Congratulations to Jamie Orillion - winner of our blog contest and Faith. Love. Rock poster!!!
Thanks to everyone who participated!
June 21, 2010
June 16, 2010
Celebration
I’ve been told that I do not take the time to stop and celebrate enough. This seems to be a common trait among entrepreneurs — the inability to stop and really enjoy an accomplishment before quickly going to the next item on their “to do” list. I’m trying to improve. I am trying to stop and smell the roses more often.
While I do not always stop and relish career accomplishments, my kids know that “mom likes to make memories.” I strongly believe that it is important to create memories, because in the end, memories are the only thing we take with us through life and the most important thing that we leave behind when we die. So I try to plan vacations, family events and celebrations with those I love to create traditions and memories that will hopefully last long after I am gone.
Cathi, Sara and I have been building this business together since 1997. I have come to love them as sisters. I love their children and they love mine. Together we have six daughters and one son (mine, Jacob, who is grown and living in South Africa). The year we began BBR Creative, my daughter Jamie, began kindergarten. I think about how far she’s come, how much she’s learned and grown since that time. It’s miraculous to watch a little person grow into a mature, thoughtful, intelligent, independent young woman. Last Friday, Jamie graduated from high school. She is my youngest child and will soon be leaving for LSU. A milestone in her life as well as mine.
Above: Jamie Hebert happy with her gift of pearls.
Sara, Cathi and I began a tradition three years ago, when Sara’s oldest daughter, Rebecca graduated from high school. BBR honors the graduate with the gift of a piece of jewelry and invite all of the daughters to come together for a special dinner to celebrate. Rebecca graduated in 2008 and is studying nursing at UL, Lauren graduated in 2009 and is studying English at UL and Jamie is planning to attend LSU in the fall and is majoring in Public Relations. Sara’s teenage daughter, Catherine is on the debate team and keeps us laughing with her witty quips. Cathi’s youngest Annabelle creates art during dinner and forgets to eat and beautiful Lily is athletic, an honor student, demure and lovely – the epitome of a young lady. During these dinners, we laugh and toast and talk about hopes, dreams, plans and futures. The younger girls look up to the older girls and admire them. The older girls like the attention and special treatment. And we all feel good together – like we are part of a sisterhood or sorority. We relish in our womanhood — no matter our age. We share our love and celebrate life.
Above: Rebecca Ashy and Jamie Hebert
Above: Lily, Annabelle and Cathi Pavy
Above: Sara, Lauren and Catherine Ashy
The theme of celebration and tradition will be continuing well into next week, when we celebrate BBR’s 13th birthday with another group of people we love – our staff! We are closing the office early and all going to Karla Meche’s house for a pool party. We are going to put aside our deadlines for one afternoon and unwind, relax, play some pool volleyball and have fun together.
In keeping with the nature of our business, we’re busy creating….only this time it’s memories.
June 15, 2010
Check Out Our Store & Win Something FREE!
BBR has officially launched its online store! And we can think of no better way to kick things off than with a cool giveaway. That’s right! BBR is giving you a chance to win something FREE. All you have to do is check out our store, then leave a comment on this blog telling us what you liked best. That’s pretty much it!
If you want to up your chances at winning, there are a few ways to earn bonus entries — just be sure to leave a separate comment for each entry:
• Facebook “like” us — or remind us that you already like us.
• Tweet about #BBR and link to our online store. You can do this daily!
• And finally, if you really love us, blog about us and link to our giveaway
This giveaway will end on Friday, June 18, 2010. Winner will be selected via random.org.
BBR store, BBR Facebook and BBR Twitter.
Here are a few examples of items in our store:
June 1, 2010
Using Facebook as an Advertising Medium
Before we begin, here are a few facts about Facebook:
• More than 400 million active users
• 50% of active users log on to Facebook in any given day
• Average user has 130 friends
• People spend over 500 billion minutes per month on Facebook
• There are over 160 million objects that people interact with (pages, groups and events)
• Average user is connected to 60 pages, groups and events
• Average user creates 70 pieces of content each month
• More than 25 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.) shared each month.
• Women age 55 and up are the fastest growing demographic on Facebook.
[Source: Facebook]
Wow. That’s what I think when I read those statistics. Facebook is the perfect new medium to add to a media buyer’s repertoire. It allows the advertiser to narrow down its target audience geographically, by gender, age and even interest.
What does this mean to the advertiser? It eliminates uncertainty with regard to your advertising dollars by allowing you total control of who and where your message is being received and for what time frame. You set the parameters, you set the run dates, you even set the daily budget you would like to spend and decide if you want that budget to be determined by impressions or click-throughs.
Facebook provides you with a detailed reporting of how your ads are progressing, which means you can keep track of your success. It also allows you to change your parameters during your run if you notice that you are not receiving as many impressions or click-throughs as you would deem appropriate. How does this happen?
Here are some of the things you need to be aware of — if you narrow the field down too small with likes and dislikes in your selection of your target audience, you could end up with too small of an audience. Fortunately, Facebook gives you the estimated reach on the right side of the screen as they relate to your selections. So you can know upfront how large your target audience is before beginning your campaign. Be aware of this in order to be more successful in your marketing efforts.
There are many advantages to advertising with Facebook, but the one downfall I have encountered is that the ad layouts are all identical without the option to place a creative ad that corresponds with a business’ other marketing efforts. There are no options; it is a 25-character headline, a small photo and then a 135-character body copy. Hopefully, Facebook will address this issue soon and then the marketing option of Facebook will be limitless.
May 28, 2010
Does BP Make the Grade?
It is hard to ignore the unprecedented oil spill affecting our coast at this moment. Whether you tune into the mainstream media or log onto a social media website like Facebook, it is not that uncommon to see or hear Louisianans expressing their — ahem — “distaste” for the public face of this disaster: British Petroleum.
What I, or you, feel about BP in particular (or the oil and gas industry in general) is not of any importance to this non-soapbox blog post. I have instead compiled a few opinions stated by PR professionals, media outlets and others on BP’s and others’ reactions to the spill. Notice the days these posts were made; over the semester, BP’s grade has sunk.
1) “BP, Toyota flunk damage control” - A fair assessment by Allison Linn of msnbc.com
2) A YouTube video of TJ Walker giving BP an F-
3) Patrick Kinney talks to NPR about the lost “Golden Hours” of the response
4) An interesting warning and Twitter Tracker of BP before and after the spill by Kathy Gill in the Moderate Voice Blog.
5) “Obama’s Katrina?” - Business Week article by Julianna Goldman
6) Finally, an article about how what marketers create today… might bite you later
If you want to know how I have graded BP, e-mail me. After all, a good PR professional likes to keep some of the news embargoed for later!
May 13, 2010
TV Spot Demands Pause, Not Fast-Forward
As a self-proclaimed TV junkie, you would think that I would lovingly embrace every pixel that finds its way to my screen. Not so. As soon as a commercial comes on, I’m flipping the channels to find something else to watch. But there is one exception —that’s the commercial for the 2011 Kia Sorento. I literally start dancing every time I see or hear this commercial. If you haven’t seen it or have no idea what I’m talking about, check it out:
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