Welcome Maribeth!

Bill Nelson, President of Nelson & Company Marketing, Advertising, and Public Relations (NCO)—announced today that Maribeth Mark has been hired as New Business/Account Manager, and has joined the team at their office in Canal Park’s historic Endion Station.

Maribeth will be responsible for increasing brand awareness for Nelson & Company, building relationships with advertising agency search firms, developing a referral network, and account development and planning among other duties. According to Nelson, "Maribeth's caliber of expertise will have a tremendous impact on the agency's ability to continue to deliver on a promise of excellent service and results for existing and future clients in our area and beyond.”

Prior to joining Nelson and Company, Maribeth worked at American Express where she spent time in Trust Services, Client Service, National Relationship Management, and ultimately Marketing and Business Development. She spent the last six years of her corporate career with Wells Fargo in Minneapolis.

Nelson & Company, which celebrated five years in June 2010, blends sound marketing fundamentals with alternative methods to provide clients with creative, budget minded, and results-oriented work rooted in strategic thinking.

Here We Go to Bentleyville!

We saw an article one morning about the search for a Bentleyville jingle. We decided to give it the old NelsCo try and come up with something fun. Dann let his creativity run wild, and with only a few random ideas from the rest of us, he came up with this masterpiece.

We did not make the top 6, but here is the auto-tuned masterpiece:

http://www.nelson-company.com/herewego.mp3

Enjoy.

The view from here. 2/19/10

I am going to start what I can only hope will be an ongoing article for the Nelscolicious blog;

The view from here.

If anything interesting passes by my office window here at our new location on the beautiful Lakewalk of Duluth, I'll snap a picture and post it here to share.

Welcome Ted Koszuta

Blogs, Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, Wikipedia, Linkedin, newsvine, and hundreds more, as the list of social networking sites continues to grow at amazing speeds. Not only are consumers curious about which one to ‘join’, but business owners are seemingly overwhelmed as well.

Nelson & Company, a locally owned advertising agency, has hired a Social Media Manager, Ted Koszuta to provide clients with experienced advice, rounding out their marketing plans.

After earning his BFA in technical communication at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, Ted went on to pursue Information Architecture and Knowledge Management at the certificate level. His expertise is lengthy and includes having worked for clients such as T-Mobile, Google, Jim Beam, Wrigley, Bayer, and Orbit.

Prescribing to the theory that all media is inherently social, Ted delivers big thinking and smart execution to all current and future clients. Ted has spoken at various conferences and seminars including: What teens want: Marketing to teens.
Creative Case Study: T-Mobile & Publicis in the West Present "Tony's World".

Join us on Twitter!

Superior Days

Two members of the Nelson & Company team (Meagan Campbell, Assistant Account Manager, and Kaitlyn Barnard, Awesome Intern) were in Madison, Wisconsin from February 21st to February 23rd for Superior Days. Superior Days is a grassroots lobbying effort that brings attention to the issues faced by residents of northern Wisconsin. This event helps bridge the distance local residents feel geographically and politically from the southern half of the state. This was the 24th year of Superior Days and 250 people participated from Ashland, Barron, Bayfield, Burnett, Douglas, Iron, Sawyer, and Washburn counties.

Meagan and Kaitlyn, both seniors at UW-Superior, attended Superior Days, along with 5 other students, as part of their public relations course, instructed by Mary Tripp. Throughout the semester, the class had different clients and created communication plans for the various projects they were coordinating specifically for Superior Days. The goal of this course is to provide students with real-world experiences in a professional setting. While in Madison, the UWS students were project managers and had to ensure their event ran smoothly and successfully. They also toured the capitol, networked, attended guest speakers, and lobbied legislators.

“It was a fun and extremely educational experience. I learned so much about how our government functions, and how marketing, public relations, and project management are useful and important across a wide variety of situations. Mary is a great instructor, and because of her dedication we learned so much throughout the semester and during our three days in Madison.”- Meagan

“Superior Days inspired each of us to become proactive in our community and helped us break through the chaos that tends to exist in the political world. As a project manager, I learned how to manage details and work with deadlines among many other experiences that could not have been learned from a text book. Superior Days was an unforgettable experience.” -Kaitlyn

NelsCo Wish List

Happy Holidays! Nelson & Company has assembled a Wish Book for all of your holiday toy needs! Grab an action figure or doll of your favorite Nelsco employee while the sale prices last! If you didn't receive your Wish Book in the mail, we have put it together on the Nelsco web store:

NelsCo Partners to Collect Gifts for Teens

As one of our Pro Bono projects this year, we joined forces with one of our clients, BragGame Rights (BGR) and media partner MIX108 FM, to urge fellow Northlanders to help us gather gifts for area teens. Teens are often forgotten during the traditional toy drives and giving is down overall this season so we wanted to do our part and help out.

We put together a list of items appropriate for both young women and men and got the word out via press releases which were picked up by both print and blog media. MIX108 ran promotional announcements for a week and a half and Coy Christmas, owner of BGR put up posters in his store and around town.

Saturday December 13, NelsCo hit the roof of BragGame Rights (BGR) with BGR owner Coy Christmas and Corry, Laura and Jean from MIX108. We didn't let below zero temps, arctic wind, or sleet and snow stop us from standing on the roof and deck of BragGame Rights.

Live call-ins by the radio personalities were done throughout the 3 hour remote and we heard plenty of honking by the passing cars. WDIO Channel 10/13 and KBJR both showed up to cover our event and climbed the 30 foot ladder to interview the roof-dwellers! We collected items during the day but even more came in after the snowstorm to both BGR and MIX108. Coy and Corry Carter from MIX108 delivered the items to a very grateful Salvation Army! We are already planning our 2nd annual event for next year - and we'll ask for a grill and heater on the roof!

Preparation Begins for 08 ADDY Awards

As we begin 4th quarter, not only do we begin strategic planning and budget preparation for 2009 for ourselves and our clients, but it also brings about the time to reflect back on 2008 client creative projects. In February, most local Advertising Agencies and their talented teams will gather at the DECC for the Lake Superior Advertising Federation 33rd Annual ADDY® Awards.

What we find most often than not, is how difficult it will be to choose among all our creative projects from this past year – as we have a talented team and of course feel all of our work deserves recognition for our clients. We are forced to step back, and look at the impact of specific projects in our community and how they’ll perform against other agency work – being chosen by a team of national and local creatives. Agonizing, yes…

In 2008, our agency took home three awards on behalf of our clients. They came in the following categories: a :30 Television commercial for Twin Ports Waterproofing – Water is Homeless, a Business to Business print advertisement for Baja Billy’s Cantina and Grill, and for non-traditional marketing for the Giro d’Italia Bike Ride for Va Bene Berarducci’s Caffe.

We are proud to represent our clients with marketing that supports brand appropriateness and to have the opportunity to be recognized by our peers for our expertise.