Uncategorized Archives - CRAFT Media | Digital

Steve Jobs said the only way to do great work is to love what you do.

Why it matters: Passion alone isn’t sufficient to create something exceptional (skill and teamwork are significant factors, too). But, there are few examples of inspired work done by uninspired people. 

What we do: CRAFT finds spirited professionals who can bring our clients’ stories to life through powerfully creative content and programming. 

Why it works: Creative storytelling creates value. Whether it’s revealing the latest consumer trends and their impacts on retailers or explaining how the auto industry will shape the future of personal mobility, our work enables our clients to communicate in more interesting, unique, and effective ways. 

Why we’re excited: This year, CRAFT won 12 Telly Awards – a special recognition of outstanding media work. We are grateful to our team for the award-winning efforts and to our clients for the opportunity to do what we love. 

Complete list of awards: 

American Petroleum Institute

🏆Silver Telly (Hybrid Events)

🏆Silver Telly (Branded Content) 

🏆Bronze Telly (Virtual Events and Experiences) 

Association of Equipment Manufacturers

🏆Silver Telly (Informational Video)

🏆Bronze Telly (Web Series)

Auto Innovators

🏆Silver Telly (Branded Promotional Content)

🏆Silver Telly (Automotive Video)

National Retail Federation

🏆Bronze Telly (Regional TV, Public Awareness)

🏆Bronze Telly (Virtual Events and Experiences)

🏆Bronze Telly (Hybrid Events)

🏆Bronze Telly (Branded Content) 

The Mosaic Company

🏆Silver Telly (Sustainability Video)

We’ve launched hundreds of advocacy campaigns over the last twelve years at CRAFT. Some small, some big—most defied the odds and many have won awards. But every campaign cements our belief in two key pillars that produce real advocacy success. 

Why it matters: Communicators have finite resources, and every campaign depends on creative strategy. By focusing on activities with outsized impact, communicators can achieve more—regardless of budget. 

The two biggest leverage points for advocacy campaigns are creativity and speed.

Mary Barra, CEO, General Motors: “When people ask me that question, ‘what keeps you up at night?’ – I always say speed.” Speed is the ultimate competitive advantage in business and communications. Getting the message right is essential. Getting it out quickly is win or lose. Here’s a recent example:

  • The situation: Looking for revenue to offset increased government spending, Congress threatened a major tax increase on American manufacturers.
     
  • What happened next: The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) called on CRAFT to push back quickly – before the proposals gained momentum. We moved from concept to placement on airwaves, TV sets, Twitter feeds, and newspapers in less than a week.
     
  • The result: A tax provision that would have disproportionately harmed manufacturers was removed from the bill – a major victory for NAM.
    (Video coverage from CNBC.) 

Howard Gossage, Advertising Legend: “Nobody reads advertising. People read what interests them, and sometimes it’s an ad.” We’d take this a step further: it’s rarely an ad. The only way to get them to engage with your ad – and to have any shot of affecting their beliefs as a consequence – is to prioritize creativity in both strategy and execution. 

A winning campaign requires new, unanticipated ways to connect with your audience with content that inspires or intrigues and makes them feel. Here’s an example of creativity at work: 

  • The situation: American retailers were doing everything they could to keep prices down despite record-high inflation and Congress wasn’t taking action.
     
  • What happened next: The National Retail Federation (NRF) partnered with CRAFT to publicize the effects of inflation and Congressional actions that would reduce economic pressure on consumers. We conceived and produced a creative, tension-building video about inflation (literally and figuratively) that fueled a digital, TV, and out-of-home (shout-out DCA) advocacy campaign.
     
  • The result: NRF established itself as a leader in the fight against inflation with a creative promotional video that was seen more than 15 million times in just a few weeks, and on August 16, the Inflation Reduction Act was signed into law. 

The bottom line: Creativity and speed make or break an effective advocacy campaign. These are key to better, faster, stronger advocacy.

CRAFTing Influencer Experiences


CRAFT DELIVERS 3RD BLOCKBUSTER WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENTS’ EVENT

★★★ After a smashing event last year at the BRITISH EMBASSY, CRAFT partnered with THE HILL to produce another memorable White House Correspondents’ event — Politics Without Prejudice: A Toast to Freedom of the Press.

The event delivered world-class entertainment to Washington’s elite, with a special performance by Grammy Award-winning musician and music journalist QUESTLOVE. Guests enjoyed cocktails and dancing in one of Washington’s most historic and beautiful event spaces: THE NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY.

★★★  CRAFT produces powerful LIVE brand experiences and thought leadership platforms that engage influencers across the country, on behalf of Fortune 500 companies, top trade associations, media companies, and embassies. These event experiences focus on brand advocacy, employee engagement, and influencer outreach.

★★★  CRAFTER SPOTLIGHT: SINEAD CASEY

CRAFT’s experiential marketing practice is lead by Sinead Casey. Sinead is the Director of Client Solutions at CRAFT, where she plays a key role in the agency’s client strategy and creative production. Sinead leads accounts across CRAFT’s media, digital, and public affairs channels, developing and executing strategy for clients including national trade associations, international corporations, and political organizations.

A natural collaborator and battle-tested problem-solver, Sinead has the ability to connect the dots between mediums, disciplines, and people. Sinead is well versed in advocacy-driven communications, digital media, brand-building, and advancing business initiatives.

PAC It Up

CRAFT’S CLIENTS WIN THE TWO TOP PRESTIGIOUS AWARDS FROM THE PAC COMMUNITY

CRAFT is proud to partner with two leading Political Action Committees (PACs) recognized with highest honors from the PAC community’s top organizations.

CRAFT client INTERNATIONAL PAPER was recognized this week in Miami as The Public Affairs Council’s Outstanding Corporate PAC of the Year. CRAFT partnered with International Paper on its IP-PAC brand and elevated the way International Paper engages with employees to communicate its political efforts.

CRAFT client THE AMERICAN COLLEGE OF EMERGENCY PHYSICIANS (NEMPAC) was also recently awarded the “Trailblazer Award” by the  National Association of Business Political Action Committees (NABPAC).

Fighting for Small Businesses

We produced this video for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, educating small business owners about the PACE Act and urging them to contact their elected officials to demand they support it.

This act will protect small business owner, ensuring health premiums don’t rise for millions of Americans.

 

 

CRAFT Creates Award Winning Website

Pollies Social Graphic05

CRAFT’s work for the Chris Gibson campaign won back to back Pollie and Reed awards this year.

CRAFT won the Silver Pollie in the Internet Division for Best Use of Negative/Contrast at the Pollies Awards for NY-19 Makes the Call, a contrast site for Chris Gibson’s re-election campaign. This is an addition to winning Best Microsite at this year’s Reed Awards.

The NY-19 Makes the Call site provided an immersive parallax user experience and unique design elements to showcase the stark differences between Rep. Chris Gibson and his opponent.

Ultimately, voters were given the opportunity to make their own decision on who was a better candidate and who better represented New York’s 19th District.

Check out this award winning site for yourself: NYMakesTheCall.com

During our company meeting, CRAFT partner Brian Donahue posed this question to the team, “If you could have dinner with any famous creative person, dead or alive, who would it be?”

Check out the CRAFTers dream dinner dates:

Elise- Roger Ebert
Catie- Taylor Swift
Danielle- Quentin Tarantino
John- Bill Watterson
Morgan- Mindy Kaling
Nadav- Andy Warhol
Joe G.- George Harrison
Ken- Alexander Calder
Alice- Nicki Minaj
Zach- Wes Anderson
Bryan- Notorious B.I.G.
Mason- Bono
Travis- Salvador Dali
Sri- AR Rahman
Mitch- Denzel Washington
Corey- Bill Murray
Alex- Matthew Weiner
Evan R.- Francisco de Goya
Joe R.- Jack Nicholson
Stephanie- George Strait
Justin- Yoko Ono
Lana- Willie Nelson
Jim- George Lucas
Sinead- Hunter Thompson
Matt- Trey Ratcliffe
Matthew- Dave Grohl
Brian- David Oglivy
Louisa- Bob Woodward

On Friday, Campaigns & Elections recognized CRAFT Media/Digital with three Reed Awards during the annual Reed Awards dinner in Las Vegas, NV.

CRAFT was honored with two awards, Best TV Ad for a Republican Congressional Candidate and Best Villain for “Puppies.” We filmed and produced this ad on behalf of Martha McSally, who ran and subsequently won the closest race of the cycle in Arizona’s 2nd Congressional District. The goal of this ad was to lampoon the typical “evil voiceover guy,” inoculating Martha from intense negative ads in the final days of the race. Aimed as a comical break from the typical end-of-cycle clutter, this strategy was used to soften her voter image and to gain electoral traction as the race came to a close. In what became the most competitive race in the country, this ad helped catapult McSally to her triumphant victory.

In addition, CRAFT was recognized for designing and developing the Best Microsite on behalf of Rep. Chris Gibson (NY-19) and his high-profile re-election fight against billionaire Sean Eldridge. The microsite, NY-19 Makes The Call, juxtaposed Chris Gibson against Sean Eldridge, giving voters the opportunity to intimately learn about each candidate. The site was instrumental in connecting voters with Rep. Gibson, consequently securing his seat as the representative of NY-19.

CRAFT is honored to have received these awards for our work this cycle. We are proud to have worked with Martha McSally, Chris Gibson, and their respective campaigns.

With the recent announcement of our expanding mission, CRAFT enters the corporate branding space with two very different — but equally important — wins.

CRAFT is honored to have won W3 Awards for our work on two design-and-build corporate websites.

XAPPstatuette

Taking home Gold for websites in the Marketing category, W3 recognized CRAFT for the design and development of XAPPmedia.com. The site features the latest web development technology, including responsive parallax design architecture, sketch-to-render imagery, custom audio and video players, and trackable sharing functions.  The website launch was a part of a soup-to-nuts brand launch campaign, which included a new logo, two web videos (complete from pre-to-post production), marketing assets, and infographics.

GrapplerStatuette

W3 also recognized CRAFT with a Silver award in the eCommerce category for our work for Grappler Anchor. Tasked with bringing a wholesale-specific product to the retail market, CRAFT designed and built a fully custom website that compliments the fun nature of the brand and easily allows users to purchase an anchor. The site features 360-degree product rotations, interactive HTML5 elements, and a robust eCommerce system with individual user-logins.

So, do you agree with the judges? Check out both websites for yourself.

grappler        xapp

CRAFT Partner Brian Donahue joined host Judy Woodruff of PBS NewsHour on Thursday night to discuss The White House’s State of the Union social media strategy.

Brian offered,  “It’s no longer the State of the Union, it’s #SOTU,” referencing the popular trending Twitter hashtag.  On the significance of using social media, Brian stated, “Any time that a political leader, including the president, is engaging audiences and is helping them to carry his message forward into new networks and places, that’s effective. That is the way new media works these days.”

The way people are learning about the latest presidential initiatives has dramatically changed.  Traditional media used to be the premier opportunity for the president to engage with the pubic around The State of the Union.  Social media has now amplified that ability to spread the president’s message.

Want to take your social strategy to the next level – Contact CRAFT!

 

Watch the full segment below: