Bozell, a creative marketing communications company, has added to its integrated management team in a move to further enhance senior bench strength and strengthen its leadership position in the ever-changing environment of the marketing profession. “We’ve realigned our structure and will continue to do so as needed to better deliver integrated marketing services in a meaningful, relevant way,” said Kim Mickelsen, Bozell owner and principal, Integrated Marketing.

“A couple years ago we recognized the need to make some significant strategic changes to be more competitive. So we first realigned the ownership group to reflect the necessary shift in business capabilities. By adding Corey Meyer, we were able to strengthen the ownership team and enhance the depth of our consulting practice,” said Robin Donovan, Bozell owner and principal, Administration and Business Services. Meyer has a 20-year track record of strategic, operational and marketing consulting working for companies such as Arthur Andersen and Gallup in the consumer products, retail, financial services and telecommunications sectors. The addition of Meyer completes the Bozell ownership team of Mickelsen, Donovan and Meyer.

“The ownership and management teams are leading the efforts at Bozell to place a greater emphasis on dialogue with and between key stakeholders, business partners and customers,” Mickelsen said. With Bozell’s recent acquisition of Orajan, a web design and development company, and the addition of the Dialogue Relations department, which includes social media, media relations, strategic planning and community relations, Bozell is continuing to evolve the way they do business. Bozell has also restructured its creative department into two divisions, advertising and design. In addition to traditional advertising, the company is expanding their design capabilities to better meet the needs of their customers.

With more than 20 years of experience in strategic planning, media relations and marketing communications, in California and Nebraska, Sylvia France recently joined Bozell as Partner in Charge, Dialogue Relations. Prior to joining Bozell, she worked at several marketing communications consulting firms, including Bailey Lauerman in Omaha and Regis McKenna in Palo Alto, Calif., as well as owning her own agency in Silicon Valley. She graduated from Florida State University, with bachelor’s degrees in finance and international marketing.

Joining Bozell as Partner in Charge, Brand Navigation, Kevin Hutchison brings to the agency more than 20 years of experience in account management, nonprofit marketing and financial communications. Hutchison previously served as an account director at KarshHagan Communications and also at Bozell as an account director on clients including First National Bank Kansas, MidAmerican Energy, CBSHOME Real Estate and Boy Scouts of America. He received a liberal arts degree from Asbury College.

Cort Irish joined Bozell in 2003 as Broadcast Manager, was promoted to Media Director in 2005 and was recently named Partner in Charge, Media. Currently, he supervises all of the media planning and buying for the agency’s clients. Prior to joining Bozell in 2003, Irish handled media for top agencies D’Arcy and Leo Burnett in New York. Irish graduated from Illinois Sate University, with a double-major in marketing and business administration.

As Managing Partner, Smartargeting, Steve Kuegler works closely with clients to develop their overall strategic database marketing programs. This includes a sophisticated analysis of clients’ customer’s data, evaluation of market factors and analysis of their internal systems. Previously he was vice-president of Database Marketing Services for Bernstein-Rein located in Kansas City, Missouri where he oversaw all aspects of the day-to-day operation of the department, as well as managed the database programs for all Bernstein’s clients, including Wal-Mart, Blockbuster Video, and Anheuser-Busch Entertainment. Kuegler also previously served as branch manager at Dun & Bradstreet Information Services and as the national marketing manager for a database-marketing subsidiary of SPS Payment Systems headquartered in Chicago, IL.

Jill Rizzo joined Bozell in 2006 as Associate Creative Director and was recently promoted to Partner in Charge, Design. Rizzo oversees the design teams for Alegent Health, Borsheims, VT and Tnemec. Prior to joining Bozell, she served as senior design director at David Day and Associates. She was also one of the creators of the Bemis Underground, an actively flourishing experimental gallery space sponsored by the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts. She received her bachelor’s degree in fine arts from Creighton University and has also studied at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and St. Olaf College.

Cliff Watson was recently named Partner in Charge, Advertising. Before coming to Bozell in 2002, Watson was a writer for premium outdoor recreation companies including Remington Arms, Perception Kayaks, and Mossy Oak camouflage. His experience also includes extensive work on a wide range of brands, from finance to food service and professional sports to local government. His advertising has been recognized by numerous creative organizations, including the One Club, Art Director’s Club, Clios, and OBIEs. Watson graduated from Rhodes College with a degree in fiction writing.

Scott Rowe was recently promoted to Partner in Charge, Interactive Planning and Strategy after previously serving as Interactive Services Director. Before joining Bozell, Scott co-owned and developed Seeit.com, a national Web site using streaming video to make apartment hunting easier. Previously he worked as a photojournalist for a CBS affiliate. Rowe graduated from the University of Nebraska at Kearney with a B.S. degree in broadcasting.

Brian Wetjen joins Bozell as Partner in Charge, Interactive Creative. He founded Orajen, a web design and development company in 2001, and served as co-owner until Bozell acquired the company in July 2008. He also previously served as webmaster for Bellevue Data Communications and was responsible for the design, programming and development of Web sites. An Omaha native, Wetjen graduated from the University of Nebraska at Omaha, with a bachelor’s degree in fine arts and printmaking.

About Bozell
Bozell is an integrated marketing communications company with offices in Omaha and Kansas City. Bozell combines qualitative and quantitative methodology to get close to its clients’ customers. Bozell then uses advertising, digital marketing, dialogue relations, technology and innovative creative to provide targeted solutions for local, regional and national clients. For more information, visit www.bozell.com.

In the last 24 months we’ve received dozens of calls, had numerous meetings and heard the same things over and over…”What do I do now?  How do I get started? I need to be smarter about my marketing.  I need to get out there but don’t know what to do because the marketing game has changed.  I need help.”  So we’ve create a practical how-to seminar series on a variety of marketing topics because we’ve seen first hand the need for a “preventative medicine” type of approach when it comes to effective marketing techniques being used today.

There’s confusion, trepidation, and a general feeling of being overwhelmed.  Add to that the pressure to get more bang for your marketing buck in today’s economic climate and the anxiety increases.

More and more companies need or want to expand their visibility online.   To be found where people look.  That often means tapping the potential of social media, but they don’t know how to enter the conversation or are paralyzed because of a stumble.  We’ve heard tales of being banned from Digg, kicked off Facebook, deleted from Wikipedia, stumped by Twitter, slammed by bloggers or caught off guard by employee comments in cyberspace.  We hear the the same question over and over, “What do I do?” And the dozens of books, hundreds of articles and thousands of web pages dedicated to the subject only seem to make it feel more overwhelming.

So we’ve developed this series of seminars, starting with social media marketing, to go beyond theory and platitudes to practical applications to answer your questions and give you tips you can put to work immediately.  We also have sessions scheduled that will focus on increasing your visibility on search engines and on smart marketing tips to turn data into intelligence and insights. You’ll take away not only a better understanding, but also a little peace of mind  and some tools to get you started.

Why the Sausage Factory name?  Because it fits (and it sounded better than Bozell Seminars).  People once referred to marketing like a recipe for soup — a little of this, a little of that, add a little seasoning, simmer it for a while and you’ve got a meal.  Now it’s not nearly so neat or orderly and time to simmer…fat chance.  It’s all about now.  And piecemeal doesn’t cut it anymore.  It has to all be ground together to create something cohesive and tightly integrated.  It really is like making sausage. It’s messy.  But at the end of the day, it’s much tastier and more popular at parties because it’s centered on the consumer.  Could the name Sausage Factory raise a few eyebrows?  You bet.  But that itself is part of what the marketing game is about today.  To have a voice, a point of view, something that might be worth talking about.  Check it out:  www.sausagefactoryseminars.com or on Twitter at www.twitter.com/SausageFactory.

Bozell, an integrated marketing consulting and communications company, will offer a seminar on communications and social media marketing on March 3 in Omaha at the Scott Conference Center, 6450 Pine Street. “Social media is not a fad, trend or buzzword. It’s how individuals use the Internet to collaborate, communicate and find customers,” said Kim Mickelsen, Bozell owner and principal, Integrated Marketing. “We are offering companies the opportunity to learn the knowledge and tools to effectively join the game.”

The social media seminar is the first in a series of three seminars to introduce some of the most relevant issues in marketing and branding today. In addition to social media, seminar topics will include maximizing your visibility on search engines and building marketing databases. Small business owners, marketing managers, marketing consultants, team leaders and anyone seeking to maximize their marketing efforts are encouraged to attend. The Seminar Series will visit three cities in addition to Omaha – Kansas City, Des Moines and Denver.

The social media seminar in Omaha begins at 11:30 with a general session of the practical and successful uses of social media. There will be four breakout sessions including using Twitter to promote your business, successful tactics for social media optimization (SMO), blogging for business and online reputation management.

Each session will have a Q&A period for attendees to get advice on their own challenges. During breaks, the presenters will be available for one-on-one consultation. “We will offer real, practical tips, tricks and tools you can use daily for your marketing plans,” Mickelsen said. “It’s a hands-on session and how-to and we’ll provide worksheets, guidelines, links to free tools and much more.”

Registration is available online at www.sausagefactoryseminars.com and the cost is $159 per seminar. Also, mark your calendars for the next seminar on maximizing your search engine visibility in Omaha on March 26. For the latest on the seminar series, visit the Sausage Factory’s Twitter at www.twitter.com/SausageFactory.

About Sausage Factory Seminars
Using a series of three seminars, the Sausage Factory introduces you to the new way of marketing. When it comes to strategy and messaging mix, it used to be like making a nice, simple soup. But the industry is changing and now you have to throw everything into a bowl, grind it together and make sausage. Each session of the series will teach you some of the most relevant issues in marketing and branding today.

About Bozell
Bozell is an integrated marketing communications company with offices in Omaha and Kansas City. Bozell combines qualitative and quantitative methodology to get close to its clients’ customers. Bozell then uses advertising, digital marketing, dialogue relations, technology and innovative creative to provide targeted solutions for local, regional and national clients. For more information, visit www.bozell.com.

I am not Burger King’s target market.  I don’t even eat fast food.  However, I have to admit that I got a little chuckle out of their “Flame” cologne….originally released for the holidays, apparently it was hard to get your hands on.  But it is now back in stock at http://www.firemeetsdesire.com/

The Barry White-esque voice and overly cheesy graphics are just bad enough to be kinda good.  Plus, for just $3.99 you can enjoy the flame-broiled qualities of the Whopper calorie-free.  Perhaps a thrifty valentine gift for your burger-loving friends?  I’m not sure it sells more Whoppers – unless the smell of it makes you continuously hungry.

Back in 2006, large scale, startling posters appeared on the walls and street corners of Paris. They showed faces – mostly black faces – contorted into outlandish grimaces, with teeth bared, nostrils flared, eyes crossed. The photos were the work of a Paris street artist who wanted people to confront stereotypes. His giant photos asked passers-by an in-your-face question: “When you see a kid from the housing projects, do you see a bogeyman?”

Almost exactly a year ago, when riots broke out in France’s troubled suburban housing projects, news reports broadcast countless photos of hooded youths setting fire to cars. JR thought about those images, the stereotypes they reinforced and how he could use photography to bring a different message.

“After the riots, Parisians viewed suburban kids as extraterrestrials,” JR said in an interview in his Paris studio. “On television, you always saw them wearing masks. People said, ‘Those kids are all the same. Everybody who comes from those areas took part in the riots.’ Everybody was afraid of them, and so I decided to take pictures of them looking like monsters or extraterrestrials.”

The 25-year-old photographer, who has a large following at home and abroad, is also part graffiti artist and performance artist. Usually, he has to hide from police as he plasters his work illegally on buildings at night, which is why he keeps his identity anonymous. His work is amazing, not only for the scale of the imagery but also for the context of their environments. Part installation, part photography and part graffiti of spirit.

I recently read about him in the March issue of Marie Claire magazine. His recent posting of photos in Africa, Asian and South Africa celebrate the strength and courage of women who live in places where they are often targets in wartime – and discriminated against in times of peace. As an example, he worked with local residents to post photos of women’s eyes across favela Morro da Providencia in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil  in honor of International Women’s Day, March 8th. See below images.

In addition are some more Women are Heroes images but located across the ocean in Brussels. Check out the entire show across the world online at: http://www.28millimetres.com/women/

In closing: “The photos have a lot of messages,” JR said. “But the main one is: ‘Look at me, I exist, I’m larger than life.”

Indeed.

Thank you JR for your visual brilliance.

Not only is the cocktail pre-mixed (which is a big plus in this busy world we live in), the look of the packaging is super sweet, which means I will do the designer nerd thing and have it displayed on my shelf or use it as a candle holder for the art studio after it is emptied. What a refreshing take on alcohol packaging. It reminds me more of something West Elm would design if they ever moved away from designing furniture. These boutique/high end alcohol companies are becoming more and more popular and are effecting the big name companies to step it up with regards to their own package design. It is a proven fact that consumers are drawn to the more visually pleasing items, especially if they are not initially familiar with them.

Especially when the packaging is this cool.

Loud & Lola Packaging

http://www.loudandlola.com/

Not only is the cocktail pre-mixed (which is a big plus in this busy world we live in), the look of the packaging is super sweet, which means I will do the designer nerd thing and have it displayed on my shelf or use it as a candle holder for the art studio after it is emptied. What a refreshing take on alcohol packaging. It reminds me more of something West Elm would design if they ever moved away from designing furniture. These boutique/high end alcohol companies are becoming more and more popular and are effecting the big name companies to step it up with regards to their own package design. It is a proven fact that consumers are drawn to the more visually pleasing items, especially if they are not initially familiar with them.

Wildbunch drink packaging

The boutique juice industry is also crammed with players – now you can add a new one to the list. Wild Bunch and Company http://www.wildbunchjuice.com/home.html produces a delicious range of healthy juices including vegetable juices which are packed with energy boosting vitamins. But the best thing about this Singapore based company is the packaging. Smooth and ergonomic, the bottles are like little design pieces decorating your refrigerator.

Lastly, we must finally start seriously caring about the environmental impact of unnecessary and eco-unfriendly packaging. Designers, manufacturers, retailers and consumers are the ones that can influence what happens in the packaging world. Packaging manufacturers will follow and start making whatever the market wants to buy. Ideally, of course, manufacturers of packaging should also invest more in developing eco-friendly options. The below bottles are made in the UK using 100% post consumer recycled plastics (such as old soft drink bottles).

Yesterday I had a wonderful opportunity with my son, Alexander. I have always felt that the best lessons are learned by doing, rather than by just reading it in a book. When my son’s were young, I taught them math as we baked a cake or made dinner and measured out the various ingredients. On his own accord, my oldest son decided to enter his high school’s stock market challenge. Since he knows that one of my degrees was in finance, he tapped me for stock recommendations and an overview of our present financial climate. We had great fun watching financial news programs, scouring the newspapers for stock prices and info and discussing how the presidential election would impact the stock market. In the end, he actually earned top honors in the challenge, beating out his teachers.

We were able to take this lesson one step further when we were interviewed last night by a reporter from National Public Radio (NPR) Marketplace. At Bozell, we utilize both free and paid services to get connected with writers and editors from across the country. On a whim, I responded to an inquiry for parents who are using these difficult economic times to teach their kids about finance. My son was able to experience the “pre-interview” call and the waiting game to see if we made the cut.  Even though she thought it was cool about us being in Omaha and the home of Warren Buffet, we weren’t sure if we could find a time that worked with all of our schedules and the school day. We ultimately had to schedule the interview after I came home from Des Moines yesterday. Due to technical requirements, they sent a sound technician to our house as we were interviewed by the reporter over the phone. Alexander was nervous, but ultimately settled down and it was a great interview. So, besides teaching him about the wacky world of finance, he was able to get insight into some of the challenges that I face on a daily basis in dialogue relations. We do not know when the segment will air, but it has truly been a bonding experience for the two of us. Who knows if he will be the next Warren Buffet?  It doesn’t matter. What matter is that we will talk about this adventure for many years to come.

Until later, Sylvia

Surprisingly it’s just dawning on many people that they have a digital trail that can impact their ability to land a job.  For years, we’ve routinely done a quick online search of candidates we interview. And I often shake my head at some of the things we find.  But now, YouTube’s making it easy to clean up your act as far as video comments go.

Personally I’m a little torn on this because I think it absolves people of taking responsibility, but YouTube today announced a feature that gives you the ability to delete comments you’ve made on videos — at any time. So if you made a dumb, typo-ridden, or grammatically horrific comment 2 years ago on some stupid video from your work-related email, you have a chance to clean it up.  You can now delete any and all of your idiotic YouTube comments.  Simply find your comment and click “remove” to pretend your lapse in judgment or grammar never happened.

Maybe next they can work on a way to help people be more lucid as they leave comments.

Advancements in technology are typically gradual and something you can look back on and see how we’ve made great progress over a number of years. It’s recognizing those leaps and lurches forward in technology that is a LOT harder to do.

I remember seeing a promo/demo from Microsoft a couple/few years ago that made me think, “Wow – if they get that working it will be something special.” Well – despite my foggy recollection of that moment and what it was I saw, CNN is now showcasing the very technology Microsoft was touting in that obscure memory.

It’s called “Photoynth” and I have it say – it’s extremely impressive. Here’s how it works: People take photos. People upload photos. Photosynth stiches them together after analyzing the content and determining how/where the images are visually related to each other. Now, that’s a great simplification, but the concept is that simple. It’s like when you take 8 photos of a wide landscape and then overlay the prints on your table to create one larger image. Except this works in three dimensions.

Is this a radical leap forward or just a cool way to view images? Hard to say. I just know I haven’t seen anything else like it executed this well. The amount of visual information that’s being recorded and uploaded across the planet is astounding. We’ve got Flickr and Picasa and countless photo services where we can store and geo-tag our images. Now there’s a way to stitch those disparate images back together into something resembling reality, and they’re all taken one photo at a time.

Think of what we’ll be able to look back at 20 years from now. Pretty much anything that anyone took a photo of today.

Bozell is committed to tracking the latest trends in social media. We attend webinars and conferences to keep on the bleeding edge of social media. It is our goal to be ahead of the curve with the benefits and liabilities of social media. I was able to participate in a webinar called “What is Working Now: Making Profits in Social Media.” There were two insights that I received in this presentation.

We all struggle with the measurement of success or return on investment (ROI) in social media. Most executives want to know how many conversations do you need to be a part of before you make a sale? We all intuitively know that that is difficult to measure. I would challenge the same executives to quantify the relationship and goodwill developed over a round of golf with partners, prospects, influencers and customers. You are building important relationships and participating in dialogue as you walk along a beautiful green, empathizing with that terrible shot and rejoicing that Tiger Woods moment. In social media, you are doing the same as a golf game, developing dialogue, experiencing events and building relationships but in the online world.

The second gem was the classification of audiences in social media. It puts into perspective the different social media audiences:

• Spectators – Read, watch and listen to conversations in the online world.
• Creators – Participate in the conversation by writing articles and blogs. Create content in videos, podcasts and blogs. They publish lists and directories of relevant products, services and companies.
• Critics – Provide comments, rate content and provide reviews.
• Collectors – Tag information, subscribe to feeds and vote on their favorite articles, videos, podcasts and photos.
• Joiners – Participate in social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn. They participate in demographic and interest specific social networking sites.

Effective social media campaigns can target one or more of the social media audiences. It is knowing how and when to communicate best with your target audience.