See wedding photos of Amy and Austin.

See engagement photos of Ron and Julia.

Nice job, Ali!

Fred Meyer shoppers: meet the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile.

Among the gawkers I observed were: A woman holding a cute baby; a guy wearing a skirt; a Boy Scout with his dad, also dressed like a Boy Scout. There were lots of kids. Lots of old people. Beaver fans and Duck fans. There was even a man holding a wiener dog.

So here we have people of all ages and walks of life getting excited about … hot dogs, and demonstrating their excitement by taking photos to presumably share with others. I don’t even eat hot dogs, but I’ll admit the Wienermobile looks cool. It’s shiny. It’s big. It’s definitely not something you see every day. (I overheard one woman exclaim, “It only comes by once every ten years!” Apparently, I just witnessed the Halley’s comet of frankfurters.)

Watching others embrace the Oscar Mayer brand today has reminded me of something about marketing. Years ago, I suspect whoever first thought of this silly idea was poked fun of. That is, until the hot dogs began selling like hot cakes. And then that crazy person was given a big fat raise.

Brilliance is easily confused with crazy thinking. So what’s your Wienermobile? I gotta think about that question for my business, too.

But first, I gotta get back to my homework.

The Manning for Mayor team approached the MAC this past Spring when they were looking for help developing an identity for the campaign. They needed a logo to represent Julie’s friendly personality and strong leadership abilities. The identity also needed broad public appeal, but had to stand out amongst other local and national political races. The result was a balanced combination of hand-drawn letterforms and all-caps Futura in two shades of blue. The colors go quite nicely with Julie’s eyes, don’t you think?

The campaign liked the logo so much they also asked the MAC to develop a website, a brochure, a series of newspaper ads, and lawn signs to help get out the vote.

Representing the MAC was Rebecca Badger (marketing strategy, project management), Ron Sparks (web development), Danielle Anthony (photography), and yours truly (graphic design).

Big congrats to Mayor-elect Julie and all her supporters. She ran a great campaign and she’ll make a great mayor. We’re honored to have been asked to play a part in her victory.

For our booth, we teamed up with Mark Giordono at HP/MagCloud to offer visitors 25% off the printing cost of any magazine-format publication. (If you missed the show, you can still save by using the coupon code MADCOLLECTIVE. Head over to MagCloud.com to learn more about printing possibilities for your business.) Booth visitors were also given copies of our hot-off-the-press 2nd edition MACtivity book, which includes Madison Ave. Collective’s newest members Dave Bassett, Sean Brown, and Amy Dasso. Swing by our office to get your copy. Not only are these ever-popular books FREE, we also like to think they’re priceless.

Finally, the MAC is grateful for the opportunity to help design some of the WIN 2010 promotional materials. Several months ago, Matt and I began working with Mark Van Patten and others from WIN to create the posters, handouts, postcards, and buttons for this year’s event. While we were setting up our booth last week, Mark came by and said he had something to show us. He walked us over to the keynote presentation hall, smiled proudly, and pointed to a WIN logo the size of King Kong being projected on the wall. Now that’s what I call a happy client.

Big thanks to Dave for capturing some great photos that night. You can see the full set at our MAC Flickr page.

Results of the portrait sessions can be seen here and here, as well as in the soon-to-be-released 2nd edition of our ever popular MACtivity book. Some production shots are below.

Big thanks to Dave for being willing to pull the trigger two or three hundred times for each of us.  I also hear that someone captured audio from a few of the sessions, but let’s hope that tape never finds its way onto the internet.

I am please to announce that Amy Dasso has won the 14th seat at Madison Ave. Collective. Running unopposed, victory was hers from the beginning.

Way to go, Amy! Welcome to the club.

Two cool cats who are cool behind the camera. Welcome to the club, boys!

This Thursday, August 26, Madison Ave. Collective is celebrating our second anniversary. You, faithful reader, are invited to celebrate with us. View details and RSVP here.

Bring a guest and stop by anytime between 4–7pm. This open-house party will be held at the Madison Ave. Collective world headquarters in downtown Corvallis, Oregon.

The party will feature munchies from Block 15, treats from Rocket Queen Cupcakes, fun pics from Smile Booth, and cool people like YOU. Oh, and something else we think is kinda fantastic, too. (You’ll have to show up to find out.) Hope to see you then!

Now, what sort of fun things can I/you/we do to attract more attention and get more business? Maybe instead of searching for new ways to become better, faster, cheaper, smarter, cooler, whatever-er… we should just start thinking a little bigger.

But then I drove off. Taco Bell was calling, and the busyness of life kicked in again. I practically forgot about the whole thing until coming across this completely awkward video today. I gotta say, my reaction to the rainbow wasn’t quite as dramatic as that guy’s. But I do sympathize with him.

Here’s the photo I took. Um, make that three photos, all stitched together and trying their best to do justice to what I saw that day. Like I said, it was huge. And in more than one way.

^ Click the photo to view larger.