February.
Hey Folks,
I’ve always hated February. It’s cold. It’s wet. Everyone’s in a bad mood. February is that short period of time on the calendar that everybody just wants to be rid of, kind of like relatives that overstay their welcome…in winter. And this year it’s even worse. It’s a leap year. As if a normal February isn’t bad enough, we get an extra day of February. #yay. Even February holidays are kind of stupid. Groundhog Day? Sheesh. And Valentine’s Day? The Vatican removed St. Valentine from the official list of saints in 1969 and Hallmark basically invented the holiday. I used to look forward to President’s Day weekend, but that was only because we could go to a ski resort. Then I went to Wintergreen, and realized 8,326,914 other Virginians had the same idea. As it turns out, everybody else was trying to escape February too. Here’s an idea… let’s just make January 59 days, and 60 on leap years. If it sounds like I’m ranting this week, blame February.
But wait a minute, my beloved VCU Rams are undefeated in the A10, Super Bowl 50 is coming up on Sunday and we had an amazingly awesome and productive and fun week at Madison+Main. What am I complaining about?
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| Watch out people, here comes February! |
Monday, February 1st – As you may know from previous mentions in the Weekly Report, Madison+Main has been working with FACES of Virginia, the Commonwealth’s foster, adoption and kinship organization. We are working on rebranding this great organization to help them gain more awareness and make it easier for them to fulfill their mission of providing a united voice for children, youth, and families. On Monday the team presented director Cate Newbanks with four new logo concepts, after the board recently approved our recommendation for a new name. Soon FACES will become NewFound Families.
On Monday, Account Manager Lindsey Durfee declared that it was “Dragas Week” at Madison+Main. Our awesome clients in Virginia Beach needed a lot of work from us this week. #ALOT. And we were happy to help, and I believe they are happy we got it all done. #fingerscrossed
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| I’m looking forward to seeing my friends Reba, Rob,Kristen & Nikki-Dee on Monday morning. |
REMINDER: Set your DVR Monday morning to WTVR-CBS6 and be sure to check out their Facebook page at http://facebook.com/cbs6wtvr. Yours truly, Madison+Main’s Chief Idea Officer, will be providing a review and analysis of the best and worst Super Bowl ads. Tune in early to watch me play “Monday morning quarterback” on TV. If I see my shadow, it means 6 more weeks of dieting.
Tuesday, February 2nd (Groundhog Day) – This past Tuesday a throng of early morning alcoholics gathered in the small town of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania and cheered wildly as a non-native woodchuck named Phil was pulled from a hole. The men who perpetrated this foul deed were dressed in top hats and tails. Fueled by Irish coffees and their own hubris, they proceeded to converse with the oversized rodent and promptly made a long-term forecast projection. Checking the always reliable Wikipedia, I learned that the Marmota Monax has only accurately predicted the weather 39% of the time since 1887. By contrast, a simple coin flip gets you 50% accuracy, unless you are deciding who wins the Iowa Caucus.
In addition to her other roles at Madison+Main, Lindsey has developed a lot of expertise in social media marketing. On Tuesday morning she represented the agency at the Chesterfield Chamber’s Coffee Talk event, dropping LinkedIn knowledge bombs on business leaders who were meeting at Collegiate School Aquatic Center.
After working on some projects for Village Bank and College Assurance Partnership, we spent the rest of the day working on projects for…The Dragas Companies.
Wednesday, February 3rd – Account Manager Kaitlin Riddle and I met with our clients from the Office of the Attorney General on Wednesday morning and since “The Riddler” doesn’t like coffee, I bought her a hot chocolate. We look forward to working with our friends at the OAG on their next public safety awareness campaign. #staytuned
On Wednesday afternoon every gathered for one our favorite traditions; the intern nickname presentations. Each semester we give the interns an assignment where they concept and create a 3-5 minute presentation, allowing them to choose three different options for their nicknames. In this exercise creativity counts. After the presentation I am happy to announce that Heather “Da Huuuuudge” Hudgins, Matt “Matty Ice” Ong, Sophie “Vegas” Fisher, Lucy “Lucyfer” Yen and Mary “MacBatch” Batchelder all did a very fine job on their presentations. After the brief nickname presentations, we went back to work on Dragas projects. #DragasWeek
MARKETING TIP OF THE WEEK –
Event Marketing vs. Online Marketing
Regardless of your business model or (if you’re a non-profit organization) your funding model, there is an abundant amount of evidence that online marketing is paying bigger dividends than event marketing these days. If you calculate the time, the expense, and all the other costs associated with an event, you will generally find that events are less cost-effective. Online marketing, on the other hand, takes less time and money to produce results. Case in point, the Clinton campaign scheduled 32 fundraisers in January and the Sanders campaign invested in online marketing. Sanders raised $20 million dollars to Clinton’s $15 million. Read about it here.
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| L to R: Jen Merritt, Bill Foster, Joy Kline accept the Business of the Year Award on behalf of Village Bank |
Thursday, February 4th – On Thursday, it rained again and I decided to cheer everyone up by wearing my “loud” jacket. It’s purple and paisley and corduroy and everyone smiles when I wear it. Take that, February. Just in case that didn’t cheer everyone up, I had a backup plan and invited Dale Carnegie Training franchise owner J.J. White to drop by the corner of 1st and Cary and enlighten us with his training. We are all now enthused with a much more positive attitude this week, despite the fact that we have 3 1/2 weeks left in February.
On Thursday night I wore “the loud jacket” to the Chesterfield Chamber Annual Gala… and once again people smiled. After all, they were serving alcohol at Ashton Creek Vineyard. I am pleased to report that Madison+Main clients scored big at the award ceremony last night. Carolyn Clements from Ball Office Products was named Member of the Year and our friends at Village Bank, President Bill Foster, Marketing Director Jen Merritt and Vice President of Retail Banking Joy Kline, were thrilled when Village won the Business of the Year award. At Madison+Main we are proud to work with such great, community-minded folks.
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| Carolyn Clements from Ball Office Products was named the Chesterfield Chamber’s Member of the Year |
Friday, February 5th – Normally I don’t like long conference calls. I have a touch of ADD and I have a hard time sitting still for an hour. But today we had a loooong conference call with our partners at Burson-Marstellerand Alliance Group and it was highly productive and highly entertaining. We are very proud of the work that we’ve accomplished with them on behalf Virginia Energy Sense this past year and look forward to accomplishing more great things together. Check out one of our latest online videos that feature Jack, the wise cracking power plug, who dispenses energy saving tips.
The reviews are in for Swift Creek Mill’s world premiere of “The Little Lion” and critics – and audiences – are raving about the World War II drama written by Irene Ziegler, based on the book by Nancy Wright Beasley. Get your tickets to this important work here.
To help you forget those February blues and remember Valentine’s Day, Vera’s Fine Jewelers is ready to help you find the perfect romantic gift for her. Drop by and see our friends Vera, Mike, Bebe, Chelsea, Joyce, Sandy, Billie and John, the newest addition to the Vera’s team.
“You want a prediction about the weather, you’re asking the wrong Phil. I’ll give you a winter prediction: It’s gonna be cold, it’s gonna be grey, and it’s gonna last you for the rest of your life.”
– Bill Murray, Groundhog Day (1993)