by Patrick Coyne
M
ost agencies are lucky to get a brief mention in the trade press when they open their doors. For Charlotte, North Carolina-based BooneOakley, the experience was a little different. Its first project— a single billboard with a picture of George W. Bush next to the Gore 2000 campaign logo—went up just two weeks prior to the 2000 election.
“It went up on a Friday and within an hour it was media bedlam,” said David Oakley. “I got calls from cnn and the Today show asking, ‘How could you do this?’ I said, ‘We just opened this week, we’re a new agency, we’re aware of the mistake.’ They asked, ‘Who hired you the Democrats or Republicans?’ I said, ‘We’ve been instructed not to say, we’ll have the mix-up fixed on Monday.’” “People were telling us that local radio djs were trying to find out who the idiots were that put up that billboard,” John Boone said. “On Saturday, every major newspaper in the country and cnn Headline News had a story on the big billboard blunder.” “We put out a press release stating the billboard would be corrected at 11:00 a.m. on Monday,” Oakley said. “At 11:00 a.m. there was an nbc News helicopter hovering and filming as it was being put up.” The “correction,” “Today’s job opening: proofreader,” earned a ton of free publicity for 123hire.com, a regional career site competing against Monster and CareerBuilder for market share. It also landed BooneOakley its next client. “The president of Continental Tire drove by the billboard and had also seen it on the news,” Boone said. “They showed up on our doorstep, we pitched and won that account. The good thing about the Bush/Gore billboard was that it set a precedent. If we have any kind of positioning, it’s about using creative leverage to the client’s advantage. Doing work that gets noticed and talked about makes marketing dollars go farther and work harder. A lot of our clients want that.” Although the agency is less than ten years old, the co-creative directors brought years of prior experience to the partnership. After stints at J. Walter Thompson in Atlanta and Team One and tbwa\Chiat\Day in Los Angeles, Boone moved to Charlotte to work at Price/McNabb. Oakley started at y&r New York, moved across town to tbwa\Chiat\Day and then also landed at Price/McNabb. After working together for a couple of years, Boone started freelancing at The Martin Agency, which subsequently offered Oakley a job. Unwilling to move again, the pair convinced Martin to let them open a satellite office in Charlotte where they
John Boone and David Oakley are creative directors on all projects. David Oakley and writers Keith Greenstein and Jim Robbins provided the caption information. Right: “The challenge of branding a city like Charlotte with so much to offer was coming up with an idea no other city could use. The solution, it turned out, was hidden in the word Charlotte.” Matt Klug, art director; Keith Greenstein, writer; Mark Holthusen, photographer; Charlotte Regional Visitors Authority, client.
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Editorial 1 Scott Pommier, photographer David Christian, art director/photo editor SBC Skateboard, client “Is Edmonton Jinxed?” A magazine article about a group of skateboarders traveling to Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. 2 Damon Winter, photographer David Scull, photo editor Michele McNally, assistant managing editor The New York Times, client Democratic candidate Senator Barack Obama makes his entrance at a town hall meeting with veterans at the American GI Forum in San Antonio, Texas, during his campaign for the Democratic nomination for President. 3 David Allan Brandt, photographer Emily Borden, art director Worth, client “Aging with Grace,” about people living well into retirement. 4
4 David Zickl, photographer Barbara Denney, art director Jeff Kida, photo editor Peter Ensenberger, director of photography Robert Stieve, editor Win Holden, publisher Arizona Highways, client “’Our Humble Servant.’ Sandra Day O’Connor made history when she became the first woman to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court. Since then, she’s had several state and federal buildings named after her; despite everything she’s accomplished, Justice O’Connor has always been unassuming.”
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For Sale 1 Robert Van der Hilst, photographer Jake Cunningham, art director Reportage by Getty Images, client Part of a personal documentary series submitted for stock in the Reportage collection of Getty Images. 2 Palani Mohan, Reportage by Getty Images, photographer Gallery print. Portrait of an unnamed baby elephant born at the Anantara elephant camp in Northern Thailand.
Institutional 3 Josh Southwick, Metro Los Angeles, photographer Metro Los Angeles, client “Created for an article in the Metro Los Angeles publication, Metro Quarterly. The article, titled ‘Anatomy of a Project,’ chronicled the planning and construction of the Metro’s newest extension, light rail to East Los Angeles. The image depicts the construction progress of a platform underneath Mariachi Plaza in the summer of 2008.” 4 Steve Bonini, photographer Job Hall, art director Filtre Studio, retoucher TYR Sport, client Used for Web applications and for catalog purposes.
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design
Reduce, reuse, recycle—rethinking packaging Companies large and small are starting to address the impacts of their packaging, looking not only at packaging materials but the entire product life cycle. Innovations with an eye to sustainability include product ingredients, packaging materials, packaging recyclability and the entire shipping footprint.
Trends
Frito-Lay’s SunChips current packaging is made of 33% renewable, plant-based material, but by 2010 the chips will come in a fully compostable bag, that will decompose in less than 3 months.
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Aveda’s Caps Recycling Program educates students about the plastics crisis in our oceans and challenges them to collect bottle caps for drop off at any Aveda salon. The company recycles them into new, 100% recycled plastic caps for their shampoo bottles.
Sustainable packaging is a fast-growing segment of the global packaging industry and will grow to 32% of the total market by 2014, up from just 21% in 2009.
Wal-Mart challenged suppliers to reduce environmental impacts in packaging and HP responded with a solution for its Pavillion notebook—the computer and accessories come in a protective messenger bag made of 100% recycled fabrics.
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—Pike Research study, “Sustainable Packaging” Sustainable Packaging Coalition’s COMPASS software application lets users change parameters—such as materials, quantities and concentrated vs. non-concentrated products— to compare the environmental impacts of their package designs using a life-cycle approach. www.design-compass.org SM
CA Queries Creatives
Where do you see the next innovations in sustainable packaging? Cheryl Heller, Heller Communication Design, New York, NY. “Let’s not use words unless we mean them. Sustainable? Innovation? The only truly sustainable packaging would be a dazzling feat of protection and containment using only renewable energy, and when discarded, would become dinner for some other lucky creature in the food chain. Only that can be called sustainable, or innovative. When humans design the next banana peel or clam shell, then we can pat ourselves on the back.”
Daniel Imhoff, Watershed Media, Healdsburg, CA. “How can we get beyond our addiction to single-use disposable containers—bags, cups, bottles and wraps thrown away everyday by the hundreds of millions? Innovation will start with leadership: consumers (eliminating them whenever possible), designers (creating reusable and nontoxic alternatives) and government agencies (setting standards and fees to shift behavior). We are talking about a shift in consciousness from convenience to responsibility, from disposability to reuse, from externalized to true costs.”
Lauralee Alben, Alben Design LLC and Sea Change Design Consortium, Santa Cruz, CA. “A sea change will occur when we design packaging that respects life. Imagine sustainable packaging that ensures the future, organic packaging that nurtures nature, equitable packaging that encourages partnership and inspired packaging that reveres the sacred. This kind of packaging begins with looking deep inside ourselves and asking if the products we produce and use bring us more alive— or not.”