New Client: Anthem

Even with my adorable pink business cards, Eat My Words mints, witty emails, and repeated endorsements from Toby Sudduth and Rob Desino, getting my foot in the door at Anthem took more than a year. When they finally did call with a gig a few months ago, it was to write packaging copy for sanitary pads. We held out for something food related, and sure enough, they called with a juicy Safeway project. Now I can write off all my groceries.

New Client: Oregon Hazelnuts

I'm working with my favorite ad agency, Schiedermayer & Associates in Portland, to create a new tagline and ads for Oregon Hazelnuts. I love when product research involves eating Godiva Hazelnut Praline Ice Cream and writing it off as a deduction!

Two new naming clients....

Thanks to a gushing referal from Landor, I'm now doing naming work for Hub Strategy, the ad agency behind those hysterical Lombari Sports billboards.

I also picked up two fun naming gigs from TrueBrand, whose offices are in the old Studio Moon offices on DeBoom where I worked for a few months after the dot com crash. Still a few ghosts in there...

New Client: Clif Bar

After eating my body weight in free Peanut Butter Clif Bars on the AIDS Ride a few years back, I had a real affinity for the company. So I was thrilled when Clif Bar hired me to generate some names for a new product. Of course I'm sworn to secrecy and yes, you'll be the first to know when it hits the shelves.

Thinking About Retirement

I don't know whether to laugh or cry... two times in the last 72 hours, two different clients have told us that a few of the names we've submitted "sound like retirement homes." (One assignment was to name place where they raise animals that we eat, the other project was to name a $12 wine from New Zealand, a country where I've traveled for nearly 2 months.) The following sentence is verbatim from the "animal farm" focus group report; "The name 'Harmony Estates,' was ridiculed for sounding like a mental institution, rest home, or even a cemetery." Both clients had hundreds of other non-ridiculed names to choose from, so we're not quitting our day jobs.