What a day. How many times have you said that in your life? How many different ways has it been said and interpreted? I know I’ve said it at some of my lowest lows and my highest highs.

And so today, I find myself at 10:45 AM saying…What a day. For today is one week after Anna Basso would have turned 19 years old. She’d be returning home for the summer after her freshman year in college. Today is about a month out from what will be the 1 year anniversary of her passing away. In many respects it’ll be a lot like the 340 or so days that came before it. A sense of loss and sadness. And at the end, along with several others scattered around the country, when a thought of Anna drifts into my head, I could envision letting out a sigh and then saying – What a day.

However, let me assure you that is not how today will go. Not at all.

For today we launch the 1 Million 4 Anna Foundation. It is real, it is official and it is awesome.

The fight young Anna started in November 2009 gets kicked up a notch today. And we are on a mission. Quite simply Anna’s legacy will be defined by a simple phrase: Winning the fight against Ewing’s Sarcoma today, tomorrow and until it is gone. And win is exactly what we intend to do. Read more…

Mind if we brag real quick? No? Great.

Just this month, the Outdoor Advertising Association of America (OAAA) presented their 2012 OBIE Awards, which recognize the best outdoor advertising of the last year. And, as you’ve probably guessed, we made the list. Not once, not twice, but thrice.

Only three other agencies in the country had more work in the show. The smallest of those is more than 6-times our size and the largest is playing with McDonald’s money. So, yeah, we’re pretty proud.

Add to that a regional Addy win and some love at the local interactive awards show and you’ve got the makings of a pretty good month. As always, a lot of the credit goes to our clients, Interstate Batteries and Stripes Convenience Stores. Behind all great work is a brave client. Read more…

Happy Champagne Thursday (recap)! Yesterday, we gathered together as an agency to celebrate all the great things that have been happening around here in the last month.

This month’s get-together had a Cinco de Mayo theme and featured entertainment from our two newest employees. We heard some Smash Mouth from Andrew and the theme song of the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air by Will Smith from Courtney.

We also raised our glasses to Blair and Cherie for their hard work this month on all of our clients as well as other agency initiatives. Blair received a bottle cap for her latest blog entry. Cheers to both of you for your very well-deserved corks!

And, next month should be an especially entertaining Champagne Thursday because we will have interns to sing!

As the head of planning at an agency who truly believes in insights, nothing jazzes me like having clients who share a hunger for knowing more – about their consumers, about how those consumers make decisions, and about how brands can intersect them and impact their thinking in new ways. We are lucky to have partners who fit this description.

While we conduct ongoing tracking for a number of clients, do a fair amount of traditional qualitative, and address a la carte research needs on a regular basis, there are certain projects that reinvigorate you about what it is we do. And we’ve recently undertaken, or are about to initiate, some projects that are exciting because of the new ways they’re allowing us to tap into insights.

We just transitioned a subset of respondents from an ongoing tracking study into an online community where we spent a few days engaged in story-sharing and conversation about the emotions that arise when an unexpected durable good expense arises, how they research purchases and ultimately make decisions.
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I have a feeling several people wonder the same thing I did before joining the Firehouse team. Is that place really as cool as it seems?

And the answer is quite simply, yes.

Atmosphere is a huge deal to me and plays into many of the decisions I make. Whether it’s choosing a restaurant for dinner, a place to stay on our next trip, or where I’ll be spending my workdays, that certain feeling in the air and the culture is something you can’t fake and something I can’t overlook.

The environment is perhaps what you’d expect for an agency; industrial, interesting, casual but professional, with an occasional foam dart flying overhead. The concrete floors and clean lines are a nice contrast to the warmth the employees bring. With all the open spaces, the halls are never quiet. In fact, it can even be loud if there is a serious foosball game in action.

It’s what’s inside these walls that wasn’t expected. I found an extremely talented group of people that genuinely cares about one another and is passionate about the work they do. I’ve never seen such a tight group that works so well with one another. Maybe it’s because employees are truly valued and appreciated. Or perhaps it has something to do with the office layout that fosters collaboration and creativity. Or it could be that everyone’s spirits are high and there is a deep sense of pride. Whatever the secret, it makes it fun to come to work.

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Last Friday (Friday the 13^th actually), Firehouse hosted its second annual April Foos Tournament benefiting the Taylor’s Gift Foundation.

Here at Firehouse we love to prove our Foospremecy and our annual April Foos Tournament has been a long-standing tradition, but last year we had the great idea to change it up to get more people involved. And, since April is Organ Donation Awareness month we couldn’t think of a better cause to raise money for than Taylor’s Gift. So the tradition continued as we invited friends of Firehouse to join us in our two-on-two foosball tournament. This year, we had 25 teams and raised over $2,000 for Taylor’s Gift.

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We recently celebrated one of our favorite traditions here at Firehouse: Champagne Thursday – and it was even on a Thursday!

Champagne Thursday is a monthly tradition at Firehouse where we recognize greatness, give props where props are due and occasionally, haze the ever-loving pants off each other.

Nominations are written, songs are sung (by new employees), tears are shed (mostly by Mark) and champagne is imbibed. The corks from the champagne bottles are awarded to those who’ve rocked the hardest during the past month.

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From Snake Oil to keywords, the Shady salesman lives on, but in 2012 his wares may include promises of rankings, traffic, and leads galore. Because not many advertisers understand search marketing, they are forced to put their trust in a small group of “experts” who hold the majority of the knowledge and invest their money in a technology they might not understand.

But Advertiser beware because some search marketers take advantage and advertisers pay dearly in terms of website rankings, which leads to loss of search traffic, which leads to loss of business, and so forth and so on…making all search marketers look unethical.

Here are a few quick tips to help keep you and yours from getting burned.

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In recent weeks, we have made a couple of new additions to the Firehouse planning team that are particularly exciting. Though we have been handling both SEO/SEM and social media for various clients, we invested in bringing in dedicated experts to handle both disciplines – Josh Lee joined as Digital Media Strategist/Search Specialist and Ashley Carter as Social Media Community Manager.

It’s always fun to welcome new brains to the team, but it is particularly great to add those who are solid generalist thinkers and also bring a greater depth of expertise than we previously possessed. In both cases, their impact on the value we can add to our clients’ businesses has been evident and immediate. And both Josh and Ashley are natural fits with the Firehouse culture and the rest of the team.

Keep on eye on them and what they can do. Big things ahead.

Photo Credit: Awkward Family Photos

On Friday, brand pages on Facebook, including our new and improved Firehouse page, were forced to change over to Timeline, Facebook’s newest improvement that many users are already familiar with. Timeline was released to the public in January. The biggest changes from the old profile layout are the addition of a new, large header photo, called a cover photo, a timeline on the right side of the page that allows users to quickly look through a pages history, and reformatting of the way content is laid out on a page, including highlighted content from past months, years, and in the case of some brands, centuries.

Without a doubt, my favorite new feature of Timeline brand pages is the ability to look at a brands story from the beginning. I chose to write about this topic after seeing an update on my newsfeed that Adidas Soccer had added 7 milestones to its Timeline. These milestones are what make brand pages so interesting. In the case of Adidas Soccer, the company added product photos that played key roles in famous soccer events, like the 1966 FIFA World Cup Final between England and Germany (4:2).

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