Back in Action - Sort Of

I am back at work after a week of beach vacation on Bald Head Island, NC. It was our first visit to BHI and it was wonderful! There really isn't anything to do but go to the beach, play at the pool, enjoy the scenery and drive around in golf carts. I found the simplicity of it all to be very relaxing compared to my normal life of distractions and stimuli. We hardly even turned on the tv other than the occasional kiddo program. Ah, vacation!

But now I am back at work - sort of. Everyone here took such good care of everything while I was gone there isn't that much catching up to do. Thanks fellow MBM-ers for picking up the slack! I hope everyone gets a chance to take some time off and really relax! And if you need someone to pick up the marketing slack for you while you're gone, just let us know!

Let Your Light Shine

I just returned from a special trip to Nice, France and Corsica. At Place Massena in Nice there are these sculptures atop 3-story poles. By day they were white sentries, by night they subtly changed colors. It was part of a commitment to public art.

The main reason for our trip was to see my husband's cousins and the village his grandfather came from in Corsica. It was a beautiful trip full of family (30 from the U.S. plus 9 still in Corsica). A week of getting to know family gives you a chance to discover how you fit into the bigger picture - and to see what talents and skills others have.

It's nice to make friends with your family. And it's nice to find the qualities that are best about yourself and really let those shine.

Muse!

I've spent the last 6 months as the Un-Gala Chair for the 2010 Muse Awards. Muse is an event put on by the Virginia Museum of Fine Art (VMFA), in which the VMFA's Business Council (made up by local businesspeople) awards companies for "creativity in business". Paired with the awards process and ceremony is a huge "un-gala", held at the VMFA, complete with a fun theme, costumes, tasty food, and an open bar.

This is the second year that I've been involved with planning the Un-Gala portion of the Muse Awards, and it was especially fun this year because the party was held in the newly completed wing.

Fellow MBMers Kelly and our new intern, Mary-Blanche, came out for the party as well!


And check out some of the press coverage here.

Flying Squirrels Game!

This past Tuesday we spent our second quarter MBM Outing at The Diamond! It was a great time, and unfortunately, the Flying Squirrels didn't win, but we all enjoyed the game and Nutzy's antics. The threat of evening storms almost ruined our night of baseball, but cleared up just in time for the game. It was "Tribute to the Marshmallow" night, so we learned that a marshmallow Peep has only 32 calories and other marshmallow trivia throughout the game. Richard also was given a free Ledo pizza, so that was unexpected fun as well.

Here are some pics from the outing.

The Real Thing

I don't even know where to start...I'm not a soda drinker, and definitely go for the local spring water vs. filtered..but when it comes to an iconic brand as an example for a marketing presentation, nothing beats a Coke. And they are smart enough to tell their story in as many different ways as you could possibly want it. Even a section for students who might be doing research on their company. Of course, they have all the cool stuff like screensavers and videos of their ads. And they even have their logos and images for download - that's how strong their brand is, and how smart they are about sharing the happiness. Wow.

It's All About the O

Megan and I attended the AMA luncheon yesterday and really enjoyed the event speaker, Stormy Simon from Overstock.com. Her presentation explained how Overstock's marketing department and customer care department "tied the knot" (with a few Pacman and Ms. Pacman references thrown in). One executive is responsible for overseeing the marketing department and the customer care department, opening communication between both departments at all times, and thus it has evolved into a perfect union!

Ms. Simon is even copied on emails to customers that have had problems with their orders if their complaint is not resolved the first time around. She gave us a recent example: A customer ordered an ottoman, and it arrived broken to the customer. So, Overstock sent him another ottoman; but that one arrived broken too. So Overstock sent him another one; same thing - broken. By the time Ms. Simon was added to the communication loop on the arrival of the third broken ottoman, the ottomans were out of stock. Ms. Simon called the customer and spoke with him directly. He said that this was taking up a lot of his time receiving broken ottomans and then calling Overstock each time to report it, and he mentioned that he wouldn't buy from them again. Ms. Simon says that she has the customer scheduled in her Outlook to call him 6 months from now to see if he'll reconsider buying from Overstock again.

She touched on how their website has evolved and how they are approaching social media.

And you know the familiar spokesmodel in their TV commercials? Ms. Simon says that are constantly going back and forth on if they should stay with that same look/messaging or try something different. Guess we'll see!

Overstock.com is currently rated #2 in customer service nationwide, as announced by The National Retail Federation.

Breaking Ground

Courtney and I spent the morning (and early afternoon) in Hampton. Our client, Virginia Company Bank, had a ground breaking ceremony for the new banking office set to open this fall in Hampton. As usual, we enjoyed an opportunity to celebrate with the Bank - executive team and Directors alike.

Check out some photos from this morning's festivities.