True to form, H|L has nabbed even more coveted Adrian Awards for our work with Missouri Division of Tourism and the St. Louis Convention and Visitors Commission.

Missouri Tourism’s “What’s Not to Like?,” and the CVC’s “The Meeting Guru,” “St. Louis Summer Blockbuster Radio” and “St. Louis Welcomes ASAE” have earned six of the prestigious honors, which celebrate the travel industry’s very best advertising. Not too shabby. Two of the campaigns have won gold. Which means they are in the running to bring home platinum. Which is the best you can get. Really not too shabby. At least until you can win weapons-grade titanium.

More on this after the event in late February.

Mom Bomb 	

Dad Freaks Out 	

Kid Caribbean 	

This campaign made its first appearance in our pitch that eventually won Hoffman Lewis a new piece of business.

From there, we put together a massive initial launch. Then, Together We Save picked up steam (along with several more iterations).

Touchstone Energy co-op members all across the country logged onto TogetherWeSave.com to calculate their potential energy savings. The crowd went wild. All were happy.

But that was only the beginning.

This time around, Together We Save continues to drive home the message that co-op members can save energy and money, but now we’re able to broaden the ways we say it.

Over the next couple of weeks, we’ll be rolling out sections of this campaign here on the agency website (below in the callouts). Then you, like the over 700 co-ops who have the opportunity to run the ads, can pick your favorite executions.

And therein lies the beauty of this campaign.

We have a chance to produce TV, print, radio, outdoor and posters in multiple mini-campaigns that all payoff the bigger idea.

So, get ready for the onslaught. In the meantime, here’s the anthem spot for this latest incarnation of Together We Save.

Updates:

Get ideas for what you can do with the money you save here.

See what Together We Save means for our future here.

The foundation for Together We Save was built when cooperatives were founded. See where it all started here.

The final posting on Together We Save can be viewed here.

Blues Ticketfest is coming to McDonald’s. You know what that means. Hold on. You don’t? Well, maybe that’s because it’s the first time Blues Ticketfest has come to McDonald’s, but here’s a hint. It’s kind of like Cardinals Ticketfest except customers can get tickets to see the Blues with their extra value meals.

It also means we get to make a commercial with one of the stars of the St. Louis Blues, Eric Johnson. Check out his acting chops, and look for a cameo from the one and only Towel Man.

TV

Radio

Blues Ticketfest – Play

Blues Ticketfest – Memorabilia

Interactive

When you’re overstuffed with food and nog, and you can only keep your eyes open long enough to watch half of a football game, you might want to shake things up a little. Pry yourself off the couch. Get out of the house. Escape the relatives.

In that case, we recommend a quick departure to St. Louis. There are tons of activities going on. Just make sure you don’t show up wearing your bra on the outside of your sweater.

St. Louis CVC – Good Morning

St. Louis CVC – Stressed

Normally, we don’t strive for that reaction, but this radio spot proves a point. And if it makes you yawn, chances are you could use an Egg McMuffin.

McDonald’s – Rooster

McDonald’s – Yawn

To advertise McDonald’s selling 50 Chicken McNuggets for $9.99—something that’s never been done in St. Louis—we had to do something big. Something that’s never been done in St. Louis.

Enter 50 mimes.

Did they all have to put on their signature white and black striped clothes and white face paint? Probably not, but that’s just how dedicated they are. See, French fries aren’t the only good things we got from France. Take a listen to the commercial below and hear for yourself.

50 Mimes

Poof. Adios. Gone missing. That’s the verdict on the Kidnapped Chicagoan—according to several posters plastered in and around The El and buses throughout the windy city.

Each poster playfully points out that one of Chicago’s 2.9 million people has disappeared and directs the reader to KidnappedChicagoan.com to find out where he is.

Once there, the viewer gets a whirlwind tour of the mystery city (St. Louis, in-case you couldn’t tell) along with tweets, Foursquare updates, a streaming ‘Kidnap Kam’ and plenty of other content to dive into.

This is the first-ever campaign from the St. Louis CVC directed exclusively toward Chicagoans. And it’s a bold one, forgoing the traditional imagery of the city with a big St. Louis logo in favor of an intriguing message to pull you into the story of one man’s journey to the gateway city. Wait. Just noticed “gateway” is an anagram for “getaway.” Maybe we should’ve done “The Great Gateway Getaway” instead . . . Na. This is way better.

What’s a fifth cousin, you ask? Simply put, it’s a complete stranger that tries to cash in on your family vacation to St. Louis. Despicable, huh?

Well, if you’d ever been to St. Louis, you’d understand why. There’s a ton of stuff for families to do here. Enough to claim being someone’s long lost twin. Or fifth cousin. Or step step brother-in-law.

If you don’t believe us, just listen to these radio spots. They’re faithful reenactments of events we think could very well be happening.

5th cousin

long lost twin

step step brother-in-law

Hint: you’re currently reading a blog from said agency. Give up? It was Hoffman | Lewis. Campaigns for Missouri Tourism and St. Louis beat out campaigns for destinations all over the world for the most Adrian Awards at a gala in New York.

Eighteen awards in total made their way back to the Midwest, in addition to a nomination for Google’s prestigious Wisdom of the Crowd Award. “Guided by a philosophy that states: Focus on the user and all else will follow,” the Wisdom of the Crowd Award nomination recognized Missouri’s “Stay Close” campaign.

That’s right, disco is still dead. But Phillips Furniture is back–and in a big way.

As some of you know, Phillips Furniture was a St. Louis institution until they closed their doors in 2004 (the year Hues Corporation’s hit “Rock the Boat” was still as unbearable as it was in 1974). But now it’s back and better than ever. And St. Louis can finally buy the style of furniture they used to only find in high-end (i.e. expensive) catalogs. And now they can actually afford it.

And guess who helped with the relaunch? We’ll give you a hint: Gloria Gaynor is horrible at Photoshop.

For the last couple of months, we’ve been busy recreating this retail brand from the ground-up. With a new logo, in-store signage, magazine ads, TV and radio commercials, web banners and even a brand spankin’ new website – PhillipsFurniture.com. So go ahead, sit back, take a look at everything and enjoy the fact that disco isn’t coming back anytime soon. At least we hope not.