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.

Key Lime Throwdown

Pardon my delay in covering the contest of the century. I'm still reeling from the sheer calorie intake.



The first annual Third Degree Key Lime Pie Throwdown caused quite a lot of office-place trash talk and facebook chatter last Friday as we kicked off our United Way agency pace setting donations for the year with some friendly (tranlsate: cut throat) competition.



Ever since Kriste first interviewed for our media buyer position three years ago, Roy hasn't been able to shake her claim to making a kick ass key lime pie, and has been baiting her ever since to test it against his southern-boy-at-heart pie making skills.


The Contenders

No southern gentility here. This was a no holds barred, bare-knuckled culinary brawl.

(I don't know what that means, I've just been watching a lot of Top Chef on TV lately.)


The Moderator

Jentry needs to work on her Don King hair, but she put a stop to the sparring and got down to the formalities.


The Ring

Looks like an even match at first glance. Everyone chose both a slice A and a slice B for an anonymous taste test.


The Choices

At closer inspection there are definite differences. Tequila sauce? Intriguing. Nuts in the crust? Interesting.


The Chowdown

This is where the conversation dipped and the calorie intake spiked tenfold, but it was for a good cause, right?


The Live Tally

Then the voting began. Jentry started tallying the score before our very eyes.


The Lead?

Could the lead be the southern style Nutty Crust (B) choice?


Nope. The Clear Winner.

Ah... the Tequila Sauced (A) choice won hands down.


The Outrage.

"How could this happen!? Kriste won!? Recount!?"

(Actually I voted for Kriste... her pie is freaking unbelievable, hence the calorie whiplash)


The Excuses.

And so Roy's backpedaling began. He put the Redi-Whip on too early. (Ahem... Kriste had home made fresh whip cream). He couldn't compete with the alcoholic ingredient! (Whatever.. this is Third Degree buster.)

But in the end he stood by his pie, and had the quote of the day:
"I like nuts in my crust!"

Followed by the second best quote of the day, exclaimed as he opened the fridge and realized his canned whip cream substitute had "melted" on his pie:
"Oh, my pie is F'd!"

Fight On Credit Unions

Well, the CUNA Marketing and Business Development conference is over, but Third Degree still left behind it's mark.  And it's gonna smart for a while we think (in a good way).

The last day of the conference we played our Fight On video for the general session.  We just really wanted to get everyone really fired up about staking their claim.  We also invited them to enter to win a Training Day package, full-day, knock-out strategy session with our credit union savvy staff back in Oklahoma City.

Lots of people asked us for copies of the video, so we made them "pay" for it, by letting us take their picture with our boxing gloves on.  We had lots of great sports that hailed from credit unions from New York, to Texas, to Colorado.  Plus, our winner, Dana from Merced School Employees Federal Credit Union in California won the Training Day trip and strategy session with us.  So that was cool, too!

The last evening of the conference was the Diamond Awards for marketing excellence.  Our client Belvoir Federal Credit union won for their awareness campaign, web site and television spot we created for them.  TFCU (Nancy and Kathy pictured above) took home practically half a dozen of awards, with Buck The Norm leading the pack.

Delta Community Credit Union also scored big, not only taking home a big batch of awards for work we've done with them, as well, but Mary their VP of Marketing (to her tearful surprise) was honored with the rarely bestowed Hall Of Fame recognition.  We can't take any credit for that one, but I felt useful having happened to have some kleenex in my clutch that I could offer her when the waterworks started flowing.  

Addy Entry Time

Today is the deadline to submit our work from the previous year in the Addy competition.

That means lots of people around here scrambling to gather samples, print out artwork and burn CDs and DVDs. Plus a ton of entry forms to fill out, cut, sort, and affix properly (there are a lot of rules in this arena). The fun part comes later in February at the Addy Gala where they announce and show off the winning entries.



So this is the not-so-fun part of the Addy awards. We've got to beat the clock (deadline is at 6:00 pm) so we can load up a cardboard box full of our entries in the back of someone's car so they rush it to Addy entry headquarters by 6:00 p.m.

For good luck we often will either wave like the pope over the box, or kiss the box as it goes out the door, or sometimes we have Roy rub his booty on the box. We usually don't kiss it after that.


We're going gold medals come gala time. (But after a few bottles of complimentary wine at the tables, we'll shout ourselves hoarse just as loudly for the bronze). Speaking of shouting and general over-enthusiasm, last year was an eventful Addy awards evening. We had fun to say the least.

Here are a few of our winning entries from the 2008 awards.



Phillip art directed this exterior signage for Red Pin a bowling alley concept restaurant and bar that's one of our neighbors here in Bricktown. It won an Addy gold for site exterior. This year we don't have a site exterior entry, but we have a site interior entry for the Buck The Norm oversized mall banners that went up all over Penn Square Mall at Christmas shopping time, thanks to some awesome media planning and placement by Holly and Kriste.



This in-branch standee for a Liberty Loan campaign won a gold Addy in the point of purchase free standing category last year. It was art directed by Kathleen and was for a fun constitutional-inspired promotion for Delta Community Credit Union. This particular standee of Patrick Henry resides by my desk and serves to block the intense 4 o' clock sun that blinds me through my window at the end of the day. He's my boyfriend.



Patrick was also accompanied by a series of standees including Harriett Tubman, Abe Lincoln and that cherry-tree-chopper, George Washington. This year we're entering some HD TV football-themed standees we did for Pioneer in this same category.



We always do well in at least one of the self-promotion categories. Our Third Degree brand book won us a gold last year. We've started doing brand books for lots of our clients since then.

Some self-promotional stuff we're entering this year includes our Christmas Card (those always medal for us), some of our direct mailers sent out to credit unions and, of course, our agency on-hold messages.

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Speaking of on hold messages. The on hold message we submitted last year for Funds For Learning, not only won us the gold, but won us the coveted Jef Fontana Humor Award. I think it was our third or fourth agency win of the shiny, blingy star-shaped trophy, and like our second or third win for Brian!! We like our funny.



And this is kind of meta. The campaign we actually created for the previous year Addy's won a special judges award at last years Addy's, which was cool.

Here's the video that was at the center of that campaign, which I created with the help of Simon Hurst's photography and Kathleen's photo direction assistance, Phillip's graphic assistance, Lucky Dog audio, and Digital DK's awesome animation.

Our hopes for a video win this year? Buck The Norm, baby!!! But we'll see. You just never know. The only certain thing about the Addy's are they're gonna be long, and there's gonna be some serious trading going on for unused extra drink tickets from our designated driver spouses.