Leaving Guaranty

I decided to leave Guaranty because, I was no longer getting the experience that I wanted. I also felt unable to enact the kinds of changes and designs that I wanted to see. Things became compartmentalized in such a way that I was doing more of the work that I disliked, and less of the work that I feel like I am truly best suited for. I tried to rectify this but to no avail.

I won't make a habit out of belaboring my employment in posts, but I worked there for so long that I feel like it's worth putting a period on my Guaranty experience.

Click "Read More" below to see a video of my office space before I left Guaranty. 

Halloween 2017

So this Halloween I went on down to Mohawk Tavern, and cut a commercial for their Facebook page.

Read more to see my Halloween costume.

I Coulda Been a Contender - 3 Parodies of Well Known Movies

Every once in a while I get to cut loose, and have some fun doing something ridiculous. This was one of those opportunities. We shot most of this in one day to support the Jordan Kent Skills Camps. It was a lot of fun and I hope we do more parodies with Eggie moving forward.

I could see us recreating some really great movies in the near future. 

Click "Read More" to Watch... If You Haven't Already.

Come on Down to Mohawk Tavern!!!

by Jamie Bennett

Here is a commercial we put together at a local tavern in Springfield, OR. It's based on footage we acquired during the Guy Reporting business. I think it turned out well. It's garnered over 2k views on Facebook. There was lot of organic traffic through shares. 2k is a good bit of traffic in my experience. There were also a ton of shares.

Click to Go to Mohawk Tavern on Facebook

Click Read More to Learn More About This Commercial

Guy Reporting

by Jamie Bennett

During the month of March 1 was doing a mock news report at Mohawk Tavern in Springfield, Ore. I was Guy Reporting and the whole thing was a lot of fun. I was going to post this sooner but as usual I am slammed. I am editing a final rendition of Mohawk's video now that will be a generic commercial for electronic promotion. It should be out sometime April or May. It was fun shooting these. Just a world wind style of shooting in an attempt to gather assets for this future commercial. I am hopeful to have a video for Cascade Colour in the near future. 

Click Here to View This Video!!!

Country Music Video Extravaganza

by Jamie Bennett

I am tired, so this will be short. I included my favorite videos from this weekend for filler. To the right is a number of sandwich boards I brought to the festival. The neon decal ones were in the Rising Star area, and the four color signs were at the display. I spent today cleaning our marketing trailer, and sorting the collateral materials. It was a great weekend. It was especially awesome to see people enjoying the hats, other promotional items, and it was great to get to know my colleagues better. I am exhausted, so there you have it.

Read on and you'll see video that Cappelli Miles made for the jumbotron (Eggie included), video of me dancing (in real life) and the most Amaerican clip of all time.

Updating Our Monuments!!!

by Jamie Bennett

So I spoke too soon with my last post title. I can't remember whether or not I thought I was being funny, but the worst was not over. I will talk more about that in the full post, but for now let's look at these beautiful LED signs below.

I'm hopefully going to be able to tap into these from my office. We will have three sets of these facing north and south along Highway 99. We are even going to project public notices for the city from time to time. It should be awesome.

If you read on there will also be a video of the new channel letters for our momunents.

The Big Sale

by Jamie Bennett

So I have been running various collateral materials out of Guaranty's marketing for well over a year, but I have only recently taken on producing all of our direct mail in-house.  I have embedded a video showing my setup, and you can see the oversized postcards that I am producing for our various shows. So far the paper cutter has paid for itself. We are paying 70% of what we once spent on production, and we have doubled our direct mail footprint in the local markets.

I love having the tools to produce these materials in house. It gives us a great deal of flexibility, and allows for a shorter turnaround on these materials. It seems as though the time I use to spend ordering certain materials, and arranging for delivery has been neatly folded into this production time. The reward for all my efforts, is having marketing materials in house within hours, as opposed to days.

Mourning Herb Nill, and I am an Art Director

by Jamie Bennett

How I came to be in Oregon is not interesting. I worked in Vegas, and the clients were notable. I learned a lot, but the Pacific Northwest is a much better arrangement for a person such as myself.

Six years ago I moved to Junction City, Ore. I did research before moving, and Guaranty looked like a dream company. The thing that I found most attractive was that I would be working in house for a family business that was forward thinking. I was impressed with the resources, and excited about the opportunity to make a mark on a company. Often as a marketer you are stuck in a rigid set of brand standards. Guaranty was wide open territory. Guaranty is a company that is bridging country overhead, and big city selection. We are online, growing, and we are nimble. Our CFO is also incredible, and I trust his judgement better than my own.

Herb believed in me. I don't know how much he knew of me, but I had several interactions with him. He treated me with love and respect. Herb was in the air force, and my own family was too. I often felt like I belonged at Guaranty, unlike I belonged anywhere else. It has been as if, I have trained my whole life to be here now. Herb raised amazing sons, and this whole company is his legacy.

Do read on. I will add a video.

How to Install Decals Like a Pro

by Jamie Bennett

Pretty sure I have covered this before, but it's always worth a refresh. When you choose to read more, I will include a time lapse video so you can watch me work.

First of all prep the surface that you wish to apply the decal to. Make sure there is no dirt, and you can mix 5-10% dish soap with water to create a decent surface spray. This will allow you to slide your decal a little. The solution can help you with positioning, and bubble eradication.

I have applied decals in dust bowls, and in the freezing rain. It is best to be in a climate controlled situation, but sometimes you just gotta make it work. I find that direct sunlight and hot weather is the hardest working condition, especially for large decals. The surface area can heat the vinyl and turn it into an almost fluid state. The rain isn't so bad, as long as you can sop up the water fast enough, bring a towel.

Big Bet Means Big Fun

by Jamie Bennett

This is the end result of this years Big Bet campaign. Every year Guaranty's owners (the Nills, father and son) make a wager about who will win the Oregon State (OSU) vs University of Oregon (UO) football game. Shannon, the son went to OSU and his father went to UO. So this year the bet was that the looser would get a tattoo dedicated to the winners Alma Mater. Shannon lost, and so he had to get the Ducks mascot tattooed on his arm.

If you expand the story you, you can see the commercial, and additional tattoo concepts.

Bi-Mart Country Music Festivals are a Wrap

by Jamie Bennett

So Bi-Mart Willamette Country Music Festival was wonderful this year. The acts were great. Our Rising Star area didn't have power for the most part, and my generator kept shutting down. It would be on for an hour, and then it would shut off for three or four hours. It kept overheating. It was rough, but at least the weather wasn't as hot as it was in years past. I had a great time. The signage was looking great. In the next section I will show you what out Rising Star area looked like (the area where our guests would gather for dinner, and to party after nightly concerts).

CLICK READ MORE TO SEE WHAT EGGIE SEES!

Shooting Hoops with Jordan Kent

by Jamie Bennett

When you're an eggman, you have friends in high places. Jordan Kent dropped by today to shoot some hoops.

Guaranty ponied up $1,500 (prize money) for the winner of a one on one basketball game. If Jordan won, the kids camp would finally get their new basketballs... But if I won, well there was no way I was going to win.

READ MORE to see all the hot basketball action.

Mutton Busting

by Jamie Bennett

One of the great things about being a graphic designer is getting to put images onto things that you never considered as canvas. Here I am standing next to some live stock shoots that were going to the rodeo in Albany, Ore. One of our palooza's was taking place next to the rodeo and so we sponsored the mutton busting. I installed decals on the shoots that the sheep shoot out of.

Mutton busting is essentially plopping kids onto sheep and turning them loose. Kind of a family friendly version of what usually happens at the rodeo. It was a lot of fun.

Another great thing about being a designer is that often I am called to broaden my horizon. I am familiar with rodeos, but I must say that I am not a fan. I feel bad for the animals, particularly the bulls and horses. Torturing animals was probably more fun before the advent of cable television. 

That being said... I had to get my daughter on a sheep. I remember seeing mutton busing as a kid and thinking, "I could do better." Llew was super pumped. I think that the people at the rodeo thought I was foolish to put my daughter on the sheep. That was at least, the impression I got. There was a Dora the Explorer helmet so she couldn't have been the first. Llew is brave and can take a spill better than most boys. I wasn't worried. 

CLICK "READ MORE" TO VIEW LLEW RIDING THE SHEEP... The guy pulled her early which I thought was a little unnecessary but perhaps, it's better to leave some decisions to the professionals. Llew was mostly disappointed that her socks got dirty during the process.

Presenting Technology & Stuff

by Jamie Bennett

So at the end of this year's World Series between the Royals and  Giants a Chevy representative got a ton of flack for his presentation of the Most Valuable Player. A very surreal moment in baseball. Here is a link if you missed it. Just as an FYI, there are better recordings of this but I didn't bother finding one.

Anyways at work we are releasing a new Chevy service app. and we decided to spoof this presentation. We were thinking, "hey technology and stuff." Read more to see our spoof or click here.

Keep Road Trippin'

by Jamie Bennett

Manifestival destiny brought country music to the furthest western point of these continental United States. Cape Blanco (Blank-O) was held along the southwestern Oregon coast and is a welcome addition to an already successful Bi-mart summer concert series. I know because I was there and have been since the beginning. I saw the whole thing blossom behind quantum black eyes and a frozen, albeit reassuring half moon smile.
 

My favorite aspect of any music festival is the RVs. Each person’s setup is beautiful, unique and a status symbol. Our brakes went out just before Cape Blanco and my personal Airstream was thrashed. I just put some new solar panels on the 30 foot Land Yacht and was anticipating an easy drive to Junction City when the brakes choose to do nothing about preventing me sailing around the exit ramps railing. My conversion van came out without a scratch but the trailer was totaled. Probably a good thing this happened before the festival weekend but a downer nevertheless. My family status was back to just above the ground sleepers in our big ass loaner rig.

Harlem Shake 2

by Jamie Bennett

Harlem Shake

by Jamie Bennett

Ground Zero – Merry Christmas!

by Jamie Bennett



So this is the first actual day of posting my blog. So many things have happened to me over the years and I am sad to say that I haven’t preserved all the experiences I should have. There have been numerous openings and marketing experiences that are forever filed in my memory bank. Now I have a place to archive these experiences. I was inspired to finally sit down and blog all these experiences after the last several years of repeat events. It is now my responsibility to try and go as far back as possible to preserve some of my guerilla marketing experiences before they are lost forever.

Light Parades

by Jamie Bennett


This year I did the Junction City (12/07/12) and Harrisburg (12/08/12) light shows as Eggie. I gave out some SWAG and was mobbed. People were shacking me. I got separated from the RV but it was a lot of fun. I even got a really nice email from a customer saying that her son wouldn’t take our glasses off.


I like doing Eggie because people light up when they see you and you can give out a little SWAG which people love FREE stuff and it makes them feel cared for. I love Guerrilla marketing because it allows me to connect one on one with customers and literally bring them into our dealership as a result.

It is very true that if you give people something than you earn their favor.