This morning my co-workers and I attended Seattle Goodwill’s Appreciation Breakfast, which honors volunteers, sponsors, and scholarship recipients. As a proud sponsor of Goodwill we were humbled by the stories of individuals whose lives were changed by the job training and support that Goodwill offers. It truly brings into focus the reason behind everything we do in support of an outstanding organization that for over 80 years has been devoted to our community. To ensure that Goodwill continues to thrive, we throw our creative energy into developing thought-provoking campaigns and guerrilla marketing events on behalf of Goodwill, and this past Memorial Day weekend was no exception!
To bring awareness to the many reasons for shopping at Goodwill, we staged a mock protest at one of the largest events in Seattle – Northwest Folklife Festival! With over 250,000 attendees over four very spirited days, it’s the perfect opportunity to utilize guerrilla marketing at it’s finest… in other words, GoMobile = kid; Folklife = candy store.
We crashed Folklife Festival with protestors dressed entirely in outfits found at actual Seattle Goodwill stores carrying picket signs encouraging attendees to “Free Your Wardrobe!”, “Eliminate Waste, Save a Shirt!” and “Fight to Stop Outfit Dumping!”, etc. We also passed out 10,000 coupons for 30% any item at Goodwill, which alone is quite a feat!
Everyone at Folklife Festival was very receptive to our spirited protest and we were happy to have the opportunity to converse with hundreds of people about their history with Goodwill.
If the name doesn’t give it away enough, GoMobile Advertising is an extremely mobile company, both as a business model and as a team of individuals. Among our group there are avid bikers, boaters, skiers, snowboarders, climbers, rafters, travelers and explorers, and at any given point it seems at least one person is in Mexico. But staying mobile represents a bigger idea in the advertising world, and it’s critical to building a brand. Here’s how we do it:
1. Technology: Although we play hard as a staff, we always stay connected. Since ours is such a visual medium, keeping our department heads equipped with iPhones has been instrumental showing people the types of campaigns we’ve created. We regularly update our devices with our latest photos and videos to flip through with just about anyone we meet. If they didn’t know what experiential mobile marketing was or can’t believe we created a 25ft Chicken & Biscuit Bowl for KFC inside a mobile showcase, they can see for themselves!
2. GPS Tracking: Each of our multimedia advertising vehicles is fitted with a GPS tracking unit that allows our staff, and better yet, our clients to see exactly where their campaign is on the streets at any particular moment. Even better, we take our clients on “Ride-Alongs” where they get to experience first hand the amazing reactions of real people where they live, work and play.
3. Events: The cardinal rule of advertising: “You don’t schmooze, you lose”. We make sure to stay active in both the local advertising community, attending AdClub meetings and events and serving on numerous boards around the city. We also attend national advertising conventions and galas that honor the best in our industry each year. We’ve even been honored with a few national awards ourselves – check it out!
Take it from the experts in mobile: it pays to get up out of your desk and get out where the people are. It drives brand engagement, builds lasting connections, and best of all – works that kink out of your neck from staring at this blog.
Event Marketer magazine’s EX Awards were on Monday night, it’s now Wednesday afternoon and my body is just now returning to homeostasis (which tells you what a great event it was). It was an excellent experience for Chris (President of GoMobile) and I to be able to rub elbows with a lot of our fellow event & experiential marketing industry colleagues and be recognized for the efforts we’ve made in creating a niche in this industry. We were nominated for the Best Vehicle Design category for our mobile marketing campaign with Miller Chill last summer, and I would tell you what happened next, but I made a video blog during the event so you can see it all for yourself.
So yeah, we won the EX Award! We are thrilled, especially because the EX Award is judged completely by event marketing colleagues who know the industry. Special thanks to Chip Berry from Event Marketer magazine for encouraging us to attend, it was well worth our time!
As announced a couple blog posts down, as well as all over our website and the internet community as a whole (we hate secrets), we won a Silver ADDY Award for our Miller Chill campaign at last month’s local competition put on by the AAF. Well, we just got word a couple days ago that at the regional competition (competing against five states in the Pacific Northwest), we won another ADDY…
And this time it’s GOLD!
You should have seen us in the office when we heard. Ryan, our Marketing Director, literally jumped from his chair, arms flailing, and he and I ran into Chris’ office like a couple of 5-year olds (which actually isn’t uncharacteristic of us). In other words, we’re all really excited. From here, we’ll go on to the National competition held in the other Washington (DC) on May 8th and 9th.
The Miller Chill Cuban Lounge campaign was an outstanding display that the team worked painstakingly on, so we kinda feel like proud parents of an honor student right now (look out for our “Our beer campaign can beat up your beer campaign” bumper stickers soon). To check out a case study of the campaign, click here.
GoMobile Advertising was recently asked to answer a set of questions about our event marketing experiences in 2008 by Event Marketing Magazine’s EX Awards, for which we were recently announced as finalists. The EX Awards competition honors the best of the best in event marketing each year, and we were thrilled to be chosen for our Miller Chill campaign in 2008. We wanted to share our video responses with you as a sneak peek before they’re shown at the EX Award Ceremony on April 24th.
As you can see, we keep it pretty lighthearted in the office, but when it comes down to it, we’re obsessed with experiential and event marketing and we live for creating unforgettable brand experiences for consumers. Enjoy!
Question 1: What Inspires You?
Question 2: What Were Your Biggest Challenges in 2008?
As it turns out, all of the blood, sweat and tears (and late nights drinking Miller Chill) paid off! Nearly a year after putting together the multi-market campaign for Miller Chill, we have something to show for it, aside from the millions of impressions and interactive experiences garnered for Miller throughout last spring and summer.
Out of over 400 entries, we were chosen as the silver award winner in the Vehicle Design category for our local Seattle ADDY awards. So, our entries will head to Spokane next week to be judged for regionals.
The awards show was last Friday, and it was a blast. Seattle does some really creative work! We were honored to be there, humbled with our single award amidst some giant agencies taking home armfuls.
But we are also proud to say that we are the only media company (non-agency) with winning work. I guess there aren’t a lot of media companies doing creative work that could compete at an agency level.
Anyway, congrats to all of the agencies that took home awards! You guys do great work; keep making Seattle proud; let’s make it a city to be recognized amidst the international advertising community!
College sports fans across the country are sharpening their pencils in preparation for the always-competitive bracket competition that infiltrates offices and social circles nationwide. Of course, we’re no exception. But aside from the sneaky live game web streams that are sure to pop up around the office during business hours, we’re all addicted to another double ‘M’: Mobile Madness.
March brings a revitalized spirit to the outdoor advertising industry because it’s the first sign that the hibernation and frigidness of the past winter is on its way out. As people begin to emerge from their cozy winterized homes and out onto the streets, mobile advertising follows suit with fresh, innovative campaigns.
With stimulus and tax refund checks in-hand, the public is ready to buy. What they buy depends on what they see. Did we mention mobile billboards have a 97% recall rate? All we’re saying is it’s a good way to make sure they see you.
Give us a call, ask about how we can get you out dominating the streets, helping the economy help you.
With fall approaching, loyal college football fans are eagerly anticipating the start of the 2008 season. To create excitement and promote ticket sales, GoMobile Advertising has teamed up with the University of Washington’s own Husky football for an exclusive and shared billboard scrolling campaign.
The billboards feature breathtaking creative that allows passersby to feel as if they are face-to-face with a gnarly Husky football player ready to pounce. To further the anticipation of the 2008 Husky football season, GoMobile’s signature scrolling mobile billboard vehicle will be blasting traditional UW fight songs, including “Bow Down to Washington”, “Victory for Washington” and UW marching band hits like the ever-popular “Tequila!”. With the first game of the season against long-time rival Oregon rapidly approaching, die-hard Washington fans can bask in the ambiance of being at a real game in the meantime with GoMobile Advertising.
To check out the 2008 Husky Football season lineup & buy tickets, click here.
SEATTLE – In order to help roll out the 2009 issue of their popular idea book to eager followers, IKEA is taking a unique approach to the traditional delivery system: they’re getting help by using a mobile billboard and 3D showroom vehicle from GoMobile Advertising, an experiential marketing company. The truck will travel around the greater Puget Sound area, as well as make appearances at local fairs, festivals, and parades, passing out approximately 1 million copies of the IKEA catalogs for the third straight year.
“This year, you’ll find 374 pages that provide ideas, inspiration, and solutions to everyone’s home furnishing needs. The theme for our 2009 IKEA catalog is ‘Home is the most important place in the world’. It will showcase our unique point of view – the home is made for living. You will find that we are focusing on three main areas of the home – the kitchen, the bedroom, and living room.” says IKEA Store Manager, Laurie Helm. “We’re always excited this time of year to show our customers all of our new products at our new lower prices.” The free-of-charge catalog will be released July 29th in more than 27 languages and shipped to over 35 countries around the world.
The BioDiesel-fueled truck is a signature vehicle by GoMobile Advertising, and features mobile billboards on multiple sides that display new IKEA products at their ever-affordable prices. The crown jewel of the truck is a complete living space encapsulated in the truck’s glass sides that acts as an invitation to the IKEA store as well as inspiration to customers. This is the seventh partnership for IKEA and GoMobile, with past campaigns including the Twice Yearly Sale and their latest, “Live Small (in a BIG way)!” which showcased living ideas for small spaces and dorm rooms.
The campaign kicks off July 29th and ends September 1st.
I was sorting through some papers in the office and found a couple notes that I thought I’d share. Back in April we held the 2nd annual GoMobile Affiliate Conference here in Seattle and were thrilled with the positive reaction of all the attendees. The three day conference included a cruise on Seattle’s Puget Sound with dinner and drinks, and guest speakers Jim Copacino and Betti Fujikado of Copacino + Fujikado, a national award winning advertising firm. They had an outstanding presentation and had some truly valuable information for us, which we all sponged up eagerly.
Thanks to everyone who attended and made the Affiliate Conference such a success and we look forward to seeing you all next year! On to the letters:
“There are no words to express our thanks for the way we were treated during our brief stay. So many topics were covered in a short period of time, but team “GoMobile” covered them with a great deal of attention. You made us feel that there is such a thing as “team work” without losing individuality. On behalf of Pilar, Eric and myself I want you to know that you and your team made the impossible become possible in a very short period of time.”– Mike Amengual, Future 2000 Corp.
“Just a quick note to say thank you for the awesome job you all did hosting the affiliate conference. It was a delight to see each of you again and to meet all the fine affiliates you have attracted from around the nation. Best wishes to everyone for great continued success and thanks again!”– Dennis Anderson, Anderson Mobile Media
This morning my co-workers and I attended Seattle Goodwill’s Appreciation Breakfast, which honors volunteers, sponsors, and scholarship recipients. As a proud sponsor of Goodwill we were humbled by the stories of individuals whose lives were changed by the job training and support that Goodwill offers. It truly brings into focus the reason behind everything we do in support of an outstanding organization that for over 80 years has been devoted to our community. To ensure that Goodwill continues to thrive, we throw our creative energy into developing thought-provoking campaigns and guerrilla marketing events on behalf of Goodwill, and this past Memorial Day weekend was no exception!
2. GPS Tracking: Each of our multimedia advertising vehicles is fitted with a GPS tracking unit that allows our staff, and better yet, our clients to see exactly where their campaign is on the streets at any particular moment. Even better, we take our clients on “Ride-Alongs” where they get to experience first hand the amazing reactions of real people where they live, work and play.
3. Events: The cardinal rule of advertising: “You don’t schmooze, you lose”. We make sure to stay active in both the local advertising community, attending AdClub meetings and events and serving on numerous boards around the city. We also attend national advertising conventions and galas that honor the best in our industry each year. We’ve even been honored with a few national awards ourselves – check it out!
Event Marketer magazine’s EX Awards were on Monday night, it’s now Wednesday afternoon and my body is just now returning to homeostasis (which tells you what a great event it was). It was an excellent experience for Chris (President of GoMobile) and I to be able to rub elbows with a lot of our fellow event & experiential marketing industry colleagues and be recognized for the efforts we’ve made in creating a niche in this industry. We were nominated for the Best Vehicle Design category for our mobile marketing campaign with Miller Chill last summer, and I would tell you what happened next, but I made a video blog during the event so you can see it all for yourself.
SEATTLE – In order to help roll out the 2009 issue of their popular idea book to eager followers, 
