Baldwin& Burt’s Bees win campaign of the year at the Ad Age Small Agency Awards
Read full Ad Age Article.
Baldwin&, Raleigh, N.C., “Burt’s Bees: Find Your Burt”
Burt’s Bees found itself facing a tidal wave of green-washing going on throughout the $50 billion personal-care industry. With more than 250 products containing the word “natural” on the label, Burt’s Bees’ one true point of difference was in danger of being hijacked. With a limited budget, the brand had to reassert itself as the authentic leader in the natural-personal care movement and connect with female “Health and Beauty Sleuths.” The solution? A (truly) sustainable effort aimed at getting consumers to find their “inner Burt.” At Findyourburt.com consumers could learn about the iconic Burt, his Burt’s Bees products and even craft their own “Inner Burt.” The results? More than 63 million PR impressions, 20% increase in Facebook fans, 1,700-plus new followers on Twitter. According to Baldwin&, the effort was seven times more efficient than running a 30-second spot on the finale of “Lost.”
Special shout out to our partners Mekanism, Driver Digital and Tractenberg. We couldn’t have done it without you.
Click here to see the campaign.
Silver Lining For Start-Ups?
Looks like we’re in good company or should we say companies.
Maybe our balls aren’t as big as we once thought.
An interesting read for all the Naysayers.
Hey, that’s us!
Current One Club chair and former McKinney ECD David Baldwin has teamed with former McKinney GCD Bob Ranew to launch a new Durham, N.C.-based “creative practice” called Baldwin&.
“We call it a creative practice because we ‘re interested in doing advertising, design and branded content solutions,” says Baldwin, whose past projects include Audi’s “Art of the Heist” and the launch of Travelocity’s Gnome campaign. “Everyone here is considered a creative. If you’re a strategic planner, you’re still a creative strategic planner.”
While the shop officially launched in late December, a lot of Baldwin’s recent time has been occupied by his role as an executive producer on Art & Copy, the Doug Pray-directed documentary that debuted at Sundance and shines a light on the ad business with interviews with folks like Dan Wieden, Hal Riney and George Lois. It’s exactly the type of project Baldwin sees the new shop being creatively invested in. “Ideally, we’d like it to be a 50/50 split between doing work for our own brands and others’.”
Right now the agency has a population of six that includes creatives, a designer, a strategic planner and an accounts person and is currently signed up for project-based work for troubled telecom giant Nortel. “We’re taking care of their post-bankruptcy communications, helping them get back on track as a company with a lot of positive things going for it that has had trouble in the current economic climate,” says Baldwin. “It’s a perfect client for us, as we see ourselves as change agents and look forward to working with them more.”
Speaking of the current economy, some might question the sanity of launching a new agency amidst so much financial uncertainty. But Baldwin sees it more as an opportunity to walk the walk. “It’s a great time to launch because we’re always telling clients to be bold and take risks and doing something like this now really shows we believe in that approach.”