Tag Archives: AAF

A Creativity Cloud is Emerging

 

There will be a cloud of creativity lurking over the advertising center of northeast Arkansas tomorrow when the AAF chapter of Northeast Arkansas hosts Expanding Your Toolbelt, a series of afternoon workshop sessions covering a variety of topics relative to advertising and creativity.

Projected schedule:

Lunch & Session 1: 11:30 am – 1:00 pm | Take This Job and #^*&  with Anissa Centers
This workshop is about investing in what it takes to excel in your field, even when you are no longer motivated.

Session 2: 1:00 – 2:00 | Digital Drawing Workshop with Whitney Blackburn
Take some time to learn a new skill that you can utilize in your professional or personal time. Learn all the ins and outs of digital drawing.

Session 3: 2:00 – 3:00 | Kickstarting Creativity Without Screwing Up the Idea with Joe Fournet
Creativity plays a vital role in getting the consumer’s attention, no matter the size of one’s budget or what it is a company is selling to the public. Joe’s presentation has some fun showcasing winning and wacky ways to kick-start the creative process while staying true to the core ideas. 

Session 4: 3:00 – 4:00 | Leadership Lessons From the Lockdown with AAF National President, Steve Pacheco
From handling crises to navigating new channels of communication and connecting with your team, advice, and tips from lessons learned during lockdown.

Session 5: 4:00 – 5:00 | Curiosity with Professor Leslie Moore Parker
This session helps identify the self-imposed constraints that may hold us back in our careers and lives. It encourages participants to open their minds and hearts to the unexpected and the outrageous.  

I am honored to be a part of this elite panel of speakers and some of the highlights of Kick Starting can be found in the Download section of my website at the link below.

For those of you who can’t make the virtual visit, feel free to download a couple of documents I’ve posted on my website relative to various tips and techniques to enhance and develop the creative process. You’ll find them here at ideasnmore.net as well as other helpful information.

Organizations like the AAF are wonderful resources for professionals interested in joining with other like-minded peers in the advertising and marketing spheres. Various chapters like this one in northeast Arkansas, and mine in Houston, serve the local advertising and creative community and make it worthwhile to become a member and strengthen one’s career and life interests.

Hope you can join us tomorrow either in-person or virtually. I think you’ll be glad you did!

 

Hopefully making a ruckus, one blog post at a time!

Be sure to check out my other blog, Joe’s Journey, for a different kind of playground for creativity, innovation and inspiring stuff.

 

Live Long and Prosper, Ukraine!

 

International Creativity Week Begins and AAF-Houston is Part of it.

World Creativity & Innovation Week, April 15-21, is a worldwide community dedicated to celebrating all forms of creativity.

Creativity is what makes the world go ’round. Don’t just take my word for it – look around you: Everything is a product of creative minds thinking differently, challenging the norm, taking risks and learning from trial and error. Everything you do can be a creative act.

Since not all creative acts are deemed equal, their variety suggests a plethora of creativity exists globally. We’re here this next week to celebrate global creativity in all its forms via the WCIW web site and its partners.

WCIW inspires and enables people around the world to celebrate creativity in their own way, and share it with others through our international community and brand presence. 

WCIW’s mission is to encourage people to use new ideas, make new decisions, and take new steps towards making the world, and your place in it, better through creativity.

World Creativity & Innovation Day April 21 (WCID) was founded by Marci Segal on May 25, 2001 in Toronto, Canada. Observed six days after Leonardo da Vinci’s birthday and one day before International Mother Earth Day, #WCID is well positioned to encourage creative multidisciplinary thinking to help us achieve a sustainable future.

AAF Houston Special Webinar: Art of Rebranding, April 21, Noon, CST

Creating a brand from scratch and rebranding an existing one are two very different challenges. Rebranding can be life-changing for a business and this why it needs to be done right!

Join Trace Hallowell, Managing Partner at Tactical Magic as she shares with us the magic art of rebranding.

With Special Guest Steve Pacheco, President & CEO of the American Advertising Federation.

RIP John Aguillard: AAF District 10 Legend, Memorial Services Announced

Image 5-15-20 at 3.26 PM

We, the American Advertising Federation District 10, lost a good friend and a true-to-form legend (and not in his own mind) when John Aguillard passed away a few days ago. If you ever met him at a district conflab or national convention, consider yourself both lucky and blessed. If you didn’t, too bad; you really missed out.

John was a prankster and a very passionate one at that. You also needed to know how to take him. Some folks didn’t and paid the consequences. He was a very quick-witted and smooth-tongued conversationalist, and loved to lure you into one of his “controversial” conversations. He also had a wicked sense of humor.

One of the first times I met John, he dished out some satirical remark, and I responded in a rather direct and satirical manner, and, for a brief moment, John wasn’t sure what to do. He quickly shot back his delight in getting that kind of reaction from me and remarked to a friend sitting next to him, “I like this guy!”

One of my fondest memories was when we were involved in a major discussion one year in Dallas in the Hospitality Suite until about 3:30 in the morning. I was joined by Frank Kopec (Dallas), John (San Antonio), me (Houston), Darrell Boyd (Lake Charles) and one or two others. I was proud that despite the late hour (or early depending on your perspective), there was plenty of respect to be had. Continue reading →

Friday Fun Quotes: Advertising & Others

Continuing a series of various illustrious quotes, here are some worth-remembering “sayings” which I find interesting and inspiring. Hopefully, you will, too.

Some quotes are from the American Advertising Federation newsletter “Smart Brief,” while others come from various sources. Enjoy!!

Maybe that’s enlightenment enough: to know that there is no final resting place of mind; no moment of smug clarity. Perhaps wisdom… is realizing how small I am, and unwise, and how far I have yet to go. – Anthony Bourdain, 1956-2018

There is no way for the American economic system to function without advertising. – John O’Toole

He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe is as good as dead; his eyes are closed. – Albert Einstein

Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power to that enables us to empathize with humans whose experiences we have never shared. – J. K. Rowling

I’ve always felt advertising was a major instrument of the free enterprise system. Effective advertising can not only have a truly powerful impact on clients’ fortunes but for their stockholders and employees as well and therein a great ripple effect on our economy.    Liener Temerlin

 

quote

 

To succeed, planning alone is insufficient. One must improvise as well. – Isaac Asimov, writer and professor

I have a theory that the best ads come from personal experience. Some of the good ones I have done have really come out of the real experience of my life, and somehow this has come over as true and valid and persuasive. – David Ogilvy

Be honest, truthful, and altruistic. If you concern yourself with taking care of others, there’ll be no room for lies, bullying and cheating. If you’re truthful you can live transparently, which will enable you to establish trust, the basis for making friends. – Dalai Lama 

There is no material with which human beings work which has so much potential energy as words. – Earnest Elmo Calkins,

Inspiration can strike at anytime, anywhere. But usually not at 1 a.m. in the office. – Lee Clow (Lee Clow’s Beard tweet)

 

Do you have a favorite? If so, lemme know.

Friday Fun Quotes: Advertising and Otherwise

Continuing a series of various illustrious quotes, here are some worth-remembering “sayings” which I find interesting and inspiring. Hopefully, you will, too.

Some quotes are from the American Advertising Federation newsletter “Smart Brief,” while others come from various sources. Enjoy!!

quote

Maybe that’s enlightenment enough: to know that there is no final resting place of mind; no moment of smug clarity. Perhaps wisdom… is realizing how small I am, and unwise, and how far I have yet to go.   Anthony Bourdain, 1956-2018

There is no way for the American economic system to function without advertising. – John O’Toole

He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe is as good as dead; his eyes are closed. – Albert Einstein

Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power to that enables us to empathize with humans whose experiences we have never shared. – J. K. Rowling

I’ve always felt advertising was a major instrument of the free enterprise system. Effective advertising can not only have a truly powerful impact on clients’ fortunes but for their stockholders and employees as well and therein a great ripple effect on our economy. Liener Temerlin

To succeed, planning alone is insufficient. One must improvise as well. – Isaac Asimov

I have a theory that the best ads come from personal experience. Some of the good ones I have done have really come out of the real experience of my life, and somehow this has come over as true and valid and persuasive. – David Ogilvy

Be honest, truthful, and altruistic. If you concern yourself with taking care of others, there’ll be no room for lies, bullying and cheating. If you’re truthful you can live transparently, which will enable you to establish trust, the basis for making friends. – Dalai Lama 

There is no material with which human beings work which has so much potential energy as words. – Earnest Elmo Calkins

Inspiration can strike at anytime, anywhere. But usually not at 1 a.m. in the office. – Lee Clow via Lee Clow’s Beard tweet

So, whatchathink? Gotta favorite? Lemme know.

Hall of Fame Quotes – Advertising & Otherwise

In another in a series of various illustrious quotes, I showcase some worth-remembering “sayings” which I find interesting and inspiring. Hopefully, you will, too.

Some quotes are from the American Advertising Federation newsletter “Smart Brief,” while others come from various sources. Enjoy!!

quote

A meeting is an event at which the minutes are kept and the hours are lost. – Bob Pritchard

Rules are for people who don’t know what to do. – Keith Reinhard

Creativity is a drug I cannot live without. – Cecil B. DeMille

A good ad should be like a good sermon: It must not only comfort the afflicted, it also must afflict the comfortable. – Bernice Fitz-Gibbon

Advertising reflects the mores of society, but does not influence them. – David Ogilvy

Like the musical score, a mission statement is only as good as the performance it inspires. – Keith Reinhard

Ideas pull the trigger, but instinct loads the gun. – Bob Pritchard

The brain is a wonderful organ. It starts working the moment you get up in the morning and does not stop until you get into the office.                    – Bob Pritchard

Regardless of the moral issue, dishonesty in advertising has proved very unprofitable. – Leo Burnett

Anxiety brings with it massive energy and it is what we do with that energy which separates us. – Laurie-Beth Robbins

 

So, gotta favorite? Lemme know.

See ya next time!

Hall of Fame Quotes – Advertising & Otherwise

As it’s been some time since I last submitted for your amusement various illustrious quotes, I thought I’d showcase another in a series of worth-remembering “sayings” which I find interesting and inspiring, and, hopefully, you will, too.

Some quotes are from the American Advertising Federation newsletter “Smart Brief,” while others come from various sources. Enjoy!!

red-quotation-marks-vector-online-royalty-free-picture-435958Never write an advertisement which you wouldn’t want your family to read. You wouldn’t tell lies to your own wife. Don’t tell them to mine. David Ogilvy

Nothing will put a bad product out of business faster than a good advertising campaign. Advertising causes people to try a product once, but poor quality eliminates any possibility of a repeat purpose.  Morris Hite

Never hesitate to steal a good idea.  Al Neuharth

I like that they are talking about the work. If they aren’t talking, then your brand is dead.  Alex Bogusky

Make it idiot-proof and someone will make a better idiot.  Bob Pritchard – VoiceAmerica Business Channel

Success is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.  Bob Pritchard – VoiceAmerica Business Channel

Advertising becomes a dialogue that becomes an invitation to a relationship.   Lester Wunderman

Energy and persistence conquer all things.  Benjamin Franklin

Vision without execution is simply hallucination.  Bob Pritchard

red-quotation-marks-vector-online-royalty-free-picture-435958

There are two kinds of people, those who do the work and those who take the credit. Try to be in the first group; there is less competition there.  Bob Pritchard