As product consultants, our job at Sonic Promos is to advise and guide our clients' choices in branded materials. Much of the time, this entails recommending apparel styles, brands, colors and decoration techniques.

Our choice in product must be synonymous with the campaign's message and budget, but it's equally important that the product appeals to its target audience. If the item's recipient doesn't like the look, feel, or quality of the product, the branding impression loses value.

Pleasing everyone is especially tricky when it comes to apparel. People tend to like clothing for various reasons: the cut fits them well, the color flatters their complexion, the material feels nice against their skin, or the imprinted design appeals to them visually. Unfortunately, these preferences aren't always homogeneous across a target marketing group. Your intended audience probably contains a mix of ages, a mix of body types, and a mix of blondes/brunettes/redheads.

Despite these surface differences, there are generally features in clothing that most people can agree on.

Just for fun, I asked a few Sonic employees to send me pictures of their favorite T-shirts. Though we are a varied bunch in terms of appearance and style, you'll notice several similarities in our choice of tees.

Jamie



These are my favorite shirts for two reasons: 1) the soft fabric and 2) the vintage-style decoration. The blue Red Sox shirt uses a washed, soft-hand ink for its screen print, and the grey Red Sox shirt is decorated with a distressed appliqué. The Celtics shirt is also really soft, but I like the color more than anything. Green looks good on redheads. It brings out the "Irish" in me.

Seth


The Quactus shirt is for my brother Gabe's band. I think the logo is fun, and the colors look nice together. It also makes me think of my kids when I wear it. There's an adorable photo of them wearing the same shirt, taken about four years ago.

The Judge shirt is another favorite of mine because it's red, and I can wear it at Caps games. I get a lot of comments when I wear it... mostly people yelling "JUDGE!". I like to respond with, "I'll be the judge of that" or "This is my Judge Reinhold fan shirt" or "You can't judge a shirt by its color, or can you?"

Lindsay

I bought this shirt a few weeks ago, and if it's not on my body, it's in the wash. Of course I love the cute imprint, but it's the comfortable material that really won me over. This is the American Apparel Track T-shirt, and I've used this model several times for work projects. For some reason, I've never owned one of my own... until now. I also adore the faded blue grey color. In the same vain vein (heh) of Jamie's reasoning above, blue looks good with blonde hair. 

Eve


This shirt is one of my favorites because it's the first T-shirt I bought when I visited Austin before moving there. Being a New York girl, I thought it represented the city's vibe well. Now I know that the "Keep Austin Weird" shirts are much more appropriate!

Jen


I got this shirt at one of the last concerts I attended in El Paso before moving to the DC area, so I associate it with good memories. I also really like the material; it's very comfortable to wear.

Michael


This sweatshirt is one of my favorite pieces to wear. It was a gift from my lovely girlfriend, and it was made by a small apparel company in Cleveland, Ohio. It's very soft, and the neutral grey color goes well with brown, orange, blue and red (Browns and Indians).

I realize this little office poll isn't exactly statistically significant, but it does show you that people look for similar features in a T-shirt. Comfort seems to be a consistent theme in our responses, for example. Though standard heavyweight cotton tees are an economical choice, it might be worth it to invest in a better quality, brushed cotton or fine jersey tee for your next apparel campaign.

It is also important to note that we all personally identify with the branding/imprint. The boys are all proud to support their favorite sports teams, and Jen, Eve, Michael, and I all have fond memories of travels and time spent in our hometowns.

So, while selecting the style(s) and color(s) for your apparel campaign are important decisions, remember that your branding is often the trump card. Ultimately, the whole point is to promote your organization/band/team/company and to connect with your supporters. Work the power of brand equity. Your fans already like you... just give them something fun and comfortable to wear, and they will.

We run an internship program at Sonic through a local high school. Each semester, two or three students join our team and assist with project research, fulfillment and other administrative tasks. 

We love our interns. Seriously, we do. They help us stay up to date on high school slang and provide hours of entertainment. Their latest game was so cute, we felt compelled to share it with you.

Mary and Mike, or Kid Mike, as he prefers to be called, have never met in person (they alternate days at Sonic), but that doesn't keep them from messing with one another. Mary has been with us for several months now, and clearly, seniority is just as important among interns as it can be among full-time employees.

Mary's note reads: "Dear Kid Mike, don't touch my background. I have seniority rights. Thank you! Mary".
Point taken?

Hah! It only gets better...





Two things I've learned from this little intern war:

1. Our interns are internet savvy and know their memes. 

2. Clearly, we need to give them more work to do.

We run an internship program at Sonic Promos.

The extra hands are invaluable to office productivity, and the wise words of a high school senior are invaluable to office morale.

Last week we said goodbye to a particularly memorable intern. Michael (Jr.) did an absolutely fantastic job, but over the course of his semester with us we did spot one very serious flaw- a lack of movie trivia skills.

Since every other sentence spoken at our office is a quote from some film or TV show, we felt it our duty to educate Michael and prepare him for the road ahead. Our gift to him on his last day? A Netflix subscription and a list of office must-sees. Keeping in mind that our list is targeted to a 17-year old boy about to enter college, let us know if you spot any glaring omissions!

Movies You Might Have Missed Because You Were Born in the 90's
The Goonies
Spaceballs
The Breakfast Club 
Pulp Fiction 
Caddyshack
Clerks
Braveheart
Rain Man


 
Movies to Quote at Parties
Zoolander
Anchorman
There's Something About Mary
Old School Talladega Nights
Pineapple Express
Dodgeball
Austin Powers (take your pick)
Wet Hot American Summer The Hangover
Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Movies Girls Will Love You for Seeing
The Princess Bride
Love Actually
Pride and Prejudice (extra points for BBC version)
Clueless
10 Things I Hate About You
The Notebook
Bring It On



Movies Guys Will Respect You for Seeing
The Fighter The Ong Bak Trilogy
Fight Club
The Dark Knight
The Departed
The Godfather (all)
Goodfellas
Gone in 60 Seconds
Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels



Movies to Guide Your Moral Compass
Forrest Gump
To Kill A Mockingbird
Gran Torino
A Clockwork Orange (as in, don't you ever let your compass point this direction)
The Green Mile
Good Will Hunting
Stand By Me The Experiment
Rudy



Because We Say So
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
Harry Potter series
Jaws
Joe Dirt
The Cove
Office Space
Airplane (1 and 2)
Apocalypse Now
Food Inc.
The Shining
Avatar
The King's Speech
Into the Wild
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Source: freedigitalphotos.net

Two weeks ago, the Black Sheep Agency posted a link on their Facebook page- 7 Ways to Cultivate Your Creativity. The article, originally from the Scientific American website, offers several tips and suggestions to tap into your creative stores. Paying attention- real attention- to your surroundings, completing brain teasers and writing a stream of consiousness are all great ways to push through a mental block.

The article got me thinking about the various things we do in our office- whether intentionally or unintentionally- for artistic inspiration.



Doodle. I've always been one to doodle; my notebook margins in high school and college were filled with hearts and Necker cubes. Luckily for me, my co-workers at Sonic embrace doodling too. Our most recent project is a growing collection of George Washington stress toys, dressed up for modern times.
 


Source: omwoods.blogspot.com

Play with your words. A lot of our projects at Sonic rely on catchy taglines and engaging copy. We all appreciate a good pun, and we toss ideas around as a team. When I'm really stuck, I like to go to dictionary.com and make good use of their online thesaurus. I realize that sounds a little boring- I would love to say that I jump backwards five times and whip an eggbeater through the air or something original like that- but it works for me.

Organize something. Everyone in our office makes a sincere effort to keep the space tidy. While some of us are more Type A than others, we all seem to feel the stress when things start to pile up. I'm not sure what the science is behind this one- it might simply be that focusing on a different task, any task, will help distract and loosen your mind, or it could be that removing clutter from your physical space simultaneously breaks up the clutter in your brain.

Whether you work in marketing- where the purpose of your work is originality and standing out from the crowd- or not, we can all benefit from the tips offered in the article above. How do you bust through a creativity rut?

source: earthday2011.com

On Friday, the office celebrated Earth Day by carpooling to Silver Diner for lunch. We had originally planned to go for a walk or have a picnic, but the unexpected drizzle and 40 degree weather rained on that parade. Saving gas money and dining on locally-sourced chili was an earthy enough alternative for us.

Plus, we all wanted to see the Splenda imposters that Julianne wrote about in last week's blog post. While flipping through the sugar bowl rolodesk, we uncovered another surprise...



No... a PINK Equal! When will it end?!



All of this deception prompted me to visit Equal's website, and as it turns out, it's really not as bad as we thought it was. We initially assumed that Equal was repackaging their Aspartame sweetener in different colored packets, but the truth is they've transitioned into producing several varieties of artifical sweeteners. Their pink packets contain Saccharin, just like Sweet'N Low, and their yellow packets boast Sucralose, as you would find in a packet of Splenda.

We still think it's really sneaky, but at least the consumer isn't duped into ingesting something they otherwise wouldn't.