Virtual Space for Gracie's Dining and the Driftwood Room

Challenge:
Help a new restaurant - and it's iconic cocktail lounge -- in a much-beloved hotel gain an audience, win new friends and convert some old ones. Our hat's off to Gracie's owner, Gregg Schillinger, for the opportunity to be a part of his effort here.

Solution:
A website that is one part photo gallery, one part interactive tool. The photos on the site are the product of two different photographers. Many of the photos on the site were shot by Andy Petkus, a local photographer and event planner. The site needed to allow people to subscribe in order to promote unique opportunities. Wine events. Tastings. Special occasions and the like will be shared with the growing email subscriber list.



We also wanted to create a place where people could quickly find the restaurant, see the most recent menu, make a reservation and correspond with the banquet managers for private events. Last, we added a weblog function www.graciesdining.blogspot.com so that diners could comment on their experiences -- good, bad or indifferent.




Result:
A website that is at once elegant, simple and utilitarian. For more information, please visit www.graciesdining.com

Speaker's Bureau for National Fraud Crime Experts

Challenge:
Fraud crimes are nothing new. The dictionary describes fraud as "A deception deliberately practiced in order to secure unfair or unlawful gain." Technology advances have given fraudsters a variety of new tools to practice their deception and the costs to unwary businesses and consumers is currently measured in the 10s of billions of dollars. Experts who can help the public combat fraud are in high demand. But, it's a noisy market place. As a result, so-called experts are difficult to separate from more the more experienced. Our challenge -- one in which we are currently engaged -- is to separate our client's experts from the thousands of others who claim the same expertise.

Solution:
First, we created a speaker's bureau; an organization whose sole job is to promote the speakers within. The speaker's bureau is solely focused on providing experts who can speak on the issues of fraud including check fraud, Internet scams, ATM fraud and the like. Second, we created a website to house information on the speakers. The result can be seen here: Amcrin.net. This site went live in early December 2006, and we are just now beginning to promote the service to organizations throughout the U.S. The website was designed by Tim Silvis of Systom and programmed by Darin Ingram of Grounded4Life.

Result:
As of this writing, it's too early to demonstrate any results. We will be using site statistics to establish some objective benchmarks in early January. Ultimately, though, the only benchmark that matters is how much business results from the creation of the service. We will be promoting the service to financial services concerns primarily working through associations. If you would like to learn more about Amcrin or their speaker's bureau, please visit the site or send an email to speakers@amcrin.net.

Designer, Tim Silvis, ladies and gentlemen, for Jacques Nichols...

Our friend and collaborator, Tim Silvis of Systom helped Portland lawyer, author and fundraiser, Jacques Nichols, create a business card recently. These are the result. Jacques is working on a few books whose titles are "If you want to see God's footprint, check your butt" and "Who the hell signed me up for this class?"

Jacque's most significant talent is his ability to meet people and quickly make connections to others. Jacques says, "I know you. I know Joe. You and Joe should meet." It's a wonderful and important business skill. Tim captured this in his graphic on the front of the card.

Project: Gracie's Breakfast Postcard Campaign

Challenge:
A brand new restaurant in a favorite local hotel. What to do to attract new business and not scare away the old. A poll of local businesses revealed that the restaurant had been a long-time favorite for breakfast meetings. The restaurant's owner believed that if we could gain the loyalty of breakfast patrons, it would lead to growth for the lunch and dinner business.

Solution:
We settled on the idea of a post card-driven direct sales campaign. Businesses in downtown Portland were selected to receive fresh blueberry muffins every Friday for several weeks. Law firms, CPA Firms, Banks and other professional services companies were on the list. The post cards (see here) were included in the delivery. In addition, we worked with Illy Coffee to create a contest for free coffee for those who patronized Gracie's for breakfast.

Result:
The campaign duration was six weeks. During that period, business for breakfast, lunch and dinner doubled. More importantly, catering opportunities were developed and are now the largest single source of revenues for the restaurant.

Colin Powell Boys and Girls Clubs Work

Here's an ad we wrote in collaboration with our friends at the Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Portland Metropolitan Area. We had the good fortune to lend a hand to the Clubs when General Colin Powell visited their Hillsboro club in the Fall of 2006.

The Clubs were given ad space by a local newspaper. The called 3 to solicit our ideas for developing an ad. This is the result. Many thanks to Joe Walsh at the Clubs for his help here!

Project: New Associate Campaign

Challenge:
A new associate joins a law firm that's less than a year old. Issues to be addressed included reinforcing the organization's creativity through an enhanced brand, demonstrating its commitment to creating a diverse workplace and - most importantly - welcoming a valuable new associate.

Solutuion:
3 brought in photographer, Tim Gunther, to give us something different than the typical head shot. We gathered the entire firm's lawyers one afternoon after work for a photo shoot to capture them "behind" Abby -- the new associate. Working with Green Dog Printing -- a local environmentally-sensitive print management company -- we created a post card that was not only pleasing to look at, but easy on the earth. The completed project was mailed to a list of the firms clients, prospects and friends. 3 sent the post card to local and national legal press.

The result:
A very happy client.

The World's First Video Fitness Game

Problem: Launch a new product in a cynical industry.
If you want a challenge, here's one for you. How do you promote a fitness game in a world where inactivity is part of the charm?

Armed with nothing more than a short video demonstration and some deep-pocketed investors that's precisely what we did in the Spring of 2004.

Yourself!Fitness -- the first fitness game for Xbox, PlayStation2 and the Personal Computer stuck out at E3 like a finger in a box of fast food fries. Hard core gamers reacted with mild disdain. But, they quickly saw the charm in "Maya," the virtual personal trainer. Within the year of the launch, Maya was elected as the sexiest virtual woman in cyberspace.

Solution:
Attendance at a game industry trade show resulted in The New York Times coverage you see here. We quickly followed up on that early success by arranging a media tour in New York with editors from Elle, GQ, Prevention, O (Oprah's magazine), Self, Shape and several others. We helped the founder hone their story, juxtapose the product against the obesity problem in school children and reinforced that idea that it was "the first game that plays YOU."

Result:
The product received wide coverage -- including photos -- in almost 1,000 publications around the world within three months of launch. A significant piece of coverage in the Chicago Sun Times resulted in a call from McDonalds. Several months later, Yourself!Fitness mini discs were included in salads coast-to-coast.

General Colin Powell 3-atively entertained.

"Eye's straight. Chin up. Face the crowd and speak with confidence." These were some of the General's instructions to several of the children chosen to ask a question of General Powell at recent ground-breaking ceremony for the Boys and Girls Clubs in Hillsboro, Oregon.

3 was asked to lend a hand with media relations logisitics and creating a unique gift for General Powell. Media were not invited to attend the event as the General wanted to ensure all of his attention would be on the hundreds of kids who missed part of the school day to visit with him. Having produced hundreds of video news releases over the years, 3 took raw video from expert videographer Brian Houtari, and turned around a short video news release for the local Portland television news.

We had the video in our hands at 3 o'clock in Hillsboro and drove to Southeast Portland to edit. All of the stations had the footage by 6 o'clock. Special thanks to 3 associate, Libbi Loseke, for making the mad dash to the edit suite where she cut the piece down to three minutes of higlights, made four dubs and got the couriers coordinated all within less than two hours. All of the stations took the video. One initially declined to take the footage because "We were not invited to attend," they said. We underscored that the event was for the children, not for the press. After reconsidering, the station relented and ran the video. It was initially a little disheartening to hear a news director complain about children being put ahead of the television stations needs.

The gift we presented to General Powell is not pictured here, but will be shortly. It is a bench with a plaque below paying homage to his visit. The design is the brainchild of rising architectural star, Erik Winter of Myhre Group Architects (www.myhregroup.com). Nice work Erik! The rendering will be used to inspire a future donor to complete the project, thus allowing those who were in attendance on that warm October day to point to it and say "I was there."

Kids are the focus on new website for Social Venture Partners Portland

Social Venture Partners Portland is a charitable organization focused on providing time + money + expertise to non-profits whose mission it is to improve the lives of children.

Over the better part of 2006, 3 worked with a volunteer team of partners to create a story-telling platform on the Internet. The result is here: svpportland.org. Special thanks to Social Venture Partners Portland executive director, Jean Hart, for her confident leadership here. Thanks also to Megan Leftwich and Les Soltesz for their guidance, support and "velvet hammer" approach to getting this important new resource completed. These two former Intel executives were instrumental in ensuring that the project was completed according to the original specifications and creative that 3 outlined.

Last, we want to thank design guru Tim Silvis of Systom for his help in taking the original idea and turning it into a work of art. Darin Ingram of Grounded4Life provided the programming expertise.

The Challenge:
The old Social Venture Partners site was over five years old. In Internet time, that's, well, old. It was a template site using a technology by the name of Plone. Plone requires the user to master their technology (not difficult for the average person) and is not particularly flexible from a design perspective. The new site needed to quickly engage the viewer and explain how Social Venture Partners works. The organization provides both money and partner time to every "investee." It is short-staffed and they receive a lot of inbound calls from organizations look for funds. With that in mind, the management and board wanted a site that would quickly help prospective investees understand how the organization worked. They also wanted to provide content that would educate organizations whose needs were not congruent with SVPP's mission, thus saving time and limited staff resources.

The Solution:
We recommended using flash to tell short stories (vignettes) drawn from the powerful case studies of the organization's successful investment efforts. We first looked at the web statistics for the site to determine how the old site was being used. That gave us an initial road map on how to build the site. Then, we wrote the vignettes and added photographs from SVPP events - augmented by stock footage where needed. From there we added the key elements that formed the navigation and content for the site. It sounds simple as I write this. But, it wasn't.

Result:
During the first week, the new site received high marks from board members, investees and visitors alike. The clean navigation forces users to select one of only three choices, thus helping to funnel users to information that -- if read and understood by the visitor -- will save time in answering questions. Staff resources remain thin at the organization, so this will be a key part of the site's job moving forward. 3 will be looking at the site's usage statistics after the first of the year to determine where adjustments need to be made.

If you have comments about the new Social Venture Partners website, please let us know by emailing us here at info@why3.com.

Thanks!

Iced Espresso for a Hot Planet

Here's a little story we put out to the press this week. It's getting a lot of traction -- especially from reporters in SoCal who are boiling. Check it out and enjoy.

Iced Espresso for a Hot Planet; Cold milk, ice and Stomping Grounds Concentrated Espresso pours a perfect iced latte every time.

Portland, Ore. (July 19, 2006) — With the mercury rising higher than normal throughout the nation this summer, thirsty Americans may want to take a break from their daily cup of hot coffee for a tasty iced espresso made with a new concentrate from Stomping Grounds Beverage Company. It’s a perfect way to beat the heat.

Recipe:

1/3 Stomping Grounds Cold-Press Concentrated Espresso—any flavor (on store shelves coast-to-coast and at StompingGrounds.com for about $6 per 12-serving box).

2/3 milk of choice (whole, skim, rice or soy)

Add your favorite sweetener to taste.

Pour over ice.

(Add Vodka for a little kick!)

Stomping Grounds is the first liquid, cold-pressed espresso concentrate in the United States. It comes in four flavors: Original Espresso blend (with a touch of sugar), Mocha, Caramel, and Vanilla. Stomping Grounds is vacuum-sealed in a Tetra-Pak box and can be easily and conveniently stored at room temperature until it is ready to be served, either hot or cold. Once opened, it must be refrigerated, but will remain fresh for almost a month. Find it on store shelves coast-to-coast or purchase directly at

Beverage industry entrepreneur Sean Ryan created Stomping Grounds in 2005, after serving as an executive at Nestle, and marketing Oregon Chai to prominence. Says Ryan, “Stomping Grounds is easy to pack for summer travel. It is not only convenient, but also an economical choice for coffee lovers.”

Enjoy!