Knocking Down Walls — New York, NY

bfwadvertising — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 21:37:06 +0000

Hundreds of years ago a wall was constructed on Manhattan Island to keep Native Americans out. That wall eventually became the namesake for Wall Street at the heart of the New York Stock Exchange, and arguably the greatest financial district in the world. Ironically, many of the descendants of those same Native Americans are now in a position to take advantage of those financial services, but as recently as last year were grossly underrepresented both on the stock room floor and on Wall Street in general.

Well, last month bfw client NativeOne Institutional Trading not only made history, they rewrote it. In recognition of being the first Native American-owned member of the NYSE, NativeOne Institutional Trading stepped right over that wall and rang the closing bell of the NYSE on August 25. (Click here to see the video.) The company was structured to level the financial playing field for all Native Tribes and First Nations while giving back to the Native Community.

NativeOne Institutional Trading rang the NYSE closing bell on August 25, 2011

Not only does NativeOne provide outstanding financial services, the future of Indian Country is of utmost concern to them. They convert a portion of existing portfolio expenses and donate this money to educational funding, scholarships and charities. Their NativeOne Student Outreach Division is designed to educate and inspire the next generation of Native Financial Professionals through internships.

NativeOne outside the NYSE.

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Kat Davis is Senior Copywriter at bfw Advertising+Interactive in Boca Raton, Florida. bfw is a tight knit collection of writers, artists, designers, technologists and thinkers who share a common passion for doing great work that makes things happen. For more information call (561) 962-3300 or visit www.gobfw.com.

Getting smarter by the day.

bfwadvertising — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 13:27:59 +0000

It’s Day 3 of intensive Flash/ActionScript training for bfw art directors and developers. We converted the main conference area into a classroom. Brought everybody together. And let the learning commence.

As John Dewey, American philosopher and educational reformer, once said:
“Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.”

About to get rockin’ in the main conference room.

Folgers Inferno

bfwadvertising — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 21:02:47 +0000

Pete created a sign to illustrate the dangers of leaving the burner on in the bfw kitchen.

Stop, drop and roll! Oh wait...it's just paper.

bfw 4th of July Pot Luck

bfwadvertising — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 13:48:40 +0000

So as we wrap up the week and prepare to celebrate the birth of our great nation, we decided to have a massive pot luck party. An all day food fest. Donuts, bagels, brownies, fruit, pizza, Mexican meatball soup, chips, dips, Drumsticks (the ice cream kind) and the list goes on. Here are some pics of round 1 (breakfast) because we’ll probably be too full to post later! Happy 4th everyone!

bfw 4th of July Pot Luck...Round 1...Breakfast

Pot Luck Warning Sign

America Runs on Dunkin'...and sugar.

bfw Advertising wins Creative Challenge at ADMERICA!, AAF National Conference: campaign launches in airports nationwide.

bfwadvertising — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 16:31:15 +0000

We got some cool news from San Diego last week: we were named winners of the 2011 “Champion a Cause” Creative Challenge. It’s an annual competition sponsored by Zappos.com and hosted by SecurityPoint Media and the American Advertising Federation (AAF).

This year, they invited the nation’s top advertising, marketing and media experts to develop ads to get people to stop texting and driving. It’s something we feel pretty strongly about. So when we got the brief, we dove right in.

But there was a twist. The brief provided a really unique insight. It turns out, 30-39 year olds are actually more likely to cause an accident due to distracted driving than their teenage counterparts. So we wouldn’t be targeting idiot teenagers…we would be targeting idiot adults…people just like us.

To reach this group of business-traveling, crackberry addicts, Zappos.com and SecurityPoint Media secured space in the bottom of every single security bin at Newark Liberty International Airport, San Diego International Airport and Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport. They just needed the right creative.

Click here to see the video that played on the big screen at the conference:

And this is the winning work…

Ads were placed in bins at security checkpoints.

Pete Carrara (Dir. of Design), Juan Agosto (AD), Paul Amelchenko (CD/CW)

Ads target business-travelers at airport security checkpoints

Ads will appear in airports in Chicago, Newark and San Diego

The campaign will reach more than 5 million passengers each month.

Newark Liberty International Airport

Special thanks to the judging panel for selecting our work: Steve Pacheco, Director of Advertising, FedEx; Susan Credle, Chief Creative Officer, Leo Burnett; Jonathan Perelman, Industry Relations Manager, Google; and Aaron Magness, Senior Director, Brand Marketing and Business Development, Zappos.com.

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Paul Amelchenko is Creative Director at bfw Advertising+Interactive in Boca Raton, Florida. Follow him on Twitter @PaulAmelchenko. bfw is a full service advertising agency with strong competencies in new media. We’re a tight knit collection of writers, artists, designers, technologists and thinkers who share a common passion for doing great work that makes things happen. For more information call (561) 962-3300 or visit gobfw.com.

Features, Benefits and Billboards

bfwadvertising — Tue, 24 May 2011 16:11:30 +0000

Every hospital claims to have the best doctors, the latest technology and incredibly compassionate nurses. And nearly all of them do, in one way or another. Think about it: with hundreds of brilliant doctors out there, new technology emerging everyday and caring people throughout our communities, is it really a stretch to believe that some of these things can be found in nearly every hospital?

As a patient entering a hospital, that’s a good thing. As an ad agency branding a hospital, it’s both a challenge and an opportunity. Here’s why. First, if you make the same claims as everyone else, you don’t differentiate your hospital’s brand, you simply blend in. And second, even if you make those same claims louder than all the others, you’re solely communicating the features of the hospital, not the benefits. And advertising is almost always better—and more effective—when it focuses on the benefits.

Think about it this way: you don’t choose one hospital over another because they have the best doctors, technology and nurses (aka “the features”). You choose that hospital because of what those doctors, technology and nurses can do for you: they give you a better chance of getting well (aka “the benefit”).

In Luke Sullivan’s best selling book on advertising, he recounted this old industry maxim:

People don’t buy quarter-inch drill bits. They buy quarter-inch holes.

That’s something we always keep in mind as we’re developing an ad campaign—whether it’s for a hospital, a pharmaceutical company, an aerospace engineering firm or a new line of bodybuilding supplements. Some of our most recent work for Bethesda Heart Hospital is a good example.

Billboards for Bethesda Heart Hospital focus on the benefit: keeping patients alive.

We could’ve talked about world-class doctors and innovative technology and compassionate nurses—because they certainly offer all of these things. Instead, we focused on the benefit: Bethesda helps you live longer.

This creative strategy has had a major impact on brand awareness. The first day these two billboards appeared, they generated 474 hits on the hospital’s website (that’s huge in their market). And, according to our client, they’ve continued to generate more buzz for the hospital than any other billboards in recent years. As an agency, that makes us happy. It means we’re doing our job. It means more people are talking about Bethesda. And, hopefully, it means all those little, greedy relatives out there won’t see Uncle Marv’s money any time soon.

(On a side note, for more advertising wisdom, I highly recommend Luke Sullivan’s book Hey Whipple, Squeeze This: A Guide to Creating Great Advertising. (I’ve read it 3 times over the last several years and, every time I do, I learn something new. Check it out.)

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Paul Amelchenko is Creative Director at bfw Advertising+Interactive in Boca Raton, Florida. Follow him on Twitter @PaulAmelchenko. bfw is a tight knit collection of writers, artists, designers, technologists and thinkers who share a common passion for doing great work that makes things happen. For more information call (561) 962-3300 or visit www.gobfw.com.

bfw Advertising wins Best of Show Print and 11 ADDY® Awards

bfwadvertising — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 15:30:07 +0000

At the Fort Lauderdale ADDY® Awards last Friday night, bfw Advertising + Interactive upheld its reputation as one of South Florida’s most awarded creative ad agencies.

Click to view slideshow.bfw took home Best of Show in the Print category for its “Old School” poster campaign for 3Cinteractive. bfw also won Gold ADDY Awards for the “Old School” poster campaign and its agency website (gobfw.com). In addition, bfw won 9 Silver ADDY Awards for clients including Chromalloy, Campus Management, Hi-Tech Pharmacal and XOS Digital.

To see more of the work, click here for the album on our Facebook page.

At the show, one of the things that I was most proud of was the fact that we won awards across media—from print, brochure design and tradeshow environments, to web design and development, corporate videos and integrated advertising campaigns. It’s a testament to the strength of our abilities across the board, and it’s something that makes us unique compared to other agencies our size.

Last, I want to thank our clients for letting us do great work for them—and I’m not just brown-nosing here. It takes courage and confidence to hand over the reigns to your brand and to let us do what we do best. We understand that and we appreciate the trust they place in us.

Our two Gold ADDY® projects move on to the regional competition that includes advertising agencies throughout Florida and the Caribbean.

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Paul Amelchenko is Creative Director at bfw Advertising in Boca Raton, Florida. Follow him on Twitter @PaulAmelchenko. bfw Advertising is a full service marketing and communications firm with strong competencies in new media. The South Florida advertising agency creates and builds client brands with strategic thinking and on-target creative executions. For more information call (561) 962-3300 or visit www.gobfw.com on the web.

Better late than never…the bfw Christmas Story.

bfwadvertising — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 22:33:47 +0000

So, we were running full speed up until Christmas Eve, and the first two weeks of 2011 have been much of the same. And that’s a great thing. Unfortunately, we forgot to post our December Chillboard, a moving holiday tale written collaboratively by all of us here at bfw…three words at a time. It was fun to do, awful to read, and probably shouldn’t be made public. So without further ado, here it is…

bfw Chillboard - December 2010

“A bfw Christmas Story”
“Long ago in sunny South Florida, there lived an albino alligator with a love for red velvet cake. He was not only confused by the color, but intrigued by the ambrosial southern dessert. Lacking time, direction and teeth, he glued candy corn to his mouth, and headed south to get drunk.

The candy corn melted all over his brand new bottle of Captain. Santa saw this and, in disbelief, brought another bottle—water, of course—and some dentures.

The reindeer shared a large corndog, frankincense and myrrh. Then, they all rested before they fired up some tasty elf feet…and then flew toward the sun.

Fearing the worst, they turned around and delivered all children a gift. The Christmas spirit was given a Richard Simmons DVD, Cher’s collected works, a Chia Pet and seven Band-Aids. The Band-Aids were Smurfette, Gargamel, Brainy Smurf, Oprah, Ochocinco, Paris and SpongeBob Squarepants.

When Santa farted, it was like a big explosion. At least he gave them warning. Paramedics soon arrived. Poor Rudolph’s nose went off like an Iranian nuclear Pez dispenser. Fortunately, he was flying to bfw Advertising, where Jim (CEO) was looking for interns. And Christian (president) hired Rudolph as Director of Design. The End! Merry Christmas.”

Here’s to a happy, healthy New Year from all of us at bfw Advertising!

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Happy Thanksgiving – bfw “Chillboard” – November 2010

bfwadvertising — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 22:30:34 +0000

bfw Chillboard November 2010

So what’s on our minds leading up to “Turkey Day 2010″? A turkey in a pilgrim suit. A jungle boogeyman. A rubber chicken. And, of course, many of the things we’re thankful for…family, health, booze, sex, oatmeal, The Onion, our jobs, Jim and Christian (CEO and President, respectively), blondes, margaritas, a non-yuppy puppy, and pearls. Happy Thanksgiving to all!

bfw launches Chinese version of Chromalloy.com – Beijing, China

bfwadvertising — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 14:39:20 +0000

In the U.S., we’re all very accustomed to seeing the words “Made in China.” We import everything from China. Pens, pencils, books, bicycles…even American flags. (Seriously, I have one. A Realtor stuck it in my lawn on the 4th of July.)

Interestingly at bfw, we actually have a client that exports products to China. The client is Chromalloy, a global company that creates solutions to reduce the operating expense and extend the life of gas turbine engines (the kind of engines you find on airplanes, in aircraft carriers and in power plants around the world).

To help Chromalloy bolster its presence in China, we had to do something we had never done before: launch a website in Chinese.

Now, at this point, I’m going to let you in on a little agency secret that I’ve never shared with anyone: none of us here speak Chinese. Aside from words like “Kung Pao” chicken, “Tsingtao” and “Yao Ming”, most of us would be totally lost on the streets of Beijing. So, admittedly, there was a bit of a learning curve involved.

Click to view slideshow.Fortunately, we had some help. The bfw interactive team worked closely with SynerGlobal, a leading language and content services provider. Together, we localized and translated the site to be locally relevant and culturally targeted.

This may sound pretty simple, however the localization process is actually incredibly detailed. Beyond your basic translation, the process required us to think through cultural considerations that affect GUI design and usability. We had to evaluate imagery to avoid negative cultural bias. And we scrutinized the color palette to be sure that it communicated the same brand image that we’ve established in the U.S. and Europe.

Bill Henkel, bfw’s Senior Manager of Interactive Media, provided a few more specifics: “bfw handled the dynamic portions of the website by means of XML and SQL database integration. Future localization and publishing of dynamic content like press releases will be done via a proprietary back-end administration system. This proprietary system was developed by bfw specifically to handle UTF encoded Chinese characters.”

All in all, it was a tremendous learning experience for us at bfw, and the project has been a 大 success. (大 means “huge” in Chinese.)

You can view the site at: www.chromalloy.com.cn. And if you need a translation, check out the English version: www.chromalloy.com

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Paul Amelchenko is Creative Director at bfw Advertising + Interactive in Boca Raton, Florida. Follow him on Twitter @PaulAmelchenko. bfw Advertising + Interactive is a full service marketing and communications firm with strong competencies in new media. The South Florida advertising agency creates and builds client brands with strategic thinking and on-target creative executions. For more information call (561) 962-3300 or visit www.gobfw.com on the web.