Cricket Save Team

When Cricket Mobile said they wanted to increase employee morale and “customer saves” at their call center in Nicaragua, they came to Targetbase asking for a solution. There was one catch: We had three hours to create it. The starting place we were given was “Maybe a mouse pad?”

From my perspective, when you have a group of people that are experiencing low morale, the most important gift you can give them is a voice. That is why I, along with my art director, concepted and executed “Greetings from Nicaragua.”

A simple, retro postcard with a photo of a Nicaraguan beach on the front was handed out to team members. Each time a team member saved a customer from leaving the company, they were awarded a playful sticker to help them decorate their own personal beach. When team members reached 12 stickers they wrote how they were feeling about the job on the back of the card and mailed it to Cricket headquarters. The information collected from these cards was used to gather a better understanding of how morale could be boosted throughout Cricket’s international call centers. Along with this, the cards were posted for public viewing at Cricket’s corporate office in Denver, CO, adding another level of pride and accountability for the team members that all involved could appreciate.

Oh, and everyone got a new mouse pad as well.

52 LTD Blog Writing

I'm super stoked to have this up. 52 is an amazing company with a great staff, and I feel super fortunate to be a part of what they are doing with their blog. Click the link above to check it.

Gatsby Events Branding

In late summer 2009, I was a part of 12 copywriters and designers at Switch Creative Group that were asked to individually concept a single idea for the branding of a wedding. Through a spoken presentation, four of the twelve concepts would ultimately make the cut and move on to the creation phase of a new division of the company: Gatsby Events. Idea's ranged from 8 bit weddings to film noir, but I simply chose wine. I chose wine because it has gained massive momentum as a cultural pastime and passion in America in recent years, and because it is a deep and wide metaphor for our lives, and has been since ancient times. I entitled the project Terroir, which at it's most basic, can be translated as "a sense of place." I wanted to let couples explore in depth why the person they had chose for their husband or wife was their sense of place in this world.

Using the terroir of wine and the grapevines as metaphor was key to making this project a success. Wine that has great terroir means that individual elements have come together to make the relationship harmonious. The root structure of the vines can reach more than 30 feet into the ground, struggling to find water. It is in this struggle that the berries acquire character and flavor from the minerals in the ground.

During the presentation there were four small trays on the table. These contained dark chocolate, blueberries, small fragrant flowers and espresso beans. I asked the participants to pass around the trays and take in the scent of each of the elements. I then asked them to think about the individual attributes that each of them enjoyed in their partner. With this in mind I opened a bottle of wine I had selected that contained all of the individual elements that had been passed around the table. I asked the participants to smell and taste the wine to find those individual elements and to see how they had been formed together to make a wonderful marriage of flavors that was greater than the sum of it’s parts, and how that sensation related back to their own lives.

It was then time to move onto the practical aspects of branding the wedding. Some of my ideas were

1. To have the save the date printed on wine corks and sent out as part of the invitation. At the wedding there would be these same corks that would be signed by the guests and put in a glass bowl that would double as the couples guest book.
2. Many wineries will now partner with event planners to create custom labels and even custom blends. These would be served at the reception.
3. Sachets of elements such as flowers and espresso beans would be given out to guests in a gift bag.

I am proud to say that this idea was accepted and is currently in the design phase at http://www.gatsbyevents.com

NX35 Program Print Piece on The Walkmen

Exploring The Past to Reinvent The Future

For the Walkmen, it looks like it's going to be a good year

By: Andy Young


The Walkmen's rise to fame was sparked though the ashes of Jonathon Fire*Eater, the highly influential New York group known not only for their visceral live shows in the mid-nineties, but for their influence on other NYC bands such as The Strokes. When the smoke cleared from the hype and the deals, the rumors of that breakup subsided and the reality of the situation came shinning through: three members of Jonathon Fire*Eater still had more to say. Together with two ex-pats of The Recoys, they became the Walkmen.

When Bows + Arrows dropped in the winter of 2004, there was one song that you heard everyone playing, humming and talking about: “The Rat.” Even though it was a venomous break up song, people everywhere, no matter what their romantic situation, loved it. This could be explained with relative ease. A great melody can carry the darkest of lyrics, or that even if the listener was happy with their personal life, the country was dealing with an affair that was growing more sour by the minute: the presidency of George W. Bush. No matter the reason, the Walkmen had made their mark with a blend of their native DC hardcore, the sweeping melodies of U2 and the dance-filled beats of 80’s, all filtered through a vintage mindset, from the instruments they played to the musicians' throwback style.

The vibe began to take hold even more with the follow up to Bows + Arrows, A Hundred Miles Away, released in the spring of 2006. From the first notes of “Louisiana” the Walkies might as well have been the Velvets, channeling something so reminiscent of “Sweet Jane” that you begin to think Lou Reed himself is about to make a cameo. As soon as the young gravel of Hamilton Leithauser is introduced, though, you immediately forget about influence and are transported to the world the Walkmen have built. It’s a world in which the sum of a song’s parts is bigger than any piece that came before the last. Wall of sound drums indigenous to the '60s, bar room piano and flamenco horns fill out the arrangement and transform it into the one thing that really matters when creating something new: originality.

It was exactly that originality that led the band to not only the most commercially successful long player of their career, but also their most critically acclaimed: 2008’s You & Me. The most striking thing about this album is that although the songs themselves are wonderful, it’s more about texture and feeling than about the traditional song structure that was so well represented early in their career. It’s an album based in the breath of what they actually are, and what they are is band that plays instruments older than themselves, turned up completely in the red, wearing clothes that not only imply status and style, but that are contrary to the dank bars and clubs their music seems to sound best in. The Walkmen make music not only influenced by an older time, but by a place and time that only exists while you’re listening to it.

With an upcoming album due out this spring, make sure not to miss a live preview of that place and time that the Walkmen so solidly own, in the kind of environment they're meant to be heard in.

The Walkmen play Hailey's on Sunday with Jookabox, Pomegranates and Follow That Bird!.

Lines for a New Secret Project

Sorry I’ve been out of touch. I disabled my account.


I blogged about us. It was very personal.


I drew a profile picture of you. You don’t look natural.


I’ll never unfriend you. At least not in real life.


I changed my relationship status for you. I hope I don’t have to change it back.

Sarah Jaffe Bio/Smile Smile Video PR

I'm pleased to say that I was recently asked by Sarah Jaffe and Kurtland Records to write the press bio for Sarah's new record Suburban Nature. As you may know, Sarah is just another person to drink too much of the water in Denton, TX, thus leading to amazing albums and tours with the likes of Midlake and Norah Jones.

The process of writing it went really well for everyone involved, so I was invited last week to write the press release for Kurtland artist, Smile Smile for their video Truth on Tape.

As soon as I get a copy of both with the proper letterhead on it I'll throw them up for people to read.

Blogging

I've been doing something I never saw myself doing on a regular basis. Blogging. I've never liked the word. Kind of how I've never liked the word noshing. It's just gross. Despite my disdain for the word, when given a platform through a company, I actually have a really good time with it.

The creative services firm 52LTD in Portland Ore. has been having me do "free blogging" for them recently, giving me total control to write about whatever I want to concerning advertising, SEO and just being creative in general. I wish I could show them off, but they have not been published yet.

Something that is ready to read now is the first of many blogs I am writing for the NX35 music festival. Aside from the "Five Primer" stuff I'm writing, I will be doing some long form pieces for them as well. View this work here.