Market This!

by Nathan Hartswick

So, I’m back. You may not have noticed it, but I pretty much vanished off the face of the earth for about six weeks in June and July.

This is because: A) I was house sitting for some friends out in the sticks, and B) I had mono for a month and a half.

As miserable as the experience was, it forced me to be away from anything resembling work for a very long time, and as a result I started examining my lifestyle pretty carefully. In the last year, I’ve been taking on too many projects (paid and volunteer), and getting sick a lot more often.

So I took the hint, and made a half-dozen resolutions I thought I would share here, in case you’re struggling with stress and ill health too. I decided to:

1. Eat better. A major part of my recovery from this illness was due to a much healthier, nearly-all-raw diet I adopted. Now that I’m feeling better, I’m continuing the diet. Gradually, I’ve been replacing everything even remotely unhealthy in my house, from breakfast cereals to shampoos. Most surprisingly, I haven’t had – or missed – my morning cup of coffee in two months.

2. Take more breaks. Being on the computer – whether it’s for work, social media or just wasting time – is addictive, especially when your office is your living room. Nobody needs to be connected to the internet every waking minute – and I was. I’ve resolved to step away from it a couple times per day, and leave it off at least one day per week. And I’m going to adopt a similar restraint with the iPhone.

3. Meditate. I used to meditate regularly to center myself. As I became addicted to technology, I got away from doing it, and energetically, I’ve felt sort of rudderless. It’s time start grounding myself again. And to that end…

4. Get outside. I like to hike, bike, kayak and ski, and though I always intend to do these things, I never seem to make them a priority. I’m not going to become an outdoorsy person overnight, but I am going to at least make the effort to get in some more physical activity.

5. Say “no” more. There are certain things people need from me (my daughter needs time with her dad, for instance) that are non-negotiable. But doing free video projects for people, acting as everyone’s personal therapist, punching up friends’ resumes when my marketing plate is already full – I need to stop doing that stuff. It won’t kill me to start saying “no.”

6. Follow my passions. It seems so basic, and yet it’s always the first thing to be sacrificed. It’s never easy to carve out time to write a play when you’re in the middle of six other things, but I’m getting too old to neglect what I love any longer.

What about you? If a miserable, perspective-altering virus took you out of commission for six weeks starting tomorrow, what resolutions would you make?

So you’ve written an email to a friend or colleague, and something about it has rubbed them the wrong way.

Maybe you didn’t take the time to phrase something respectfully. Or you were in a hurry, and it came across as brusque. Maybe you have no idea what made them mad, and you think they’re being an irrational jerk.

Whatever the reason, it’s a slippery slope from there to being downright nasty to each other. Whatever you set out to accomplish has been forgotten and flushed down the toilet, and now you’re having to waste time resolving a conflict instead.

So our co-founder Nathan Hartswick set out to do something about it.

Check out the site he just created, SayItNicer.com. Hit up the Facebook and the Twitter too. If you’ve got something sensitive to write, give a shout – he can help.

And keep it nice, people.

We’re pleased to report that Asgood & Better has been contracted by an extremely promising startup in Burlington called WinWin Apps; we will be providing them with marketing strategy and communications services.

WinWin is in the testing phase now, but their launch is coming up in April. We are working with a talented designer named Corey Machanic on developing the website/interface and promotional materials for the business.

When WinWin is live, non profits and other organizations (and individuals, too) will find a slick, one-stop shop for everything from fundraising, event registration, ticketing and auction services to email communication and surveys. (And the best part? It’s gonna be basically free for users. Sweet.)

We’re looking forward to building a comprehensive strategy for this innovative business; stay tuned for more details!

Hey everyone!

Well, it’s been a great year. And by “great,” we mean by equal turns “creative,” “tumultuous,” “frightening,” “delightful,” “educational,” “rewarding” and “super fun.” (And perhaps a few other words that escape us at the moment.)

We’re so grateful for all of our clients, contractors, family & friends. And so, to wish everyone a groovy holiday season, we made the little video below. Hope you like it! See you in 2010…

So Asgood & Better has been cruising along for nearly two years now, providing marketing work that’s as good – and better – than larger-scale agencies without the hefty price tag. This was always our goal, but the friendly, professional brand identity we developed for ourselves and the bright orange ampersand “stamp” of a logo didn’t come about overnight. The process took awhile, and we thought it would be fun to look back at (and share with you) a small slice of it here.

We love the name of our business, and many others have told us they do too. It was intended to be a cheeky antidote to agencies whose name is simply a mashup of their partners’ names. At the beginning, we took that concept quite literally, creating characters called “Asgood” and “Better.” This seemed to call for a “retro” logo style, so that’s where we began.

That led to a “geekier” brand identity (and a redesign of the logo using glasses as the central element), which then gave way to the more toned-down, professional look that you see today. We scrapped the cheeky, “fictional character” approach, and chose a more subtle, friendly one. The logo we created was akin to what you’d see at a high-powered agency, but we used a bright orange color palate and a few twists on the letters to suggest our underlying playfulness.

Below is an initial creative exercise we wrote back then. We hope it amuses you – and please remember this: nothing worth doing comes about quickly or easily. If you need a strong brand identity developed for your organization, we hope you’ll give us a ring, and allow us to help create  an identity you love as much as we love ours.

Enjoy!

In 1967, Clarence Asgood and his partner Roy Better started a marketing operation in the back room of a little print shop in Raleigh, North Carolina. Before long, the business was known its excellent work for such clients as Gee Whiz Reusable Gumballs, Justin Case Insurance Co., and the Ford Edsel.

Asgood was satisfied, but Better was already thinking outside the box – literally.

“Clarence,” he said, “we need fewer walls around here.”

And with that, the story goes, he brought in his own personal pick-axe and began demolishing partitions between employees’ desks, bringing down office walls, and opening things up a bit.

“Not good enough,” he mused. “We’re still trapped in here. We need to be free.”

To Asgood’s surprise, Roy Better demolished the outer walls of the building and exclaimed, “Go! Create in the real world!” as employees of A&B gathered their belongings and scattered into the parking lot.

These days, A&B prides itself on offering the services of an experienced marketing team without the overhead associated with four walls and a roof. So get in touch, and see what freedom from boundaries can do for you.

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We popped our head into the brand new visitors’ center for the Green Mountain Club in Waterbury last night, and boy is it a work of art.

If you’re in Vermont,  have a look. This $1.5M green building has the feel of a trailside shelter or a lodge, only bigger. The lumber was harvested sustainably from plots in Bristol and some land belonging to St. Michael’s College. Heat and hot water are generated from a cord wood boiler, and there are composting toilets in the bathrooms and a 2k solar array on the roof.

But the really neat part is front and center: a model of the state of Vermont, built to scale with all the mountains and trails (including the Long Trail, which it is the GMC’s mission to preserve). There’s also a railing that runs around the room and up the stairs that displays the same information in a different way.

The evening was great fun – it was an open event hosted by the Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility (VBSR). Most of the people there were members of this organization, and it was a good time chatting with them about it. They’re all nice folks, and it seems very worthwhile; we’re thinking about joining up.

American Flatbread was there serving up delicious pizza as well. Thanks to all involved for throwing a good shin-dig!