…Time for our annual gallery show featuring the work of talented artists from the Herron School of Art + Design. We truly look forward to this event … as much as a child looks forward to Christmahanakwanzika! (And just as much care and planning go into making this a great event.)

Each year, we get to meet fresh new artists and collaborate with them on a theme for the show. “Continuous” is our 2011 theme and it was inspired by the transformation our city has encountered over the past couple of decades – a result of the ongoing dedication of people who desire to make Indianapolis a great place to work, live and visit.

We let the artists choose their subject matter, but gave them one condition … they had to create their masterpiece using one, single, continuous line. This should be GOOD! ; )

We’re super excited to see the final art and hope you can join us for our gallery show. You can even vote for YOUR favorite art!

To learn more and register, click here.

Beautiful foliage, ripe apples and cooler weather – Autumn is here. That means we are getting ready for the Borshoff Annual Gallery Show + Awards. Traditionally, every Fall we partner with Herron School of Art and Design and have a gallery show here at Borshoff. This year we’re changing it up.

I am excited to announce that we will host our 2011 show at the Harrison Center for the Arts (16th and Delaware St.) from 6-9 p.m. on Friday, November 4.We will be on the lower level of the Harrison Center in Hank and Dolly’s Gallery (5 gallon hats not required).

The Harrison Center is a hub for arts and culture in Indianapolis. It has many galleries and artist studio spaces. Additionally, it’s the site of multiple art events throughout the year – such as Independent Music + Art Festival, Foodcon and The Handicraft Exchange. I am thrilled to have our show among so many great Indianapolis artists.

This year’s gallery show will be held on IDADA’s First Friday, and our new location will guarantee great exposure for these young and talented Herron students. Hope to see you there.

Indianapolis Power & Light Company (IPL) partnered with Borshoff to raise awareness of the company’s Live Energy Smart initiative, which includes various programs designed to help IPL’s residential, commercial and industrial customers reduce their energy use, and in turn save money. Our campaign gently poked fun at the extreme and even slightly nutty things people could do to save energy and provided a simple and easy alternative – enrolling in IPL’s Live Energy Smart programs. An integrated campaign featuring radio, TV, print and transit advertisements launched in the summer of 2011.

Check out the campaign ads:

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http://www.borshoff.biz/clients/ipl/IPL_LES Bright Ideas_HEI.MP3

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Our annual Borshoff retreat was last week at Bradford Woods in Martinsville. And for all the useful team-building activities and state-of-the-agency presentations, there was an even more vivid and useful lesson: How not to do outdoor advertising.

You see, the trip to Martinsville takes you south on Indiana Highway 67, a route peppered with plenty of small outdoor boards. Unfortunately, most of what’s on them is small, too. Mile after mile, our employees were confronted with tiny headlines, microscopic graphics and miniscule logos (yes, I’m actually saying someone should make the logo bigger).

So why does this happen? Why do we see so many campaigns with standout broadcast executions, eye-catching print, and forgettable outdoor?

Well, it’s simple. Most outdoor boards are created with the designer or art director sitting two feet from their computer screen. At that distance, one of two things happen. Either correctly sized outdoor type looks way too big or type that seems correct on the screen will be too small in execution. And judging by our journey into southern Indiana, the second occurrence frequently wins out.

So how do we avoid this trap at Borshoff? Well, again, two things happen. First, we learn to live with type and graphics that feel uncomfortably large on the computer screen. And, second, we use a simple outdoor viewer, a framing device allowing you to see outdoor designs just as they’ll look through the consumer’s windshield. The result? The kind of impactful outdoor advertising that’s few and far between on Highway 67.

I recently returned from the annual IPREX meeting in Washington, D.C., where I enjoyed the collegiality of our partners from around the world and picked up plenty of good information along the way. IPREX is an international network of independent public relations and communications agencies, so meetings always offer great discussions about creative ideas on how to run our companies.

During the D.C. meeting, we also heard from several presenters ranging from a Reuters deputy bureau chief to a social media pro to a political columnist. Below are some interesting data points and insights.

David All, chief creative officer, David All Group:

“Never let an intern run Twitter.” You want to put a senior person on it: one who understands the strategy, can deliver the right messages and will watch grammar.

George  Vrandenburg, chairman, Alzheimer’s Action PAC; William Rebeck, Ph.D., professor of neuroscience, Georgetown University; Michael Hodin, Ph.D., executive director, The Global Coalition on Aging:

Alzheimer’s disease is bigger than HIV/AIDS. We don’t need to find a cure for it; we need to delay its onset. Half of the 85+ population has Alzheimer’s . This has huge economic and quality of life implications as our population ages.

Kristin Roberts, Washington news editor and deputy bureau chief, Reuters:

Journalists are nasty, cranky and don’t want to talk to you. Reporters spend their time trying to build relationships [to get sources]; you [PR people] should do that too.

On Reuters: If we’re not exclusive, we have to be distinctive.  This means being smarter, doing critical analysis, being more sophisticated.

The Honorable Joao Vale de Almeida, European Union ambassador to the United States:

Common values are the real foundation of the relationship between the European Union and the United States. The economy drives the relationship.

Ron Brownstein, editorial director and columnist, National Journal Group:

Today 80 percent of seniors in the United States are white, while 47 percent of Americans under 18 are non-white. They are the two fastest growing groups, and this has significant implications for our society.

Here’s a non-news flash: At 600,000,000 users and growing, Facebook offers marketers the potential to reach large amounts of consumers.

It’s the “how” of reaching audiences that spurs countless discussions, debates and arguments.

Help has arrived, however, from Facebook itself. With the creation of Facebook Studio, advertising agencies and marketing professionals can get a glimpse of how brands big and small are using the world’s leading social media site to sell their wares.

Facebook Studio features a Gallery section highlighting creative campaigns and their performance; a Spotlight area for the newest work; an Awards page dedicated to recognizing the most creative usages of the site; a What’s New blog; and the Learning Lab, a Facebook marketing primer.

Upon early review, the site seems like a useful (and overdue) resource. While predictably showing international brands like BMW and Coke, we also see how smaller concerns like OurJewishCommunity.org and the Boston Public Health Commission have used Facebook to effectively communicate to their core audiences.

It’s still up to agencies and businesses to decide the appropriate approach for their social media strategy. But Facebook Studio offers a helpful starting point.

As I reflect on my 26 years in the communications business (14 of those at Borshoff!), I realize how far I’ve come in my views on teamwork and collaboration. Early on, it was all about “me” and finding ways to shine and advance my career. Proving myself was a smart strategy, or so I thought. Yes, I have good ideas, good instincts and can hold my own in a client meeting. But in the past decade, I’ve learned that partnering offers the best results. It sounds cliché, but it’s so true.

At Borshoff, we have a balanced mix of left-brain and right-brain thinkers. And, we believe this offers the most comprehensive solutions and ideas for our clients. When presented with a project, we bring together an integrated team to develop a sound strategy, coupled with concrete creative.

Last week, my coworker of 13 years, Jennifer Berry, creative director/VP, and I gave a presentation to a marketing class at the IU Kelley School of Business. We presented our “creative” process, which to most people, probably seems pretty boring. As we stepped through the slides and case studies, I couldn’t help but think about the importance – and benefits – of offering different perspectives and well thought out strategies.

After the session, several students came up to thank us. One commented, “You can tell you two have worked together a long time. If I closed my eyes, I couldn’t tell which one of you was speaking; it was almost as if you were one person!” Jenn and I have joked about this for years, but it was fascinating for young students to make the same observation.

So as I do “my” job today, working with various account and creative teams at the agency to negotiate, problem solve and share ideas, I’m reminded that there’s strength in numbers. It’s maybe not always the easiest route as we work through differing (strong) opinions and conflicting recommendations, but in the end, when the two halves of the brain come together, that’s where the magic happens.

Mark Suster, an expert I follow on Twitter, recently posted a blog about how startups can best use PR firms, which got my attention because I’m passionate about both PR and startup companies. Most of his advice was spot on, especially from the entrepreneur’s perspective. Relationships are the hinge on which all things work. Not only is it necessary to develop relationships with journalists whom you hope will cover your new venture, but also develop relationships with the person promoting your company on your behalf, whether that person is in-house or an extension of your team.

Along with building relationships with the media comes preparation for interacting with them:

• Do you understand their beat? Do they typically cover startups, or do they prefer a more established business, something that has been tried and tested?
• Are you ready for them to investigate your company? Is your website current? Do you look like you’re operating on a shoestring, or have you put some thought behind your website, making it easy for journalists to do their job?
• And once the media is ready to talk about you, have you done the necessary preparation so your executives are on message and can answer tough questions?

While Mark Suster leans toward in-house PR help, he recommends going with a small local firm if outside help is needed. Our agency has found our size to be our strength. We’re small enough to be flexible and responsive to our client’s needs, yet large enough to have a deep bench of talent from which to pull creative ideas and solutions.

Each year, many organizations release the “hot” new color or colors for the upcoming year. These colors are determined by current economic and social trends. Following their release, the color trends trickle down into the various design industries including; fashion, paint, textile and, of course, advertising. This year’s “hot” color, from Pantone, breathes new life into our color palettes with a hue that is both familiar and surprising. “Honeysuckle” (reddish-pink) is uplifting, confident and strong.

As a communications firm, Borshoff must stay on top of color trends. Color has a major impact on our work, and staying current on which colors are most attractive to consumers is vital. A great design can be rendered ineffective if the color selection is wrong. When choosing a color palette, I consider both the audience and the emotions I want to evoke. Honeysuckle is a color that may not be for everyone – but I look forward to incorporating into my work this year.

As Kassie mentioned in our blog in November, our office has begun a Wellness Initiative to encourage us to live healthy lifestyles and make our wellness a priority. As a part of that initiative, we each wear a pedometer and have a goal for daily steps, typically around 5,000. While that may seem like an easy goal to meet, when you sit at a desk most of the day the molehill looks far more like a mountain. To be completely honest, I rarely meet my goal.

As a creative person, I tried to think of several solutions to the problem:

• I attached my pedometer to my cat’s collar. Unfortunately, I spent more steps trying to get the cat to move than I would have walked anyway.

• I tied a string to the end of the pedometer and used it like a yo-yo. It turns out that yo-yoing 5,000 times a day gives me one gigantic bicep and one really, really puny one.

• I thought strapping it to my 5-year-old-cousin and turning her loose at Chuck-e-Cheese was a good idea too. All I got from that was a mildly traumatic experience that I pray I never have to repeat as a future parent.

It turns out that the best way to hit my goal is to actually do the steps myself, and it’s for the best. It gives me an excuse to go for a walk during lunch and to start running after work again. It helps me feel better and gives me more energy. And in the end it makes me a healthier, happier person.

“I could probably push a little more here…”

“I like the connection here…”

“I’m drawn to that…”

“We need to get it a little bigger to communicate…”

“The relationship between the shape and the type is much more balanced here…”

“The greens and blues make me feel good…”

“I love what you did with the Y here…”

“Adding the vertical line – it needed that…”

“I like the thought behind that…”

“It seems a little funky…”

“This is an initial look at where we’re going with the theme…”

“If we could just give a little more color and life to it…”

“I wanted this typeface to have a little more personality on this level…”

“I want to work this a little more — see if I can bring in a little more color…”

“I want to impress as much as we can…”

“I’d like to have other themes in our back pocket…”

“I would feel comfortable presenting these three just the way they are…”

“Beyond that, if you guys want to tweak and finesse, I’m all for it…”

“Perfect. Thanks guys.”

At Borshoff, we’re proud of our culture.

It’s based on mutual respect and collaboration. We expect a can-do attitude and hire only those professionals who thrive in a learning environment and are willing to go the extra mile for our clients. We think strategically, then act creatively. We work hard, demand a lot – yet provide flexibility and fun in return.

Over the years we’ve kept track of qualities that lead to success at Borshoff. And by now we have a pretty good list. We share this with our employees. We’ve begun sharing it with serious job candidates.

Not everyone is a match for Borshoff. Other work styles succeed better in other environments. What’s important is that you know the right match for your company.

Here’s our list. What’s yours?