Contact Information
Top Bunk Advertising 818 Ostrom Ave, Syracuse, NY 13120 Erin Tye, Managing Director Phone: (407) 417-0831 E-mail: topbunkadvertising@gmail.com Twitter: @TopBunkAd
Table Of Contents Life on Top Meet our Bunkmates -Organizational Chart We make our bed a little differently We have mad skills It’s not what we’ve done, but what we will do Strategies for Coca-Cola Issues facing Coca-Cola Confidentiality Agreement
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Life on Top Top Bunk Advertising was formed on January 18, 2012 in Syracuse, NY. Our five member team came together with the vision of using our skills and quirks to create unexpected and effective advertising that will lead to not only increased sales, but also greater engagement between consumers and brands. Let us elaborate.
Why Top Bunk? Because we like it on top
Let’s face it, who ever called dibs on the bottom bunk? We have a different perspective up here, a fresh take on the world of advertising. Top Bunk is a fun, unique advertising agency ready to make our name and make an impact. Come on up, the view’s unbeatable.
We’re flexible
Advertising has changed. With increased ad clutter and decreased attention spans, advertisers have to be nimble to be noticed. Luckily for our clients, we are the contortionists of the ad world. Our start-up agency is flexible to the constant fluctuations of the industry and we bend over backwards for our clients.
We’re motivated by a great cause
Advertising doesn’t have to always be about selling a product. In fact, our favorite projects are those grounded in doing some good for the world. Each of our team members are philanthropists in their own way, involved in a variety of causes including Autism Speaks, Habitat for Humanity, Prevent Child Abuse America, and spreading Domestic Violence Awareness. We love that warm, fuzzy feeling that comes from making a real difference and inspiring people to positive action. The good karma is just icing on the cake.
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We love a good head-scratcher
We’re not talking about Rubik’s cubes. We mean a real challenge. We want to solve every issue in a different way, creating innovative solutions to even the most daunting of predicaments. You only reach the best ideas when you keep pushing to the top.
We live on the edge
Literally. Have you ever slept on the top bunk? A couple inches in the wrong direction and you go from 6 ft in the air to ground level in no time. We love the excitement. We’re willing put ourselves out there for a great idea, but, if it’s more your style, everyone knows that bunk beds come with security railings just in case.
We stay one step ahead (like a carpenter...that builds stairs)
As students of advertising, we see that the field is changing; moving from traditional media to the digital space, from reaction to interaction. For Top Bunk Advertising, this is great news. We’ve grown up with technology, have experience at digital agencies and can tackle problems with a fresh, youthful perspective.
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Meet our Bunkmates
Erin Tye Title: Managing Director Personal Bio: Erin is a self-professed soda-addict and an in-denial Twitter-addict. She is naturally competitive, a perfectionist, and a fan of anything with a high sugar content. Skills & Experience: Erin has gained real-world experience through several internships. She first worked as a communications intern for public relations and brand-management company The Parquet Group in Orlando, FL. She next worked as a digital and social media intern for “Global Media Network” company Mindshare in New York City. During her time at Syracuse University, Erin has gained experience conducting in-depth research for brands such as Nissan and New Balance and created a comprehensive media plan for Campbell’s soup. Finally, Erin has experience with creative advertising, creating ad campaigns for companies such as Sherwin Williams, Five-Hour Energy, and Ziploc in portfolio class. Coca-Cola “Moment:” Erin has been a life-long Coca-Cola drinker. Upon realizing that Syracuse was a Pepsi-sponsored campus, she constructed a map of the university area exclusively to mark locations where Coca-Cola was sold. Now that’s true brand-love.
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Bonnie Jones Title: Digital Strategist Personal Bio: Bonnie is a scrabble wizard, an underground fencing champion, and a sucker for a Smithwicks. Skills & Experience: Bonnie has experience in nearly all things digital. She has worked at a digital agency and learned the ins and outs of the production department and has help in building a brand by creating content to be used as social currency. Bonnie specializes in strategic thinking - applying real time discussions to relevant brands to create dynamic and sharable content. She has created media and strategic plans for Groupon and Nissan respectively and was the head of the strategy department in the Edventure Honda Civic Coupe Competition. She’s an avid participant in the social media field and has experienced working for the following clients: Patagonia, Half a virgin cola, Campbell’s soup, Bose, Altoids, Juicy Fruit, Zynga, Mozilla, GE- Makerbot, Absolut SF, Jameson, UNC-Greensboro, Closetmaid, Hasbro, Nissan, Groupon Coca-Cola “Moment:” Bonnie first opened happiness on her grandfather’s sail boat on the Pensacola Gulf. Every sip succeeding brings her back to her carefree childhood and that incomparable Florida sunshine.
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Elise Schachter Title: Creative Director Personal Bio: Elise is a tech savvy worker who know what she wants and how to make it happen. Her bubbly personality always keeps people motivated. Skills & Experience: Elise has interned in the creative department of a small advertising agency in Pelham, NY, Harquin Creative Group. There she worked on projects such as managing a website, creating promo binders for clients, redesigning the agency’s logo and research for new clients. As well currently freelancing for her town’s local website, where she creates ads to promote the local stores and new businesses. Coca-Cola “Moment:” Elise enjoys traveling and collecting Coca-Cola cans with all different languages on them.
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Lauren Geniviva Title: Media Director Personal Bio: Lauren is the most soft-spoken member of the team, but the life of the party. Lauren has learned to enjoy the small things in life and she loves long walks in the snow and playing bejeweled. Skills & Experience: Lauren has gained a wide range of experience in marketing research, media strategy, and social media in various industries. As an intern at Home HeadQuarters, a local Syracuse non-profit, she was able to use her skills to promote community involvement in events. She also has experience with marketing on a much larger scale at one of the top television networks in the industry. As a marketing strategy intern at Discovery Channel she worked closely with the media department on strategy and for various popular Discovery Channel television shows including Shark Week, Dirty Jobs, and Frozen Planet. As a student at Syracuse she gained experience in both research and media planning with real clients, Nissan and Campbell’s soup. Coca-Cola “Moment:” She’s what you might call a “Coca-Cola snob.” If a restaurant doesn’t serve Coca-Cola products she angrily orders a water instead.
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Ryan Gerhardt Title: Account Planner Personal Bio: A true-blue farm boy from Upstate New York, Ryan’s as good at wrangling cattle as he is fresh ideas. Ryan’s also a real sports nut and is able to delude himself into thinking he’s physically fit despite the vast amounts of pizza and beer consumed. Skills & Experience: Ryan has been able to work in both an agency setting and for individual companies’ marketing departments. He orked in a creative and copywriting facet at Cenergy: Activating Brands on a multitude of projects ranging from Upstate Farms Dairy Cooperative, NHL, and the Cleveland Cavaliers. Ryan also has B2B experience working for Moog Space & Defense Group in a support marketing capacity on market research projects that identified current market players and conditions, and evaluated the potential of prospective projects and market segments. His time at Saint-Gobain ADFORS was mainly focused on graphics, with package redesign and updates for all of their industrial fabric products, FibaTape. Coca-Cola “Moment:” As a kid, Ryan would spend the night at his grandparents house whenever his parents were out of town. For dessert he was allowed to either have a bowl of ice cream or popcorn. The loophole was that if he had popcorn he was also able to have soda, so naturally Ryan always chose popcorn so that he could get a glass of Coca-Cola to go with it.
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Meet our Bunkmates
Erin Tye Managing Director Bonnie Jones Digital Strategist Elise Schachter Creative Director Lauren Geniviva Media Director Ryan Gerhardt Account Planner
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Titles aside, here at Top Bunk we all have equal say and equal share when it comes to business. We just gave ourselves titles to impress our parents.
We make our bed a little differently An ad is no longer just a page in a magazine, a 30-second TV spot, or a billboard on the side of the road. Brands need to be inspired by consumers as much as consumers are inspired by brands. We work to get the ball rolling on a conversation that brands can continue to develop into a closer relationship with consumers. Top Bunk Advertising is an agency that embraces new trends, technologies, and crowd-sourcing to harness the power of the collective and move advertising into a more collaborative and progressive realm. To an agency born from an entire team of Generation Y’ers, this is second nature. Use of these new digital technologies is innate to us, it’s not something we have to strive to master like older, larger agencies may have to. Maybe we lack establishment in the industry, but all that means is we lack the set-in-our-ways approach that can sometimes lead to banging your head against the wall as it produces more clutter and loses consumer attention. Small is agile, agile is innovative, and innovation gets noticed. Compared to other young agencies, we set ourselves apart through our exhaustive creative process and our past experiences. We work tirelessly through multiple rounds of concepting to reach a top notch idea, because at Top Bunk, “good” just doesn’t cut it. Our combined previous experiences also gives us an edge in the beverage category. 5-hour Energy, Crave, Intense Milk, Absolut, and Rainforest Beverages, are just some of the thirst-quenching brands we have help transform in the past.
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We have mad skills While Top Bunk as an agency doesn’t yet have any clients, our team has had experience with a wide range of brands, bringing different capabilities to the table. Our focus is in social network marketing, advertising and account management but we also have experience in the following areas: Media Planning Research Graphics Situation Analyses Creative New Business Pitches Event Marketing Youth Marketing Sales Promotion The facing page represents just a small sample of the brands and companies that our team members have been able to work with and have gained valuable experience from.
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It’s not what we’ve done, but what we will do Top Bunk is a brand-spanking-new agency, so we don’t have any clients or billings just yet. We also haven’t lost any clients either, which we prefer to focus on. We do have plenty of experience, however, and are looking forward to growing our business and using our combined skills to create the most kick-ass advertising campaigns for the most kick-ass clients. Top Bunk is looking to expand by working with clients that thirst creativity and innovation in both their products and their brand image. Although we want the desire to inspire creativity to be a key attribute of the clients we work with, we realize that not all companies will be up to the challenge. We don’t need to have the most clients in the business as long as the ones we have aren’t afraid of venturing into the uncharted waters of advertising. Clients like Ikea, Mini Cooper, and Skittles, whose ground-breaking and captivating campaigns have taken their brand to new heights and challenged the definition of advertising. These companies have shown a willingness to embrace creative and innovative forms of advertising, and are great examples of the type of open-minded company that we could do great work for. (Cannes Cyber Lions winners encouraged to apply) Client’s we’re not looking to work with include those that endorse clubbing baby seals, wear white after Labor Day, and anyone who still listens to ABBA. As a new agency, Top Bunk does not have traditional accomplishments such as winning accounts or awards. But what we lack in formal recognition, we make up for with our great ideas and our passion for the business. We are proud of the fact that we have been able to develop a distinctive identity for our agency, enough so that we received recognition from a brand like Coca-Cola for an RFP.
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Strategies for Coca-Cola The Coca-Cola brand is all about spreading happiness. All over the world, people drink Coca-Cola because of the refreshment it provides, the element of nostalgia, and of course the taste. But what if we created even more reasons to drink Coca-Cola? Using crowd-sourcing and user-generated content, we can look beyond Coca-Cola’s own brand lens, and truly view the brand through the eyes of the fan for the first time. Instead of selling the brand to fans, we would be building the brand with them. By using the consumers’ own ideas and input, we can give them a new stake in the brand, using their input to direct future marketing efforts and community involvement. Together, we can figure out the true nature of the Coca-Cola culture and make it an integral part of the millenial lifestyle. This new “Coca-Cola culture” will inspire new participants, and elicit increased engagement from existing Coca-Cola fans. Our campaign will coordinate and play off from the base of traditional print, television ads, and digital Coca-Cola already does, but it’s the creation of new engagement points (like making Coca-Cola an integral part of your routine studying for exams, or the perfect combo anytime you eat popcorn) that will help Coca-Cola be a more consumer involved brand. Consumers want to feel like their brand gets them, and then they’ll embrace the ideas and culture being offered. These new engagements and the new culture of Coca-Cola that will result, which we’ll call Coca-Cola Redux for now (referring to not only the revival of the brand for younger generations but also embracing the youth cultures’ aptitude of creating remixes, recuts, etc to make projects and situations their own), will allow the Coca-Cola brand to not only connect with youth, but also become ingrained in the culture itself. A new age of consumer generated content can help to carry the conversation to more interactive and collaborative platforms in the digital sphere, and Coca- Cola can begin their transition from brand to cultural phenomena. These engagements will also be beneficial in creating consumer-identifies contact points for Coca-Cola, helping to increase consumption. 17
Issues facing Coca-Cola Although Coca-Cola is the most valuable brand in the world, they are not without problems. Coca-Cola is an enormous and established company, so naturally they have trouble being responsive to their many consumers. Coca-Cola’s advertising needs to evolve. People already love Coca-Cola and CocaCola ads, but the brand needs more than passive affection. The problem is, how do you inspire millions of people to engage in conversation about a soda company? How can a company as enormous and established as Coca-Cola become dynamic, responsive and surprising? These are some issues that need to be resolved, possibly by giving fans a stake in the brand’s identity to create dynamic discussion in new, engaging ways. Another issue that Coca-Cola faces adapting their advertising to target millennials, where their key competitor, Pepsi, presents the most opposition. According to the 2010 MRI report, Pepsi drinkers index at 144 for 18-24 year-olds. Pepsi positions themselves as the ‘cooler, younger cola’ so Coca-Cola will have to be prepared to face fierce opposition in this already saturated segment. Coca-Cola also faces an increase in health concerns and anti-soda legislation. This has led to decreased soda consumption in all categories, and it is being replaced by other carbonated beverages like juices that are seen as being healthier. In some areas of the U.S., the action has gone even further. In California, legislation has been introduced that would tax sodas and use the proceeds to fund programs fighting childhood obesity, as well as bills that ban the sale of these beverages in schools. Legislation like this, that also is gaining strength in other parts of the U.S., has the effect of hitting soda consumers in the wallet as well as bringing health risks closer to the fore in a more health conscious society. All brands face challenges, and it’s our aim here at Top Bunk to help Coca-Cola overcome these obstacles through more effective advertising and communication with their consumers. The best people to start the conversation about your brand are those that love it, and everyone here at Top Bunk is truly a fan. We look forward to working with a brand as iconic and beloved as Coca-Cola. p.s. when we win your business, do we get to meet Santa? 18
Confidentiality Agreeement CONFIDENTIALITY & USAGE STATEMENT I agree to keep all information related to The Coca-Cola Company and the Coca-Cola brand confidential and agree to use such information solely for the purpose of this pitch. Further, I agree all my work and the work of my group becomes the sole property of 360i and The Coca-Cola Company and can be used as they see fit without my further permission and without any remuneration to me or my agency. Agency Name: ___Top Bunk________________ Date: ___________ Each member of the agency must sign below. ________________________________ ________________________________ ________________________________ ________________________________ ________________________________
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