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.

Recently, StruckAxiom was honored to help the Forest Park Conservancy (FPC) with an annual communications challenge.

At 5000+ Acres, Forest Park is the crown jewel of Portland’s public park system and one of the largest natural areas within the boundaries of any city in the entire world (period). The FPC protects and fosters the ecological health of this treasure. Each year the FPC, like many non-profits, publishes and distributes its annual report to donors. These reports communicate key accomplishments; demonstrate how investments from donors were put to wise use and work to create dialogue regarding financial support needed in the time ahead. This year, StruckAxiom designed the FPC report.

The Challenges

• Oftentimes annual reports are plain booklets. While such a format serves its purpose, they can easily be lost in the vast sea of other mail arriving during the busy end of year time period.
• At the same time, FPC must also be hyper conscious of being good stewards of their budget (as well as the Forest). They strive to ensure every dollar works as hard as possible to make a positive, lasting difference in the park. Therefore, some typical solutions we would have dreamed up (e.g. way cool die cuts, stylish stitching, full color ink and multiple paper types) were out the window.

The Craft

• Our design team just had to give this some world-class love in terms of image “WOW-ness”, most excellent typographical treatment, and all other elements of well-crafted design.

The Smarts

We also wanted to make it just a little greater. So, we turned the typical annual report on its head (and back) …

• We were inspired by the trails of Forest Park themselves; the discovery, fun and adventure they offer.
• This got us thinking about maps, and how fun they can be to unfold, discover and plan Forest Park adventures.
• We made the report work that way. Every fold unveils a new bit of information about the work of the conservancy and the park, and keeps readers moving through them as if navigating Forest Park’s trails themselves.
• This invites a different and more dynamic level of interaction and engagement with the material (vs. simply flipping through the pages of a book).
• The icing on the cake of sweet annual report ideas came last … our own Scott Sorenson dreamed up the idea of offering a poster designed by StruckAxiom and we worked to print it on the back side of the report. The poster features the photography of the Park itself from Bruce MacGregor.
• This not only delivers surprise and delight, it means all the valuable paper resources are reusable in an inventive and fun way (Bonus!).

We hope these efforts help make Forest Park just a little Greater Than it was before.

The poster found on the back of the report (seen here), doubles as a desktop background.

FPC is distributing an electronic version of the report as well as the background here and through their social channels (Facebook and Twitter).

If you’re inspired to do something great, please show your support by liking and following our friends at FPC … they’re awesome!

Unless you’ve been hiding in the woods (or visiting family in, say, Bakersfield) for the last few weeks, you’ve probably heard all about Louis CK’s recent, semi-revolutionary venture.

He produced a stand-up special with his own money. He posted on his own website. He charged $5 for DRM-free download. And, well, he made a ton of cash (and he’s giving a bunch of it to charity).

It’s a great approach, one enabled by his intensely loyal following and the years and years of hard work that Louis CK has put into building that following. It’s essentially a step in the same direction Radiohead took a few years back.

The approach, however, isn’t what fascinates me about the experience. It’s Louis CK’s matter-of-fact attitude about why he chose this approach. In a recent appearance on Bill Simmons’ ESPN Podcast (Listen to it HERE), Louis breaks it down quite simply:

Bill Simmons: It seems like you really wanted to cut out the middleman and create this website. Five dollars. Paypal. Stream it… What made you say that you wanted to cut out the middleman?

Louis CK: Well, I didn’t want to cut out the middleman, I just didn’t need one. You know what I mean? To me, cutting one out would be a workaround, to work around something you’re used to needing. But there wasn’t any reason to have somebody there. I just thought, ‘Make this thing and put it up.’

If you’re a middleman—a record label, a publishing giant, a tv network, a ticket seller—those words should scare you to death. And if you think you’re not a middleman, you’d better make sure. Are you just a pass-through and mark-up? Do you offer any concrete value? Are you integral to the experience? Does Louis CK need you? Because, really, Mr. CK runs this world. And if you’re a middleman, your days are numbered.

Plus, Louis CK hates Twitter:

So what clicked? Why did I suddenly make the leap and pledge some cash to THIS AWESOME PROJECT?

It’s simple. Jeremy Saxton is my friend. We used to live next door to each other. We’ve arranged a marriage between his daughter and my son (they’re nine years old, btw). And, really, that’s what made the difference. Jeremy is my friend and he’s a dreamer. He has big plans and he wants to do something great. And I’m more than happy to support that dream.

Because, after all, I’m a dreamer too. And it’s only a matter of time before I’m the one asking for a few nickels.

SHAMELESS PLUG: The ODDIO1 project has about 20 days to reach its goal. Please stop by and drop some cash in the jar.

I was recently invited to participate in a two-day networking event based on the idea that our sole purpose was to find out other participants’ needs and see what we could do to help them. Literally, the only question you had to answer before the workshop was: List 2-3 needs in order of priority.

Corporte Alliance organized this workshop and they call this philosophy, the City of Influence (read more about this at coporatealliance.net). I was struck by the simple act of it: Define your needs, share your needs, listen to others needs, try to help. As you are gathering information about others (from the personal to the professional and everything in between) you earned points redeemable for an auction. But mostly, you are experiencing the pure rush of satisfaction that comes from trying to help another human being. Not to mention, the surprising pleasure of others giving you solutions you would have never dreamed of.

Since the table was turned on me (I had to express my needs, not find out our client’s needs), I realized how difficult this simple act of expressing my own needs can be. There is a layer of guilt for most us, a little voice in us that says “I don’t want to bother others with my needs.” Or, there is the difficulty of simply knowing which of the million mundane things you need the most. And then there’s the quintessentially feminine thought “I shouldn’t have to express my needs, the other person should just know it.” This is most commonly encountered in intimate relationships but also, in my opinion, in the agency/client relationship.

Clients often tell us, “You are the expert, tell me what I need.” And we accept that proposition. We have an elaborate process to get to the core of what our clients truly need. Even if you do ask the question (in many different disguises), have you noticed how difficult it is for a client to articulate their needs? Most of us, on the agency side and on the client side, really only know what we are looking for “once we see it”.

Imagine what would happen if we both just came out with it. If we both did our homework and truly knew without a doubt what we truly need. How simple the interaction would suddenly be. The client would tell us and we’d set out to find a solution. Then they’d ask us what we need and they’d set out to fulfill our request. In this era of reduced budgets, timelines, and mindshare, the model is tantalizing. But more so, I believe it would be incredibly cathartic for the relationship. We’d both go on a soul searching journey with honesty and humility. We’d realize that we need each other in the a way we’ve never really fully appreciated. And we’d give each other the best gift: Clarity about what would make us really happy and really successful. It’s worth experimenting with. So if you’re a client reading this, I encourage you to call me and give me your wish list!

That was the epiphany I had during the workshop: By simply defining my needs, I provided my fellow participants an opportunity for meaningful gifting of their time. And that, I believe, is the best gift of all.

Jack in the Box has named StruckAxiom as their Digital Agency of Record. StruckAxiom won the business after several rounds and reviews from a long list of competitors.

Executives at Jack in the Box narrowed it down to two finalists, both of which were given a creative assignment. In the end, StruckAxiom presented ideas that impressed both Jack in the Box and their traditional agency, Secret Weapon.

“We were extremely excited to show Jack in the Box what we could do in the digital space for their brand,” said Dan Conner, CEO of StruckAxiom. “This is a huge accomplishment and honor. We are looking forward to some impressive work and a lasting relationship.”

“They came up with some things that were really relevant and really connected with the voice” of the brand, said Nick Fletcher, who manages marketing communications at Jack in the Box in SanDiego. (quote via Adweek)

StruckAxiom will primarily work with Jack in the Box out of their Portland, Oregon office, which will lead creative efforts, and Los Angeles office, which will provide account management and strategic support.

About StruckAxiom

StruckAxiom is a digital-forward, creative agency with offices in Los Angeles, New York, Portland and Salt Lake City. The world-class brands and campaigns the agency creates are known internationally for their high-design, pioneering technology and break-through creativity. Clients include Fox Picures, Nickelodeon, DreamWorks, TCBY, Mrs. Fields and The Utah Office of Tourism.

Click to see our flickr album

Being suckers for both Christmas and Children, we took a little company field trip to go see all the trees being auctioned for such good a cause. If the Griswalds were to host a Christmas tree lot, this is what it would look like. There were hundreds of spectacular trees and centerpieces packed in the South Towne Center. Most of the them are inspired by stories from children and families involved with Primary Children’s and decorated to represent each story.

Every Holiday season StruckAxiom also extends their efforts in benefiting a noteworthy cause. This year we were honored to purchase two trees and a wreath from the Festival of Trees. We hope our contribution brings the same smiles and cheer that the trees and wreath will to our office.

Believe Tree Inspired by Gracie

Merry Motorcycles- made from tires!

The Festival of Trees is over, but you can still help benefit the Primary Children’s Medical Center through several other opportunities.

Last year, we introduced ourselves to the Rosey Awards (Portland’s marquee creative showcase) with a couple of nods for our work. This year, we took home some real hardware.

The whole-agency collaboration on TCBY.com was recognized with a Rosey (only 14 were awarded this year) and we also picked up two (2!) Awards of Excellence and six (6!) Awards of Merit.

Were we humbled by the competition? Absolutely. Were we satisfied with the Korean tacos and refreshing beverages? Surely. Were we caught making ridiculous faces for the camera? Obviously.

The complete list…

Rosey
TCBY.com

Excellence
TCBY Motion Experience
BoostUp.org

Merit
StruckAxiom.com
Castor & Pollux “Food For Pets” Print Campaign
BoostUp.org Dropout Rates Interactive Map
PorscheEveryday.com
Chevy Truck Smack Mobile App
PorscheEveryday.com User Interaction