We’re on a Mission to Paint the Town RED

For Fall 2011, Grey Matter is proud to be working with the Chicago chapter of the American Red Cross, assisting with marketing the organization’s Mission: Red Experience Auction. Please forgive this pitch of a blog post. But it’s a pitch to ask for your assistance in helping an organization that does so much to help the residents of Chicago and our surrounding communities.

Bid on Some Seriously Unique Items

As an agency, we’re very involved in our community and strongly embrace the concept of “giving back.” As a benefactor, the Chicago Chapter of the Red Cross couldn’t be a more deserving group. Mission: Red for 2011 is an experiential event where attendees will have the chance to bid on a serious collection of unique experience packages that truly offer and experience that money can’t normally buy. And, that’s no verbal cliche. Or editorial understatement.

While we can’t reveal the details about this year’s unique auction packages, rest-assured that attendees of the 2011 event, and auction winners, won’t leave disappointed. There are experience packages on the list that we guarantee will not be found anywhere else but at Mission: Red.

Tickets are Still Available

To make sure you have a chance to bid on the package list, make sure you’re on the guest list. Purchase tickets today for this event. Mission: Red for 2011 will be held Friday, September 16th at the Hard Rock Hotel, 230 North Michigan Avenue, Chicago. Tickets are available now and can be purchased up until the day of the event. Don’t miss this chance at an experience of a lifetime.

Helping Chicago and Surrounding Communities

Proceeds from Mission: Red are used by the Red Cross to help Chicagoans live better, healthier and safer lives. More than 9.6 million people throughout northeastern Illinois and northwest Indiana are served by the Chicago chapter. And during these times, the Red Cross and the communities it serves need your help more than ever.

Check out Mission: Red on Facebook, or at the Chicago Red Cross. Buy tickets here.

Everyone at Grey Matter thanks you in advance for your support.

Talking Anatomy Draws Little Attention

Under fire from critics, Summer’s Eve yanked a series of ad spots by Dallas creative shop The Richards Group from the company’s recent “Hail to the V” campaign. Criticism primarily centered around some allegedly racially stereotyped voice over work of talking hand puppets that represent three different women’s vaginas. The critics, however, didn’t seem to express any issues with the concept of talking vaginas. Go figure…

Stick with Your Gut

Considering the current state of Top 40 music — rap and pop included — and the often deplorable depiction of minorities in television and movies, we’d rather the brand have stuck by their guns and let these examples of refreshing (no pun intended) creativity reign.

Summer’s Eve’s talking vagina has no balls.

Zombie Tortures Viewers in New Spot

We congratulate Woolite, and parent company Reckitt Benckiser, for this much bally-hooed television spot directed by heavy metal musician and horror-movie genius Rob Zombie. The fact that a brand as generally conservative as Woolite was willing to step outside its normal comfort zone, is true inspiration to all we do as creatives. Great work all around.

Are We Crazy, or What?

Recently, the subject of whether or not to offer prospective client’s a no-cost social media audit was posed by our new business team. There was heated debate on both sides of the fence. The prevailing concern was why would we offer something so valuable to prospective clients when they weren’t even an actual client?

As you might imagine, this generated a variety of other questions. But when everything was hashed out, we decided that offering such a service would be an interesting way to illustrate our commitment to social media while also providing a much needed service that clearly exhibits our approach to marketing. So, we are doing just that.

Create a Wishlist

We first began with a Wishlist. Every member of our staff identified a group of organizations — some large, some small — that we would like to work with. While not an entirely new approach, we added the offer to conduct a full-blown Social Media audit of current campaigns for these Wishlist clients. The response was overwhelming.

Overwhelming Response

To date, we’ve conducted valuable Social Media audits for 66% of the clients to which the program was offered. And we’ve found some interesting things. Primarily, that most small to medium businesses that we’ve contacted are not effectively using the social media tools available to them, resulting in less than effective campaigns.

Social Media is Here to Stay

If your organization is confused by social media, doesn’t know how to use it, or just wants it to go away, think again. Give us a call and we’ll walk you through a process that works for you. Whether that be the development of an overall plan for your internal resources to implement, or our complete monitoring and management of your social media communities.

If you would like to add your group to our Wishlist and have us conduct a no-cost Social Media Audit of your activities, leave a comment and we’ll be in touch.