Ashton & Partners – San Francisco

I love Mt. Rushmore. We visited a while back on vacation, took in the sites, had an amazing lunch and learned a lot. We ended the day by listening to a very inspiring presentation as a part of the final evening lighting ceremony. Definitely worth taking in if you visit. But as we began to make our way out of the park, we chose to briefly visit the gift shop. There was something really unnerving about seeing all of the gifts\products with Made in China stamped on them. Really? Mini Mt. Rushmore’s made in China? Ceramic bald eagles emblazoned with American flags made in China? Is it me, or Does Mt. Rushmore have a serious branding problem? I now think of Mt. Rushmore and can’t help think about container ships filled with cheap chotchkies steaming toward the gift shop. Maybe it doesn’t make any difference, but for me it’s an image in my head that gets in the way and pollutes the great experience we had with the park as a whole. And from an integrated marketing perspective, does it not make sense to ensure that every single item for sale in that gift shop is Made in the USA…even if it means limiting the palette of offerings or kicking up the price 20%?

Upon hearing about the Cholera situation in Haiti, Dr. Dolhun, Founder of Drip Drop, a company making a great tasting ORS solution, immediately put a team together and headed to Haiti with Drip Drop on board. We scrambled as a group to get interim packaging finished in time for his trip. It is fantastic to have a client that puts himself out there, right along with the product. You can see a short video of Dr. Dolhun and his efforts in Pakistan and Haiti here.

I used this book extensively when I took my first graphic design class back in 1982 at CSUC. It has been with me from office to office for all these years. There is something about how basic it is that I really like…brief and to the point. So much has changed since this book was written, but I think it still really holds up. There is a design reunion happening in Chico coming up soon….should be quite an event.

I just received a letter from AT&T thanking me and explaining how they intend to make my experience with them better. I have always been an advocate for the well executed letter…one that has real information and is signed by a real person. It feels like a potential start to a conversation. It feels authentic. The truth is I have been frustrated with the cell service of AT&T, but this letter helps a bit in changing my perception of how they are addressing the problem.

Great Blog post by Cory Warren at LS&Co. It is nice to see 501′s being made in the USA again. I hope this is the start of a great trend. I hope the prices come down and people recognize that it does make a difference where they are made. It comes down to authenticity.