Writings from Force 5 Basecamp

04/09/14

I listened to an interesting NPR piece about the brain’s preference for repeating music themes earlier this week. ‘Play It Again And Again, Sam’ by Alix Spiegel, mentioned the “mere exposure effect.” Then I saw “mere exposure effect” again in a blog ‘The Popcorn Effect: When Do Brand Ads Fail?’, thanks to my neuroscience marketing friend, blogger Roger Dooley. People

03/28/14

We’re really happy to announce the addition of Beth North as our new director of business development. Beth has been a long time friend and client, and we’re very pleased to have her on our team! Her responsibilities will include developing strategic ways of helping Force 5’s clients maximize their marketing strategy through the company’s service offerings, as well as

11/05/13

If you happen to peruse on by Google today, you will notice that Google’s doodle is celebrating the birth of Raymond Loewy, a french-born industrial designer. Although Loewy is best known for his involvement in designing the Coca-Cola bottle and locomotives for the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, Force 5 wanted to recognize Loewy for his relationship with the Studebaker Automobile Company,

10/24/13

As a creative agency we are always investigating new ways of doing things and because we deal regularly with “bleeding edge” technology in those creative endeavors, it is more important than ever to stay one step ahead. One of these new ideas is the use of “style tiles” in the web design process. You start with the most important step

10/15/13

Force 5, South Bend, IN – a next generation brand development and marketing communications firm, has been named the fifteenth best iPad app development company by bestwebdesignagencies.com for October 2013.  South Bend, IN – Force 5, a next generation brand development and marketing communications firm, has been announced as the fifteenth best iPad app development company by bestwebdesignagencies.com for the

09/27/13

Heartland Small Animal Rescue 2012 Force 4 Good Award Winner Project As the winner of the 2012 Force 4 Good contest, Heartland was entitled to 50 hours of marketing effort. But first, we needed to determine where to focus our efforts. Force 5 met with Heartland to discuss current needs and marketing obstacles within the organization. As a result, Force

09/18/13

I was reading Marketing Daily this morning and the first paragraph struck me, “The recommendations people make to their friends and family carry more weight than the messages companies put out on their own behalf.” The article is about the importance of “word of mouth” which always brings me back to the importance of creating Brand Evangelists and paying attention

09/10/13

Calling all Non-Profit organizations (NPOs) located in St. Joseph County! Nominations are now open for our Force for Good contest. You could win $5,000.00 in brand development and marketing communication services. We know times are tough for NPOs and part of our brand is a commitment to doing good work for people who do good works. We would like to

09/03/13

I was fortunate enough to spend my long Labor Day weekend in Camden Maine with one of my best friends from college. We did some sailing, shopping and of course we checked out the local restaurants! My friend and I are both foodies so we asked some locals for a recommendation of a great seafood or Italian restaurant. We were

08/28/13

This time of year kids all across the country are heading back to school. One of the changes that many students are encountering is the shift away from printed textbooks to digital media. For example, the New Prairie school distract in New Carlisle, Indiana is giving all students iPads to replace textbooks. Other schools are giving their students laptop computers

08/14/13

Late one evening I took a cruise through Netflix to catch up on TED Talks. I stumbled upon Barry Schwartz‘s talk on The Paradox of Choice. I found it fascinating and dug a little deeper online where I read about his now famous jam study: When researchers set up [in a gourmet food store] a display featuring a line of

08/01/13

I was watching the local news with my wife one evening and was struck by a story of a home invasion in a neighborhood very close to where we live. The story immediately got our attention. We were concerned enough to take extra precautions and make sure exterior lights, locks and windows all were working properly. The very next day,