Hello

Rather than talking about our experience, number of staff, etc. we’d prefer to talk about what’s important to us –and we hope, to you. Our business has grown out of our belief in the transformative power of ideas. Ideas are what we do for a living, and something we all relish. Whether they're new products, packaging, a new business strategy, an environmental experience or an integrated brand campaign, ideas are the currency that help companies win in the marketplace. Call us if you want to win.

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Birmingham

120 19th Street North, Ste 222
Birmingham, Alabama 35203
205-900-1002

Atlanta

675 Ponce de Leon Ave, Ste 8500
Atlanta, Georgia 30308
404-817-0701

A big, fat, juicy brand refresh.

THICK N JUICY had created a vibrant foodservice product over the past 30 years. But their brand was in need of an update. We created a new tablet-based sales system, with mouthwatering brand imagery and a platform that perfectly matched both operator feedback and product performance: When the burger matters.

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http://tnjburger.com/

Kicking the dust off the peanut.

While peanuts have a firmly established place in the food landscape, they were being challenged by (relative) newcomers like almonds and pistachios. We created a campaign and position that put peanuts’ natural goodness and healthfulness front and center – all built around the green growing goodness of their plant-based power.

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Headline: Have you seen my power plant?

Lead by example? Check.

Thompson CAT is one of the oldest and largest Caterpillar distributors in the U.S. They challenged us to create a leadership campaign targeted to their stakeholders, employees and end customers. We challenged ourselves to connect their leadership to the communities and people they serve. Done and done.

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Headline: We were there for the original clearance event.

HEROBike

In Greensboro, AL, bamboo was an invasive and persistent problem. Now, it is being turned into beautiful, handmade bicycles, whose profits help fund housing for the underprivileged. We helped personify this effort with the most bamboo-loving creatures on the planet. We love it when everyone wins.

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Tour de Fur

Hope & Harmony Farms

When you’re a fourth generation farm family with a vertically integrated, hand-made product and no one knows it, you’re not just leaving money on the table, you’re leaving brand affinity, consumer connection and story appeal too. For Jeffrey and Stephanie Pope, we recommended a complete rebrand, from name and identity to packaging and outreach. The new brand, Hope & Harmony Farms, reflects the truth of their passion, heritage and life as farmer-entrepreneurs. Almost immediately, it helped open new growth channels for them.

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Lyric Theatre Fundraising

The once proud Lyric Theater needed help. Long neglected, it cried out for either a wrecking ball or a bang up fundraising idea. We devised a simple, graphic, unifying rallying cry for the restoration effort. Our solution: use the original marquee sign as an interactive symbol for rebirth. As dollars come in, more lights are displayed and the sign gets progressively restored, and the community is encouraged to Light Up The Lyric.

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Taste Amazing

Peanut Butter & Co.

For generations, peanut butter, that paragon of comfort foods, slumbered. Snoozed in pantries. Dozed in lunchboxes. Then, one day, thanks to a zealot named Lee Zalban, it went all Rip Van Winkle on us. For it was he who created a remarkable new line of flavored peanut butters, and with it, a whole new era of peanut butter enjoyment. We redefined his brand and helped him tell his story by creating his first national TV campaign.

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Inspiration Never Sleeps

National Peanut Board

Like it or not, we live in a world of 24/7 stimulation. And it takes all the energy we can muster. The kind of energy that won’t spike and dive like a coffee or sugar high. That’s where peanuts come in – and why we created a cook/inspiration book based around them and how they can help fuel our synapse-challenged days and nights. With recipes from some of today’s hottest food bloggers and the collected wisdom of writers, philosophers, wits and sages, it’s kind of a recipe for the good life too.

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People have a natural aversion to marketing, but a natural affection for storytelling.

Marketing, in almost any form, is an uninvited guest. Usually unwelcome, an intrusion, maybe even an annoyance. So we build barriers to defend against it. But those barriers can be broken down by stories, which naturally - and sometimes irresistibly - draw us in.

Will Work For Free

The Literacy Council

One of our strongest beliefs is in helping people. This is evidenced in some of our work. But, is also shown through our desire to always have a pro bono project or two on our boards at any given time. Creative support for worthy organizations helps them grow and do more of the good work they do.

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Logo design. The Literacy Council's mission is to teach illiterate adults to read and write. The negative space forms a pen and a book to represent this.

Get real

Alabama Power

At its core, Alabama Power’s Charitable Giving Group is about the power to help improve communities. It is not about blind philanthropy. Rather, it is a very real vision, built around real people and real needs and making a real difference. We created a website to help showcase this very worthy effort, starring the beneficiaries and benefactors who bring it all to life.

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Go to Alpowercharitablegiving.org

LBVD

Ever wonder why most creative companies’ websites all seem to look and sound kind of the same? So did we. That’s why ours is built the way it is. When you come to an agency’s website, you want to get a feel for them, what they’re about, and how they can help you. And you’ll get plenty of that here. Click on anything you see and you'll learn a little something about LBVD - some show solutions for clients while others share a bit of our philosophy. Click on enough and you’ll have a pretty good idea of how we can help you. Click on everything, and heck, you’re one of us. You know how this works. You know what to do. So go ahead, knock yourself out.

Smithfield Foods

Traditionally, the selling of hams was mainly a seasonal business, built around the Christmas and Easter holidays. We found a memorable and very relevant vehicle to help sell more hams at other times of year - and dramatically expand sales.

Ham Capital

Smithfield

What do brands like Hershey, Coca-Cola and Heinz have in common? Each has lore, a story and a romance that’s been cultivated by their history and heritage. Some are about the place – Hershey, PA – while others are about being the first or the best and as such have developed a back-story and romance to bond people with their brand. That’s what this spot for Smithfield does. Smithfield is where hams became uniquely American and Smithfield Foods has been providing hams and pork products to Americans for nearly a century.

Smithfield

Smithfield asked us to create a spot for their new pouch pack bacon. The product, which hit shelves in the fall of 2011, is packaged so you can use part of the bacon while keeping part sealed, like-new. This is to keep the bacon you don't use at one time fresh longer. If that's not magic, we don't know what is.

Be Memorable

Alabama Power

Never miss an opportunity to be memorable. That's not scream in your face, hey look at me memorable, but rather something that makes sense for the client, the product and the campaign. A good campaign is always memorable and can do and say so many different things which is why the Birds were so successful. They worked well on TV and radio, in print and online, and even larger than life outdoors. Whatever message Ben and Mickey delivered - from reliability to energy efficiency, from a football game sponsorship to bird sanctuaries – it was always memorable.

Every hit series has a blooper reel.

Alabama Power

To help promote Alabama Power's industry-leading reliability, we turned, again, to our feathered friends, Ben and Mickey. And they didn't let us down. Well, actually, they did. But that was the point.

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Ben and Mickey had trouble delivering their lines – don’t we all? The message is stronger with their little flub.

Some of the best stories are told without words.

Alabama Power

It's hard to tell the history of a company that's over a century old in 30 seconds, but we did it - without words.

The All-American Ham

Smithfield

When you've been making America's favorite ham as long as Smithfield has, it stands to reason you'd get it right. There are a lot of hams out there, but only one ham has been feeding Americans since before there were Americans.

Empowered Birds

Alabama Power

Like they say, with great power, comes great responsibility. We tweaked our "birds on a wire" motif slightly to communicate this simple, but compelling safety message.

Birmingham Botanical Gardens

Can a botanical garden compete with other more high profile tourist entities? Can it broaden its appeal beyond garden aficionados and become a place kids and families would actually want to visit? Touring the gardens, we saw firsthand all the various involuntary reactions the plantings provoked: from wonder to awe to amusement. That observation led us to turn the camera around 180 degrees from the plants and focus instead on their effect on people. Apparently, our intuition was well founded. Garden membership increased by 18% and revenues rose 24%. How's that for growth?

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Logo Design. Ladybugs represent the health of a garden. We put two B's back to back to form the ladybug and incorporated icons of garden activities to make up the spots.

Who says they don’t make ’em like they used to?

Alabama Power

There's something familiar about this series of ads for different programs Alabama Power sponsors across the state. Familiarity begets comfort and comfort creates awareness and recognition. The cartoons were drawn by our friend Walt Taylor in a New Yorker magazine style and the copy has a little fun with the events they celebrate.

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Copy reads: "Gee, dear, do you think they'll know you're a sponsor tonight?"

Smithfield foods

The holidays are wonderful – unless you’re the one hosting the cast of thousands. We paid homage to the annual big holiday cooking production with a big production of our own. Straight out of the old Busby Berkely days at MGM studios, this spot showed homemakers how a Smithfield ham could make entertaining as simple as it is delicious. The reviews have been off the charts.

DaMN Straight

National Peanut Board

We think it's preferable to have a conversation with people, not a monologue. We respect our audience's intellect, and are unfailingly rewarded for it. Over time, our work for the National Peanut Board has established a definite personality that consumers have come to know - and in some cases, even love. Ads like this one have run in the New York City subways for the last ten years, and earned a lot of attention. This email from Sara H., is fairly typical: "I love your 'Do we forget about peanut butter' ad. I chuckled at first, but then made sure to add peanut butter to my shopping list. It's been too long since I had a PB&J sandwich!" Damn straight, Sara.

Courage Personified

Freedom Ground

Tuskegee. Selma. Montgomery. The mere mention of these places stirs powerful feelings. Knowing their place in the history of America's Civil Rights movement, this is perfectly understandable. We took three independent national historic sites that had operated autonomously and linked them under the banner, Freedom Ground. This new handle provides thematic glue and allows each site to work in harmony with the others. Ultimately, this vision is about economic development as much as it is about tourism. We see Freedom Ground not just as a marketing handle, but as a rallying cry for the people and communities involved.

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Headline: First they took on Adolph Hitler. Then they went after Jim Crow.

Garden Growth

Birmingham Botanical Gardens

Can a botanical garden compete with other more high profile tourist entities? Can it broaden its appeal beyond garden aficionados and become a place kids and families would actually want to visit? Touring the gardens, we saw firsthand all the various involuntary reactions the plantings provoked: from wonder to awe to amusement. That observation led us to turn the camera around 180 degrees from the plants and focus instead on their effect on people. Apparently, our intuition was well founded. Garden membership increased by 18% and revenues rose 24%. How's that for growth?

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Logo Design. Ladybugs represent the health of a garden. We put two B's back to back to form the ladybug and incorporated icons of garden activities to make up the spots.

The “Hey Honey” Test

National Peanut Board

Before we write or produce a commercial we always ask, would anyone watch it? After all, ever-increasing numbers are TiVO-ing out commercial messages, there’s more clutter, confusion and consumer bombardment than ever before. So above and beyond what you’d like to communicate in a message, it has to engage. When something really grabs our attention, it can still move us. Even (ideally) to the point of calling out, “Hey honey. Come take a look at this.”

Sometimes advertising is the last thing we do.

Our job – in simplest terms – is to help our clients sell more of what they make. In some cases this is not a conventional advertisement, but rather something that helps our clients’ brands connect with their consumers. We developed this online magazine to help Smithfield give their customers more ideas for using their Summer Spiral ham. It’s not selling a product per se, but helping people have success with the product, so they’ll come back for more.

Download Your Own Summer Spiral Idea Book

Alabama Power

Ben and Mickey, the Alabama Power birds, spent 6 years on their wire chirping about energy savings, energy efficiency and all the ways Alabama Power supports programs and events in the state. Ultimately, Ben and Mickey became some of the most beloved characters in the state receiving over 90% recognition and 80% favorability ratings when surveyed near the end of their run.

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Freedom Ground

Unlike most of the heroes of World War II, the Tuskegee Airmen fought on two simultaneous fronts. On one hand, they operated with singular skill and bravery against the German Luftwaffe. And on the other, they dealt with the inequities and subversive (and sometimes open) oppression of Jim Crow laws. Their ability to rise above both has cemented their place in history - and established them not only as war heroes, but important figures in the Civil Rights movement.

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Headline: First they took on Adolph Hitler. Then they went after Jim Crow.

Alabama Power

When people start complaining about the cost of something, often they’ve lost sight of its value. Alabama Power, faced with higher raw material costs and stricter government regulations, was forced to start raising rates. As prices gradually increased, so did customer complaints. Through research, we determined that consumer perception about what electricity actually costs for routine usage was dramatically overinflated. It wasn’t a matter of dollars, as most people believed, it was pennies, nickels and dimes.

Alabama Power

When consumers start complaining about the cost of something, they have likely lost sight of the value. Alabama Power, faced with higher raw material costs and stricter government regulations, had to start raising rates over the last decade. As prices rose, so did complaints. Through research, we determined that consumers’ perception of what electricity actually cost for routine chores was skewed. Rather than dollars, it was pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters.

How do you sell phones? Allow us to demonstrate.

Mercury Cellular

Back before there were smart phones, there were some fairly smart people selling phones that were, well, they were mobile anyway. To help communicate Mercury Cellular's vast network of analog cell towers (remember those?), we devised a campaign that depicted the peril of communicating with anything less than the best coverage. It helped our little Lake Charles, LA-based client win virtually every major industry award, and top honors at the CTIA (Cellular Telephone Industry Association awards).

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Lights, camera, ham!

Smithfield Foods

The holidays are wonderful – unless you’re the one hosting the cast of thousands. We paid homage to the annual big holiday cooking production with a big production of our own. Straight out of the old Busby Berkely days at MGM studios, this spot showed homemakers how a Smithfield ham could make entertaining as simple as it is delicious. The reviews have been off the charts.

Smithfield Foods

Give your consumer something they can use. Too many company websites are one dimensional and not consumer friendly.They look like something that has been built to speak to the trade. The Smithfield site lacked significant consumer content so we transformed it into a consumer destination that reinforces the brand promise: Smithfield is the brand you can trust to help bring variety to everyday meals and make special occasions more memorable. Almost immediately after the new site launched, site traffic spiked and has remained higher.

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Go to Smithfield.com

Luck, unfortunately, does not count as financial planning.

First NBC

We humans are generally so predictable. How many of us labor under the impression that somehow luck will save us? That a financial tooth fairy will magically appear and all our worries will go away. When what we really need is a little guidance. We believed our client, First NBC, might help grow deposits by offering customers a free personal financial profile. Our campaign struck a chord, and not only helped grow deposited income, but gained new customers as well.

Smithfield Foods

Historically, Smithfield had two selling seasons for their spiral sliced hams – the holidays and Easter. In mid-2010, Smithfield top management approached us to help them sell more hams in other times of year. Our solution: The Smithfield Summer Spiral. By redesigning packaging and developing seasonally appropriate messaging we took the spiral ham from the formality of holiday dining room to the picnic basket and beach house. Did it work? Smithfield broke all records with their summer 2011 sales.

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Summer Spiral packaging ideas. Nothing says summer more than madras, baseball and the American flag.

National Peanut Board

Peanuts kick butt where flavor is concerned. And their standing as the most preferred nut among consumers backs that up. But research showed they weren't getting as much of a health halo as some of their competitors. Our latest campaign is aimed at rectifying that perceptual inequity, by letting people know little facts like, "peanuts have more energy-boosting protein than any other nut." How's that for a finishing kick?

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Headline: There are people who just fuel with energy drinks. They're called the people behind me.

TELL THE TRUTH

National Peanut Board

When one is marketing a product or service, or anything else for that matter, there is no substitute for truth. No one, however, said that truth has to be boring.

Behold, the singular allure of the hourglass body.

National Peanut Board

Historically, peanuts haven’t gotten the same health halo as some of their competitors. But peanuts are a lot more healthful than people realize. That requires a bit of consumer re-education. In fact, a handful of peanuts can be part of successful weight management. And that’s a beautiful thing.

bigmouth strikes again

US Unwired

US Unwired, a Lake Charles, LA-based cellular service provider, had a problem. They had about 80% HH penetration – and an analogue cellular division with a ton of inventory on the shelves. Our solution: a new sub-brand called Bigmouth, with new packaging, new storefronts and a bold, quirky personality. Sales increased dramatically – in fact, the majority of new customers were existing US Unwired Digital PCS customers, so our client was able to do something almost unthinkable: double dip.

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Howard luck gossage

(1917–1969)

He didn’t work for us. We didn’t know him. But somehow, we feel indebted. Known as “The Socrates of San Francisco,” Gossage was a relentlessly innovative ad man, whose unorthodox ideas and philosophy were often decades ahead of their time. Here’s one of his quotes that has always resonated with us: “People pay attention to what they’re interested in. Occasionally, that’s an ad.” Truer words were never spoken.

The Book of Gossage

Howard Luck Gossage

(1917–1969)

He didn’t work for us. We didn’t know him. But somehow, we feel indebted. Known as “The Socrates of San Francisco,” Gossage was a relentlessly innovative ad man, whose unorthodox ideas and philiosophy were often decades ahead of their time. Here’s one of his quotes that has always resonated with us: “People pay attention to what they’re interested in. Occasionally, that’s an ad.” Truer words were never spoken.

First NBC

In a regulated industry, advertising is not a luxury. It's a necessity. It's how you let customers know how your bank is different from all the rest. We presented First NBC with an idea that would set them apart from anyone in the industry. Luckily, they were courageous enough to run with it. It not only got the attention of their competitors, even better, it got the attention of many of their competitors' customers, who migrated to First NBC.

National Peanut Board

People love peanuts. They just haven’t given them the health credit they deserve. We set out to rectify that with a campaign that was all about the healthfulness of the lovable legume. Almost immediately, people began telling us, “I didn’t know that about peanuts.” Or, “I’ll have to start eating them more often.” In time, we hope people will not only continue to love peanuts, but also love what they can do for them.

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Headline: Peanuts have more protein than any other nut. Good thing, because parenthood is an endurance sport.

A big bank job

First NBC

Standing out is always a challenge. But never more so than in a federally regulated industry. There's a limit to what you can say. All the more reason then to say something that's smart, resonating and honest. This campaign for First NBC used language that might have been considered incendiary by banking standards, but in hindsight the risk was well worth it, as it helped turn other banks' frustrated customers into new First NBC customers.

Find the needle. Then move it.

As a rule, it’s easier to arrive at a solution once you’ve figured out what the problem is. But it’s surprising how many folks in our business seem to forego that approach. To look at some of our industry’s work, you have to wonder if perhaps someone didn’t become enamored of a tool before they knew what they were trying to build. (“There’s an app for that?” Not always.) We spend the bulk of our time in creative detective mode, sifting through evidence and clues until we find the thing that will help set us apart.

Funny is good. But smart and funny is so much better.

US UNWIRED

How many times have you seen a commercial, laughed out loud, gone to work the next day and talked about it with a bunch of colleagues and no one can recall who the client was? Some of those spots even win awards, although the trophy should rightfully be a donkey. Because we are not paid to be entertainers. We are paid to be persuaders. And you can only hope to persuade people if they remember who you are.

US Unwired

US UNwired wanted to showcase the longer battery life of their new digital phones. We went through several potential scenarios which would help demonstrate that feature. Where did we end up? In a sweaty elevator. With a bomb.

Delta Blues Museum

The blues is among the most important and uniquely American contributions to world culture. And the Mississippi delta is where it was born. We made a pilgrimage to the Delta Blues Museum and were inspired to create a campaign on their behalf. It struck a chord with the blues community and helped create needed exposure for this humble but seminal institution, and helped dramatically increase both visitors and donations.

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Headline: "You can hear the human heart through a stethoscope. But sometimes, you can hear it much more clearly though a miscrophone."

Devil’s Music

Delta Blues Museum

To achieve guitar mastery, Robert Johnson is said to have met the devil at the crossroads of Highways 61 and 49 in Clarksdale, MS and made a Faustian bargain with his soul. We settled for meeting the curator of the Delta Blues Museum. Worked out just fine for us. Finding the soul of a brand is a big part of what we do. In the case of the Delta Blues Museum, however, it was less a matter of finding the soul than of raising it up.

Most of us own porsches

F.A. Porsche

Porsche is synonymous with sex appeal, mystique and engineering, whether it’s sitting in your garage or in your kitchen. Although the latter is slightly more attainable than the former.

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Picasso, who knew a thing or two about the creative process, said it best: “Inspiration exists. But it must find us working.” We work to cultivate an environment in which ideas can flourish. But it’s less about having a kegerator or ping pong table than it is about having an atmosphere that is 100% devoted to the quest for ideas that help move our partners’ business. Sometimes it’s fun. Sometimes it’s kind of serious. But when it’s successful, it’s always a thrill.

Delta Blues Museum

Our second campaign for the Delta Blues Museum. If you’ve ever been to the Mississippi Delta, you begin to understand how it gave birth to the blues. No place on earth feels like it, or looks like it for that matter. It’s possible to round a corner and find yourself wondering what year it is exactly. It could be 1952 just as easily the year on your desktop calendar. Our friend and photographer extraordinaire, Ben Fink, shot a series of stark photos that captured the peculiarity of the Mississippi bottomland out of which the blues emerged. We just had to write copy that lived up to them.

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Headline: "Welcome to the land where Charlie Patton, Son House, Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters were born. And will never die."

it could happen

first NBC

When it comes to personal finance, many of us are in utter denial. We believe things like a secure future will somehow miraculously fall into place. If nothing else, luck will save us. That insight led us to an award-winning campaign for First NBC.

persistence of vision

National Peanut Board

Most professionals can knock out a decent ad every once in a while. But true expertise is knocking out terrific work, challenge after challenge, and campaign after campaign. Here’s some work for the National Peanut Board, all of it not only award-winning, but business building as well. Since we started working with NPB in 2000, sales of peanuts and peanut butter have increased 102%.

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Our first campaign for the National Peanut Board. The beginning of a conversation with consumers.

About

Staff Gallery

Bob Coyle

Steve Saari

Bob Coyle

Managing Director

Steve Saari

Creative Director