By Lisa Cialfi, Account Coordinator
Admittedly, I’m a social media addict. A lot of my friends who don’t work in the communications field often tease me by saying “What, are you going to tweet about that??” anytime someone so much as sneezes. While I’m not quite at the point of tweeting about sneezes, I humor them with a laugh. This week my love of social media was reinforced.
Continue reading "Helping Joplin, Mo., Without Leaving Your Computer Desk" »
By: Joe Sweeney, Associate Creative Director
Yesterday, Visit Buffalo Niagara (formerly the Buffalo Niagara Convention and Visitors Bureau) unveiled a new brand for our city, during a classy, no-frills presentation at the Burchfield-Penney Art Center. Anchored by the tagline “Buffalo. For Real,” this campaign attempts to encapsulate the spirit of the Queen City, in a bid to attract “cultural tourists” (aka history buffs, art geeks, architecture dweebs, etc.).
By Carolyn Human, Account Manager
If you read Brittany Frey’s blog post last week, you know that our Travers Collins word of the month is responsibility. Each month we’re highlighting a word that makes TC a great place to work. To honor our word of the month we’re having a “drink responsibly” happy hour (we’re talking O’Douls and Sparkling Grape Juice) and we started volunteering at a neighborhood soup kitchen.
Continue reading "Serving Up Some Corporate Responsibility" »
By Brittany Frey, Account Manager
Our agency tries to be responsible. Responstible? Not quite. Let me explain.
In November, our firm participated in an all-day retreat at Beaver Hollow. It was a great experience… minus a few snafus that included an unplanned trip through East Aurora and the nearly catastrophic injury of one of our principals, but this blog is not about those two instances (and isolated at that, Bill Collins has not been on the receiving end of a fight with a PVC pipe since that day).
One of the great elements that did come out of our retreat was the idea of a word of the month. For the past several months the Agency Council, a team of associates that represents the views of the agency and works to make Travers Collins an even better place, has identified a word and corresponding activities that we as an agency can strive for throughout each respective month.
By: Lisa Cialfi, Account Coordinator
I live in walking distance to the Tonawanda/Kenmore location and visit the store about five times a week. With four locations total in western New York, it’s a true mom ‘n pop shop, which is why I choose to shop at Dash’s over larger grocery stores.
As an avid Foursquare user, my check-ins at Dash’s earned me the Mayorship of the store. Because of this I receive free coffee, daily from the SPoT coffee that’s attached to Dash’s.
By Bill Collins, Principal
I’ve long lived by the philosophy that you should never burn bridges, especially in a place like Buffalo where everyone knows everyone. I lost count a long time ago of the number of former students, interns and informational interview candidates who’ve sat in front of me at the age of 21 and who 10 years later were holding elected office or on a client team making a decision about what agency to select.
I remember the people who were nice to me when I was searching for my first job and so I’ve always made it a point to give back to the generations following me. As my late mentor, Dave Levy, used to counsel me, it doesn’t cost anything to be nice. To which I add, this business is hard enough without having to run up against people you’ve alienated. We’re not a perfect agency by any stretch but I do think we excel at the human relations side of things—we make it a point to hire individuals who are decent, caring and plain nice and as a result, with the cast we’ve assembled, it’s pretty easy to live the golden rule every day. In fact, it’s expected at Travers Collins that everyone treats the other person, whether it’s a fellow Associate, a vendor or an intern applicant, the same way you’d like to be treated.
Recently I was asked to review resumes of candidates for a good job with a prestigious company and on the list were at least three people whose pictures occupied my dartboard at one time or another in the last 10 years. All of their cases were different and the details aren’t important now but the common denominator is that they were not pleasant to deal with, they were disingenuous and they didn’t treat our agency or our people with respect. I’m sure they all had their reasons for acting or treating us the way they did but the bottom line is that they left a sour taste with me/us.
And there were a few candidates on the list who also had interacted with our agency along the way and with whom we had enjoyed a nice relationship. They were courteous, and treated us respectfully and with empathy and understood that we were in business to make money, too, and so they were fair about everything.
It’s a long life in a small town.
By Jeff Bucki, Senior Copywriter
Like many long-time fans of the Buffalo Sabres, I was thrilled to watch new owner Terry’s Pegula’s introductory press conference. There is a lot of excitement about Pegula, and clearly much of it has to do with his wealth. The thing that got me charged up wasn’t his resources, but rather his passion for the team and the way he directly communicated this to the public.
All you needed to see was Pegula’s reaction to hockey legend Gilbert Perreault to get a feel for what this guy is all about. His voice cracking with emotion, Pegula unabashedly told Perreault, “You’re my hero.” The beautiful thing about this moment was how raw and sincere it felt. As they say, you just can’t script stuff like this. It was magic. Right there, Pegula had won over even the teams’ most jaded fans. And he did it by being real.
Continue reading "Doing Good Does More than Make Us Feel Good" »
By Bob Travers, Principal
Several years ago our agency was working with the Buffalo Niagara Convention & Visitors Bureau (CVB) on a marketing campaign that would hopefully attract more tourists to Western New York, primarily the Buffalo area. We were directed to take a fresh look at understanding visitors to our market, and we conducted research with potential visitors from Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Toronto. We found out that people who would come to this area from surrounding major markets in the U.S. think of our area only in terms of visiting Niagara Falls, not Buffalo. However, prospective tourists from Toronto and Southern Ontario were inclined to visit Buffalo when they had a better understanding of our variety of cultural and historical resources and shopping alternatives, not just Niagara Falls.
