The President of St Arnold Brewing Company is speaking at the AMAHouston monthly luncheon next week. You can still register here.
It’s always a pleasure to be reminded that there’s great beer in Houston – and fresh too. The brewery’s Spring Bock label is shown here because I had a taste (or two) of it a couple of weeks back at the terrific new brewery location. It’s good stuff, Maynard.
I know Brock Wagner won’t be rolling out the barrels next week, if for no other reason than it’s a middle-of-the-day event and most marketers won’t want to return to work with beer on their breath.
Nevertheless, come to this lunch if [a] you believe in beer; [b] take an interest in beverage marketing; [c] want to learn more about creating a fan base using nothing but natural ingredients and personal energy; [d] want to network intensively.
Networking [d] is ever-important. Wagner will be talking about [c]: “Houston’s Home Brewed Beer: How Saint Arnold Built its Brand through Guerilla Marketing.” Check [b] if you got a big lift out of the Simply Orange presentation by Allison Barrett last November. (I did.)
Or throw up your hands and admit to [a].
Next Wednesday you can have ‘em all. (I will.) And I hope to [d] with you there. BTW, I’m Richard Laurence Baron, AMAHouston volunteer and principal of Signalwrite Marketing.
Events, General, Uncategorized / by
Richard Laurence Baron
This month, please take a moment and get to know AMA Member Stacie Fairchild:
Where do you work?
Bristow Group Inc. – one of the world’s largest providers of helicopter services, providing the safest and most efficient helicopter transportation, maintenance, search and rescue and aviation support worldwide.
How long have you been an AMA Houston member?
3 years
Give us three words that describe yourself:
Happy, very detailed, strong willed.
If I weren’t in marketing, I’d be…
A Veterinarian
What is your all-time favorite marketing campaign or brand?
Houston Texans
What’s your favorite food or drink?
Luby’s Mac & Cheese, Water & lemon
Want to connect with Stacie personally? Talk to her at the next event, or visit her company website at http://www.bristowgroup.com
Tell her you found her on the AMA Member spotlight. She’ll likely be able to chat you up with marketing tips, the Houston Texans or Luby’s. 
Membership / by
Robin Tooms
February 28th, 2010
11:12 pm
Events
Thanks to Shanthi Subramanian at Gimmel Group for providing us with the event recap below:
The presentation focused on how the Houston Rockets sought to improve the experience of customers by creating the “Red Nation”. We discovered that an injured Rockets player decided to sew the Rockets logo on a red blazer (he sewed the logo himself) and wear the jacket while he was sitting courtside. The idea started spreading among people within the organization – the marketing group asked the announcers to wear the jacket and then the idea spread to the actual customers.
From this experience they realized that their employees are some of their best advocates (and customers as well), in addition the expected customers: people who attend games in Houston, attendees of away games, and then those who watch the games on TV. The marketing organization also did some research to further segment their customer base into: superfans, naysayers, experientialists, party people, and traditionalists. One of the tools they used was the Net Promoter Score which asks fans if they would recommend attending games to their friends. This was a way for them to track how good the customer experience was for fans.
The Rockets launched their marketing campaign to show that they are back, attract casual sports fans, keep fans involved, reinforce sponsor relationships, continue year-round promotions and get customers to buy season tickets. They built their marketing campaign to address the economic downtown, competition from other teams, going to playoffs but not having a championships, injuries to major players and a reduced budget.
The approaches fell in the category of performance and fun. It is important to have honest promotions/taglines to build credibility with fans and the press. They have studied the current team and fan situations to build the momentum of “red”.
Having a color campaign has been something that everyone can get behind. Red is associated with passion. Fans know what to do – wear red. Color campaigns are sustainable year over year and can be changed slightly while reinforcing messages. Their marketing efforts have resulted in a increased market share and a better customer experience for fans.
Note: If you are an AMA Houston Member, you can go to our LinkedIn group and download the full presentation presented at the lunch!
Events / by
Robin Tooms
There’s a special place in heaven for sponsors. Yes – the Healthcare SIG collected around 75 people for the extra-special “Outside-the-box Healthcare Marketing” seminar on Friday morning. Combined with the three top-grade speakers – Partha Krishnamurthy, Cara Zorzi and Steve McKee – there was a lot of energy and even laughter in the room…for more than three hours. The volunteers all were volunteery, the Houston Technology Center folks were great.
I’m going to drop more names, though, because a SIG seminar is fueled by more than elbow grease, bagels and coffee. (Okay – not altogether an attractive metaphorical collection.)
The sponsors Friday are supportive and involved. In no particular order, special sunny Sunday appreciation goes to Alleen Mitchener and Ana Rodarte of Gelb Consulting. Julie Laguarta and HALO/Lee Wayne. The people of Inn at the Ballpark.
There’s Karen Kershner and Communications Plus. Emily Bernard, Erin Lehr and Jen Pearsall of Pierpont. Susan Saurage-Altenloh and Richard Cisneros and Saurage Marketing Research. Randy Rigdon of Signature Media Group. Winnie Hart and The H Agency.
Author Unknown (not a SIG sponsor) said, “Hem your blessings with thankfulness so they don’t unravel.” Thanks again to all our sponsors for keeping us raveled. BTW, I’m Richard Laurence Baron, AMAHouston volunteer and principal of Signalwrite Marketing.
Events, Sponsors, Volunteers / by
Richard Laurence Baron
This week at the February luncheon, we announced the following honors for our wonderful volunteers
- Board Members of the Month:
Becca Castillo, VISION Production Group: As the VP of SIGs, Becca’s is keeping our event calendar going and is always on top of the SIGs – she’s even recruited quite a few new chairs for the upcoming board year
MaryJane Mudd, Full Tilt Communications: As President-Elect, MaryJane has also been working hard to shape our new board for the new year. She’s also a big part of the positive attitude you see on all of the AMA Houston volunteer faces.
- Volunteer of the Month: Allyson Bandy, Halliburton, for being the real hands-on talent “behind the scenes” on all of our AMA Houston monthly press releases. It’s because of Allyson that this important piece of communications stays on schedule too.
Thanks to all of our volunteers for their help!
Board Leadership, Volunteers / by
Robin Tooms
The early birds get the worms. The early risers find the extra time they’re looking for every day. The raw recruits get kicked out of bed by the drill sergeant before the crack of dawn.
We all noted that “crack of dawn” thing immediately when we showed up for the AMAHouston SIG boot camp yesterday. Good news for us, though: We got croissants and fresh fruit instead of worms. This get-together is your AMA chapter at work, a room full of volunteers teaching and learning how to make the Houston Special Interest Groups – the SIGs – better, smarter, more valuable to our members.
This isn’t a recap. My first “official” post to the AMAHouston blog is more about attitude and amplitude. I’m glad for the chance to make just four points.
Volunteerism is not dead. It’s not even sleeping. The 30+ people at Frank and Jo-Anne White’s photography studio early Friday AM are our colleagues, our co-workers, our fellow marketing and advertising professionals. Every one’s a chapter member. Every one’s a volunteer. So it’s really all of us (or a lot of us) that make the chapter go and grow. There’s even a certain amount of cheerleading built in.
Chapter programming is strategic but simple. The chapter’s monthly luncheons focus on broad-ranging speakers and subjects. It’s in the SIGs where the specific how-we-did-its get passed along to other professionals. SIG committees aim to deliver two out of three objectives every time there’s a special-interest seminar – hot topic, hot speaker, hot company. The more meaning there is in the presentations, the more value AMAHouston gives (and gets).
There is no “i” in “Team.” Alright, that’s awful (and trite) but it’s super Bowl weekend, c’mon. Even though every SIG committee has co-chairs, they don’t get everything done by themselves and they aren’t supposed to. We have to pitch in. In other words, even though they have the fancy club title and the key to the executive punchbowl, they need help from…the rest of us on their committees. You know, the other volunteers. “We” is the people who make the SIGs pay off. (Hmmm. There’s no “I” in that word, either.)
With 900+ members, “we” don’t have to do it all by ourselves, either. Right – you may hear from us when a SIG event needs attendance, or someone to help lay out the bagels and juice or even set up chairs. Remember, we’re the colleagues and the co-workers and the friends and it’s not a bad thing to ask for a hand. Also, help someone join us. AMAHouston was over 1,000 members a few months ago but you know what happened. (Think market crash, etc., absolutely not in any way connected with the Toyota recalls.) So the more the merrier.
MaryJane Mudd, President-Elect of AMAHouston, never actually referred to the early morning hour at all. She reinforced the fact that our SIG programs are what make our chapter unique among all the other AMA groups nationwide. MaryJane also posted more pictures – and larger – on Facebook and even added amusing captions. Like she doesn’t have enough to do already.
I can also reveal that there appears to be no snooze button on any of these board members. So even starting at 7AM, we had fun. BTW, I’m Richard Laurence Baron, an AMAHouston volunteer and principal of Signalwrite Marketing.
PS: Brenda Bramhill was merely visiting the teapot you see her holding. It was still at the White Photography studio when I left. RLB.
Board Leadership, Volunteers / by
Richard Laurence Baron
Freeman+Leonard is one of AMA Houston’s newest Corporate Sponsors. Because of their support, we’ve been able to continue our popular luncheon series of high-profile speakers and topics, and most recently, a Mobile Marketing event hosted by our Interactive Marketing SIG.
We wanted to take a few minutes and get to know them a little better…
If you had to describe your company in three words, what would those be?
On-demand marketing talent.
What makes your company different?
Our management team has run major account teams at big agencies so we have first-hand experience in assembling and managing talent teams to meet clients marketing solutions.
What’s one marketing tip you’d like to share with us?
Sharpen your digital media and marketing knowledge and skills. Traditional media, even in the business to business environment, is losing power and the world is becoming increasingly more digital, social and mobile. Marketers who can’t keep up and bring thought leadership will find their value in the organization increasingly diminished.
Tell us a little about Freeman+Leonard:
Freeman+Leonard has been in business for over 15 years, doing business under the ArtSquad name. Our core business has always been providing area company’s and agencies with primarily creative talent on demand. Last year, after researching the needs of corporate clients and seeing the dramatic changes taking place in both mass and digital media and the challenges clients and agencies were having keeping up with the pace of change, we decided to rebrand as Freeman+Leonard, expanding our on demand talent solutions beyond the creative area to encompass senior level marketing and communications talent as well.
Freeman+Leonard now offers a complete suite of on demand, top-level marketing, communications and creative talent…everything from strategy and planning through the executional functions like copywriting, art direction and design and project management. Our footprint in Houston, Dallas and Austin and beyond have allowed us to build a pool of thousands of registered associates that have worked for literally every company in the U.S., for every major agency in every area of marketing, communication and creative. We very literally have the resources to do it all for a client or agency.
We’re responding to clients asking for complete team solutions, such as outsourcing entire departments or functions like marketing process and systems assessment and implementation, external communications plan development and execution, advertising, experiential, digital content and social media planning and management…even the outsourcing an entire marketing department.
Our approach provides clients with the personnel bandwidth to get marketing, communications and creative work done without adding headcount, staying under their cost containment targets.
How can our members can connect with you:
scone@freemandleonard.com or our web site www.freemanleonard.com. People can also reach us via Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.
How long have you been an AMA Houston member?
One year
Why do you feel it’s important to be a sponsor for AMA Houston?
We know that corporate decision makers attend AMA events and although we have a concerted outbound marketing effort, we know the importance of building a brand and keeping top-of-mind awareness so that clients of think of us first when they have a need.
Thanks Freeman+Leonard for your support. We’ll see you at the February luncheon featuring the Houston Rockets.
Sponsors / by
Robin Tooms
Take a look at your current issue of Marketing News (dated January 20, 2010) – a few of our AMA Houston Board Members are shown on the back page. This was taken at last year’s AMA Leadership Summit – an annual event where AMA leaders from all over the U.S. get together to share ideas that we can take back to our respective chapters.
Show in the photo are:
We’re smiling because despite there being actual work involved at the Summit, there’s lots of fun too.
And as further proof that your AMA Houston Board Members are hard at work, here we are again a couple of weeks ago at the AMA Regional Retreat hosted by the San Antonio chapter.
About 50 Board Members from the Houston, San Antonio, Austin, Dallas/Ft. Worth and Kansas City Chapters convened for great discussions on how we can continue to build a better AMA member experience.
I can honesty say that all of the “behind the scenes” sharing with other AMA chapters helps me tremendously and makes being a Board Member really enjoyable. Not only do I get a lot of ideas that help me for my specific Board role, I also meet a lot of great marketers in other cities this way (and they’ve all been very nice).
Board Leadership / by
Robin Tooms
At the January luncheon, we said thanks to the following volunteers:
- Board Member of the Month: Ana Mena Rodarte, Gelb Consulting Group
Anyone who’s been to our lunches know that they are well organized and fun to attend. That kind of great experience only happens, though, when you have great people behind the scenes. Ana is one of them – she handles all of the registration details for the lunches which is a massive task (that she handles calmly and with a smile)
- Volunteers of the Month:
C’Ella Clayton, who does National Marketing at Transwestern. C’Ella has gone above and beyond with her help on the AMA Houston Professional Development SIG. She’s invaluable to our SIG programming.
Steven Leeper, Freeman Leonard, has not only been helping with our events, but has also signed up new sponsors for the events as well. He’s doing the work of two people now. This is always a big help since it’s the backing of the sponsors that make the events possible.
Thanks to all of you for your help. We truly have the best volunteers!
Events, Membership / by
Robin Tooms
I am so glad 2009 is over. As I talk with fellow marketers in the Houston community (and beyond), they are too. We may not be completely out of the woods yet, but if we are actively working still, or even actively working to find a new job, hopefully we’ve all learned some things in the process.
As president of the American Marketing Association Houston chapter, I have seen both those who are job searching and those struggling to market on a shoestring budget transition in their professional development needs. As a result, our programs transitioned, too. Here are highlights of what we learned last year, and a sneak peak at what is to come.
Tips for Job Search Success
As Raegan Hill, lead recruiter at Brookwoods Group, told a member-only audience at a recent event, effective job searching requires putting together a personal marketing plan, as follows.
- Conduct market research and a personal job inventory. You have the opportunity to target the types of companies you really want to work for. First, determine what qualities you want in a job. Do you want to be a big fish in a little pond, or do you prefer a larger company? Is geography/commute time important? Then, list companies, or company types, that are on your short list. Are you targeting specific industries? Public? Private?
- Create a means for tracking your progress. A spreadsheet works well, where you can track all job leads and their status. Trust me, when you spend five hours a night on the computer, you will not remember all of your applications and online networking activities unless you write them down.
- Set up job search tools. LinkedIn is a great source for finding contacts and job postings. Also use www.indeed.com, which has a job aggregator tool that will search the Internet for new job postings based on your specified criteria and email them to you.
- Network. It’s a proven fact that most people get jobs because of who they know. If you spend every day behind your computer applying to jobs online, frustration will quickly set in. For any job you DO apply for, use every resource possible to get a foot in the door – your online and offline contacts, cold calling the company, attending events where company employees may be, and anything else you can come up with to stand out from the crowd. But spend most of your time networking – in person, not online – by meeting with contacts, attending events where decision makers are present, or creating a “personal advisory board” of people who can provide advice and contacts to help you in your search
- Follow up, follow up, follow up. Tracking your progress with a spreadsheet helps tremendously. But don’t give up with one phone call or email. Be assertive, positive, and offer something of value in exchange. Your perseverance will pay off.
Tips for Marketing Success
For marketers these days, it’s survival of the fittest. But there are two types of survivors. Those who survive by cutting every cost possible, and those who prove that marketing provides indispensible value and impact on the bottom line, particularly in a down market. In other words, if you’re surviving by cutting costs, then you’re not proving your value.
So how, do you ask, is that done? It’s not an easy or simple task. Vikas Mittal, a marketing professor at the Rice Jones School of Business, gave an incredible executive presentation to our CMO forum and will present to a larger audience at the January AMA luncheon. He says marketers have to get back to marketing – in other words, impacting customer preferences and decisions and not just taking orders for brochures and rewriting web content. They also have to understand and implement marketing research in the programs, to understand customer behavior and how to impact it. And then they have to be able to quantify things, in a language the CFO and CEO can relate to. This topic continues at the AMA Energy SIG in February.
Developing your personal brand for career success
And, whether job searching or trying to grow in your career, it’s all about your personal brand. It’s what distinguishes you from other people both professionally and personally. It is your unique value articulated in a compelling, genuine, consistent and visible way. Held in the minds of others, your personal brand is the single most powerful tool in attaining career success. You must distinguish yourself from others; use your appearance, body language, conversation, and attitude to create an exemplary first impression; and build business etiquette skills that leave a positive lasting impression. Finally, communicate your personal brand through the strategic use of social media such as personal websites, online profiles and social networks. One great event you can attend to learn how to do this is the AMA Young Professionals SIG event – more information is available at www.regonline.com/brandYOU.
On behalf of the entire AMA Houston board, I wish all of you success in this New Year. We look forward to seeing you at an upcoming event or welcoming you as a member.
Maggie Seeliger
President
AMA Houston Chapter
www.amahouston.org
Board Leadership / by
Robin Tooms
