Happy Halloween!
Have we mentioned that we love creating custom illustrations? Any chance we get to pull out the sketch pad and draw, is a great day at Skillet Creative. Halloween seemed like the perfect opportunity to do just that. Our sweet office pup, Max, always makes a good subject, even when he’s hanging out in the pumpkin patch. Happy Halloween from all of us at Skillet Creative.
Designing and Running for Fun. Skillet Creative Supports Local Schools.
On occasion, our work isn’t always about food and beverage design, sometimes we veer a little off the specialty food path to help out a local organization. Over the past four years, at no charge, we’ve provided design and content support for a parent teacher organization (PTO) that works with three schools in our area: Essex Elementary School, Founders Memorial School and Essex Middle School.
The work has included a variety of projects from social media graphics, event posters, press releases, and most recently logo and t-shirt design for a new Fun Run fundraiser. In addition to designing the Fun Run logo, pledge packets, banner, t-shirts, and digital graphics, Skillet Creative was also the headlining sponsor for each of the events—and we were in pretty good company with other sponsors such as Reinhart Foodservice and Select Design.
For three Fridays in a row, we cheered on students as they ran, walk, skipped, and sometimes sprinted around a track to help raise money for their schools. The funding goes to annual Enrichment Grants which support programs at each school. A few examples of programs that have been funded include summer reading programs, family math events, family reading events, visiting authors, fine arts night, Farm2School, and even Jr. Iron Chef teams (see there’s the food connection!)
We couldn’t be prouder of the outstanding efforts by each student and all of us a Skillet Creative feel very fortunate to be part of an incredible educational community.
The Stuff of Legends. New Brewing Company or an Urban Myth?
Some stories deserve to be told over and over again. There’s an enchantment to hearing about a Bigfoot siting in the forests of the Northwest while gathered around a camp fire. Or keeping an eye out for Lake Champlain’s most famous monster while paddling around Button Bay.
That’s indeed what makes a good story, a legend. Passed on from generation to generation the most inspiring, humorous, or just plain unimaginable tales combined with some sort of historical significance become what legends are made of. The allure of a legend is easy to imagine, but how do you tie in some of the most outlandish and out-of-this-world myths to a new brewing company in the crowded marketplace of craft beers? Introducing Stuff of Legend Brewing Company with its four signature beers: Hit the Road Jack, Sewer Gator IPA, The Champ, and Sasqu-Amber.
The Jackalope, a mythical animal of North American folklore known as a jackrabbit with antelope horns, is the inspiration for an American Pale Wheat Ale Hit the Road Jack. This legend seems to be more firmly rooted in the art of taxidermy than actual real sightings of a Jackalope. The story goes that in the 1930’s two brothers who appreciated hunting and taxidermy grafted deer antlers into a jackrabbit carcass and sold the combination to a hotel in Wyoming. Perhaps the new Hit the Road Jack is the perfect beer to cap off a day searching the valleys of Wyoming for that rascally rabbit.
Here’s a legend that we aren’t in any hurry to run across, Sewer Gators. This may be one of the oldest urban legends to come out of New York City. There have been numerous stories over the years of how these reptiles could have ended up in the sewer systems of Manhattan. The legend goes that families would purchase baby gators as pets while vacationing in Florida, but upon returning to city life they would quickly realize that maybe a gator isn’t the ideal pet and the owners would flush them down the toilet. The stories have persisted because there seems to be legitimate accounts of New Yorkers seeing gators lounging on river banks or nosing their way out of manholes. Stuff of Legend Brewing Company offers their take on this mythical creature with an IPA flavored with white peppercorn and orange peel, Sewer Gator IPA.
Now on to one of the most famous water creatures to become a legend over the last few centuries, the Lake Champlain Monster or locally known as Champ. Legends of a serpent-like creature living in Lake Champlain date back to Native American tribes in the region. Even Sameul de Champlain, the founder of Quebec and the lake’s namesake, is often recorded as having seen Champ in 1609. What seems to be fact is that the lake is home to many large fish, which may account for why people have seen something serpent like in the cold waters between Vermont and New York. The Stuff of Legend Brewing Company gives a nod to this mythical lake monster with The Champ, an American style sour beer.
And who doesn’t love a good Bigfoot story? This hairy, upright-walking, ape-like being is said to live in the wilderness of the Pacific Northwest, thanks to what many have claimed are the presence of huge footprints and numerous sighting. Over the years, the Sasquatch has inspired funny commercials, characters and even hoaxes. But all joking aside, the Sasqu-Amber, the fourth edition to the line of up beers from Stuffs of Legends Brewing Company, is a refreshing amber ale with a solid malt and hop balance. This is the beer you’ll want to grab before you start that camp fire and get ready to tell your Sasquatch tale.
Keeping with the theme of legends, you actually won’t be able to find these beers anytime soon at your favorite bar. This brand, Stuff of Legend Brewing Company, is a legend of its own and is the creation of Skillet Creative’s graphic designer, Kelsey Gugliuzza. Sometimes as a design and marketing firm, we like to take a break from the daily workload and stretch our creative muscles for a project that we have been kicking around for a while. Plus it’s always a fun way to demonstrate how we can help to build your brand through creative and marketing. Have a new project that you’ve been thinking about? We’d love to hear about. Cheers!
The (un)dead age of Blogging
In the age of social media and Millennials, attention spans are short and social media posts are shorter. While this fast and somewhat free marketing tool can be a huge asset to work with, sometimes we need a little more room to express ideas. Blogs may seem like an archaic tool of self expression on the internet, but they can be an effective, subtle tool to boost your website traffic and SEO.
Putting out regular blogs on your website can help your target audience interact with your brand. Having relevant and interesting content will hopefully bring in a greater audience to view and interact with your brand online. This has always been true. The importance of maintaining your blog lies in the backend of things: SEO. Having current content full of buzzwords is a great and easy way to boost your SEO rankings a touch. Your blog is a space to add search engine keywords, and having recent page posts is another way to boost your page’s ranking on Google.
In addition to your blog helping with search engine optimization, it provides content that you can share on your social media platforms. Your blog can create a space for you to post longer content than you can post on your social channels. This allows for you to link between your website and your various social accounts, driving traffic to your site. This NewsCred article mentions that “70% of people would rather get to know a brand through articles rather than through ads.” This makes sense, people are more likely to trust something more casual and subtle like an article on your website over a bold advertisement.
Still need convincing? The same article cites that “329 million people read blogs every month, and companies that blog get 5x more traffic than their peers.” If that isn’t enough evidence to keep your brand’s blog up and running, we don’t know what is.
Blogs don’t have to be long either, just check out some of ours. Sit back, break out your laptop and start blogging. If you need help on what to blog about, reach out to us. We’d be happy to help develop a content plan that connects with your customers.
Creating Marketing Materials that Customers Want
When it comes to marketing in the food space, it is crucial to create meaningful content that separates you from your competitors. We’ve said this time and time again. One of the most straightforward, yet easy to overlook ways to do this is to create content that your customers want to see. Creating a beautiful print ad with eye-catching colors and nice graphics (while still important) is no longer enough.
Recently, we came up with several pieces for Vermont Creamery that were engaging and effective. Some of these materials included a cocktail and cheese pairing card as well as recipe booklets. These types of marketing collateral work well because they create a relationship between their cheese and other items in the kitchen. In that way, the cheese becomes more approachable, and it gives the consumer a reason to try both their cheese and a new recipe.
Think about it, how inclined are you to purchase a cheese named St. Albans? While intriguing (and delicious), the average consumer might not know what to do with it. But finding out it that pairs well with sour beer, granny smith apples and potato chips makes it less intimidating. Check out these images of the recipe books we were talking about below.
Want to explore ways to create materials that connect to your consumers? Let’s find a time to talk.