Lick the Marketing Plate
Encinitas First
By David Boylan

Lick the Marketing Plate

Ok, so Lick the Plate overload or what? In case you’ve not seen, I write the Lick the Plate column also and it just made sense for me to carry the brand over into marketing. Actually, I’m going to cap it at food and marketing since the two go hand and hand with me. Seriously, meet me over a meal and come armed with culinary and marketing topics and some good conversation will ensue, usually resulting in ideas that will end up on cocktail napkins and in a best case scenario in an ad campaign for you or one of my agency clients. It’s happened many times before. My first bit of advice, always write it down. Great ideas are a dime a dozen, it’s the ones that get written down, then explored, and ultimately implemented are the ones that separate marketers from the general public. Hell, that’s why I formed an ad agency, so I had a legitimate vehicle for my ideas.

So I’ll start with a little bit about my background and what I’m doing currently to lend some credibility to my thoughts and opinions. I’ve worked in a Fortune 500 corporate marketing department fresh out of college, headed up national sales and marketing efforts for a French software company, worked on the agency side, held high level marketing positions for several technology companies, and over the past 6 years I’ve run Artichoke Creative, an Encinitas based integrated marketing agency with clients ranging from small mom and pops to large corporations and I thrive on that variety. The past 5 years I’ve been immersed in the solar industry and I’m currently commuting between San Diego and New York doing work for a solar integrator there. Oh, and I’ve launched an apparel company and am known for throwing killer summer solstice parties and am founder of the Hansen’s Marching Surfboard Brigade. Random stuff yes, but it’s all been very stimulating and definitely has contributed to my success in marketing.

Our tagline at Artichoke Creative is “Marketing that Makes Sense”. And really, that’s what it’s all about, developing a strategy, media plan, and creative that makes sense for your product or service, and your budget. It’s all about the mix, or to put it a little more highbrow, your integrated mix. That’s what I do really well. I know that sounds over simplified, but a lot of marketers really over-think things. Yes, there are a lot of choices out there today and that’s good, it gives you more options to reach your audience. I’ve never really fit in at a traditional agency because I have this unique mix of creativity and bottom line business sense. I conceptualize, write, and direct a creative team, then put on the suit and pitch it in terms that make sense to the client. In a traditional agency, it’s either one or the other…not much room for freaks like me.

Anyway, enough about me, Lick the Marketing Plate will focus on Encinitas businesses and their marketing efforts. It could be an interview with a CEO, a case study of a marketing plan, or an observation of a local or national campaign that happens to reside in Encinitas. It will educate, inform, entertain and hopefully inspire.

To that point, I noticed a brilliant billboard today at the corner of Encinitas Boulevard and Coast Highway 101 on the Northeast corner. It’s for Stella Artois, the Belgian beer and says quite simply, “Perfection Has It’s Price” with an amazing photograph of a Stella. It’s simple, clean, elegant, and has positioned Stella as a premium brand, where in the UK, well, it’s is more of a common, lower budget beer. I just put a billboard up for a solar company  on the Bruckner freeway in the Bronx leading into Manhattan, and believe me, it’s not easy coming up with that single line that will pop off a billboard with not much if any supporting copy. The Stella board made me want to pull into the Saloon and order one up. That’s marketing that makes sense.

So there, that’s my first column. If you have ideas, people, or Encinitas businesses you feel are worthy of Lick the Marketing Plate, bring them on.

David Boylan is founder and president of Artichoke Creative, an Encinitas based integrated marketing agency. Reach him at david@artichoke-creative.com