Remember to purchase your tickets by March 5th. No tickets will be sold at the door. No matter how much we like you. GYFO!

JOE

Apparently, advertising talent runs in the family. David is the nephew of Rochester ad & marketing veteran Joe Nardone of Eastman Kodak.

With over 60,000 entries annually, the ADDY® Awards are the world’s largest and arguably toughest advertising competition. The ADDY® Awards represent the true spirit of creative excellence by recognizing all forms of advertising from media of all types, creative by all sizes and entrants of all levels from anywhere in the world. The American Advertising Federation, a not-for-profit industry association conducts the ADDY® Awards through its 200 member advertising clubs and 15 districts. It is the only creative awards program administered by the advertising industry for the industry.

Check out all the 2009 winners here.

Ever been reading a magazine and wish you didn’t have to skip through all the crap? You know, the articles that no one with a pulse reads. Mine Magazine, a collabo between Time Inc. and Lexus tailors all the articles in the publication directly to you. Essentially allowing readers to focus in on what they care about and tune out the rest.

Choose 5 of your favorite magazines, answer a few behavioral insight questions, enter your mailing address and you’re done. In 2-4 weeks your custom made magazine will show up on your doorstep piping hot and ready to be read instead of skimmed.

I received my Mine this week. The Lexus ads using variable-data printing are compelling almost to the point of being creepy. But I love that.

Hyper-targeting individual consumers could be a game changer. It’s clearly a more cost-effective way to know exactly who’s listening to your message.

Big ups to p+n intern Dan Taylor from RIT for digging this one up. He rocks.

UPDATED: In response to Scott’s comment, I thought it was only fair that I share one of the other variable-data ads in the same issue of Mine. See below.

— Kate Sonnick

I’ve found that clearly identifying and making known what you want out of a situation can do nothing but help your cause.

Most situations have 4 critical components:

A) Your current state
B) Your desired state
C) What you are willing to do to get from A to B
D) The person who ultimately has to say yes

We all know what A is. But what often goes unmentioned is B. And if you haven’t made it clear to D what B is, then how can you formulate C?

“I am an intern and I want to be hired.”
“I am an Assistant AE and I want to be an Account Executive.”
“I have a 3.5 GPA and I want to have a 4.0.”

…”and here’s my plan.”

So if you are not where you want to be, consider this approach:

1) Determine B.
2) Put on C on paper and get buy-in from D. Execute the plan and update D frequently on your progress. Keep B top of everybody’s minds.
3) D can’t say no.

So, what’s your plan?

The RAF created this event to assist in preparing our future creative talent in the fields of graphic design, advertising, new media, and copywriting by offering feedback, advice, and career information. Last year’s event was a big success, with over 50 students in attendance, thanks to the support of faculty members who promoted the program, and encouraged students to register and participate. And of course we couldn’t have pulled this off without the volunteers from our professional creative community that reviewed all the work.

Interested in joining us? All students must register online prior to the event at www.rafconnect.org. Professional creatives that would like to volunteer to review portfolios please contact Bob Kiesow at bkiesow@ardentlearning.com or Anne Esse at anne@anneesse.com. We look forward to seeing you on April 2nd.

• Employers send requests to their contacts when they need to fill a position (that’s how this opportunity came my way).
• Colleagues promote each other when their contacts have opportunities (again, how I got hooked up).
• People get references from other people who are in their “degrees of separation.”

Plus, it’s just fun to look up people you know (God, did everyone in this town except me work at Buck and Pulleyn at some point???).
LinkedIn may seem like old news, but I still find a lot of people who either aren’t on, or whose profiles badly need attention. Seems like the Rochester ad community lives and breathes by its connections. If you’re not already linked up, get hopping.

— Andrea Zuegel

— Anne Esse

So congrats to Kodak on their re-designed homepage. Usable, impactful, true to the brand. Downright gutsy. And check out this post from Paulette at Kodak’s blog for a visual description of the process. Sounds like the tight timeline helped – if it’s due tomorrow, it doesn’t sit in approval meetings subject to over thinking.

If you still want more, visit Canon for a comparison. Which company looks like they have passion for the business?

Matt Jones