Christmas in July Gets a Little Cooler

Today we are revealing our last two gifts for the Christmas in July giveaways. To be eligible you must go to our Facebook Page and “Like” us. Everyone who becomes a fan of ours will be entered into a drawing for our Christmas in July gifts.

To recap, our first three gifts to be given away are the cat butt magnets, the batterfinger and the nose soap dispenser. You know you secretly want them, but we think you’ll want these final two as well.

The cool weather has been gone for months now and while the temperatures soar over 100 degrees some days, you can have a bit of winter bliss with you at all times with these Defrosty Ice Cubes. Frosty the Snowman will wait out the heat wave in your beverage glass until Old Man Winter comes again.

Our final gift is best suited for mature chefs and the die-hard Coolio lovers everywhere. Coolio shares some of his most loved recipes in this full-of-character cookbook, but unlike Paula Deen, Coolio’s colorful language should be reserved for the people on Santa’s naughty list.

Time’s running short! “Like” our Facebook page for your chance to win!

Intern Insight: Coming Full-Circle

Today’s intern insight is a little bittersweet for us here at the agency. Our Pixel Perfect Interactive intern, Landrey White, is leaving us to return to Fayetteville for her senior year at the University of Arkansas. We know - the nerve of her. While we see the necessity of her departure, we will certainly miss her and appreciate all the great work she did this summer. More importantly, we have no idea who is going to keep Thad in line now.

Here’s what Landrey had to say about her internship at the Sells Agency.

“When I started my internship 10 weeks ago, I had absolutely no idea what to expect. I had no previous experience working on websites, yet here I was starting my first day as the Pixel Perfect Interactive intern. My very first assignment was to make an outline of the content on a disc provided by a client to be used for a new website we would create. At the time, I never would have imagined how immersed I would become in this project over the course of my internship.

I spent hours upon hours researching information about the industry and writing copy for the several pages of the website. I also stayed in contact with the client on a regular basis, doing several rounds of revisions and edits. As the site began to come together, I could see my hard work paying off and was amazed at how much responsibility I had been given. Rather than feeling like an intern, I felt like an important member of a successful team.

Now that it's the last day of my internship, everything has truly come together. All the websites I've had a hand in have gone live, the last of which fatefully premieres today. The work I've been given the privilege of doing here is without a doubt the most beneficial experience I could have asked for and I'm so thankful for the people who trusted me to do it.”

Have a fabulous senior year Landrey, thank you so much for your hard work!

Who nose what's next?

For those of you who are sitting at your computer, hitting the refresh button over and over to find out what other gifts we are giving away, give that finger a rest. And, for those of you who are oblivious of the important things going on around you—Hello! It’s Christmas in July!

If you haven’t already “liked” our Facebook page, do it by clicking here. You’ll to be entered to win one of the five Christmas in July presents we are giving away.

We announced yesterday that the first prize that will be given away to one lucky Sells Agency fan will be their very own litter of Cat Butt Magnets! Classy and tasteful for any household refrigerator.

However, if you aren’t lucky enough to win the Cat Butt Magnets, we have four more gifts that are equally as great. At the Sells Agency, we see holidays as a time to spend time with the ones we care about most. And, to eat cake. So, as our second giveaway, there’s no better gift to give during the holiday season than a Batterfinger! (Feel free to bake us a cake, and no the child is not included in giveaway.)

Our third gift is a fine piece of décor for the bathroom or shower. It’s a soap dispenser and designed to mimic the nose of a very large giant. As pictured below, it hangs nicely on any shower wall and makes bathing a lot more simple and fun. No more slippery bars of soap!

So what are you waiting for? Go “like” the Sells Agency and these gifts could be yours!

Intern Insight: Arkansas Graphics

More intern insight for our blog today! This post on Arkansas Graphics comes to you courtesy of account services intern Wes Hewett. For more information on Arkansas Graphics, check out their website here.

I don't know about you, but I've never really put a lot of thought into the process by which the magazines and paper mail I receive each week is printed. This is also true for printing something in the office. I press a button, and it just kind of happens. Like magic. After accompanying the other interns and our intern coordinator, Sarah Kurrus, on a tour last week, I experienced how our friends at Arkansas Graphics make that printing magic happen for the Sells Agency and much of Little Rock on a daily basis.

I was initially surprised by how massive Arkansas Graphics actually is. From the outside it looks like a normal-sized office building, but once inside, you find yourself in a warehouse-esque room. There are multiple high-tech printers squirting different-colored ink, giant stacks of various publications laid out page-by-page, and tons of workers scurrying about. One printer was a loud, violent contraption we were told is capable of decapitating fingers. Scary. We also got to watch someone work with a machine that uses a razor blade sharp enough to cut through 250-deep stacks of paper. Thankfully, this printer has sensors for safety purposes, and I'm happy to report we left with all our fingers intact. Overall, it was an eye-opening experience and definitely gave me an appreciation for the amount of time and hard work required to print everything we request for our clients here at the Sells Agency.

Letting the Cat Out of the Bag

Hey, you. Yes, you sitting on the edge of your seat waiting to see what our Christmas in July giveaways are. Sit back, and breathe please. This week we’re rolling out the list of giveaways selected from the gifts that appeared on our 2010 Christmas card.

If you have "liked" the Sells Agency on Facebook, you are enrolled in our drawing. If you haven’t, go HERE to do so – there’s still time.

We know we have kept you all anxiously waiting, but do not fear because the time has come to let the cat (or catt butt in this case) out of the bag.

The first prize that you could win is the one and only Cat Butt Magnet set! Don’t stick pictures on the refrigerator with any old magnet, use a cat butt magnet instead. In all honesty, there are no words that do this product justice. If you don’t believe us, just check it out.

Check back tomorrow for the next two prizes in the Christmas in July giveaway!

Intern Insight: Tour de Soundscapes- Production of Arvest Family Card and Sweepstakes Radio Ads

Our Career Clarity interns have been hard at work since the beginning of June, and will be dropping by the blog in the coming weeks to share with you some of their experiences at the Sells Agency. Enjoy this Intern Insight from copywriting intern Jillian Oyler.

As an intern, I expected to be filling coffee cups, stapling papers, answering phones, looking over shoulders and shining shoes. I’m not much on admitting that “I was wrong,” but this calls for an exception. Just two weeks into my internship, I was given the assignment to write two radio commercials for Arvest to introduce and promote the Arvest Family Card and Arvest Family Card $5,000 Sweepstakes. One thing I learned: 30 seconds is a VERY short amount of time to say everything you need to say. However, after a few revisions, cutting unnecessary syllables and saving breaths through test reads, I succeeded!

Yesterday, the other interns and I took a tour of Soundscapes recording and production studio. Mark Schulte accompanied Landrey, Wes and myself to Soundscapes to assist with and watch the production of the two Arvest radio commercials. We got a full tour, met the production geniuses and the talent, or whom I like to call “the voice of Arvest.” Watching the radio commercials being produced was so surreal. And, I really got the satisfaction that my work was becoming something of substance. If you’re in Arkansas, keep your radios tuned in and listen for the Arvest Family Card and $5,000 Sweepstakes commercials!

Christmas in July

The temperatures outside are frightful, but here at the Sells Agency we are still feeling quite delightful! Why, you ask? Because we are celebrating Christmas in July! You may remember that this past holiday season we gave our clients and friends the gift of helping them gift others. In case you missed it, you can check out the Sells Agency Gift generator here.

As our way of extending the holiday spirit of giving throughout the year, we are giving you the opportunity to win some of the fun gifts from our gift finder! All you have to do to be eligible to win is “like” the Sells Agency page on facebook. Once we are up to 250 friends who like us on facebook, we will randomly select the winners from that group.

What are you waiting for? Go “like” Sells Agency on facebook, and encourage your friends to do the same. You could find some Christmas cheer from the Sells Agency headed your way soon!

Bob Sells is Arkansas Advertising Federation's 2011 Distinguished Educator

Last month we had the pleasure of attending an Arkansas Advertising Federation luncheon where our founder, Bob Sells, was presented with the Distinguished Educator Award. For those of you who may not know the history of the Sells Agency, or just how much Bob Sells has contributed to our industry and community, we thought we would share with you an excerpt of the nomination we submitted which resulted in well-deserved recognition.

While attending the University of Missouri’s School of Journalism, Bob became passionate about the field of public relations, advertising and communications. He graduated in 1957, and after a successful career in the industry Bob was named to the Public Relations Society of America’s College of Fellows, an honorary organization for those who have “left a significant footprint on the public relations profession.”

After 28 years as a public relations manager at Southwestern Bell, Bob started his own advertising and public relations firm, Sells and Associates, in 1991. After retiring again and leaving the company in his son Mike’s hands, he pursued his passion for teaching others and enjoyed teaching writing and public relations at the University of Central Arkansas in Conway for six years.

Even today as a retiree, he continues to work for causes he is passionate about and teaches others to do the same. Not surprisingly, he often uses the media and his knowledge of the public relations and advertising industries to fight for those causes. He served on the advisory board of the Reynolds Center on Aging for six years where he did anything related to public relations, marketing and advertising. Three consecutive governors appointed him to the Governor’s Advisory Council on Aging where he served as chairman for two years.

It is evident that Bob takes any opportunity to teach that he can, including teaching others the importance of contributing to the community. Always willing to give his insight to help others learn, Bob Sells is truly a lifelong teacher who has openly shared his public relations and advertising expertise with many people over the course of his career.

Bob Sells accepting the 2011 AAF Distinguished Educator Award.

Marketing Clarity for TaMolly's Mexican Restaurants

Clarity, in terms of marketing, advertising and public relations, means several things:

• · From a business perspective, Marketing Clarity means being clear and focused about what business goals are being met by the communications efforts.
• · From a communications perspective, it means being clear with your message.

The Sells Agency has developed a process for helping our clients achieve Marketing Clarity because too often we observe or become engaged in communications efforts that have either lost the focus of their original purpose or that, in execution, have become disengaged from that purpose.TaMolly’s Mexican Restaurant recently worked with our agency on the first steps of the Marketing Clarity process – research and planning.

Over the last six weeks, our team has relied upon three different types of research – market perception telephone surveys conducted by an independent market research company, interviews with executives and analysis of trends, and point-of-sale interviews with customers.

Our internal research crew depleted five days and countless bowls of fresh salsa to interview almost 600 TaMolly’s customers in Arkansas and Texas. We will use this qualitative research as a comparison with the market research.

Step one in our process, research, is complete and will be presented to the client next week. Our next course will be step two, planning and enchiladas.

If you haven’t checked out TaMolly’s (link: www.tamollys.com), try their fresh food today. Seriously, today, it is Enchilada Wednesday.

Check out the photos below of some of the research team hard at work!

Jacksonville's Patriotic Spectacular

Featured in both the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette’s July Style section calendar and in yesterday’s Weekend section, tonight’s Patriotic Spectacular event in Jacksonville is the perfect, family-friendly event!

In it's 10th year, the Patriotic Spectacular has become a way for the city of Jacksonville to honor all the military families that call central Arkansas home. This year’s entertainment will be provided by country singer Candy Coburn, and the Gloryland Pastor’s Choir. It is an evening of family fun, free entertainment, community recognition and, of course, fireworks.

The event is held at Jan Crow Stadium at Jacksonville High School, located at 2400 Linda Lane. Lawn chairs or blankets are recommended for lawn seating. The fireworks display will still be held on the JHS football field.

The Sells Agency wishes you a safe and fun-filled holiday weekend!