What Wine Pairs Perfectly With Hulu's, The Bear?

Properly pairing food and wine is a culinary art. Sommelier certification programs can take more than a year to complete with mastery taking far longer. But for the majority of wine drinkers out there, red with meat, and white with fish works just fine. The average wine drinker doesn’t need a Sommelier suggesting wines by the course. Because they’re at the grocery store just trying to grab a bottle before their kids melt down in the cart. And the wine that’s on, pretty much, every grocery store shelf, is Bogle. This family vineyard in Clarksburg California makes $10 bottles of wine that drink like $25 bottles and has grown in popularity because they’re high on quality and low on pretension. 

Of course, you can pair a Bogle Cabernet with a Chateaubriand. But it pairs equally well with a ball game, a book club, or a TV binge night.  And this was the insight that led to our latest campaign, which is now running on Hulu and SiriusXM. “Better with Bogle” is based on the notion that plain, old everyday life activities are made just a little better with a glass of wine. Good things become great. Great things become exceptional. Lousy things become, well, less lousy. Pretty simple, but true. See the campaign HERE.

We started last year by sponsoring the Fantasy Football Channel on Sirius XM. Jeff Manns and Jeff Radcliffe talk fantasy all through the season and Bogle makes any draft better, game better, win better, and loss better. We found a passionate audience who loves Fantasy Football and found that a whole lot of them are Bogle fans too. This year we expanded our partnership to include Mad Dog Sports, College Sports Radio and Hulu. 

And, just recently, we launched two new TV spots. One focused on how watching TV is better with Bogle. The other focused on how any random Tuesdays are better with Bogle. Social media focuses on how gatherings, parties, visits with the neighbors, any social events and, actually, non-social events are better with Bogle.

We’ve been Bogle’s Ad Agency for a few years now and they did not get where they are because of advertising. Let’s be clear on that. Bogle is a family-owned vineyard that’s been making wine for three generations and they grew because they make great wines that almost everyone can afford. Not principally because of advertising.

However great brands need advertising at different times in their life cycle. Today, the lower-priced wine market is growing and it’s easier for small brands in specific markets to use advertising and digital marketing to slowly chip away at market share.

Bogle, while large by distribution standards, is still a small, family business. The three Bogle siblings still do everything there. They run it like a small business because to them, that’s exactly what it is. Their vineyard is their home. Their tasting room is their living room. Their kids run around in the fields because it’s their backyard.

So we’ve been moving slowly with the campaign. Launching small initiatives and testing. Trying different media channels and programs and getting feedback from the sales team. Sure competitors like Barefoot paid a ton to sponsor the NFL. But we came in the side door and partnered with SiriusXM Fantasy Radio to talk to a small but passionate audience. Millions of people watch NFL football games, but only the diehard fantasy players (of which I am one) listen to the Fantasy Channel.

It’s an intentional audience. Fantasy Radio does not play passively. Listeners are listening and sometimes even writing stuff down! So this is a perfect place for Bogle to carve out a passionate audience. Same with Hulu. People watching Hulu make an active plan to watch X, Y or Z show. And different Hulu shows attract a different, but dedicated audience. And we can use Hulu affordably to test different plans and prove success.

Like the wine itself, the ad campaign production was budget-friendly. We shot for one day with Seamless Content and captured a ton of footage plus stills. Then we trolled stock footage and existing video to create a montage of scenes that mimic the chaos of everyday life. Faruk Sagcan layered in unique type for every scene to create a pallet that constantly changes, yet still stays true to the Bogle brand.

Ryan Kavanaugh and Doug Walker at 1606 cut it all perfectly and we couldn’t be happier with the way it came out. Thanks to our clients at Bogle, Whitney Hartwell, Paul Englert and Drew Burgess + Justin Witt and Chris DaCruz at SeamlessContent.co and of course, Rebecca Reid, Faruk Sagcan, Ruby Noto and Dawn Margolis at Division of Labor.

We know there are lots of good San Francisco ad agencies out there. And we’re honored that Bogle chose us to help elevate their brand.

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The Small Agency Blog is produced by Division of Labor; the ad agency for startups, based in San Francisco, twice named Small Agency of the Year by Ad Age. The award-winning creative shop services a variety of clients and specializes in startups that have obtained Series B financing or higher. They also offer freelance services. Click here for a free consultation.

Five Tips to Perfect Your Advertising, Award Show Humblebrag

Photo Caption: Make sure your humblebrag sucks up to your co-honorees. Read on for details.

When it comes to smoke and mirrors the advertising industry is second only to magicians and illusionists. So it should come as no surprise, that no one has perfected the humblebrag like a seasoned ad executive. Nonetheless, in an industry glutted with self-congratulatory award shows, how can you make sure your ad exec humblebrag stands out from the competition?

Let’s say, for example, you run a boutique ad agency in San Francisco and you’ve won something kind of awesome, like, I don’t know. . . say . . . Campaign US’ Forty Over Forty award. Well, there are numerous ways one might approach the announcement of the said accolade. 

 No. 1 - The Simple, “Proud and Humbled”

The Proud and Humbled is the classic humblebrag and should accompany a link to the award announcement with a headline like, “Proud and humbled to be honored on Campaign US’ Magazine’s 40 over 40 list.” Variations include the “Surprised and Honored,” “Stunned but Thrilled. ” It’s, of course, also customary to post your humblebrag along with a picture from ten plus years ago creating the misimpression that you are not only successful, but also aging better than your colleagues. The beauty of the “Proud and Humbled” is the way it fits perfectly with the advertising industry’s ethos of being just barely half true. Because if you were actually humbled, you wouldn’t post anything at all.

No. 2 - The Self-Promotion with a Side of Suck-Up

This technique takes the simple “Proud and Humbled” a step further by also stroking the ego of a co-honoree who might further your career at some future date. If, for example, you’re the founder of a small, independent ad agency and would like nothing more than to get bought by a larger firm for gobs of money, switch up the wording a bit and suck-up to specific co-honorees with something like, “Proud and humbled to be honored on Campaign US’ 40 over 40 list, along with some of our industry’s greatest talents, including Kim Getty at Deutsch, Jason Harris at Mekanism and Susie Nam at Droga5.”  Alternately, use the opportunity to brown-nose a potential new client with: “Proud and humbled, to be honored by Campaign US’ 40 over 40 list, alongside Stacy Taffet, VP of PepsiCo’s Water Portfolio.  

No. 3 - Force Your Employees to announce It For You

Worried you’ll sound like a douche bag tooting your own horn? It’s easy to circumnavigate this problem and still get the publicity you crave and let’s face it, you deserve. As the boss, you can subtly suggest to your direct reports to use their social media feeds to promote your not-quite a Pulitzer accomplishment. (This method works particularly well during a pandemic when employees are scared shitless about losing their job.)

 No. 4 - Pay an influencer

Why just force your employees to humblebrag for you when you can get complete strangers to do it for you? All you need is a few dollars and a true commitment to your ego. There are plenty of advertising blogs that would love to tell their readers about the Campaign US’, 40 over 40 honorees list, and every one of them will improve your SEO by adding backlinks and will give you an additional humblebrag opportunity to use your, “Thanks for the mention” humblebrag technique.  Or, you could experiment with sites like Grin, Brandbassador, or Instagram and pay influencers to Tweet about you for a few thousand dollars. Ultimately, isn’t it really a fraction of what it probably costs you in entry fees to “win” your award to begin with?

Photo Caption: Make sure your humblebrag photo is from at least 10 years ago.

No. 5 Write a Self-Deprecating Blog Post to Mask Your True Intent

If you’re the founder of a small, ad agency and digital content studio, you could simply write a blog post about the art of the humblebrag never mentioning the fact that you are the one who has been chosen as a 2020 Campaign US 40 over 40 Honoree. If you go this route, it is important to wait until the very end of the blog post to combine all the techniques into one final line that says something like, “Hell yes, it’s about friggin time I got some recognition, Kim, Jason, Susie, we’re good and for sale. Stacy, how about a project? And everyone at Division of Labor, feel free to repost this blog, or you’re fired. And Campaign US, how about you post this? Do it and we’ll send you a deli basket from Zabars.”  

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The Small Agency Blog is produced by Division of Labor; a top San Francisco creative agency and digital marketing firm that’s been named Small Agency of the Year twice by Ad Age. The award-winning creative agency services clients on a retainer or project basis. They also offer freelance services and fixed-rate projects for startups and smaller brands.

ADVERTISING ON TIKTOK IN A TIME OF CRISIS

From doctors on the front lines to people stuck at home; TikTok is keeping people sane and advertisers are expanding their reach.

We are in a time of protest, upheaval and, hopefully, change. However, we are also still in a pandemic. The world is starting to open up, but a huge majority of the country is spending a lot of time at home. And TikTok can prove it.

In The United States alone, TikTok had 22.2 million mobile unique visitors in January of this year. 23.2 million in February, 28.8 million in March and then, wait for it, 39.2 million in April, according to the most recent Comscore data as reported in Adweek.

So as the world closed down, TikTok exploded. Analytics platform Sensor Tower reported that TikTok crossed the 2 billion download mark globally by the end of April. And had generated the most downloads for any app ever in a quarter with more than 315 million installs globally across the App Store and Google Play, according to Adweek. 

So what’s everyone watching on TikTok while we’re stuck inside? Well, as @AriDennn, AKA TikTok Queen, likes to point out, there’s far more than one TikTok. Apparently I get fed “Dad TikTok” while she gets fed “VSCO Girl TikTok” and my son gets fed “Jock Tok.” The algorithm sends different people different videos based on other videos they’ve watched and liked. “There’s also, for example, “Gay TikTok” “Sorority Girl TikTok” and, of course, “Kink TikTok” for the thriving BDSM community.

Now, on to the videos; as we did during the holidays, we’re bringing back Ari Denberg - @aridennn, to tell us what’s happening on the world’s fastest growing platform that no one over the age of 30 quite understands yet. Her insights take this top digital marketing agency in San Francisco beyond just the numbers when we’re considering marketing campaigns for TikTok. And, now, on to the videos.

“I’m just a kid and life is a nightmare…” Recreating childhood photos via TikTok.

ALBUM COVER RECREATIONS

A common trend on TikTok now is to recreate album covers and songs as they apply to you. These recreations have included a diverse range of artists including the Jonas Brother, Drake, and this example, Hozier.

Every video uses the same music, oddly enough, a Dave Brubeck track called Kathy’s Waltz, and most of them use the meme culture structure, “When blah blah blah” and then the scene they’ve recreated to reveal an album cover and title that answers the structure. Check out some more examples.

GOOGLE TRANSLATE / ROSES ARE RED

Another popular quarantine trend is to use the Google translate feature combined with a popular movie or TV reference to narrate a homemade poem. In this example. The creator chose the popular reality television series, Keeping up with the Kardashians. https://vm.tiktok.com/K1JMFa/  The poems start with “Roses are red” and then a second line, then cut to a video clip to make it rhyme. Here’s one from @aridennn that’s had over 80k views.

RUBBER BAND WRAPPER

This popular creator has content devoted to wrapping rubber bands around objects with the goal of getting them to explode. The most popular item of choice is watermelon, but he has also done this with gallons of milk and cans of Coke. Watch.

The Rubberband Wrapper and a chain reaction TikTok.

I’M JUST A KID

A popular trend that precedes quarantine is the “I’m Just a Kid” challenge in which people use the song by Simple Plan to recreate their favorite childhood photos. While this started before the pandemic, it seems to have grown as families have been brought back together and are bat-shit crazy for something to do. Watch.

CHAIN REACTIONS

Combining old school Rube Goldberg with TikTok is perfect for people stuck at home with time to kill. Chain reaction TikToks are different than other TikToks. They’re not polished. They’re usually shot multiple times until everything works just right, so you can always hear the uncontrolled excitement of the creators in the background when things actually work. Check out the montage. 

TIKTOK AND MUSIC

TikTok is, at its core, a video creation and sharing service. But music and discovering music has become a big part of the platform and the app’s identity. Now I don’t know if @joealbanese uploaded Lion Sleeps Tonight or found it, but who cares. This video gives it new life in a funny series of videos.

A FINAL WEIRD ONE

Keeping up with the song theme, this trend uses the song “Come Get Her” by Rae Sremmurd to joke about bad dancing in real life. This example takes it to the next level with a squirrel climbing and twirling on a stop sign, as the lyric suggests “dancing like a stripper.” Until the next time - @aridennn

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The Small Agency Blog is produced by Division of Labor; a top San Francisco ad agency and digital marketing firm that’s been named Small Agency of the Year twice by Ad Age. The award-winning creative shop services clients on a retainer or project basis. They also offer brand consulting services and hourly engagements for startups and smaller brands. Click here for a free consultation.

Nobody Cares What a Small San Francisco Agency is up to During a Pandemic.

Companies like GrubHub, Instacart and Costco are killing it. Others like the cruise industry will need a massive brand relaunch if they hope to be resuscitated. Division of Labor is here when you’re ready.

As we think about those businesses that are deemed essential during this pandemic, it is hard to believe that an industry like advertising was left off the list. I mean, when you think “essential business” you immediately think about healthcare, food, pharmacy and digital marketing agencies. You know, staples. Oh, and drycleaners are considered an “essential businesses” for some reason. A bit confused by that one. Does the government fear healthcare workers will arrive at the hospital wrinkled and frumpy? God forbid.

But, alas, we have grown comfortable with our non-essential lot in life, and this San Francisco ad agency is strictly adhering to California’s Shelter in Place Orders. Oh, and even if we were located in one of the dumbass states that refused to invoke a shelter in place order, we still would have decamped. It’s the right thing to do.

That said: We’re happy to report that all of our employees are safe, healthy, and working from home.  If we’re being honest, no one really gives a shit what we’re up to, but here’s what we’re up to:

As a small creative shop, we are nimble, scrappy and working to create marketing opportunities for our clients with daily Zoom calls, plenty of time to think, and a shit-ton of digital tools and software to put stuff together.

Our latest digital ad campaign for Keen footwear offers loyal fans a 25% discount with the message “Keep the Love Going”, which follows up our initial effort that helped KEEN and their fans give away 100,000 pairs of shoes to workers on the front line and others in need. And now, inspired by that collective compassion, they’re offering everyone a 25% discount. No, it won’t save the world, but it’s something.

For our restaurateur client, True Food Kitchen, we had to pivot. With all but a handful of locations temporarily shuttered, we eighty-sixed the Easter brunch, Earth Day, and Mother’s Day messaging and are currently tweaking it to target summer offerings.

For the San Jose Sharks, whose season was cut short, we are beginning our plans for next year’s campaign with hopes that life is normal enough to care about sports again soon. It’s the Shark’s 30th season so our Teal Together campaign will be pulling out a few new surprises.

We also completed projects for Foster SF, Cloudflare, Roadie, Lively and Bay Area News Group as the world shut down. Of course, no one knows whether life will return to normal by summer, or at least something approximating normal. But all we can do is prepare for the worst and hope for the best.

Regardless, we are here for our clients. We look forward to the day when the Division of Labor can reunite in person. But for now, we are thankful for good health, extra family time and Zoom conference software.

 Happy Passover. Happy Easter. Happy non-denominational weekend.

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The Small Agency Blog is produced by Division of Labor; a top San Francisco ad agency and digital marketing firm that’s been named Small Agency of the Year twice by Ad Age. The award-winning creative shop services clients on a retainer or project basis. They also offer brand consulting services and hourly engagements for startups and smaller brands. Click here for a free consultation.

Client Asks For “Out-of-the-Box” Thinking. Subsequently Demands Return to Box.

The Marketing team at Atom Analytics panicked today after their advertising agency delivered on the company’s request for “out-of-the-box” thinking. Pandemonium erupted following the initial creative presentations. Senior executives immediately scrambled to shove all the “out of the box” thinking back into the box. 

“When I said “out of the box,” I didn’t mean way outside,” said chief marketing officer Dwayne Clutterbuck. “Like, if the box were a house I wanted the ideas to be, maybe, like in the tool shed.” 

Top brass who sat in on the meeting were even more blunt. “This is not the type of out of the box thinking we’re used to,” said Connie Jennings, director of Status Quo. “We see out of the box thinking every day, and it never looks like this.”

Middle managers, however, hoping to quickly restore order initially gushed over the marketing plan and then mercilessly picked apart the presentation, blaming the agency for delivering precisely what they’d asked for.

The team from Atom Analytics reacts to their new agency’s presentation.

The plan included a number of thought provoking ideas along with a robust digital marketing plan and some stunts that would most certainly garner publicity. “There was something with Dennis Rodman walking on a tightrope over Times Square. It was just way too attention grabbing for us. You don’t need ideas to get attention when you have a great product,” said Clutterbuck completely contradicting the entire purpose of brand marketing and advertising.

Executives across the board feared that these new ideas might actually make the company appear different from the competition. Following the meeting, a feedback email from Atom Analytics to the agency read: “We were talking about next steps, and decided a safer approach would be to make TV commercials that point out our features and benefits like you know, those Ped Egg commercials. Would you be able to get us a script by Tuesday?”

Days later, Atom Analytics again asked the agency for “out-of-the-box” thinking, as if they completely forgot everything that just happened.

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The Small Agency Blog is produced by Division of Labor; a top San Francisco ad agency and digital marketing firm that’s been named Small Agency of the Year twice by Ad Age. The award-winning creative shop services clients on a retainer or project basis. They also offer brand consulting services and hourly engagements for startups and smaller brands. Click here for a free consultation.