is the speciality of Woodstock Organic Concepts: "helping clients to better understand and leverage their inherent strengths in an increasingly competitive marketplace." Let us help you create your brand. It's what we do.

Email creative case study

After the post below about email marketing, we were cajoled into sharing some of our creative in this arena.  All of the work went out through Constant Contact, unless otherwise noted and most of the CC templates included links to registration forms and donate now buttons and whatnot. As soon as we get the quantitative info from the client, we'll share that too.

Our simple rule for email creative, a great image (not too large) and fun copy. Click on this link to see a big batch of e-creative and let us know how we did: http://woodstockorganicconceptscasestudies.blogspot.com/2012/10/creative-case-study.html

Our primer on email marketing

Well, we just finished doing a big email marketing campaign for a client and so, as it always goes, we get a bunch of inquiries from other clients, current and potential, asking us how to work this very effective media. Well, taking our own advice (see #6 below), we've posted our email response here. We'll tweet it later.

A dozen tips for a successful email campaign

1) Have a great list

You could buy or borrow a list, but the best names on your email list are the ones of people who have actually asked to be there. Make sure your website, your blog and your social media all offer an opportunity for people to sign up for email news. Likewise whenever you’re out in the real world, at conferences or trade shows or anywhere you might go.  Also, don’t forget that your emails themselves may be forwarded around, so always include a sign up link in the email itself.

2) Create content, borrow content, make it relevant

Content is king. Tell a story or, preferably, use a real anecdote that is going to be helpful to your target. Illustrate how your goods or services solved a problem or increased sales, as seen here or here.

Use client success stories, testimonials, relevant content found on the web, and so on and so on . . . take it (with proper attribution of course) and use it and make it make sense for your clients, as seen here.

3) Make it “about them” rather than “about us”

Your company should be seen as a problem solver, not as a shill. Your readers don’t really care about your company unless it can solve some of their problems. Keep this in mind always.

4) Pull them in deeper

Creating hyperlinks that lead your readers away from your email actually helps build long term loyalty. In each email, try to include one link that leads outside of your company (click here) and one that leads inside, to your website or blog, for example.

5) Make a record, create a library, be the expert. Blog.

A blog allows you to create a permanent record of all your success stories in one easy to use, searchable location. Use it frequently and it will make you look like the expert you actually are. Every email should include a passive link or an active redirection to your blog.

6) Repurpose, reuse, reach more

If you wrote it for email, maybe it could be a blog post.  If you wrote it for your blog, maybe you should tweet it, if you tweeted it, you should probably pop it up on facebook.

And if it’s worth doing all that, it’s even more worth doing it all again. Reach and frequency are the classic measures of advertising media, but for some reason these days, many people don’t think to send their message out more than once.

In fact, reposting in any format can increase reach by up to 50%. Think about how you personally use social media: you’re on at a particular time of the day, day after day. If someone posts updates during the times you’re not there, you might just miss them.

7) Find content from within

Invite all your employees to blog about your goods or services and how they work in real world situations for real world users. There are no better experts than your own employees. Let your customers hear from them -- many of the questions your clients or potential clients might have about your goods and services will be answered in this way.

Mine these posts as a source of email content.

8) KISMIF

Keep It Simple, Make It Fun. If you have a more complicated story to tell, tell it after the jump with a link so that your readers won’t get bogged down with it unless they want to.

9) Write a good headline!!!

Even the Nigerian 419 scammers know this much. 

10) Send test emails

Send them to friends on Macs and friends on PC’s. Send them to androids and iphones. Make sure your email (and any included images) works in all formats.

11) Analyze, repeat, delete

Most mass email programs (such as Constant Contact, MailChimp or iContact) allow you to see how your various emails are performing. Without feedback, there can be no learning. Pay attention to what’s working or not and soon enough, you’ll develop a nice feel for email marketing.

12) Update your great list

Take care to delete those who have asked to be removed, delete duplicates, add new contacts. Update it after every single mailing; it’ll be best for everyone.

VVA FOAF

Well, a friend of a friend put us in touch with the proprietor of this cool start-up that restores vintage tube amplifiers. They needed a logo for their name: Vintage Vacuum Audio.  We did a whole bunch of logos, generated free hand and in photoshop. Many of them really nice work. And then, casting about the world of high-end audio refurbishment, we saw a sine curve on an oscilloscope and lo and behold! there it was: VVA. Right there in the fancy equipment used to repair the fancy equipment. We love it when luck checks in to the creative process.

Just the frackin' facts, ma'am

When the Catskill Mountainkeeper came knocking on our door looking for an anti-fracking campaign, we'd already seen lawn signs all over the state, most of them making a not-too-clever-but-still-kinda-effective play on the similarity between the words "frack" and "fuck." And so naturally, we wanted to do something different. 

The facts about fracking, the ACTUAL facts are fairly disturbing from an environmental point of view. The question is how to get them out there in an impactful way. That's where Cheltenham bold hd comes in handy. It's the font used on New York Times headlines. Automatically adds an air of authority to the facts. And for media, we took it out of the front yards and into a medium that imparts a little more authority: billboards.

But wait! Don't stop there! Who's gonna sign off the ads? If these were "signed" by the Catskill Mountainkeeper, people might automatically write them off as mere tree-hugging cry-baby propaganda. So we created the US Energy Commission.  DOT ORG! A website that would have explained more of the actual facts about fracking's environmental impact.

 

And that's it, a slightly subversive campaign to win friends and influence people. Or at least it woulda been. Our contact at the Catskill Mountainkeeper org didn't like it for some reason that we can no longer remember. And it died a lonely death only to live on in the annals of ads we wished we'd done.

Dr. John

We don't usually go in for spec. work, but the opportunity to pitch some website ideas for Dr. John was just too evocative to pass up. We came up with two ideas, both pretty fun, but judge for yourself. The top one would be a sculptural object -- an old apothecary/voodoo cabinet with live buttons throughout, and the bottom one is a flowchart mapping the many worlds the good Dr. inhabits.

Brownie branding mini-case study

Once in a while we get called in to help with a name. It almost always spills over into logo and branding. Cause, really, what's in a name?  The world of successful consumer brands with crappy names is huge. Smucker's even made a whole ad campaign (complete with SNL parody) on THIS VERY TOPIC years ago.

However, in this case, the existing name represented a missed opportunity. The name that came into our office was "Sweet girl brownie company." We felt that "sweet" was a wasted word since "brownie" already connotes sweetness. So we changed the name to Happy girl brownie company, feeling that "happy", a word describing emotions, added something to the story rather than just fluffing up what's already there.

The client also had an illustration they'd found online that they liked. A cute, big-eyed girl who would be their spokes model.  We liked it well enough and sent them off to an illustrator to make it their own.

In the meantime, we mocked it up as a potential label on brown paper and kinda dug the way it looked. Then we found a kid's drawing lying around the office and we all fell straight in love with it -- it resonated so deeply with the innocent bliss of eating a brownie. We loved it, the client loved it. Now let's see how it flies.

Well, we did it again. We weren't going to, but this was the 60th anniversary and all, so when the fine folks at WAAM called to ask us to produce this concert again, we kinda couldn't say no. And, as often happens, we ended up well rewarded for our involvement.

To begin with, the talent. Ooooooh, the talent.  Jazz legend Karl Berger agreed to perform and Cage biographer and iconic art critic Kay Larson agreed to speak.  Honest to goodness, what a treat to get such heavyweights involved. In a FREE concert!!

If you want to read more about it, click on the alphabetical press release here. Otherwise, just take our word for it: it was freakin' awesome and we were sincerely honored to be involved.

More theatre posters!

We love doing the theatre posters, especially when it means free tickets.  Here below are two posters for Waiting for Godot, in which fearless leader plays a tyrannical slave driver.  No comment.

It's not silence

Well, we're producing our first concert here at Woodstock Organic Concepts and it's a doozy. 2 performers and 3 assembled experts for the Q&A after the show. The performance will consist of Mimi Goese and Ben Neill (below) doing John Cage's classic piece, 4'33", during which they will put down their instruments and not make any noises for 4 minutes and 33 seconds. The piece will be performed on August 29, a day before their new cd hits the stores. What a great promo! (If we do say so ourselves.)

Now, usually we pack these blogs full of links to this that and the other thing, but this time we already did it with the "alphabetical press release" we put together to promote this event. Click the link to check it out.

Web design

Web design is so much fun. Maybe it shows in our work and maybe that's why we're getting so much more of it these days. Prospective clients always want to see our work as website designers and we always collect the best links and send them off. Not anymore. Now you can see our favorite web accomplishments here:

• The Gipsy Kings website

• radioUnleased website

• CA Sound Inc website

• Green Nature Prints website

• Our company website

• Fearless leader's website

Butter paper

We don't do a lot of package design here at WOC, but when one of these fun projects falls into our lap, we're always happy to have a think.

This new line of flavor infused butters came into our lives last week.

The client was planning on putting 4 oz. of the product (one stick's worth of butter) into those little plastic tubs that they give you at the deli counter to put olives in, or cole slaw, or a small container of potato salad. Noooo! We screamed. Please don't!! After looking into numerous other containers (tiny earthenware crocks from Morocco for example), we hit on the supremely novel idea of putting the butter in sticks. And wrapping them with some gorgeous paper, as seen below.

Imagine going to the refrigerated gourmet section of your supermarket and seeing a stick of this all wrapped up and beckoning to you. Positively regal! That's what it is! The kind of packaging that says: "I'm expensive, but worth it."

Another fun day at Woodstock Organic Concepts!