Here’s a script of the skit:

Welcome aboard and thanks for flying Hummingbird Creative Group FLIGHT 15.

 

Since 1995, Hummingbird has been committed to helping brands take flight, so it’s important for you to pay close attention even if you are a frequent flyer.

 

All carry on items including old collateral that does not reflect your brand should be stored securely in an overhead bin, or better yet, thrown out the emergency exit at your earliest convenience.

 

Once airborne, crew members will share some tips on building a better brand. Please note that some items such as ineffective messaging may not be used in flight at any time.

 

If you’re experiencing a brand emergency, please ask a crew member to review branding processes with you.

 

If you are unable or prefer not to perform marketing functions, Hummingbird’s crew will be happy to serve as your outsourced branding department.

 

As we leave the gate, make sure your seatbelt is fastened. To fasten, insert the metal tip into the buckle and adjust the strap so it’s low and tight across your lap. You should keep your seatbelt fastened during flight as you are sure to experience a brain storm.

 

For everyone’s safety, branding regulations require all passengers to comply with any crew member instructions.

 

Inconsistent graphics are not allowed on FLIGHT 15, and federal law prohibits tampering with or destroying brand standards.

 

Please take a moment to find your baggage claim ticket, and remember we’ll be drawing the baggage claim numbers for door prizes throughout the flight.

 

After 15 years, it’s unlikely, but if you don’t currently work with Hummingbird, the panel above your seat will open revealing oxygen masks. If this happens, reach up and pull a mask toward you until the tube is fully extended. Place the mask over your nose and mouth, slip the elastic strap over your head and adjust the mask if necessary.

 

Breathe normally and know that Hummingbird can help. Be sure to adjust your own mask before helping others.

 

Now, before we take off, be sure your seatbacks and tray tables are in an upright and locked position and all carry on items are properly stowed.

 

As we come through the cabin for our final brand safety check, please let us know if you have any questions.

 

And finally, now would be a good time for everyone to review the food and beverage offerings from Rocky Top Catering.

 

Thanks for your attention. Enjoy Hummingbird Creative Group FLIGHT 15!

You see, the only way that we can setup or edit one of our client’s LinkedIn profiles is to be listed with a title with their company and have an email address at their URL.

I’m very excited about our new offerings such as this! In the past 6 months, we’ve setup a majority of our clients with their own company pages on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn and helped them grow their follower base on each. Some examples include Stockton Graham & Co., CoffeeshopDepot, Southeastern Emergency Equipment, Pennington Law Firm, Medical Business Associates, Raleigh Radiology and Progressive Benefit Solutions. 

Social media is giving our clients a way to create a community for their customers and better communicate their news, events, promotions and announcements!

2. Revisit your mission and vision, and update your marketing materials to reflect current trends, best practices and delivery options. Don’t let the information get stale.

3. Focus on your core values and competitive advantages in advertising messages.

4. Dimensional mail averages the highest overall response rate of any direct response medium. When combined with a strategic sales plan to a targeted prospect list and the right message, we’ve seen response rates over 10%.

5. Build your brand from the inside out  – communicate with your employees so they can help market you.

6. Build credibility and exposure with a strategic public relations plan including frequent press releases and active participation in sponsorships, speaking engagements and hosted events.

7. Develop a promotional product plan to support events and drive effective sales enablement campaigns.

8. Gain new customers and reduce advertising costs with effective SEO and Social Media initiatives – This is also a “Green Marketing Strategy.” Integrated online marketing initiatives can help you give clients a sense of community and build emotional connection with existing customers, boost credibility and increase sales.

9. Don’t put branding on hold – stay top-of-mind, or you may lose customers during a critical buying time. A company that maintains a consistent brand in tough times will be recognized and remembered when things turn around.

10. Consistency of message is key. When you are tiring of your brand, others are just beginning to recognize and remember it!

In 1995, I walked into a Cary Chamber of Commerce expo where I signed our first clients: Mike Anderson of Advent Screenprinting, Ken Pasfield of Carolina Job Finder and Michael Currin of Greenscape/Franklin Hill Farms. They needed some typesetting, logo design work and tshirt graphics, and I was eager to jump in and learn my way. I will forever be thankful to these three clients/mentors/friends, and all the rest who have followed them. Read more history

What started as a boutique graphic design studio in my condo here in Cary is now an award-winning, full-service branding firm serving SMBs with annual revenues as high as $27 million and average annual marketing budgets exceeding $150,000! We are committed to our clients’ success and our core values of creativity, respect, expertise, reward and service.

It’s been quite a ride so far, and I’m so excited to celebrate 15 years of success for Hummingbird Creative Group in 2010. Join us for our FLIGHT 15 Celebration on May 20, 2010 at the Hummingbird office - find details and RSVP at http://flight15.eventbrite.com/.

Here’s to many more years of helping brands take flight and SOAR!

• the need for well planned promotional programs
• the importance of incorporating our competitive advantages and other sales messages into promotional initiatives
• planning fun tradeshow promotions that are memorable and drive traffic to your booth
• using 3-dimensional mail pieces to make an impact and drive sales
• using promotional products to create themed events that attendees will remember
• sales follow-up tools that make an impact
• marketing your promotions and events online through social networking, email marketing and other online marketing outlets

Friday, April 9, 2010

11:30 – 1:30

Michael Dean’s Seafood Grill

6004 Falls of Neuse Road

Raleigh, NC 27609

919-850-2340

Cost is $25 per person and includes lunch - Register Now at http://springinyourbrand.eventbrite.com/ or by calling 919-854-9100 ext. 304 

·  Minimum of 3 years experience at an advertising agency or marketing communications company

·  Creative experience on notable brand accounts preferred (copywriting , production art, graphic design, art direction or strategic planning)

·  Strong writing/spelling/grammar skills and knowledge of AP Style required

·  Social Media knowledge/skills required

·  Creative writing skills preferred (ad copy, headline development)

·  Must be organized/have strong multi-tasking and administrative skills

If you or someone you know fits this criteria, is a self starter and looking to make a difference, please respond to Cindy@FiveStarStaffing.com.   Please do not contact Hummingbird Creative Group directly. 

Lucky’s Pot of LEADS: Sales & Marketing Shouldn’t Be All About Luck!!

In conjunction with Business Club America and Randolph Sterling, Inc., Hummingbird Creative Group invites you to the second of a series of 9 roundtable events in 2010 to celebrate Hummingbird’s 15th Anniversary.

Friday, March 12, 2010 from 11:30am - 1:00pm at 1705 Prime, join industry expert panelists:
Wendy Coulter, President, Hummingbird Creative Group, Inc.
Rich Burghgraef, President - Randolph Sterling, Inc.
Sherry Mitchell, Director Brand Strategies, Hummingbird Creative Group, Inc.

The trio will address the differences between sales and marketing, as well as how they must support one another for either to be successful. Discover how to better qualify sales prospects through understanding why your current customers buy from you and using that information to build marketing messages that can help you sell! You will learn about:

~ the need for structured communication between your sales and marketing teams
~ the importance of knowing your competitive advantages
~ new online resources and opportunities to find and foster leads and fill your sales funnel
~ how selling is best done by asking questions, not selling what you have
~ budgeting for both sales and marketing, not one or the other, to reach your growth goals
~ qualifying leads to find more of the business you want through your sales and marketing efforts
~ using unique sales enablement tools to build brand awareness

1705 Prime
1705 E. Millbrook Rd.
Raleigh, NC 27609
919-850-2340

Cost is $25 per person and includes lunch

Order tickets via Eventbrite by Monday, March 8th: http://luckyleads-efbevent.eventbrite.com
or call 919-854-9100 ext. 304

We’ll hold the first one tomorrow at 1705 Prime - it’s entitled The LOVE Triangle of Printing and is co-hosted by BCA Member, Laser Image Corporate Printing.

Next month’s event will be held on Friday, March 12, 2010 at 1705 Prime in Raleigh, NC. Co-hosted by Randolph Sterling, attendees will learn how sales & marketing must support one another for either to be successful.

Here are more details about the series:
Keeping your Brand fresh, consistent and exposed takes careful planning and strategic execution. Find out how the right tactics can help increase customer awareness and build your bottom line!

Currently planned topics include:
Looking Good in Print: It’s not all black & white, and red isn’t always red
Sales and Marketing Go Hand in Hand
Making the Most of Local Print Advertising
Great Photography Can Help You Sell
Branding Basics
Marketing and Media Planning
Gifting to Build Your Brand
Web Marketing and Social Media Strategies
Marketing as Part of Your HR Plan

And SAVE THE DATE for our Flight 15 Party on May 20, 2010 - more details to come!

Here’s the story of the flight of Hummingbird Creative Group, Inc. :  Flight 15

In 1995, I was working for a small non-profit doing event planning, graphic design and marketing, and decided it was not the right fit. I moved on with no idea what was in store for me next, starting a design business called Design by Wendy. I walked into the Cary Chamber of Commerce Expo that year and it all began! There I met Michael Currin of Greenscape, Mike Anderson of Advent Screenprinting and Ken Pasfield of Carolina Job Finder, our first 3 customers - thanks so much to all of them for helping me get it off the ground!

My philosophy was simple… if someone asked if I could do it, the answer was yes and I would figure it out from there! In 1996, I hired my first team member and began doing business as Hummingbird Designs.

From 1995 to 1998, we served as a boutique graphic design firm, providing typesetting services, illustration and logo designs to small start-up companies in the local area. From 1998 to 2000, Hummingbird expanded into a brand identity firm, expanding services to include all the elements of branding from stationery to brochures to signage and promotional items. During these early years, work was done only on a per-project basis.

In 2000, just in the nick of time, the company began formulating a retainer model, offering customers full-service branding and marketing outsourcing for a fixed monthly fee. This strategy increased regular cash-flow, helping the company survive through tough times in 2001 and 2002 in the aftermath of September 11.

Since 2002, the company has continued a model offering both project fees and retainer programs to meet different sizes of companies and different budgets. This has led to increased revenues and greater financial stability for the company.

In more recent years, technology services have become imperative to the marketing world. In 2003, the company began offering web services, and we now offer everything from web design and development to search engine optimization to email blasts and personalized urls.

Since 2005, the firm has developed strategic alliances with several different companies to introduce a full-range of web marketing services through a division called h2 Interactive. Beyond website design, we now offer email marketing and tracking services, search engine optimization, online press relations, landing page consultation and design, content writing, pay-per-click consulting and personalized URL’s, which are a new wave that ties a direct mail piece directly to a personalized website and has been shown to increase the response rate of direct mail campaigns from 2% on average to as much as 9%. We believe it’s imperative to stay current with these industry trends.

The talent of the Hummingbird Creative team, along with wonderful clients who allow us to do great work, has brought us many accolades over the years, including:

Industry Awards
2009 MAME Awards Best Logo – Inwood Forest

2009 MAME Awards Best Brochure for a Community – Inwood Forest
2008 Bronze Summit International Design Award – The Business Clinic Logo
2007 American Graphic Design Award - The Castleton Group Website Design

2007 American Graphic Design Award - CORE Building Company Logo

2006 American Graphic Design Award - Special Events Rentals Promo Card
2006 American Graphic Design Award - Carolinas Wireless Association Logo
2006 American Corporate Identity Award - Footlights Logo
2006 American Corporate Identity Award - execUchange Logo
2006 American Corporate Identity Award  - Heritage Aesthetic Dentistry Stationery
2006 Bronze Addy Award - Hummingbird 10th Anniversary Logo
2005 Silver Addy Award - Iatria Print Ads
2005 Silver Addy Award - Silver Medal Campaign
2005 Silver Addy Award - Regional Addy Campaign
2005 Bronze Addy Award - Urban Blends Holiday Labels
2004 Gold, Bronze, Judge’s Choice Addy Awards - Urban Blends Identity, Web, Labels
2001 Silver Summit International Design Award - Cornerstone Architecture Logo
2001 Bronze Summit International Design Award - Cirrus Technologies Logo
2000 Silver Summit International Design Award - Pit Stop Tire Service Logo
2000 Bronze Summit International Design Award - Encore Events Logo

1999 PICA Award – Classic Coffees Stationery

Community Awards

2010 Business Leader Top 50 Entrepreneurs Award
2008 Raleigh Chamber of Commerce Pinnacle Award
2008 Business Leader Impact Women Business Owners
2007 Business Leader Women Extraordinaire/Movers & Shakers
2007 Cary Chamber of Commerce Business of the Year

2005 Triangle Business Journal Women in Business Award

2004 Triangle Business Journal 40 Under 40 Leadership Award

2001 Cary Chamber of Commerce Employer of the Year Award

1999 Cary Chamber of Commerce Successful Achievement Award

Hummingbird’s team members are encouraged to participate in community events as volunteers, and we hold many board and committee positions, including:

2007 – 2010   
Hospice of Wake County Board of Directors
The Carying Place Board of Directors
2010               
W5/Wake County Women’s Center Bachelor Bid for Charity Planning Committee
2006 - 2010    
Carolinas Wireless Association PR and Technology Committee Chairs
2003 – 2007   
Hospice of Wake County Big Bad Ball Planning Committee
2006 – 2007   
Cary Chamber of Commerce Ambassadors
2004 – 2007   
Capital City Club Young Executives Board
Greater Raleigh Chamber of Commerce Communications Board
2007               
NCSU Entrepreneurial Education Initiative Board of Advisors

2005 – 2006   
Cary Chamber of Commerce Economic Development Committee

Capital City Club Membership Council

2005               
Chair PR/Marketing Advisory Committee for Hospice of Wake County Foundation

Greater Raleigh Chamber Economic Dev. Communications Task Force

Cary MacGregor Rotary Communications Committee

2003 - 2004    
Ad Club of the Triangle Board of Directors – Addy Chair

2003               
NCCBI Small Business Advisory Board

2002               
Hospice of Wake County Looking Glass Auction Planning Committee

1998 – 2000   
Cary Chamber of Commerce Small Business Committee

Cary Chamber of Commerce Ambassadors

National Association of Women Business Owners Newsletter Committee

Our team members also frequently present on topics such as branding, marketing, advertising and design, including presentations to NAWBO, the Kenan-Flagler Business School, Wake Tech, Durham Tech, the Capital City Club, The Women in Business Today Television Show, SCORE, the Cary Chamber of Commerce, the Wake County Realtors Association, the EwomenNetwork,  the International Special Events Society, the Castleton Institute, Cary High School, the Specialty Coffee Association of America, NC State University, Wake County WBON and the American Institute of Architects. Staff members also frequently judge ADDY competitions in other markets in the Southeast.

Hummingbird Creative Group has offered discounts and pro-bono design work for many community organizations over the years, totaling over $350,000.00 including:

Ad Club of the Triangle

Assistance League of the Triangle

Campus Crimestoppers

Capital City Club Young Executives

Carolina East Hospice

Carolinas Wireless Association

Creating Assets Reaching Youth (C.A.R.Y.)

The DeWayne Washington Foundation

Downtown Raleigh Alliance

Greater Triangle Crimestoppers

Hospice of Wake County

Jack Fanning Memorial Foundation
Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation

KidSource

Moveable Feast

NC Association of Community College Trustees

National Association of Women Business Owners

Project Access

Realsinglemoms.com

The Recovery Advisory Network

Veterans Freedom Project

Wake Teen

Women Business Owners Network of Cary

Women’s Center of Wake County

Our company core values are as follows:

We demonstrate CREATIVITY on all levels by pursuing continuous excellence in maintaining an entrepreneurial spirit; defining and following the design process; working with our hearts as well as our heads; exploring multiple perspectives to determine the best solutions; and surpassing client expectations as well as our own expectations.

We demonstrate RESPECT for ideas and individuals through telling the truth; doing the right thing; understanding human and cultural differences; consideration of others’ wants and needs; and rigidly adhering to the company’s core values.

We demonstrate EXPERTISE in our industry by maintaining stringent selection criteria for staff and partners including: exhibiting results of a well-rounded background; excellence in areas of both creativity and strategic planning; maintaining fact and diplomacy; exhibiting self-confidence, pride and enthusiasm for work; and knowing how to listen to really hear the needs of clients and coworkers.

We demonstrate REWARD by providing an environment in which we recognize excellence in staff and partners’ work; encourage participation in competitions and shows; and recognize and encourage excellence in local student work by providing venues for student shows and competitions.

We demonstrate SERVICE by actively participating in the community to industry organizations grow and thrive by serving on boards and committees, as well as help local charities grow and thrive and provide venues for fundraising.

Please join us as we celebrate Flight 15- we’ll be announcing many fun events this year and hope to see you all there!

Why Ads Work

Ads Attack the Senses and Win Over Viewers With More than Narrative

Stills from Lyndon B. Johnson Museum and Library

In the annals of campaign advertising, it stands as a legend: A young girl plucking flower petals, counting each as it falls, is interrupted by a sinister voice counting down 10 … nine … eight … until a nuclear blast fills the screen, a fire-ball replacing the black terror in her eyes.

In the background, we hear the stern voice of President Lyndon B. Johnson: “These are the stakes! To make a world in which all of God’s children can live, or to go into the dark, we must either love each other, or we must die.”

The year was 1964, and the ad, which aired only once, shifted the tone of Johnson’s successful bid against the sharply anti-communist Sen. Barry M. Goldwater. More than that, however, it ushered in a new age of political propaganda, highlighting the emotional power of advertising — particularly television advertising — to sway voters and decide races.

Political candidates have never looked back.

Indeed, it’s a sad truth of modern politics that campaign cash (ie, media funding) is prerequisite to any successful bid for higher public office — increasingly so. This year’s presidential contest will be the most expensive in history. The two leading presidential contenders have already spent roughly a quarter-billion dollars on advertising. If there’s one universal rule in politics, it’s that those who have trouble fund-raising need not apply.

“American politics,” said Mark Crispin Miller, professor of media, culture and communication at New York University, “has long ago shifted from an enterprise based on mass organization, to an enterprise based on TV and radio propaganda. It’s no longer labor intensive. Now it’s capital intensive.”

The reason is clear: ads work. And yet — considering all the hours of media attention, the public interviews, the endless campaigning, the viral Internet videos, the stump-speeches, the national conventions, the soon-to-be televised debates and the countless water-cooler arguments weighing the virtues and vices of the presidential candidates this very minute — the question remains: what causes voters to respond to short, one-sided bursts of un-nuanced messaging?

Why, that is, do ads work?

Clearly, the question cuts across disciplines, dredging to discover the countless reasons that folks behave the way they do, asking no less than what it is to be human. Faced with the question, Frank Ginsberg, chairman and CEO of Avrett Free Ginsberg, a New York-based advertising agency, said with a sigh, “We don’t have enough time.”

Yet there is a craft — dare we say a science — tested over decades, that allows advertisers to target specific audiences, appeal to their tastes and sensibilities, and predict with some degree of accuracy how they will respond. This is true whether it be a consumer buying a soft drink or a voter choosing a candidate.

A leading factor in this equation rests on emotional appeal. Ads are not just narrations; they attack the senses. In the case of Johnson’s “Daisy Girl” commercial (which never even mentioned Goldwater’s name) the intended response was clearly fear — a tactic repeated in the 1988 Willie Horton ad that helped sink Gov. Michael S. Dukakis’s White House hopes. Television is particularly suited to stimulate such an emotional reaction, combining images with music, text and narration to create an all-encompassing sensory experience.

“Ads are designed to have an emotional appeal that’s often more important than the actual information,” said Paul Freedman, a University of Virginia political scientist specializing in campaign advertising. “If you’re selling a car, you’re selling an image, you’re selling a state of mind. It’s not just a hunk of metal and plastic.”

In this way, Freedman added, candidates can brand themselves in the vaguest terms — an agent of change, for example, or a man of experience. The point being, Freedman said, that brands are “divorced from nuance.”

Campaign ads can also be effective by instilling confidence in voters seeking a reason to support a particular candidate. Marvin Overby, political science professor at the University of Missouri—Columbia, said many political ads fall in this category, aiming not to steal supporters from another candidate, but simply to mobilize those inclined to be their own. “Voters don’t want to feel like they have to flip a coin,” Overby said.

Darrell M. West, vice president and director of governance studies at the Brookings Institution, echoed that message, saying ads frame issues in ways encouraging voters to feel a certain way about the candidates. “Political spots can’t create impressions that don’t already exist among the electorate,” West wrote in an email, “but they can encourage voters to see the candidates in particular ways. You can win by making people like you or dislike your opponent.”

In a prominent example this year, Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), the Republican presidential nominee, attacked his Democratic opponent, Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.), for his celebrity, equating his superstar status to that of Paris Hilton and Britney Spears.

Repetition — the hammering away at an audience with a singular message — is also a powerful method of persuasion best accomplished through ads. In the modern political culture, these messages arrive “not just forcefully, but inescapably,” said Miller of NYU, who’s working on a book about the Marlboro Man, the ultimate in commercial icons. “Ideally,” he added, “you would have the commercial itself become a news story.” As was proven by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth in 2004, even negative coverage is free advertising.

Finally, political advertisers are successful for the simple reason that many voters, for countless reasons, don’t follow politics very closely. Lynda Lee Kaid, professor of telecommunications at the University of Florida, said television ads allow candidates to lend an education (of sorts) that’s convenient to the viewer, providing “substantial amounts of information without great effort by the voter.”

Freedman, of UVA, agreed. “For many, many, many Americans, the campaign is coming to them only through these ads,” Freedman said. “They reach people who otherwise don’t have the time or the inclination to be plugged in to whatever’s going on with a political campaign.”

The candidates certainly know it. Through the end of July, Obama’s campaign had spent more than $152 million on advertising and related expenses, like media consultants, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a campaign finance watchdog. McCain’s campaign, meanwhile, had spent nearly $54 million over the same span, CRP says.

And who would question their reasoning? If advertising can make a pair of blue jeans a symbol of social acceptance, turn a sandal into a walk down Hollywood Boulevard and transform a bottle of beer into a sexual fantasy, why would we doubt it couldn’t remake Sarah Palin into Joan of Arc? With the right image-making machine, anything is possible.

As Ginsberg said of his target audiences: “We know them better than they know themselves.”

Submitted by Sandy Andrews, Account Executive at Hummingbird Creative Group