eROI Days Email Agency

Chris - you have insane skills video editing. I had to share this video you did on CrossPixelNYC blog on to eROIdays (in the spirit of re-tweeting). Again - great stuff!

The Freakout from Christopher Masagatani on Vimeo.

Alex Bogusky was on the cover of Inc. magazine a few months ago with the headline something like “Can this Hot Guy Make Microsoft Cool?” Well, Crispin Porter + Bogusky are off to a good start w/ the Jerry Seinfeld / Bill Gates commercials, and even better, the PC commercials. So, I pose the question - did Bogusky make the Inc. 5000 Conference cool? Having been to 2 consecutive years of conferences, I can clearly say that it was already very cool before he came along, but Bogusky did a really good job of speaking to more than just creativity but accomplishing business objectives in a creative way. Here are my notes:

CP & B: 900 employees, 900 freaks, early on, worked with a ton of underdogs. Very Scrappy.

The Truth Campaign- Anti-Smoking
Change the cultural perceptions around a product Brand around youth rebellion. Rebellion is great. This choice is not rebellion, it’s about being manipulated by a huge machine (tobacco campaigns).

Advertising must play into PR and web, social “Playing with your consumer”

Molson Beer- 200 different labels “I’m not wearing any underwear”

Creativity is just a way to leverage business goals

Burger King Whopper Freak out- people got really pissed off with no Whopper. Super funny.
• embrace the creative process – makes it fun
• “you know what you ought to do,” have someone fill in the answer

CP+B 1 Rule: NEVER LIE. NO FIBS. NO BS. (more…)

Kate Ertmann, Executive Producer and Owner of Portland-based animation agency, ADi, shared her Commencement Address with Jerry Ketel (owner of Leo Ketel + Partners) and me.  I was so inspired, I felt compelled to share it with you.  Here goes:

“Thank you very much, Cassandra, and I want to first say congratulations to the women and men who are graduating – after some long days and nights of hard work, your determination has shown through and propelled you to this day. I also want to say congratulations to the families and friends who have been a support system for you – be it monetarily or emotionally or whatever, I’m really glad to see all of you here today too. And I don’t want to leave out the faculty and staff at the Art Institute who were also certainly a part of making this day possible for everyone graduating today.

As Cassandra said when she introduced me, I am the owner of ADi, an animation company here in Portland. When I graduated from Ohio University with a Bachelors of Science in Radio / Television broadcasting, I had no plans at that time to be involved with animation, let alone own an animation company.

I grew up in television. My parents met at CBS in the 1950’s where my mom was a Producer and my dad was Director. I grew up in NY and from the ages of about 8yrs old till I was about 16, I had a pretty successful career as a child actor. I was in commercials, I was on All My Children, I was in a Broadway play.”

(more…)

Today’s annual iMedia Connection article is (in years past) the most read article of the year because readers (and authors) like me love the joy of discovering unique / beautiful / hilarious / branded / insanely creative websites.  In the “10 killer websites worth watching” article, I got a chance to write about 2 of my favorite sites:

Brand Name: Wacom
Agency/Site Creator: eROI
URL: www.pencollective.com

What is unusual and effective about this website?
A lot of sites try to personalize the message, but the Pen Collective site is different — the highly personalized stories are the messages. The site offers the opportunity to meet such people as Mark, an illustrator who prefers his pen to his girlfriend, or Alex, who will show you how she uses her pen to remove the cellulite from her sister’s wedding photos. The site also allows other users to share their own story with the world and become part of the Collective.  Read the full story >>

Brand Name: Converse
Agency/Site Creator: Anomaly
URL: www.thisistheindexpage.com
 
What is unusual and effective about this website?
This site connects so completely with the nostalgic high school kid in me. It’s like a Will Ferrell movie where a 16-year-old jock or a 45-year-old creative can find their own experience and sense of humor in the content and the way it’s executed. This site differentiates itself from all others with its full-screen videos, never-ending supply of full-screen background images upon refresh, clever URLs with the implied promise of humor and entertainment in each of the individual video vignettes within the overall campaign website. Content is king and Converse nailed it with this site. The “I’m too hot for you” attitude, voice, mannerisms of the girl in OutofYourLeagueGirl.com reminds me exactly of several girls in my year at Wootton High School in Maryland.  Read the full story >>

One last thing, David Friedman of Avenue A | Razorfish introduced me to a hilarious site called www.iliketotallyloveit.com - check out the site, but first read his creative review of it.

Reunite on Ice (ROI) - you inspired me last night. I yelled my heart out for you. I sang off-key in the shower this morning. I can’t stop thinking about how awesome your performance was last night at PAF’s Battle of the Bands.

Everyone was amazing - Mike on the drums, Mitch on keyboards, Sam in his acid-washed jeans on the bass, Alex w/ some insane guitar solos and even better facial expressions, James for belting it out then ripping off his shirt at the appropriate time, Chris for some mad freestyle rapping to “Another One Bites the Dust”, but the MVP goes to the mustache-wearing, hip-gyrating Victor Nakada with special moves like the fake tear streaming down his face, high intensity - AMAZING.

I’ve had proud moments of my teams in the past, but this one was one of the proudest.

Thanks for bringing home the trophy yet again! And, thanks to all the eROI band supporters - I hope you all show up to Band Camp this summer. Because, that one time…at band camp…

To see more videos, check out the eROI YouTube Channel >>

As Portland Ad Federation’s website says, “Go a few rounds with Portland’s heavyweights. The bigger they are, the harder they fall.”

As a lightweight in the Portland creative realm, I absolutely loved being part of a creative concept that further reinforced Portland agency owners collaborating to do something very cool. Livengood Nowack came up with the 60’s style, boxing inspired theme to this year’s Rosey Awards - 11 agency owners dressed in boxing attire and got greased up for the photo shoot. I was having a really hard time putting my “Eye of the Tiger” face on as other agency owners like Scott “Vanilla Thrilla” Nowack and Phil “The O’Reilly Factor” Reilly were continually busting jokes.

Check out the site: www.RoseyAwards.com and click on “Features” in the navigation. One more reason to love Portland and its Creative Class. Big kudos to Livengood Nowack for making this happen!

Creative companies like eROI have musicians like Chris who is jamming with my two girls. Enjoy!

It’s Easter morning before the kids wake up and I wanted to quickly write this blog post. On Friday afternoon, I gave the Commencement Address to the graduating class of the Art Institute of Portland and I must admit that it was a phenomenal experience. I had attended their Portfolio Show just a couple hours before and was awestruck and inspired by their design talent, creativity, and diversity of design in web, apparel, gaming, interior design, print, advertising, and more. Everyone has heard about Portland being recognized for its “Creative Class”, but the Art Institute is at the center of it all. They teach their students to not only design well but present their designs with maturity and confidence. After the ceremony, I had drinks with many of the professors and administrators and was encouraged to see their passion to continually improve and draw inspiration from their students. I’m excited to see the future of the Portland creative community as more talent comes out of a growing Art Institute of Portland and more agency owners are collaborating on client work and community projects.

So here is my 15 minute speech (which is slightly more formal than when I presented it and had all the graduates stand and the audience of 350 people give a huge round of applause, high fives, etc for their milestone accomplishment):

“• I’m honored to be here. Thank you. I’m not a traditional choice for a Commencement Speaker of this esteemed college of insanely talented designers and professors. I am not a designer and do not have a design background.

• However, I am inspired by design, creativity, and innovation. Five and a half years ago, I started an interactive agency called eROI that is now 50 people strong. In just the past couple years, I’ve hired 7 of you - graduates of the Art Institute of Portland. And, I’ve got to be honest, you are some of the smartest, most talented creatives in the country, making folks from brand-name New York design schools pale in comparison. I’m even more convinced of this after visiting your Portfolio Show earlier today - wow, some great work there.

• Management guru, Peter Drucker, said that business has 2 functions: marketing and innovation. And, if you look at the market today, you’ll notice that companies like Apple, Google, and Nike are rewarded with huge premiums in their stock prices due to a sense of creativity and innovation through every element of their products and how they conduct business. From this, we know that design isn’t just about making pretty pictures, it’s about having a profoundly positive impact on the world.

more…”

(more…)

I finally got the professional photo today. Here it is:

Here are some more casual pics from the evening:

Here is the email I sent to the eROI team after our big win last night for the only category we submitted to - Best of Web. This is the second award that we’ve won in collaboration with our client Wacom for a really powerful community site we built called “Power of the Pens.”

________________________________________
From: Ryan Buchanan [mailto:ryan@eroi.com]
Sent: Friday, February 22, 2008 7:15 AM
To: eROI team
Subject: Huge congrats to eROI for winning AMA MAX Award for Best Web Campaign (Wacom Power of the Pens)

The entire team,
We should be very proud of our accomplishments. When I’ve had one on one discussions with each of you last year, nearly everyone said that collectively you wanted to make your mark on the world through inspiring creative and we’re finally getting recognized for it. For the second time in a row (2 for 2), we won among all finalists the AMA Award for Marketing Excellence for Best Web Campaign for the Wacom Power of the Pens website which built a powerful community online where the target audience (designers) truly connected with one another in that community.

Needless to say, we celebrated heartily last night.

Great work to all,
RB

———————————————————————

Here are some fun videos of the evening:

And, the acceptance speech: