By Michael Munz, Dalton Agency, Partner, EVP and Director of Public Relations +

On May 19th, Jacksonville took a positive aviation related step with the inaugural non-stop JetBlue flight between Jacksonville and San Juan, Puerto Rico. The celebration was in full swing as members of the Jacksonville Aviation Authority Board, their executives, JetBlue executives and a variety of community and business leaders from Jacksonville boarded the Embraer 190. (more…)

Here’s a glimpse of the outdoor campaign that Dalton just launched on behalf of the Central Florida Scout Show. Be prepared for great attendance.

by Tim McGugan, Dalton Agency, Social Media Manager

As the sandpipers sift through the the rolling water’s edge of the Atlantic ocean, you begin to let your mind relax. You cross the Intracoastal waterways and catch a glimpse of the bright sandy beaches of Amelia Island. As your stress begins to roll away, you realize you’ve landed at Summer Beach Resort, a little slice of North Florida heaven.

I can honestly say that this is what it means to experience Summer Beach Resort Lodging, one of our newest clients to enter the realm of social media. I can speak about this client so vividly because as the lead social media advisor, I had the very fortunate assignment of visiting the resort this past weekend.

Here at The Dalton Agency, when we begin our relationship with a social media client, we always strive to immerse ourselves in their brand. Having recently launched Summer Beach Resort Lodging into social media with a new Facebook page, one of our objectives is to help resort guests continue their connection to the island lifestyle, even when they return home. To accomplish that, we have to understand what the Summer Beach Resort guest experience is like, hence my weekend getaway.

My goal with this trip was to truly experience all the resort has to offer in an effort to understand the brand better. I experienced the secluded beaches and tranquility of Amelia Island, the quiet stillness of nature in the morning and the beauty all around the island. Whether for a weekend or a week, Summer Beach Resorts offers an idyllic place where anyone can relax and share in a truly unique experience filled with carriage rides, homemade ice cream and confectionary shops, antiques and elegant island dining.

And now, armed with this firsthand knowledge, keeping this experience fresh in the mind of Summer Beach’s Facebook community is my next assignment. With the proper engagement and conversation, Summer Beach’s online community will be able to share their memories and favorite things about Amelia Island, bringing a little piece of Summer Beach back home. Like the start of all relationships, it’s all about knowing when to talk and when to listen.

Join the island experience on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/SummerBeachResort. Be one of the first 500 people to like the page and you might have a chance to win a free escape to Summer Beach!

By Cindy Krenek, Assistant Account Executive, PR+

Facebook Questions, motivation and intellectual property were a few of the topics discussed at the Dalton Agency’s second Friday Forum on May 6.

I started off the forum by discussing Facebook Questions. The new Facebook feature was rolled out at the end of March, although beta testing began last June. We discussed how it works, what benefits it has and how it could be used for our clients in the future.

Next, Wes Bernick from our Post-production department led a discussion about motivation. He started out by showing a Nike Plus advertisement. Then, he showed a snippet of another video about the surprising truth about what motivates us. The video explains that once employees are paid high enough salaries, money is no longer what motivates them to do good work. Rather, motivation becomes tied to things like autonomy and feeling a sense of satisfaction about what a person is doing. As Wes explained, that type of motivation is what makes him love coming to work at the Dalton Agency everyday. This led into an explanation that the post-production department takes time to create things they want to that aren’t necessarily for clients but that could be presented to clients as alternate ideas. Even if those alternate ideas aren’t picked up, they could lead to new ideas in the future.

Michael Munz presented on an important topic – intellectual property. Using a story about a real client, Michael explained how discussions about intellectual property are a necessity when working with clients to ensure that new ideas and brands aren’t already taken.

Ashley Lynch, one of our copywriters, shared an interesting article she read about a Swedish agency that found a way to make money off of its art director’s five-month absence by selling advertising space in his out-of-office emails. We discussed the emergence of creative new media opportunities like this one, but also explored the fine line between what is creative and what is annoying in serving ads.

Finally, Friday Forum facilitator and one of Dalton’s social media managers, Caroline Winegeart shared a new ad for Google Chrome as an example of a company using a strong emotional connection in its messaging. It shows how a father uses Google’s Chrome browser to develop a virtual scrapbook, sending messages to his daughter since the day she was born.

The Friday Forum is a recent initiative started by the Dalton Agency for employees to gather on the first Friday of every month to discuss and share new ideas going on in advertising, social media, public relations, post-production and web and graphic design.

by Caroline Winegeart, Dalton Agency Social Media Manager

Integration. If you’re an ad professional you have no doubt heard this word over and over again. It’s one of the many challenges we face as ad agencies operating in an ever-changing digital world. So when the Dalton Agency had the opportunity to host AMIN’s annual conference focused on integration here in Jacksonville, I jumped at the chance to attend the event and soak up all the information I could.

While Dalton has led a successful effort to become more integrated for some time now, I wanted to walk away with ideas on becoming even more seamless in the way we tackle a client’s business. It was incredible to talk to people from different agencies and learn how each of them was approaching integration differently. Over the course of my many conversations, one thing became clear to me: there’s no silver bullet when it comes to integration.

The truth is, there are certainly steps we can take to develop a multi-faceted approach to producing great work, but integration is a journey, not a destination – a daily commitment, not a finite goal to attain.

That being said, I thought I’d share my three key takeaways that I think can significantly aid in the process of integration.

Integration starts with education.

Why are we divided into departments in the first place? Because we each have specialties. Creatives have a different skill-set and knowledge-base than media folks, who in turn have different strengths than interactive designers and developers. The first step to creating great work that strategically and conceptually blends all disciplines is simply sharing information. If creatives know what new media opportunities exist or what their limitations are on interactive functionality, logic dictates that they’ll be better equipped to come up with great ideas with the legs to span our variegated media landscape.

At Dalton we’ve have our monthly Friday Forum where we can share ideas across the entire agency, and we’ve schedule training sessions and Lunch & Learns where we can gain a better understanding of departments outside of our own.

Proximity leads to progress.

So how do you make it easier for employees to share information across departments? You make them share an office. Ok, that may be a little extreme, but you get the idea – people that share space are more likely to talk. Boundaries in the physical environment can lead to boundaries in the mental environment and can be discouraging to collaboration. Providing opportunities where people of different specialties can talk is key.

If an office shake-up isn’t necessarily feasible, try encouraging people to work part of the day in common areas (like our plush orange couches!)

Everyone needs a seat at the table from the beginning.

This is a simple concept in theory but can easily be overlooked in practice. If you want a creative product to be integrated in the end, you have to ensure it’s integrated from the beginning. This may mean finding a conference room big enough to fit ten to fifteen people comfortably, but unless the key people from every department are present in the initial start of a project, it is all too easy for communication breakdowns to happen along the way. Bring everyone together, agree on the problem that needs to be solved and the strategy to solve it, and you will be setting your project up for success.

As I said, there is no single secret to integration but I think by understanding these three points and continuing our agency-wide, daily commitment to integration, we can continue to improve how we effectively serve our clients in a holistic and cohesive way.

As we enjoy our wonderful Spring weather, we thought you’d love to see highlights from our Bealls 2011 Spring shoot. If you live somewhere cold, feel free to live vicariously through the footage!

by Caroline Winegeart, Dalton Agency, Social Media Manager

We all know that the ROI for social media can sometimes be a difficult thing to pinpoint. How do you quantify positive brand sentiment? How do you measure the positive word-of-mouth impact one of your brand advocates can create over time? Sometimes it can be challenging. Which is why at times I think it’s difficult for a client to understand the benefits of investing time and attention in their social media community.

Given this, it’s inspiring to see when a client understands that social media also serves as an extension of customer service, and creating great experiences for their customers offline is important, so it should be equally important in the online space.

I recently encountered a situation where a community member for one of my clients had a negative experience. Through monitoring I was able to find this person, reach out to them with an apology and offer a solution. They were delighted by the personal attention I was able to give, and in some situations this is where the story might end. However, when my account team at Dalton was notified of the exchange and passed it along to the client, the client decided they wanted to go above and beyond for this customer. The client contacted the customer individually and created a custom brand experience for her and her son. As a result, this woman has become one of our greatest brand advocates and continues to share our content with her community and engage with us on a regular basis. Our community has seen accelerated growth following the interaction.

It’s difficult to perfectly pinpoint the lasting affect this single positive experience will have on the business of my client. However, it’s my belief that the brands that continue to value their social community in this way will see long-term success. Social media has provided customers a new channel with which to spread their brand message. I believe it is imperative to ensure that the message is a positive one, and I am grateful for working with clients that understand this. Making lasting relationships between brands and consumers, as well as delivering great service will continue to be my goal for each of my clients.

by Caroline Winegeart, Dalton Agency, Social Media Manager

With the rate at which technology is changing the world around us, sometimes it feels as if the advertising and communication in general is evolving at a pace that’s impossible to keep up with. Here at the Dalton Agency, we know that in order to serve our clients well, we need to know what tools and resources are available to us. In an effort to keep each other informed about the innovation that’s happening in our industry daily, we’ve decided to create a new monthly event we like to call our “Friday Forum.” (more…)

Congratulations to First Coast No More Homeless Pets (FCNMHP) for winning the race to 1,000 likes. It’s been absolutely incredible watching the sprint to that number and beyond. As of the writing of this note, support for the poster had just surpassed 2,044 “likes.”

So what did they win? The Dalton Agency will be working with FCNMHP to create a 3-minute promotional video to help them spread the word about the wonderful things they’re doing for homeless pets in the Jacksonville community.

A huge thanks to all of our new friends from The Patrick Miracle for helping out this great organization!

The Dalton Cares contest is still running, so be sure to stop by the Dalton Cares to vote for your favorite local charities!

The Dalton Agency is excited to announce that we have upped the stakes for the Dalton Cares poster contest by adding a new component to help raise awareness for your cause.  Now, the first charity whose poster receives 1,000 “likes” via Facebook voting will win a 3-minute promotional video produced by the Dalton Agency and our in-house video production team valued at $10,000.

Dalton Post, the video production arm of the Dalton Agency, works on the bleeding edge of technology to guarantee unique, effective videos for every client, every time. Our team of animators, editors, motion graphic artists, sound designers, and cinematographers are involved from concept to creation on each video and are dedicated to producing high-concept, high-quality entertainment.

Please keep spreading the word to your supporters! People can vote for their favorite poster or non-profit by visiting www.daltoncares.com.  Voting ends at midnight on April 12.  Each charity will be presented their artwork, to use as they wish, which is valued at $5,000, and the charity with the most votes will receive an additional $1,000 cash donation.