Laurie’s field trip: Keep walking until you see something particularly yellow. Notice this something. Photograph and describe it.

At a roadside garage sale, I stumbled across this quirky pair of antique yellow carnival ducks for $45 apiece. Maybe these were the inspiration behind classic yellow rubber duckies? They are cast iron and weigh about 1.5 pounds each, with all kinds of pits and dimples under the paint. When you look closely at them, they seem to have a lot of personality. One looked almost startled when I took it outside into the bright light and zoomed in for a close-up!

Nick’s field trip: Notice shadows

“What would the world be like without shadows? Flat, I imagine. Objects would be distinguishable only by color, shape, and texture – not enough information to know how far one object was from another. Our perception of reality would lose depth. In other words, shadows are essential to our view of reality.” – Joshua Sowin

Jennifer’s field trip: Blue. Look especially for everything blue. Photograph all the blue things you see and describe.

Bill’s field trip: Find a place that you like, then call someone you miss and describe it. Photograph the location and include a quote of what you like.

I called my long-time friend of 28 years- Brent Holmes and told him I missed him, he said I miss you too. It was great to talk with him.

Amber’s field trip: Go to a restaurant. Order the 3rd and 12th thing on the menu. Enjoy and describe.

J Alexanders delivered me the taste of “Summer” on my field trip. The 3rd item on the menu was grilled artichokes – firegrilled, salty, seasoned with herb butter and accompanied with remoulade. They were extremely intimidating, but incredibly delicious.  The 12th item on the menu was a grilled BBQ chicken pizza – homemade BBQ sauce, roasted chicken, carmelized onions, smoked gouda, and fresh cilantro … all with a hint of charcoal from it being grilled over the fire. Iced tea with lemon and a warm breeze topped off my mini summer vacation meal. The entire experience was delightful.

Did you know that 70 percent of new businesses close their doors before they’ve even been open for one calendar year? This week marks Financial Marketing Solutions’ eighth anniversary, and we are very proud and excited to have reached this milestone.

To celebrate the occasion, the FMS team and several of our partners gathered on Tim and Laurie’s patio to enjoy a catered lunch, a champagne toast and each other’s company. Since 2004, we’ve been providing award-winning branding, marketing and advertising for our clients. Browse the portfolio section of our website to see some of our most successful campaigns from the last eight years.

Standing on that patio, Tim paused to give us a short history of how Financial Marketing Solutions has developed over the years. It was pretty striking to look at all of the people around us, knowing how far the agency has come since opening its doors. Back in 2004, Tim was living in California, aching to move back to his native Tennessee. He called Laurie, his former colleague at another advertising agency, and the idea for Financial Marketing Solutions was born. Together, they built our agency into the thriving business that it is today.

No matter what industry you’re in, be sure to occasionally take a moment to step back and recognize all that your business has accomplished since its inception. Our history is a vital part of who we are as people, as well as who we are as an agency. It influences our processes and interactions, and it greatly impacts our futures. Based on the progress of the past eight years, we are all looking forward to a bright future for FMS.

Click the image below to see a collage of photos from yesterday’s event.

FMS’ monthly Creative Caffeine session took a new, digital approach this month, as we hopped on Pinterest for some fun branding collaboration. Though very few people in our group had accounts before we started, our approach was such a hit that nearly everyone in the agency had opened an account immediately following the session and had begun group collaboration. That includes team members in every type of role—creative, client services and more.

Introducing the Idea of Using Pinterest as an Agency

Often thought of as a website to help people get ideas for home decorating, cooking or event planning, Pinterest is a site that I found to be great for coming up with all kinds of ideas, especially those related to marketing and advertising. Leading this session, I hoped to inspire our team to use the site to share ideas for future client projects or for expanding existing clients’ brands.

Our Creative Task Using Pinterest

In showing our team how to use Pinterest, I created a quick example to represent some of the attributes of Barnes and Noble’s brand. I made a list of keywords to describe the brand, including anything from color, quotes, music, and even unrelated objects that in some way represent its ambiance or personality. I then played the “what if” game, asking “if this brand were a _____, what would it be?” In the blank, I put athlete, clothing style, personality, piece of furniture and more. Upon searching for my keywords on Pinterest, Google and YouTube, I quickly came up with images and videos I could pin to the board. (see the sample below of this quickly assembled board)

Taking it a step further, I tasked our Creative Caffeine participants with applying the same exercise to either a current client’s brand, their own personal brand or a fictional brand. When we came back together, it was exciting to see how quickly ideas had formed, and how each person brought a different perspective to the branding process. (see the sample below of a board created for an existing client)

(click on image to visit Pinterest board)

How We Plan To Use Pinterest As an Agency

This exercise led us to think of many great ways we can use Pinterest as an agency to not only better our internal collaboration, but that of our client relationships, too. Here are a few of them, along with one example we did for an existing client.

• Brand new clients, by sharing ideas with our team on boards created for clients
• Showcase past work, by creating boards that show work we’ve created for clients
• Collaborate with clients on evolving their brands, by inviting clients to comment on new ideas we post to their board and also contribute ideas themselves

How Pinterest Can Benefit Banks

• It can be a fun way to engage consumers and encourage participation in contests. For example, with a reward in mind, have customers: post pictures of themselves using products or visiting the bank; pin the page of their favorite products from your website; pin websites of organizations as a vote to help the bank decide where to give back to the community.
• It could be another way to drive people to your website. For example: Pin a product page or announcement page featured on the bank’s website to the bank’s Pinterest account, where followers can see the pinned image along with a creative caption.
• You can pin communication that represents your brand. For example: Post positive brand language (such as a quote from your CEO, your tagline/slogan, brand promise) that is designed with nice typography and saved as an image. You can even pin videos you have on YouTube or elsewhere.

The possibilities are endless, really. Start pinning and see where the inspiration takes you. We’re always here to lend strategic, creative and interactive advice, too, so call on us if we can be of service.