Dunn Building Company is a client we’ve long enjoyed working with. Aside from being consistently friendly and reasonable people, they’ve allowed us to do some pretty Out Of The Box creative work—compared to the typical construction company’s stuff. Like this ad:
Click Here

Anyhow, they recently asked us to produce an employment recruiting ad. Although Dunn isn’t really in the market for new employees, they felt they needed to buy ad-space in an upcoming Birmingham News “Construction Employment” insert as a goodwill gesture toward the sponsoring association—of which they’re a member.

I called my contact at Dunn (Brett Clark) to discuss our selling message. During that brief conversation, the part that stuck-out to me most was this: “We basically have zero turnover here.” He then sent me some additional info—including the fact that Dunn had been named one of the Birmingham Business Journal’s 10 Best Places to Work in 2008.

Together, those two nuggets led to this eye-catching headline (and roughly-worded intro sentence)—which I dashed-off and sent over to Brett for consideration:

——————————————————-

FOR THE FIFTH STRAIGHT YEAR, OUR
EMPLOYEES GAVE US A BIG FAT ZERO.

There’s a reason Dunn Building Company has had no employee turnover for five years…

——————————————————-

It turned out that (while Dunn’s executive leadership has indeed remained constant), they’d had an office person move to another company in the last couple years—so my headline didn’t work.

Imagine my despair.

About half an hour later, I hit on a second idea I liked a lot more. This one based on another comment of Brett’s: “Everybody gets along here. There aren’t any egos or fights.” In a high-pressure industry like Construction, that’s pretty neat. And pretty unique. So here’s what I sent them:
Click Here

They didn’t get it. Which is, of course, an Ad-Man’s way of saying They didn’t like it. What’s more, it started a multi-part Reply All discussion, primarily among Dunn folks who haven’t been involved in marketing in the past. Here are some of the comments that discussion generated:

—What do you think about dull???? I think “fun” or something similar would be better.

—We need to make sure that people understand what we do. Therefore, words like concrete, steel, roofing, craftsmen, quality should try to be incorporated if possible.  It doesn’t have to be a straight list of services we provide…we should be able to play on these words in some way. (…craftsmen looking for a ‘concrete’ company, look no further than DUNN…)

—Another thought may be something like…our commitment to family is as strong as the steel we hang.

Those messages were all waiting in my inbox this morning (Friday the 13th). And since their “Dull” ad had pretty much been the highlight of an otherwise dreary week, I decided I’d go ahead and send them exactly what they asked for. It took about 15 minutes:
Click Here

Guess what? They got that one. More importantly, they understood that I really did send it to them in good fun—NOT as a thumb to the nose.

True, I still think the “Dull” ad would work very well for Dunn. But you know what? They hired us to produce an ad for Dunn. Not Hare Communications. Besides, how can you not love a client who gives you permission to post a Behind The Scenes At The Sausage Factory blog entry like this one?

Moral: Work with people you love working with. It’s a lot more rewarding, and fun, than getting your way all the time.

We recently started work with Baggett Transportation, a privately-owned trucking firm specializing in military equipment and munitions transport. They needed a new driver recruitment ad campaign.

The first thing we learned about Baggett’s folks was pretty much the same thing we heard from every driver we interviewed for background: They’re really nice people.

Their drivers (all Owner Operators, not Company “employees”) consistently reported what a good company Baggett is to work with. And how proud they were to be serving the armed forces.

All of which led to a pretty dramatic overhaul of their ad campaign. Click on the images below to see the ads in a larger size. Then you can zoom-in on the larger images by holding down your Ctrl button and rolling your mouse-roller forward.

The copy pretty much came straight from the couple profiled. When I read it to Wayne and Bonnie over the phone, Bonnie said, “Boy! I got chill bumps.”

Now that is why we’re in this business.

BEFORE

AFTER

(He’s in the middle, wearing the Parliament T-Shirt)

Fletcher signed-up for Rock Band as his elective this Spring—and the band had its public debut in Birmingham’s world-famous Spencer Center last night.

Click here for a sonic blast of primal rock at its absolute rawest. (Warning: May be disturbing to pets and small children).

http://bit.ly/rokkband

I was deleting unimportant emails the other day, and clicked on my Sent Items folder—where I discovered that, somehow, Outlook Express had deleted every message I’d sent since February 16. That’s at least 2000 messages, and the vast majority of them were business related. What’s more, no message I send right now registers in the Sent Items folder—so if I want to have a record of any email sent, I have to CC myself.

Turns-out my Sent Items folder is corrupted. So why am I not in a full state of panic? First, Erin’s dad is a computer genius—and there’s a good chance he can restore them. But in the meantime, the idea that I won’t some day have to sort through those 2000-odd messages, and determine if there are any I need to keep, is a load off my mind.

For years, I killed every message (Inbox and Sent) over six months old—and I never once regretted it. Now all of a sudden, I’m not so sure it’s a big deal killing even more recent messages. A big reason for that is, we only work with people we like—which drastically reduces the importance of saving messages to “protect” yourself against future He Said / She Said conflicts.

The other thing is, it feels almost like starting over. In a good way. All those messages I could see every day in my Sent Items folder may have served as more of an albatross than a record of accomplishment and achievement.

All that said, if I have the option to recover them, yeah, I guess I will. But right now, I’m enjoying the freedom.

We premiered the new Birmingham Venture Club logo at the March meeting today—and Michael Tomberlin posted a nice little note about it on al.com, along with a link to our website.

You can see the note, and the vertical version of the logo, at this address: http://bit.ly/v-club

Small Site Scores Big.

We recently launched a nice website on a shoestring budget for a buddy of ours—who manufactures the world’s greatest supplemental game feeder. Unbeknownst to us, Hindsight Management (led by Birmingham ad legend Jim Riley) evaluated the site’s effectiveness using The Riley Persuasion Index. Jim reports that it earned the highest score he can remember.

Anyhow, if you have friends who hunt, and/or own hunting property, send them to www.buckeyefeeders.com And tell-em the folks at Hare Communications sent you!

BTW: If you’re interested in learning more about Hindsight Management, visit their website at http://www.hindsightmanagement.com/

Francis:

On New Year’s Day, I found (carefully stored in a long-unused file drawer) a 1981 R.E.M. 45 RPM single—released on Hib Tone Records, and signed by the entire band. Bassist Mike Mills included a personal note to Martha: “Hi Martha — 404-546-0365”.

Seeing as how I haven’t felt the need to play it in the last 27 years, I listed it on eBay. It sold for $99 to a 20-something entertainment-software sales executive in Los Angeles.

I have not called Mike’s number to see if he still lives there. Lemme know if you do.