Why do pro bono work in a down economy?

Does it makes sense for you to do pro bono work even in a down economy?  A good question for all of us who are looking to grow our business.

Broads Circle logo-Before and After

For one thing, there is nothing like the satisfaction that comes from a great before and after.  A recent example:

411 Graphics was recently chosen to brand and re-work the website visuals for the Broads Circle, a women’s group based in Los Angeles with a unique view.  Although they had a logo, it did not speak to their mission nor did it reflect the level of executive woman they choose to target. It did not have the visual strength that would align with women attracted to revenue and power.

Usually, with a project like this, there are at least two “real time” meetings to find out details and to get some intuitive sense of what needs to be accomplished. Darya Allen-Attar, the woman who began this group, is a very busy executive, so our conversations, by phone only, had to be brief and to the point. The challenge was she wasn’t clear as to what she wanted, so we presented several concepts with our point of view and how we thought it melded with her group’s current mission statement: women growing revenue.

In house, we discussed design criteria, colors, target audience, and got busy with concepts.  We presented 3 different design directions in black and white and color.

The logo selected is a combination of a letterform, using a circular shape, utilizing both blue and green. The roundness speaks to female, but not a “girly” female and the interconnection of the shapes signifies connecting. The font selected was Gil, which is both strong and graceful.

Our next challenge was designing a masthead for the soon to be launched website. We drafted a list of suggestions on fonts and colors for the site as well as a few recommendations for the blog. As for the masthead, the Broads Circle mission, as stated above, is women growing revenue. Smart, successful women. But the idea of images showing actual working women was not something the client liked. Plus, there was no budget for custom photography. My studio has an ever growing library of royalty free images, but we were not sure they would be the right ones. Typically, when you search for images to meld together, it takes a professional eye and many hours of searching through images.

We submitted 3 options, some images from our existing files and some new images from a royalty free site.

We decided to go in the direction of “vision” instead of “working” and we did keep the theme of making money intact. The simple, but effective upward line chart and upward arrow signifying growth and revenue.

Did we nail it? Based on the input we received, I think it is working quite well.

So why, in a down economy when your revenues have decreased, should a design firm take this on? Here are a few reasons beyond the satisfaction that comes from a good before and after:

1.    EXPAND: Exposure to new potential clients and projects
2.    CONNECT: Diversify your contacts
3.    POSITIONING: Showcase your expertise
4.    PR: Share your case study
5.    EDUCATE: Provide insight to a new market share
6.    LEARN: Gain access and insight to enhance and grow your business

And, in this case, becoming involved with a really great and successful group of business women. See for yourself, check out the website at www.broadscircle.com.

art & copy-I liked it, BUT…

Last night I went to see Doug Pray’s Sundance documentary art & copy. This film was touted as documenting the creative process among writers and artists and how they came up with such brilliant and sometimes, life altering campaigns. It is a story about the evolution of advertising, when art and copy were combined for the first time. Very relevant in this Mad Men-obsessed moment in history.

These guys are the “titans” in the ad biz. They are all fearless, bold, creative, and talented. The ads they selected were really cool- and they had some that I am betting were hard to find.

Overall, it was a great, fun trip down memory lane. After all, these were the ads that shaped our lives and our culture.

I did enjoy hearing and seeing the work produced by Mary Wells, a feminist trailblazer who worked at Wells Rich Greene, who describes advertising as the “most exciting business you could possibility be in.” And Phyllis K. Robinson was the first copy chief at the legendary ad firm Doyle Dane Bernbach (DDB). She was a writer at the center of the ‘60s creative advertising revolution. Her work included campaigns for Levy’s Bread, Polaroid, and eventually Clairol hair products, where her “It Lets Me Be Me” campaigns developed the concept of the “Me Generation.” She explained how her work reflected rather than created the mood of the time. She is sort of the “Peggy Olsen” of her era.

But that was it for notable women.  There were a few moments of dialogue from the Nike in-house person (can’t find her name anywhere). And I know the women are out there because I am sure they paved the way for people like me to have a decent shot at a creative career. I pondered this at lunch today with fellow designer Laura Missioreck of The Graphic Element. And she brought up a good point.

She said before you go off assuming that it could be true that this is still a bit of a male dominated field; look at who is behind the project. And damn, if she was not correct!

The project was initially conceived by The One Club, an organization dedicated to celebrating excellence in advertising, which wanted to do something to showcase its own hall of famers. While the members of The One Club’s hall of fame truly are some of the biggest and most important names in advertising, they don’t comprise an exhaustive list, and so many notable creatives, many women, are not in this film.

I still really enjoyed this piece, but I think there is room for this same subject, from a more diverse point of view. This will be a nice future project for a future female filmmaker.

The Power of Your Actions and Words

Dr. Jerri Nielsen and LuAnn Roberto 2005

Earlier this week I was sad to learn that in June of this year Dr Jerri Nielsen passed away. I met Dr. Nielsen in 2005 when she was the keynote speaker at the Manhattan Beach Women in Business Conference the same year I was honored as the Woman of the Year. And the same year I was going through my own breast cancer treatment.

She is the woman who did her own biopsy, diagnosed her breast cancer and administered her chemo while she was stationed at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Research Station. Once they were sure of her diagnosis, they recommended that she be airlifted out for immediate treatment, but the weather was an issue…it was -60 degrees F and no one could get in.  So they airlifted in her chemo and she, with the help of some of the non-medical folks, administered the chemo in a most MacGyver type way. Amazingly, she still carried on her duties as the sole doctor for the 41-person research group. She went on to write a best selling book called Icebound that tells the entire story.

The day of the conference she and I were both going to be interviewed by Dr. Bruce Hensel for a breast cancer segment on HealthWatch. She was a lovely person, very warm and down to earth. You would never know she had accomplished so much from a one on one perspective. I felt like she was someone I had known for many years. She made me feel relaxed, and also HOFEFUL. Her words of encouragement were simple, but impactful. She said that my journey would soon become just a blip on the continuum of my life. I was wowed by how sure she was about that!

Today I read that Hermosa Beach cancer activist Barbara Robinson passed away from her final battle with breast cancer. Although I did not know her well, we shared one of those “moments” in the chemo room.It was my second round out of six and I was scared out of my mind about having that stuff pump into my veins. I could not get comfortable. She was in the chair next to me all wrapped up in a colorful afghan, dozing off. She just simply reached over and patted my arm. She introduced herself and told me it would be ok, that this was the second time she was going thru chemo and that your hair comes back and you eventually feel whole again. That was it. Somehow it was the right thing. I relaxed (with the help of some Ativan) and I got through it.

Months later, after my treatment was over, she opened her shop in Hermosa Beach, called P.I.N.K. It was a very cool designer boutique and all the proceeds went to breast cancer research.

I stopped in and chatted very briefly with her, mentioning that we had met in that room. I’m not sure she remembered, but she was gracious anyway. I always followed her many accomplishments in the news and I was impressed with her never ending ability to donate and  her quest to raise funds for the cure.

As I took that in today I sat down and I cried hard for both these women. I was shocked at how strongly it affected me. Usually I don’t think much about my cancer.  It’s been almost five years and all is well. I am healthy.

I realized a few things today. That my cancer experience, like it or not,  is right there, close to the surface. It is a part of who I am. I realized how we all influence each other’s lives, with our words and actions. You can be the influenced or the influencer, so chose your words wisely because they do matter.

And once again, most importantly, I realized how grateful and damn lucky I am to have dodged that bullet.

Rest in peace ladies and may your legacies live on and on.

Priceless

Kids wearing mustaches!

A few months ago, I started to create some marketing for my family ‘s pizza business, Pasquale’s Newport. The plan included the creation of a FaceBook fan page, a website and as part of the PR plan, to get involved with community opportunities that were available in the city of Newport. One of those events was the Annual Italian Festival that is held every June on the Riverfront. As a part of our efforts to get customers into the restaurant we attached an adhesive backed mustache to one of our 20% coupons and passed them out at the festival. The deal was if you came in wearing the mustache, you got 20% off. This was a great success and on the website, www.pasqualesnewport.com there are photos of people of all ages wearing that mustache.

Right about the same time, a few very ambitious guys, most of them teachers, launched a historic walking tour, aptly named the Gangster Tour of Newport (www.newportgangsters.com). They were raising money for their cause, GlobalServiceLearning.com. The money raised from these tours would allow their group to purchase supplies and technology for three Jamaican primary schools. Their trip was planned for mid June and until then, they were going to sell as many tours as possible.

The tour covers a great deal of the colorful history of Newport-including gangsters, guns and girls!  The first half of the tour is on Monmouth Street and since Pasquale’s has been at 630 Monmouth Street for 50 plus years, it was decided we would provide a slice of pizza, a bottle of water and a mustache and coupon for all those on each tour. Each group was between 12 and 20 and it seemed like a win-win marketing proposition for both of us.

This tour became so popular that the guys decided to keep it going on the weekends through August. Pasquale’s stayed involved as well. I guess we really did not think about the impact that we had on their big picture. We sort of forgot about the underprivileged kids they were teaching in Jamaica. This week they presented Vince with a framed collage of photos as a thank you for helping them achieve their goal. When I saw those kids in the photos wearing the mustaches, I cried.  They said the one child wore his for 3 days.

Oh, the simplicity of the adhesive backed mustache! I had been wondering how to measure the success or failure of all these marketing efforts. Today I got my answer and it was priceless. Way to go Pasquale’s!!

 

 

Balance

In many ways I feel like I am in school again. Every new contact I made this week had something great to share with me. Each person I speak to who is into using social media expands my knowledge and at the same time shares the same unsteady feeling that things are going to continue to evolve and grow. I am happy to just be on the edge of this universal growth spurt of knowledge.

The only thing I know for certain today is that I will never claim to be an “expert”.  They seem to be getting a bad rap from the online community right now. I keep reading headlines like “Beware of the Social Media Expert”-it’s sort of funny, but true. Most folks only know enough to be dangerous. I will always be a person who “knows a guy (or a girl)” who is an expert…it takes the pressure off me and hopefully if I “know the right guy (or girl)”, it makes me look like a superstar to my clients!

What a great week! I have had the perfect balance of new contacts, new vendors and new design projects.

And its perfect beach weather, which is were I will be tomorrow at this time.

Too Early!

I woke up today at 6:30 AM..too early! Unless people like myself have a deadline, 6:30 is too early.

Today, I thought-I will get all my errands out of the way early because yesterday, I did not leave the house until 6:30 PM. And only because I was in search of dinner!

It’s now 2:45PM and my day has been mostly unproductive. I have been trying to change little things about my routine and now I am thinking that I must always make a to do list before I end my day.

Otherwise, I can spin like no one’s business!  I did manage to get my Pasquale’s merchandise store up and running. And I did make a few client calls. and I did start a blog post for my business. And the day is not over yet. So I guess I should not panic yet….

And I have to plan real time networking. And a zillion other things. And last but not least, make that list for tomorrow.

Making a Plan

Ok, so today is the first day of my reinvention process! I have to say, I have had high anxiety for about a week. The energy around “change” is big and scary. But this must be done and I know I must take the fear and just move it out of my way.

I want to thank my friends today. They have all been so great in helping me with this hurdle.
Thank you Fay for the flowers, the great coaching and mentoring and for your friendship! Thanks to my sister Gina who ALWAYS champions my causes, even if I am wrong. Thanks to Julie, my fellow sole proprietor and to Debbie for being appropriately appalled! You guys keep me going:)

Ok, so today I need to make my 2 plans. Plan one has to do with energy around my existing business, 411 Graphics. and Plan 2, has to do with creating the mothership, LuAnn Roberto Rocks It. Or some other title. To be determined. Now…time for lunch, more tomorrow.

Tina’s Late

ok, bad move on my part. I should of borrowed a car and realized Tina can’t do anything without first checking with Leah and Greg. Now I am stressed and so is mom. See, nothing is simple. Everything is layered in crappola and drama.

Deep breaths, right?

Spaghetti Contest Day

Its 1PM and we are 2 hours from when the event will happen! Fern was up, showered, ready and in her day of event tshirt at 11. Oy! Just getting her to the venue is an issue. She really needs a wheelchair, but there is not one available so I am carrying a folding seat, just a small one in case she has to sit. This is in addition to my other duties. She does not want to miss anything and I guess I don’t blame her. My brother Vince is very excited about the day. He has never done any community PR marketing stuff since my dad died and left him in charge.  And most of the things we have done so far have been a hit.

The latest thing to happen is that there  is a new walking tour, called the Gangster Tour of Newport.  It goes right past the pizza place, with 60 or so people in each tour.  So my idea was to get out in front and hand out small pizza sample and give out water and a 20% off coupon. At first he hesitated, then he asked the tour guide, who LOVED the idea. Especially since the pizza was there during all the crazy mafia times! Turns out we are part of that history, because gansta’s gotta eat, right?

Vince called to tell me about the conversation with  the Gangster Tours guy and his joy was worth all the work I’ve done. He just usually does not seem happy and for that brief moment, I heard his authentic self, that little brother I used to have! It was wonderful.

Last night we had a Facebook lesson and next week the site goes up.  I would be lying if I said this was not fun..I am enjoying it. Its a tribe balancing lesson, but everything in my crazy Italian family always is.

More on this event after it happens! Photos will be posted on facebook!!

LuAnn,

Roberto tribe leader

A BEAUTIFUL Sunday

Today I feel so lucky to live where I live. Not only is it beautiful here, but it seems that the opportunities are endless. What a great way to start the day.