How to Make the Complicated Simple.

Design > Brochures

Every client is different, and every marketing problem is different. But sometimes (although rarely) you don’t have to reinvent the wheel all over again. If something works, heck, keep it! I already had a brochure-making system that worked and I already made a bookshure (I really need a better name) for VersaMe’s Starling Partners program. It was a cool idea that worked great, so we kept all the physical formatting (same size, dimensions, heavy cover and nice page weight) for the next project. Besides, if you have to do multiple brochures for a company, you might as well build a library that looks uniform and tight when they’re all together.

FINAL: The name and logo I created for VersaMe’s platform came directly from how it worked. Also, Spoke’s not a bad name for a company that’s all about verbal communication, right?

The Starling was VersaMe’s early-education wearable. You can read all the deets here, but in short, The Starling was based on a super advanced platform that VersaMe created called Spoke ( I named it that based on the eventual infographics). The Starling logged data about an infant’s early-developmental progress and sent it to Spoke. Spoke would process that data and send it (along with recommended action items) to the parent and any parent-approved care givers. For consumers, the data usually just went to parents, grandparents or a nanny. But if parents wanted, they might also include their pediatrician. If an infant is a little short on direct verbal communication, their parents and the pediatrician would recognize that and, at the regular visit, they could figure out ways to improve that outcome together. Think of it like an educational thermometer that parents could share with their pediatrician.

Anyway, that’s it’s simplest version of how VersaMe’s Spoke platform works. Spoke was developed to sustain the maximum amount of early development team building. Unlike so many of today’s algorithms, this one wasn’t built to exploit user data to deliver relevant advertising. Spoke was built to deliver relevant, actionable educational opportunities to a team of caregivers in the development network the parents created, in order to meet their child’s specific needs. Cool, right? And that’s what this brochure had to explain to an audience that wouldn’t want to get into the coding weeds about exactly how that was even possible. Investors, partners, etc. just wanted to know the basics of how Spoke worked and what its potential was. 

And I made up everything you just read. Sort of. Mostly. Look, although Spoke’s functionality was clear for the founders and developers (so they could build it), no one ever really defined it in a way regular people would understand. Even though I’d made a name for myself making complex stuff simple, I was lucky to have the capable help of VersaMe’s Product Manager, Susan Tahir. Together we defined, named, branded, iconically mapped, invented creative uses for, and I can safely say, improved the complicated process that made this Spoke so valuable.

So for the brochure (and this didn’t have to be a brochook): same company; different audience; different product; slightly different look. This had to convey all the existing brand attributes, but send a different message – we were confident, smart, sophisticated, and had created a (truly) amazing platform.

INFOGRAPHICS: I really enjoyed designing the graphics showing how Spoke worked for different users. It’s was crazy complicated and I got it boiled down to an easy-to-follow, step by step guide.

I kept with my favorite system of solving one problem per spread, but this was so targeted, that I didn’t need to go overboard on the eye-candy and repetition. Here’s how this one broke down:

Cover: Sexy and High-Tech.

Spread 1: What we’re doing is a big fucking deal

Spread 2: Look, here’s why it’s amazing for everyone...

Spread 3: ...and here’s how it changes everything

Spread 4: Here’s exactly how it could be used to do this...

Spread 5: ...and this

Spread 6: You’re already behind in this emerging, proven technology

And we’re out. If you’ve seen the other VersaMe stuffs I did (the Partner Brochure, or the videos, or even the packaging) this a similar example of taking existing materials and jerking the message into new territory without having to recreate everything.

DAVE SOPP – Creative

Yep, that’s me. I’ve got over 20 years of marketing strategy, graphic design, advertising art direction, and illustration experience. Want to use some of it? Email me at dave@davesopp.com

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How to Not Make a Brochure a Brochure.

Design > Brochures

I was recently in a meeting with a CEO who was newly hired by a long time client (not VersaMe). He didn’t have the history on what lousy shape the marketing had been in before I started helping to pull it together. He mentioned his desire to increase B2B sales and I told him we’d recently finished a brochure for just that purpose. The CMO handed it over to him, and he leaned back and flipped through the brochure for nearly 2 seconds before he tossed it on his desk and said, “Well, this is table stakes.”

FINAL: The cover of the brochure that wasn’t really a brochure. Or was it? < Insert evil laugh here >

FINAL: Probably the most important spread in the brochook. Publishing information! So important-looking! :-)

I bring this up, not because it was kind of a shitty thing to do and say, but because it says a lot about what a brochure has to do. First, let me say that about a month before his arrival at the company, an old brochure (from before my time) existed. It was missing the logo on the cover. Actually it wasn’t missing, but the logo was the printed in the same color as its background color. So the tag line was visible in white and you could juuuussst barely see the logo if the light was shining on it just right. That CEO was actually lucky to even have table stakes to look at. Hahaha. But to my point – even though he didn’t look at the thing from the perspective of the reader it was designed for, which you should ALWAYS do no matter what C-level you are, he DID give just about the right amount of attention to it.

No one wants to read your brochure. Sorry, they don’t and they won’t. Not all of it, at least. That’s why you’d actually laugh out loud if you read all of a brochure I’ve designed and written. Look, every spread has got to solve one problem. Not page, SPREAD. But you can’t do it all at once, like in one big piece of copy. You’ve gotta boil down the point you want to make to its shortest, most effective form, and then repeat it on the same spread in different forms - pull quotes, diagrams, testimonials, icons, photos, captions. So that no matter what catches their eye as they flip through like that CEO did, something important will stick with them whether they like it or not (or even know it, or not).

FINAL: The first real spread is all about authority. This book is factual and the information comes from big places and important professionals.

All this being said, at VersaMe, we created a really quality piece as a leave-behind/mailer for our new Starling Partners Program. Our audience was libraries, pediatricians, speech language pathologists, pre-schools (public and private), teachers, and non-profit organizations. These people, who already knew the importance of early-education, were seeking out emerging technology that could: help their missions; keep them relevant; and in some cases, keep them well funded. This brochure assignment turned out to be my favorite ever because I decided I wasn’t going to make a brochure at all. Instead, I wrote a BOOK about the problems the reader faced. And midway (SPOILER ALERT), the Starling would appear as a fantastic example of what was available to solve those problems.

Because VersaMe were experts on early-education (true), and what we had to say in here was important (also true), we had to make this brochure (bookchure? brochook?) look important. That’s why I wrote it in a sort of third-persony way and even added publishing info to the title page (sometimes it’s the littlest things that do the most work for you).

FINAL: Second spread is empathetic. We know your struggle is real.

FINAL: AH! Third spread and we final get to the Starling. But still talking about it as if we had nothing to do with it until the second sentence of the copy.

As a side-note, VersaMe had always wrestled with a minor identity crisis. They had only one SKU, the Starling, so did they really need the VersaMe name? Was it confusing? Should they just call the company Starling? It didn’t make since to have an umbrella company until you’ve got more kids to put under the umbrella. Still, always plan for success. Who knows when those new products would come (turns out not very long, after all). So in this case, using VersaMe as the author and publisher of this book, and Starling as the example solution late in the story, actually helped define the company/product name hierarchy for us. And it was just good theater.

Anyway, here’s how I broke down the spreads before designing it:

Cover: Looks like a book from a research company. I see someone who looks like me and what’s that cool star thing?

Spread 1: This information we’re giving you is as legit as these researchers, respected people, and institutions.

Spread 2: Your job is super hard, we get it.

Spread 3: There’s a thing called the Starling that will seem like a miracle to you.

Spread 4: The data you could get from something like the Starling could finally prove what you do is effective.

Spread 5: Organizations are already using this Starling thing.

Spread 6: Something as helpful as the Starling is easy to set up.

Spread 7: Look at these smart smarties who are helping your peers.

Spread 8: This is all it takes to solve your problem. Not scary or complicated at all.

FINAL: Reading left to right, spreads 4-8

And there you go. I mentioned above that no one wants to read a brochure. But people like reading books. Even thin-ish, square paperback books that give the right reader true, helpful information that they’re interested in, delivered in a way that welcomes them to learn about a very real solution to the problems they have while trying to help their communities to raise their children right.

Remember that dismissive CEO from before? It wasn’t two minutes after he tossed my brochure on the table before he snapped it back up and flipped straight to the spread touting  friendly, knowledgeable professionals. Pointing to the feature photo of his IT Manager, he asked, “How’d you get him to smile? I’ve never seen a head of IT look that happy.”

Boom.

DAVE SOPP – Creative

Yep, that’s me. I’ve got over 20 years of marketing strategy, graphic design, advertising art direction, and illustration experience. Want to use some of it? Email me at dave@davesopp.com

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How to Market a Product No One’s Seen Before That Solves a Problem No One Knows About.

Strategy > Branding

OMG the world needs this early-development technology. I’m dead serious. But even though this revolutionary wearable looks simple, how it works is actually pretty complicated. And did I mention the results aren’t immediate? (Just wait, I’ll get there). But one thing is absolutely clear – the result of using this technology means your child will get a substantial educational head-start over his or her peers. That head-start begins in infancy, and keeps distancing your child ahead of others for life.

PRODUCT: This is the Starling. So tiny, so cute, so powerful.

FINAL: One of the first things I made at Versame – a 6”x9” two-sided handout for parents touting the Starling’s benefits.

The great advantage of doing what I do at this point in my career is being able to choose the projects I work on, and the people I work with. I really liked the people at VersaMe before I even knew about the product. Chris and Jon, two of the company’s founders, contacted Kelly and I out of the blue. They had left Silicon Valley like we did, and now lived just a couple of towns down the I77, in Huntersville. They explained that they were fans of our parenting board book, Safe Baby Handling Tips. In fact, the bit about Playing with Baby was one of the early slides in their investor pitch for a startup they were launching with a third partner, Nicki “The Money” Boyd (the nickname I gave her). Nicki controlled the finances and managed the development team back in Redwood City, while the rest of the team worked out here in NC.

BEFORE AND AFTER: The original packaging on the left didn’t communicate the product or it’s value. My redesign on the right led with the value proposition and steadily unfolded the whole story in easy-to-digest snippets.

Kelly and I met Jon and Chris for coffee and they explained what they were making. They had a passion for early education and learning (it ran in their family). They knew that the education system was not only broken, but historically broken and getting worse. From studying years of scientific research they concluded the only way to nip the problem was, literally, in the bud. They sought to jump-start the learning process as early (and as correctly) as possible. This was the problem they worked on at Stanford and they already went through a successful round of funding. The hardware and development infrastructure was built, and they were about to launch on Kickstarter. The three had a lot of the planning done (and it was good) but they asked us on to help them out with tightening up the branding and early messaging. That’s when we learned all about the Starling.

The Starling was a beautifully designed, high-tech wearable for children 0-4 years old. When you clipped it to your child’s clothes, the Starling would count every word spoken to your baby throughout the day. It did this in virtual real-time, without recording, and sent the data to your phone with beautiful graphics telling you how many words your child heard that hour, that day, that month, that year. It let you set word count goals to challenge you every day. Anticipating how hard it can be to carry on a one-sided conversation (Chris and Jon were also parents), the app gave you fun daily prompts to help you keep talking to your baby at every occasion - in the car, during your afternoon run with the jog stroller, at bedtime, etc. Feeling competitive? There was even a leader board that you could use to see how much quality engagement you gave your child compared to other Starling parents. Amazing, right?

I bet I can guess what you’re thinking right now. “Why?”

Why all this technology to talk to a newborn? It’s not like I’m NOT going to say anything to my baby, so why all the extreme fuss? You’re not wrong to think that. But here’s a big fact – the more words you say to a child from 0-4 years old, the more likely they are to reach their full potential. And the “to” is super important. You can’t just talk “at” your child, like over your shoulder while you’re doing the dishes. No, doing that doesn’t work the same way. Think reading, with the child on your lap. Or telling a story while making lots of eye contact. There you go, that’s the right stuff. It’s about engagement. Feed a child’s brain enough words like this and soon you’ll find yourself with an early talker. Then while other babies are still learning to talk, yours is busy learning to read. Get it? And while other people’s kids are learning to read picture books, yours is reading chapter books. This goes on for their whole life!

FINAL: For professionals who already understood the importance of verbal communication, I created this “bookshure” to introduce them to a powerful new tool – the Starling.

But understand this – doing all this talking with engagement doesn’t mean every child can grow up to be Einstein. It’s all about maximizing your child’s genetic (not economic) potential. If it’s only within a child’s genetic capacity to be average smart, they’ll get there faster and stay there for life. This can make a huge difference to a child’s quality of life, considering where they could end up without the benefit of this help. And I can’t stress this enough – I’m talking about  ALL children. Not just poor children. Or special needs children. ALL CHILDREN. (If you’re a parent reading this, please note your feelings right now. I’ll get to them later). 

Finally, dear reader, here lies the rub. Look how long it took me to explain the Starling to you and the problem it solves. My expertise in working with clients in San Francisco was taking really complicated concepts and making them dead simple for a consumer (best example here). I worked on the Starling for two years and what you read above is the shortest I think I’ve ever gotten the complete pitch. So as a marketer, here are your options:

1. Explain how The Starling works, and then explain why it solves an early-education problem you didn’t know existed

2. Explain how you need to talk to your baby as much as possible from 0-4 years old, and then explain what the Starling is and how it could help you do that

You can’t do one (explain the Starling) without the other (how early development works). 

The three founders had become early-childhood experts, for real. And their research scientist, librarian, pediatrician, speech language pathologist, mentors and partners were all in touch on the regular, keeping tabs on the Starling’s progress and correcting messaging when necessary so that everything stayed absolutely factual. We needed to look like experts, but not scientists. The messaging had to be intriguing, inviting and fun – but not misleading or fantastical.

FINAL: A one-sheet for interested schools to get a little more detail on how the Starling can help their mission.

The Kickstarter launch was a success in that it did what we needed – raise as much awareness as cash. (As I said, VersaMe was already funded by an investment group). Our mailing list blossomed. Sales started coming in. But that’s when the real work began.

I’ve worked on big tech in San Francisco. A lot. Sun Microsystems, Borland, Sybase, Veritas, Dell, Adobe, blah blah blah. That’s not including all the dot coms. I was there for the first big boom, and the first big bust, working freelance for almost every agency in the City. Startups are different. It’s EXACTLY like in the show “Silicon Valley” (the first season, anyway). It’s crazy and confusing and exciting and hilarious and scary and frustrating and fun as hell. You’ll NEVER pack more work into a shorter span of time than when you work for a startup. Because even though we were focused on who we were, and which audience we were talking to, we were saying it all - in every conceivable way. And we had practically no budget to do it with. Even though there was $10M in seed money, you gotta watch like a hawk how you spend it (right, Nicki?). Because it’s only going to last so long. So we were begging, borrowing, and stealing while testing the messaging multiple time a day, every day, everywhere. And once we saw progress in any direction we’d run after it full speed.

There’s no way I can ever tell you everything we did. It was so much! But one of the first things  was to use everything that inspired the creation of the Starling to build a giant online resource center for new parents, filled with published studies that prove the benefits of direct, verbal communication. Then we published articles and how-to’s on our blog everyday giving tips on how (and why) to maximize your baby-talking skills. Our newsletters were going out weekly to new parents, filled with communication tips and info on developmental milestones. I found out that the founders had invested in a HUGE AdWords ad buy that included a lot of YouTube videos. I had two weeks to deliver finished product and there was nothing in the works. We set up tents in shopping malls and Nicki and I did the ABC show in Vegas (to have a meeting with Barnes & Noble, who said no, then inexplicably sent us a huge order two weeks later). We got into a hipster tech showroom in Silicon Valley. I totally redesigned the packaging. I made an online school for new parents. We developed a custom Reading App that you could use with the Starling. We hired influencers on social media. We created a mobile app game based on the Starling. We brought on a respected social media agency to give it a go. We. Tried. Everything.

WORK: And lots of it! This is probably about 2% of the things we did to position, explain, and sell the Starling. Clockwise from top left: Dumbing it down, we created multitudes of info-loaded landing online campaigns and landing pages, we created and ran an online school, we sent the founders to present at indie book stores, parenting groups, schools and libraries. I made a Starling Honors program for little students, we made an educational mobile game, we tried multitudes of simple online campaigns and landing pages, we gave away free information (so much free information), we changed the whole website, we started marketing the platform the Starling was built on, and we developed ridiculously complex email newsletters and campaigns.

Nothing worked. At least, not on the level we wanted it to. It was just too much for people to wrap their heads around. Most thought it was a great product...for terrible parents. And of course, THEY were all excellent parents. There’s actually a study that exists which found 90% of parents thought they were parenting in the 5th percentile of awesome parents. Which, of course, is mathematically impossible. So we pivoted to focus on Starling Partners – schools (public and private), libraries, speech pathologists, pediatrician clinics, non-profit organizations. Frankly, any group that already understood the importance of early learning. Most ended up being too outright dysfunctional, painfully slow to act, or too strapped for funds to make a difference to our bottom line. Our biggest success came from developing a program for libraries to loan Starlings out to patrons. We got ourselves into a lot of libraries but not enough, and not fast enough. In the end we had to stop. There was nothing left to try. This amazing technology is now in the hands of the scientific researchers who inspired it. They’re using it to further understand how we can make our children better, smarter, happier people. I’m 100,000% sure that someday you’ll see this product (or something like it) make a huge consumer splash in the future. Sometimes a good idea doesn’t make it simply because of something that no one can foresee or control  – timing.

DAVE SOPP – Creative

Yep, that’s me. I’ve got over 20 years of marketing strategy, graphic design, advertising art direction, and illustration experience. Want to use some of it? Email me at dave@davesopp.com

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How to Create a Private, Free Club That People Will Cheat to Join.

Strategy > Special Programs

We’d branded Downtown Mooresville and things were working pretty well. Their event schedule (Art Walks, Live Music, etc.) was bonkers (so many) and they kept people streaming Downtown, but shop traffic was still lagging. People liked the events, but didn’t really feel like exploring. We had to figure out a way to pull them into the shops, if not to buy, to at least bookmark Downtown for the next time they needed something. We also needed a way to figure out how many people were using Downtown on the steady already. Are the people at these events from across town? Are they from nearer by?

If you’ve heard me say this in another post, sorry (not sorry). It’s how I tackle assignments and I don’t think I can say it enough - When you try and solve a marketing problem, consider all the other problems around it. Focus, but stay open minded. Solve the problem at hand and then step back and ask, “Can this solution also help solve any of these other problems over here?”. If it can’t, well, maybe that ain’t the solution. I find more often than not, it can. People called the Downtownie Program a loyalty program, but it was much more than that.

FINAL: You’re entry point to become an official, card-carrying member of Downtown Mooresville – a Downtownie!

The best way to describe it is by how you’d experience it as a consumer. Say you’re at the Festival of Food Trucks. You’re waiting for your artisan grilled cheese sandwich when a nice lady in a bright orange Downtown t-shirt gives you a Downtown Passport. She tells you that when you fill in all 20 sticker spots in the Passport and mail it in, you’ll become a card-carrying, lifetime member of Downtown Mooresville – a Downtownie! You’ll get unique, special discounts whenever you show your Downtownie Card in participating businesses Downtown. It’s all free. Next time you’re in a business Downtown, just ask for a sticker. The nice lady then gives you a sticker to start you off. It’s got a little flag on it, signifying an event.

FINAL: Inside your Downtown Passport.

You finish your grilled cheese sammy and notice you’re in front of a big frame shop/art gallery. You see the Downtownie sticker on the door and walk in. You’re looking around when someone asks if they can help you. You say you’re fine, but can you get a Downtownie sticker for your Passport? The sticker they give you has a little shopping bag on it.

Before you leave that event you have 5 stickers - a flag, three shopping bags, and the fork and knife sticker you got in that little craft beer place (Restaurant). It was fun and you’re halfway done. Next time you’re Downtown you notice that virtually all the shops have Downtownie stickers in their window. You stop for lunch and see that there are other people getting stickers and the waitresses are handing out Passports with each bill. Before you know it, all your sticker spots are filled so you write in your info and mail it off to the Downtown Commission.

A week later you get a letter from Downtown Mooresville. There’s a personal letter from the Executive Director of the Mooresville Downtown Commission and a hot tip - the steakhouse is treating Downtownie diners with a free bag of their house coffee this week. Oh, and they gave you a window sticker for your car so you can flout your love of Downtown and identify your fellow Downtownies all over town.

FINAL: Your Downtownie card finally arrives!

You start using your Downtownie card, and find it’s sort of like a treasure hunt. The breakfast spot is giving Downtownie’s 15% off their famous Eggs Benedict. The sushi place is giving Downtownies a free Edamame appetizer. Even the insurance place is offering something special, even if it’s just a lollipop. All the merchants are in charge of their own Downtownie specials so some keep their offers the same all the time and some switch it up every season, month or week. You know who’s doing what each month when you get the Downtownie email newsletters that spotlight events and specials going on. Every Downtownie card was numbered too, and you read in the email that the shoe store picks a random number every week to win a free pair of socks. You ask yourself why it took you so long to discover Downtown Mooresville.

FINAL: Window clings Downtown tell you who’s celebrating Downtownies, while car decals help visitors show their love of Downtown Mooresville.

Easy, right? Wrong. Any Downtown director will tell you (with a small tear welling up in their eye) – getting merchants on the same page is akin to herding bi-polar tigers on crystal meth. It took a LOT of presentations, to both groups and one-on-one, in order to get everyone on board. And then it took even more hands-on education to get them all (and their staff) to use the system in their shops. But once it was going, it got going fast. My favorite part was when a restaurant owner came to me, really upset, and said he saw some people cheating by asking for extra stickers. He was so mad. But I laughed and told him, look, if people are willing to cheat at this free game by getting free stickers to join your free secret club, stop worrying. It means it’s working!

So what were all the problems this program solved?

• we found a way to get people to sample different shops when they were Downtown

• when the sticker books came back, we knew how many people really enjoyed being Downtown, who they were, where they lived, and what their email address was

• by the type of stickers in the completed Passports, we could see what they liked doing most Downtown - shopping, dining, events, services

• we knew what their favorite thing was Downtown, and what they wished was Downtown

• by keeping track when restocking merchants with stickers, we knew who was pushing the program the hardest and who wasn’t

• merchants felt like a cohesive unit for once because they all had something they could rally behind that didn’t take much effort

• for all you Downtown Directors out there, this is the best part. The Downtown Commission finally had visitor data they could use to get more funding from the town

You might say, jeez, why didn’t you just make an app? It’s a good point, but it wasn’t realistic for this client’s budget or the tech sophistication an app requires. And I guess that’s another good point to make. If a client cant afford a smart idea because it’s too fancy, complicated, or expensive, then give them the smart idea in a way they can use it. People forget, that’s a good chunk of what being a good creative is.

DAVE SOPP – Creative

Yep, that’s me. I’ve got over 20 years of marketing strategy, graphic design, advertising art direction, and illustration experience. Want to use some of it? Email me at dave@davesopp.com

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How to Make a Brochure About Something That Doesn't Exist Yet.

Design > Brochures

Downtown had a brochure before I started working with them. In fact, they had too many brochures! Hahaha. There was one they had made, the Mooresville Historic Preservation Commission (HPC) made one also (without asking, even), and I think the local newspaper made their own for some reason. So when we finished all the strategy and identity stuff, I sat down to straighten all that out. Gotta say, it wasn’t like the HPC didn’t have any business in promoting Downtown. There was plenty of history to talk about Downtown. In fact, I even ended up using some of their stuff (I’d later become the Chairman of the HPC). It’s just that everyone (and everything) had to work together.

FINAL: The first brochure I did was so simple in the end. But it took a lot of work to define and visualize a Downtown Mooresville that didn’t quite exist in the way we were describing it.

BEFORE: A look at the existing situation before I got started on rebranding Downtown Mooresville. Clockwise from top left: 1. The many co-existing brochures of Downtown Mooresville. 2.-4. This is literally 90% of photography that existed of Downtown. People’s backs and empty streets. 5.-10. The real Downtown Mooresville. Lots of empty storefronts.

I mentioned before that “It’s Happening Downtown” was a big fat fib-a-roo. At least in the short term. Lots of events were planned for Downtown, but for the brochure, I couldn’t wait for them to roll into existence. I had to prove the lie immediately, while occupancy in Downtown Mooresville was at an major low. Also there were no photos in their photo bank to use. Just a few random shots of people’s backs. Man, thinking back on it, I was pretty screwed. Hahaha.

First I found myself a local photographer (the talented Jeremy Deal) via the frame shop owner on Main Street and off we went to try and hustle up some visual happenings. It was hilarious. Downtown was so D-E-A-D. And it’s not like we could go hire a bunch of models or crowds. The little girl on the cover is Jeremy’s daughter. The guy walking by the hardware store is my neighbor and eventual Mayor of Mooresville and his daughter. They happened to be passing by so we pressed them into service. The couple walking by the train depot? Friends of mine. In the end we did a pretty decent job of faking a lively (or at least sparsely populated Downtown). Take a look at that list of events. SO MANY! We really tried to segment the information as much as possible so at a skim, you got what we were gettin’ at.

FINAL: We pulled our new street banners through to the inside of the brochure, proving there were plenty of interesting businesses open for business in Downtown Mooresville. I was glad when we finally dropped the individual listings in favor of supporting Downtown as a richer, more engaging destination.

One cool thing we did was a simple map insert for the brochure. We’d heard this story from the old hardware store: when people were done shopping there, they’d ask, “Is there someplace I can grab a bite?”. They’d tell ‘em where to go, but who knows if they ever found the place. Turned out this was a common occurrence at most all the businesses. So we gave these maps to every shop Downtown and they’d circle where they were on the map, and the location of what the customer was looking for. Just like at a resort. And then those folks would leave with a helpful list of everything they could see and do and buy Downtown. Cool, right?

FINAL: We cobbled together enough for the first brochure, and eventually built our photobank up enough for a major revise. This time featuring way more images of what makes Downtown so amazing. Pictured above is the inside of the second brochure and below are some festival snaps we were able to get throughout the year.

FINAL: When I designed Downtown’s logo I designed it to live in a lot of different situations. But I hadn’t planned on it promoting weddings. I was happy that Downtown’s aggressive bold brand didn’t drown out the sweetness of this brochure’s messaging.

Eventually some of the merchants got together to form a sort of wedding conglomerate. It was such a neat idea. Each merchant had their own offerings for the newly betrothed (hair, makeup, fashion, tailoring, tuxedos, flowers, etc.) and they needed a brochure they could hand out at events they’d host. I mentioned this somewhere else, but getting merchants to work together is next to impossible, so I was super excited for them. I was also excited that they thought to even ask the Executive Director for help! Which was what anyone could do at any time (that’s why the Commission exists), but in the past everyone just went rouge and did whatever. So this was a sign they were not only listening, they were learning. Whew! It was interesting to try and soften our pretty hard-edged, railroad inspired brand to live in such a delicate wedding environment, but I think it turned out pretty well.

DAVE SOPP – Creative

Yep, that’s me. I’ve got over 20 years of marketing strategy, graphic design, advertising art direction, and illustration experience. Want to use some of it? Email me at dave@davesopp.com

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How to Design Way More Than a Loyalty Program.

Design > Logos

This little program we developed solved a whole bunch of problems for Downtown Mooresville. If you want to know the strategic nitty gritty, you can get it here, but I wanted to run though some detail on the actual pieces real quick. Downtown never had any money to spend. So aside from being strategically versatile, the production of the materials had to be super cheap.

FINAL: Logos designed for the Downtownie program. One for each of the three stages of participation.

I knew all this going into Downtown’s logo design and that’s part of why I kept it black and white to begin with. But that came in super handy for the Passport part of this program. I developed a special little passport stamp with a mark featuring the Downtown logo socked into it, and we were off. The Passport had to be cheap to print and durable enough to be carried around in someone’s purse or pocket for a while (while the user collected stickers) and to eventually survive being mailed. So, heavy chip board and one-color printing fit perfectly with the brand and gave it a throw-weight that made it hipster high-design. The stickers?  Avery label sheets (no special die cutting) and an identifying icon for each type of business you’d visit Downtown {event, shopping, food, drink, services}. Oh, and every Passport came with a half-page flyer (economical!) which explained the program to each target audience – Live It (people who lived within walking distance), and Love It (people who loved driving across town to visit).

FINAL: Our award-winning Downtownie program starts here, with a special passport that you’d fill with stickers from businesses and events in Downtown Mooresville.

FINAL: Collect all the stickers and mail your Passport in. You’ll get this fun little package from Mooresville’s Downtown Commission making you an official, card-carrying Downtownie! Complete with a nifty decal for your car.

FINAL: Teamwork makes the dream work. Literally. The back of the Downtownie card told members to look for participating shops via window signs Downtown. Getting a HUGE chunk of Downtown businesses to participate was instrumental to the Downtownie program’s success. The icing on the cake was winning an innovation award from the North Carolina Main Street Center.

The card itself was a very simple thing and I used the Downtown photo collage I built for the website to try and make it look exciting. The back was a hoot to write though. I developed separate logos for both the Downtownie car decal (which you’d receive when you got your card in the mail), and for the merchant window stickers. I wanted the systems logos to look like the kind of logos you’d see attached to a City or State welcome sign. You know what I mean, all the Kiwanis shields and stuff. Sort of official looking. The merchant window clings we did were big, too. As in LARGE. You couldn’t miss ‘em, even from the street. Hahaha. We also made some little register signs in case store employees forgot to tell customers about the program. I really do think we thought of everything.

Downtown Mooresville’s Executive Director still has every Passport that was ever mailed in to her. They’re in a big box in her terrible office (she’ll laugh when she reads that) and she always loved looking through them. There was so much to learn by how people placed their stickers and what they wrote in their passports. Even how they mailed them in was fascinating. One Passport was all but laminated with layered strips of Scotch tape. It was so personal. People really invested time in becoming Downtownies.

DAVE SOPP – Creative

Yep, that’s me. I’ve got over 20 years of marketing strategy, graphic design, advertising art direction, and illustration experience. Want to use some of it? Email me at dave@davesopp.com

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How to Fake It 'Till You Make It.

Strategy > Branding

Downtown Mooresville is a special place. Its charm (and untapped potential) lured us away from San Francisco when we were looking for better schools and a less hectic lifestyle. We took a look at Downtown, found an old home a block and a half away, moved, set up shop in the old telegraph office along Broad Street across from the old train depot, and quietly kept doing what we were doing back in The City. Only this time, with a freight train passing by and blowing its whistle every day at 1pm. It was so loud you couldn’t plan any phone calls around that time slot. It was awesome (not sarcasm). The old Downtown was only a few blocks long on Main Street, and wore charming but warehousy treasures over its shoulder along Broad Street, too. 

FINAL: The first thing we did was define Downtown Mooresville as, well, Downtown Mooresville. The final logo could easily represent Downtown’s railroad past, but also make sense with shops you’d find there (fashion, restaurants, bars, hairstylists, hardware, etc.), and event that would be held there. It had to play nice with everything you threw at it.

It’s hard to not meet people Downtown. Heck, most of them were neighbors as it turned out. One of those neighbors turned out to be Kim Atkins. She’d had successful career in the printing business and became a shop owner on Main Street. It didn’t work out. Rather than do what anyone would have done (curse Downtown and never return), she did the opposite and was elected the Executive Director of the Downtown Commission. Our boys went to the same elementary school and had become inseparable pals.

Downtown Mooresville was founded in 1873 along a rail line (yep, trains still use it!). In the 1960’s, Duke Power created the man-made Lake Norman while at the same time, the I77 was created to offer a faster way to motor to Charlotte down south, and Statesville up north. The lake was to the west of Downtown and offered about a jillion miles of lakefront property opportunity. The I77 freeway divided the town in more ways than one. Downtown was considered the poor side of Mooresville. Lake Norman (LKN) was where the money was. Hot-Cha!

BEFORE: Oh, there was clearly nothing happening Downtown when we started this project. Open shops had huge gaps of vacant, papered-over storefronts between them. That’s real bad for encouraging foot traffic and look at the mess. By code, closed businesses had to have their windows papered. So we had the idea to paper them with interesting facts about Downtown. It would pull people through to all the open shops, entertain and educate visitors, clean up the overall look of Downtown Mooresville, and cover up it’s vacancy problem. And, being black and white, it’d be affordable. So many problems solved with one easy solution!

BEFORE: The many brochures (and identities) of Downtown Mooresville, all in circulation at the same time when we started working with them.

Cut to modern times and it’s still the same. One side of Lake Norman has all the Red Robins, Super Targets, and Olive Gardens they can handle. While our side (I live in this part, remember) is a little weathered, but has all the heart and soul of what this town used to be. It didn’t help that Downtown was all but empty, lacking both shops and people. The most going concern though, was really going. Soirée was situated in a beautifully restored building in the center of Downtown and was a destination on any night of the week. The problem was, the few shops and business Downtown were never open when Soirée was pulling in the public. Worse yet, the town was so divided that (and I’m not exaggerating here), 85% of the fancy people on the Lake side didn’t even know Downtown existed!

FINAL: The first step – getting our house in order. With some selective photography we presented the Downtown we wanted people to see. All beautiful old buildings and historic charm. We dressed up Main Street with some handsome, attention-getting, hard-working street banners, nailed down our identity and made ONE exciting brochure.

Sorry. Lots of backstory, but it’s super important (especially if you’re a small town in a similar situation). Downtown was quiet, but not dead. They launched a VERY aggressive event schedule to get folks over the I77 to our side, but they didn’t really have a brand to hang it all upon. Some merchants were calling Downtown “the Dirty Mo” on their social media. Some called it “DoMo” (Downtown Mooresville). Messaging was all over the place and none of it was cohesive or sticking. So Kim asked us for ideas on what to do.

The first thing I recommended was nixing the idea of a clever name altogether. People didn’t even know there WAS an old Downtown in Mooresville. Calling it fancy things would just confuse the issue. It was Downtown Mooresville, so just let it be Downtown Mooresville. You can always make a fun nickname later. They brought us on for branding Downtown and the  next thing I did was lie through my teefs.

FINAL: Next it was time to promote Downtown as a destination. Clockwise from the left: 1. By working closely with the pubs we advertised in, we were able to create uniquely branded templates. 2. Our award-winning program to celebrate fans of Downtown Mooresville. 3. Our first piece of Downtown merch. 4. We created a photobank of amazing images that we could use to show folks what we saw in Downtown Mooresville.

Downtown was tired and mostly empty, but not dead. And with a roster of new events, we had to make it seem like there was a secret party going on over here that the Lake people weren’t privy to. In a nod to our railroad history, I designed a vintage/modern logo lockup with the tag line, It’s Happening Downtown. And that was the big lie. Sort of. It was GOING to happen, it just hadn’t actually happened yet. Operation “Fake It ‘Till You Make It” was in full effect. We started running monthly event ads in the local papers. We installed street banners, made bar coasters, put up signage at our local ballpark. We started doing spreads with an event calendar in the local magazines. We rebuilt the website. We got on social media. All the stuff you need to do before we got really creative.

FINAL: From 2009 to 2017 we’d spread the word about Downtown Mooresville. Clockwise from top left: 1. The website we designed for Downtown. 2, One of many posters we did to promote their crazy amount of fun events. 3. A magazine ad designed to introduce newcomers to Downtown. 4. One of many little quarter page newspaper ads promoting monthly events Downtown.

For example, we made calling cards for Downtown merchants and employees to hand out to other shop and restaurant owners whenever they happened to find themselves in a business they wished was Downtown. A bakery, a great Indian restaurant, that kind of thing. It said, “If you’re reading this, your business should be Downtown.” One the back was an invitation to call Kim Atkins to discuss retail opportunities. OMG, even if you weren’t looking to relocate, it sure made it look like shit was going down in Downtown Mooresville. Super buzz worthy, and it worked. Despite our launching during a recession (always fun), within a year, Charlotte was airing a live prime time news segment about Downtown’s revitalization. Finally, it really was happening Downtown. Lie turned truth.

We’d go on to make fun event posters, TV spots, and even more special little programs. Our custom-made Downtownie™ loyalty program would win an Innovation award from the State of North Carolina. Best of all, Main Street filled up. At its zenith, it reached 95% occupancy. Morning, noon, or night, people were coming to see what was Happening Downtown.

DAVE SOPP – Creative

Yep, that’s me. I’ve got over 20 years of marketing strategy, graphic design, advertising art direction, and illustration experience. Want to use some of it? Email me at dave@davesopp.com

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How to Tell a Big Story in a Small Brochure.

Design > Brochures

Brochures are fun. I go on and on about how I like to solve multiple problems with one solution, and this kind of project really gives me the legroom to do that. We had just rebranded Continuum, and they wanted to go after more of their lucrative B2B business. So the first thing I did was get some one-on-one time with the sales team. Look, if you’re creating sales collateral, you have to get the reps involved no matter what. Number one, they’re the ones out there trying to make it work. And if they’re worth their salt, they’ll give you some great insights on how to help them. Number two, if you go off and make something in a vacuum, they’ll have no ownership of the final product and your beautiful work will never leave the box the printer shipped it in.

FINAL: The cover of Continuum’s business brochure. The purpose? Convince businesses that Continuum is a not just a local option, but an unexpectedly capable partner.

Robin and Tyler were great/super helpful. The net of the net was that none of the out-of-town competitors had to do anything to prove their worth. An endless churn of sales people dropped off rate cards and the business just made itself happen. Robin and Tyler had more work to do. A lot more. They had to tell them who Continuum was, and then convince them they were up to the task of handling their business critical services. They had to make a case that having a local provider was actually a really big advantage over going with any of those out-of-town providers. So this was the task. There were two tiers we had to communicate to – small businesses (nail salons, bars, restaurants), and big enterprise accounts (manufacturing, medical offices, business parks). We were budgeted for one collateral piece, for both.

FINAL: The first spread of Continuum’s business brochure introduces them (problem number 1 – who are you people?) as a local provider doing a lot to help local businesses. Lots of eye candy tell essentially this same story over and over (and over and over).

When I do a collateral project, every spread has to solve a problem. So, the number of problems determines the length of your brochure. Every brochure project is different but I tend to tackle each one in the same way – knowing nobody wants to read your brochure. So why do ‘em? Because it’s an excellent, super versatile tool. I’ll get to that in a minute. But really, no one wants to read these things. That’s why in each spread I try to focus on the main problem briefly, then pepper each spread with lots of pullouts, tidbits, graphics, photos and captions. Sometimes all these bits are unabashedly saying the same thing – the point I want you to take away from this spread. In other words, even if you just skim this thing you’ll pick up what I’m putting down. And all of it combines to reinforce the brand as reliable and strong, local and friendly, and more than capable of handling any size job.

FINAL: Second spread, second problem – Continuum may be local, but we’ve got incredibly talented, experienced people running this place. Remember, the logo assignment for this rebrand had to shout RELIABILITY. This spread had to back it up.

FINAL: Ah, this spread is for the big boys. The enterprise business that’s going to have a LOT on the line with any provider. We had to prove we could speak their language. You want to talk about Dark Fiber, Colocation, and Ethernet Transport? Brother, we can talk about that and more all day long.

FINAL: This spread is about not just supporting all kinds of business, but also being involved in the community. Because we’re real, local people.

The fun thing about this too is that when you give it to a small business owner, they see what you’re saying to way bigger customers. It’s sort of comforting to know that, 1) this company can more than handle my business, and 2) should I realize my dreams and expand, this is a provider worth sticking with.

So back to why, if no one’s going to read this, it’s still worth doing. Well, this one piece can be used in a LOT of different ways. The printed version of this piece became a great little book on what and who this rebranded company was. For example:

• The CEO, Board of Directors, commissioners, mayors, town managers and PR folks who had to promote and defend this business could now be on the same page and speak the party line for everyone in the company and all the interested stakeholders

• The sales team could use it as a walk-through of their pitch (which it really was, thanks to their involvement)

• It’s a great quality leave behind, and as a mailing, it’s harder to throw away than, say, a giant rate card postcard. The piece says, “this is a quality piece and you’re worth having it.”

As a PDF it could be used as:

• a sales email attachment

• a free download on our website. Give us your email and we’ll tell you why your local choice is your best choice.

• a free download in a social media campaign

• a free download in a B2B html email campaign

Also, you could enlarge and print each spread to decorate the customer care office. Or hang ‘em up in the conference room. In the end, Continuum didn’t get the brochure they thought they needed. They got a lot more.

DAVE SOPP – Creative

Yep, that’s me. I’ve got over 20 years of marketing strategy, graphic design, advertising art direction, and illustration experience. Want to use some of it? Email me at dave@davesopp.com

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