Mack Making Ads

Goal: Increase follower count and engagement percentages to stay on point with other James Beard Restaurants, and create a cohesive brand voice for No. 9 Park.

Tools: Social media (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter)

Research:  

Coppa (Boston) Follower: 19,539 Avg engagement: 42.6% Post Average: 1-2 posts Bi-weekly.   Style: Heavy saturation and low word count. Terse but not exaggerated or engaging. #nofilter just heavy post edit to exemplify coloration of food. Average social user: younger (20-30) south end transplant.

Otium (LA) Follower: 20,681 Avg engagement: 29.34% Style: faded coloration (5-10%) mix media with multiple foods and wine items. Average social user: younger (20-30) LA hipster. Short commenters looking for updates and click bait.

L’sepalier (Boston) Follower: 2,465 Avg engagement: 90.34% Style: raw photo with high saturation and low word count. A lot of call out of staff. Average social user: older (30-50) do not comment. Just follow and like. Looking to be enticed back to the restaurant.

Bostonfoodieguide (Boston) Follower:7,203 Avg engagement: 101% Style: high warm tone with multi food shots. Click bait and call out of restaurants and menu. Average social user: cross-generational (20-50) looking to find new spots.

Menton (Boston) Follower: 2,470 Avg engagement: 45.83% Style: close up of food, high natural coloration. Majority #nofilter but professional photog.

Maison Premiere (NYC) Follower: 36,600 Avg engagement: 30.66% Style: Movement and sass. Strong colors and pre-editing of photos.

Redbird (LA) Follower: 18,399 Avg engagement: 20.56% Style: Bright colors with a white light and portrait focus. 100%pre-editing.

Strategy: 

Content calendar This content calendar is to give a rough outline of what we should post and when. It can always change the restaurant's needs and goals, but having a rhythm to our posts will create habits in our regulars, followers, and future diners. 

A fun and playful voice can still be professional.  Keep the tone light and content pithy.

Consider timing when you post.  For bar content, 4:30-6pm is best -- you want people who are getting off work to be inspired to come in for a drink.

Implementation:

Posts between 4PM - 6:30 PM. 

Top 10 tags to use. 

Bondir | Clothbound | 1/3 | Sean Mack's Portfolio

One of three videos done for Clothbound, a restaurant industry hiring app, in which we showed what the work they could and would be doing every day after getting a job through them.

Loyal Nine | Clothbound App | 1/3 | Sean Mack's Portfolio

One of three videos done for Clothbound, a restaurant industry hiring app, in which we showed what the work they could and would be doing every day after getting a job through them.

Flour Bakery | Clothbound | 1/3 | Sean Mack's Portfolio

One of three videos done for Clothbound, a restaurant industry hiring app, in which we showed what the work they could and would be doing every day after getting a job through them.

For one project we were asked to re-imagine what a brand book could look like. So I chose to make it an exploratory experience that gives 3 levels of understanding to the brand. 

Sine brand books are created for employees and designers it was important to me to not over teach a store associate, but not under teach a designer. Concluding that an employee will only need base level verbiage and images to help pull them along, I chose to put the low-level information into captions of photo posts. The designer is expected to click on and interact with every post to understand why they are there and how important to the brand they act. 

Every summer from 2012 to 2014, I had the privilege to work for The Pie Hole at their Downtown Los Angeles location as a floater and Marketing Assistant Intern. Being a floater gave me the freedom to fully understand their consumer from interacting and observing them. From this, I was tasked with marketing meetings, social campaigns, Google Adwords campaigns, and writing a brand book. 

http://pieisluv.tumblr.com/

When you make a purchase, when you wait in line, when you are smiling and exchanging pleasantries with the checkout assistant is there a small voice in your head? Is there something in you saying, “Do you need that?”

Well, I know I have felt that every day. So I started to ask myself: 

"What would a person need not to feel this? Do they need encouragement? Do they need help? Do they just want to be coddled about their purchase?"

The answer is, “Yes”.

So enter Omni-Channel Checkout. 

The idea is simple. Take out the giant barriers between the sales associate and the buyer and replace it with openness and interactivity. 

This system is designed to give the user something to look at, interact with, and most importantly not think about the faults of their purchase but rather the reasons why they did it. 

The interface would be simple. The left side would have all of the in-store purchases that are being ringed up. As they are cataloged models, appear in the two spaces next to them. These models are wearing the most bought options of the store, about what they have bought, with a few differences. The differences being online exclusive options or stock from different regions. 

Lastly, there is an area for the buyer to input their email, address, and other info needed for a rewards program or the online purchases they could make. 

When trying to figure out the front-runner for the presidential elections, there are many ways you can judge this; surveys, projections, polls, etc. 

Well, the problem with all of these methods is that you need humans to self-report their standing. And when it comes right down to it we hate telling people the whole truth about us. We might ‘Feel the Bern’ one week, but then call out that we ‘Stand with her’ the next. We are fickle. 

But what if we could choose the president just based off of how curious we were about an individual candidate? Is that an accurate representation of who we would vote for, by tracking which candidate get the most traffic? 

Well whether it is or not the number will surprise you if you only pay attention to major media streams. 

Overall this is how the traffic of the three leading candidates match up.

Bernie Sanders

Hillary Clinton

Donald Trump

From straight hits we see a giant gap between the Democratic candidates but we see Donald Trump having questionable jumps in hits to his site. 

If we break down the keywords that people associate with candidates, it tells a different story. 

Bernie Sanders

Hillary Clinton

Donald "I beat China all the time" Trump

Just off search terms, we see that Sanders is drawing the most attention; this could be because of the way he answers questions at debates or the fact he gives real facts, or that he is telling the American people the truth on issues instead of promises; this could lead people to fact check him more, and he encourages it. 

While you have the Hillary Camp, that is calling for people to believe their word. The sheer amount no one is looking her up is astounding. It is like she does not invite people to create a conversation on her policies. 

Then you have Donald Trump which is wrong so much that he needs to be fact checked. Thus you get more keywords pointing his way. 

Lastly, let’s look at the Social distributions that the candidates have. 

Bernie Sanders

Hillary Clinton

Donald "Stay and we keep the oil" Trump

If we compare this to the 2014 finding on general account ownership, we see that Hillary and Donald are on the fast track for the most activity unless you count for the outlier Bernie and his Reddit activity, that is on par with his Facebook. There are no official numbers or breakdowns of which generations use Reddit because of the anonymity of the platform. But it might be Bernie’s Ace in the hole to win NY and CA. 

How do you ease risk but inspire courage?

Let’s demonstrate the use and Soul of the product. 

Innovative Neon Billboards

How about some of the other stuff?

Like a takeaway 

or a bike rack 

and usable stationary sculptures.

How about something crazy?

Dark streets make very useful projector screen. 

Let’s project “Ghosts” of bike riders. They can become interactive with whoever walks around them. Also if we use the convert a newspaper stand, let’s sell some Harley papers. 

Lastly, what if we play with shadows again?

What if there was a place that only women went. 

Well, that is the dream that could be a reality with Powder Room. 

The idea spawned out of the question: 

“How do you keep straight cis-gendered men out of a bar without them knowing ever?”

Well, you make the entrance to the establishment in one of the roughest, dirtiest gay bars in the world! 

Enter MEAT. A gay leather bar based on slaughterhouses, with the rusted metal, the meat hook hanging from the ceiling in the center of the room and the men to match. 

Then you have the women’s bathroom that you can only get into with a key from the bar, host. But wait it is not called a bathroom, you have to know its name to get in.

“Can I go to the Powder Room?”

“Where is the Powder Room?”

“I need the Powder Room?”

With no sign and distinguishable marking, you must know where you can find the blue lips. 

But how do you figure out where this mystical place?

There will be 3 Full page ads taken out in local newspapers and a few weeklies. 

Wouldn't you want to go there? No? ?You don't know where it is.

Okay, one more clue. 

What if we covered or at least covered a lot of two sequential subways.

Still, need another hint? What if I told you the first full page ad was a map of a 10x4 city block section of NY. And What if you saw these stickers at two subway stations right after each other with a ten block split between them. 

Okay, Okay, One more hint. What if we had a Pinterest, that had our contact info in the board names. :D Is that enough info for you yet?

Well, let us talk decorating. Keeping true to MEAT, let's go rusty, but how about rusty white. 

Something a little country and a little spa. How can you not like a soft setting like this, well fewer flowers and more martinis, but that is just me. 

Oh, and what is that, the subway tile from earlier?

So when I started thinking about this I saw that the issue is:

How do you showcase the need of a fraud alerting blog?

That is easy. You take the instances that the blog talks about or that we know as traditional fraudulent areas into educational opportunities. 

First I wanted to focus on the internet. 

Adblockers are an applet or extension added to almost every internet user. 

So why don’t we take this need and monetize it? 

Create an adblocker that instead of leaving the portions of the page with banners into cookie driven usable space “brought to you by Scamicide”.

So the banner ads turn into usable space for a favorite bookmark area, notes, etc. 

Then the bottom of each banner is dedicated to a daily blog post. 

Then I started to think about a guerilla technique that would be made into a video. 

So let's take street card trick fraud. And have the cards printed with the website name? 

Have a person, do it catch it all on video. 

Create a video about it. 

Then, I wanted to play around with phone pay fraud. 

So let's do a 1 800 number. 

It would be prerecorded questions that would lead to prerecorded messages. 

Saying “No. You are fine.” or “Are you an idiot?”

I started off with breaking down what the Harley’s give to their consumer: 

Power Command Respect

Then I looked into what riding a bike give you: 

Freedom Agility Speed

Lastly, I looked at what problems lie within riding bikes: 

Feeling of helplessness  Being scared of Cars

Seeing these I created a small take away. 

From here I went on to create the 3 OOPs. 

I started with the idea of making a billboard more Harley worthy. The medium is static, not badass, and does not command the respect of viewers. So I went on to think what gives movement, is badass, and commands respect without distracting the driver to cause a crash. 

NEON SIGNS

They are in biker bars, dive bars, Las Vegas; and can be made to look like whatever you need it to be. 

I came up with two version. The idea is to make the Fenway Billboard into a moving neon sign with the bike jumping over the words. 

Then I started to think of where you see bikes most often. 

Normative college campuses. Students ride them across campus and have heightened need when running late. But what do they have the biggest need of? 

Where to lock up their bike. 

So why not make bike racks that look like the iconic Harley logo. 

Best part, you can have the takeaways with this to initially promote the new bike. 

BONUS: You get a lifetime promotional. 

Lastly, I wanted to show off the bike, its function, and how cool you could look with it. 

So, let's make interactive sculptures that people can use in public. The catch: the bikes are stationary and in ‘radical’ poses. 

Now to see how this looks all together. 

The only running shoe you want to leave behind. 

When selling running shoe you're not selling the product but the feeling the product gives. Well, I used to be a runner. SO I went to my favorite online community, Tumblr Fit Inspiration Runners. These are the user who inspires you, through social feeds, to keep up your running. Your biggest fan, you are a fan of. 

What did I learn: You run for the BLISS you feel while running. 

“Beating the pavement can be monotonous: red traffic lights slowing you down, drivers nearly running you over, dodging dog crap and many other perils runners face when all we want is a place to peacefully stride. 

“Tucked away in Englewood, NJ is my runner’s paradise, soft cushy dirt trails which are great for me knees, instead of solid concrete which is never good on your joints for longer runs.” -MangoWay

fuó - Greek for ‘to spring’ or ‘to flower’

The idea started out as a planter box, full of flowers, that would have flags sticking out of the soil. This planter would be bright and colorful and placed on hiking/running trails, in the dead of fall or winter.

The runners would stop to figure out why these out of place planters are there. They will pull the flag that has a pair of running shoes attached, right out of the soil.

But this would be a short-lived guerrilla scheme. Why not take it to a new level. Vending Machine?

Not just a vending machine but it sponsoring upkeep for a hiking trail/running trail.

Make its vending machine that is powered by windmills and solar panels. 

You have a front screen which you choose shoes on and pay for. Then the top opens up for you to put your old Fuó in the slot and grab your new pair out of the vending slot. 

There is even a bench on the side for your convenience to change. 

Then on the side, you have mulch bin, in which old shoes are stored to degrade into mulch for the trail upkeep. 

Along with this is a magazine campaign. 

This would be a simplistic ad, visually strong and pushed. The top ad would be how you first see it. Then you peel away or turn the cellulose printed page to reveal the product. 

Then a two page spread that celebrates the shoes. 

Lastly, an ad that is based on infographics. It would have numbers referring to why regular shoes create huge amounts of waste. 

Then peel away to information with the same numerical values why you should buy fuó. 

I started with the concept of taking the listener on a journey.

Rook the idea of how micro-moments could bleed into each other when it is one creative thought or memory.

So I found sounds to represent 3 micro moments. (A Walk, A Street, A bar)

Added a breathing track to showcase intent.

Tested 5 types of background tracks.

1. A weird one to jar the listener. The good: pacing of song The bad: To jarring of sounds

2. Kept the pacing, tried a more playful song The Good: The upper beat kept it light. The Bad: Needed a more subdued feeling

3. Tested a different language, to give a more subdued feeling. The Good: The feeling got better. The Bad: Not enough story.

4. Found more of a story and simplified sound The Good: Simplified sound bolstered pacing. The Bad: The words became too distracting

5. Lost the words because it was distracting. The Good: Found a good fit. 

Sourced most sounds and all songs from HitRecord.com