mckinney emerges victorious

North Carolina agency McKinney has come out victorious in the shootout for the Sherwin-Williams account, which is great news in general but also in this economy. I imagine that if you’re a McKinney staffer walking in this morning you’re feeling just a little bit better about your position than you may have been.

Unless you suck. Then you’re likely to get fired.

Anyway, the inside scoop is that McKinney won out on the strength of a brand and communication platform that took the iconic paint company into the chic, frou-frou realm that they wanted to go.

Good luck with that, says this pundit, noting smugly that Sherwin-Williams has no distribution in Home Depot or Wal*Mart, the who biggest paint outlets, and that brands like Ralph Lauren that are in Home Depot already own that niche. It’s not going to be an easy platform to deliver on.

But why get negative early? Congrats McKinney.

vacation is good, bvk makes it better

This is the time of year when Northerners start to think that maybe, just maybe, choosing to live in this climate was not that best choice and that perhaps, just perhaps, it’s time to start looking at opportunities in warmer parts of the world (it is this time every year that I begin poking around the websites of McKinney & Silver and 72andsunny just to see if there is an interesting opening in a place where I won’t need my heavy coat).

Milwaukee agency BVK definitely has the same thoughts in mind with their new campaign for the Beaches of Fort Myers and Sanibel:

A lot of tourism ads show (probably because they are forced) nothing more than an attractively shot image of the destination. As nice as that may be, and as great as the headline and supporting copy may be, that’s not particularly differentiating. Especially when there are lots of place just a quick plane flight away that have lovely beaches and palm trees and all that.

That said, people want to see the destination. They are enticed, especially when it’s freezing, by the thought of frolicking on a foreign shore.

This campaign uses simple objects to capture and enclose the scene, so you still see why you might be interested in, say, the Beaches of Fort Myers and Sanibel, but it also says something more than “we have nice beaches.” Sure, talking about capturing the memories and all that isn’t particularly unusual for vacation destinations, but by coupling that copy with a strong visual like this, it’s easier to get away with some of the vacation getaway platitudes because you’ve already gotten my attention.

The full campaign is available at Ads of the World.