My stepfather Tony has had issues with his prostate in recent years. He’s also been the kind of guy who doesn’t like to talk about it. In that regard he’s a pretty typical male. However, I think the fact that he’s willing to wear this shirt I gave him and have his photo taken in it, illustrates that there’s hope for all men.

The big take away for me is by talking about it and wearing t-shirts promoting prostate cancer awareness, it all begins to make this taboo subject something that isn’t such an uncomfortable subject to discuss.

Me and my stepfather Tony talk prostate cancer

Thanks to an army of late-comer home builders, all vying to jump on the latest trend bandwagon, the term “Green Home” has been so overused and ill, defined thereby rendering it confusing and ultimately meaningless to new home shoppers. Let’s face it, to really live in a “Green Home” today you’d have to harvest your own rainwater and store it in a cistern on the roof of your bamboo hut.

LEED for Homes on the other hand, has been virtually invisible to the average consumer. Although the term does have equity with some savvy home buyers, the same ones who are down with all the latest trends in New Urbanism and Sustainable Developments. But, by and large, it’s likely the average new home buyer still doesn’t have a clue as to what it really means. Yet some new home builders continue to tout the fact that their neighborhoods are LEED for Homes certified. That would be fine if the USGBC (US Green Building Council) promoted their LEED for Homes program to the public in a major way. But they don’t right now and it’s still not common knowledge.

Welcome to Old Town Commons, located in Old Town Alexandria, this is EYA’s newest residential neighborhood. And it’s one of the largest LEED for Homes certified neighborhoods in the entire country. So, since we’re a big believer in speaking plain English, we proposed a new way for EYA to talk about the features of current construction best-practices and energy efficiency design to prospective home buyers. “Smart City Living,” is the term we’ve coined to highlight the advantages of buying a new EYA home; and it’s prominently displayed in the sales office as well as a soon-to-launch interactive counterpart for EYA.com. The objective is to translate technical features into tangible homeowner benefits so prospective buyers get a clearer picture of EYA’s holistic approach to “green” building, as well as a better understanding of the advantages that a new EYA home offers.

Smart City Living Display in Sales Office

Arguably, there’s almost nothing more beautiful than witnessing the ripple effect one individual can have when they are delivering on his or her organization’s brand promise. For example, there’s the infamous story of the Nordstrom salesman who took his company’s credo, “Customer Above All Else”, so seriously that he ended up refunding a set of tires for a customer even though Nordstrom has never sold tires. A little crazy you might say. But extremely powerful nonetheless. That kind of demonstration of a company’s credo takes many forms.

On a recent trip to NYC, I booked reservations for one night at a Comfort Inn located on Central Park West. To my dismay, when my six year old son and I were ready to check-in at 8pm, we were told, by the assistant manager, that there was some sort of problem on the floor where our room was located and there were no other rooms available. They offered to relocate us to a sister hotel in the OUTER BUROUGHS! As disappointed as I was to not be staying in this boutique hotel — located in a highly desirable location — I was even more upset to find out that we would be charged the same nightly fee at the less-than-adequate hotel 15 miles away. Everyone in the world knows that real estate in Manhattan comes at a premium. Apparently, not the manager of this sister hotel. The room itself was okay, but certainly not worth the premium price. Even after I pulled up their nightly rates on my IPhone, which were posted as 50% less, this guy held fast. I was in no position to argue with him, there was a line quickly forming behind me and I had a sleeping six year old slumped over my shoulder.

Let’s cut to the chase. Once I got home I called the manager of the Comfort Inn at the Central Park West. I was armed with my receipts and research in hand. I was ready for a fight. I would not hang up until I was promised a 50% refund. Within 10 seconds of getting on the phone with the manager Charlie, I was disarmed. Charlie immediately made me feel at ease and quickly volunteered to refund me in full. That’s right, in full. What’s more, he offered me a 50% discount on my next two visits to his hotel. Before I called, I had vowed never to book rooms at that hotel again and within the span of a minute, Charlie made me feel totally “Comfortable”. I know where I’ll be staying the next time I visit NYC. At least I think I do.

To be more specific, have you ever played hookie while on a business trip? Well that’s exactly what we’ll be trying to entice business travelers to do while in Lynchburg, Va next month in the November 2009 issue of US Airway’s In-Flight Magazine. While Lynchburg gets its fair share of business travelers already, what municipality can’t handle more heads in beds? Especially these days.

Since the ad is going to be placed squarely in the middle of a 20 page feature article on Lynchburg, touting the benefits of doing business there, we thought there was a real opportunity to divert the reader’s focus to all the other things that might be vying for their attention while in town. After all, we can’t forget we’re talking to people. Yes they’re business people. But they’re people first.

We’ll keep you posted.

From our first kick-off with the city of Lynchburg, Virginia we knew it made more sense for Grafik to establish the brand sensibility from a high-level “look & feel” and then have our client’s various departmental teams develop materials specific to their needs. After creating a few key marketing pieces, including their new website and tagline, we set out to produce an online Brand Style Guide.

The guide is now available to the various departmental design teams who are putting it to good use. And  we’re no longer cringing.

Detailed description that deconstructs the Parks & Recreation Collateral Template