Ant Hill Marketing

So here at Ant Hill we have created a new Friday ritual. We thought since Monday’s around here are known as bagel day, that Friday’s should be known as breakfast sammie day. I can’t think of a better way to start your Friday then sitting around the kitchen table with a cup of coffee, consuming a homemade breakfast Egg McMuffin (while having our production meeting of course).

Jon (being a chef in his previous life) runs the kitchen as we all sit patiently waiting for the delicious sammie to arrive in front of us.

Happy Friday Everyone!

Erin

Saturday was what I would call a Win-Win-Win day. From 8:00 a.m. to midnight, Siobhan and I were at the Art Institute of Portland for their annual web raising event. For those of you who don’t know what the web raising event is — it is basically a barn raising for websites.  Each year, AI schools around the country select a local non-profit organization, gathers a team of volunteer students, and develops a website in a day.

This was the first time an agency has been involved and it elevated the event to a new level, allowing students to see the brand we developed for the client and what they have to work with for the site development. Ant Hill guided AI students to build a website for our client Virginia Garcia Memorial Health Centers.

The day was long. I’m talking really long. But it was a really exciting day. The students worked so hard and developed an amazing site that will help Virginia Garcia communicate their core mission and brand. At midnight, the site was about 95 percent completed but wasn’t quite ready to go live, so we will be picking the development back up next Saturday to finish the site.

If you want to see a play-by-play of the event, just check out the twitter stream.

Here are a few photos from the day.

The schedule. (Crazy)

Morning food spread.

Teamwork in action.

Reviewing first set of designs.

Shiv chowing down on some Webraising food.

We look forward to seeing the final results next weekend!

-Erin

That oh so memorable soundtrack at 10:00 p.m. tells you to hold on and get ready for the one hour adrenaline rush through the eyes of our favorite Chicago emergency room. Who knew that this one hour slot of time was to turn into a TV and cultural phenomenon? In fact, several networks passed up on the ER pilot believing its mastermind, the late (and great) Michael Crichton, to be out of his Jurassic Park. Why would anyone want to watch an hour of drama focused on what goes on in an ER? The previously successful hospital primetime program was St. Elsewhere but that was more of a sitcom mix. This was something entirely different and the networks didn’t really know (or understand) what to do with ER. In the end, NBC bit (but not at first blush) hoping for another L.A. Law or Hill Street Blues.  What they got was much more.

Fast forward 15 years, 122 Emmy nominations, 22 Emmy awards, and we’re at the end of a very long (and profitable) series. ER’s developers, producers, actors, directors – the entire program team redefined the TV drama. One of the best program brands today. They didn’t take a cookie-cutter approach and try to pigeon-hole their script into an existing program format. They took risks. Were consistent. Had passion. Were courageous.  And built community.

Businesses might learn from ER’s success. Think about it. Do you have a distinction in your market? Are you unique? And do you have a community that supports you both internally and externally? In today’s extremely difficult marketplace, businesses must be true to their brand. While the business and CEO mantra today is retrench, it should be step up. Now is the time to take stock in your brand, readdress it and see if it is truly the valuable asset it should be.

So CEOs, business owners and marketers alike, when you sit down tonight to watch the final episode of this 15-year run, before you flatline, ask yourself, “Is my brand dying?” And, more importantly, “What am I going to do about it.”

Giving back to the community…Ant Hill Marketing takes it seriously, as our support for probono client, Virginia Garcia Memorial Health Center illustrates. We’re helping this great organization – which does so much for those with barriers to quality healthcare – develop and activate their brand.  Part of the activation process includes the development of a new website. In our effort to aid the up-and-coming talent enter Portland’s creative pool, we brought our  friends at Portland Art Institute (PAI) on board. The result is a Web Raising – developing a site in a day. Crazy? No way. We get to mentor PAI students and the start of Virginia Garcia’s new website. Under Ant Hill Marketing’s direction, students at PAI will join together to help Virginia Garcia push their new site live. Check out the new site on April 25^th: www.virginiagarcia.org.

There are great perks about working down in the Pearl. Great restaurants, great bars, great shopping… but when it comes to parking. There isn’t anything great about it. There is no better way to end your day… then to go out to your car after a hard day’s work and see that little yellow envelope greeting you on your windshield.  Even worse is when you just missed the parking patrol by mere minutes.  I like to think of it as our way of supporting the local economy. (We are definitely doing our part.) I snapped a few photos to remember these momentous parking ticket occasions. Here are just a few from the last couple of weeks…. (Yes, Siobhán wins the award for getting the most parking tickets.)

That reminds me.. better go feed my meter.