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AWARD WINNING IDEASN A T I O N A L C L U B A C H I E V E M E N T C O M P E T I T I O N W I N N I N G E N T R I E S

PROGRAMS

Programs

The Advertising Club of Buffalo’s programs are the key to bringing our club’s mission to life as we

strive to support and connect communications professionals in the Buffalo area . When we sat down

to discuss the club's standing at our annual planning retreat, we decided as a board that we would

work to bring more value to our members than ever before. One way we did that is by providing a

slate of programs and events that distinguishes Buffalo as one of the most active and educational

AAF chapters of our size. Here is what we achieved.

Goals

To provide a calendar of events supporting the club’s mission to bring outstanding value to

our members and all attendees.

To transform our AdLab series from a stale panel discussion format to a diverse series of

events that seeks to both entertain and educate our audience.

To bring a different perspective to the Buffalo marketing community by recruiting speakers

from outside our area.

To provide events that members look forward to; our events should offer an opportunity to

break up the monotony with a chance to network casually and have a good time.

To make a profit on events by cutting expenses and keeping average attendance above 30

people per event.

Program 1: AdLab

Event Details: In previous years, our AdLab series was a monthly after-work event that brought

together 3 or 4 experts from local Buffalo agencies to debate and discuss a hot topic from their area

of expertise. Club members and other people from within the marketing community could come

have a beer, network with other professionals, and hear local experts talk about an educational

subject.

Based on feedback and our observations, this style of event seemed to be getting stale with our

audience, so we decided this was the year to switch it up. Instead of the same old boring panels,

some of our newly planned events looked a little more like this:

Pints & Pros - A speed networking happy hour where we took the awkwardness out of

meeting new people within our industry.

The Shift - An inspiring talk given by Anne Esse, a creative coach and designer from the

Rochester, NY area.

Inside the World's Best Agency - a presentation from the team at Brokaw, a Cleveland agency

that has been recognized by Ad Age for their outstanding culture.

Power Your Pitch - a public speaking and team-building workshop that focused on giving

attendees the courage and skills to comfortably speak in public.

The Ad Club's 2nd Annual Holiday Bowling Tournament - our holiday AdLab event is usually just

a happy hour, but the past 2 years of bowling have been a huge success. On top of it, we

found a way to give back to the community by turning the event into a food drive for our

local food bank, where we also donated all proceeds from the event.

Exhibit 1 of the collateral details our whole calendar of events for the year.

Target Audience: For these events, we try to cast a wide net and bring the advertising community

together. Anyone who works in the marketing field or wants to know more about it is part of our

target audience.

Method of Promotion: Our most traditional and consistent promotions came through the use of

email marketing. We've always gotten great responses and driven ticket sales with our reminder

emails. See exhibit 2 for some examples.

This year, we also made a heavier push to promote our events in a more creative way on social

media. For many of our events in the AdLab series, we produced short, entertaining videos to

capture the attention of our audience and shake up our promotional messaging. Exhibit 3 provides

samples of our social media posts and screenshots of our videos.

Average Attendance: The average attendance at our AdLab events from March of 2015 through

February of 2016 was 50 people. Exhibit 4 shows actual attendance numbers.

Feedback Mechanism: In addition to constantly getting word-of-mouth suggestions and social

media feedback from our attendees, we ran a survey about our events to more accurately gauge

how people were receiving our planned calendar. Exhibit 5 shows the survey we developed.

Results: Since the effort to change up the format of our AdLab program, attendance has been up at

all events, and the feedback we've received has been great. We only held 2 local panel events all

year, and we were able to bring in multiple speakers from outside our area, which was a big goal of

ours.

We also made a profit on every single AdLab event we ran this year, which was absolutely not the

case in the past (see exhibit 6 for budget sheets). Cutting out food at events and finding less

expensive venues made a world of difference, and our attendees had no negative feedback about

cutbacks or changes.

It also became obvious that people at our events were more engaged and getting more value out of

their experience. Hands-on events like the public speaking workshop, or fun nights out like our

speed networking and bowling events, gave people a break from the old event style and helped

lighten the mood.

In addition, the videos and social promotions we ran to help push attendance at our events worked

very well. Our videos became some of our most popular posts, and our board members all got to

participate in creation and sharing of content.

Program 2: Ad Week

Event Details: Ad Week is our yearly celebration of the advertising industry through a week-long

series of events, usually held in October. This year, we decided to get more creative with the planned

events and the way we promoted them, dubbing the whole week ADTOBERFEST.

Our Ad Week consisted of 3 events on consecutive nights during the week:

Branding The Bulls - this was a special talk given by University at Buffalo Athletic Director

Danny White about his effort to rebrand the UB Bulls as the New York Bulls and increase

team allegiance across our state.

Q&A: Quiz & Ale - our second event was a trivia night happy hour at one of our newest local

breweries. Teams were randomly assigned, and attendees got to network with new friends

while answering trivia questions about the marketing industry, Buffalo history, and any other

random thing we decided to ask.

The third event of Ad Week is always an AdLab event, and this year's was the presentation

from Brokaw - Inside the World's Best Agency - that was noted above.

Target Audience: As with most of our events, the target audience is members first, but we open it

up to other marketing professionals as well.

Method of Promotion: We promoted these events with eblasts and social media as we always do,

but we spared no effort on promotional videos for Ad Week, making a different ADTOBERFEST-

themed video for each of the week’s events (see exhibit 7).

Average Attendance: The average attendance for these 3 events came out to 42 people per night.

Feedback Mechanism: Each of the events from Ad Week was included in the survey we sent out for

feedback from attendees. Responses to the survey as well as comments on social media were all

very positive.

Results: After setting out to bring in a speaker from outside the area and inject some fun and

excitement into Ad Week, we are proud to say the program was a success. Each event was well-

attended, and feedback about our trivia night was so good that we've planned others like it for the

future.

We also made a profit on the events by acquiring a $1,500 sponsorship, which helped us reduce

member ticket prices and deliver an outstanding value to our attendees.

Program 3: Brand Hack

Event Details: Brand Hack is a program we just started this year that has already been very

successful. This event was the first of its kind in the Buffalo area and offered a full day of creative

teamwork as well as a chance to meet some other professionals within the industry.

Attendees of our Brand Hack were randomly assigned to teams of 5 and given a creative brief for a

fake project. The teams were then matched with a mentor - either a creative director or other senior

creative from a local agency - and were given 6 hours to come up with a strategy and hack together

a quick creative campaign to support the assignment.

Campaigns were then judged and scored by a group of experts, and the winners got to take home

some sweet hardware in addition to bragging rights. Check out exhibit 8 for a blog post recapping

the event.

Target Audience: Getting professionals from within the industry to attend this event was key, but

we saw this as a great way for local students to meet with some of our talented members and learn

how to be creative in an environment that simulated real agency work. So our target was split

between students and pros.

Method of Promotion: We sent out multiple eblasts to our regular mailing list as well as our

student mailing list to support and promote this event. In addition, we also made a push through all

our social channels to drive attendance. See exhibit 9 for more samples.

Average Attendance: We've only held one Brand Hack event so far, but the attendance was great,

and the event sold out at a total of 30 tickets, which was our preset maximum given the space we

had and logistical setup.

Feedback Mechanism: Several of our board members attended the event and worked on the team

projects, providing a first-hand way to hear feedback from the attendees. After 6 hours of work,

everyone in attendance had good things to say, and we're planning to build on that success with

more Brand Hack events in the future.

Results: Considering it was the first time we had ever run an event like this, and we had no idea how

many people would want to commit to a 6-hour event on a Saturday, the event was a huge success.

Tickets sold out days in advance, and we actually had to turn away multiple people who were hoping

to get in on the action.

This was admittedly a bit of a test run to see if a program like this could sustain itself in our market,

and the answer was a resounding yes.

Special Event 1: The Big Tip-Off

Event Details: The Big Tip-Off is our annual August event that kicks off our club year and brings

together our marketing community after the summer break period. The event features a 3-hour

open bar that is tended by local advertising celebrities and big-wigs. From agency owners to creative

directors, each bartender competes to earn the most tips for their team. At the end of the night, tips

are tallied up, and all profits from event attendance and tipping go straight to the club's scholarship

fund to support local marketing and design students. The event is one of our best-attended and

most enjoyable every year. Agencies all relish the chance to have some fun, compete against each

other, and support a good cause.

Target Audience: More than most of our events, this one is fun for people both in and outside the

marketing industry, but we heavily target our marketing community and all the big agencies in the

area to come out and compete in the Tip-Off.

Method of Promotion: We recruit bartenders through personal relationships for this event, and

then rely on each of those bartenders to bring a supporting team of people from their agency. In

addition, we still make a big push through email, social media, and PR to spread the word. Check out

exhibit 10 for more details.

Attendance: This year's Big Tip-Off attendance was 105 people.

Feedback Mechanism: Word of mouth and social media are our primary feedback mechanisms for

this event, but the Tip-Off is received so positively every year that we almost never hear anything but

compliments.

Results: Any event attended by more than 100 people is a huge success for our club, and the Big

Tip-Off continues to be one of our best events every year. In 2015, we raised a record high of more

than $6,000 for our student scholarship fund (our previous record was $4,000), and saw one of our

highest attendance totals ever for this event. Exhibit 11 further details our success.

Special Event 2: ADDYs Preview Night

Event Details: Every club has the American Advertising Awards, but in Buffalo we have another

special event in advance of the show that we call Preview Night. At this event, we display all the work

that has been submitted to the annual awards show and invite everyone to come out and have a

look.

This year, we held the event at a local-favorite brewery called Big Ditch.

Target Audience: The target for this event includes anyone who submitted work to the show as well

as other members, non-members and students from our community.

Method of Promotion: In addition to the usual ways of promoting events, we offer an early bird

ticket option for our ADDY awards show that provides a cheaper price than regular admission tickets

and includes free Preview Night admission. This incentivizes people to buy tickets for both events

and maximize their value. See exhibit 12 for samples of our promotion.

Attendance: This year's Preview Night was attended by 109 people, making it the most attended

Preview Night we've ever had.

Feedback Mechanism: Word of mouth and social media

Results: The attendance number alone speaks volumes about the success of the event. Year after

year this event grows and delivers a great value to the many attendees. All feedback was positive,

and we even cut costs and increased the profitability of the event from last year. For more details,

see our blog post recap of the event in exhibit 13.

Exhibit 1: 2015/2016 Calendar of Events

March

6 2015 WNY ADDY Awards

30 March AdLab - Humor in Advertising: The Difference Between "ha"

and "HAHAHAHA"

April

18 2015 Student Portfolio Review

22 April AdLab - Bring Home the Bling: The Process Behind Award-

Winning Creative

May

20 Pints & Pros: Happy Hour and Speed Networking

June

24 The Ad Club of Buffalo's Annual Meeting

August

20 The Big Tip-Off 2015

September

22 The Shift: What to Do When You Don't Have It All Figured Out

October

20 Branding the Bulls: Marketing Collegiate Athletics with Danny White

21 Q&A: Quiz and Ale Trivia Night

22 Inside the World's Best Agency (According to Google)

November

4 AdLab Skillshop: WordPress

7 Student Portfolio Seminar 2015

18 November AdLab - Power Your Pitch: The Tricks of Public Speaking

December

9 2nd Annual Holiday Bowling Tournament

January

23 Brand Hack 2016

February

8 Uber Bowl VI

11 2016 American Advertising Awards Preview Night

Exhibit 2: Eblasts Supporting AdLab Events

Exhibit 3: Social Media/Video Posts Promoting AdLab Events

Exhibit 4: AdLab Attendance Chart

Event Attendance

Pints & Pros 37

The Shift 40

Inside the World's Best Agency 57

Power Your Pitch 47

Annual Bowling Tournament 70

Average 50

Exhibit 5: AdLab Survey

Exhibit 6: AdLab Profit & Loss Report

Event Income Expenses Variance

Pints & Pros $205.84 $175 $30.84

The Shift $416.29 $385 $31.29

Inside the World's

Best Agency

$775 $603.98 $171.02

Power Your Pitch $700 $475 $225

Bowling

Tournament

$1,565 $1,130.50 $231.50

Exhibit 7: ADTOBERFEST Videos

Exhibit 8: Brand Hack Blog Post

At BrandHack Some Strangers Got Really Creative

Really Fast!

January 25, 2016Tim BouchardNo CommentsAdLab, Blog, Events, Students

I was fortunate enough to be accepted to the Ad Club Board of Directors this past summer of 2015.

Prior to that, I was only a member of the club for one year. Both years, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the

people I’ve met and the events I’ve attended. One of my goals when I joined the board was to try and

help explore how to make events more interactive and fun. Being from the tech side of the creative

world, I decided I would try and borrow from my friends in the tech industry and see if I couldn’t

take the idea of an all day “hack-a-thon” and marry it with the design world’s creativity.

I enlisted the help of some wildly talented and highly regarded creative talent from the Buffalo area.

Julie Zack (Designer: BrandEven), Mike LaDuca (Partner: LUMINUS), Monish Bhattacharyya (Creative

Director: FourthIdea), and Michael Downey (Art Director:FARM). This crew would serve two very

important purposes of helping shape and guide each rapidly compiled campaign idea as well as

judge the final products and declare the winning Brand Hack campaign.

We had three main goals for this event:

1. Encourage team members to get to know each other. The teams were randomly assigned with

an even distribution of talent types.

2. Bring students together with professionals so they can see and participate in the work flow

process of a professional.

3. Make it challenging, but allow for creativity with no limitations other than theme and required

deliverables.

Of course we had to make it worthwhile as well. Chelsea Turton, the board’s student liaison, created

an amazing graphic of a rocket “idea” breaking through an alarm clock. We decided to build off that

and after a few minutes of brainstorming, we googled “Rocket Trophies” and the rest was history.

We had 6 hours to fit in a creative briefing, production, presentations, and judging. The pressure was

almost on me as much as the teams attending. We broke the day like this; 30 minutes for team

introductions & creative brief, 4.5 hours for production, 45 minutes for 5 minute presentations

(everyone went a few minutes over but it was ok), and 15 minutes for judging. Surprisingly, it

actually worked really well!

The fluctuations in the day were amazing to observe. Early on before the briefing it was as loud as a

high school lunch room. Everyone was chatting up a storm getting to know each other. Then after a

moment of silence for the creative briefing, came the flurry of conversations as the teams started

talking out concept ideas. Then, after Michael proclaimed around noon “You should definitely be

into designing by now, 3 hours left!” the room went silent, like a good Thanksgiving dinner when

everyone starts eating. It was pretty entertaining to watch as an outsider. Everyone gave great

presentations and each team was very supportive of the others while they presented.

The challenge was to develop an awareness campaign that would help the fictional “Urban Food

Bank” solicit donations year-round, rather than just the popular November & December Holiday

months. A bonus would be to create an urgency for donating or funding toiletries which are an often

overlooked aspect of the care provided by the bank.

I’m biased, but I think the event was awesome. Nobody seemed bored, everyone was engaged, and

there was some really great work that came out of this.

And now I’m happy to share the campaigns that were dreamt up in 4.5 hours on a random Saturday

in January by complete strangers. Starting with the winning campaign, the runner up, and the other

great campaigns in no particular order. It really was amazing was great work came out of just 4.5

hours.

WINNER: “Roll Reversal”

Team Two’s campaign, “Roll Reversal”, is focused on increasing donations of toilet paper to the

Urban Food Bank. This campaign is designed to target people when they are in a position to

empathize with those in need of toilet paper, and usually have a mobile device in-hand.

We created vinyl wraps for use inside of public bathroom stalls to cover the full toilet paper rolls,

making them appear empty, hopefully giving people that “Oh Shit” feeling of being out of toilet

paper.

The ultimate goal of this campaign is to drive people to a landing page for the Urban Food Bank that

is optimized for mobile conversions and provides an quick button to donate an amount of money

equivalent to one roll of toilet paper.

Runner Up: “One More”

By giving just “one more”, you can change lives. “One more” is easy and is something everyone can

do, but it makes a big impact. You’re filling a gap in your community by giving “one more” dollar or

donation. Really show WHO the donations are going to by telling the stories of the people in need.

Guarantee donations are doing good for your friends and neighbors. Make it fun, and something

people want to do over and over. We would provide free bags that can be filled with donations and

conveniently emptied at numerous drop off locations. We would utilize a number of tactics including

a mobile app.

“Feed The Hunger Monster”

The goal of the “Feed the Hunger Monster” campaign is to increase food, toiletry, and monetary

donations specifically in the spring to prepare for school being out in summer.

It’s tough to focus when you’re hungry or don’t feel your best. The monster is a physical

representation of those feelings. “Feed the Hunger Monster” aims to show parents what kids can

accomplish when they’re not worried where their next meal will come from, or if their classmates

will mock them for their clothes or hygiene.

“Treats to Meals”

While you enjoy the delights of the season the Anderson family needs your help. Turn your extra

money into meals for them by donating to the Urban Food Bank.Visit treatstomeals.com to help and

donate.

“Metro Market”

MetroMarket makes it easier than ever to grow your community.

The MetroMarket truck stops by your home once a month to exchange food and toiletries for fresh

fruits and vegetables grown in Buffalo’s own urban gardens.

We donate an equal shipment of fresh foods to Urban Food Bank.

It really is that simple.

Exhibit 9: Promotion for Brand Hack

Exhibit 10: Promotion for The Big Tip-Off

For Immediate Release:

Media Contact: August 21, 2015 Scott Bartels Ad Club President 716.860.0663 sbartels47@gmail.com

Ad Club’s Big Tip-Off raises a record $6,000

Celebrity bartending event featured local advertising pros competing

to raise money for scholarships

BUFFALO, N.Y. – The Advertising Club of Buffalo is proud to announce that over $6,000

was raised for student scholarships at yesterday’s 5th annual Big Tip-Off event. A sun-soaked

Soho Burger Bar patio set the stage for last night’s record fundraising event.

Over 100 advertising professionals attended and contributed to the fund through tips to

“celebrity” bartenders. Tricia Barrett representing Crowley Webb won the individual title,

raising nearly $1,000. All tip money raised will go to the Ad Club’s Scholarship Fund, which

supports the local advertising community by awarding scholarships to local students area

students annually.

“We couldn’t be more thankful and proud of our advertising community for banding

together to support our future generation of advertising professionals,” said Matt Low,

event chair and Ad Club Vice President. “Over $6,000 will now go to local students to aid in

their education and support their path to a future in the profession.

Representing several of WNY’s top advertising agencies and organizations, The Big Tip-Off

competitors included:

Tricia Barrett, Crowley Webb

Jon Boal, Gelia

Shannon McCabe, Martin Group

Ben Siegel, Block Club

Jill Fecher, SKM Group

Sarah Miller and Grace Gerass, Quinlan and Company

Beth Donovan, APR and Shannon Silva, dPost

Jim Kurdziel, 103.3 The Edge

The Ad Club awards scholarships throughout the course of membership year through the

Don Nichols Scholarship competition and the annual portfolio review. These programs are

open to student members of the Ad Club. For more information on student memberships

and scholarships please visit http://advertisingclubofbuffalo.com/students/.

##

About Advertising Club of Buffalo

The Advertising Club of Buffalo supports and connects communications professionals in Western

New York. We strive to bridge the gaps between passions, occupations, and experience levels to

create a single unified community that provides national industry involvement with a local focus.

Through collaboration, education, networking, and events we offer creative thinkers and

marketing-savvy minds the opportunity to do more, and get better. Seasoned experts are able to

share experiences and keep up with the latest trends. Students are provided access to the

resources (and people) they need to get in, and get ahead. We take pride in our profession, our

region, and our work - and we want everyone to know it.

For more information about the Advertising Club of Buffalo and its upcoming events, please visit:

www.advertisingclubofbuffalo.com. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Exhibit 11: Coverage for The Big Tip-Off

Exhibit 12: Preview Night Promotion

Exhibit 13: Blog Recap of Preview Night

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