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Showing posts with label buck the norm. Show all posts
Showing posts with label buck the norm. Show all posts
Monday, November 14, 2011
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Friday, March 12, 2010
What Did You Buy? What Do You Love?
The deadline for the Buck The Norm video scholarship contest is near upon us. The theme this year: "What Did You Buy Today?"
This (PG-13) video we created for the contest explains the rules for creating your video. It's a pretty sweet prize if you win: a $2,000 scholarship and a MacBook from TFCU. And it's mostly promoted locally, so there's a good chance if you put in a good effort you might win.
So it made me start thinking. What do we buy around here?
Uh... well, mostly toys in the creative department. These Tokyo terrors are a new addition to Brett's desk. I guess the Hulk got bumped.
I have an obsession with totes. This one is doubling as my take-home copywriting briefcase right now. But I have many. Ridiculous many. Ranging in patterns from spoons, soupcans, and robots, to more traditional plaids, starbursts and glittery golds.
This guy's been sitting over by Roy's desk for a while now. I don't know where he bought it. I don't know what it is. But, it's cute.
So our purchasing habits of late may seem trifling. But they just help add a little flair to the place we love.
And speaking of love, love, love... our account executive Natalie has been a busy making a video of her own... all by herself. It's called "For The Love of The Game," and she debuted it at our Third Degree agency retreat (for internal purposes only, please no one sue us for using the song she downloaded). It was just a really neat reminder at the end of a long day (heck, a long year) why we all keep serving it up.
Thanks Natalie. You made me cry. I'm going to by you a tote.
This (PG-13) video we created for the contest explains the rules for creating your video. It's a pretty sweet prize if you win: a $2,000 scholarship and a MacBook from TFCU. And it's mostly promoted locally, so there's a good chance if you put in a good effort you might win.
So it made me start thinking. What do we buy around here?
Uh... well, mostly toys in the creative department. These Tokyo terrors are a new addition to Brett's desk. I guess the Hulk got bumped.
I have an obsession with totes. This one is doubling as my take-home copywriting briefcase right now. But I have many. Ridiculous many. Ranging in patterns from spoons, soupcans, and robots, to more traditional plaids, starbursts and glittery golds.
This guy's been sitting over by Roy's desk for a while now. I don't know where he bought it. I don't know what it is. But, it's cute.
So our purchasing habits of late may seem trifling. But they just help add a little flair to the place we love.
And speaking of love, love, love... our account executive Natalie has been a busy making a video of her own... all by herself. It's called "For The Love of The Game," and she debuted it at our Third Degree agency retreat (for internal purposes only, please no one sue us for using the song she downloaded). It was just a really neat reminder at the end of a long day (heck, a long year) why we all keep serving it up.
Thanks Natalie. You made me cry. I'm going to by you a tote.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Scary Good: Buck The Norm Parade Part II
Well, after Kathleen and I tag-teamed applying makeup to 24 zombies in our agency parking lot (a mix of Third Degree and TFCU staff volunteers)...
...(yes, Will, you have to put on that green lipstick)...
... our corporate zombies for the Buck The Norm float entry in the Ghouls Gone Wild Parade turned out fantastic.
We even had enough time (just barely) to do our own makeup.
Everyone really got into character while waiting for the parade to start. (Growing even more popular this year, with 80 float entries and close to 50,000 attendees!).
So much into character that we had to divert them from eating their props...
...eating other parade participants...
...and even stopping them from eating the mimes (we were on the fence about letting Thurman go through with that one).
Kathleen represented for the indebted and undead by giving an interview.
We quickly brushed up on our zombie choreography.
And then we were off.
It wasn't all ugly, though. We had our brightly colored, multilayered, spirited and sassy Buck The Norm revelers as well.
Their task was to march in the wake of the zombie troop, waving huge speech bubble Buck The Norm signs, shouting out "Buck It!" and passing out glow sticks and candy to the crowd...
... and to just generally look fabulous.
We were all completely hypnotized by our media buyer, Jentry's, fake eyelashes. We told her she should wear them to work every day because everyone was crushing on her.
Especially these guys.
Thanks everybody for all the hard work! Can't wait 'til next year. Buck the norm!
Want to see more pictures from the parade? You can see more here of our Buck The Norm pics and here of the Ghouls Gone Wild parade in action (including us) on Flickr!
Friday, October 23, 2009
Creating Corporate Zombies: Buck The Norm Parade Part I
We're devilishly busy producing the second-year evolution of the Buck The Norm float for the Ghouls Gone Wild downtown parade this weekend. This year the float will be led by an undead horde of corporate zombies, who will represent "the norm."
So what does it take to create a ghoulish vision of the indebted and undead?
(My husband designed this year's Ghouls Gone Wild poster, tacked here in our Third Degree diner breakroom. He's lead art director at the Oklahoma Gazette who puts on the event.)
First: the perfect zombie hand. Lynn was quickly yanked out from behind his accounting desk, stuck under some dangerously exposed desk lamp bulbs, and forced to contort his hand into the perfect menacing claw.
We snapped the perfect shot.
And Lynn was a good sport.
And look at his hand (post Photoshop treatment, of course). It looks fake it looks so good!
These lightbox signs will be up on poles above the crowd, leading our zombies. This is Eaton Quade's warehouse, where get-it-done-Doug oversees all our float and large prop production.
Next step: creating costumes for our walking corpses.
These can't be just any old rag-tag, decomposing ghouls. These zombies are "the man." So matching corporate suits and ties for all, stuffed with money and complete with over sized coffee cups (also stuffed with bills.) Fake blood, green ooze, and all manners of clippings are now littering the back room of our agency. Yep, looks pretty much like any other day back there.
Last: the choreography. Teaching zombie steps like 1.) The Shuffle 2.) The Random Claw. How ironic that Kathleen is teaching TFCU volunteers how to walk like corporate zombies in their own boardroom. But, since it's a credit union boardroom, it's not quite so ironic.
Okay, that's not really the last step. There's so much more to do and share.
So wish us "buck!"
More to come after the parade. See last year's winning parade entry, here and here, awarded Beast In Show.
So what does it take to create a ghoulish vision of the indebted and undead?
(My husband designed this year's Ghouls Gone Wild poster, tacked here in our Third Degree diner breakroom. He's lead art director at the Oklahoma Gazette who puts on the event.)
First: the perfect zombie hand. Lynn was quickly yanked out from behind his accounting desk, stuck under some dangerously exposed desk lamp bulbs, and forced to contort his hand into the perfect menacing claw.
We snapped the perfect shot.
And Lynn was a good sport.
And look at his hand (post Photoshop treatment, of course). It looks fake it looks so good!
These lightbox signs will be up on poles above the crowd, leading our zombies. This is Eaton Quade's warehouse, where get-it-done-Doug oversees all our float and large prop production.
Next step: creating costumes for our walking corpses.
These can't be just any old rag-tag, decomposing ghouls. These zombies are "the man." So matching corporate suits and ties for all, stuffed with money and complete with over sized coffee cups (also stuffed with bills.) Fake blood, green ooze, and all manners of clippings are now littering the back room of our agency. Yep, looks pretty much like any other day back there.
Last: the choreography. Teaching zombie steps like 1.) The Shuffle 2.) The Random Claw. How ironic that Kathleen is teaching TFCU volunteers how to walk like corporate zombies in their own boardroom. But, since it's a credit union boardroom, it's not quite so ironic.
Okay, that's not really the last step. There's so much more to do and share.
So wish us "buck!"
More to come after the parade. See last year's winning parade entry, here and here, awarded Beast In Show.
Friday, June 19, 2009
Facetime With Bucky
BuckTheNorm.com is back with a new contest. TFCU is asking young people to submit their own photo of Bucky over the summer, and the best one chosen gets to be Bucky's facebook profile pic, and the winning entrant gets a free digital camera.
We've worked so much on buck the norm around here, and had gotten so used to calling the "spokesthumb" of the campaign, Bucky, that we thought it might be a good idea to formally introduce him to the buck the norm audience as well. So we decided to do a video about him.
First step, get his face right. We'd gotten a little rusty drawing the perfect Bucky face, so we had to practice... a lot.
Fortunately we had a lot of volunteers around the agency (if you consider forcing people to let us draw faces on their thumbs with permanent marker volunteering).
Finally, it was perfect. Good match, don't you think? This is actually my thumb, which plays Bucky Number One in the video.
Daniel has more experience starring in buck the norm videos.
His thumb is Bucky Number Two.
(That sounds kind of gross...if you're five years old I suppose... but I have one of those, too... so I went there.)
We decided that my desk area had the most natural light, so we set up our little makeshift studio there: easels, foam core, poster board, and dangerously hot desk lamps and shop lights rigged up at precarious angles.
We were too lazy to move my desk. Or clean it.
Brett was our official stage hand-slash-camera man. He's about to go union.
We actually had a guest star Bucky. Here I am holding her hand up so it shows up in the frame.
And here I am going all stage mom on her. Her real mom, Kriste, our media buyer, is in the background. She's about to come throw me down. I'm pretty sure she could take me.
But at the end of the day it was worth it.
Presenting our handmade video.
We've worked so much on buck the norm around here, and had gotten so used to calling the "spokesthumb" of the campaign, Bucky, that we thought it might be a good idea to formally introduce him to the buck the norm audience as well. So we decided to do a video about him.
First step, get his face right. We'd gotten a little rusty drawing the perfect Bucky face, so we had to practice... a lot.
Fortunately we had a lot of volunteers around the agency (if you consider forcing people to let us draw faces on their thumbs with permanent marker volunteering).
Finally, it was perfect. Good match, don't you think? This is actually my thumb, which plays Bucky Number One in the video.
Daniel has more experience starring in buck the norm videos.
His thumb is Bucky Number Two.
(That sounds kind of gross...if you're five years old I suppose... but I have one of those, too... so I went there.)
We decided that my desk area had the most natural light, so we set up our little makeshift studio there: easels, foam core, poster board, and dangerously hot desk lamps and shop lights rigged up at precarious angles.
We were too lazy to move my desk. Or clean it.
Brett was our official stage hand-slash-camera man. He's about to go union.
We actually had a guest star Bucky. Here I am holding her hand up so it shows up in the frame.
And here I am going all stage mom on her. Her real mom, Kriste, our media buyer, is in the background. She's about to come throw me down. I'm pretty sure she could take me.
But at the end of the day it was worth it.
Presenting our handmade video.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Buck The Norman Music Fest
So it's no secret we love the Buck The Norm program we developed with TFCU. You know, the one that reaches out to a younger generation of potential credit union members with a message of financial empowerment? But after the awards and the parades and the video contest and all the hoopla of the initial launch, the gang at Tinker Federal Credit Union are stickin' with it and still taking it to the streets.
The Norman Music Festival is where the TFCU mobile camped out this weekend. The ATM mobile is fully wrapped with TFCU brand messaging, and can be found on any given weekend at various events around the metro. For this live music, college town crowd they slapped Buck The Norm logos all over that thing. It works in a pinch. Actually, it looks sort of irreverant and spontaneous which is in keeping with the Buck The Norm concept. Could there possibly be a Buck The Norm-themed wrapped vehicle in the future? Maybe. But if not, they'll keep making the most of what they've got in true credit union spirit.
They actually did a really fantastic job creating a little oasis from the heat, creating a funky patio vibe with colored paper lanterns, cool lawn chairs and a mod shag rug.
Some of our Third Degree team stopped by to lounge a little – and to point out their personal cameos in the Buck The Norm video that was running throughout the day.
But the ones who were hard at work were the team from TFCU. Last year they were serving shrimp kabobs at the Arts Fest, but this week, with their aluminum "buck its" in hand, they passed out bracelets embossed with the Buck The Norm url to the crowd of nearly 25,000 attendees.
The business development reps at TFCU are a great example of how to commit to the life and success of a social media-driven Gen Y initiative like Buck The Norm. The outreach must be ongoing, and it must happen at all levels, so whether it's weekly online correspondence or out-in-the-crowd face time, it takes real people to make it happen.
The Norman Music Festival is where the TFCU mobile camped out this weekend. The ATM mobile is fully wrapped with TFCU brand messaging, and can be found on any given weekend at various events around the metro. For this live music, college town crowd they slapped Buck The Norm logos all over that thing. It works in a pinch. Actually, it looks sort of irreverant and spontaneous which is in keeping with the Buck The Norm concept. Could there possibly be a Buck The Norm-themed wrapped vehicle in the future? Maybe. But if not, they'll keep making the most of what they've got in true credit union spirit.
They actually did a really fantastic job creating a little oasis from the heat, creating a funky patio vibe with colored paper lanterns, cool lawn chairs and a mod shag rug.
Some of our Third Degree team stopped by to lounge a little – and to point out their personal cameos in the Buck The Norm video that was running throughout the day.
But the ones who were hard at work were the team from TFCU. Last year they were serving shrimp kabobs at the Arts Fest, but this week, with their aluminum "buck its" in hand, they passed out bracelets embossed with the Buck The Norm url to the crowd of nearly 25,000 attendees.
The business development reps at TFCU are a great example of how to commit to the life and success of a social media-driven Gen Y initiative like Buck The Norm. The outreach must be ongoing, and it must happen at all levels, so whether it's weekly online correspondence or out-in-the-crowd face time, it takes real people to make it happen.
Friday, February 20, 2009
After the Addys
So we've started getting congrats (and gourmet cupcakes) coming our way from well wishers on our Addy wins.
Let Us Eat Cake
These are from Sara Sara a new local cupcake shop that is getting a lot of buzz. These were swarmed the minute they came in the door. Kristin and David McNeese brought them by. David did all the great photography for Buck The Norm.
Roy Gets Creative
These ridiculously splashy but no less fabulous flowers came from Shannon and the gals at Cox Media. Roy decided to spontaneously fashion a makeshift Addy shrine around the flowers, sort of MacGyver meets Martha Stewart. The giant-headed Roy to the right is the cardboard cutout we made of Roy to act as is stand-in the time he couldn't come to the Addy's a couple years ago. It's never the same without you, Roy!
Speech Time
Roy had us all come up on stage for the Best Of Show award at the end of the evening. It was so much fun. Kriste our media buyer said to the person next to her "I feel like the cast of Grey's Anatomy."
Party People
Okay so here's our "party pics." We get so huggy when there's complimentary bottles of wine the Third Degree tables (... and other people's tables when they're not looking).
Halliewood
Speaking of when people aren't looking. This is the Addy revolution-themed directional sign that Hallie swiped as a souvenir at the end of the night. Hallie also wore an Addy medal around her neck as she danced barefooted through the entire afterparty. She deserved to celebrate. Hallie was one of the main drivers of the Buck The Norm campaign.
Kudos, Too
Our partner in developing the Buck The Norm site, Trabian, was also excited about the win. They posted about it on their credit union blog site, Open Source CU. Thanks guys, now you just need to get someone to send you gourmet cupcakes.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
The Buckin' Best Addys Ever
Why was the 43rd Annual Oklahoma City Addy Awards so wonderful?
Three words:
"Buck"
"The"
"Norm."
With three (three!) special judges awards: Best Interactive, Best Broadcast and freakin' Best In Show!!!
Needless to say we were very, very loud that evening, and very giddy when Roy asked the entire agency to come up on stage to accept the Best In Show award. There are so many funny quotes and moments from that evening that it's impossible to share them all, but one sentiment that's definitely worth repeating, is thanks TFCU for letting us do the kind of work we can all be so proud of.
Three words:
"Buck"
"The"
"Norm."
With three (three!) special judges awards: Best Interactive, Best Broadcast and freakin' Best In Show!!!
Needless to say we were very, very loud that evening, and very giddy when Roy asked the entire agency to come up on stage to accept the Best In Show award. There are so many funny quotes and moments from that evening that it's impossible to share them all, but one sentiment that's definitely worth repeating, is thanks TFCU for letting us do the kind of work we can all be so proud of.
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