My career in commercial design has had me working a a wide variety of different marketing arenas. But one channel that I’ve rarely had an opportunity to work in is outdoor advertising. That changed this month when I took on a billboard design project for Hornblower Cruises.

And this, my first ever US Interstate system billboard advertising design gig, was one of the largest sizings offered by Lamar/Clear Channel: a 14′ x 48′ behemoth cuddled up to the I-8 freeway with an estimated 100k views per 24-hour period. I build my gallows high, baby.

Filed under: Advertising, Blog, Copywriting, Marketing, Outdoor Advertising by Stan Fairbank

Those wacky marketers at MINI USA. Always up to something.

As a MINI owner on the BMW/MINI house distribution list, I recently received a message from them thanking me for being such a wonderful customer and enticing me to follow a link where I could further bulk up their customer data about me for more accurate targeting in the future receive their humble gratitude.

I clicked through. I had to look. Wouldn’t you? And like me, aren’t you dying to know how they personally thanked me for being a MINI-ite?

Filed under: Advertising, Blog, Branding, Direct Marketing, Email, Facebook, Marketing, Online Marketing, Social Media by Stan Fairbank

In Safeway this week I was engaged in one of my more depressing shopping tasks: Looking for an edible breakfast cereal. It’s difficult. To my taste, most cereals are so bland and overprocessed that I can’t ever finish a whole box.

But I always need a day-starter of some kind. So there I was again — in Safeway, dully surveying the same aisle where I have been burned so many times before. Suddenly my eye was drawn to a bizarre apparition: an all-black box adorned with the glowering face of NBA star Kevin Garnett, illuminated with police lineup lighting effects and positioned over the logo of one of America’s oldest breakfast food brands: Wheaties.

A box of Wheaties Fuel was before me, standing out among the vast palette of beige, white and primary-colored boxes in the breakfast aisle like Snoop Dogg on the Martha Stewart show. I stood there an blinked for a few seconds trying to fathom the concept. This cereal is supposed to be wholesome, American, jock-y and very, very orange. And now: “Wheaties –Breakfast of Gangstas”? Whoa. My hand reached for the box like the root of a plant seeking water.

Filed under: Advertising, Blog, Branding, Facebook, Identity Design, Marketing, Naming, Social Media, Twitter, YouTube by Stan Fairbank