Third Degree Monster Mash

Never ones to shy away from drama, or costumes... or a theme, we Third Degree-ers had to come up with a dress-up theme that would meet the standard we set with our Mad Men Halloween from last year. So what to do? What to do?



When in doubt. Go classic Hollywood movie monsters.



Tara, Creative Director, Bride of Frankenstein (with $8 worth of hairspray holding up one hair-do)



Daniel, Senior Art Director, The Wolfman (during transformation)



Brett, Art Director, The Invisible Man



We didn't even see him coming.



Jared, Account Coordinator, Chef from Blood Feast (did we mention part of our Halloween tradition is a potluck lunch?)



Amanda, Director of Strategic Planning, (and Strategic Vamping) as Bride of Dracula



Amy, Director of Marketing, Cleopatra and her Mummies



Misty, Operations Coordinator and Mutant Spider



Bring on the atomic mutant bugs! Caroline, Admin Assistant, as an Atomic Ant



No wire hangers!!! Account Executive Natalie as everyone's favorite silver screen mom, Joan Crawford in Mommie Dearest



Priceless. CEO Roy as Vincent Price. Squinty equals sexy, right?



The scream queen Janet Leigh as portrayed by Pam, our numbers queen and Director of Operations



Who let the birds out? Who else could play Tippi Hedren...



... but our own blonde with a dramatic streak to match, Accounts Director, Kande

Oh, there's more. You can see all our Halloween pics here.

Happy Haunting!

Our Bulletin Is Anything But Bored

Someone once told us they felt like they already knew the people at Third Degree just by visiting our web site. It's true, we do post a lot of pictures of ourselves. Sometimes in costumes. We tweet. We blog. We post our key-lime-throwdown and our frying-an-egg-on-the-sidewalk results on Facebook. But there's also a good old fashioned way to get a peek into our agency culture.



Our break room (we call it the diner) bulletin board.



Fight On storyboard and diner sign we made as prop for end of video.

Sometimes it reminds of our favorite projects.



Tin cans for our Inside Voice video. Liz's idea day one-sheet about handcrafted elements in design.

We like to give props to our handmade props.

Idea day show-n-share, favorite outdoor boards.

Our office coordinator Misty handmade this billboard replica for idea day. I personally think it's better than the original.



Sometimes it's a place to find inspiration.



This is like a multi-tasking creative's version of a kitten hanging from a tree poster.

This looks like a harmless calendar. That's because we finally started covering up what's on the top half (which is not covered up at all).

Sometimes it just keeps us on schedule.



Like our idea day schedule.



Which is no laughing matter. We're hungry people. Now what's your freakin' idea!?



It's a place of thanks.

Our clients are nice. And have good manners. Like, they probably don't say freakin' as much as we do.

Roy's daughter Kendall's artistic contribution. Third Degree creative director 2030.

Our kids are nice, too. And, they probably do say freakin' as much as we do. Because we're bad influences that way. But at least the creativity is rubbing off. And the boastfulness. But, hey... what are bulletin boards for?

Getting Famous, People

There's this exercise we do when we're digging deeper into an organization's brand. It sounds a little hokey at first, but it actually sparks a ton of conversation and really does give us (and them) a different way to view their organizational "personality" as a whole.



We ask them to answer this question: "if you're organization were a famous person, which famous person would they be?"

Hey, it's not like we're asking what kind of tree they would be.

This particular group represented above, had a very rugged, of-the-people, vibe. And they like hats (even though Reba wasn't wearing hers here).

This was actually a voting ballot we created after we got everyone's answers.

John Wayne won. Of course. Who can beat out the "King?" Wait, no, the "Duke?" Wait, no... that's right. I just Googled it.



Sometimes we'll go a step further and then compare how the organizational persona stands up to their customer's persona. So from Bill Gates on one end to Average Joe on the other, it can be a telling exercise.



How we work out the customer persona is a lot less about celebrities and more about focusing in on all the things that make up that real person: life stage, age, gender. Sometimes when we get a really enthusiastic group, we'll even talk about where they vacation and if they own a boat. It happened. See "Bill's" boat up there?

This is all done through group collaborative discussion (sometimes shouting, the good kind) and a whole lot of gettin' crazy with the markers.

Of course we always like to do these exercises on ourselves as well.

So when we asked Third Degree-ers what famous person our agency would be, we got some really interesting answers. Here are just a few:



Tina Fey actually got two entries.

"She is smart, quirky, hard-working and coming into her own."

"She is witty, edgy and respected. The first woman head writer for Saturday Night Live.
And like our CEO, Roy, she tests the boudaries of appropriateness :)"



Jean Chatzky, Money Magazine editor and Today Show guest contributor.

"She works to break down complex messaging into practical, useful and compelling information relevant to the target audience."

Wow. Very practical answer. One guess which Third Degree-er that came from.



Robert Downey Jr.

"We've been around the block, know what's up and are still a bit of an underdog...."



"... plus Iron Man's pretty much branded with our colors."

One guess what department the person who made that comment came from.



The Brat Pack

And speaking of the edge of inappropriateness. Guess who chose the entire Brat Pack as our Third Degree persona? Roy. A true eighties boy. And his words:

"They were hip for their time, slightly irreverent, but made one hell of a splash together. They had the look and the attitude to back up their popularity. Individually they all had their own accomplishments, some more than others. But almost everything they did as a team was a success. So that's us... just a pack of brats."

Well said.

Success On A Stick

So, as in most parts of the country it's state fair time here. I'm not sure if we'll squeeze in an agency lunch outing like we have in years' past. Deadlines kind of trump deep fried twinkies. But since we are so food-centric, obviously the part of the fair that strikes a chord with us is the eatin' part.



Eatin' stuff on sticks, that is.



We like sticks.



Sometimes we feel like we're the ones on the stick. Did I mention those deadlines?



In fact, we even create whole concepts around sticks. Like this super-fun Northwest Georgia Credit Union summer car loan commercial. Wait. Whoa. What a set up, right? I prefer calling it a segue. I mean, come on, did you really think this whole blog post was going to be about deep fried delicacies and gator kabobs?



This animated approach, sticks and all, was really fun to create. And while it was definitely promotion-based (seriously, what credit union marketer doesn't want to increase loans right now?) it was also a perfect compliment to the new brand awareness campaign Northwest Georgia launched earlier this year.



Granted, cute doesn't cut the mustard without results (mmm... mustard, I forgot about state fair corn dogs... the classic predecessor of all food on a stick). My point is, I'm happy to report that Northwest Georgia has seen their biggest loan month in August in the past ten years.

Now, I can't give the sticks all the credit. The marketing team at Northwest really felt their loan growth was a result of a combo of things: the vehicle loan offer, the advertising and some recent sales training with their front-line staff to help boost their confidence in having "the loan conversation." Because we all know credit union marketing is only as good as the staff and cross-selling doesn't always come as naturally in the credit union culture as, let's say, being super-warm and friendly does.

Their marketing team's efforts are also a great example of launching a promotion internally with employees before taking it to the streets.

All in all, another satisfied credit union. Another great day. Now, who's interested in a deep fried twinkie themed campaign?

Pencil Pushers

Urbandictionary.com defines a pencil pusher as: "someone who works in an incredibly boring job. Most likely the person themselves also exudes extreme boringness."



I think working at and/or with Third Degree is probably the most opposite to boring you can get.

Though we do seem to have an eerie attraction to pencils around here.



Especially jumbo pencils.



Notice the "KingRoy" inscription. This is mounted in our CEO's corner of the agency.

Or jumbo-jumbo ones.



Even pencils with mustaches.



Which is why after one of our Third Degree-ers tweeted about this pencil artist yesterday, I just had to share.



via telegraph.co.uk and kidrobot

His name is Dalton Ghetti and he makes these amazing miniature pencil sculptures.






via telegraph.co.uk and kidrobot

"These miniature masterpieces are a side project for the professional carpenter, who has been perfecting this art for the last 25 years. Dalton uses a razor blade, sewing needle, a sculpting knife, a steady hand and lots of patience to meticulously carve the graphite which can take anywhere between a few months to a few years. Over time he has broken many works in progress and keeps them in what he calls the cemetery collection. One of the most fascinating things about these tiny works of art is that he has never sold them, only given away to friends as gifts."







Now, how to make friends with him so he gifts us one of his creations? I wonder if he's on Twitter? #unboringpencilpusher