GHG marketing dept.

Written by Sarah Lee | Director of Marketing & Communications

USA Curling Nationals are coming up at Wings Stadium on Feb. 14-21. These lapel pins just came in hot for the nationals. Pretty proud of the work we've done for the Curling Nationals. Ashley and Chris developed the logo look that we've use to brand across all materials and collateral. For some reason this picture gives it a weird yellow glow but it's really silver in color with pin backs.

Branding 101: Branded items (could be anything i.e. pens, shirts, stationary, etc) are a great way to get your brand out there. You don't have to buy up every single promotional item to promote your company, pick items that resonate with your brand and offerings. In this example, pins are a collectors item for people who attend these events.

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Written by Sarah Lee | Director of Marketing & Communications

I love my team of graphic designers. They are some of the most creative minds I have ever met. Reading this article (highlighted above in title - Communicating the Value of Design in 5 Easy Steps) reminded me as professionals in the field of design there are always different ways we can do better to represent what we are passionate about.

One thing that I've learned while working at Greenleaf Hospitality is not expect our outlet managers to provide me all the nitty gritty A-Z details on what needs to be done for marketing or design. Not that I don't need information or guidance from them, but rather my role is to take what little information that I've been given and turning it into compelling piece to be communicated to our audience.

I enjoy this process of taking an idea and turning it into something awesome. A lot of strategy goes behind these pieces with intentional thought of how a guest might experience it. It's crazy to think that I spend a lot of time thinking about how someone might interact with a piece of collateral or coming up with a back story for what a person's day might look like before they get to our outlets. These are the moments I live for, coming up with crazy thoughts that might help inform our understanding of our audience.

Today’s blog post is written by Sarah Lee, Director of Marketing & Communications

Today’s blog post is written by Sarah Lee, Director of Marketing & Communications

In the recent months, my team and I have been involved in a number of communication strategies (beyond the design projects) and working through all the potential loopholes, kinks and making sure we have all the right people informed about what's going on in a specific initiative.

Abby's recent blog post about Burdick's Downtown renovation is a great example of a lengthy strategy that took a few months of planning and mapping out who will be impacted by Burdick's closing for renovation. It's crazy to think that by one restaurant closing down for 2.5 weeks would cause a significant ripple effect throughout the hotel property and how it would impact our guests from every aspect. It just shows how interdependent all our departments and teams are.

I am fortunate to have worked and helped shaped the direction of how communication would be distributed as well as the pieces we needed to make and the people who needed to be involved.

The strategy piece I wrote basically breaks down by identifying who are the different stakeholders (or "publics" as peeps in the PR biz call it) and what messaging we would like to convey. This one document was a constant reference point for my team and Burdick's team on how and what we were going to say to our stakeholders about the following key points:

Burdick's will be closed for 2.5 weeks

Room service wasn't going to be available via Burdick's but will be available through Zazios

Zazios will be open for lunch while Burdick's is closed

It sounds very simple in three points, but a lot of the crafting came into play based on what media we were using to inform people and working to the medium's strength.

For example, we sent an email through Burdick's email database notifying our regulars that we were going to be closed and gave them sneak previews to the upcoming changes as well as letting them know Zazios is open for lunch. The email we sent to the Zazios database is completely different. Instead we talked about our featured lunch menu and how we will be open for a limited time while Burdick's is undergoing renovations.

Similarly, when we confirmed the Zazios lunch menu, we took the menu and gave it to several key stakeholders (Downtown Kalamazoo, Discover Kalamazoo, Downtown Kalamazoo Restaurants & Retailers Association, etc) who would help us spread the word through social media that Zazios was open for lunch. The way I communicated to each individual was different from what we sent via email to our Zazios or Burdick's email databases.

Going through these processes of analysis and dissecting the messaging was necessary as well as communicating the processes to the people involved to get the same consistent message out. The best thing I remember hearing from a Humanex Summit was, "it's okay to over communicate."

Today’s blog post is written by Abby Anderson Jones, Marketing Associate/Graphic Designer

Recently, progress was all over the place in both the GHG Marketing office and at Old Burdick's Downtown. The renovation of our downtown burger, beer and sports spot bar was brought to our attention a couple of months ago, but once we got firm dates and a confirmed plan of action from our unit managers we only had two weeks to go from watching the storm roll in to grabbing our marketing rain boots on and taking on flood of work.

Sarah started the ball rolling by mapping out the marketing plan and all of it's touch points, from an internal employee perspective to media out-reach. The document she prepared served as a guide for the pieces we needed to make and the dates they needed to be distributed by.

First thing we had to do involved creating the campaign around the renovation. We chose to keep it simple and recognizable and re-purpose the POP campaign from when the Radisson saw it's major construction a couple of years ago. However, it was important to modify it to be specific to Burdick's. After a couple conversations with Chris and Ashely I decided to use the 'O' that was used to symbolize traffic lights before and change them to icons that are significant to the Burdick's culture. Can't go wrong with burgers, beer and sports!

As soon as we had a concept in mind, we went right into the collateral production. Sarah was hard at work with verbiage and I was focusing on graphics.

We were pretty ambitious with what we thought would be appropriate for our guests. Not only did we have signs on the list, but we had banners, email and web graphics too. What I enjoyed most was creating the touch screen graphics. These screens showed samples of what a guest could expect when Burdick's reopens, so they can feel involved and we could help Burdick's to be transparent on what's going on during their closure. To understand how these screens would be used, we drew out the process step by step. That's one of my favorite parts about design, understanding how people use what we make!

That last day was a bit of a blur. I was running around making the final touches on the signs, which were; digital, printed, touch screens and banners. My teammates gave me a hand with constructing, printing and installing the banners. I could not have done it all without them. It was truly an 'all hands on deck' situation. All the hustle payed off in the end. It all got done and it all looked very good.

Today’s blog post is written by Sarah Lee, Director of Marketing & Communications

Here are the nuts and bolts, things to consider and the starting blocks to help anyone develop a well thought out marketing campaign. This is a new tool we have implemented to help us better track goals and results of initiatives.

Marketing Brief Deconstructed:

Client/Outlet | Project | Budget - The basics to help create your framework

Overview - This section addresses the purpose of the campaign and who is it intended for. It's a challenge to say everyone because not everyone is quite the same and you don't communicate everyone the same way.

Concept - It's all about the visual cues that help engage your audience to take action on what you are communicating. In our business we focus on user experience design because ultimately our guests are the people who interact with the pieces we develop. If they don't like it or struggle with it, well.... that's a problem and we need to address it. So it's learning to anticipate what challenges they might experience.

Timeline - Setting a time frame for your campaign is important, it helps you benchmark your initiative's accomplishment and the ability to set milestones to assess if it is going well or not so that you can tweak it.

Pre Production | Production - Prior to execution of the production, the marketer, designers and developers (depending on the project), need either additional information or do some research to help curate the resources needed for the campaign. Additional resources could be: content for a menu or website, precise psychographics of target audience, etc. Once resources are assembled, production then can commence. Within Production section, we identify the tangible products that need to be delivered from the production team. i.e. web graphics, postcards, banners, media buy, etc.

Results Tracking - Establishing how you are going to measure is extremely important to understand impact. There are so many different ways to measure and assess effectiveness of your campaign, the key thing is identifying it and preparing what your tracking dashboard will look like once the results are in.

Post Campaign Evaluation - All good and bad or even mediocre campaigns need to be evaluated based on the results you tracked and comparing against your campaign goals. This is a good opportunity to decompress from the campaign and take a step back to both celebrate the successes as well as find areas for improvement.

Good marketing tips to always live by:

Setting goals - it helps you enjoy the fun in FUNdamentals

Consider all possible outcomes for your intended audience and your campaign. Sounds easy but it takes a lot of practice to get your mind wrapped around that type of thought process.

Today’s blog post is written by Ashley Stark, Marketing Associate/Graphic Designer

Today I am going to talk about something that happens more often than not in the creative world. Here is the scenario: 

You're sitting in the park enjoying the sunshine or at the local coffee joint sippin' on your favorite java blend. Your mind is relaxed and you're open for inspiration to strike, and it DOES! You quickly rummage through your things to grab a pen and scrap piece of paper to scribble down your brilliant plan. "This idea is amazing" you say to yourself as you smile towards the clouds or eclectically tiled ceiling. You cannot wait to share this idea in the next meeting or brainstorming session. 

Fast forward to for-mentioned brainstorming meeting and you sell the heck out of this brilliant idea that struck you with such force. Your passion is contagious and your client and colleagues are super amped to see the project come to light. 

Double fast forward to actually making this creative idea happen. Well, that's the problem. Sometimes those in the creative realm get ideas and visions that are so breathtaking and visually stunning but once we start diving in, we realize we have either change things around or abandon the project all together. 

This recently happened to me when pitching an e-mail blast idea to Blush Salon+Spa. This idea, ladies and gentlemen was going to epic. Blush is celebrating their 1 year Anniversary soon and I've been working on marketing materials for it. For their e-vite I was going to create a similar layout as their printed collateral with glitter sprinkling down from above. It's hard to really put into words without verbally talking to you about it (you really would benefit from hand gestures and the excitement in my face). Anyways, I went to Hobby Lobby. I bought the glitter. I was armed for success! The problem was that even with the help from both of my designer pals, the glitter was simply not showing up while trying to film it. We had to quickly abandon that idea and dive into a impromptu brainstorm session. They were great at helping me achieve a similar look that still had the "appearance" of a glittery party scene without the glitter actually moving. 

The end result turned out fine. You may see the design on the digital signage around the Radisson. I think it's still fun and makes me want to join the party, so from that point it's still effective. 

The whole point to this story is, sometimes as creatives we have to be flexible to not only our clients ideas but our own crazy ones. Not everything will be as easy as our fanciful minds make it out to be. More times than not, a seemingly easy idea turns out to be the opposite. It sounds good in theory and looks great on paper but the universe just disagrees.

My happy partner in crime, Abby! Not pictured: other partner in crime (because he's taking the photo).

The second point of this story is that all of you who are able should stop by Blush Salon+Spa on June 25th from 5-9pm for their 1st year Anniversary celebrations! It's going to be a great time!

Today’s blog post is written by Abby Anderson Jones, Marketing Associate/Graphic Designer

To keep the recent theme of 'inspiration' going with this blog I thought I'd throw-in my two cents of what keeps me inspired.

Have you ever met a person who is so unbelievably geeked about a sport, hobby, or activity that you start to think that they are a little bit insane? I have a few people in my life that fit this description perfectly and their passion is what I look to when I'm running empty on inspiration.

Passionate people create an energy around them that is filled with excitement. When that type of energy reaches me I feel even more motivated to create great work. Their passion, even if it's for just a little while, becomes my passion.

As I have met people in our very own company, I am impressed by the passion that surrounds me. I know that after talking with some of our Chefs in the Food and Beverage department, my cooking has become a little more daring at home. My eyes have been opened up even more when it comes to style from working with Blush and Sydney. Being accommodating and friendly in and out of work has become a cherished part of my life from working with a group that is passionate about hospitality and service to others.

Written by Chris Fisher, Marketing Associate/Graphic Designer

1. Say Yes To Adventure. Push your comfort zone. Whether you're agreeing to visit China, a Music Festival, or the grocery store.

2. Consume Culture. Always be on the lookout for new work that influences popular culture. Browse artists, movies, books, magazines and of course the internet.

3. Take Photos. Digital Consumer Report estimates that 65 percent of all Americans own a smart phone. This gives us unparalleled access to photograph the things in the world that inspire us.

4. Take Notes. It doesn't matter how you do it, or what you do it with. Doodles, detailed lists, or scribbles — work your ideas and inspiration out on paper.

5. Share Your Ideas. Better ideas come from collaboration, and conversation. It's all about give and take.

6. Ask Questions. Many other people know more than you do. You can always learn something new from someone.

7. Listen. When others talk, you should listen carefully as ideas come from everywhere.

These steps above are fantastic at producing the the raw material of what fuels creative production however, without one extra step these will often times go to waste.

8. Calm You need to carve out some time and space in your day from the humdrum of everyday noise—the laundry, the groceries, the job, the spouse, the friends, the television all go away. My most inspirational times are my morning shower, sitting on the patio on a calm Saturday afternoon, or in the late hours of the day after my wife has gone to bed.

One of the key things in my role and life overall is staying inspired. Sometimes getting caught in the small things makes it hard to achieve the success we seek and thus leaving us drained and unmotivated to keep chugging along. Within the last two days, I got a boost of inspiration and I feel pretty amped up about things I want to do and change starting with myself.

The last two days I was able to attend Humanex Summit, a two-day leadership conference focused on creating an impact and legacy. The keynote speakers gave us concepts that we could work with to take back into our teams and companies, but the one resounding message I got from all the speakers was "You can do it! Just hang in there!" without even saying those exact words. I am reminded of what Tim Rayman, our director of hotels, once said during an interview with a candidate, "Doing what we do here takes resilience, that's why it is important to have Purpose, Passion and Pride. If you don't have those three key things, it's not going to be an easy journey."

A concept I thoroughly enjoyed at the summit that explains a lot about what my team and I experience is "River vs Flood". A river has a goal and it moves in one direction with no deviation and with great focus; whereas a flood stays in one spot and starts to flood literally leaving someone trapped and unable to move forward. As I reflect on my team and the processes we are going through right now, I'm looking to make some changes and truly change the way we think about ourselves as well as the services we offer.

One of the key things I want to establish for my team is figure out, "What are we good at and what do we want to be good at?" We have identified that we do a lot to the point that we are unable to produce more well thought out concepts and ideas. So the mindset I'm going with moving forward is:

"How can I help my team and my co-workers do what they do at least 10% much better each day?"

If I can help my team, unit managers, associates in our company be better at what they do each day, that would be a huge success for me. Think about it, if you asked yourself that same question, you would look at things differently and solve challenges differently too.

Today’s blog post is written by Ashley Stark, Marketing Associate/Graphic Designer

Being a creative person isn't all elaborate crayon names and sunshine. It is hard work more often than not. It is not a pursuit for those who are faint of heart. On days that I really struggle I like to feel inspired. I do this through many actives and pursuits, such as taking a walk or looking at art and design that recharges my soul. 

This field is an ever changing one and to stay on top of current trends I like to subscribe to different design magazines and look online at different forums. One place I look almost daily for inspiration is Dribbble.com Being apart of that community is great because you can post little thumbnails of projects in process and fellow designers can comment with praise and critique. After graduating I found that I was missing the stability and collaboration of being a classroom constantly giving feedback, but Dribbble is a great substitute. 

Also, nothing is quite as "real-time" as being inspired by your fellow designers who happen to sit real close to you. To piggy back off of Abby's last post about the collaborative workspace, it's now easier to share thoughts, ideas, dreams, knowledge, laughter, etc. I enjoy being around a team that inspires me to take projects to the next level. Similarly, I remember feeling the most inspired in school by constantly being surrounded by my classmates. I am excited to see this new stage of marketing collaboration unfold in the upcoming months. 

I also am inspired by everyday life, music and rarely, television. I am a nature lovin' gal so I love taking my walks outside and I can't get enough of a nice tree-lined dirt trail through the woods. Often these quiet restful times can pause your thoughts just enough to recharge and trigger a thought or new idea that would've never come about if I stayed tied to my computer. 

I hope there is something that inspires all of you. Get out! Take a walk and unwind. Relax your mind and enjoy this new found thing that has been around. I think they call it sunshine...

I mean, look at this sunset go! 

Today’s blog post is written by Abby Anderson Jones, Marketing Associate/Graphic Designer

Walls in the marketing office coming down!

Have you visited the marketing department lately? If you haven't you should! We love visitors, and it looks mighty different than it did a couple of months ago. If you have paid us a visit, you might be curious as to why we decided to pull down the walls and gather all of our desks in one room with no privacy from each other.

To some this might seem like a foolish decision and think 'will they get any work done?' and 'will the marketing department turn in to one big dance party? And if it does, can I join in?' Well, there is a reason behind this drastic change. And believe me, if a dance party breaks out, I'll personally send a GHG ALL STAFF email about it :)

The genesis behind this renovation came from a site tour I took at GRid70 while at the Midwest UX conference in October. The structure of this work space is collaborative and open. It houses brands such as Meijer, Amway, Steelcase, Pennant Health, Wolverine World Wide. These companies are drastically different from one another but the space was designed in an open and barrier-free as a way to promote inter-disciplinary collaboration and communication. Most of the office furniture could be easily moved, even the walls! It was very interesting to hear about how being more free to move your work around benefited each company in a creative and productive manner.

One of my favorite details was the ease of product testing. For example, they showed us a prototype for a phone booth made by Steelcase that was sitting in a high traffic spot with sticky notes and pens to encourage feedback.

What I took away from that was that a creative team should be able to share ideas as easily as possible. Physical barriers of offices spaces really can get in the way and with that gone, it will encourage projects with more collaboration.

The hope of our department is that once the renovation is 100% complete that the sense of community will be strengthened. We also look forward to this change bringing us together to find more efficient ways to work as well as affording us the opportunity to work collaboratively on projects that make sense to our GHG community.

Written by Sarah Lee | Director of Marketing & Communications

As a sponsor of Kalamazoo Social Media Week, this is an amazing event that I've been working on with a group of volunteers to bring our community together using social media to do great things. Lots of great things coming up and full details are available here. At the mean time, here are the highlights:

April 14 - 100 Reasons to Love Kalamazoo 5:30pm @ Wings Stadium It's like a Wine & Canvas event but you get to paint what you want, more importantly paint what you love about Kalamazoo. You don't have to be artistic, just the sheer enjoyment of being a part of something bigger. Entry fee is $20 which includes a glass of wine, 11x14 canvas and paint supplies.

April 15 - Social Media Etiquette 101 Noon @ Consumers Credit Union, Downtown Kalamazoo  A lunch and learn event featuring Denise DeVries, director of marketing for Consort Display Group, sharing social media etiquette and best practices for an individual social media user.

April 15 - Beard & Mustache Competition 6pm @ Bell's Brewery Calling all bearded and mustache people to come out and to raise money for Big Brothers Big Siters by participating in a friendly competition of who has the fanciest beard/mustache. Entry fee is $5 per person and entrance fee will be donated to the local charity.

April 16 - Foursquare Day Food Truck Lunch 11:30am - 2pm @ Bronson Park Gather with us while we celebrate Foursquare Day over a delicious lunch with our food truck friends.

April 16 - Cereal Cartoon Night 6pm @ Alamo Drafthouse Watch throwback cartoons featuring "Tough Ladies" while chowing down on your favorite cereal. Tickets are $7 and includes meetup in the lounge, foursquare day swag and ticket to the show.

April 17 - Social Media 101 for Business - SOLD OUT! Noon @ Consumers Credit Union, Downtown Kalamazoo A lunch and learn event featuring Lynne J. Johnson, chief marketing officer of Consumers Credit Union, sharing the basics of social media as well as some best practices.

April 17 - Social Media Awards 6pm @ Wellspring Theater | Sponsored by Consumers Credit Union and Charter Business Social Media Awards recognizes individuals and businesses in the Kalamazoo area who have incorporated social media successfully into their overall communications strategy. Join us to see who won! One of our outlets made it to the finalist list and we can't wait to reveal.

Communication Conundrums

Today’s blog post is written by Ashley Stark, Marketing Associate/Graphic Designer

     I am sure you've heard the phrase, "Communication is Key". This phrase did not come into existence by happenstance. Great communication is important for solid relationships, effective workflow, setting and meeting expectations and so much more. As an artist and designer here at GHG and also at home I have found that it's not always the easiest thing to harness. 

     As you can see from the video above, when two separate parties meet at a table with two separate expectations that they do not effectively communicate with each other, the whole endeavor can fall apart and no one leaves satisfied. I really enjoy this video as an example because it shows at a basic level what it is to work with someone who doesn't communicate their end goal fully. This doesn't just pertain to graphic design, art or creative fields, but I feel this can be a stand in for any line of work. 

     The moral of the story if I look at it through the GHG marketing teams eyes is, the more information we have to complete a project the better! This can be as simple as quantity of postcards printed to as elaborate as "I don't like the color yellow because this weird situation that occurred during my childhood and I don't want to expand upon the story, but listen, just don't use yellow".

     At the end of the day we want to make great campaigns that have beautifully designed pieces that we feel great about, but more importantly we want our clients and our guests feel great about. The way we can achieve that to our full potential is not saying "You had me at hello" to Jerry Maguire. We need his whole speech and then some. We don't just want to know your thoughts and feelings about your project or campaign, we need to know to be successful. 

     So please watch the video and try to keep the marketing team in mind next time you ask us to simply, "draw you a bird". 

Today’s blog post is written by Emily Wiegand, Marketing Assistant

This week's blog post takes a look at the process behind putting on a character breakfast from a marketing perspective. The character breakfast has been a favorite among guests since its inception two years ago and continues to grow in numbers with each one. A quick breakdown of the planning process is as follows.

1. Decide On A Theme: This is done for the most part for the entire year in January marketing meetings. 

2. Produce Marketing Materials: Put marketing materials (email blasts, FB graphics, posters, etc.) into circulation depending upon how much push is needed. For storybook princesses the reservations came pouring in and we ended up with a full house (wahoo!) within several days of its announcement to the public. We even extended it by an hour to accommodate guests.

3. Plan The Activity: This year with every character breakfast we've had an activity station and we are trying to keep that theme going with every character breakfast. It's nice to have something engaging for the kids to do to exercise their creativity and just have some extra fun. This time it was the crown decoration station. We purchased gold crowns (think Burger King style) and self-adhesive jewels for them to use to decorate.

  4. Plan, Plan, Plan And Then Plan Some More: Character breakfasts require a lot of logistical thought - from both the perspective of the BFB employees and their needs to the needs and wants of our guests and their experience with us.

Our first thought with high traffic breakfasts is the line. We borrowed stanchions from Wings Stadium so we could create the classic snake line and keep everyone organized. This also allows for less general confusion as well as foot traffic in between tables.

Second is the logistics of picture printing and delivery. Again, with high traffic breakfasts it is best to have a picture printer and a picture runner. I was tasked with playing "Match the Princess" and handed out photos.

Third is the placement of the activity station. It is crucial for traffic flow and everyone involved to place the activity station in a spot that is opposite the picture area. This greatly eliminates congestion and confusion about what is what. 

Today’s blog post is written by Chris Fisher, Marketing Associate/Graphic Designer

Typography is What Language Looks Like

In America today we cannot go throughout our daily lives without being affected by typography. Every time you check your phone, read an email, browse the web, open up Excel, or look at the timeclock you're immersing yourself in the work of a typographer.

Most people go through the day and don't give a second glance, or a passing thought to the letters we type, or the fonts we read. However, being involved in Graphic Design and Marketing is different. What we do day in and day out is communicate. By giving form and function to ideas and messages typography becomes essential to the design and marketing processes.