We all know that to be successful in advertising, we need creative that works.

During this Ad Fed breakfast event on January 19, Todd Dexter, VP Group Creative Director of Aimia, will share his philosophy on “Creative That Works” and the future of creative departments. He will share a case study on Carlson Marketing, where he is today, and how clients are demanding more accountable creative. Dexter will talk about bad work, brilliant work, and all that in between work.

Get a new perspective on creative strategies that work for your clients’ demands.

Come to Creative That Works, an Ad Fed event on January 19.

Be there.

Want more details? Register here: Creative That Works

Ad Fed’s annual The Show is coming up quickly! This year’s The Show will be held at Epic Event Center this Friday, on 11/11/11. Here are some behind-the-scene images of this year’s judges going through the difficult task of determining who gets awarded The Show Pin.

As we finish the first weekend of the annual deer hunting opener, as so popularly celebrated by many outdoor fanatics of Minnesotans, we find a familiar theme in this year’s The Show. The theme for this year’s Ad Fed The Show is about the hunt for inspiration.

This is the big annual show where marketing and advertising industry professionals put their work from the past year on display for the whole world to see. The Show brings out the best of the best from the advertising world. This event is a great opportunity for everyone to get together and see all the tremendous work created in the past year.

Be sure to check out The Show Hunt’s website and get ready for another epic Show!

Be the hunter, not the hunted.

Don’t miss it – it is the “must go to” event of the year!

Register Today!

Join Kristina Slade at International Market Square on Thursday November 10, for an Ad Fed breakfast event as she shares her philosophy on, “How Digital Saved Advertising’s Soul”.

Kristina joined the highly awarded and regarded digital agency, AKQA, in 2010 as Creative Director on Target, after becoming convinced that the potential for stronger relationships between brands and consumers was to be found in emerging technologies.

She started her career as the first female creative at boutique agency CORE, Kristina went to work on projects such as Ty Cobb, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Zebco fishing company, Ford, and Monsanto. Her work on Virgin Digital, Beck’s beer, the Los Angeles Time, California Anti-smoking, Lucy, and Virgin Mobile won her national and international awards/acclaim and inclusion in the One Show’s showcase on Women In Advertising. Her award-winning creative for ESPN earned her a place in their Hall of Fame.

Kristina then moved on to TBWA’s Chiat Day where she worked on major brands such as Visa, Nissan, and Infiniti, and to define and launch smaller brands like Procter & Gamble’s Pur.

In 2010, Kristina joined AKQA, where she is now the Creative Director on Target.

–Don’t miss you opportunity to learn from this great industry leader – Register Today!–

It was 80 degrees the evening of October 6, an opportunity to squeeze out another summer-like night on a rooftop in downtown Minneapolis. Drive Thru Productions & Post was the venue for the latest Ad2 event. Drive Thru is a one stop shop for motion picture production, creative editorial and visual effects. It has been in the production business for 26 years. Drive Thru opened its doors to Ad Fed and Ad2 members for an opportunity to showcase its studio to students and professionals so they could learn more about all the steps that go into their production process. It was also an opportunity to enjoy social networking, where guests enjoyed social mingling and chatted about their experience working in the production and ad industry. The tables and couches that lined the rooftop patio were filled – drinks and appetizers in hand. The scrumptious mini burgers went like hot cakes; beer and wine served at the studio’s own in-house bar was ice cold and certainly refreshing. Guests also had fun showing off their competitive gaming skills, partaking in friendly matches of pool, ping pong, and shuffle board.

Thursday, Drive Thru showcased their recent commercial production project, “Missoni” (creative work done by Minneapolis ad agency, OLSON). Guests were able to visit various work stations to see and learn about all 6 steps of this process:

1. Digitizing & Organizing Media

This is the first stage of the post production process. All raw files are imported, organized, copied and re-formatted to prepare for the next steps.

2. Creative Editorial

This is the stage of creative collaboration between the client and the agency. This is when all the elements and shots are compiled, assembled and organized into the correct order to tell the appropriate story for the production.

3. Graphics & 3D Animation

This is when motion graphics and animations (both 2d and 3D) are created and these visual effects are implemented into the motion picture project.

4. Company 3 Color

The color stage is when the colorist makes all the hues pop, often brighter than life. Drive Thru has a partnership with Company 3, a post production facility specializing in color correction, based in Santa Monica and NYC and experts in color. Drive Thru has a color suite  studio room with a real-time plasma screen connection to Company 3 and the ability to connect via the visual monitor as well as phone conferencing to conduct businesses remotely between the two offices.

5. Online Edit / Final Finish

This is when the final finishing touches are made to get the project ready for broadcast. Final adjustments are made to the creative edits, color correction, picture and audio. A specialist at Drive Thru showed guests the process in the Missoni projects in making final edits to the main actress, Margarita, including corrections to her skin color, increasing visual slimness, and whitening of teeth. Some of the main programs used in this whole process are FLAME and SMOKE.

6. Finished Product

Drive Thru Productions projects are now ready to bee seen in broadcast TV, motion pictures, web content and more!

To learn more about Drive Thru and to see the Missoni production:

Drive Thru’s website: www.drivethrutv.com

Missoni reel: www.drivethrutv.com/mick-uzendoski/

“There is no glass ceiling in advertising – it is just a layer of fat men,” said Steve Wallace, quoting words from Cindy Gallop as he introduced her to the Minneapolis ad community. Ad Fed hosted “Martinis with Cindy Gallop” event at the Fine Line, on Monday night, September 26th.

Cindy Gallop shared her philosophy of the advertising world and what the future holds for this industry. She says there are seven things advertising must be about, if it is to have a future at all:

• Goodness
• Transparency
• Action
• Agency
• Money
• Production
• Magic

Goodness:

We often are encountered with these messages when we see advertising.

“You can download or view this, if you just agree to watch these ads.”

“Only 15, 30, 60 more seconds…”

“Click here to skip this ad.”

These types of messages relay that advertising is a “bad” thing. If you ask the general public whether they love or hate advertising, most of them will tell you, they hate it. Cindy says, “People hate advertising, in general. However, people love advertising in particular.” If you ask a person on the street about advertising in particular – they will most likely have a comment about a recent advertisement that they remember and love. In order to change for the better, advertisers must change this perception so that people love advertising in general.

Transparency:

Cindy believes that a key to a successful business and advertising is maintaining complete transparency. One of Cindy’s well known talks through TED on makelovenotporn was published on Youtube. She wanted this video to be seen in this realm and for users to be able to comment and share feedback with one another to facilitate more conversation.  The comment stream was enabled and Cindy received many harsh comments on her speech. Her tactic in responding to these critics was to respond to them personally and in the way they addressed her, this turned mere comments into a face-to-face conversation and facilitated more positive communication. A major component of transparency is not just doing and telling others what you are doing, but inviting others to do it with you.

Action:

Cindy believes, the single most wasted resource in the world is human good intentions that never turn into actions. She also believes the same applies to businesses when considering corporate good intentions. Cindy believes in the business world, we can combine human good intentions with corporate good intentions. ifwerantheworld.com is Cindy’s original start-up and is essentially action-based software. Her goal with this initiative is to make it cool to “do things”, after all as Cindy reinstates, “You are what you do.”

Action-Branding:

The way this translates to advertising is in Action-Branding. “It is not about saying, it is about doing” and “it is not about telling, it is about being,” explains Cindy. In fact, one woman ran her entire political campaign on ifwerantheworld.com.

Cindy says that businesses should be striving to do good, while making money at the same time; they must integrate social media responsibility, and will make money because they are doing good. So often, businesses separate their money-making business, from their charitable philanthropic efforts, when they should be integrated together.

Cindy shared the example of Levi’s brand experimentation on ifwerantheworld.com Levi’s used ifwerantheworld.com to initiate a movement to better improve and re-build the land that it’s consumers live in – societies that have been run down over the years, one if its key examples being the town of Braddock. Levi’s sought to increase the popularity of the “blue-collar” worker, getting your hands dirty with physical labor and farming. The notion is that these hard working consumers should be wearing Levi’s jeans while they live and work. In this social experiment Levi’s went from being Brand Stewards, to having and voicing a Brand Conscience.

Agency & Production:

Cindy believes that agencies as we know them today are too “old world” and will not survive in the long run. She said, “They will have to blow up and start all over again.” In essence according to Cindy Gallop, agencies today must work to restructure, in order to survive in the future.

There is much inspiration to be had in Cindy’s philosophy about loving your work. She said, “It’s about what you love doing and being ruthless about it.” Cindy recommends designing a business around this model. She told the audience to figure out what you love doing at work and under which conditions you love doing these things and to do whatever you can to do these things you love under these conditions. She said to figure out what you hate doing, and scrap it. She said, when you live what you love and turn it into your work – it doesn’t feel like work. Any idea is only as good as its execution, so “do it and get it out there,” says Cindy.

Money:

Cindy says that ‘just doing it for the money’ isn’t going to work in the long run. She warns, from her many years as an Advertising executive, this strategy will only hurt both parties in the end. Just doing it for the money – whether it is the agency accepting to do work for a certain company that my not be the right fit, or a company accepting an advertising campaign bid from an agency that may not be the best work – this advertising work is not going to be beneficial for either party nor will it convey the original intended message, purpose or results it could have.

Magic:

Clients don’t believe advertising is magic and they often believe they can do it and do it better themselves. Believe it or not, some companies actually believe they are so superior that agencies should feel privileged to do work for them and some think agencies should actually pay them, for doing their advertising work.

Agencies need to figure out how to sell their creative work while giving the impression that it is magic and not ‘just anyone’ can do it. Cindy says there is a lot of opportunity in digital. Agencies and clients need to become strategic partners and to understand how digital changes the way we do business.

Some last wisdom from Cindy Gallop:

She share this motto: Less work and more money.

“Adversity brings out opportunity in unexpected places.”

“Get out there and invent the future.”

“All people have great ideas.”

“In order to predict the future, you have to invent it.” – Alan Kay

-May you be inspired and turn your great idea or good intention into an action and make it happen!-

To learn more about Cindy Gallop and her initiatives:

www.ifwerantheworld.com

www.makelovenotporn.com

www.ted.com/speakers/cindy_gallop.html

September 11th, 2011, was the 10 year anniversary of the nation’s great tragedy. On Sunday, there were a few companies who chose to run advertising in observance of 9/11. AdAge.com brings this topic to discussion, highlighting the top three TV ads of that day: State Farm, Budweiser, and Verizon.  There has been quite a lot of discussion around what people thought of their marketing efforts and whether these ads were done in the right or wrong manner.

It is difficult to understand why there are so many negative comments surrounding these ads in observance of 9/11. There are many comments that point the finger at these advertisers saying that, placing ads in tribute to 9/11 is tasteless and shameful, as to exploit this day with their advertising. Let’s remember, TV commercials and media advertising in all, are not going to disappear on this day. If we choose to watch TV on this day, we are going to be encountered with ads, regardless of their content and message. To see a company that has an ad playing on this day of remembrance, isn’t it better that they think it’s worthy to honor the tragedy of this anniversary, rather than completely dismiss it and run advertising like a normal day? It seems very notable that these companies honor this great day; they use this powerful advertising platform to share with America their remembrance and respect for 9/11. We all know that companies express their voice in advertising. Companies have a justification, a right to voicing their response to the world they exist in, after all, a component of good advertising should reflect or relate to the lives it’s consumers lead. Companies that choose to honor this respected day, should be respected in return for their voice of honor, remembrance, thankfulness and somber tone in light of the 9/11 anniversary.

Budweiser: Clydesdales 9/11 Tribute Ad

Shared critique:

I thought the Budweiser commercial was done in the best taste. For me, this ad gave me the most goosebumps, was not too over the top, and yet showed the utmost respect. This ad did not even need to use words to get it’s message across successfully. The Budweiser ad also uses one of its top selling brand icons, the famous clydesdales. Regardless of your personal opinion, in the mindset of advertising analysis, this is a good ad.

State Farm: Empire State of Mind 9/11 Tribute

I would rank the State Farm in second place, as I liked this ad, but it was not as powerful as the Budweiser spot. This State Farm ad took an interesting perspective, as to show the real life of the New York city streets and also showing the NYC firefighters, as we all know played a huge role in the rescue efforts on this day. What I would criticize of the State Farm spot, would be its decision to use children in its honor choir. I agree that the use of children shows the livelihood of human life, and children singing only makes these feelings more powerful, but most of the children in this commercial appear to be so young that they were likely not yet born, or infants at the time of this actual tragedy, September 11th, 2001. I could imagine that it would be hard for these children to have as much remorse and sorrow for this day, or as much thankfulness to sing to these firefighters, as someone who lived through that day in New Your City on 9/11/2001. However, if these children were all whom had lost one of their parents or someone close to them in the tragedy of the terrorist attacks on 9/11, that story would make this ad even more emotionally powerful.

Verizon: Liberty 9/11 Tribute Ad

I would put the Verizon ad in last place. This ad I felt was a bit tacky, not very creative and showed bad acting with disconnected emotions. The emotions on the faces of the people in this ad did not seem real. I did not feel a connection watching this ad to the remembrance of 9/11, as these various people stared at the statue of Lady Liberty. I understand Verizon’s efforts behind their plan of this ad, in tribute to our liberty as Americans and respect for those we lost and whom served for our country’s freedom, but one could argue that their written message relates more to our fight for freedom in the Middle East, rather than directly a memorial observance of the 9/11 tragedy that happened here, in NYC, USA 10 years ago. It seems State Farm’s message in this 9/11 ad did not come across powerful, as it may have been intended it to be. I would classify this ad as one that was un-successful observance of 9/11.

What do you think? You may a different point of view, share it and post a comment!

See Ad Age’s original article and discussion forum as well as links to the ads here.

Written By: Leah Zins and Lacey Cobb

Golferoo 2011 landed in the rough with the original tournament date washed out by a torrential downpour. Luckily, after the thunderstorm and catering bogie, Golferoo got a mulligan on the whole day.  With a few extra weeks to spare, the committee went back to the drawing board to iron out the kinks and create a memorable event.  August 19^th, 2011 brought us gorgeous weather, as Golferoo 2.0 went off without a hitch.

Early reports threatened rain, much to the chagrin of the Ad Fed Special Events committee.  However, it could not have been a more beautiful setting to enjoy a madcap pre-tournament golf cart ride through the course to inspect the setup at sponsor holes, and of course place the gin for the Closest to the Gin contest.  Did we mention that the aforementioned gin was dropped at Golferoo 1.0? (No wonder it got rained out!)

Attendees enjoyed a pig roast lunch prior to the shotgun start, catered by Chuckwagon Catering (Plymouth, MN). All the fixings were served, from baked beans to corn on the cob, complete with butter for dipping and a plethora of homemade sauce to top the pulled pork or turkey sandwiches.

Golfers started right on time at 1pm with a scramble start. The beauty of Golferoo is the freedom sponsors have to create fun pit stops at their designated holes.  Many thanks to FRWD, for sponsoring the always popular keg hole at #1. Infinity Direct took some risky chances by putting up $15,000 as the prize for the Hole in One contest.  Despite many close calls and numerous bribe attempts (some in jest, some probably serious), no one walked away richer.  TC Hotel Deals sponsored the closest to the gin hole, which this committee member is happy to report was not shattered for the second time.

In between rounds of laughter, golf cart spills (we won’t mention any names), and friendly competitive talk, some quality golf was played.  Jessica Doolittle of FRWD showed off her power by winning the longest drive on the fairway (Female).  Allegedly Cory Vandenberghe won for longest putt, but the investigation continues to the validity of these claims as this blog goes to press.  Longest putt for women was snagged by Sara Nelson.  Closest to the pin for women goes to Cynthia Sargent.  Also, let’s not forget the best prize of all, the 1.75 of Tanqueray which now rightfully belongs to Kevin Nielson for coming so close to the gin that there was almost a second emergency liquor store run.  Men’s team competition winners were David Bestler, Nick Boosalis, Brent Brogan, and Greg Brogen. Winners of mixed team competition were Aimee Cheek, Liz Tunheim, Aaron Weiche and Jeff Wagner representing Spyder Trap Online Marketing.

Once the golfing wrapped up for the day, everyone reconvened in the clubhouse for appetizers, dessert and awards. Chow Girls provided a delicious appetizer spread, in addition to Muddy Paws Cheesecake generously offering up three flavors of their sensational cheesecake.

Although we were originally bested by Mother Nature, the execution of the rescheduled Golferoo made it well worth the wait. Thanks go out to all of the sponsors who made the day possible, including primary sponsors Atomic Playpen and Knock, Inc. Of course the event wouldn’t be the same without the awesome golfers who took part in the tournament. Stay tuned for sponsorship opportunities and team registration information for Golferoo 2012. We’ll see you all next year on Friday July 20^th, 2012 at Theo Wirth Golf Course in Minneapolis!

Golferoo 2011_Sponsors

It is the networking event of the year for Minnesota’s advertising, marketing, communications and creative organizations. This year’s Alphabet Bash, on Thursday August 11, was an intermingling of over 600 registered industry professionals and 9 different MN organizations: Ad Fed, AMA, IABC, MDMA, MIMA, MMPA, MWMC, MNWIFT and PRSA. This night is a must be at for professional development, networking, meeting new people in the industry, creating new connections, exploring new organizations, and intellectual conversations about latest trends, job seekers support and more.

A-Bash 2011 was the 6th anniversary of this annual multi-organization event and another big hit. The two-level Epic event center was quickly filled professionals of all organizations, as well as those seeking a group to get involved with. The energy was high, with loud chatter, DJ pumping music, bright lights, a mountainous food buffet of gourmet appetizers to tantalize any taste bud and a dessert buffet of sweet treats galore!

All were in their best dressed, dresses and suits – ready to impress. Hands were filled with cocktails and business cards. There was a multitude of door prizes given away, another plus to attendees. It was a beautiful, warm summer night and on the rooftop patio, was a clear view of Target field. Couches and cocktail tables populated the area with the sound of friendly mingling, talk of jobs, networking and career opportunities, exchanging of ideas, industry news and trends.

Clark Gregor, of AMA, had never been to the A-Bash before. He said he attended this year’s event because, “I wanted to network for myself and build my business network.” He has been a AMA board member for the last two years and attended this year’s A-Bash also in support of AMA, a sponsor or the event. Clark enjoyed the pre-networking event, with speaker Arik Hanson. He said, “My biggest take away would be his advice for networking: offering to post on other people’s blogs.”

Allen Shen, a non organization member, originally from China and hoping to find a new career in Minnesota, was brought to the A-Bash by a friend. His goals in attending the event were to “expand my personal and social network, make new friends, hopefully make the connections to get a new job, and have a good time!” Allen said, “The food is great! As long as the food is good, I’m happy.”

If you missed this year’s A-Bash, be sure to add it to your calendar for next year. It is the highlight of networking events for Minnesota’s creative industry professionals, doing something good for your social network and your professional career.

Good beer and advertising folks. Thursday April 21 was Ad Fed’s private Surly Brewery tour for new and renewing members. This spring Ad Fed is gearing up excitement for membership by hosting events that showcase local MN companies. The first of this series was at Surly Brewing.

When walking into the Brooklyn Center brewery, you immediately enter the Surly bar– where all four regularly brewed Surly beers are on tap (Furious, CynicAle, Bender, and Coffee Bender) along with a shop filled with Surly gear. The tour was given by Surly’s owner and founder, Omar Ansari. The group enjoyed free Surly beer samples while Omar told his story of how Surly started and became what it is today.

Omar loves to brew his own beer, which started out as a hobby. The big idea of Surly began when he and his wife traveled around the country, visiting breweries. Omar said many times to friends when going out to bars, “I know you guys don’t care about good beer, but I do”, and would then convince his friends to leave that bar, in the search for a place that served good quality beer. He called this frustration over bars serving bad beer, getting “surly”. This was the inspiration for the brewery name. Omar developed a partnership with one of the head brewers at Rock Bottom, Todd, who is now Surly’s chief brewmaster. Surly brewed its first beer in 2005, Furious and Bender, two of its original brew recipes.

As this tour was filled with advertising gurus, Omar added a component, sharing Surly’s branding development process. Omar originally worked with a small 4-person design firm on the East Coast to develop the brand identity and logo. He talked about the challenges he faced while working through creative idea communication over a long distance relationship. The Surly logo came from the idea of everyone having a dark side/alter-personality. This led into the logo having two different faces, a happy guy and a mad or “surly” guy. The creative team ask Omar, “Why is the mad guy unhappy?” Omar said, “Well, the happy guy is happy because he has a full beer, and the mad guy is unhappy because he has an empty beer.” This was the light-bulb moment that was key to refining the logo to its final version.

Q and A with Omar. A few of the questions asked:

Q: What is Surly’s biggest challenge?

A: Surly’s biggest challenge is keeping up with demand. He said,“It’s a great problem to have.”

Q: Why is Surly only sold in cans?

A: Omar said he was the first one that took convincing of this strategy, from Todd, the head brewmaster. A couple of reasons that led to this decision: Cans protect the beer from light damage, great for outdoor events– many places where glass bottles are not allowed, and that no one else was doing it.

Q: What are some of the marketing tactics Surly has used to spread the word?

A: Surly started out with mass emails and a website/blog about traveling around the world to find great beer and starting a brewery. Now, there are a lot more tools at their fingertips. Now Surly is on Facebook; being a part of social media networks makes sense because as Omar puts it, “Beer to me is social– it’s all about drinking with friends”.

Yet, the most powerful tool Omar believes is, word of mouth. Speaking of an experience in the beginning stages of Surly, Omar was at Old Chicago promoting the beer when a woman came up to him and declared, “Surly is a great beer– whenever I am at a bar that serves Surly and someone orders a beer other Surly, I buy them a Surly and tell them– try this beer, it’s local, from Minnesota, and much better than what you’re drinking now.” Omar was amazed at this woman going to the effort of spending her own money to buy someone else a Surly, because she thought it was that good of a beer to promote. Now that is powerful. Omar also attributes Surly’s success to it’s loyal beer fans, coined as “Surly Nation”, “These people are the ones who have gotten us into the bars and liquor stores that we’re in.”

Q: What is happening next with the pending legislation over Surly’s proposed new brewery project?

A: This is to be included in the upcoming Liquor Ominous Bill.

Lately, Surly has been making headway in the local news, planning to build a $20 million second brewery, including a restaurant/bar and event center. This would help Surly keep up with the demand, allowing the brewery to compete on a national, possibly even an international level. There is currently a two-year waiting list, with over a hundred bars to get the beer, and also a waiting list for the very popular brewery tours, held every Friday and every other Saturday.

The Destination Brewery, plans for a beer lover’s dream:

• Two-story, 60,000-square-foot building at to-be-determined location
• Roof deck and 30-foot bar with a variety of Surly beers on tap
• 250-seat restaurant and event center

In order to make this new brewery project happen, a law needs to change. Minnesota’s current liquor laws only allow brewpubs to brew and serve their beer on-site and prohibits large-production breweries, like Surly, to sell alcohol within the brewery location. Surly is too big to qualify as a brewpub and is currently only allowed to give out samples. Surly is in the works of getting this changed. Omar said of the second brewery project, “It’s going to be great for the community, a fun place where families can share the whole entertainment experience”. Beer, food and entertainment– the ultimate mix.

Get a taste of the fury. www.surlybrewing.com

It was a beautiful March afternoon, and what else to do on a Wednesday, but happy hour at Periscope? I walked in to the block-long agency to lively music and lots of exciting chatter. The evening started with drinks and social time. But, there has to be some sort of presentation at these things too, right? The event’s focus was to celebrate work for non-profits, or pro-bono; work done without compensation for the public good. Two of the Periscope minds, Greg Kurowski (President & CEO), as well as Analee Ulstrud (VP, Design & Brand Advocacy) shared the agency’s philosophy on the non-profit world.In light of the pro-bono theme, Periscope started by acknowledging that its agency announced that morning, that it was going to donate $5000 to the earthquake/tsunami recovery efforts in Japan. Periscope shared that their mission is based on their clients’ success. The agency tagline is, to wrap more talent, more tightly around its clients’ brands.

Periscope fast facts:

- Founded in 1994
- 260 employees
- $280 million in billings
- International with offices in Minneapolis, Delhi, and Hong Kong
- Largest independent agency in the Midwest
- Diverse range of clients
- Continues to remain as they put it, “Fiercely” Independent

Two of Periscope’s current non-profit efforts are Tree House, an organization dedicated to helping troubled youth, and Crisis Nursery, a child care center for families in need working to prevent abuse and neglect. Periscope boldly noted its “All-in” strategy when dealing with non-profits; that it’s necessary to support the cause from The Board to brochures.Top lessons from working for non-profits:

- Communicate the commitment of service to all employees.
- Be serious about capacity, making it a part of the priority, time and resources.
- Ask for liberty, license and efficiency. You are doing the work for free, but remember, don’t take it for granted.
- Annual planning, defining scope and expectations are key.
- The most enjoyable things of working for non-profits is: It’s fun. It’s an opportunity to meet new people, form relationships, and to give back.

The agency opened its offices for tours as well. While walking through the vibrant red walls of cube dividers, you can immediately see the abounding outbursts of personality including posters, sports memorabilia, foosball tables, and dog houses; yes, Periscope is dog-friendly.The party filled their 4,000 square foot photo studio and lasted late into the evening. There was a tasty array of appetizers and a beer and wine bar, with Periscope staff serving as bartenders and cocktail waitresses. A slideshow of agency work, accompanied by live twitter tweets causally entertained happy-goers as they engaged in social conversations.

From the words of Greg (Periscope’s CEO), “It’s good to be good, but better to be good and lucky.” We can all consider ourselves lucky to be in a situation where we are able to help other people out who are less fortunate than us.

Let’s raise a glass to that, “Cheers!”