There are many different ways to look at and define a company’s brand. My personal favorite is covered in the book The Hero and The Outlaw, written by Margaret Mark and Carol S. Pearson, Ph.D. This hefty tome outlines a system for identifying brands by comparing them to archetypal personalities.

So what’s an archetype? Well, it’s a universally understood symbol or pattern of behavior that’s used in myths and storytelling across different cultures. It’s sort of like a stereotype or a generic personality.

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When Studiobanks first landed the Bojangles’ account, we knew one element of the digital platform would test our problem-solving skills: the menu. If you’re from the South, you know Bojangles’ is famous for its chicken and biscuits. All told the menu includes over 30 different entrees, 10 types of side items, 12 drink choices and countless meal, dinner, box and combo combinations. It’s a lot to choose from and even more to content manage.

It wasn’t the number of menu items or even organizing them into categories—we’ve done that before—that proved to be challenging. No, it was the nutritional values (of all things) that would become our nemesis. The nutritional values needed to display accurately for all menu items, including all possible meal, dinner, box and combo combinations. To up the ante even further, it’s common for Bojangles’ to tweak its recipes, thereby changing the nutritional values on a fairly regular basis. The digital platform would require a database and content management strategy that would allow for an easy, scalable approach to the way nutritional values are recorded. Challenge accepted!

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Bojangles' boasts a tremendous community of loyal, passionate fans, our team included. So we were thrilled to celebrate the recent launch of its new digital brand platform designed to bring the quick-service restaurant chain's distinctive personality to life online and seamlessly deliver the engaging fan experience Bojangles' customers expect. The platform includes a new consumer website, a microsite for news and a mobile site for smartphone and tablet users.

We partnered with our friends at BooneOakley, Bojangles' advertising agency, to create a cohesive brand experience that matches the award-winning "It's Bo Time!" campaign. The new websites are highly-functional and engaging, allowing visitors to browse an intuitive food and beverage menu, interact with promotions and quickly find nearby restaurants.

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This weekend Banks and I competed in the Panthers Purrsuit, an "Amazing Race" style social media challenge presented by the Carolina Panthers and our client, Allen Tate Company. The purpose of the event was to showcase social media's abilities to bring people together, forge new connections and strengthen online communities all while supporting local businesses and non-profits.

For four straight hours Team Studiobanks competed against 31 teams in a citywide quest visiting local destinations to uncover clues and complete social media challenges to earn Purrsuit Points. For example, we scored 25 points for making up a rap song about Queen City Audio, 5 points for donning the inflatable "Sporty" Sport Clips mascot uniform (that's me inside!) and bonus points for convincing a Harris Teeter customer to harmonize with us.

We had an absolute blast participating in this unique event, which we later learned generated 1,200+ tweets about Charlotte businesses and non-profits that day. Banks and I successfully completed all of the challenges and won third place! We each received a Panthers gift package filled with awesome Panthers gear and $75 Bojangles' gift cards. We also won one-year AAA memberships thanks to Banks' astronomically high car mileage!

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After oversleeping for the last two years, I finally got a chance to attend Charlotte's (third) annual BarCamp event.

BarCamp is an "un-conference", where typical conference layouts are discarded for a more attendee-based approach that allows anyone at the conference to pitch an idea they would like to talk about, then have everyone vote on the topics that interest them most. The pitches with the most votes get to present.

I admit I was a little concerned about the event as from what I had gathered, the topics were more focused on social media and other aspects of technology that I was not hugely interested in. To my pleasant surprise, nearly the opposite was true.

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