Who says you can’t teach an old dog (food) new tricks? In fact, that’s exactly what GR creative directors Eddie Hale and Brett Dougall set out to do when designing long-time client Muenster Milling’s new Ancient Grains dog food line. The campaign earned Globe Runner two prestigious Addy Awards, elevating our agency to an award-winning comprehensive Dallas digital marketing agency and SEO consultant.

By the time this year’s AAF celebration at Deep Ellum’s Bomb Factory had wrapped, we were proud winners of a bronze Addy for the bag design and a silver Addy for the entire packaging system.

Globe Runner takes Silver and Bronze at the 2018 Addys Awards in Dallas.

The awards were presented by the American Advertising Federation, an association that represents all facets of the advertising industry and hosts the industry’s largest and most representative competition. Their mission is to recognize and reward the art of advertising among the more than 40,000 entries received each year.

The client, Muenster Milling, a 4th generation family-owned company, prides themselves on delivering holistic, all-natural pet food to their customers. When they set out to evolve their packaging to match their new and improved recipe, they trusted our team to give their new vision some creative flare.

Now, with a fresh face to represent their promise of quality, they’re ready to take on the market and continue as the purveyors of health and pillars of community their brand stands for. Since the official launch in December 2017, they have resonated very well with stores and consumers.

Creative Directors, Eddie Hale, and his right hand, Brett Dougall, said the experience gave them a chance to flex their creative muscles and tell the story behind the brand. With the design process, they were able to capture the Muenster mission through the upgraded packaging. CEO, Eric McGehearty, was proud to accept the award on Globe Runner’s behalf and is excited to continue leading the agency to produce award-winning work for our clients.

Our pride is swelling and we look forward to continue upholding the AAF’s mission to honor advertising excellence.

Stay tuned to see what we take home next year! If you’re ready to fuel up with some of our creative brain power, make contact.

About AAF Dallas:

The Dallas Chapter of the American Advertising Federation, comprised of more than 1,000 dedicated professionals, is the only association that represents all aspects of the advertising industry that we all know and love. AAF Dallas has been around for 110 years, making them the oldest civic organization in Dallas. This association helps agencies like Globe Runner network with everyone in the advertising industry from media to creatives and freelancers to marketers, providing us all an opportunity to continuously learn and grow as the industry evolves.

Say you wanted to travel from New York to Dallas. You wouldn’t hop a plane that didn’t specify a destination in hopes you’d eventually end up in DFW. You’d take considerable effort to ensure you got home as efficiently as possible.

Business branding works similarly.

To keep your company growing toward your long-term goals, your brand needs a focused direction. Lose sight of it or get off course and the delays could be significant.

As one of Dallas’s best creative marketing firms, we understand that enduring success is a voyage in discovering and rediscovering your brand. All aboard!

Rebranding Basics

At its core, branding is more experiential than anything. When thinking about your brand, it’s important to first consider how your customers will relate to the story you’re telling.

As we’ll see, it’s also critical to consider whether your company values make them want to connect. Down the line, you and your creative branding agency can decide the best ways to ensure your target audience is moved by the aesthetics and overall tone of your digital brand.

Finding Your Why

When we set out to consult on a rebrand, we start by peppering our clients with questions. Then, we listen. It’s a process of unearthing the relationship with emotion behind a company to see how that is or is not being reflected in the brand.

The most important question is pinpointing why you’re considering a rebrand at all. It might involve revisiting the mission statement, or there might be a new goal driving the rebranding project. Maybe there’s a problem or unexpected change that has the company pivoting.

In any event, get clear on your why before you plot your course. Strategize by asking questions like:

• Is our branding aligned with our current story?
• Who is our customer base and how has it evolved?
• How does our current customer base engage with our brand?
• What’s our employee turnover like?
• Are we using product innovation or new sales channels to help us in the competitive landscape?
• Has a merger or acquisition changed our ownership or shifted our focus?

To rebrand or not to rebrand, that is the question. But answering a few others can’t hurt. In fact, it could keep you from engaging in an unnecessary rebrand altogether. If you do decide to move forward, your why can help you explore which strategies are right for your rebrand.

Value First

We’re huge proponents of value-based marketing. Strong company values are the foundation of a successful business—and effective branding.

It all starts by understanding and rediscovering your company’s unique values. Then it’s about sharing those stated values consistently across all platforms and bringing them to the forefront of your internal and customer-facing communications.

Done right, a digital branding agency will help you imbue the true value of your brand in the redesign of your logo, messaging, core values, mission, etc.

Brand 360 Strategy

Brand strategy is a communicative and collaborative process. The more information you can gather from within and outside your company, the more clear your direction will become. Whether you embark on a rebrand because of a breakdown in company culture or in an effort to reinvigorate the magic you started with, listen more than you talk– at least at first.

We believe brands are rarely “broken,” they just need a more focused direction. If you want some help charting and rediscovering how powerful your brand really is, make contact.

Siri. Alexa. Cortana. Voice search is not only the future of search, it’s the present, too.

Twitter. One of the original social networks and still one of the most used by daily user count. Why is it still so popular after all of these years? It’s the immediacy of the information traveling all over the website. The immediacy of what’s happening now. Now, one of the biggest updates in Twitter’s history has occurred. They have doubled the character count from 140 characters to 280 characters.

Hard to believe that LinkedIn is still technically only a teenager. But time moves quickly in the world of social media. At age 14, the employment-oriented social networking service is mature beyond its years.

Thanks to its most recent growth spurt, it now supports more than 500 million users and promises serious marketing and branding opportunities for businesses. If you thought it was simply a place to park your resume or sniff out your next career move, we’re here to enlighten you.

As we’ll see, the social media network is evolving itself into a content-first platform ripe with customizable marketing solutions. Maybe that’s part of what Microsoft foresaw when it purchased LinkedIn for a cool $26.2 billion in 2016.

Looking to refine your social media marketing strategy in the New Year? See how LinkedIn is coming into its own.

LinkedIn Loves Content Marketing

Everyone from big brands to solopreneurs is looking for a place to publish and promote their original content. Today, LinkedIn users are more interested than ever, reading articles that pop up on their feeds at a voracious rate.

It all started with a little class project. In 2010, students at Stanford University set to work on what is now LinkedIn Pulse. Since 2014, it’s been a publishing platform for members to share their organic content. Now, hundreds of thousands of organic articles are published worldwide every week, solidifying the Pulse portion of LinkedIn as a content-first social media platform.

In a content-first world, B2B marketers know guest blogs are an effective way to reach customers. Sharing professional insights with LinkedIn’s audience of half a billion may prove an inestimable way to generate more traffic to your site. However, it’s just one of the ways LinkedIn is helping prove that content is still king.

LinkedIn Lures with Video

LinkedIn has also recently adopted video capabilities, offering marketers an additional channel to get eyes on their brand.

Since late summer of 2017, LinkedIn has supported native videos, tracking results and comparing their performance against other popular platforms. Surprisingly, the initial limited release has received wide praise from select marketers. We’re told that brands hoping to use LinkedIn as a video publishing platform should be able to take full advantage soon.

LinkedIn’s Business Marketing Solutions

When it comes to pushing out branded content on social media, the rules are clear: you have to pay to play.

Facebook’s recent algorithm change drives this point home. Ahead, posts from FB friends will get boosted while posts from brands will receive a demotion on users’ news feeds.

While LinkedIn views professional connections as more or less equal, the platform still offers a way to pay your way onto the news feeds of your target audience. If you’re looking to promote your business on LinkedIn, paid online advertising and sponsored forms of content could help close the gap, build your lead base and increase conversion rates.

LinkedIn is also making it easy to move beyond your company page and move directly into the LinkedIn messages of your targeted audiences with Sponsored InMail. The idea is that driving referral leads could be as simple as personalizing a note and sending it to your targeted prospects.

The final component of LinkedIn’s Business Marketing Solutions is desktop text ads. Using Simple PPC or CPM, the service promises to help drive quality leads to your landing page.

A Maturing LinkedIn

LinkedIn remains a unique social media platform that serves as an indisputable part of any comprehensive marketing strategy in 2018. We predict continued feature releases as LinkedIn continues to grow and mature.

For now, an increasing focus on written content and video marketing best capture LinkedIn’s signature ability to assist marketers in engaging highly targeted audiences.

Need help capitalizing on LinkedIn’s content-first promises? Link up with our full-service digital marketing agency.

Sometimes it takes more than one top dog to run a successful creative marketing campaign. Meet Brett Dougall, part two of the dynamic duo of Globe Runner Creative Directors helping launch our clients’ traditional and digital marketing campaigns.

About Brett

Though he was born in Las Vegas, Brett escaped Sin City and got to Texas as quickly as he could. Armed with a B.A. in Communications from Southern Methodist University and a right-brain ethos, he set off to fulfill his creative mission. A few creative agencies later, he refined his skills to the point of creative leadership. He firmly believes that “the medium doesn’t matter as long as it’s creative.”

Fast-forward another 20 years and he’s refined even further, helping Globe Runner continue pushing the creative event horizon.

What about Globe Runner drew you in?

When Black Lab Creative was acquired last year, I was a little skeptical about “working for the man” again. I very quickly acclimated to the team’s excitement and aligned with their passion for producing quality work. Now that some time has passed, I genuinely look forward to working in such a fun and exciting environment.

What is the scope of your role as a GR creative director?

Not only have I been a co-creative director, but I’m also a copywriter, account executive, brand manager, print producer, studio artist, photographer, new business generator, funny guy, weird guy, guy who does the dishes…you know—that guy.

I’ve come to understand that being a creative director is more than just a title. I’m here not only to be “the guy,” but more importantly to be a partner in making Globe Runner a better company. I always aim to do more than the status quo. I want GR to be more than successful and to do great work, I want GR to be wanted and desirable because we are successful and do great work. That’s why it’s important to be more than just an “employee.” It’s about being an advocate who’s constantly striving to be better. You don’t get there by simply doing what’s expected. For that you have to focus on what creative blending we can accomplish as a team.

Which three skills do you use most often as a CD?

1. Eye for great design. You can’t manufacture good taste.
2. Teaching and communication. Though Eddie and I technically have a “creative department,” we are helping lead the agency and teaching everyone how we can be better at what we do for our clients – internally and externally.
3. Ability to have fun. Advertising is the fun side of business. We want our clients to look forward to working with us and we want to get them enthusiastic about their business again.

How does the GR culture impact your work?

The open-air atmosphere at GR helps me to be more free and outgoing with my coworkers. This helps me communicate better with others, and in turn, helps with collaboration.

What is your favorite part of a marketing campaign?

The strategic thinking that goes behind every campaign can make or break it. It’s a huge part of how, what, and why a consumer buys a product. From dog food to prom dresses, there are a lot of moving parts. When it comes to a marketing campaign, seeing all those parts come and work together makes it all worth it in the end.

What does a typical day look like in your role?

One might think that a typical workday would be filled with internal and/or client meetings. Sure that happens from time to time, but most days I’m designing, strategizing concepts, and creating. That’s what gets me going… it keeps my brain alive and keeps me generating new ways to solve problems strategically and graphically.

Where do you find your biggest creative inspiration day-to-day?

It really all depends on what kind of project I’m working on. Packaging, web design, branding, or logo work, it varies from campaign-to-campaign. There’s so much good work out there that has already been done, it’s easy to get on the web, do a search, and pick a creative direction. There are many great talented art/creative directors and copywriters out there that can be very inspiring. Really, that’s what it comes down to for me—finding that inspiration. The muse could be music, a photograph, a type treatment, architecture, cooking, etc. Inspiration is everywhere, you just have to be inspired to find it yourself.

How do you deal with challenges in your role?

With 20 years of experience, there are and always will be challenges in my career. Challenges change with the time, but because of past experiences, some challenges are easier than others. As an artist, challenges simply become another opportunity to express my individual creativity.

Do you have any advice for someone looking for an agency role?

Be ready to be collaborative no matter what role you take. Be ready to participate and go above and beyond what your “role” or “title” might be. Be willing to learn to better yourself to keep pushing the status quo.

Also, an art director can direct a piece forever. It’s good to know when to walk away from your work. It’ll always be there tomorrow. Give your eyes and mind a break and you might even see the piece in a whole new light. Just make sure that when you get to a place where you like it, walk away from it and move on to the next project. No matter what you do, eventually, the client is going to have changes.

What’s one piece of advice you wish you’d received before starting out?

I wish I knew how to put together a better portfolio. To this day, when I can find the time, I keep polishing up my book. I’ve worked on hundreds of projects and only a select few get chosen. I still have pieces from 15 years ago. It’s funny in this business… you can market anybody and everything else, but when it comes to you personally, it’s always a challenge.

Where do you hope to take GR clients in the future?

I want our clients to see the value in what Globe Runner has to offer. Since Black Lab Creative came on board, we’ve become a well-rounded agency that offers more than just SEO. We provide our clients great creative alongside the strategic thinking that can take their brand to the next level. We want our clients and their customers to think differently about their brand.

Want to fuel your brand’s next marketing campaign with a bit of Brett’s creative genius? Make contact!

About Eddie

Eddie and his entire family, black lab included, are native Texans. Since graduating from Stephen F. Austin, he’s taken the creative lead at Dallas agencies, helping local and international clients find their voice and tell their brand story.

What about Globe Runner drew you in?

All the orange. And the clients. But that’s it – the orange and the clients. Oh, and the people. The entire Globe Runner team is the rocket fuel for the work that’s setting our clients up to succeed online and beyond, and I’m having a blast on this adventure.

What is the scope of your role as a GR creative director?

To provide direction in strategy and design; to produce work that is strategic, creative and timely; to encourage GR team members to be strategic, creative and collaborative; and to provide creative support for account management and new business, or any other department that puts out creative work for our clients.

It’s also about helping clients achieve brand consistency. To help them show up authentically across all platforms, from fully branded campaigns to social media to using all aspects of their brand.

Which three skills do you use most often as a CD?

Collaboration. Encouragement. Recognition.

It all comes down to the art of communication and collaboration. Using an unsophisticated stick figure to help illustrate your point can sometimes be more effective than writing the world’s most thorough creative brief. Finding that finesse and getting the whole team aligned helps me turn out the otherworldly work we create for our clients.

How does the GR culture impact your work?

It’s fun here and everyone is a lot younger than I am. They already know so much and are eager to learn more. They inspire me to keep learning and pushing myself to be better at what I do.

What is your favorite part of a marketing campaign?

The strategy that goes into it to make an advertising campaign smarter than the competition. That’s when things get really interesting.

What does a typical day look like in your role?

60% putting out creative fires, 30% selling ideas, and 10% sweating the fact that there are no new ideas.

Where do you find your biggest creative inspiration day-to-day?

Through my own participation in the world. Watching what interests my son, my wife, my parents. I had an old Executive Creative Director once tell me to pick up a coffee table book, an art book, or even an old album cover when I needed inspiration.

Creativity is contagious!

How do you deal with challenges in your role?

By prioritizing my time. It helps me pivot and shift my own task list when I’m called to help someone with something small and simple. I look for the easy wins to keep me going when things are tough. It helps me spread the idea that creativity matters to me.

Which five tools do you use most in your every day?

A pocket knife, a phillips head screwdriver, a corkscrew, my phone and my belt. OR – humor (funny to me anyway), a little self-deprecation, Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign. 

In addition to my hard tools and soft skills, it really comes down to the Adobe Suite’s ‘big 3.’ If you don’t know the programs, it slows you down. Being able to move between Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign helps me show visually what’s in my brain. It’s the only way to move from ideation to implementation.

Type. Sometimes that’s all you have to communicate an idea. If you respect it and work well with it, you can design so much through it.

Do you have any advice for someone looking for an agency role?

Learn to communicate. Whether you draw on a notepad, use your words, or engage full programs you need to find the best outlet to get an idea across. This may change with your audience or based on the project, so there’s never just one ‘right’ way.

What’s one piece of advice you wish you’d received before starting out?

When someone challenges your work, be prepared with answers. Show that you’ve thought about your work. Creativity is a thinking man’s sport.

Where do you hope to take GR clients in the future?

Soaring light-years above their competition.

Every day, my goal is to make us a little bit better than we were the day before. To move forward. Whether that’s by creating better design, or simply delivering a project quicker.

I especially strive to push the boundaries and limitations of a campaign. In fact, sometimes that’s my only job. It’s why I always focus on variety, even if a design seems a little too cool or risky at first pass. Part of the job is to help clients dream a little, push past their comfort zones, and pull back off that. That’s the way to give clients the propulsion needed to take them beyond themselves.

Eddie’s Final Remarks

Marketing communications and advertising are a company’s way of having a relationship with their customers. If we can make our clients a little more attractive while showing the heart of their company’s personality, we consider it a win. We believe that win will be reflected in their increased web traffic or increased sales, etc.—everyone’s version of success is different.

Our customers are really good at their jobs, but that doesn’t mean they can bring that same level of proficiency to branding. That’s our job. We’re here to launch them into the stratosphere in whatever ways best serve them.

Imagine performing a Google Search only to discover all the content with a first-page ranking had been upvoted there.  This is, essentially, the premise behind Reddit, a discussion website that hinges on content ratings.

With nearly a quarter billion unique monthly users across its 50,000 niche communities, Reddit has massive marketing potential. But learning how to market on Reddit is an artful science. Users are quick to circumvent anything that could be construed as strictly promotional.

Done right, Reddit is an invaluable part of any brand’s content marketing strategy. Just make sure you learn the nuances and strictly follow the ‘Reddiquette’ or prepared to be banned.

Redditor User Demographics

Wondering who’s online? Last year Pew Research Center released a study of Reddit users.

Seven in ten use the site for news purposes. About 67% are young men between the ages of 18-29. Almost half have a college degree and classify themselves as liberal. Diversity in these communities is low with 70% of users self-reporting as ‘white, non-Hispanic.’

Marketers looking to drive website traffic can use these stats to inform their big-picture approach. Those who aim to build brand awareness with a specific target audience are better engaging the subreddits.

Market Research with Subreddits

Niche communities populate the subreddits of every subject under the sun. Regardless of your industry, in them, you’re likely to find highly engaged users primed for conversion. The trick is knowing where to look.

Reddit is a big place. Start with some keyword sleuthing to zero in on potential customers. You can also download free tools to help with advanced searching. The more you utilize custom filters to weed out irrelevant threads and outdated posts, the more concentrated your market research with be.

Read the subreddits that appear most applicable to your product or service and make a note of common themes, questions, critiques, etc. Pay specific attention to key phrases you can use in your own search marketing. By listening in on these candid online conversations, you can get an honest assessment of how your target market feels about a brand or industry.

You can also see if competitors have attempted to advertise in a particular subreddit. Under the ‘promotion’ tab of the thread, you can view the consumer comments of current or previous promotions. Use them to help inform your next online advertising campaign.

Reddit Rules

Come off as a spammer and Reddit users will spring into action, banning your account or even your entire web domain from posting on the site. (Unsurprisingly, there’s even a subreddit that discusses Reddit bans.)

They don’t take too kindly to overt or clandestine marketing attempts, especially if they’re irrelevant to the thread.

To avoid getting banned on Reddit, don’t:

• Openly ask for upvotes. Facebook recently implemented a similar demotion for brands that ask for likes and shares. Make sure your user-generated content can stand on its own.
• Copy and paste content verbatim in different subreddits. You posting history follows you and redditors won’t hesitate to search it out. If they don’t like what they see or detect a pattern of promotion (i.e., only uploading links to your direct website) it could result in a ban.
• Publish private information or illegal content. These two are probably self-explanatory but are important to reiterate.

Instead, offer thoughtful, original responses to posts and subreddits that are pertinent to your industry. Listen more than you talk, at least at first, and when you do post, keep the focus on customer service. In any event, you always make sure you understand and adhere to posting rules, regardless of thread size.

The truth is, Reddit is a highly evolved community of intelligent and engaged users. Work within their well-established parameters, listen in, and learn what you can to help refine your niche marketing strategy.

Want to take a run at Reddit but aren’t sure where to start? Make contact, and we’ll strategize together.

The process of moving from where you are to where you want to be is always a journey. In business, it’s important to plot your course and establish a direction.

If you seek to drive revenue you may have to make a necessary pit stop like improving your Google ranking. Widening your customer base might require making a hard left by increasing website visits.

Circle Back

Sometimes going in circles can actually be a good thing. Looking to where you’ve been is often an effective way to help you understand where you need to go. Start by reviewing each aspect of your traditional and digital marketing plan. Pull data from your email marketing stats, PPC campaign results, website’s google analytics and social media efforts. See how each performed the year before. Were there certain blog topics that resonated with your target audience? Did one keyword in your content marketing scheme outperform all others? Or, were your traditional media placements and creative outdoor and radio advertisements responsible for driving sales?

Upon review, you may decide to dedicate your marketing budget to one impactful medium. Or, you may find diversifying your spending helps you to truly own your market segment. In any event, take some time to shift into reverse for insights into how customers are responding to your brand.

2. Determine Your Start Point

When planning your 2018 marketing strategy, start off top-heavy. We mean that literally. Gather managers from each department to help you identify all key components. Once you have tangible ideas from each corner of your corporate globe, you can think through how to execute them.

No one knows the ins and outs of your brand like your core leadership team. Leverage them to establish the key pieces you’ll need to build the plan including:

• Selling Points – Who are you and what makes your product or service different.
• Target Market – Get as specific as possible, drill down and segment past age and gender.
• Ideal Channels – Typical outlets like “online” or “tv,” while effective, are too generic on their own. Think through the type of sites your market visits. How would they go about finding information for your type of product or service? Use this to determine the best way to reach your targets.
• Budget – Just because one avenue has a large viewing audience, doesn’t mean it’s worth your investment. Quality ads on the right channels may not come cheap. Be realistic about your budget and research carefully to see that your particular market segment has a good chance of conversion before you hit the gas.

3. Plot Mile Markers

Use guides to point you in the direction of your goals. If you’re having issues identifying key pieces about your company, see if a SWOT analysis, buyer personas, market research or a competitive analysis can help give you the green light.

With your key components plotted, allocate your budget per channel. Note the costs of each and establish goals for those channels. Pay close attention to dollars spent, as you’ll ultimately be weighing them against the profit a sale is expected to generate.

You might consider putting some of each of these into your digital marketing tank:

1. Search Engine Optimization– aka search marketing
2. Online Advertising– retargeting, PPC, and Adwords
3. Email marketing– with market segmentation for increased ROI
4. Organic and paid social media– emphasis on paid
5. Website– optimize pages on your site and increase domain authority
6. Public relations– to help with community and online reputation management
7. Influencer marketing– target the thought leaders in your industry
8. Content marketing– create a schedule based on keywords and trending topics
9. Traditional marketing– outdoor advertising, magazines, etc.

Most importantly, make sure the established goals are SMART – specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely. Doing so will clearly denote whether you’re heading in the right direction or show you where to course correct, especially as the year progresses.

4. Refuel with the Team

Your marketing vehicle needn’t accommodate the entire team at each stop along the way. It is a good idea, however, to pause and refuel with them once you have your route outlined. Perhaps they know of a shortcut here or an alternate route there.

Share what you and your team leads have planned and welcome feedback. Whether the process points ideas in a new direction or spawns new ones along your same path, you’ll be better for it.

At this stage in your travels, it might also be a good idea to bring in an outside digital marketing firm to help look over your marketing map. They’re trained to help point out potential roadblocks and can help tune it to precision.

5. Designate a Driver

Once you’re ready to put the pedal to the metal, put someone in the driver’s seat who’s studied the roadmap. You may identify one dedicated person who’s in charge of working with the various departments. You could also split up the drive between many people in charge of individual key pieces. The idea is to hold someone(s) solely responsible for the implementation, ongoing management, and final results.

Whether as a whole or as part of specific departmental agendas, it’s crucial to ensure that things are carried through to fruition. Again, if all your internal drivers are busy advancing other goals, a digital advertising agency can supplement as a full in-house marketing team.

In short, as your business races into the new year, it can be helpful to periodically pump the brakes to make sure you’re destined for success.

Not sure which stops are best for your business strategy? Hire a full-service marketing agency to help point you in the right direction or do the driving for you.