R-blog | Riggs Partners

Riggs Partners is officially IN

Added on November 11, 2009 by sammy 0 Comments

InShow cheese awards

It was Riggs Partners’ 15th year competing, but last Friday was my first time attending InShow. For those who don’t know, InShow is AIGA South Carolina’s juried competition showcasing exceptional talent from around the state.

Basically, a display of creative genius in all its glory.

I arrived with the Riggs Partners clique to the InShow gala locale. It was an old brick building on Whaley Street with a hidden majesty you couldn’t quite see, but you could feel.

Inside, guests were chatting with each other, some networking, others catching up with the friends they only see on this day each year. Most of the attention was on two long tables running down the center of the room. Displayed on the tables were the winning entries. Immediately, I joined everyone else in perusing the aisles of work.

I was amazed at the varied mediums of work entered in the InShow. I saw not just posters and websites, but also bat mitzvah invitations and a student short film. It was interesting to see how many different forms creativity could take.

This year the InShow event was dubbed the Grocer’s Gala, and the awards were handcrafted Styrofoam blocks of cheese. Riggs Partners stacked up nine. Our self-promotion piece won, as well as our work produced for:

Bearden-Josey Center for Breast Health
Central South Carolina Community Foundation
Regional HealthPlus
Vaughn’s BBQ
Village at Pelham
Girl Scouts of South Carolina-Mountains to Midlands

We were also honored with two special judges awards: Most Delectable Self-Promo for our own newsletter, In The Country of Epigrams; and Freshest Interactive for the Girl Scouts of South Carolina-Mountains to Midlands website.

After the awards presentation, the members of Riggs Partners posed for pictures, juggling our huge stack of cheese. We congratulated and celebrated. It was a good night to be a part of Riggs Partners.

Then I took a moment to step back and just be there in that antique building, soaking in the creative atmosphere and letting myself be filled with inspiration.

This industry sure is fun.

New Work: Spartanburg Soup Kitchen Part 1

Added on November 4, 2009 by teresa 0 Comments

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Imagine cooking 500 hot meals every day from a 300 sq. ft. kitchen. For 20 years or so, the Spartanburg Soup Kitchen had been operating out of a church kitchen and dining room, while the need to serve more meals just kept growing.

The board embarked on a capital campaign to raise money to build a new Soup Kitchen facility. While their case for support was sound, they lacked the packaging and community awareness to make the campaign a success.

So the CreateAthon team went to work on developing a new brand identity, outdoor campaign, and web site to re-introduce the Soup Kitchen as a vital part of the community. These outlets gave the Soup Kitchen the marketing foundation it needed, but the team didn’t stop there. Lee Price, Julie Smith, Tim Floyd and Teresa Coles developed a strategy for the Soup Kitchen that would help attract individual gifts to the Soup Kitchen well beyond the capital campaign. More to come in Part 2.

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New Work: Poochapalooza

Added on October 27, 2009 by lauren 0 Comments

CreateAthon clients The Heartworm Project and PAALS (Palmetto Animal Assisted Life Services)

These fantastic organizations co-host a fundraising event they describe as a “poker run-style dog walk.” At least until our CreateAthoners looked over the list of activities and deemed the description lacking. It’s an entire afternoon of dog party! A dog fest! A day where dog is king! And Poochapalooza was born.

Work included identity, two custom illustrated posters (Lauren Bowles) an event website, and a promotional lawn sign.

CreateAthon Poochapalooza Creative Team: Lauren Bowles, Katy Miller, Cathy Monetti, Jay Coles, Julie Turner, GP Worrell, Jason Smith

Special thanks to our printers, The Half and Half of Columbia, SC

The Heartworm Project is a volunteer nonprofit organization that provides medical care for shelter animals in need. The Heartworm Project’s original goal was to treat heartworm positive dogs at local shelters who were scheduled to be euthanized because of their illness. But they’ve expanded their mission to include any medical attention that shelters cannot provide to dogs and cats of all ages.

PAALS (Palmetto Animal Assisted Life Services) is a nonprofit organization that serves the community by training assistance animals to help individuals with disabilities other than blindness or deafness. The animals assist with educational and recreational activities for those with social needs and certain physical disabilities.

If a good idea becomes a mediocre idea, is it still worth launching?

Added on October 23, 2009 by cathy 0 Comments

I read a blog entry this morning written by Alex Bogusky that I just can’t get out of my mind. While the perspective he offered was smart from beginning to end, one section continues to whirl around in my head—so much so that I simply have to address it here before I can get on to the “the deadline is approaching” projects on my desk today.

“The market forces created by the rapid demise of mass media and traditional media models have made the real business we’re in clearer than ever. We’re in the business of . . .creating new ideas . . . so compelling and entertaining that the consumer searches them out. . . . Brilliance will be more powerful than ever, and yet everything from above average on down will become invisible. Produce ordinary ideas and nobody will ever see them.”

This is a very real and incredibly powerful shift in the business of marketing. In years past, if we produced work that was average (or God forbid, below average), we could still produce some modicum of impact because it could be forced on unsuspecting consumers via mass media interruption. Some sort of intellectual or emotional exchange would still take place. But today, the penalty for generic is this: It goes completely unnoticed.

I spend a lot of time these days talking with clients about the need to develop content so irresistible consumers are attracted to it. It is our goal on every project to produce something magnetic; an idea or execution so educational, or funny, or emotionally powerful they seek it out, rather than the other way around. This is a tall order. And it is made even more difficult—make that impossible—when the idea is compromised as it makes its journey from concept to marketplace. The result is often just what Bogusky warned—invisibility.

It is a core value at RP to listen generously as suggestions are offered along any creative path, and I believe many a good idea was made better through collaborative input. But it is our professional responsibility to stand tall for ideas worth protecting. And that is a truth worth remembering.

New Work: Preservation Trust of Spartanburg

Added on October 19, 2009 by ryon 0 Comments

CreateAthon client Preservation Trust of Spartanburg

Three small space newspaper ads and a yard sign for patina, vintage home outfitters.

CreateAthon Preservation Trust Creative Team: Kevin Smith, Ryon Edwards, George Fulton, Courtney Graham Hipp, Lauren Bowles, Jay Coles

New Work: Preservation Trust of Spartanburg

Added on October 13, 2009 by ryon 1 Comment

CreateAthon client Preservation Trust of Spartanburg

Nonprofit Preservation Trust of Spartanburg recently launched Spartanburg Architectural Salvage, a retail store that caters to owners of older homes, DIYers and architects looking for period pieces salvaged from old homes and buildings. We were thrilled with the opportunity to work with these folks since salvaging these items keeps them out of the landfill. Plus, wouldn’t you want something original and authentic if you were fixing up an old house? Or even building a new one?

The first order of business: a new name and identity system, including a series of custom illustrations and three distinctive logos. The business cards doubled as hang tags.

More patina work coming to the blog soon.

CreateAthon Preservation Trust Creative Team: Kevin Smith, Ryon Edwards, George Fulton, Courtney Graham Hipp, Lauren Bowles, Jay Coles Identity design: Ryon Edwards, George Fulton

Grant given to The Nature Conservancy

Added on September 25, 2009 by kevin 0 Comments

Our friends at The Nature Conservancy are in the news again. The South Carolina chapter has been given a one million dollar grant through the North American Wetlands Conservation Act (NAWCA) Grant Program to protect habitat along the Black River in Georgetown County. This area is home to bald cypress trees that are more than 1,000 years old. The story has been reported on NPR as of this morning.

1300 and Counting

Added on September 11, 2009 by kevin 0 Comments

Our clients at Moe’s Southwest Grill are winning some new fans this week. Students found a coupon in Tuesday’s Daily Gamecock offering them a free burrito, no strings attached. 1300 were redeemed the first day at Moe’s Columbia’s Main Street location. The newspaper picked it up, and word of mouth was strong as well. We’re excited about the response and Moe’s growing fan base.

To Thrift or Not To Thrift?

Added on September 3, 2009 by cathy 0 Comments

I read, with great interest, an article in the August 3 edition of Brandweek in which David Kenny, managing partner of Publicis Groupe’s VivaKi, stated:

“People are going to emerge from the current recession forever changed. The global recession has changed them. Environmental realities have changed them. New global leadership has changed them.”

In the next paragraph, Google CEO Eric Schmidt says just the opposite, arguing that those who think consumer frugality is here to stay “don’t understand the American psyche.” Quoted from an interview at the Cannes Lions Advertising Festival this summer, Dr. Schmidt went on to say “the moment people feel more comfortable, they’ll go back to spending large amounts of money—which is the American pastime.”

When Schmidt speaks, you gotta listen. (He does have a vested interest in consumer credit card debt, it must be noted.) And yet I believe we are changed. The most recent data available from the Bureau of Economic Analysis shows that the U.S. personal saving rate has climbed by 3.7 percentage points since the recession began, from 1.5 percent in fourth quarter of 2007 to 5.2 percent in the second quarter of 2009, a relative increase of almost 350 percent.

Perhaps the change will come simply because credit has become so expensive, and cash is in short supply. But as difficult as this recession has been, it does feel as if a bit of the Jones-chasing has lessened. Like many Americans, I am spending more time at home, more time with my family, and I am more focused on enjoying the experience, rather than rushing off for the next acquisition.

And that is a change for the better.

The Nature Conservancy. Oyster recycling. Work that matters.

Added on August 27, 2009 by katy 0 Comments

TNCLogoPrimary_CMYK One thing we love about our work is helping clients promote causes that can make our world a better (and tastier) place to live. Take our client The Nature Conservancy, for example. We just landed a feature story in the Post & Courier on their oyster recycling efforts along the South Carolina coast. The article details a recent report issued by the organization’s national office that revealed an alarming decline in the world’s oyster population. The good news is that South Carolina offers some of the most innovative oyster restoration initiatives out there.