jones huyett Partners

From Joseph Addai’s record-tying 26-yard drive up the middle to Tracy Porter’s 74-yard interception return, New Orleans’ come-back from a 10-to-zip Colts start made Super Bowl XLIV an exciting game.

But what about the Important Stuff – the Commercials? From pantless colleagues to chickens in space, The jhP team and friends had fun performing via Twitter as your official commercial commentators. Check out #jhpXLIV for our insights and opinions on this year’s ads.

Now what did YOU think? Use the poll below to rate your favorite spots of Super Bowl XLIV.

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Filed by the Partners at 12:15 pm under Commercials
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This weekend, audiences across the U.S. will witness the clash of industry giants during Super Bowl XLIV. They will see things that evoke all sorts of emotion: empathy, joy, sadness and laughter. Opponents will be pitted against one another in a race for your loyalty – brand loyalty. And for those who aren’t interested in advertising, the Colts will be facing off against the Saints in between commercial breaks.

jhP will be covering the Super Bowl commercial action via real-time tweets. Follow our reactions to the latest and, hopefully, greatest ads at Twitter handle @jhpadv, @alissasheley, @brieengelken,  @mcstubbs, or follow the hashtag #jhpXLIV.

Be sure to visit our blog on Monday morning to participate in the jhP Poll for the best Super Bowl spot of 2010!

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Filed by the Partners at 12:16 pm under Commercials, Social Media
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We’re all being told we should market our brands through social networking. But before you rush to put together a Facebook Fan Page or become engaged in Twitter there’s one very important first step you should consider – a blog.

Social networking without a blog is like watching a football game on mute. It would all be very exciting, if only you knew what was going on. A blog is the voiceover to a company’s social media efforts. It provides details and insight that can’t be achieved by relying solely on services like Facebook and Twitter. And here are several more reasons why should you have a blog:

1.) Blogs humanize your brand.
Unlike a television or radio spot, you’re not interrupting someone’s programming – they are coming to you for information. This gives you the power to influence the tone of the conversations about your brand. It also allows you to post about your team and work environment, showing your audience a new, friendlier side of you. This builds trust and relationships (aka Brand Loyalty!). It also opens a line of communication for you to learn even more about your customers, clients, and prospects.

2.) Blogs improve your brand’s search engine rank.
When you Google your industry and city, where does your company show up in the search results? Are you in the top five … or on PAGE five? Having a blog can help your search engine optimization (SEO), which will push you closer to number one. It’s another place to link to your company website, and the more links going to your website the higher you’ll show up in search results. It’s also a great place to provide content about your industry – which gives you LOTS of keywords that will make you more easily searchable.

3.) Blogs give your customers a more complete – and individualized – picture of what you offer.
Having a blog lets you give details about what you do. For example, if you’re a travel agency who also sells luggage, you might do a blog about packing tips. Then you casually mention that with luggage that can be purchased from your company, it’s easy to pack everything you need for your trip. Link that back to the luggage section of your website and your audience will feel your advertising was provided for THEIR needs. After all, it was their choice to click and learn more.

4.) When you do Social Media, your blog unifies all your efforts.
What you post on your blog can then provide relevant content to post on your Facebook Fan Page. Your Facebook Fan Page is also a way to promote your blog which ultimately promotes your website, which promotes your brand! Same with Twitter. Your YouTube account allows you to pull content for your other social networks – and the list goes on. Regardless of which social media venues are best for your brand strategy, they can all help promote your blog, which promotes you.

5.) Blogs are easier to frequently update than your main website.
(BEWARE: Geek Speak ahead) It’s not always quick or easy to update your main website. There’s so much information, where do you start? With a blog, it’s expected that you will only post a little bit of information at a time, which makes it easier to post more frequently. That said, the more frequently you’re posting information the more spiders are crawling you. A spider is software that crawls the web in order to provide up–to–date data. How does this affect you? The more frequently you update your site the more your site attracts these spiders, resulting in higher search results.

So before you score a touchdown you need to pull plays from your playbook. In social media, your playbook is your blog. So get started creating those plays so you’ll be sure you’re prepared to bring the heat in the game of Social Networking.

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Filed by the Partners at 11:07 am under Search Engine Optimization, Social Media
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The Blizzard of ’09 has drifted away the aftermath of our holiday binges – but that won’t stop anyone from dusting off those treadmills, reading the latest seven-step book to end bad habits and setting some pretty lofty goals for 2010. The jhP partners are no different! We’re prepared to make 2010 even more successful than 2009! Check out our resolutions to see how and let us know what you resolve to achieve in 2010. Have a happy New Year everyone!

My resolution for 2010 is to enter my time sheets directly into the computer instead of writing them on sticky notes. : ) – Alissa Sheley

The upcoming year will be my first year at jhP – and as a college graduate – so I resolve to fill it with as much education as possible. I plan to learn something new from each person at jhP. By the end of the year, I hope to teach something to someone, too. – Angie Marquart

I Resolve to get stains out the first time, every time. – Brian Wells

Every year I have high hopes of following through with a New Year’s Resolution and every year I do GREAT … that is until I wake up and see the giant plate of cookies in the kitchen. This year I vow to make NO New Year’s resolutions – I’ll just stick with the old ones: to give 200+% to everything I do and to be the best person I can be. – Brie Engelken

In 2010 I plan on getting my personal chaos in order. This includes trimming my beard more often, eating less junk food, following the speed limit, going to sleep on time, doing 50 sit-ups every night before bed, organizing my garage, cleaning my clothes more often, learning how to iron my clothes, and getting my time sheets in on time. – Dan Billen

I resolve to work even harder to maximize the position of the client brands we represent. I will better underscore the unique benefits of those brands and raise their position in the market even higher. – Jake Huyett

My goal for 2010 is to try to help everyone I can to be more of what they want to be and help them enjoy as much personal and team success as possible. I also want to show that the ability to say “yes” and help goals happen is infinitely more useful than the power to say “no” and make it stick. – Kurt Eskilson

I resolve to work hard, be more imaginative/creative, listen more, laugh more and learn something new. I may also change my resolution weekly. – Leslie Palace

I resolve to expand my network even further and build relationships so that others can experience the power of partnership with jhP! I look forward to getting to know you! –
Michelle Cuevas-Stubblefield

My goal for 2010 is to work hard for our clients, giving them more earned media than they expect and growing their return on investment. – Tracy Stratton

I plan to procrastinate less, spend more quality time with family and friends and attack every project and goal as though it is the most exciting thing I have on my plate. – Linda Bull

I plan to work harder to mentor and help others be their best. – Gary Jones

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Filed by the Partners at 10:49 am under Trends
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Last weekend the jhP Team gathered with their significant others to celebrate this holiday season and another successful year. Festivities included sharing a hearty meal, hoisting a drink or two, and enjoying a spirited white-elephant gift exchange. Check out these party pictures for a sampling of the fun.

Official Notice: No Snuggies were harmed in the making of this party.

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Filed by the Partners at 5:50 pm under jhP Family
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Facebook just rolled out an update to their privacy settings, hoping to make them easier for people to use and understand. However, with this update, your profile settings default to a level of sharing that you may not want. Unless you manually override the change, you’ll automatically be sharing status updates, about me, work/education and family/relationship information with “Everyone.” All of this data will be publicly available for search engines to crawl and index. And, with Google adding real-time search results very prominently into their traditional results within the next couple of days (preview real-time here), your status updates could potentially become much more public than you ever imagined.

What can you do if you don’t want to share this information with everyone on the world wide web? Simply go to the Settings drop down, select Privacy Settings and then click on Profile Information. From there, adjust using the drop down menus to meet your own personal comfort level for sharing: everyone, friends of friends, only friends or customize. Then go back to Privacy Settings and click on Search. This will allow you to adjust who’s able to view your information through Facebook and search engine searches.

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Filed by the Partners at 11:43 am under Social Media
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jhP often benefits when well-educated advertising and marketing graduates enter the field. So we make a point to speak at colleges, open ourselves up for questions and offer opportunities for students to come learn what we do. We try to help students understand the hard work and fun times that come with our industry, so we’d like to offer some general advice for those who are interested in the advertising/marketing field.

Internships are a vital part of an advertising or marketing education. It’s important to do as many internships as possible to learn what type of business you want to work in – large agency, small agency or an in-house marketing department. Take the opportunity to become a sponge! Soak up as much real-world experience and information as possible, and don’t be afraid to ask if you can assist anyone and everyone. Going above and beyond in each of your tasks will demonstrate your potential and set you apart from others.

Try to get hands-on experience anywhere that you have potential interest, so you can determine your true passion. For example, if you’re interested in video production, ask a TV station for a shadow day and then volunteer to come back and help out for free for a while. The business gets free labor, and you will be building an essential network of industry contacts while gaining valuable experience.

It’s not called work for nothing! Agency life is a lot of fun, but the hours are long. Be prepared to spend between 55 and 70 hours per week working, reading, learning and doing whatever it takes to make yourself and your agency better. You should expect to work 45-55 hours per week (although these numbers are conservative for some) even after a few years in the business. The world is always changing, and it’s our job to know how to adapt to those changes. Learning never ends in this profession.

Become an active member of your local AAF club or an advertising club at your college. Attend meetings. Ask questions when there are guest speakers. Get on the board and make things happen. You can’t be a wall flower in this industry. Introduce yourself to people and ask them questions about what they do, and ask for advice. You will find AAF to be open to helping students learn and experience as much as possible.

What advice would you give to students looking to gain a footing in the advertising industry?

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Filed by the Partners at 6:09 pm under General Marketing
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‘Tis the season for charitable donations and spreading support for those people and causes that make a difference in the world. This year, don’t be afraid to promote the causes that your business supports. A 2008 Barkley Cause Survey found that consumers not only respond positively to businesses that give back, but 91 percent of Americans want companies to tell them how they are supporting causes.

When looking to adopt a cause for your company, try to support a cause that is relevant to you or your industry. This will be more meaningful to your business and to your customers. A powerful example of cause marketing is TOMS Shoes. For each pair of shoes sold at TOMS Shoes, one pair is donated to a child in need.

Alternatively, consumers are turned off by businesses that attempt to deflect bad publicity through calculated cause marketing. A coal-burning power plant, for example, would be unbelievable as a “green” movement leader unless it can demonstrate increased research and funding for development of “green” alternatives to coal.

It’s important to remember that consumers may not be aware of a cause that your business supports, so you will need to promote the supported cause. Post pictures and write a blog about charitable events your business attends. Include information about your cause of choice on the company web site and social media networks, via newsletters, on packaging and in-store. Here are some examples of businesses who successfully promote their support:

• Dawn Dish Soap TV Spot supporting wildlife conservation.
• Swiffer dusters created limited edition packaging supporting breast cancer research.
• jhP posted this video to social media networks to support the United Way kickoff.
• Chase credit cards is using a Facebook application to select more than 100 charities that receive at least $25,000. Facebook fans log on and vote for their favorite nonprofit organization.
• Campbell’s Soup integrates their support for labels for education into their web site tool bar.

What types of cause marketing does your company engage in? What examples have you seen that are particularly note-worthy?

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Filed by the Partners at 2:19 pm under General Marketing
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Post engaging content, and your fans will see it – that’s the theme of the latest round of Facebook updates. Post content your Fans want to see, and your brand will find it easier than ever to maintain active relationships with them.

The once overcrowded and noisy newsfeed has been replaced by two different content feeds: News and Live. The Live Feed provides real-time updates of what your friends and/or Fan Pages are doing. The content still includes the status updates, photos and links you’re accustomed to but now it also includes notifications of new Friend/Page connections, tagged photos/videos and events others are attending. This allows the Live Feed to be more viral than the previous newsfeed. Now you can see when your friends join a group or Fan Page, and easily join too.

The News Feed is similar to the old newsfeed, but now with a popularity contest element. This Feed only shows updates, photos or videos that Facebook thinks you would like. These posts are typically determined by the interaction others have had with the content – for example having many views, comments or “likes.” Unlike the Live Feed, the News Feed is not in chronological order, so it’s possible for a post from two days ago to show up at the top of the page. It all depends on how Facebook’s algorithms perceive the relevance.

So far, there aren’t statistics showing which feed users are choosing to view. Either way, remember that interaction is key. The more your brand communicates, the more often you will show up in your follower’s Live Feed. Post quality content and your Fans will choose to interact. And the more interaction, the higher your chances of the post being included in your Fans’ News Feeds.

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Filed by the Partners at 11:36 am under Social Media
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It’s crunch time at jhP! We’re working feverishly to get our booth together for the Chamber Business Expo on Tuesday, October 27. Even Accounts Payable is feeling the pinch. Some of the partners are foregoing breakfast in order to have enough time in the day, while others are harnessing their “super powers” to get the job done!

We can be as creative and as outlandish as we want to when we work on our own self-promotion and this year’s Chamber Expo booth will be no exception. We would’t simply dream up a theme, put out some brochures and call it good. No, we have to design a booth that will captivate and inspire attendees, educate them on our multitude of marketing services and then deliver the creative juice that leaves them wanting more! That’s a tall order. I’m not sure even Superman could fill those shoes…

We promise to wet your marketing and advertising appetite with our tasty display. Visit us at the Chamber Business Expo on Tuesday, October 27 from 1 pm to 5 pm at the Ramada Inn.

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Filed by the Partners at 3:36 pm under Branding, Creative, Events, Life at jhP, Tradeshow
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