Digital Dawgs

The University of Georgia's Terry College of Business proudly kicked off the 2009 Peachtree Road Race with this outdoor message of encouragement to participating Georgia Bulldog students, alumni and friends. The digital billboard, designed by Freebairn art director Don Patton, is located in the heart of the race on Peachtree Street. It shows legendary school mascot "UGA" with rotating headlines which read, "Go Dawgs Go" and "Run Dawgs Run."



Soon after the conclusion of the race, a new design will appear for the University's Executive MBA program in Buckhead.



Chris Neilands, Marketing Director for Terry's Executive and Evening MBA programs says, "This is a terrific opportunity for The Terry College to make a strong impact before a very large audience of prospective MBA candidates. And cheering on the Dawgs is always fun."

Capturing Baddour.

Freebairn and Company recently completed a week-long photo shoot at The Baddour Center community for adults with intellectual disabilities in Senatobia, Mississippi. Art director Jay Hatfield and account manager Jean Cobb joined Atlanta-based photographer Ralph Daniel to produce stunning visual materials for The Center's multi-media branding campaign. Parke Pepper, Executive Director of Baddour, helped make the shoot a great success by granting and coordinating an all-access approach to residents, staff and facilities throughout the 120-acre campus.



Months ago, during Freebairn's research phase for marketing The Center, a family member of one of the residents gave us an excellent insight when she said, "It's a magic place. Capture Baddour, don't create it."



Good advice, and we're taking it!

At the Corner of Miracle and Enrichment

Freebairn recently made the trip to Senatobia, Mississippi to present the 2009 / 2010 communications campaign for The Baddour Center, a community for adults with intellectual disabilities. Jean Cobb led off by reviewing the agency's analysis of information gained through interviews conducted with the Baddour staff, residents and their families, members of the board of directors, and vocational center customers. Sandy Chapman covered media recommendations, Mack Kirkpatrick and Jay Hatfield presented a number of creative options for tag lines, logos, brochures, newspaper and magazine ads, web banners and radio. Christian Griffith demonstrated new Internet looks and content for Baddour and discussed ways to achieve more effective search engine optimization of their web site. John Freebairn presented public relations opportunities for reaching prospective residents, donors and additional customers for Baddour's packaging and fulfillment services.

The new work was enthusiastically received, and production is underway.



Christian Griffith (shown here) observed that even the street signage says that something very special is going on at Baddour.

Hot Stuff.

Each year, Agri-Marketing Magazine publishes a special edition to commemorate the National Agricultural Marketing Awards. This special edition also serves as the official program for the event. Traditionally, an advertising agency from the host city of the NAMA Show is chosen to create the cover. This year's awards convention was held in Atlanta, and Freebairn & Company had the honor, thanks to the quality of work we produce as well as our extensive agricultural advertising and marketing experience.


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Freebairn art director, Jay Hatfield's new cover design dramatizes the NAMA 2009 theme of "Hot Ideas, Sizzling Solutions" by punctuating it with a striking visual that underscores Atlanta's reputation for being a city bursting with excitement. Jay scoured several antique stores until he found what he wanted, then he made his ingenious Photoshop skills pay off with a "Hotlanta" thermometer that's sizzling off the charts in intensity.

Freebairn also seized the opportunity Agri-Marketing presented to showcase work we’ve done for our crop protection client, MANA. We placed one of the MANA ads in the NAMA special edition along with a (frankly, self-serving) snipe inviting other agricultural companies to take advantage of our expertise by joining the Freebairn client roster.


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Vintage Freebairn

When a friend of the agency saw his winemaking hobby snowball its way toward success, he turned to Freebairn art directors, Don Patton and Jay Hatfield, for label designs to showcase his distinctive products. Their creative explorations drew accolades from our most appreciative entrepreneurial vintner.

Show Time!

The Freebairn Players, Internet strategist Christian Griffith, together with art directors Jay Hatfield and Don Patton, pull on the headphones to display their voice talents in a recording session at Atlanta's Doppler Studios



The versatile trio helped produce a :30-second radio spot for the agency's client, MANA, that is set to run on the Chicago Cubs radio network.

Listen Below: Growing with Bumper fungicide

Freebairn Speaks to the UGA Ad Club

Tuesday, March 24, 2009, three of us headed down to Athens, Georgia to speak to students in the University of Georgia Advertising Club.

Speaking to the group was Jean Cobb, Account Management Supervisor, Sandy Chapman, Media Director, and your humble narrator, Christian Griffith, Internet Strategist.

The goal of the presentation was talk a bit about Freebairn and Company, and what makes our agency unique and different, as well as, offer some insight into the advertising agency industry, what graduating seniors can expect, and to explore some of the emerging technologies and advertising tools that are starting to showing up in the client campaign mix.

I've always believed that Freebairn and Company is special, but Jean's portion really drove home the importance and advantages of being a full-service agency, with all of the advertising disciplines under one roof, working together as a team each and every day.

So many agencies now-a-days are scattered across the country, and campaigns split amongst different sister companies, creating fragmentation and less-than-optimal campaign integration.

It's a lot easier to create synergy and integration when everyone is together.

Sandy spoke about the world of media and some of the interesting elements associated with planning and buying media properties. Touching on newer concepts such as behavioral marketing and campaign analytics, Sandy provided very real, relevant and current trends that will only continue to grow as junior advertising professionals enter the marketplace.

I followed Jean and Sandy with a brief presentation on Internet Marketing, and more specifically, Search Engine Marketing and Social Networking.

It's always difficult to present on these topics because although those of us in the business are aware, many people still are not up to speed with regards to search. The landscape changes so quickly, and there are very few college courses associated with concepts like pay-per-click advertising, search engine optimization, and Internet advertising in general; and of the courses that are available, most are overly simplistic when teaching concepts and techniques.

That might have been the case with me as well at UGA.

My challenge throughout this year will be to develop an Internet Marketing presentation that is exciting, informative and SIMPLE to understand for clients, in-house team members, and any other audiences with an interest in learning just what the heck it is us nerdy SEOs are doing to increase traffic to web sites.

We enjoyed visiting the UGA AdClub, meeting and eating with some of the students, and gaining a better understanding of the new generation entering the advertising business.

We thank the AdClub for having us, and wish all the members much success in their career development.