Case Study Outtakes: Celery (Blog Content + Short Films)

Sandy Marshall — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 14:31:21 +0000

In our ongoing series of Case Studies of work we half-completed, I was reminded of some work we began for Celery. Through a kind referral, Celery contacted us through the main email on our website, and — thinking of the breadth of possibilities of marketing a client like Celery — we readily set a client meeting and were off to the races, setting up pre-brainstorm meetings and capabilities presentations.

When Celery arrived, through, it was less than exciting. Celery didn’t actually arrive, it was delivered, thanks to Ron the PeaPod guy. We brought Celery into our conference room, began making a spirited pitch about a series of comedic short films (“No more than 2 minutes! Think ADD!”) and writing original content for a new Celery blog (“We’ll incorporate your voice!”). No response. In fact, because Celery is actually an inanimate water-based vegetable, it JUST SAT THERE.

We continued with our pitch for about 10 minutes. Nothing. Finally, Marni finally suggested that we throw in the towel and take Celery into the kitchen, chop it up, and eat it with some peanut butter.

Writing this, you might think this is some sneaky allegory about the client work that we do, but it’s not. We were really hoping to help brand Celery, but Celery just wasn’t having it.

It did, however, taste really watery and very yummy.

Making Meetings

Sandy Marshall — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 11:39:57 +0000

I’ll admit it, I’m not a big fan of regular meetings. I generally think they’re 1.) not that productive, 2.) don’t really lead to actionable items to get more things done, and 3.) likely to become a void for weird energy rife with confusion and a lack of direction. Not to mention a great excuse for mid-day group therapy. They seem to be urgent, but really don’t seem that important. That said, though, what I am a big fan of is the lunch or breakfast “catch-up” strategy big picture meeting. These are where you have time to eat, chat, catch-up, and think of things you’d normally only think of if you were flying on a plane. Like, hey — here’s a new business idea and we could do X and make Y happen. I happen to love those and think they’re a blast. But the trick with those types of meetings is that they’re important, but not urgent — and other things tend to tempt one to “push” the meeting to sometime later on. Things always come up and get in the way, but I’m in this phase lately of Hey, if I’m putting a meeting in the calendar, I’m gonna make it to that meeting. Unless I’m in the hospital for a sprained wrist. In any given week, I try to have at least 4-5 “meal-centric-meetings” with Whoever It May Be. Working on all of the stuff for this company, along with other things in the comedy community keeps the social time to a minimum — and the so-called “business meetings” really turn into functional and fun-filled social calls. And the internal “hour-long” clock always kicks-in and sets everyone afoot onto the next thing. So, to sum-up: fan of the right kinds of meetings with the right kind of loose agenda. Work meetings in conference rooms should be reserved for discussions that would take longer if typed on endless email threads. Work meetings in restaurants should be reserved for hanging out — because that’s where the real work takes place.

Marshall Creative / online branding + strategy + design + short film + content creation » meetings

Case Study Outtakes: Celery (Blog Content + Short Films)

Making Meetings