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What a fantastic end to an incredible journey! The last visit of the PlaidNation tour was at Launch Pad, a New Orleans based co-working environment where entrepreneurs, freelancers and creative professionals share collaborative workspace downtown.

LaunchPad is one of a few new, up and coming places where entrepreneurs are setting up shop and bringing New Orleans back to life. There's an incredible sense of community within the internet/creative/developer/freelancer population of NOLA, and the energy is inviting. There's also some sweet new tax incentives that are helping business people set their operations up here.

The Launchpad visit was a virtual interview-love-fest. We interviewed LaunchPad, they interviewed us. We interviewed Tiffany Starnes, and she interviewed us. And then we joined Jeremy Wright and Katie Del Guercio on the live LaunchPadTV show!

Thanks to Chris Schultz, Tiffany Starnes and the LaunchPad crew for a great end of tour visit!

Labels: new orleans

posted by darryl ohrt at 5:13 PM 3 Comments

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The Make It Right Foundation was at the top of our list for visits while in New Orleans. Having seen photos of the stunning architecture and build plans for the lower 9th Ward, we couldn't wait to share the story.

Upon arrival to Tennessee Street, you can't help but be moved. It's heart wrenching to see the devastation, the abandoned lots, the spray painted warnings outside of still empty homes. And it's awe inspiring to see a street filling with abundance and hope. Construction vehicles move continuously up and down the street, from project to project. Residents are moving in.

The Make It Right Foundation is building several homes on Tennessee Street. These are no ordinary homes. These homes are LEED Platinum certified, have been built to survive future hurricanes similar to or worse than Katrina, and have been designed by some of the most prominent architects from around the globe.

We chatted with Executive Director Tom Darden about what the Make It Right Foundation is up to, the fashion-like trend curves of brand awareness that disaster or event oriented non-profits deal with, and what's in the future for the organization.

See the interview with Executive Director Tom Darden and Robert, a Tennessee Street resident who just moved into his new Make it Right home, on the PlaidNation wrap up video for New Orleans.

Labels: new orleans

posted by darryl ohrt at 4:55 PM 0 Comments

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While in Jackson, Mississippi, we stopped at NunoErin, a new company founded by Nuno and Erin.

They design and produce furniture and installations that promote interactions between people and objects. If you're re-working your space, redesigning a client's space or looking for something really unique to get people talking about your space or event, you need to see this.

Their products include:
+ Wall panels that react to human touch (like those 80's t-shirts times TEN.)
+ Stools, lounges and other furniture that react to body temperature, sunlight and touch
+ Pillows that promote human interaction and touch

They've also created a system for sustainable lighting of outdoor surfaces like concrete and pavement using bio luminescent organisms. These don't require power and could be used for temporary or permanent installations. Possibilities include:
+ Lighting streets and sidewalks for events, with custom colors and design
+ Way-finding graphics for flood-prone areas (like New Orleans) that don't require power or structures (imagine roads that glow in the dark to help trapped citizens find their way to safety.)

We fell in love with Nuno & Erin, their incredible studio and the possibilities that their work bring to the architectural, interior design and event industries. We think you will, too.

See video of Nuno, Erin and the NunoErin products in action on the wrapup video for Jackson, Mississippi. Definitely needs to be seen to be believed!

Labels: jackson

posted by darryl ohrt at 9:55 PM 0 Comments

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While in Memphis, we had the opportunity to meet another agency - Red Deluxe, who are local faves in the Memphis creative community.

Sporting clients like the Red Cross and the American Lung Association, Red Deluxe is clearly at the forefront of the non-profit industry.

While non-profits aren't their entire business (we just missed a meeting with the Memphis Grizzlies) this is an area where they lead the pack. Non-profits who work with the Deluxe team get the same Deluxe action and experience that their commercial clients enjoy.

That's one of the many lessons that they shared with us during our meeting at their agency, too. Plenty of non-profits take the attitude of "we can't" or "it's not appropriate" because they're a non-profit. Red Deluxe reminds us that it's all about the audience - and if you can break through the clutter with an appropriate message for your audience - that doesn't mean you can't be irreverent, can't have fun, or can't do what you haven't done before.

See the Red Deluxe interview in its entirety on the Plaid Nation wrapup video for Memphis, or follow Red Deluxe on Twitter!

Labels: memphis

posted by darryl ohrt at 4:33 PM 1 Comments

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FedEx has one of the most perfect delivery records of any company in any business. More than 99%. But when you're dealing with millions of packages delivered every day, if .01% of your overall business experiences a service failure (even by five minutes), that can represent a few thousand people. That's a near perfect delivery record, yet there are still a few thousand people left unhappy.

What if a percentage of those people are on Twitter? Or have blogs? This presents an interesting challenge that only a high volume brand like FedEx might experience. Chances are that you're not tweeting "I just received my FedEx package." Or "just dropped my package at the FedEx box." But if you were one of the .01%, you might be tempted to tweet "FedEx didn't deliver my package today."

People are most passionate about brands when they do something extraordinary. Extraordinarily good or extraordinarily bad. But every day success? Probably not. When soap works well in your dishwasher, do you tweet about it? Nope. But if it fails, or does something magical, you may choose to share it with the world.

We found this to be an interesting challenge that FedEx and other high volume brands have to deal with every day. FedEx has a team of people devoted to monitoring this social chatter, and they proactively reach out to folks experiencing issues. They've also created blogs and other media to help tell more of the magical things that they're doing every day. They're clearly doing a great job at managing the .01% in addition to the 99.9% success stories. For good reason. FedEx SVP of Digital Access Marketing Mark Colombo points out that a 1% increase in loyalty can bring significant earnings straight to the bottom line.

What about your brand? Are you addressing the .01%?

Labels: fedex, memphis

posted by darryl ohrt at 6:54 AM 0 Comments

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Plaid was welcomed to FedEx yesterday with a red carpet.

When we added Memphis to the Plaid tour route, FedEx was an obvious choice for a stop. With 32,000 employees in Memphis, they're the supporters of a ton of commerce in the market. They're also one of the world's most iconic brands, a part of American pop culture and have a history of award winning advertising.

Matt Ceniceros from the Media Relations team saw our tweets and invited us in. Matt managed to schedule an interview with Director of Advertising Steve Pacheco, and made our day.

Most executives of Steve's stature would prefer to be stuck in a meeting, out playing golf or tending to their inbox. But not Steve. He hung with the PlaidNation tour crew for most of his morning - chatting about advertising, the industry, FedEx business, and branding. Steve shared plenty of great stories and insight, and gave us some inside scoop on future plans and ideas for the brand. We learned much from an advertising superstar.

See our interview with Steve in the Plaid Nation wrapup video for Memphis, and follow Matt and Steve on Twitter. Thanks, Matt, Steve, and the entire purple team in Memphis!

Labels: fedex, memphis

posted by darryl ohrt at 6:36 AM 1 Comments

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When you're in a different city every day meeting really cool people, one of the first things they usually do is point you to the most awesome local eateries.

No matter how much you think "you're going to be really good today," you find yourself in situations like "well, I'll never have BBQ like this ever again, so I might as well..." And you do.

Eventually, you begin to crave sugar, fat and meat constantly. We've pretty much accepted that we have a need to eat every two hours now, while on tour. We're naming our meals, too:

Pre-breakfast (at the hotel)
Breakfast (Could be Starbucks, could be waffles)
Snack (highly caffeinated, and something sugary)
Lunch
Linner (the new meal between lunch and dinner)
Snack (highly caffeinated, and something sugary)
Dinner (must include BBQ or many fried things)
Post dinner (a second dinner that some people call dessert)
Snack (this one's optional)

Oh yeah - and most of these meals are complimented with the best local brews. Needless to say, by the time we get to New Orleans, we'll all be wearing sweatpants.

Labels: lifeontheroad, yummy food

posted by darryl ohrt at 7:29 AM 5 Comments

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It’s back. We still have a nice collection of FREE Subway cards we need to give away while on tour. DID WE MENTION FREE? This keeps Subway the tour sponsor happy and keeps us at Plaid happy. If you win? It will keep you happy.

So here’s the deal: Today, Wednesday, we’ll pick 20 people on Twitter at random and give them each one $5 dollar gift card.

All ya have to do: From now until midnight tonight, tweet something interesting and original using the tags: #plaidnation and #subway

Facts, fiction, whatever. BE CREATIVE. No adult content, no illegal stuff, yatta. Basically, follow Twitter’s TOS. We’ll pick the 20 and let you know by Thursday.

The other rules:
1) Your update has to have those two tags above.
2) If you were one of last week’s winners, you’re not eligible today.
3) $5 dollar card is only good in the U.S. and Canada.

Winners will then be asked to contact rj *at* plaid.com with their winning tweet, name and valid mailing address, Winning tweets will also be viewable on Plaid’s tour blog.

posted by mtlb at 12:10 AM 2 Comments

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(Clearly the coolest Mayor in the nation is the one who let Plaid take over Denver.)

The second coolest Mayor is none other than Raeanne Presley (yes, she's related). Within a few hours of our arrival in Branson, she saw our tweets and reached out. We scheduled a meeting using Twitter and conducted an awesome interview.

We learned about how Branson is doing during the recession (just fine), how they're dealing with the brand image of old people in Branson, that hillbillies do still exist, and the difference between a jubilee and a jamboree.

See the full interview in the wrapup video for Branson on the tour dashboard, and follow Mayor Presley on Twitter.

Thanks, Mayor Presley from your friends at Plaid!

Labels: branson

posted by darryl ohrt at 4:57 PM 0 Comments

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Dept Zero is pretty awesome for a variety of reasons. Sure, they have Pabst Blue Ribbon on tap in their "fun room". They do killer work for a bunch of really impressive clients. And they're bringing art to their community in a most impressive way.

They found an abandoned space in town and turned it into a venue for artists, DJ's, bands, fashion designers and other creatives without the resources to have a space of their own. They've made the space available FOR FREE for any artists in the community. In a band, and want a place to play? Want to produce a fashion show for your new line of clothes? Need a space to show your photography or fine art? Not a problem.

How'd they do it?
First, they convinced one of their clients, Scion to sponsor the space. This wasn't difficult as the space plays perfectly to the Scion brand and the audience they want to reach. Then they partnered with a local venue (conveniently next door) to get a liquor license (and bartenders.) A local sculptor adopted the cause and created furniture, a DJ booth and lighting from Scion parts, jet engine parts, and other junk yard finds.

The end result is the Scion Lab - a space that's pretty much booked solid through October, helping the arts scene thrive in Kansas City, while building buzz for Scion. Everyone wins.

Labels: kansas city

posted by darryl ohrt at 4:08 PM 0 Comments

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Hanging with Dept Zero in Kansas City was pretty awesome. They just opened a massive "fun room" that you walk into when you enter their space, and they wanted to open it in style. So, like any agency, they threw a party.

Dept Zero happens to be pretty good at producing parties and events. Since their fun room looks kind of like a really cool bar, they decided to brand it as Todd's Downtown Banana Lounge. And the website was born. And of course, that called for a commercial (above). If you have a commercial, you need a phone number that people can call (816-994-9763). And that's how the party started...

Word spread around Kansas City pretty quickly. Todd's the type of guy that everyone in town wants to hang with. He quickly grew a fan base. And fans produced jingles and videos. Todd joined Facebook.

On opening night, Dept Zero hosted a massive crowd that included bridal parties, a bunch of locals and the Kansas City Alternative paper - who showed up to document the new, hottest club in Kansas City.

In the end, everyone had a blast, some locals were confused about this odd new bar, and Todd's Banana Lounge will probably live long in some way that they never imagined. Want to host a party of your own? We suggest you give Todd a call.

Labels: kansas city

posted by darryl ohrt at 9:08 PM 0 Comments

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Think that social media is just for your customers? One of the many things that we learned while visiting the Sprint World Headquarters in Kansas City was how they're using social media to communicate with their employees.

If you've got thousands and thousands of employees spread across the world, chances are you're going to need something better than an employee newsletter. Sprint has found that some of the same tools they use to communicate with their customers have also been super effective at spreading the word with their employees.

Sprint employees have internal blogs, communities and other tools to learn about what's happening, what's working, what's popping and what people are chatting about. Social tools happen to be an effective way to get these messages out quickly.

Sprint's setting the example for large employers and social media. Rather than blocking access to all of the latest social tools, they treat their employees like adults. They understand that employees have a purpose and trust that they'll do their jobs - even with Facebook and Twitter at their fingertips. (When you sell products that utilize these tools, it makes sense to let your employees use them too.)

Internal communications are clearly the next wave in social media for big business. We met with Jason and Jennifer at Sprint and chatted about this and other social media goodness. See it all in the Kansas City wrapup video at PlaidNation.

Labels: kansas city, sprint

posted by darryl ohrt at 8:06 PM 0 Comments

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That's the advice we received from two of the industry's most revered podcasters/bloggers/small agency dudes when we asked "what would you tell other creative people who have thought about starting a podcast, a blog or other means of putting yourself out there?"

We consider John and Tug to be the unmistakably voices for the rest of us. For the workers in the smaller agencies. The shops outside of NYC or San Francisco. The shops who are working on real business, creative solutions, and doing an awesome job. John and Tug are with you, and they're sharing their stories.

Listening to an American Copywriter podcast is like having a beer with a friend in the business. And their blog is fun and informative. That's what's made them successful, and connected to the creative community across the globe.

We had the awesome opportunity to meet them at Sullivan, Higdon and Sink during our visit to Kansas City. See the entire interview in the PlaidNation wrap up video for Kansas City!

Labels: kansas city

posted by darryl ohrt at 6:56 PM 0 Comments

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While enjoying a weekend off in Kansas City, we were treated to a luxurious stay at the Q Hotel and Spa.

Once you stay at the Q, you'll wonder why every hotel in the world isn't doing the same thing. This is clearly the future of the hospitality industry.

The Q has taken a dedicated approach to creating the ultimate green hotel. They're one of the eleven most green hotels in the nation. They've taken the hotel business past anything that you've experienced before. Energy Star rated, Green Seal certified, and a generous list of little things that add up to a massive shift in your overall experience.

Sometimes it's the tiniest things that make a grand difference. Like in-room recycling. Bicycles for guests to get around town. Composting of extra food. Ceramic instead of plastic with breakfast. Once you've experienced these things at the Q, you'll expect them everywhere you stay.

Even better - the guest experience wasn't compromised in any way. Our experience at the Q was equivalent to any stay at nice boutique hotels in many other cities.

Thanks to the entire staff at the Q for a most spectacular and inspiring experience in Kansas City! If you're visiting the hottest city in Missouri (or Kansas), we highly recommend a stay at the Q Hotel and Spa.

Labels: kansas city, q hotel

posted by darryl ohrt at 8:10 AM 1 Comments

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Pabst Blue Ribbon (PBR to the cooler people) has sponsored a series of street artists across Kansas City. We noticed a piece or two during our first night in KC, and since have spied several installations across the city.

Each piece features the work of a couple of artists from around the globe, put together with a little bit of PBR branding. This is advertising that inspires, creates interest and supports art. Everyone wins.

Labels: branding, kansas city

posted by darryl ohrt at 7:59 AM 0 Comments