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• January 2010 (5)

  The social net | Discuss: Grammys Go Social...or What's the Point?

  Posted by mhudson | January 29, 7:48 am

  With the Grammys this weekend in Los Angeles, we thought we’d take a look at the marketing effort. An immediate opinion blossomed around the “We Are All Fans” social aspect, which offers a dynamic assortment of aggregated content and connections to major social platforms. Here’s the cross-office response: two very different opinions.
  From: Kai Wright (NY)Subject: [...]

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  Beyond the Brief | Maximizing Mobile in 2010

  Posted by ssautter | January 28, 5:54 am

  image credit: newbirth
  How Businesses and Marketers Can Use Mobile For Better Results
  Advertising is not what it was ten years ago. The past decade has seen the advent of social computing and mobile technology, two forces that changed the game forever. What will the future hold? From point-of-sale to out-of-home, here are the top five [...]

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  Emerging Platforms | Kindle: So Now How Can I Judge People and Impress Them Via Books?

  Posted by mhudson | January 27, 7:10 am

  Reading Traci’s post on the Kindle, a gadget that I have never even thought about buying, despite being an avid reader and a total tech geek, made me ponder: Why have I never considered the Kindle?
  The real answer is much for in the vein of… well… vanity.
  Shelf EnvyI have already switched to storing most of [...]

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  Design and user experience | What A Girl Wants

  Posted by ssautter | January 26, 6:07 am

  image credit: valerierenee 
  Top Five Things I Wish Of My Kindle
  When I got my first iPod six years ago, it completely changed the way I purchased and listened to music. So, naturally, I had the same hopes for my recently acquired Kindle reader and how I would soon be consuming books. Unfortunately, the Kindle has [...]

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  Marketing strategy | Obscurity Prompts Action

  Posted by ssautter | January 25, 7:01 am

  A couple weeks ago a bunch of my female friends began posting colors — and only a color — in their Facebook status updates. “Nude and turquoise.” “Black.” “Pink.” I didn’t really think much of it until about the fifth unrelated friend did it. Was this supposed to describe some sort of emotion or mood [...]

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• February 2010 (5)

  Beyond the Brief | Texting: The Exurbs Death Knell?

  Posted by mhudson | February 26, 5:07 am

  Source: Ohio State University
  A piece in the March issue of Wired took on the issue of ‘texting-while-driving’, turning the issue on its head by suggesting that instead of banning texting, we should simply drive less.
  Now, we’re talking. I’m of the opinion that the Internet has done less to change the world than we give it [...]

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  Creative Sensibility | I Made My Case

  Posted by ssautter | February 25, 5:00 am

  Someone [Case-Mate] finally came out with a phone case I would be proud to carry around. They’ve taken some of the more current designers/artists and given users access to their color and design palette. You can get addicted pretty quick to creating some cool phone cases.
  With that said, I do have to admit I like [...]

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  Culture | Vote For A Very Talented Illustrator

  Posted by mstrickl | February 23, 8:21 pm

  Our own Tom Helland is one of the 60 finalists for the Let’s Save Michigan poster contest. Let’s give him — and the great Mitten State — our support and vote!

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  Culture | Raffle For Haiti

  Posted by mstrickl | February 23, 8:10 am

  Thanks to Organic Detroit’s contributions, Friday’s Beer Bash held on February 12, raised $281.00 in raffle ticket sales. With Omnicom’s match of Organic’s money raised, a donation will be made to the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund in the amount of $562.00! Our Raffle Awards:·  a parking space in the garage for one full month (just in [...]

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  Marketing strategy | Get In on These 10 Big Digital Themes in Europe

  Posted by ssautter | February 23, 7:57 am

  Consumer Technologies, Ideas and Trends in Europe and What They Mean For BrandsThe year 2010 is a date from science fiction.  By now we were supposed to have hover cars, paper clothes, android companions and be happily holidaying on the Moon while robot television cameras kept us safe and secure. 
  CCTV may be live and [...]

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• March 2010 (5)

  Digital culture | Changing the conversation: What brand fans really want from brands

  Posted by craigritchie | March 31, 1:00 am

  How much would you pay for million subscribed fans? How much time would you invest to build such a huge audience? Sometimes all it takes is a few minutes — just set up the right execution with some real insight.
  The “Mom, mom, mommy, ma, mom, mom, ma, ma, mommy, mommy… WHAT!!… hi! (endquote sic) Facebook [...]

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  Culture | Camp 18: Wrap...It's Lust and Pride

  Posted by Daniel Turman | March 30, 2:47 pm

  LAS VEGAS — Congrats to all. Another legendary camp flew by…and the reports from the counselors tell a tale of impressive results. One even said this Camp went smoothly. But that report came after a weekend of rest.
  What happened? Well, ask someone who went. Share the good times, Organics.
  See you next time. And if you [...]

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  The social net | Making Face Time. And Making It Again.

  Posted by ssautter | March 30, 6:00 am

  image adapted from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/omino71
  Often clients are hesitant to associate a face — and name — with their brand. Especially someone whom they’ve recently hired solely to work on building their brand socially. Why can’t I just use my logo? What if this person decides to leave the position? Both are good questions and the latter [...]

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  Strength in Numbers | OMMAGOD!: A Social Media Panel @ OMMA SF

  Posted by mstrickl | March 29, 5:46 am

  As a new addition to the Organic team, bright eyed, bushy-tailed, and fresh out of ad school, I can generally be categorized as a sort of receptacle for all things advertising. Good, bad, or unsound, it all goes in. This tends to be the case for most of my peers, since we have [...]

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  Culture | Camp 18: Double, Double; Toil and... Judgment?

  Posted by Daniel Turman | March 26, 8:25 pm

  LAS VEGAS – After burning through calories, caffeine and seemingly limitless volumes of empathy, the teams rubbed their eyes as dawn broke and took Friday by storm. Now, hours since the sun rose over the eastern stretches of Nevada high desert, presentations have been completed and the judges have retired to chambers for a decision…
  Who’s [...]

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• April 2010 (5)

  Culture | Augmented reality reminds people of street violence

  Posted by kojanen | April 30, 7:20 am

  News of the poor homeless hero who, after helping a woman being attacked, was stabbed and left to die on the streets of New York City have probably reached every corner of the world by now. But it’s not only in New York that passersby sometimes ignore what they see, and keep walking. In the [...]

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  The social net | Trying To Reach Teens? Find Places to Talk and Ways to Share

  Posted by Marita Scarfi | April 29, 10:09 am

  Social networking sites are the glue that keeps teens bonded together. With more free time, high school students are exploring more features on social networking sites (music, games, watching videos) than college students. So what does it take to influence teen girls and get them to take action and light up their own network? Increasingly, [...]

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  Beyond the Brief | What's the value of word of mouth these days?

  Posted by Marta Strictland | April 28, 9:54 am

  Everything’s social…what isn’t these days. We scour the Internet and our personal networks for recommendations on everything from doctors to vacation spots. Clearly, word of mouth has a value. Right? Thanks to new research conducted by McKinsey consulting we now have deeper insight into the value behind word of mouth.

  Based on the research, we know [...]

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  Beyond the Brief | Does A Distributed Social Web Mean Bowing To Data Giants?

  Posted by Hilton Barbour | April 27, 8:23 am

  Maybe it is a result of the media frenzy around every announcement Facebook makes… this feeling that what they’ve decided to do is something NEW and revolutionary, something that we should applaud or protest. It makes it that much harder for me to believe that it was more than a year and a half ago [...]

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  The social net | Users Are Out. Members Are In.

  Posted by mstrickl | April 26, 7:30 am

  image credit: bltphoto [Flickr]
  It’s time to re-think how we refer to the people who visit brand sites. Traditional websites have “users.” Communities have “members.” And that nomenclature changes the way that you design for, strategize about, react to, and interact with the people who visit your site.
  Facebook pages are already built with membership in mind. [...]

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• May 2010 (5)

  Culture | Areas of Influence: Music Videos

  Posted by webmaster | May 31, 7:28 am

  Music videos are one of my favorite founts of inspiration. There’s no limit to how one 3-minute video might influence your work. The music is just one of many facets of creativity–there’s also animation, special effects, editing technique, coloring, wardrobe, choreography, storytelling, the list goes on.
  Just look at the new Kindle ads and you’ll see [...]

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  Around The Office | It's too heavy, lacks Flash and can't multitask: so why are you so jealous?

  Posted by webmaster | May 28, 11:36 am

  flickr photo by cvander
  There are now two kinds of people in the world. Those who own iPads and those who peer over their shoulders – at least just for a few seconds (Denial? There’s an app for that).
  This week, those users and curious over-shoulder readers were stroking the pages of Wired’s first iPad issue. Organics [...]

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  Beyond the Brief | DEWmocracy Teaches Us All About Consumer-Led Innovation

  Posted by Dan Sicko | May 20, 6:26 am

  Two years goes by in the blink of an eye. It was just about two years ago that I took over from Misha Cornes as Editor-In-Chief of Threeminds. And now the time has come for me to move on. I’m not going to spend my last post going on about how rewarding the experience has [...]

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  Branded entertainment | Getting Aboard Lexus's Dark Ride

  Posted by Dan Sicko | May 19, 5:46 am

  Earlier last month, Lexus launched the “Darker Side of Green” campaign to a perplexed auto industry, although this isn’t the first time Lexus has perplexed audiences. The campaign goes after the young, hip, environmentally conscious crowd who doesn’t want to give up styling and handling to save the planet.
  Enter Lexus Dark Ride, a 12:30 interactive [...]

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  Creative Sensibility | Areas of Influence: A New Series

  Posted by Hilton Barbour | May 17, 7:33 am

  I have to credit my junior-year painting teacher for providing me with the most useful piece of knowledge I would receive from my four years at RISD. During a critique, when one of the students derided a classmate’s painting for being too contrived, Mr. P responded without hesitation, “Everyone is contrived. There’s too much history and [...]

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• June 2010 (5)

  Creative Sensibility | What's So Funny 'bout Peace, Love, and Understanding (Your Audience)?

  Posted by Hilton Barbour | June 22, 6:50 pm

  On a panel at the CLIOs earlier this month I was asked, “What gets in the way of innovation?”
  “Clients,” I said.
  It was good for a laugh and partially true (depending on the clients, of course). But after some more thought, I want to elaborate: Innovation can’t happen unless clients, and agencies, are attempting to solve [...]

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  Grey Matter | Social Violations

  Posted by Hilton Barbour | June 14, 1:51 pm

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  Creative Sensibility | Social Media: It's all in how you use it

  Posted by Hilton Barbour | June 13, 6:21 pm

  Marketers can take a more holistic approach to where brand social media platforms fit organically and can be sustained without resorting to “check the box” mentality (On Facebook? Check. On Twitter? Check.). What marketers have come to realize is that mere presence on emerging platforms means little when compared to how they utilize it.

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  Creative Sensibility | The Era of Creative Empowerment

  Posted by Conor Brady | June 13, 6:15 pm

  Data Drives Engagement Success and Creative Relevance
  During the recent holiday season I had the opportunity to take a step back and read some of the comments stemming from my maiden Digital Next blog column titled, “Creatives: Are You OK With Collaboration, Measurement and Failure?” It was a very interesting exercise. What I found is [...]

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  Creative Sensibility | The New Pitch: Selling Clients Experience Over Promises

  Posted by Conor Brady | June 13, 5:41 pm

  Technology Allows Agencies to Work in Beta to Deliver More Than Just Ideas
  For years, “Promises, Promises” wasn’t just a song by the long forgotten band Naked Eyes, it was a core agency practice used to sell ideas to clients. Whether the team could actually deliver on these grand ideas took a back seat to creating [...]

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• July 2010 (1)

  Creative Sensibility | Old Spice. A Hit! And a Miss?

  Posted by Conor Brady | July 27, 11:36 am

  As a young kid, I spent a lot of time at my grandparent’s place in Bushwick, Brooklyn. They were de facto babysitters for my sister and me, who had two working parents with afterschool childcare needs and the desire to preserve their sanity with the occasional evening out.

  Grandpa used Old Spice. The image of the [...]

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• August 2010 (3)

  Culture | NY: World Cup Unites an Office, Then Divides It

  Posted by Mike Hudson | August 31, 10:29 pm

  The talented hands of NY took a plunge into the lottery sack last week, one-by-one pulling out the names of all countries represented in the World Cup soccer tournament. Some lucky folks nabbed favorites like Brazil, Spain and Germany. Some came up with long shots like the U.S. or South Korea. And Dan Neumann got [...]

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  Beyond the Brief | Reaping Social Media’s Rewards Means Knowing its Risks

  Posted by Steve Beck | August 31, 9:49 pm

  There are a few standard social media activities that everyone takes as standard practice– like putting up a Facebook page or a Twitter feed. Most brands have a Facebook wall where people can post messages.  The wall features a live feed of any comments or status updates which mention that brand. That works just great [...]

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  Strength in Numbers | How Long Does Your Ad Have an Impact?

  Posted by Steve Kerho | August 31, 7:56 pm

  If the speed and number of commitments for this year’s network TV upfronts are a bellwether for the economy, then better times may be on their way. It is encouraging to see marketers increase their media spend and focus on messaging other than “buy now” and “we are having a sale.”
  Even though media spending significantly [...]

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• September 2010 (5)

  View Source | HTML5 vs Flash

  Posted by Hilton Barbour | September 30, 5:26 pm

  The report of my death was an exaggeration.
  Mark Twain, New York Journal, June 2, 1897

  In April 2010, Steve Jobs published his “Thoughts on Flash” statement ( http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/) and thereby codified Apple’s opposition to support of the Flash player on their mobile operating systems. This act culminated a back-and-forth sally of couched taunts and threats between [...]

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  View Source | A prototype by any other name ...

  Posted by Hilton Barbour | September 30, 3:15 pm

  Given the range of functionality and fidelity represented by different prototyping methods it’s difficult to pinpoint the practices use in digital marketing. But as client goals and user experiences grow more complex it’s nice to have a choice of tools for proposing solutions.
  For a recent technology offsite every member of our team was tasked with [...]

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  Strength in Numbers | Creative and Analytics: The New Power Partnership, Part One

  Posted by Steve Kerho | September 29, 7:26 pm

  Creatives and Analytics together. The new power match-up.

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  Creative Sensibility | Nice to meet you. Volume 1. David Drebin

  Posted by Anthony Wolch | September 29, 5:32 am

  In the first of our series, David Drebin, celebrity and lifestyle photographer extraordinaire

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  Proof and Concept | Creativity and Analytics--The Mind Shift

  Posted by Bill Camp | September 27, 6:23 pm

  More collaboration, more direct interaction is needed when Creative and Analytics work together.

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• October 2010 (5)

  Proof and Concept | Do we really know what consumers want?

  Posted by Lezlie Grossman | October 27, 3:34 pm

  Research can be great but it has one fundamental flaw

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  Culture | Mayumi Lake -- Aether

  Posted by gscibelli | October 21, 11:58 am

  Last Thursday, I saw a spectacular show of photographs by Mayumi Lake and had an opportunity to speak to the artist.
  The photographs depict phobias, myths and stereotypes of Asian women — from the schoolgirl fantasy to the “Dragon Lady” to the submissive wife, mother and victim of war.  There is a diptych based on Countess [...]

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  Culture | I want to be Jim Napolitano

  Posted by gscibelli | October 20, 8:06 am

  Even though I know that this will make him uncomfortable, I am going to take the plunge and admit it.
  I want to be Jim Napolitano.
  If you work at Organic, you may know Jim as a hard-working, professional guy. A group director of engagement management. A true Excel genius.
  While I admire these qualities, this is not [...]

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  Grey Matter | Agency Selection

  Posted by Marc Schwartz | October 20, 8:00 am

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  Creative Sensibility | Celebrating the Art of Storytelling

  Posted by gscibelli | October 14, 4:24 pm

  We all know how important storytelling is – the ability to weave a compelling tale that lures in consumers has always been considered a coveted talent among agencies far and wide.  We decided to celebrate the art of storytelling — and its impact on the ad industry — in an unorthodox yet hilariously inspiring way.
  Along [...]

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• November 2010 (5)

  Culture | Hair Brained: When Movember Was Young

  Posted by Mike Hudson | November 30, 10:51 am

  (Editor’s Note: Tomorrow, December takes over your desk calendar…but it also marks the end of a superb run for our Toronto office. Read up at where they started way back on Nov. 1 and stay tuned for the final results of their efforts.)
  TORONTO — Organic Toronto is going for the Mo! Check out the guys [...]

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  Grey Matter | O'Ganic

  Posted by Marc Schwartz | November 29, 8:00 am

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  Culture | Happy Thanksgiving: from our table to yours

  Posted by gscibelli | November 23, 3:28 pm

  As promised, here is yet another great recipe for a fabulous dish we had at the Organic New York office Thanksgiving potluck on Friday, Nov. 19.  Madeleine Freind made an incredible meatball dish that everyone gobbled up.  Please see her recipe below – which is a riff on a recipe from the famous Rao’s restaurant.
  Ingredients:
  1 [...]

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  Culture | Our Thanksgiving Feast

  Posted by jvanpelt | November 22, 2:22 pm

  Thanksgiving came early for Organics in San Francisco. The festivities started with a potluck beer bash and a poem from Alle. Enjoy!

  ‘Tis a gift to be finished,
  ’tis a gift to be free,
  Tis a gift to chow down,
  you, and me, and we.
  And when we find ourselves with a glass just right
  ’twill be in the potluck of [...]

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  Grey Matter | Mad Men

  Posted by Marc Schwartz | November 22, 9:37 am

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• December 2010 (4)

  Strength in Numbers | Predicting The Growth Of Your Social Network

  Posted by Steve Kerho | December 21, 9:43 am

  The ability to gauge a marketing campaign in action is essential and exists for most traditional channels. The most glaring exception is social media. This inability to gauge or predict how well a social media campaign is performing means marketers can do little more than hope the effort is successful.
  At this point, any [...]

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  Culture | Tis the seasoning of giving!

  Posted by jvanpelt | December 15, 2:28 pm

  As we gear up for the holidays Organic San Francisco gave back to our community before enjoying in our annual holiday celebration by volunteering at the San Francisco Food Bank. The San Francisco Food Bank helps make sure more than 200,000 people— families struggling under the weight of the economic environment, the elderly, people suffering [...]

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  Grey Matter | Users

  Posted by Marc Schwartz | December 13, 8:00 am

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  Culture | TOR Movember: Lessons Learned (+$1,300 raised!)

  Posted by Mike Hudson | December 1, 1:38 pm

  Team Movember: To see what they looked like only one glorious month ago, click here.
  TORONTO — During the last month, I have learned four important things:
  1.       There are many different types of moustaches
  2.       Some men are just not meant to grow moustaches
  3.       Growing moustaches can make some people very inventive and just a tiny bit crabby
  4.       Organic TOR and [...]

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