Look! No sexy pictures!

It's somewhere between a cliché and a rubber stamp: If you're going to have a web site to sell heavy-duty trucks, you need some drool-producing photos of curvaceous chrome bumpers. But guess what? The vast majority of these tractors for 18-wheelers are sold to corporations, not independent highway cowboys. So, when we worked with Hornall Anderson Design Works to create this new site for International Trucks, we eschewed the usual eye-candy in favor of telling real-world business stories from actual International customers. No, customer testimonials aren't a new idea in b-to-b marketing, but they're peculiarly rare in this industry.

Unexpectedly unphony advertising

Even if your business only has one location, you still compete with mega-chains. And, while home-spun, down-and-dirty marketing materials will say that you're small and local, they don't build much confidence among savvy, globally-connected consumers. One company that understands you need to level the marketing playing field is North Cascades National Bank in Chelan, Washington. We recently collaborated with Seattle design firm, Fitch, to launch NCNB's new brand, including an advertising campaign using radio, newspaper, and outdoor (shown here), as well as a completely revamped web site, and collateral program. Stay tuned and we'll let you know how their customer-service oriented campaign is faring.

Advertising on the sell-now build-later plan

We've been fortunate enough to work with Vulcan Real Estate in their visionary remaking of Seattle's South Lake Union neighborhood. One series of projects is for pre-marketing Rollin Street Flats, condominium homes that will be constructed adjacent to the wildly successful 2200 mixed-use development (the 261 homes there were sold out nearly a year before the projected move-in date). For a hipper, younger, more avant garde consumer than 2200, marketing materials for Rollin Street Flats take on a sophisticated, editorial look. This page from the Rollin Street Flats web site stresses the environmentally friendly features of the project, proclaiming that "Green is the new black." Many thanks to Design Elements, Inc., site designers.

Wetpaint Wiki Web Site

We just had a most interesting opportunity to collaborate with Hornall Anderson Design Works on the messaging (as people are fond of saying these days when what they really mean is "story") and web site for a new online venture called Wetpaint. They're in beta right now of their web-based software that lets normal, non-geeky people create, edit, and add comments to web sites. If you're familiar with Wikipedia, you get the idea. Real people, instead of so-called experts, or those with axes to grind, create the content, and then police each other if facts go astray or opinions run too rampant. It's truly democracy in action. Go see. Or, heck, go create.

Filter Talent Web Site

Actually, it's probably more like an art that was never found in the first place. That hasn't stopped Worker Bees from injecting a little literate life in the new web site for FILTER, a creative staffing firm with offices up and down the west coast. The imagery and language synch up with a branding campaign Worker Bees completed for FILTER a few months back. Kudos to web designers IF/THEN