While burning the midnight candle at BG may not be as scandalous as some agencies, taking a short break here and there does afford profound moments of reflection.

Here are three things that caught my attention. What do you think, should I flip the switch?

The envelope is the first piece that is seen and needs to compel a person to open it, yet space is so limited to convey a message other than a logo and return address. The San Diego Museum of Art Art Alive invitation envelope is a great example of keeping the branded look and feel of this years’ Art Alive, yet still meeting postal regulations. The pink area indicates the space that is off-limits for type and design.

For information and templates on envelopes, go to USPS.com. You can also find the Mailpiece Design Analyst contact information where you can send an envelope design to see if it meets mailing regulations. Do this before the job is printed and rejected by the post office. It will save you lots of time and money.

I came across an article about creative traditional advertising in AdWeek over the weekend that I thought was great. Author Katy Bachman shed light some much needed light on the groundbreaking advertising the L.A. Times debuted last Friday, in which they took the “homepage takeover” concept from web and adapted it to print.

Created to coincide with the launch of  Disney’s Alice in Wonderland, the front page of the L.A. Time’s Friday’s edition was dominated by Johnny Depp’s Mad Hatter character in 3-D.

According to Katy, this is the first time a major newspaper has run this type of ad unit. Executive Vice President and Chief Revenue Officer of the L.A. Times, John O’Loughlin, explains the move as an ‘unusual opportunity to stretch traditional boundaries and deliver innovative ad unit designed to create buzz and further extend the film’s brilliant marketing campaign’.

Though this is the first time we’ve seen a newspaper take this direction, it’s certainly will not be the last. What makes this so cool, is that for a while now, Ad agenceis have been adapting traditional advertising concepts to the online world. Now, for the first time, we are seeing the reverse take place. With the LA Times “homepage takeover” they applied the online concept of re-skinning a page and made it work in print. This is a bold step for the print advertising world that will allow them to stay relevant in these changing times. Kudos the the LA times for getting creative.

What do you think? Will we be seeing more of this in the near future?

In 2008, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences created its own YouTube Channel offering behind the scenes footage, interviews, highlights and more. So, did this help? Well according to an article in AdAge, last year’s Oscars was the among the lowest-rated broadcast in its televised history. Ouch.

One reason this might have failed is because social media is about  strategy, and not just the tools.  Anyone can throw up a Facebook Page, YoubTube Channel or Twitter handle, but without a strategy tying these to a traditional marketing campaign, you’re likely set up for failure.

Third time’s a charm, right? The Academy is back with a new social media strategy for the 2010 Oscars. A Facebook Page for the Oscars was created with shiny features like a live stream and a chat on which they streamed the nominees. Taking note of the fact that people love to guess who will take home golden statues that evening, the Academy released an iPhone app allowing fans to make their own predictions to compare against other fans.

Is this a recipe for success? We’ll find out soon enough.

This is why it’s so important to make sure your public relations campaign is complete, including not only the big time goal publications, but filling it in with the little guys as well.  Here’s an example:

Bailey Gardiner has been thrilled to begin running the public relations for the creator of gummy vitamins, Hero Nutritionals, over the past few months.  If you aren’t already familiar with Hero Nutritionals’ Yummi Bears, Yummi Bears Organics or Slice of Life, the gummy vitamin for grownups, you must give them a try.  And if you’re wondering why the ladies of BG have shinier hair, an unfathomable amount of energy and glowing skin, you can attribute that to the all-too-tasty Slice of Life!

Our goal for Hero, of course, is to go big.  We’re talking Everyday with Rachael Ray, Oprah Magazine, Shape, Good Housekeeping and the likes. So the Hero Nutritionals team has been fervently sending samples across the country to win over the writers and editors of these major publications.  Just last week Carrie and Maya spent a week in New York where they met desk side with countless editors including those at Woman’s Day, the Today Show, Family Circle, Parents and Health Magazine to share with them, face to face, information and samples of Hero Nutritionals’ products.

So in the meantime, we put forth our efforts in creating a complete public relations campaign by targeting bloggers and websites with niche audiences.  Our best luck thus far has been with the ever-popular mommy bloggers and healthy living bloggers.  Within the latter category falls the even more specialized gluten-free blogs, nut-free, vegetarian and other specialty dietary needs blogs.  With more than 14 placements over the past two months garnered by working within these niche categories, a few stand out:

On January 21st, Stephanie secured inclusion for Slice of Life in a Health.com article on vitamins you’re not getting enough of.  The following week, this article had boosted Hero’s website visitors bringing 159 visits to the site on its own, making health.com the 6th top referring site for the month of January and the 1st top referring site behind search and other Hero Nutritionals’ websites.

A giveaway in FabulousFunFinds.com led to three other postings on blogs that blog strictly about giveaways.  This placement alone, though, brought 47 visits to the site, making it the 14th top referring site for the month of January in just a matter of days.

With both of these placements hitting after January 15th, they make great examples of an often-overlooked part of a PR plan – the very short-term, long tail placements that complete a public relations campaign. We’ll waste no time while Oprah snacks on her gummy vitamin samples.  We believe that placements such as these are imperative in completing a successful public relations plan by finding those purchasers who know exactly what they’re looking for.

When working with your public relations firm of choice, I hope you’ll take these tips into consideration:

• Be sure that your timeline not only fills the team’s or consultant’s retainer fee, but results in placements when you want them (all the time or surrounding one major announcement).

• Make sure your team or consultant is reaching not only the most people they can but the most people that will convert as well.

• Allot room in your budget for social media.  This can boost the buzz surrounding your PR and fill in some of those quiet holes.

• Consider the “outdated” means of publicity as well.  Not all products’ customers are online.  Consider radio, newspaper and even….books.

• Consider more than just your primary product to get you in the news.  Is your spokesperson an expert in his/her field for bylined articles or speaking opportunities?  Do you have such passionate fans that they’ll start social media pages for you?

Do you have more suggestions to add?

From the media I have seen, Frank’s RedHot “I Put that Sh*t on Everything” is running both TV and Radio.

At the end of the day, this Frank’s RedHot Sauce Campaign makes sense because it gives their expressive audience a funny scenario they can absolutely relate to.

Most of the attendees were athletic directors and marketing professionals who represented schools like Arizona State University, North Carolina State, University of Colorado and University of Alabama. They gathered to hear the different approaches and products their colleagues are using to get more “butts in seats” at events. The most used phrase I heard throughout the conference was “perceived value of a seat.” If the perception of any given seat in a stadium or venue is high, the dollar value of that seat increases. The goal is to get people clamoring for every seat in the place, including those nose-bleeds most people don’t want to sit in (or purchase because they’re cheap). Pretty intuitive, right?

Besides the fascinating information I learned as an attendee (and the delicious In-N-Out Double Double I consumed), I also heard a lot about how these sporting venues are using (or not using) social media. Most of them have Facebook pages with a handful of fans, but they aren’t using them to full capacity- many have little engagement besides the basic score update or announcement of when the next game is being played. There was a lot of discussion about the possibility of people becoming fans to show their school and alumni spirit, but not necessarily engaging with the content. I quickly came to the conclusion that many of the people managing the social media programs for these schools aren’t giving their fans information to engage with. There is such an opportunity for them to increase an event’s perceived value through social media.

I would’ve liked to spent more time with another Double Double….I mean with each representative to discuss how their social media program could yield better results. I hope to do that in the future. In the meantime, do you follow any sports teams that are doing an exceptional job of interacting through social media?

Recently, one of our clients, Pierce Education Properties, asked us to design a print ad for their Michigan State University property, Chandler Crossings, that would run during March Madness and would focus on their spring promotion. The mandatories the creative team had were as follows:

1) Sign a lease, be entered to win free rent for a year (a $5000 value)

2) Sign a lease between March 15 – April 5 and have your $174 move-in fee waved

3) Call to action: Visit chandlercrossings.com or the downtown East Lansing lounge

4) March Madness/School Theme

The creative team came up with two different ideas for this ad and we presented both options to the client. One really focused on the “Sparty On with free rent idea” and the other focused on “the party you could throw with the $5000 you would save”. Our department was torn on which one we each liked better and which we thought they’d pick. Now, I won’t say which version the client ended up selecting but, if you had to pick the ad to run in the student newspaper and on flyers around campus, which one would you pick?

Lucky for us, Newsweek has already been ranking 500 of the biggest U.S. companies based upon their environmental impact, green policies and performance, and reputation. Yet, there are some major discrepancies between the Environmental Impact and Green Policies and Performances Scores and the Reputation Survey Score. Keep in mind that Newsweek polled CEO’s, corporate social responsibility professionals, and other environmental experts (a.k.a. people who know a lot about this) to form the Reputation Survey Score and all scores are out of 100. The Green Score, again out of 100, is a combination of the previous scores.

So, which company scored a perfect 100, A+ on the Reputation Survey Score? Good Ole Wal-Mart. Unfortunately, that was the only category they scored a perfect 100 in; their environmental Impact Score, based on things like green house gases and water use, was only a 59.2 and their Green Policies and Procedures Score, based on “a comprehensive analytical assessment of a company’s environmental policies,” was only 41.06. Even the professionals think Wal-Mart is a lot greener than it is. Perhaps commercials like this, which is dated from this January and may accurately represent a new effort, are creating and reinforcing this very positive perceived environmental impact. Overall, Wal-Mart ranked 59 and had a Green Score of 80.38.

On the flip side, Hewlett-Packard, which ranked #1 in 2009 with Green Score of 100, and Dell, who came in at a close second with a Green Score of 98.87, both had a reputation score under 90. Dell’s reputation score was only a 70.8 despite having a Green Policies and Performance Score of 100.

Green marketing is powerful stuff. Companies are successfully changing their perceived environmental impact, for better in the case Wal-Mart, and it’s a category that is only gowing to grow. Consumers who care about environmental impact need to look past the advertising to see which companies are truly green and which are just full of fluff.