We had an amazing time meeting some of the most passionate fans in the world while shooting the new Jacksonville Jaguars season ticket campaign. We wanted to celebrate the people who Stand United with the team; the season-ticket holders. Our goal was to capture the pride and ownership that they feel for the Jaguars, while inviting everyone in the region to claim their section.
“Our team noticed that when two Jaguars fans meet, one of first things they share is their section number in Everbank Field.” says Kevyn Faulkenberry, Dalton Agency vp/executive creative director. “It’s a sign of pride, of loyalty. Each section has its own personality and attitude, and we just wanted to tap into their passion for the team, to share it with the fans who have not yet discovered their section.”
For information on how you can claim your section, visit www.jaguars.com or call 904-633-2000.
Dalton proud to be a One Spark festival venue in Downtown Jacksonville
Agency to feature innovators from region’s growing technology community for One Spark, five-day festival in downtown Jacksonville
The Dalton Agency will host eight local creators during the One Spark festival, which will be in downtown Jacksonville April 17-21 and feature the work of more than 500 people in the arts, sciences and technology at 65 venues.
Agency President and CEO Jim Dalton, who relocated the agency’s headquarters to downtown five years ago, said that One Spark is an opportunity to showcase Jacksonville’s impressive arts and technology community and also its downtown.
“As a downtown business owner, I have long-believed in the potential of our urban core, and I am energized by One Spark and the life and vibrancy it will bring to downtown Jacksonville,” said Dalton. “One Spark is also consistent with our core values of fostering creativity and supporting downtown, and we are proud be a part of the event.”
The Dalton Agency will feature the following eight creators, the majority of which are technology start ups from Jacksonville and its surrounding communities:
Debuit.com – an online pilot television measurement site that measures the success of pilot television for network and cable clients to prove audience acceptance before millions are spent to produce and market a new series.
Creator: Jennifer Valenti; www.debuit.com
Nerdular- amulti-vendor, e-commerce website where buyers and sellers of “nerd stuff” can go to find new and used comics, video games, collectibles, table top games, trading card games, apparel, media and more. It is a remodeled eBay for the “nerd” market with an emphasis on community engagement. Visit the booth at the Dalton Agency to talk about “nerd” interests and play trivia. Those brave enough are encouraged to come by in their best costume play costume for a prize.
Pajama Monsters – once upon a time, the creators of Pajama Monsters knew a little boy who was scared of the dark. In fact, they knew several kids who pulled their toes under the covers in fear of the big-bad-hairy-something that was lurking just under the bed. So they created Pajama Monsters, a group of protectors to stand guard over kids. Many peaceful nights later, they’re told the boogeyman is not so scary, when your best friend is a monster. Handmade locally and previously sold in small batches across the US, Europe, Britain and Australia.
ProfileGorilla – provides a comprehensive, inexpensive and easy to implement software system that businesses can utilize to securely store, track and manage critical business information and documents. The business can also connect online with external business partners and stakeholders to share, maintain and exchange administrative and transactional data. The power of ProfileGorilla is using its collaborative functionality, where a business can connect to external business partners to share and exchange specific information and documents.
Creator: Ed Baldwin
Redeploy Me – an exclusive network for contract and temporary employees, many of whom go to work with the uneasy feeling that at any given time their assignment may end. This pool of employees is a very valuable source of hire since they are actively employed and typically have been vetted through background checks, skills tests and multiple interviews prior to starting any given assignment. Redeploy Me provides an exclusive marketplace for this pool of employees and bring a new level of transparency to the “hidden” job market that exists between staffing agencies and hiring companies.
Restroom Alert - a unique restroom management system developed to help businesses provide consistently clean, well-stocked and fully functional public restrooms. Restroom Alerts believes in the simple idea that “clean restrooms are good business.“
Stocktagon – anequity market research tool combining big data, visualization and document searching so users can see the market as a whole and discover trends, rather than looking at one company at a time.
The Factory – a focused, no nonsense and distraction-free environment that connects entrepreneurs to launch quality tech startups and drive economic growth. It provides access to like-minded entrepreneurs, business partner networks, software tools, application development, cloud hosting services and market visibility. All accepted founders are expected to have done plenty of research, skin in the game and a focus on growing sustainable businesses.
When we made a commitment to engage in social media five years ago, we set a strategic goal of making it one of our core competencies and making sure we practiced what we preached. After all, if we were going to enter the world of new media and advise our clients, we had to walk the walk. (more…)
by Jeremy Nettles, Dalton Agency Community Manager
One of the most difficult things in marketing is getting your product or brand in front of its target market in a unique way. But have you really explored all of the different ways to get the word out? In particular, have you thought about appealing to senses other than sight or sound?
The SXSW Interactive Session, Show & Smell 2, set out to explore all the different ways to market to our other senses. While some of these techniques may seem unconventional, they can also be highly effective.
If you market food or beverage items, then you know that just getting people to taste your product is half the battle. Well there are some creative ways that marketers have come up with to accomplish that without making the customer purchase the product or even go into a store. Ogilvy Dubai recently published an edible print ad that you could literally tear off the page and taste the beverage they were advertising. While US restrictions currently prohibit these kinds of ads, they do not prohibit sending out taste strips. Anyone who has ever used a breath freshener strip will know how these work. We were provided a few taste strips to try out, and they work remarkably well. The product was a honey liqueur, and you could really get a good idea of how it tasted.
Want to sell some coffee? Have the always-identifiable smell of coffee accompany ads on a metro service that drops of passengers near one of your locations. Do you have passionate super fans that want to take your product with them wherever they go? Offer a cologne or perfume that they can purchase and wear with pride. We were provided with smell cards of a pizza-scented perfume that is currently on the market to demonstrate. Now, this isn’t something I would ever spray on myself, but I’m sure that there are pizza fans out there that would wear it with pride.
So next time you’re stuck trying to think of a creative way to market a product, think of how you can engage all of your audiences senses.
by Aliera Peterson, Dalton Agency Director of Social Media
This particular panel at South by Southwest (SXSW), was in high demand and a very insightful look into the world of crowd sourcing by team members from PepsiCo and Frito-Lay, two brands that have had obvious success and received tremendous fan engagement and goodwill from their own crowd sourcing efforts. Moderated by Todd Wasserman from Mashable, the panel included:
Jen Saenz, Senior Director of Brand Marketing for Frito-Lay
Shiv Singh, Global Head of Digital for PepsiCo
Kevin Knight, Creative Strategist at Facebook
According to our panelists, even though crowd sourcing has been around for hundreds of years (with the Oxford Dictionary cited as the first recorded crowd sourced initiative), it’s hotter than it’s ever been. What’s different now is how and why companies are applying it, and the technology they use to engage personally with fans.
But what is crowd sourcing? It’s when you look to a larger audience to solve a defined problem.
Why crowd source?
Our industry has changed dramatically over the past fews years. Traditional marketing is not as effective as it once was, and for marketing budgets that have felt the strain of the recession, digital tools have proven an effective method of stretching limited budgets. That being said, even brands like Frito-Lay and PepsiCo feel as though marketing budgets can never be big enough to reach the audiences they need to reach, which is why they also rely heavily on advocates to share message.
Besides the budget challenge, research shows that our traditional marketing efforts are less effective than they once were. Why? In a world where everyone has smartphones, laptops, tablets, blogs and social networks, everyone is their own brand/marketing channel with their own unique circles of influence. To reach this new type of consumer, the more screens you can be on, the bigger your ROI will be. And this shift from anonymity to authentication on the web has been a change that’s encouraged a shift toward the crowd sourcing model.
How is crowd sourcing beneficial for brands? You’re giving your fans a voice, creating a more personal relationship and truly learning what resonates with your audience. Crowd sourcing (when done well) also leads to better marketing, because you have better information on your customer and how they relate to your brand. And by giving them free range in how they respond, quite often you tease out a more in-depth understanding of why they love their brand, which in turn allows you to create more powerful, relevant messaging.
How do agencies fit into the crowd sourced equation? Should they be concerned? Marketing has evolved dramatically. It goes beyond making a great commercial; it’s about building that emotional buy-in from consumer to brand. The best agencies embrace that, and help brands become a bridge to the collective culture of their consumers.
From the standpoint of both Jen Saenz (Senior Director of Marketing for Frito-Lay) and Shiv Singh (Global Head of Digital for PepsiCo), it is agencies that handle community management activities over traditional channels have better, that have more informed creative, which in turn, leads to more innovative ways to reach the target audience.
Additional Takeaways About the Crowd Sourcing Process:
A crowd sourcing strategy should reflect the needs and behaviors of your audience/community.
Know the limits of your platform. (Twitter is great for voting, but not so great at submissions.) Play to each platform’s strengths.
Guide the fans through crowd sourcing, don’t give them the keys. Don’t risk losing your brand identity.
You have to trust your fans. You can’t go into defensively. Plan for what you’ll do if something goes wrong – manage the risk.
Crowd sourcing is catchy. Do it a few times, and consumers start to associate participation with your brand.
Disaster: The Future of Crisis Communications (SXSW)
by Aliera Peterson, Dalton Agency Director of Social Media
The unthinkable has happened – a tornado touched down in the center of Austin at the height of SXSW. The epicenter is at the Austin Convention Center, which has been reduced to rubble. You have a flock of frightened conventioneers who don’t know the city, aren’t sure who to listen to or where they should go, and there could be possible casualties, even fatalities. What do you do?
After experiencing this panel, Disaster: The Future of Crisis Communications, I am of the mind that more panels should begin with a mock disaster like the one above. It got everyone’s attention (did they just say there’s a tornado downtown?), and it was a great way to get the panelists and audience working together to develop a solution to a situation that could (and does) happen in real life.
This being my first time at South by Southwest, I’ll admit that I went into our Day One sessions with high expectations, and I’m happy to say that this panel was a bright bunch and didn’t disappoint. The moderator, Hanson Hosein, Director of Communication Leadership at the University of Washington, started us off by sharing some stories about his travel overseas as an NBC News war correspondent.
While he was busy regaling us with several of the tricky situations in which he’s found himself, LT Anastacia Visneski, a Public Affairs Officer in the U.S. Coast Guard, was busy setting up a JIC (Joint Information Center) to handle the SXSW tornado crisis. She set up a @SXCrisis Twitter handle (and had already begun tweeting resources), a Facebook page, and had the crisis been real, would have also begun assembling the crisis team members. Captain John Visneski, a cyberspace control officer in the Air Force joined in the conversation at this point, as did Brandon Brewer, an independent communications consultant and retired military public information officer.
It was a great demonstration about how the military uses this Joint Information Center as a sort of disaster / crisis communications HQ – and from there our crisis communications discussion began in earnest. We covered a lot of ground in the hour assigned, and probably could have easily gone another hour or so, but here are my key takeaways from the panel:
Don’t wait until you are in a crisis situation to develop your crisis communications plan or team. You need to know ahead of time where you audience is, what resources you may have available to you, and how well your team works together prior to a high-stress situation.
Once crisis hits, it’s imperative that you get everyone together to coordinate messaging so that it comes from a single source as one voice.
When choosing who shares the message of your organization, brand or agency during a crisis, don’t be afraid to think outside your organization as well – there may be a community influencer, blogger or journalist that can help you facilitate messaging more quickly.
If you’re unsure of what the extent of the damage will be, put out information on what the worst case scenario could be and how you plan to respond. Don’t sugarcoat it.
If the situation is due to a mistake on behalf of your organization, the best thing you can do is be honest (and apologetic). Man up!
If things go from bad to worse, and someone tries to hijack your messaging (think @BPGlobalPR), don’t feed the trolls. Get your story out, and try not to worry about the other guy; however, if they do get traction, see if there’s a way you can work together to get important messaging out to the people who need it.
Create strong bonds with your crisis communications team BEFORE crisis hits, and you’re sleep deprived, hungry and mad at each other.
Foster a relationship of trust with your superiors so that if you need to change tactics quickly, you can do so with minimal delay.
Crisis communications tools vary depending on the circumstances – you could be using a varied mix in order to extend the reach of your megaphone, but at the end of the day, while digital channels are effective at getting the word out, they enhance rather than replace traditionals channels.
If you already have a crisis communications plan, don’t rest on your laurels – be up on the tech and potential resources, making changes to the plan when necessary.
So there you have it – a wonderful SXSW session wrapped up in a nutshell. Our panelists were kind enough to leave us with two great planning docs as well to show how their agencies have mapped out their response to crisis. You can check them out at the links below:
by Jeremy Nettles, Dalton Agency Community Manager
Toothbrush? Check. Water Bottle? Check? Phone Charger? Check? Appetite for breakfast tacos and the latest information from the world of Tech? Double Check.
Today, I will be boarding a plane on my way to Austin, TX for my first ever trip to South by Southwest (SXSW). SXSW is one of the largest music, film and interactive festivals in the world, and what happens here will shape those industries for the year to follow.
Being a Community Manager, my stay will be limited to the timeframe of the Interactive Sessions. (Unfortunately I couldn’t quite convince the agency to put me up just to see Depeche Mode.) After spending several hours combing through the hundreds of sessions, I have picked out the three that I am most looking forward to.
The Signal & the Noise Nate Silver, FiveThirtyEight.com The man who has become famous by accurately projecting the outcome of presidential elections is set to talk about the world of predictions and how to make sense of all the data.
The Sports Tightrope: Balancing Your Content Richard Clarke, Managing Editor Arsenal Media Group Richard Clarke is set to take us through everything that goes into developing a digital and social media strategy for a major sports organization.
The Future of Location: From Social to Utility Dennis Crowley, CEO & Co-founder Foursquare Dennis Crowley will tell us about the history of the location based social network and where they are going next.
Follow me on Twitter, @tealtalk, for live updates from SXSW (hashtag #SXSWJax) and check back here for thoughts that require more than 140 characters.
Nine nonprofits chosen for 2013 Dalton Cares Initiative
Check out full versions of all the Dalton Cares posters for the selected nonprofits at www.DaltonCares.com.
We are excited to unveil the artwork for the nine local nonprofits selected to participate in the annual Dalton Cares charitable initiative. The nine finalists were selected out of more than 550 nominations for nearly 200 nonprofits in the Atlanta, Jacksonville, Orlando and Tampa areas.
“We are overwhelmed by the great response to Dalton Cares. This is the first year we have expanded this campaign beyond North Florida, and we are glad that we did,” said Jim Dalton, president and CEO for the Dalton Agency. “It is rewarding to see all the passion that people have for these deserving organizations and we look forward to helping these excellent nonprofits raise awareness and promote their important work.”
Each will receive an Agency-designed creative awareness poster that is valued at $5,000. All nine nonprofits will receive their poster artwork to use as they wish.
Posters created for the nine finalists will be showcased at the Dalton Agency’s Jacksonville office’s storefront windows March 5 through the summer and digital versions are located at www.DaltonCares.com.
Public votes can be cast online through www.DaltonCares.com or at the Agency’s storefront windows by scanning the poster’s QR code with a smart phone’s QR code reader app. Members of the public are encouraged to use social media to share their favorite poster design and vote for the one they feel should be the overall winner. The Dalton Agency will award the nonprofit with the most social media votes a $1,000 cash donation.
“The goal of Dalton Cares has always been to raise awareness and conversation around these great nonprofits that so often get over looked as we go through our busy days.” says Kevyn Faulkenberry, Dalton Agency VP/executive creative director. “We want to do everything we can to promote these nine organizations on our social media networks and remind every one how fortunate we are there are so many real people out there working to make our communities better places.
The winning nonprofit, which is determined by public voting, will be announced April 23.
904 Magazine choose Dalton as one of 2013’s “Companies with Heart”
The Dalton Agency is humbled to be chosen by 904 Magazine as one of Jacksonville’s Companies with Heart.
Caring is a team activity at Dalton. Thanks to all our Dalton family, those in this photo and all the others around the Southeast, who give so much of themselves to the communities they live in. And thanks to Jim Dalton for building a culture where giving back is valued and celebrated.
In the 2013, the Dalton Agency will continue to:
• Donate our time, talent and expertise working with such deserving nonprofits as Ronald McDonald House, the Jacksonville Humane Society, Make-a-Wish Georgia, First Coast No More Homeless Pets, Family Foundations, American Heart Association – First Coast Market, along with many others.
• Leverage social media to raise the conversation around nine featured nonprofits throughout the Southeast through its annual DaltonCares initiative.
• Encourage all of our associates to get even more involved with the local nonprofit organizations they believe in, both as volunteers and as leaders.
We know that caring as a company makes us all better individuals. That is why Dalton Cares.
Pictured above: Jennifer Savage, Devon Stiles, Kevyn Faulkenberry, Heather Houston, Aliera Peterson, Cari Holland and Joe Wolf at 904 Magazine’s Companies with Heart luncheon.
Together, stroke is preventable, treatable and beatable.
About 795,000 Americans each year suffer a new or recurrent stroke. That means, on average, a stroke occurs every 40 seconds.
Stroke kills more than 137,000 people a year. That’s about 1 of every 18 deaths. It’s the No. 4 cause of death.
On average, every 4 minutes someone dies of stroke.
These statistics are why the American Stroke Association wants everyone to know that when we all work together, stroke is preventable, treatable and beatable. (more…)
