Always wanted to see Venice? Paris? Copenhagen? Well no need to renew your passport, because the STL has got you covered.

Our latest spot for the St. Louis Convention and Visitors Commission, “Jetsetter,” shows those within driving distance just how close to a world-class city they really are. And it does so by driving a 747 right through it.

Simple idea. Big execution. No TSA pat-downs necessary.

And a big shout out to Coolfire Media, who did a killer job of making this idea come to life.

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

Not quite. But this new campaign for Ashley Furniture Homestores takes dead aim at the competition and their unsavory sales tactics.

In order to poke fun at seemingly every other furniture store out there, an all-encompassing store was created: Furniturama!

Complete with a lame salesman and a schlocky showroom, Furniturama manages to repel customers in different, and all-too-realistic-yet-also-hilarious ways.

See for yourself in the spots posted below.

We’ve all been there—with the uncomfortable salesman desperately trying to convince you you’re getting a great deal while unabashedly working for commission. We’ve seen the stores that have a different sale every week and the price tags that show what the price “used to be” before they were “marked down.” (Not to mention the tacky commercials.)

Ashley decided it was about time they called out the Furnituramas of the world.

With the stores to back it up, Ashley is letting people know that you don’t have to subject yourself to these ploys in order to get a better deal. Instead, you can shop Ashley Furniture Homestore for the lowest prices without all the hoopla.

Hats off to a client who’s not only willing to point out the underbelly of its own industry but is also smart enough to operate stores that don’t insult a shopper’s intelligence.

And while we’re handing out back slaps, the direction of the spots may show similar sensibility to a previous campaign you’ve seen this year thanks to Matt Pittroff, the director from Twist who keeps making us laugh.

New Missouri tourism campaign takes road trip to Humorville.

When you start with a line like, “Don’t take less of a vacation, take a vacation for less in Missouri,” you’re bound to get dads pulling kids on skis behind lawn tractors and couples taking a spa day at the local public fountain, right? No? Okay, let’s back up.

Fact #1: Hilarity is not a natural byproduct of extensive research and focus group testing. Fact #2: Tourism ads must consist of wall-to-wall destination shots. Fact #3: Don’t trust facts.

Going into this campaign, team H/L delved deep into research, finding that although the recession had impacted traveler motivations, 70% of them still expected to take a vacation and that value was a top driver for making travel decisions. Armed with this knowledge, several different concepts were created, four of which went into testing. As the process unfolded, it became clear that not only was a value message important, but that humor more effectively drew people in and broke through the clutter.

So let’s recap… By following all the rules of conventional tourism marketing, we created a campaign that breaks all the rules of conventional tourism marketing. Funny how that works out.  Enjoy.

It all started back when a few H|Lers clocked in at various metro-area McDonald’s restaurants. That’s where the seed of an idea was planted. Since then, it has grown considerably, gone through multiple rounds of revisions, secured approvals, found a director and, finally, appeared on TV and radio.

The idea? Well, it’s all about the serve button.
For those unfamiliar with the serve button, there’s a timer that starts as soon as an order is placed at McDonald’s, and once the order is served to the customer, the crewperson hits the serve button. Der.

Now that that’s out of the way, the serve button is important because it helps track how quickly customers get through the line. The shorter the line, the more people will pull into the parking lot.

So, as you can understand (and as reinforced by the FFL), McDonald’s would like to serve as many customers as possible as quickly as possible.
Great. McDonald’s wants more customers. But, how is that relevant to a customer? Good question. Here to answer are these handy-dandy commercials:

In February, Hoffman | Lewis got a request by the Governor and the Missouri Division of Tourism to see if we could create some new work to promote the value of Missouri’s state parks.  Should be fun, right?  Wait, there’s no money to shoot new footage?  Oh… Okay.  Should be next to impossible, right?  Wrong.  So away we went,  pouring over hours of b-roll footage and photography from previous shoots, wrote new scripts to fit the footage we had, and presto – one brand new print ad and two new television spots.  Pretty good ones, too.  Or at least that’s what the Governor said, right before he asked to keep one of the storyboards to hang in his office.  Impossible?  Yeah, right.

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.

Too soon to start the holidays? Nonsense. H|L has been toiling away with elf-like fervor for the past month or so on a campaign announcing St. Louis’ newest holiday tradition, St. Louis Holiday Magic.

It’s the first year for the event that will feature live entertainment, shopping and carnival rides at America’s Center.

With no allocated budget, the CVC came to the agency to get the word out . . . without breaking the bank.

Five animated TV spots and three simple radio spots were created along with some innovative and inexpensive grass roots ideas.