Everybody remembers their first portfolio. At the time, you think it’s chock full of groundbreaking work, but in retrospect it was really just a hot mess. Last Friday, Queue was lucky enough to help combat this trend of terribleness at Columbia College.
 

Senior Art Director Dave Carlson and Senior Copywriter Mike Baroni were invited to judge the final presentations of students in Columbia College’s Advertising Art Direction class. Students were tasked with choosing a random product out of a bag, then writing, art directing and presenting a full-blown campaign that included print, digital and promotional elements.
 

Dave and Mike were both surprised at the range of ideas, and some of the originality put forth. From prunes and toilet paper to licorice and sex, it was an afternoon filled with unique and creative concepts that made a lasting impression.
 

Both were impressed with the creativity and rationale behind the students’ campaigns, with a few in particular rising to the top. They were so impressed, in fact, that Queue is currently exploring the potential for bringing one of these students on as a summer intern. Queue would like to thank Susan Smith for giving us the opportunity to critique, talk with, and ask questions of each of the students… and we’re looking forward to heading back for next year’s class.
 

Utopia Labs features an SAP landscape running fully in the Cloud and includes ECC 6, SAP Business Objects™ Data Services software, Information Steward, BW/BI, HANA, Mobile applications, ILM, Enterprise Portal, MDM/MDG, Sybase^® Unified Platform. It provides demonstrations of “creation to archival” processes and data governance.

Working within Utopia’s cross-functional team, Queue helped develop Utopia Labs branding, conceptual layout, interior merchandising systems and communication platforms.

Queue’s president, Ross D. Vangalis commented, “Big Data is a rapidly growing sector within the emerging enterprise systems industry. The challenge we had in creating Utopia Labs was in developing a centerpiece for the data-for-data concept – designing the experience of seeing, testing and touching data solutions in a manner which was never-before possible.”

In reference to Queue’s role, Mr. Vangalis said that ”Strategizing, planning and designing for a high-impact innovation environment was inspiring. We needed to create solutions surrounding both functional needs for creating an experience within orientation, training, presenting, IT integration and aesthetic needs for branding continuity and messaging to deliver client impact. We are quite pleased with the final result for Utopia Labs.”

Ross D. Vangalis, President

Chris’ expertise includes over 15 years in consultative sales and marketing for a wide breadth of industries, including financial services, CPG, adult beverage, hospitality, automotive, home improvement, sport and best-in-class b2b programming. His primary focus at Queue will be developing new business, along with client-solutions that will ensure a positive ROI.

“I look forward to delivering a wider breadth of services and talent to my current relationships,” said Chris. “I’m excited to share my unique market knowledge with the Queue Crew; delivering better results for clients like National Beef, ACH Foods, TCBY and Barilla!”

Clients Chris has partnered with include MetLife, Kraft, Gallo Wine, Discover Card/DFS, Ace Hardware, Schutt Sports, Dearborn National and Scotts Lawn Care.

Chris loves getting in queue for anything at Manny’s Deli in Chicago.

Did you know:

• Latino Facebook users grew 167% from April 2010-April 2011. General market grew only 21% *
• 54% of Latinos regularly use Facebook (vs. 43% General Market) ++
• 63% of Latin women who regularly access social networks do so in order to look for recommendations on products and services before making their purchase decision
  • Of those women, a staggering 70% say there is a higher chance of purchasing a product when it is recommended +++
  • 87% of Latina women access Facebook on a weekly basis. Of those, nearly 25% have made a purchase based on comments or recommendations +++
  • 50.6% of Latino Facebook users prefer English
  • 12% of Hispanic adults access social networks from their mobile phones+
  • 59% of US Latinas trust brand/product comments on social networks more than traditional ads (Sophia Mind Survey, 2010)

Be Part of Your Brand Converstaion

• Chances are your brand is already on Facebook whether as an unofficial brand or fan page (created by someone other than you), so why not take control and be part of the conversation?
• Nearly 50% of all US brands do not include Latinos in their marketing mix, stepping into social media can be a simple and cost effective way to edge our your competition for this highly influential segment.
• Building trust within the Hispanic community is important.  Having an honest two-way conversation is a step in the right direction and building a community of loyal brand users is the icing on the cake.
• Don’t allow your brand to be viewed as out of touch or irrelevant by not playing in the social media space where your current and potential new consumers are spending their time.

Sources:

*comScore, April 2011

+Census It’s All in the Numbers, Porter Novelli, May 2011

++SIMM®16 Hispanics, African Amiercans and Asians More Digital-Savvy Than Caucausians, BIG Research

+++Impact of Social Networks on Purchase of Latin Women, Sophia Mind, 2010

We won the 2011 Award of Excellence in Packaging for our makeover of the Palermos Frozen Pizza brand. We also picked up the Award of Excellence in Interactive Design for our refresh of the Mazola website.

http://youtu.be/zomopCe-DGA

Next, they slapped on the labels and popped open the bottles to sample the brew. It was clean and bright, with a hint of orange that made it perfect for summertime sipping. Good beer and good times. That’s Queue for you. Check out more in this video.

Cheers!

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Clean, light with faint malt notes and a hint of orange, Kevin’s Queue Brew is sure to put a smile on the face of everyone at Queue come bottling time (that’s in two weeks). We’ll keep you posted.

Check out our Facebook page to see the unique brewing process Kevin has implemented at the Square One Brewhaus (aka, his apartment). To get a sample, sign up for our newsletter!

http://on.fb.me/lduaGr

Most craft brewers have a miniscule marketing budget, and who needs it? With social media, they can connect with consumers for next-to-nothing. It’s easy to get your name out there with social media, generating word-of-mouth buzz at rates never seen before. All you need to do is be interactive with your fans. People are hungry for information about any kind of craft beer. If breweries aren’t paying attention, they’ll lose share.

Let’s take a look at a few craft brewers to see how they’re using social media to get the word out.

Flying Dog

Flying Dog (flyingdogales.com) has a very strong social media presence. They’re actively posting and replying to comments nearly every day and with over 23,000 likes on Facebook and near 21,000 followers on Twitter. They are the perfect example of craft brewers using social media the right way.

Flying Dog consistently advertises and informs fans of their new releases, future releases, swag and more. They also promote their YouTube videos, giving users a behind-the-scenes look at how they brew their beers, along with a beer TV quiz show and more.

Visit their site and you’ll see social media buttons everywhere, from their footer to their contact page, to their individual beer pages.

Social Media Marketing Grade: A

Horny Goat Brewing Co

The Horny Goat Brewing Co. (hornygoatbrewing.com) is an up-and-comer. Starting as a relatively unknown in South East Wisconsin just a few years ago, they’ve grown a fan base on Facebook and Twitter of around 3,000 a piece. While they aren’t utilizing social media every day, or in a consistently constructive manner, they do have their moments. They post videos from their brew master to promote new beers and they enlist the help of their fans for naming their next beer. They also consistently promote their brewpub in Milwaukee, WI with specials and beer tastings.

Social Media Marketing Grade: C+

Anchor Steam Beer:

Anchor Steam Beer (anchorbrewing.com) is an example of the old school word-of-mouth method. You remember, before the Internet existed. Anchor Steam doesn’t have a Facebook account and you won’t hear one tweet from their mouth. Yet despite the lack of marketing (or advertising campaigns, for that matter), Anchor is a popular topic on the Internet. They have fan pages on both Facebook and Twitter, clear signs that there’s a desire for them to go social. They’ve been around for a over a century, and their beer is distributed nationally, but that doesn’t make up for the lack of social media marketing.

Social Media Marketing Grade: F-

Beyond the S.M. Kings

Sites like pintley.com and taphunter.com allow users to find new beers according to their ratings and taste notes. They also encourage users to find their favorite brews on tap in local bars. Essentially these sites are digital beer communities with a social media integration that allows consumers to connect with others, while earning points to win prizes. And they’re available on the go… both sites have mobile apps.

The Bottom Line

Craft brewers need to build their brands with social media. SM builds brand awareness and a potentially business-changing following. Plus, it’s cheap. If you’re not doing it yet, start now before you’re left behind by the bigger dogs (and flying dog’s too).

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While spirits – thanks in part to their diversity from white to dark – remain the most popular alcoholic beverage enjoyed by consumers in 2009-2010, the beer market is anything but flat. What might be surprising is that craft beers, with their emphasis on small, independent brewers dedicated to traditional/full flavor brews are driving market growth.

According to Mintel research published in Beer: The Consumer—U.S., December 2010, 33% of all beer drinkers aged 21 and up are drinking less imported beer because they’re drinking more domestic craft beer instead. It’s true that only a modest 13% of beer drinkers say they prefer domestic craft or microbrew beer (compared to 43% for domestic and 22% for imported), but about six in 10 respondents indicate they’d like to try them, and more than half would try more craft beers if they knew more about them.

Thanks to an upsurge in social media, and the trend toward local and sustainable products, craft beer’s popularity has grown substantially in the past five years. Mintel research indicates it’s the most popular with 25-34 year-olds, a market ripe for targeted marketing efforts. Efforts that educate the beer-drinking consumer as to heritage, ingredients, flavor, and a sense of inclusion in the craft beer community will be what consumers tap into for years to come.
Garima Goel-lal, Senior Consumer Analyst – Mintel / Oxygen

What does this mean for business?

A Social Tipping Point
It’s no surprise that beer has always been a social-based product. As such, social craft beers will always have a story to tell… a story that beer enthusiasts actually care to hear about and experience.

Craft brewers that offer the right mix of social media will connect their distinct target with their love of discovery, early adoption and sharing behaviors. These brewers will reap the rewards of increased audience, while inspiring viral demand.
Macro-Brewers – Beware of the ‘Local’
Here lies the cautionary tail of today’s micro-consumer. For beer enthusiasts, there is more to a craft beer than flavor, it’s the authentic brand attitude that beckons. Consumers feel a close connection to these craft brewers because they are authentic, loyal to their customers, have pride in brewing and are locally-owned.

So what does that mean for the MillerCoors and Anheuser-Busch InBevs of the world? They need to adapt their lifestyle-branding message. They need to share more personal, intimate and interesting stories about who their brands and employees are. If they ditch the global corporate identities of their brands while localizing their brand images and voices, they’ll have a shot at lowering their market-share erosion.

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They said the automobile was just a fad. ‘They’ were wrong.

They claimed personal computing was a novelty for the wealthy. ‘They’ were wrong.

Now, there are some that claim the iPad is just another trend, waiting to be passed by. Yet again, ‘they’ appear to be wrong. With industry insiders and tech prognosticators hailing all things iPad these days, it appears to be headed for uncharted territory – everywhere.

First things first. Apple is selling their iPad at an unprecedented pace. In total, Apple has now sold 14.8 million iPads since its launch last April, making it an unequivocal success.

What’s more impressive is the gravitational pull it’s having on young people. In November 2010, Nielsen reported that an iPad was at the top the Christmas list for kids ages 6 to 12.

How is this possible? Apple is creating new and future users within the classroom. By embracing education at all levels, Apple has found a way to sell thousands of iPads, while growing their user base, without a substantial advertising budget.

Apple has been developing a school market for the iPad by working with textbook publishers on instructional programs and sponsoring iPad workshops for administrators and teachers. With the ability to download up to 600 textbooks on one 16GB iPad, Apple is cutting down on the costs of textbooks, both to schools and to students.

In New York City, public schools have ordered more than 2,000 iPads, for $1.3 million. More than 200 Chicago public schools applied for 23 district-financed iPad grants totaling $450,000. The Virginia Department of Education is overseeing a $150,000 iPad initiative that has replaced history and Advanced Placement biology textbooks at 11 schools. Six middle schools in four California cities (San Francisco, Long Beach, Fresno and Riverside) are teaching the first iPad-only algebra course, developed by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Even kindergartners are getting their hands on iPads. Pinnacle Peak School in Scottsdale, Ariz., converted an empty classroom into a lab with 36 iPads.

The list goes on…

In 2004, Duke University gave every incoming freshman a brand new iPod loaded with practical information: schedules, campus tours, and even the Duke fight song. This spawned a majority of current students to ‘invest’ in iPads as a means to negotiate workload, textbooks, and their social life.

Even teachers are getting in on the act. “iPad use in the classroom makes a teacher rethink the goals of his or her class,” says Duke Professor Satti Kanna, “The iPad makes me break away from text-dominated lectures to more media-sensitive teaching.”

In 2011, Stanford University School of Medicine aims to digitize its curriculum “as a way to lighten the load of textbook-toting students, and to learn how best to teach an extremely tech-savvy generation of students who’ve grown up in a wired world,” according to the school’s website. This means the entire incoming class is equipped with 32GB Wi-Fi enabled iPads.

What does this mean for us? Apple and their competitors are doing an excellent job grooming their future consumer, making planning for the future of information access and the mobile engagement of entertainment a priority for marketers.

Is it for real? Is it a fad? Is it a novelty? Just ask businesses like Borders Books, Blockbuster Video and your local library.

How will you prepare your marketing communications for the world-to-come? Drop us a line to find out what we think.

We are delighted to announce that Katie McMahon has joined Queue Marketing as our new Account Supervisor!

Katie’s expertise includes nearly a decade of marketing specializing in brand strategy, national consumer promotions, in-store marketing, packaging, out-of-home, events and digital. She’s passionate about finding the next big trends to help our clients more effectively engage shoppers in and out of store.

Clients Katie has worked with in the past include Sara Lee Foodservice, Hillshire Farm, Ball Park Franks, Senseo and Jimmy Dean.

Katie loves to get in-queue for a good beer or wine tasting event.

Much has been made of the new generations that are experiencing the world through new, more sensory-driven engagement via the Web, the Wii and 3D Movies, among others. Concerned that they were losing out on newer, younger audiences, a museum in Kraków, Poland decided to do something about it.

The Sukiennice Museum of 19^th Century Polish Art chose to re-invent their image by taking growing trends in technology and incorporating them into a new exhibit of older works. They created audio and video recreations of the stories behind some of their most important paintings, including Augmented Reality – where visitors could view the video and painting at the same time through a smartphone app.

The impressive effort resulted in 94,000 visitors over the first four months of the exhibit.

Today’s youth represent your future (and possibly current) consumers. Using marketing tactics from the past to reach them might mean that your brand won’t be around for these generations to use it. They’re not prone to being passive or anonymous in an audience. They want to create content as much as consume it.

In today’s marketspace, brands must adapt the way they promote and market products and experiences with innovative, engaging methods. Survival of the fittest indeed.

http://www.youtube.com/embed/jZ6sXMVz4lM?rel=0

With Change Comes New Challenges.

In serving Fortune 500 and Mid-Cap clients for over a decade, we’ve seen sweeping changes in consumer markets, a new focus on retail channels and the development of new media technologies. These transformations have caused new challenges such as:

• Finding new growth strategies within emerging markets.
• Creating successful brand launches or brand refreshes within heavily segmented or declining categories.
• Redefining the path to purchase in order to engage the right target, at the right time and the right place.
• Optimizing new media and traditional marketing tactics seamlessly to grow audience share.

At the end of the day, the largest challenge marketers will face in the coming months will be delivering new results. These results will be determined by 1) using what’s tried and true, or 2) trying something new. Enter Queue.

New Approaches. New Ideas. New Results.

Queue believes that there is an untapped world of new choices to win in-market. To create new results, we have evolved our go-to-market approach within our branding, promotions and digital services to address marketers’ needs for leaner, faster, smarter strategies, which engage consumers and build brands.

Our approach, fused with our cross-functional leadership team and collaborative client process, produces game-changing new ideas, brilliant creative and a more integrated path to market.

Change is good.

If you’re looking to create new results for 2011 and beyond, maybe you should be in-Queue.

Ross D. Vangalis
PRESIDENT
A celebrated creative leader for more than 20 years, Ross has launched over 50 brands, created more than 30 new product launches, developed over 20 brand refreshes and hundreds of package designs and ads for fortune 500 and Mid-Cap companies. Recognized as an industry innovator, Ross has won numerous awards and frequently speaks on the fields of promotions, design, and multi-cultural branding.

Ross D. Vangalis, President of Queue Marketing Communications Group, Inc. stated, “National Beef has sustained an enduring leadership position in the fresh beef industry. The AMA’s recognition of the Certified Blue Leather Campaign signifies their successful vertical business growth and entry into the raw leathers marketplace. It’s an outstanding achievement for our client and we were proud to be a part of it.”

Mr. Vangalis shared aspects of the campaign that were an integral part of its success,“The insights we gained as a team, were a vital component to this successful campaign. Through category, target and competitive assessments of the blue leathers industry, and interviews with thought leaders, we saw the opportunity to establish National Beef as an emerging leader within the international blue leathers marketplace. Our focus was to build a strong competitive positioning that differentiated National Beef blue leather offerings, and created a truly unique selling proposition for the buyers.”

Mr.Vangalis further stated,“The USP was communicated within the campaign that focused on telling the remarkable story of National Beef’s blue leather grading system. As a newer player in the market, generating buyer awareness and communicating the selling proposition to foster sales conversation was essential. An integrated, international marketing campaign was launched spanning over the internet, brand identity, sales collateral, trade advertising, e-marketing, trade show booth design and video presentations in China, Italy, Korea and more.”

National Beef Packing Company

National Beef Packing Company is one of the largest beef processing companies in the United States, processing and marketing fresh beef and beef by-products across the U.S. and internationally. National Beef’s processing facilities in Dodge City, Kansas and Liberal, Kansas along with their Brawley, California facility provide beef products to retailers, food service providers, distributors and further processors. Additionally, National Beef’s case-ready facilities in Moultrie, Georgia and Hummel’s Wharf, Pennsylvania and portion cutting facility in Kansas City, Kansas provide further processed and packaged meat for a broad spectrum of customer needs and specifications. With the addition of the Wet Blue hide processing facility in St. Joseph, Missouri in 2009, National Beef continues to develop core capabilities and drive value for the products delivered to the marketplace.

“It’s an outstanding achievement for our client and we were proud to be a part of it.”

- Ross D. Vangalis, President of Queue Marketing Communications Group, Inc.

To visit the awards page at AMA site click on the link below.

http://brandsmart.chicagoama.org/2010- brandsmart-award-b2b-campaign.php

Brand Mascots

Here, we’ve compiled a list what we feel are the ten most iconic brand mascots ever.

1. Mickey Mouse debuted in the 1928 cartoon Steamboat Willie.
2. Only 9 actors have portrayed Ronald McDonald, featured in commercials since 1946.
3. A 14-year-old schoolboy won a prize for creating Mr. Peanut in a contest held by Planters Peanuts back in 1916.
4. Tony The Tiger debuted with a co-mascot Katy the Kangaroo. Katy was out of a job after consumers voted for Tony as their favorite.
5. Created by the Michelin brothers and a poster artist (Marius Rossillon) in 1898, The Michelin Man has been one of the world’s most recognizable mascots for over a century.
6. Although we may know him as The Pillsbury Doughboy he was originally introduced as Poppin’ Fresh in 1965.
7. Ernie Keebler’s hollow tree bakery is located in a place named Sylvan Glen.
8. Mr. Clean is also known as Veritably Clean. He’s been tough on grime since 1958.
9. The Jolly Green Giant was launched in 1925 to help introduce the company’s unusually large peas.
10. Geoffrey Giraffe did not have a name when he was introduced in 1960.  Instead, a contest was held to name him.

How are brand mascots evolving to continue engaging with consumers?

• Mickey Mouse has 965,000 Facebook fans and over 30,000 followers on twitter (he is also the face of Disney’s page, which has over 118 million worldwide fans).
• Mr. Peanut has 260,000 Facebook fans with interactive apps like digital singing ecards and video content.
• Each General Mills brand mascot plays a heavy role and have significant presence in brand social networking pages.
• The Energizer Bunny amazingly has over 60,000 Facebook fans and 1,000 followers on twitter.
• The Geico Caveman has 12,000 Facebook fans and over 800 followers on twitter.

Implication: The Brand Mascot is more relevant with consumers now than ever before.