BLOCKHEADS

So here I have been spewing rants about how much I hate badly written RFP’s holding my breath that I would be pissing off any new potential client.. So what happens.. A Mess of RFP’s! All with jokes and comments attached..all funny and great RFP’s!, Calls from consultants..and clients.. All in fun and having a good laugh. So..that worked out in an odd way…. For the record, I hate money, great creative and puppies… I hate morning walks on the beach, and hamburgers.. Marios Pizza at 1 AM and I really hate old wood boats…. HATE THEM.. Please send all Marios pizza and money to 106 West Jefferson St….What a fun world we live in.. Thanks for all the fun emails and comments.

Julie and Patrick at 11 PM weeding through an RFP due TODAY!

Love,

Paul

As many of you have emailed me privately praising me for my courage on speaking out and putting my name with the RFP issued by the DC metro. I say thank you.. But… Where in the hell are you in this.. Sitting on the sideline playing politics is just wrong. Secretly sending me emails saying way to go.. And then filling out the RFP and being quiet.. Because you may win? Or don’t want to be seen as a trouble maker.. You are also the same folks that I see at meetings complaining about what a tough town this is to do good work… Well.. wake up.. First.. we are all in this together.. clients, and agencies.. Together.

I have yet to sit in a room with one of our clients and feel nothing but compassion and responsibility to do the right thing for them. If we are your agency we are all..100% in the game.. No side lines and no yes men.. No sir.. mam… That’s not why you hired us.. And it’s not why we work for you.. It’s a team based on trust and respect. And that comes from honesty and total 100% transparency. That way we succeed together.. and sadly fail together. But its together. And that DC starts at the start. If we want better work to happen here, and I do.. Then it starts with being honest form the start. And in this town, that’s with the RFPs… The irony here is that I am trying to get into an RFP being handled by a good consultant and a killer client as I type this. I would walk across the country and write the dang thing with the blood of my worn out feet for this one. I love the product and the way they are going about it.. I know in my heart, that this service will succeed because of this. Regardless of who is hired. It can’t fail because the folks doing the service are good, smart, passionate and want to do it right. I just pray we are right enough. I know we are, but can I communicate the solution well? That’s the challenge… not can I figure out what they are thinking and what they should spend…. Like the Metro RFP… So if you want to fill the metro RFP out, and continue the madness, go for it.. Only one of you will win…and the community will lose.. This is your chance to be heard.. and to say.. I was in DC when the marketing community was strong and changed things.. Wake up.. Speak up.. and improve things. It all starts with you..

For those of you that follow us, or if you are one of the 6000 visitors to our website a month, I am asking that you step up and do your part in a boycott of the latest over 80 page RFP put out by our DC metro. I also want to stress that even though I dislike RFP’s, I understand them… and when a good one comes in.. It makes it very easy to be smart and a joy to fill out. The danger here is to look like we will publicly chastise your RFP and nothing could be further from the truth.

This RFP though is different. This is a service that we all use and have no choice in the matter. It touches all of us here in DC, and is a critical artery in our hearts and way of life here. It can not fail…. The other thing, is that the product is good. It works well, and the employees work very hard to keep an aged system working that way. Yes there are problems.. But look at any metro system. They are all under funded and over worked. Add to that the expansion and this is the time to make sure its all done right. And for that matter, communicated correctly. As you can see, this is business, not some emotional rant. The recent..2nd RFP put out by the Metro is just one more long wind bag of an RFP that are put out by many companies…But twice? And with no direction.. There is no way to answer this one.. NO WAY.. Oh it can be done.. After all we are all masters of hot air and vacuous dribble… But not this one.. this has to be smart, thought through, and work.. And it all starts with the Metro. Not an Ad agency that is just checking boxes. So, I am calling on all the agencies to send a message to the metro… Be a good, smart client. Be smart… Make us smarter and think harder. Don’t just pass your  bureaucracy along to the ad agency.. As they say.. Crap in… crap out..

We here at SmithGifford are partners with our clients and co-workers. Partners. That means when times are tough we chip in. We work with them not for them. We bleed when they bleed. And they do the same for us. It’s all based on trust and respect. Same with the staff. We are all in this together. That all starts at the beginning of the relationship, and in time should grow into a true partnership. No Larry Tates here…This sort of RFP sets up a bad relationship from the start. And is doomed to fail. There is no partnership. Oh there might be amongst individuals after all this is done. But the process and lack of focus and direction will never find the best team… or for that fact, the best result. It’s doomed from the start. Not on my metro. My cleaners, or software company… OK, that’s up to them.. But my life does not depend on those. This does..

Are we alone in this Don Quixote run? No. I am getting emails from many agencies praising our courage. But interestingly enough, no one will let it be known publicly. It’s suicide. What sort of marketing manager wants to deal with someone like us? Honestly… the sort of CMO that wants their agency to be a partner. One that wants the work to be not good, but great. A team, that includes the client, their boss, and the team captain… The public. They deserve better. We deserve better… Metro deserves better. So step up.. Make it known where you stand, even if you think we are fools… But at least step up and have an opinion… Now is the time for you to be heard as one community voice.. otherwise.. next year.. 300 page RFP’s

As many of you know, or not… I HATE RFPs HATE HATE HATE! I know that companies do them to be fair and get a glimpse of what a company is all about. But an RFP? It seems like here in DC, if you have a hot dog stand, by the way it’s National Chili Dog Day… Anyway, if you have a wiener stand and want some marketing, you generate a RFP. I suppose it’s the government tone here. For the record, we do not do government RFPs here.

SG's Interactive Director, Jason Pasch, downs a dog to celebrate National Chili Dog Day. Good work Jason.

So anyway I just got an RFP from a local thing. 80 pages…of crap…of stuff that has nothing to do with brilliant marketing. What makes it worse is that the first group to look at the RFP at that place won’t be marketing folks. It will be some subgroup of folks that have to weed through hundreds and hundreds of pages. And when it’s all said and done, when 3 weeks of non-billable work is done, we will never know why we were not chosen. Was it that I did not hire the right people? That my bond on storage of data was to small? That only 20% of my company was owned by a woman? And what in the hell does this have to do with great marketing anyway? Nothing.

In fact, if our company focused on RFPs and this sort of business, we would wind up being a very boring place that did boring work because all the people here would be boring people—who like doing RFPs.

So that’s my rule. And of course, what are rules made for? YES…BREAKING! And that’s exactly what we did when we got an RFP a while back from Melwood. You know, the car donation folks. While reviewing the RFP, we all groaned to be honest. Another RFP. And then it hit us. Melwood is an out of the box thinker… Why do we have to answer an RFP like a lawyer? That’s not who we are. So instead we took a bold leap and broke the rules. Are we rule followers? NO. No way. We are good listeners. And very, very nice… to a fault. But rules… Do you really hire a creative powerhouse to follow rules? If you do, you may want to stop reading, the next few thoughts will upset you. So back to Melwood. We thought…let’s answer the RFP in a creative way, let’s do it in a way that reflects us, not a law firm…… Introducing… drum roll please… “The CaRFP.” Yup. We answered the entire RFP on a donated car… Did it work? Yes, we made it to the second round. Then the third, and so on… Yesterday, we were informed that we won the business. Against many of the other firms here in DC.

Well, that messes up my feelings on RFPs. Or does it? The simple fact is that our relationship with Melwood right from the start is one out of the box. And it’s a perfect fit. They think like we do. Car donations, farms as donation tools. Brilliant! A CaRFP… Not bad. And the agency loved doing the pitch. And it all started with a RFP…

Snapshots of the CaRFP

I have always considered myself an out of the box thinker. I also have no problem pushing buttons sometimes to get folks attention. But always with a good reason.. Attention for attention sake seems like it’s just that. And not really focused on the product or service that we are marketing. OK OK OK.. But a Parasailing donkey! I can’t make this stuff up. I wish I could. I wish my brain could think of this stuff. Like Les Nesman in WRKP with his Turkey Drop over a strip mall on Thanksgiving in a chopper. The flying parasailing donkey was just that sort of out of the box…mind… thinking. Imagine the years of branding that happened. Kids will have that image burned into their brains for life. The news will always know your product as the flying donkey brand.. Genius… You read all about it here… Now all they need to do is get out of jail to sell whatever that product was….

In the end, it wasn’t even close. It only took Ernie “The Beefcake” Frate (pronouced “frah TAY,” like “par TAY”) a mere 9 minutes and 40 seconds to totally demolish and consume a 10-patty Vertigo Burger. The contest was held on Thursday, May 27th at 12:30PM at Elevation Burger, 442 S. Washington Street, Falls Church, VA.

I have to say that this was my first visit to Elevation Burger, but it will not be my last. This up-and-coming friendly restaurant chain boasts 100% USDA-certified organic, 100% grass-fed, 100% free range, 100% ground-on-premises beef. My burger was cooked to perfection and unlike the fare at many fast-food establishments, you can tell this burger is all-beef and no filler!

In this photo, “The Beefcake” sizes up his opponent just before the competition began.

And here, “The Beefcake” finishes off his opponent, savoring the sweet taste of victory!

True to form, “The Beefcake didn’t just overcome “The Beef.” To add insult to injury, he sneared in the face of the once mighty Vertigo Burger and polished off his victory with a milkshake and fries.

In the always epic battle between man versus beef, there was no, as they say in the world of competitive eating, “reversal of fortune.” Ernie “The Beefcake” Frate easily held down his ten-patty burger with cheese, fries and milkshake.

Chalk this one up to a big victory for man.

Our intrepid intern Lindsey!

Take it away Lindsey!

Twitter apps to filter by location

Finding local followers on Twitter can be challenging. Unlike Facebook, there isn’t a tool to filter users based on their location or “network”. When you first start looking for followers in a specific location, it’s best to start with tweepi.com and twellow.com jointly. Starting with your original Twitter page, go through your followers to find a user that is based in your city or nearby.

For example, if you’re looking for people in Frederick, MD, try a profile like TourFrederickMD. Then, using their name, get started with tweepi.com. Tweepi shows all of TourFrederickMD’s users and gives statistics about them. For example, it not only shows the user’s location, but the links they include in tweets, the last date of their tweet, etc. Using this information, you’re able to go through and add users who were active within the last month and who were in Frederick, MD.

After using this method for a while, head over to twellow.com. With twellow, you can log into your twitter account through their website and search for users specifically in Frederick, MD. This greatly expedites the process because you don’t have to manually go through each user and look at their location; twellow does that for you.

Four Great Twitter Apps to Help You Find Local Followers

Twellow

Twellow is an application that lets you search for followers by their location. You can enter the zip code, city and state, etc. You can also search in specific categories so if you’re looking for an Accountant who lives in Frederick, Maryland, twellow will give you a list of all the Accountants in Frederick, MD who use Twitter! Very cool!

Tweepi

Another great Twitter application that creates lists of any user’s followers. It not only gives you a complete list, but provides important stats, such as location, date of last tweet, number of followers and more. So, it let’s you not only find followers in your area, but it helps you identify followers who are active on Twitter. After all, it doesn’t do a lot of good to follow someone on Twitter whose last tweet was 6 months ago!

Local Tweeps

Local Tweeps displays the most recent Tweets within a certain zip code. Local Tweeps also gives you the most recent Tweets in a certain country and the top cities and states for Twitter.

Who Follows Whom

This application allows you to enter up to 5 users accounts, which creates a list of common followers. When you’re looking for users within a certain location, use two profiles that are about that location. For example, I used @FinditFrederick and @FredRockSchool in order to get a list of users from Frederick, MD and surrounding areas. And I especially like the application because it’s grammatically correct!

Mark your calendars! Next Thursday, our resident strongman Ernie Frate will have to put extra time in at the gym as he prepares to take on Elevation Burger’s infamous Vertigo burger. That’s right folks, Ernesto says he can polish off TEN mouth-watering, 100% USDA-certified organic, grass-fed, free-range, ground-on-premises beef patties, ten thick slices of golden yellow all-American cheddar cheese, a whole mess of ketchup and onions, all lovingly cradled by two big, buttery buns. …With fries on the side, if he’s feeling frisky. Oh, did I mention… he only has FIFTEEN MINUTES to complete the task?

Come one, come all, to watch this muscled mean machine masticate massive multitudes of meat on Thursday, May 27th, 2010 at 12:30 PM.

Check out the promotional poster below. F.Y.I., this is not a Photoshop job. This is actually how Ernie has been training for the bout (just kidding, this beautiful poster was crafted by none other than Patrick).

Click the poster to download a high-res version.

Our work continues to garner recognition and we’re really happy to announce that we’ve followed up our “Best in Show” at the local Addy’s with 4 Silver Addy’s at the District Two Addy Awards. SmithGifford was one of 12 local agencies that went on to win additional awards in this next level of competition.

Here’s what we took home!

Silver ADDY: “Broadcast” for Identity Guard (Television, Regional/National TV, Single, Consumer Services)

Silver ADDY: “Sandals” for Identity Guard (Television, Regional/National TV, Single, Consumer Services

Silver ADDY: “It’s Okay to Trust Again” for Identity Guard (Television, Regional/National TV, Campaigns, Consumer Services)

Silver ADDY: “Sandals” for Identity Guard (Television, Cinema Advertising, In-Theatre Commercials or Slides)

If you haven’t seen them, here are our winning ads!

Broadcast

Sandals

The ADDY Awards Competition is a three-tiered national competition conducted annually by the American Advertising Federation. It is the advertising industry’s largest and most representative competition for creative excellence. Winners from the local competition were forwarded to the District Two ADDY Awards, which includes entrants from Delaware, Maryland, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and the District of Columbia.