The documentary explores how creativity and curiosity brought to life one of the most fantastic retail experiences at The Grand America Hotel.

There were tons of craftsmen behind this project. Here’s a list of all who helped make JouJou happen:

Watts Architects - ARCHITECTURAL SERVICES

Plastik Banana - FLYING MACHINES, SPINNING BALLS & CONES, LIGHTNING BOLTS, DRAGON & STOREFRONT SIGN

Christopher DeMuri - ROBOT & PAPER WATERFALL

Craftsman Kitchens – CANDY ORGAN & GAME LORE WALL

Chase Studio - DRESSING ROOM ANIMALS

Joanie Hartman - EAST WINDOW DISPLAYS

Créations Didier Legros - KINETIC SCULPTURE

Lab Partners – ILLUSTRATION

The Second Artist - MONSTERPIECE THEATRE FRAMES

MONSTERPIECE THEATRE MONSTERS - Jon Minori - WeLikeSmall - Plenty

Well. I finally saw The Pitch last night and I (like some others) feel compelled to post some thoughts. So, here we go. Apart from the show’s obvious editing-for-dramatic-effect, there were more than a few realities in AMC’s latest reality show.

Reality 1: Of the two agencies enlisted for this showdown, one had an original concept that, though slightly uncomfortable, was probably right for the target audience. The other didn’t have much. Just an “inspired-by” idea and presentational—yeah, I’m just gonna say it—gimmick.

Reality 2: *SPOILER ALERT* The client, for an unseen/unexplained reason, chose the agency with the unoriginal concept.

Reality 3: I wasn’t surprised. As the new biz guy here at Struck, I’ve heard these exact words: “You won the pitch, but we’re giving the business to someone else. We’re too chicken to go with your idea.” As we saw in full living color, the better concept isn’t always the winner.

Reality 4: I’m grateful to have clients who *get it* and who have recognized cool, original ideas from the moment they were pitched. And I’m thankful that I work for an agency that really puts things like smarts, guts, craft, openness and solidarity in the forefront.

Will I watch The Pitch again? Probably. I’ll be taking plenty of mental notes, recognizing the realities… and praying that not every episode ends with agencies presenting snoozer TV spots.

Long before any code is written, any logo is designed or any story board drawn our creative compasses need to be set to true north with a sound strategy. Understanding people and how they interact with the world is what keeps us and our work relevant and effective in the industry.

David Droga, creative chairman at Droga5 commented, “The average consumer doesn’t want to be advertised to. We have to earn it. So there’s a lot more thinking into the strategy of how we advertise, when we advertise and when we don’t.” (Creativity)

His point is, if an ad runs in the world and no one wants to listen to it, did it make any sound at all? Strategy leads us to the unique insights that help us decide if your audience needs an app, or if it’s smarter to create a mobile website. Will your audience really scan QR codes or is a location-based service better? There is a big difference between creating an experience people can have and one they want to have because they truly need it or connect with it.

It’s no secret that social and mobile technologies are critical to effectively interacting with today’s consumers. Again, we need to earn their attention, not interrupt it—especially because everyone is creating content these days. The social world is a place where everyone is invited to create something then share it. Technology continues to become more affordable and more attainable which means more people are using the same equipment we use. So how can we make sure we are creating and delivering messages that will break through? With strategy.

Strategic thinking will filter out great creative from the bad. It always has. We cannot solely depend on throwing something out in the world just because the technology exists to do so. The core of brand strategy lies in how we align the needs of our consumer to what our brand offers. And with today’s technology that means strategic planning should be an on-going process.

We used to think of it as: Brand Planning, The Creative Process, Execute. Then after 6 months we’d re-evaluate. With so many compressed creative channels and immediate feedback we find ourselves in a constant cycle with strategy as the driving force. Campaigns that consistently follow and update their insight will produce award-winning creative and drive results that make clients sing.

All of Struck’s best creative has been based on consumer insight. We’ve been fortunate to grow as an agency despite a struggling economy. Our work load is increasing and our goals are set high. So instead of hiring more creative talents we first hired a new Director of Strategy and recommitted ourselves to what makes “Greater Than” work. Watch for more posts on our strategic process by our very own Jennifer Hughes who brings over 20 years of experience including work with 3M and McCann Erickson.

We can still be in the Golden Age of advertising if connecting with our consumer is still our main priority.

If a studio set can have this much impact on me as a viewer, hundreds of miles away, imagine how much stronger retail locations could connect with their consumers if their location were designed specifically around this appreciation between space, brand and product.

Understanding how the context of your brand defines the physical space is key in the consumer experience and is revolutionizing consumer engagement on-site. These days brands are obviously focusing on their interactive engagements with their consumers through websites, apps and games. There’s still an incredibly strong opportunity to connect with your consumer through your location. The on-site brand experience can be as impactful and beautiful as its digital counterparts.

It’s no coincidence that the brands who use their location to extend their voice are the most effective in their space. An obvious example is of course Apple. Apple Stores are simple, open, functional and friendly. The store is the product, manifested by simplified design while forward-facing and engaging in its function. You needn’t be a brand phenomenon to make your space equally as powerful and impressionable, but you do need to be thoughtful from the start.

A brand is not a liquid that takes the shape of its container. The brand’s location is more than an address—it’s where the story lives and breathes.

Don’t let your brand, or the product, fall flat at its location. It’s more important than ever to connect people to your brand in its space and in their minds. As we designed the JouJou toy store in The Grand America Hotel, we built it to be discovered and explored by our guests. We filled it with color and imagination so each visitor would see something new everywhere they looked.

We created interactive installations, custom sculptures and unique musical experiences inviting them to uncover what else the store could do. In the end, people just felt happy being there. They weren’t in a store, they were in JouJou—a place they had been so many times in their imagination. And all the products inside were an extension of that same desire to play, which they could take home and relive.

Brands that learn to create an environment as unique and as custom as their product will find a surge of consumer involvement and a lasting brand following. So ask yourself, is my company a product with a space? Or is it a brand with an experience?

Everyone’s heard the phrase “Creative is King.” We’re seeing more and more that great brands expect that great creative is a given and in 2012 I suspect that content will actually be the new royalty, especially within social spheres. Thanks to technology like Pinterest and Flipboard, brands need to start thinking like publishers and create quality, original content—images, videos and thoughts—to feed thirsty social sharers.

I love how the Gap, whose branding drama we all watched with bated breath not too long ago, is now taking their fashion photography and consciously making it socially-mobile, well-branded content. Their latest site by AKQA called Styld-by builds Pinterest’s pinmarklet functionality right into each and every piece of content right along with other sharing avenues.

One of our own clients, an energy gel brand we recently developed for a start up called GungHo, is also launching a new promotion leveraging Pinterest. By embedding the pinmarklet directly into their content, they’ll send free samples of their product to anyone who pins their video via the GungHo site. Sure this is an incentive for sharing, but it was also important to GungHo to have funny, relevant content that’s worth sharing in the first place.

We’re currently advising our own clients to begin being way more open about what inspires them. We recommend highlighting what their own employees geek-out about and Pinterest is an excellent way to do just that. With this in mind and since openness is one of our brand pillars, we’re going to put our money where our mouth is and begin highlighting what inspires our team. From design to decor, from fashion to food—we’re going to start repinning our team’s inspiration. So check it out and enjoy at: pinterest.com/struckinc.

The bottom-line is this: the power of Pinterest can allow your business to tap into fresh audiences who crave great content and provide a new window into your company’s culture, people and brand.

Yep, I said it. Struck makes them. In fact, we’ve made ridiculously good ones, like here and here. So why would we suggest cutting off a potential business opportunity? Because there is a glut; there are too many bad ones and most seem to be the result of some terrible decisions.

Am I nuts? Likely. But before we jump into a medical diagnosis, indulge me a few questions. How many screens of apps do you currently have on your smart device at this very minute (self-disclosure, I have five)? And how many folders do you have on those screens? Even if you keep it pretty pared down, it’s likely you have over 20 apps at any given time. And if you’re the average iPhone user, that number can be as high as 37.

Now, how many do you use those apps every day? Every week? According to a study by Localytics, 26% of all apps downloaded were used just once. And even once an app is downloaded, regular usage isn’t guaranteed. In fact, 68% of all smartphone users will open five or fewer apps more than one time a week.

Yet, download statistics are consistently flaunted as a measure of the effectiveness of apps. It’s a complete fallacy. Given the stats above, the focus should be on actual engagement stats. Unfortunately, those numbers aren’t nearly as impressive. Couple that with the sheer saturation of apps in both iTunes and the Android App Store and it’s only getting more and more difficult for any brand’s app to breakthrough without significant investment. Which begs the question: Is there an alternative?

First, we should define the main benefits to an app experience; push notification, location tracking and (for now) camera integration. For retail brands, push and GPS are enticing tools and are likely leading brand managers to make the decision to create apps. Of course, these functions are largely predicated on users granting that access. And if they don’t? Well, you’ve just spent 6 figures (most likely) on what really amounts to an additional web presence that will need to be updated independently from your existing sites.

So what should brands do?

1) Objectively evaluate the customer need you’re trying to address. There is a dangerous corporate mantra that sounds suspiciously like “we need an app.” Ignore it. Dismiss it, at least until you can do some honest thinking and confirm a realistic customer need.

2) If you do find a perceived need, decide if the benefits of an app marry up with your customers’ habits. Will your customers enjoy hearing from you given their physical location or with ongoing push notifications? A good way to gauge that may be to see what kind of response and interaction you get in your other digital engagements (email campaigns, SMS, social media, etc.).

If you conclude an app is absolutely necessary, please make sure your idea falls into one of two categories: Entertainment or Utility. Customers won’t be interested in any other type of app coming from a brand. For sheer (yet on-brand) entertainment, consider the knot-tying app from Columbia Sportswear or the Sealy In Bed Tagger. For utility, Starbucks has perfected how their app meets their customers needs. But please, don’t try to do both at the same time. You will fail.

If I haven’t dissuaded you yet, consider this: Maybe what you need for your mobile customers isn’t an app but a mobile-optimized site. With advances in HTML-5, it’s getting easier and easier to create app-like experiences. Enter shameless plug here: Our recent work for a Jack in the Box microsite is a great example. It features entertaining experiences that take advantage of the touch-screen interfaces but housed in a site that circumvents all the challenges of creating an app.

So the next time you hear that dreaded 3-letter word being thrown around in your boardroom– Fight it.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to play one of the 3 versions of Angry Birds on my phone.

Why are we so excited? For us the name StruckAxiom was a great way of honoring the legacy of two great companies: Struck Creative and Axiom Design Collaborative. Now, more than ever before, is a moment for us to look forward. And Struck’s future is bright. We’re moving forward with a simplified name and a simplified mission: Struck is a digital-forward creative agency making brands greater than.

Our team has never been both this unified and this diverse all at once. Our amazing graphic designers, interactive designers, developers, art directors, copywriters, producers and account directors have recently been joined by a slew of new faces. These new additions include brand and digital strategists as well as information architects and quality assurance experts. Struck continues to grow in a way to support all of its ‘greater than’ clients.

So, if you’re keeping track at home, here’s how our history breaks down:

1995 – Axiom Design Collaborative is founded in LA
1996 – Axiom expands its operation to SLC

2003 – Struck Design starts up in SLC
2006 – Struck Design merges with W Communications as Struck Creative
2008 – Heightened flannel and plaid quotients as Struck Creative opens its PDX office

2009 – Struck Creative and Axiom join forces as StruckAxiom with offices in LA, SLC and PDX
2010 – StruckAxiom gets new digs in NYC

2012 – Still making memories simply as Struck in LA, SLC, PDX and NYC

Even if you don’t have questions about all of this, we’re going to answer them. Let’s get to it.

Where are all the octopods?
They’re still around. Just a little bit sneakier. You might find more than a few octopod posters on our walls and you may even spot a few eight-legged business cards from time to time (snag ‘em, they’re collectors’ items!).

Are you going to change your name again?
In a word, no. We’re anxious and excited to be moving forward simply as Struck.

What’s next for Struck?
Lots more ‘greater than’ work for some seriously ‘greater than’ clients.

I’ve always been drawn to stories, and I’m noticing a clear trend right now toward longer-form and more literal storytelling in all forms of advertising. What do I mean by “story?” Conversational language, a sequential unfolding of events, raising a question and then answering it in an unexpected way.

Video lends itself naturally to a narrative approach, especially with the enhanced capabilities of new media. Storytelling in advertising is nothing new, and even branded webisodes have existed since at least 2002 with BMW’s seminal internet film series The Hire.  But even more now, we’re seeing an explosion of narrative, with companies of all kinds embracing story-driven content in the form of TV commercials, branded films, online photo essays and viral videos. A far cry from Love’s Baby Soft, luxury perfumer Dior recently harnessed the power of story with a series of online branded mini-films helmed by big name Hollywood directors and stars, like the David Lynch-directed Lady Blue Shanghai starring Marion Cottilard and the Guy Ritchie-directed Un Rendez Vous, featuring Jude Law.

One of the most evocative television commercials from the past year is the two-minute Chrysler ad from the 2011 Super Bowl. The ad, which stars Eminem, deserves all its hype and its Emmy for telling a story of rebirth and renewal that transcends Detroit.

J. Crew has embraced narrative, too, with catalog advertising that highlights real little moments in the life of its creative director, Jenna Lyons, as well as a a series of behind-the-scenes videos that highlight the making of J.Crew products in Italy.

Pottery Barn’s hipper sister, West Elm, rolled out one of the year’s clearest examples of narrative advertising in this catalog intro. The inside cover and the following page are dedicated to a detailed first-person story about a four-year old and a dog wreaking havoc on a living room, ultimately resulting in the purchase of new slipcovers and a feeling of triumph in the narrator mom.

So what makes a story stick? The best stories combine an anecdote with a moment of reflection. Ira Glass, host of NPR’s This American Life, says anecdote is so powerful because “you can feel through its form [that it’s] inherently like being on a train that has a destination…and that you’re going to find something.” Simply relating a sequence of events is not enough, though. In order for the message to hit home, brands need to wrap up their anecdotes by explaining what it all means and why we should care.

Whether or not Audi was the first to use the hashtag as part of their campaign, Twitter has quickly become a favored place for brands to participate in (and create) conversation.

Hashtag have since emerged in print ads, TV spots, viral spots and hung out in the corners of your favorite television programs. Twitter is where conversation is happening and  brands want more than ever to influence what you talk about.

People have always loved talking about their shows. “Did you see _____ last night?” That blank can be filled with anything from football games, to presidential debates, to guilty-pleasure reality shows (you totally watched Daisy of Love). Networks now invite you to continue talking about these shows as you normally would, just with the addition of a friendly little #. Shows like The X Factor let you vote through Twitter and news stations are even sharing your tweets on air. What’s more intriguing than social-TV however, is how brands are engaging consumers to create conversations influenced around their ad campaign.

The advertising hay-day of the Superbowl was a time we sat down and wanted to watch commercials then talked about them for days. As agencies created sharable content we even began to replace the “did you watch this show” with “check out this commercial!” But simply seeing their spot and remembering it isn’t what brands want these days. They want to connect you with their brand and to drive the topics of conversation you have online.

Dr. Pepper ran a new spot during the 2012 BCS National Championship game with the hashtag #Ima (I’m a). Their spot shows how one-of-a-kind Dr. Pepper supposedly is. Instead of being content with a million YouTube views and sharing the video to your followers, they would rather you tweet about what makes you one-of-a-kind.

Gatorade likewise wants to know your stories. They spent a good amount of money letting you know that you need to boost, refuel and recover. Now they want your experiences with #winfromwithin. Whatever it may be (even if it isn’t hydration related) Gatorade wants to hear it. Several other brands are claiming conversations with hashtags and asking you to speak. But why? Social Influence and the ROI around these campaigns are still very difficult to track and measure. The hashtag provides a way to score some good hard facts that translate into pretty graphs and data. But the smarter brands know the hashtag is more than a measurement, it’s a way for their fans to be heard.

Isn’t that why we tweet, share and post? Because we hope someone is listening? Because we want to be retweeted by Conan, or followed by Ellen or go viral? We want to become the #eggmcmuffin of Social Media even if it’s just for a second. Though virtual, social media is still about people communicating and connecting with other people. In such a crowded and noisy realm, brands fulfill a basic human need when they invite you to their conversation and ask you to be its content.

Of course, opening these doors to the masses has its risks and requires careful consideration. McDonald’s experienced a recent social back-fire when their #McDStories campaign (which they payed to promote) was hijacked by negative tweets rather than positive ones, which ultimately forced McDonald’s to abandon that campaign:

“Ate a McFish and vomited 1 hour later….The last time I got McDonalds was seriously 18 years ago in college. #McDStories”

“These #McDStories never get old, kinda like a box of McDonald’s 10 piece Chicken McNuggets left in the sun for a week.”

Brands will continue to seek better ways to engage with their audience and technology will certainly change this interaction. But until then, #whatsyourhashtag?

Welcome to 2012: The year of Tangerine Tango. Or so says Pantone, who has been releasing a “color of the year” since 2000. According to Pantone, Tangerine Tango “provides the energy boost we need to recharge and move forward”.

Leatrice Eiseman, Executive Director of the Pantone Color Institute, elaborates: “Sophisticated…dramatic and seductive, Tangerine Tango is an orange with a lot of depth to it. Reminiscent of the radiant shadings of a sunset, (it) marries the vivaciousness of red with the friendliness and warmth of yellow to form a high-visibility, magnetic hue that emanates heat and energy.”

For seasoned color watchers, the revelation of the color of the year is as suspenseful as finding out who won the Oscar for Best Picture in, say, 2009. After all, Pantone does not select a color at random. Instead, they hone in on the trendiest color — a color whose ascendance began long before Pantone’s coronation.

Indeed, tangerine first began showing up on fashion runways, ultimately becoming a major story during Fahion Week 2011 (Spring 2012 preview shows). The shade was especially prevalent in the Tommy Hilfiger, Elie Tahari, Adreinne Vittadini and Shaun Kearney collections. Cosmetics followed suit, and soon interior designers began incorporating the color to provide high-impact moments of color in otherwise uniform spaces, or bursts of energy in unexpected places.

Because we deal with clients who need to be ahead of the color curve, color trends are something we follow habitually. In fact, we often work on projects that require us to project what trends will ignite a year or two in the future, when a product in development will first hit the shelves, or a store in the conceptual phase will first open its doors. So we are old friends with Tangerine Tango and its ilk.

But even if the announcement from Pantone does not inform our current slate of projects, the color of the year remains relevant for a number of reasons. First, it is the go-to color for items with limited shelf life: trendy clothes, throw pillows, party decor and, perhaps, brand identities for macaroon shops. Likewise, the color will continue to trickle down to the mass market, meaning 2013 will see it’s share of Tangerine Tango on a wide array of goods.

So while designers are at work creating the next trend, for all you whose favorite crayon has always been “red orange”: Your time has come.