Dinovite® has begun selling their new dog treat, NubOnubs™ – a tasty, healthy dog treat that dogs (and even some cats) will LOVE.

D&A Design has continued to work with Dinovite on core branded touch points, including new product brand identities. NubOnubs had a very fun vision from the start, and we worked hard to give it a playfulness that communicated the “Give Your Dog Some Nub’n” tag line, while still making it an obvious part of the Dinovite brand family of products.

We would be remiss if we didn’t include a link so you could buy some:  Get your nub on here.

This project also has an element that is worth mentioning because it show how something we create can then be passed on to other suppliers so they can do their part in helping the brand. Blue Robot in Cleveland is another Dinovite supplier, and they do fantastic Flash®-based web site. They have put together a site for NubOnubs that further communicates the brand experience.

Today I had a “learnable moment” about email marketing, and thought I’d share because it speaks to D&A Design’s philosophy on this media (email).

I was hard at work when the email tone sounded, and after a few minutes I checked to see what the email tone was about.

It was an email sent by an organization I follow and have signed up to be part of their updates. I quickly opened it and was immediately ticked off that I had stopped work for that email.

The disappointment was due to:  A.)  it was a poorly written hard sales pitch from an organization I normally respect, and  B.) it was an all-text email with no engaging or interesting visuals whatsoever.

Point being, this organization is using their email marketing without thinking about who they’re talking to, and at what time the emails are being sent out.

Let’s face it – most of us are productive small business owners, managers, or contributors who like what we do, and we don’t want to be tapped on our e-shoulder for a hard sales pitch at 1:15 pm on a Thursday. Sales should be born out of relationships, not from poorly written, poorly executed, and poorly timed emails.

If the emails continue I will have my email address removed, and that is sad to think about because the emails are normally informative offerings of useful information that lead me to conclude I might need or want to purchase something from this company.

D&A Design believes that email marketing is part of a business’ conversation with the people they serve, and we learned this by experience.

Earlier in 2009 we experimented with one of the big providers of email marketing with our “Refresh & Engage” promotion. In the planning stages of that email campaign we really tried to figure out a way to sell, but not sell. The solution we arrived at was to start every email with information that hopefully was engaging. We surrounded the content with interesting visuals and used the formulas for best practices in email marketing that we have been trained to utilize.

After the information and need was established we offered a soft sell approach:  Here’s what we’re offering, get in touch if it sounds like something you need. We tried to keep the tone at a level where it wouldn’t be pushy or obnoxious. What’s more, every email we sent out had a different slant to it, with a different offer.

The results were far better than we expected – big ROI for what we put into it. Better than the ROI, though, was that we put to practice what our convictions told us was appropriate, and I am happy to say that since that campaign we have designed and launched about a dozen email campaigns for different clients.

This may border on the line of preachy, yet it is important to realize that the emails we send out are speaking about and on behalf of our brand – perhaps as much or more than our web site and stationery. Let’s be careful and thoughtful with email marketing, and respect the time of we’re sending to.

We just read a fascinating post this morning over at Cincinnati’s Business Courier about Procter & Gamble’s “radical change-up” in an article called “In radical change-up, P&G streamlines how it promotes brands.“

Here’s a pull-quote that we found especially interesting:

The brand leader captains a team of people from the various firms and, in conjunction with P&G, they develop a brand message that can be implemented across the various media.

The line was interesting because it is exactly the thinking D&A Design has deployed for our clients from our beginning several years ago. Rather than become a niche design firm specializing in one particular media such as web, interactive, packaging or traditional print, we opted to take an approach that many of our peers did not think would work. We believed (and still believe to this day) that design is design, no matter the media. We simply design for the media we’re asked to design for, and then work with the best vendors when it comes to production.

A good example of this is our work with Dinovite. D&A Design works in tandem with Dinovite on all of their product brand identities. Once a brand identity is complete we then work on the consumer packaging for that brand, and the packaging can be anything from simple labels for rigid containers, squeeze tubes for liquid product, form-seal film for bags (think: vending machine potato chips bags), or some other structure in need of consistent branding. We work with the best vendor – printers, web coders/developers, packaging structural mfgs. – that produces each of these very different packaging needs.

Our work continues when the packaging is complete because the same brand consistency needs to be carried over to marketing. D&A Design works with Dinovite’s web vendors to create supporting graphics for sales and promotions. We create branded graphics that are used for broadcast email campaigns, as well as the occasional sell sheet. We create the branded graphics that are used to literally sell the products on the e-commerce web site. In some cases we even create the branded materials needed for events such as trade show booth graphics and apparel. All of this work is done in tandem with the very best vendors, allowing designers to be really good at design, and vendors to be really good at production. The biggest benefit, however, is consistency and cost efficiency. Just as the article pointed out, in the past businesses like P&G – and even much smaller businesses – outsourced their web site to a firm that only did web work; their packaging to a packaging firm; print work to a print firm. D&A Design saw the inefficiency of working this way when we formed our business model, and the benefits our clients continue to enjoy (and talk about!) is our measure for how well this philosophy is working. In short: So far, so good.

Point is, P&G’s new, “radical” approach is the approach D&A Design has found success for our clients. We certainly didn’t invent this process, but out of all the different ways to handle design and banding work, we find that the businesses we serve simply want one design source that can handle their design and branding needs. D&A Design is certainly not a trend-setter, but it is nice to read that the world’s largest consumer goods maker has arrived at the same conclusions we have.

An August 2009 update is coming in the next day or two, but for now we would like to post a great video that was passed on to us. Any small business owner/manager can relate to this! Enjoy.

One of the projects that came from D&A Design’s recent “refresh & engage” promotion was a brochure project (above). We had great creative elements to start with, provided by the client, and we simply took an idea that was very rough and worked it into a piece that could serve as a leave-behind, mailer, or talking point to make the case for this very impressive resource. Click the pics above to learn more about the resource – very cool!

This site launched in the first week of July, and within a week they had 3 new clients signed up who all regarded this web site as being part of their reasoning for making contact and coming in for a consultation. This is perhaps one of the clearest examples we can offer of how design can be very effective. Design alone is not the hero, though. Design simply took what the business owner had envisioned, and brought it to life. This site was a lot of work to hone and tweak and get “just right,” but the results are such that everyone who worked on it is very happy, and it is doing what it’s supposed to – getting people to make contact.

Here is an ad we recently did that was given incredible placement: Back cover of a magazine for their industry. We’re quite happy for our client to have been given such prominent placement.

First, some housekeeping:

In the interest of not competing for SEO with the businesses we work for, we will be doing our best to leave out the names of those businesses we are showing work. There’s a lot of debate about this among creatives. One side says that the agency (like us) can be an aide to helping drive SEO for our clients by posting content on our sites and social media. We get that, and it makes some sense.

On the other hand, though, we don’t feel it serves the business’ best interest to be part of their SEO strategy. Any help we offer for SEO is as an aside – at best – so for now D&A Design is opting to try and stay neutral by not using business, product or service names in our blog posts. We’ll see how this goes – we reserve the right to change our mind at any time we darn well want to

So… onto the work.

LOTS of stuff going on here – too much to keep up with, actually, and we do not take it for granted at all. Over the next few days, though, we will be updating this with a few of the projects we have permission to show-and-tell.

First up is a site simple microsite. Here is a screen shot… click the pic to go to the actual site. More to come later this week!

Good news and annoying news…

First, the good news: First Capital Enterprises has a new web site thanks to Westside Media, a web design firm we partner with often for branding projects. We wrote about First Capital several months ago here.

And now that annoying news… The Obama administration and Congress passed the big economic stimulus package, and the name of their plan is The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. One thing we like about Mr. Obama is that his people (and maybe the man himself) understand the value of professional branding expertise. His campaign was nothing short of stunningly beautiful.

I was reading this post at Under Consideration telling the story behind the logo for The Act… when my jaw hit the floor upon seeing the logo for The Act…

This logo, according to the article, was probably designed around March 2009. Compare it to the logo we created in September of 2008:

Ok, so it’s not an exact copy, but it’s close.

The point of this post isn’t to rattle anything or anyone, but rather to point out that creating a brand image isn’t easy. If it was, every logo would look like everything else.

We awoke last Friday to the somber realization that May had arrived, and this blog had been sorely ignored, which sort of makes us look inactive… or, as is the case, too active to keep up with bloggin for the time being.

While the recession rolls on, we continue to see small businesses who thrive when they take chances, and reap the ROI. We’re humbled and thankful that the small businesses we serve chose us to be part of the ride!

Our “Refresh & Engage” campaign is winding down. We briefly shifted from an email campaign to a Craigslist campaign, and the two will come together this week. So far, so good. If you’re not getting our emails, please get in touch to get them!

In other news, D&A Design is (finally) on Facebook. Simply search for “D&A Design,” and we’ll pop up.

In the coming weeks we will be showing work we have created an acupuncturist, more work from Dinovite, a very unique service for small business owners, some email blast design work, and a logo or two… lots of work to wrap up!

But we’re never too busy to start a new relationship, so if we can be of help – even if just a conversation – please let us know…we’re happy to talk any time.