As a copywriter, creative director, public relations director. As an employee or consultant.

Interactive/Web/Agency
- Synergy Point Interactive, Asheville, NC
- Tim Kenney Marketing, Bethesda, MD

Financial, Business and Management/B2B
- NACHA (Direct Deposit/Direct Payment), Washington, DC
- WatershedAssociates.com
- investEd®
- FlavorX
- Simon and Simon Resources
- Rieger Imaging, Clarksburg, MD
- Sharemedia, Rockville, MD
- Clary Hood

Arts and Museums
- Smithsonian Institution Freer and Sackler Galleries of Art, DC
- Smithsonian Institution National Museum of American History, DC
- Smithsonian Institution, DC
- Cultural Alliance of Greater Washington
- Torpedo Factory Art Center, Alexandria, VA
- Charles Darwin Foundation/Galapagos.org
- A Kiss From Alexander
- License to Bash satirical revue
- Folgers Shakespeare Library

Automotive
- National Automobile Auction Association, Frederick, MD
- Sunset Chevrolet, Sarasota, FL

Health, Food and Neutraceuticals
- Manatee Glens Corporation, Bradenton, FL
- Clozaril^®
- Sarasota Memorial Hospital
- Butter Buds^®
- Sweet n’Low^®
- Chromium Information Bureau

Real Estate
- Preserve at Misty Creek, Sarasota, FL
- Cedars Tennis Resort of Longboat Key, FL
- Arvida Corporation, Longboat Key, FL
- Harbor Oaks, Longboat Key, FL
- Arvida Real Estate Commercial, Sarasota, FL
- Buyerside® Real Estate Services, Sarasota, FL

Travel and Hospitality
-  Horsefeathers Restaurant, Sarasota, FL
-  Manatee Civic Center, Bradenton, FL
-  Buyerside® Real Estate Services, Sarasota, FL
-  Hyatt Sarasota

Consumer
- Stephan’s Furniture, Sarasota, FL
- Beall’s^® Florida Bradenton, FL
- Sarasota Main Plaza
- Sarasota Square Mall
- Helmsman Marine, Sarasota FL

Pro Bono/Not-For-Profit/Fundraising

- AAF-Asheville
- PRAWNC
- Youth OutRight
- Manatee Council on Aging
- South Florida Museum
- Sarasota AIDS Support
- Alexander’s Ford at the Nature Preserve
- Asheville Humane Society (through AAF Asheville)

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• Headlines
• Web content
• Contributing brand strategist and copywriter
• Creative direction

Mercury Creative Group

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We want to build an emotional connection to your organization, your product, your service. And, today’s inbound marketing and internet, we cannot rely only on traditional advertising and public relations components.  How your customers are talking about you, how they are relating to you,  that is what builds a brand.

In the new world of Marketing and PR, there are now many different tactics which we can use that didn’t even exist 10 years ago. Just as the Saturday Evening Post gave way to radio, which in turn gave way to television, television and traditional media is giving way to the internet, social marketing, Facebook and Twitter. But – at least for now – we still have print, radio and television in addition to the new media. And the fact remains these are all just arrows in the quiver.
I also believe that the best way to approach your potential customer is by building a marketing program that positions your product or service as the one your customers choose, not the one they are manipulated into wanting.

Through over 25 years experience in building creative advertising and public relations campaigns for clients who have included the Smithsonian Institution, FlavorX, Sweet n’ Low, Arvida Corporation, Sarasota Memorial Hospital, in the categories of health, real estate, nutraceuticals, arts, financial, tech, travel, tourism and hospitality industries, it all comes down to one thing:

If people find your story compelling they will want to do business with you.

And, now, with “inbound marketing” taking charge, we add:
Your message now must reach your audience in a way that enlightens, builds trust, distinguishes you. Traditional methods will no longer work.

Your brand strategy, how we interpret your story, and what components we choose will build an audience, define your market, increase your sales.  We may do that with a mix of social media, SEO, traditional marketing elements such as radio or print, build on a new business launch with news releases and YouTube(r) mixed with a publicity event. Perhaps you can utilize a billboard. Or, a coordinated full-blow integrated campaign with all these component. Maybe you already have a strategy and just need elements of marketing communications.

But, whatever your business, telling your story is my business.

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Situation: Their research had shown that a very lucrative market was the pet industry and the difficulty in getting “pets to take their medicine.” They wanted to market this flavoring kit via veterinary product representatives to vets worldwide.

Creative Solutions: Giving the vets a sample seemed an obvious way to get the product into the hands of the vets – the flavors would be purchasable through representatives that dropped off the samples. The kit would include POP display posters as well as the flavorings. We developed a ‘sampler leaflet’ that provided a small vial of one of the flavors, like a perfume sample card. (Shown here).

20 of the sampler leaflets would then be placed in a Flavorx branded box to provide the veterinary reps with a supply to hand out to their veterinary customers. A branded calculator was included in each box as a gift for the veterinary reps. The promotion proved extremely popular with both the veterinary reps and the vets.

Using the visual approach and marketing messages from the sampler, a trade show display, an advertising campaign to appear in veterinary magazines and a poster campaign for veterinarian waiting rooms to increase product awareness among pet owners was developed.

Flavorx, which had been sending their vets a small monthly newsletter took our direction and created a full-fledged four-color quarterly news magazine featuring success stories, follow ups, “how-tos” from other vets and “letters to the editor.” This quarterly newsletter became their number one sales tool.

Results: Sales skyrocketed;  the popular “Flavorx” is now available at vets throughout the country.

(Gary James/Patrick Ind, creative/ art directors; Gary James, lead copywriter (ads), Patrick Ind, POP/newsmagazine; Jamie Stockie, graphic design)
Tim Kenny Marketing, Bethesda, MD; ICBM, Washington DC

POP | Branded promotional items | Trade show display | Newsmagazine | Posters | Print advertising |

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As the best brands “say what they do on the box,” in a flash of creative brilliance (I was walking back to the office from lunch) a name hit me: Invested, short for “Investment Education.” The logo would be created with the first part of the word, “invest,” in black and “ed” in grey to suggest it is an abbreviation of “Investment Education.” Invested. We would build the marketing and positioning around this brand.

A primary target audience were people who felt they were stung by the dot bombs and recent Wall Street scandals, those disillusioned by “financial experts” and wishing to learn to “do-it-themselves”; another were individuals that may already be trading but wish to hone their skills; and a third were those who knew nothing about trading but felt they could do it if they just were educated about it. There were a number of challenges in reaching such a broad audience, in a short period of time, and they all revolved around budget. An objective of the client was to get as many people as possible to sign up for the seminars that ranged in price from $495 to $1,195 per person. However, an important distinction to be made is that our objective was to create a brand and a marketing launch that would present his product to the marketplace and drive people to the website. This distinction will become clear in evaluating the results.

Our media plan was to place print advertising in local, zoned publications and run radio flights to augment the print. Since word of mouth was going to be important, we also created a “referral program” that would give participants a discount on his “members only” intranet site – of daily breakouts and analysis – and a discount to those who brought a coupon with them to an event. An insert for the investment seminar manuals to be distributed day-of-event and we created the PowerpointTM template for the seminar.

Three radio spots (Inheritance Trader, Retirement) were written to attract three audiences, a daunting undertaking: two spots, to speak to both the individual who is new to the stock market or has just begun trading; the third, to the trader who wants to hone his or her skills. We were able to negotiate a one-hour show on 1050am – Washington Business Radio – weekdays at 5pm (after the market closing) and co-brand invested on the station’s website for a remarkable low cost. Two weeks prior to the seminars – now scheduled for consecutive weeks on Bethesda and Baltimore – we purchased radio advertising on WTNT 570am, WTEN 980am to reach males, 25 and up, within 15 mile radius of the two seminars, and WBIG 100FM, an oldies station with a high listenership of 35 and up, higher incomes in Fairfax County and DC metro.

To augment the radio buys, print advertising for the Bethesda seminar was purchased in The Georgetowner, The Current Newspapers (Downtown, Dupont, NW, Georgetown), the City Paper and the zoned Montgomery Gazettes (Potomac, Silver Spring, Rockville, Olney); for Baltimore, we added WBAL radio and a week’s worth of print advertising in the Putuxent papers namely the Towson Times, Catonsville Times Columbia Flyer, and Howard County Times; and, the zoned Howard County Baltimore Sun.

We instructed the client to ask each time a person called for information where they heard about us, how, etc., and we have discovered that radio station and co-branding with Washington Business Radio has proven to be one of the most valuable marketing tools. City Paper will remain on the media list as it also has consistently shown up on the informal survey of people calling in. The one hour program allows the client to consistently direct the audience to the website for additional information and course materials. Our goal was to provide them with a brand, a website with course information, easily updatable, and collateral materials that support the image of invested and it’s business objectives. Since the launch, the client created INVESTED CENTRAL, changed his original direction and decided to move toward Client-purchased monthly newsletters.

Product naming | Branding campaign | Print advertising | Print collateral | Radio | Media buying | News releases

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I’ve been involved in marketing and communications since 1982. And the one thing I’ve learned is there isn’t one magic marketing bullet. Today’s newest new thing is “social media.” And, yes, it should be an integrated component of your brand awareness. But, it doesn’t take the place of everything.

And, I don’t feel that public relations is just a component of an advertising plan. Often I’ll hear someone define PR as media relations, coordinating events, news releases. Yes, these are components of public relations. But, in fact, I believe it’s completely the other way around. It’s ALL Public Relations - from your signage, to brochures, to website design and how your employees dress, act or speak about where they work – and the tangible things are tactics that build how the public perceives you.

My story is I’ve worked in marketing communications - advertising, public relations, internet marketing – for years. Starting in a theatrical press agency I learned something about events, promotions and publicity; In radio, I was a Continuity Director, which means if it was spoken (and read), I wrote it. From there, I became a copywriter, but we were a small agency, so I also learned media buying, negotiation and account management.

A stint as a Director of Public Relations for a Behavioral Health Hospital helped me understand how large corporations work, and with the support and engagement of an excellent supervisor and mentor (Mary Ruiz, now CEO of the organization) we rebranded the 50-year-old organization, increased employee involvement, community awareness and, most importantly, access to services.

Having been a creative director or public relations professional , either as an independent consultant or on staff with an agency, for the better part of two decades, it is the last one that has seen the most explosive changes in marketing. Anyone over 30 remembers the first time they used a fax machine. Anyone under 30, can turn on a computer by the age of 5.

At the agency in Bethesda, MD, we were creating internet websites completely from scratch, including shopping carts, complete infrastructure, even simple rollovers.  Here’s where I learned about home pages, daughter pages, rollovers, navs, flash and all those other “must-haves,” at the  turn of the last century. Now, I’m communicating with WordPress and I don’t even think about the html. Because, as we all know, content is king.

If there is any constant in this business, and this is going to be a hackneyed, roll-your-eyes statement, it is “change.”

Adapting to this new environment is a challenge. However, having a knowledge and understanding of tactics and strategies that have worked in the past, doesn’t hurt either.

Whether it’s to work with your internal department, create teams for a complete marketing campaign, or simply needing some outside creative, copywriting support, I will create the emotional arch that will target your audience – your stakeholders, employees, customers or advocates – in order they make a decision to buy from you, support you, or promote your organization or business.

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Click on image to view website

The agency had built a strong print and point-of-purchase portfolio but was also moving into the 21st century with more website design. In addition, I had been hired to help craft an “integrated marketing” division. To achieve this, we needed to build a website that immediately reflected this new position.

In creating the positioning statement, “Be Seen. Be Heard. Be Noticed.  Be Remembered,” and crafting the message, “Strategic Creativity in a Marketing Driven World” the visitor immediately learned that there was more to the company than graphic design and print.

The talented graphic and web design team, led by Jamie Stockie and Michael Caron, built the visual marketing campaign around that copy with icons representing those marketing goals, and refreshed the agency’s color theme with the bold use of yellow and grey.

Working closely with them, writing the content to reflect each of the featured items as well as the biographical information, history and other essential elements.

Though some of the copy has changed in the past 8 years, the essence of the site has remained unchanged. Including the positioning and the rebranding.

Rebranding | Positioning | Post card mailing | Web content

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“Efforts by state governments to levy a tax on services were dealt a setback when the Florida state legislature recently repealed its highly controversial 5 percent tax on services.

“A number of states were considering a service tax, but many now will reconsider enactment of such a tax in light of the Florida example,” says William R. Brown, president of the Council of State Chambers of Commerce.

The service tax, which took effect in July, 1987, applied to almost all services provided in Florida by both in-state and out-of-state businesses.”

But the effort to tax services is far from dead, and business must remain wary of such efforts by states, says Brown. He notes that states considering such a tax have learned from the Florida experience. “They won’t make the two big mistakes that Florida made. Namely, to include advertising as a service to be taxed and to reach too far beyond a state’s borders with the levy.”

It is apparently déjà vu all over again. 20 years later, legislation to tax services is again on the table, and this time, it’s here in North Carolina. Let me tell you. I lived through this. And it was a nightmare.

Could you simply add everything together and just tax it at 5%?  Nope.
You had to separate your labor from your materials. Creative consultation was taxed. Copywriting was taxed. Graphic Design was taxed if it was part of the overall services, but you had to back out the design costs and bill printing separately so they weren’t double-taxed. (This was before the internet and web design, programming, etc., so how this will breakout is even more stressful). Advertising agency retainers weren’t taxed if you didn’t create anything “tangible,” if you just discussed strategy. But, if you created a brochure or radio spot, or made a media buy, the labor was taxed and the materials were taxed separately. And let’s not even talk about printing, sales-exempt status, cost of materials vs. labor.

Plus, if you were a small business, you now were taxed to use your attorney or CPA, taxed on placing the media buy, taxed on the media. And, you then collected tax on your services rendered to the client.

Much of the discussion I have heard recently has surrounded “not taxing services used primarily for business,” such as tax preparers, accountants and attorneys. But, I have yet to see whether advertising agencies, consultants and public relations professionals will be exempt.

What I find particularly ominous in the 2009 North Carolina proposal is that the general sales tax will be lowered as a “peace offering”, I assume, to the general public should this services tax go into effect. In order to offset the service tax repeal in 1988, the Florida legislature raised the general sales tax by one percent. So, the big difference here, is if you lower the general tax, first, it will be much more difficult to repeal it as they would be taking away a “discount” effecting the general public.  Our industry has enough problems with image as it is without “they caused our taxes to go back up,” being added to it.

What eventually killed this irksome, cumbersome services tax in Florida were objections from the US Chamber of Commerce opposing the “crossing borders” nature of the tax. Advertisers running ads in Florida media as part of national campaigns were taxed, for example.

And, the fact that, according to the BNET article, “the loss of $35 million in convention business and millions in advertising because of the tax.”

But, it also took two years to get it repealed.

As a member of the Legislative committee for AAF-Asheville, I’m watching this closely; Googling “North Carolina service tax,” or “North Carolina considers new tax,” for example, doesn’t return any useful information. I’m urging you to put this on your radar screen if it isn’t already there. And, if you have any contacts in the Legislature, can volunteer to actively join the committee, or can provide us with the most recent information, please share it with us at
(Catherine: Don’t know what address to put here).

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