He epitomized what is great about America. Work hard, treat people right and you will succeed.

“From a stock market perspective, the answer is yes. Super Bowl advertisers from 1996 to 2010 outperformed the S&P 500 by more than 1% on average in the week before and after the game, according to a study by the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire.

The boost in share price is attributed to the hype associated with advertising in the Super Bowl. It also explains why more than 50% of ads this year already are available online.”

It’s because advertisers typically go big for the Super Bowl. They produce fun and interesting creative as they attempt to quickly monetize the vaporous :30 seconds.

At the local level we rarely see companies treating the Super Bowl like it should be treated. Rarely do they produce new or try to improve they’re “creative.” That’s a big mistake.

You have an intensely focused audience. If you’re going to invest, don’t let your brand perception evaporate as quickly as your ad buy.

With construction about to get underway on the new JUMP (Jack’s Urban Meeting Place) Project, we couldn’t be more excited. The view that we currently have has been that of a now abandon warehouse and a dirt surface lot. So comes to an end, a rather unappealing view, and the beginning of what has been described as a lush parklike landscape and an amazing cultural center. With the vantage we have, we thought it would be worth capturing the long anticipated event.

For the next two years we are dedicating a webcam to cataloging images of each days events,  every hour on the hour. At the end of the two year development cycle, those images will be threaded together into a short film of the developments unfolding. In addition, our plan will be to share an up to the minute progress image for viewing from our offices on this blog (which is currently being redeveloped - stay tuned).

In the meantime, stay tuned, keep an eye on 9th & Front and lets get ready to JUMP.

For more information on this long awaiting project, you can visit their website, developed by our very creative friends at Oliver Russell at http://jacksurbanmeetingplace.org/.

These were a few recommendations we gave our client Custom Home Solutions. Ground breaking? No, but they were fundamentals that were necessary for a great company that was not getting the credit it deserved. Couple these recommendations with simple research on the company’s target market and the Rule Your Bath campaign was born.

Using TV and Newspaper (and a few POS pieces) the campaign contributed to a 50% increase in showroom traffic, inquires and estimates.

Advertising can work, but it starts with an idea.

How does Path keep it real?

• Your friends get capped at 150. Pick and choose wisely.
• It has a preset feature for adding when you went to bed and when you woke up.
• You can post 5 responses (emoticons) to a status update instead of just ‘liking’ it. Now you won’t feel awkward having to like that post about your friend’s cat Mr. Smuggles suddenly dying.
• It’s smartphone only—seriously, you can read an update on the web, but you can’t access a profile on a desktop or laptop.
• You can see who’s viewed your updates. This makes it a lot more awkward to stalk that girl down the street. She knows you viewed her profile 20 times today.
• It’s a little difficult to add people. You really need to know who you’re looking for.

And the best part: the UI is stunning on both the iPhone and Android. The buttons are apparent and easy to click. The interface is incredibly intuitive. A personal favorite feature is that when you set your status to sleeping, it gives you a cool windows displaying how long you’ve been in sleep mode for.

The only drawback might be that you don’t know anyone on it yet. It allows you to send messages to friends on Twitter and Facebook to join… and speaking of those two social giants, if you really must tell all your friends/followers past 150, it allows you to automatically post to twitter and facebook.

With all the political discourse about education the folks that do it day in, day out–at times–are easily forgotten.

That’s why we created a Facebook App along with the Idaho Education Association to collect thank-you’s. We will then take all the digital salutations and construct a very large thank-you card.

It’ll be one big thanks for all they do.

Who would you like to thank? Click on the image and give a shout-out to an educator that influenced you.

Now that snow’s flying at Southwest Idaho resorts, it’s the perfect time to take your best shot in the snow and enter Southwest Idaho’s Winter Breakaway photo contest. Or, if you’re headed to the Boise airport, find Southwest Idaho’s sign near Concourse B (it’s hard to miss), take a seat in our chair, snap a photo and enter to win! Each month this winter, a winner gets some pretty sweet swag from Bogus, Brundage or Tamarack.

Everyone at Rizen Creative and Southwest Idaho Travel Association wishes our ski resort friends a busy 2012!

That includes old stand-bys like white papers and testimonials, but has really hit its stride with the affordability of video, blogs, social media, etc. Overlay all those tactics with a great customer relationship management system and you end up a very strong program.

At root of content marketing is value–your customers want and, increasingly, are coming to expect something of value in exchange for their attention. And that’s just not in your content marketing efforts, that’s everything. All your marketing. Or, more accurately, all of your communication. This means your ads, logo, product initiatives, PR efforts and so forth should be aimed at providing value.

This is a big shift.

Traditionally, the primary purpose of non-content marketing has been to selfishly gain attention for your brand. To interrupt. To force a message down the throat of your customer. No more. With that approach you’ll be lucky to be ignored (the definition of “ignoring” is “intentionally disregarding”). You’ll be subject to much worse, you won’t even be noticed in the first place. You’ll be trapped in the darkness of obscurity, unseen.

The lesson: stop thinking of marketing as yours and start thinking of it as theirs, your customers’. Be valuable. Be useful. And be successful.