CHARLOTTE, NC – May 15, 2013 – Fortis, a national post-secondary education provider, has selected Tattoo Projects as its creative agency of record. Since opening its first campus in 2008, the network of Fortis Colleges and Institutes has grown to be one of nation’s largest educators of nurses and healthcare technicians and assistants.

Fortis offers career-based degree-granting, certificate, and diploma programs at more than 45 campuses across 15 states in such healthcare fields as nursing, medical and dental, as well as in business, information technology, cosmetology, and the skilled trades, including HVAC, electrical and welding. Fortis has significantly expanded its geographic reach and scope of programs since being established, and plans continued growth in both classroom and online education offerings.

“We spoke with several highly qualified agencies but, ultimately, Tattoo’s bold energy and familiarity with the education industry set them apart,” said William Agush, Strategic Advisor for Fortis, who conducted the agency search process.

Tattoo Projects was awarded the account after a thorough review process involving a highly competitive pool of other awarded creative agencies. “We selected Tattoo Projects for their strategic thinking and risk-taking creative attitude that has proven to produce results,” said Bob Visco, Corporate Marketing Director for Fortis.

The agency’s first task will be to develop a fully integrated branding campaign, including TV for Fortis’ core educational programs, to support local campus marketing and lead generation efforts for its colleges and institutes.

Media planning and buying will be managed by Harmelin Media, a Philadelphia-based strategic media company with more than 30 years of experience and a diverse client roster, including Fortune 500 companies.

“We are excited to be partnering with Fortis to expand their brand and market share in the nursing and healthcare education,” said Tattoo Executive Creative Directors Rudy Banny and Buffy McCoy Kelly. “We have built a reputation for developing stand-out campaigns for higher education institutions, including UNC Charlotte and Temple University. We’re looking forward to bringing that same energy to Fortis’ marketing efforts.”

If you think back to last October, we were pumped that our content and social media strategy work helped Sheetz hit the milestone of 500,000 fans on Facebook. That was a big deal and marked a 312% increase in just one year’s time since our Charlotte advertising agency came on board as Sheetz’s social media partner. Since then, our social media efforts for Sheetz have been generating some buzz and won a few industry awards.

We didn’t waste any time acquiring the next 500,000 fans. Last week, the Sheetz Facebook page hit the coveted landmark of 1 million fans. To celebrate, Sheetz kicked off a weeklong celebration including a ton of giveaways, special t-shirts for employees to rock, and a thank you message delivered by Stan Sheetz himself.

1 million fans is a huge milestone for the Sheetz brand and is a testament to the payoffs of a sound social strategy mixed with creative thinking. Having that many brand advocates in one centralized channel is a powerful marketing device. It’s been a fun ride helping to grow Sheetz’s social presence and drive sales through digital networks.

2 million fans — we’re coming for you.

Last year, our “Just Cuz” campaign for Sheetz did its job in proving to 16-24 year old males in North Carolina that you can get awesome food from a place with gas pumps. All the egg laying and beard growing paid off big time for the brand, and contributed to a 6.1% increase of same store food and beverage sales during the campaign.

Our Charlotte ad agency’s campaign was picked up by several industry publications, won an ADDY award, and now we’ve got some more gold to show for it. “Just Cuz” recently brought home a Gold Communicator Award in the category of marketing effectiveness. Marketing effectiveness is always our top priority for all of the brands we work with, but it doesn’t hurt when an outside party recognizes that as well.

The Communicator Awards are judged by The International Academy of Visual Arts and recognize big ideas in marketing and communications. “Jus Cuz” competed alongside other submissions from national and global brands including Red Bull, Home Depot, UFC, Country Music Television.

Is it a touchscreen? Or is it a magic device that gets you great restaurant-quality food? The answer is yes! Step up to the Sheetz touchscreen, and you may happily just get more than you bargained for. Place your order, and instead of convenience store food – you’ll get transported to a restaurant-quality, made-to-order food experience.

Our Charlotte advertising agency’s new integrated marketing campaign for Sheetz celebrates this unique offering by showcasing customers who place their Sheetz food order and then, POOF!, find themselves transported to restaurant-quality fare. And great food is something anybody can appreciate –(spoiler alert) – even a Yeti.

This new effort serves as the follow-up to Sheetz’s 2012 “Just Cuz” campaign, which challenged the Millennial audience to consider Sheetz as a restaurant, even though it doesn’t quite look like one. Both campaigns are manifestations of an overarching marketing strategy, designed to shift the perception of Sheetz from a traditional convenience store to a viable restaurant choice. Ongoing creative efforts will demonstrate that not only can you get killer food from a place with gas pumps, but you also can have it just the way you want it, 24/7.

The two hero TV spots are set to break this week, with other campaign elements including radio, digital, outdoor, and in-store elements supporting throughout the coming months.

Touch the screen, get the awesome food. Check out the spots and let us know what you think!

At our Charlotte ad agency, you can usually find Andrew Male with his headphones on, zoned in on writing lines of code and consuming sugary substances (insert web developer stereotype joke here). As our Lead Developer, Andrew works to build digital projects for our clients from the backend and frontend.

Andrew didn’t waste anytime getting started setting the foundation for his career in web development. While other kids were trying to figure out how they could con their parents into buying them the latest video game, Andrew was already thinking about how he could build them.

His interest in web and video game development kicked off at age nine, when he started breaking and repairing those old school RadioShack computers. Soon after, he began working on building a Multi-User Dungeon game for fun (that’s a text-based online role playing game for those of us not fluent in gamer geek lingo). Years later, Andy would spend his free time in the VirtuSphere, a giant, spherical virtual reality device. While dabbling in the sphere, Andy worked to integrate this technology with a video game development engine. Think Dave & Busters on steroids.

When asked to share his expertise in game development with the future class of programmers, Andrew jumped right on it. In Pennsylvania, Andrew served as the programming instructor for Harrisburg University’s Summer Game Academy, where he taught 2-week hands-on courses in creating video games for high school students.

Digging into video game development and education outside the office keeps Andrew on top of his game and helps bring a fresh perspective to client projects. We live in a competitive world. People love competition, and bringing a game-based approach to digital advertising is often a key to engaging brands with their fans. Andrew’s gamified solutions have helped take our ideas for clients from scribbles on a whiteboard to functional digital projects.

Just don’t be surprised when you see the next PC video game blockbuster with his name in the credits. Energy drinks and an in-depth knowledge of physics algorithms are a lethal combo.

Since 2008, our Charlotte ad agency has partnered with UNC Charlotte on a variety of projects across departments within the University. The “Stake Your Claim” brand campaign we developed and launched for UNC Charlotte in 2009 remains an integral part of the University’s culture and messaging.

Recently, we had the opportunity to work with the Graduate School at UNC Charlotte. With graduate school competition heating up locally, UNC Charlotte came to us to create a campaign that would highlight their exceptional graduate offerings and incredible innovation that is taking place on campus.

Research showed that the top reason a student chooses a graduate school is based on the professors and instructors there. This was great news, as the world-class faculty and staff at UNC Charlotte all come from impressive backgrounds.

Keeping this in mind, we created the “Even Higher Education” campaign for the Graduate School. The campaign serves to showcase UNC Charlotte’s vast graduate offerings and great leadership through print, digital, and outdoor elements.

The Charlotte crown is a very recognizable symbol for this city and school, and bringing this imagery into the campaign for a University with dignified credentials was a natural fit.

If you’re in the Charlotte area, be on the lookout for our work!

When our employees leave the office for the day, the creative thinking doesn’t shut down. Sometimes you’ll find our Videographer on stage at a comedy club, or our Senior AE sharing her passion for volunteering.

Our writers might take a break from ideating ad campaigns, but they don’t stop writing when the lights go off. Our Charlotte ad agency copywriter, Alex Trevisan, recently published a children’s book that is now for sale!

The book is titled Where The Wild Things Aren’t and is meant to help children conquer their fears. Kids don’t want to know where wild things ARE. Those things are scary. They want to discover that situations they once feared are in fact nothing to worry about.

Where The Wild Things Aren’t is written in a series of rhymes and focuses on revealing the truth about scary situations children encounter: monsters under the bed, an eerie, dark basement, etc. Often our imagination causes us to worry about frightening scenarios that are actually quite the opposite.

Even though the story is written on a level that a first grader could read, it is also a welcome reminder for all of us. As children, we’re put into situations that cause us to be afraid. As adults, we are often put into similar situations, only now we call it stress.

Maybe it’s a seemingly impossible project and deadline at work. Initially, we freak out, but after digging in we realize we are all professionals and have a killer team that can knock this out of the park. In the end, we discover our initial fears were in fact nothing worth worrying over.

Where The Wild Things Aren’t is currently for sale on Amazon and will be coming soon to Barnes and Noble’s online store. Check it out and buy one for all the kids in your life (or the non-kids that could benefit from worrying a bit less).

Then take some time this week to identify some of the wild things in your life. Are they as scary as your imagination has made them out to be? Likely not. Think back to when you first realized your bad guy filled basement was actually pretty cool and a perfect floor hockey arena. We can all learn a lot from kids.

A few minutes down the road from our Charlotte ad agency is the nation’s largest supplier of sports supplements, Europa Sports Products. Several months ago, we teamed up with Europa to take on marketing projects for the brand.

Our first task was to create a flagship branded collateral piece for Europa that would capture the essence of the company to share with potential clients. After learning more about the brand, we discovered that their employees all practice what they preach. From fitness models to former professional athletes, Europa employees each live out their passion for health and fitness daily. That’s not something you find often and stuck out to us right away as being unique.

Our creative for the project took on the “Get In Our Game” theme and paralleled the athletic traits found in Europa employees with core competencies for the company. With paired this with kick ass shots (thanks to Deuce Pictures) of athletes doing their thing throughout the Europa office and warehouse. It’s not everyday we get to shoot a fitness model doing a pull up from a warehouse ceiling.

We’ve been doing this advertising thing for a long time. Aside from a couple decades’ worth of creative ideas and campaigns, we’ve also collected a good bit of advice and tips on how to be successful in this crazy industry.

When our latest internship period began, we wanted to equip our new Charlotte ad agency interns with some of this wisdom. Since rearranging our shop around a little bit, we also had a chalkboard wall that was looking a bit bare. So we gave our interns some chalk and let them bring their creative vision to some of the knowledge that we’ve collectively built up.

This resulted in an awesome video that we can use to welcome future newbies into agency life. Check out our tattoo cents:

Kevin Mabey burst into our Charlotte ad agency several months ago with the beginnings of a killer book and a desire to prove himself through our internship program. And he did just that.

After completing an internship at Tattoo Projects and demonstrating his art direction and leadership ability, we knew we had to keep Kevin around. We now welcome Kevin to the team full-time as a Junior Art Director.

Originally from North Jersey, Kevin graduated from Coastal Carolina University with a degree in Graphic Design. He began school as an Architecture major, and his design is often influenced by the structure and precision he picked up through those classes. Kevin enjoys working through every aspect of the creative process and brings a high level of thought to his work. We’re definitely on board with that.

Kevin has crushed every project we’ve put him on as an intern and endured the many “maybe” puns we’ve thrown at him. We look forward to seeing him continue to grow and keep producing results-driven work for our clients.