29th Jan2012

Clean Water with your Wardrobe.

by Robert

 

It seems that social and cause marketing is continually on the rise. IEG’s Sponsorship Report reveals that corporate cause sponsorship was at $1.68 billion in 2011 and is projected to grow by 10% in2012. We believe that the power of good can positively augment the power of a brand in the right circumstances. Often, the right circumstances involve Millennials, that ever evolving demographic that is more likely to purchasewhen cause is a factor (RED is a good example). Recently, we took this intoaccount with our North American Power client.

For over a year now, we’ve been helping NAP connect with consumers who want to help the environment while helping themselves tolower electricity rates. The response has been impressive.

Naturally, we wanted to know more. Why is this approach so successful – especially within a culture that is purported to be growing more self-focused by the minute. What we found is that purchasing decisions that are partnered with greater causes effectively reduce the ‘decision anxiety’ consumers often feel when presented with choices. In NAP’s case, consumers could choose a charity to support along with their new energy provider. Because NAP was formed in part to support greener energy sources, the pairing made perfect sense.

But what about creating a brand that’s sole purpose is to do good? It’s an interesting concept and it appears that One Hundred Apparel is just that. The following was pulled from their site:

“One Hundred is a humanitarian clothing company dedicated to helping the world get clean water! “One Hundred” stands for our dedication to donating one hundred percent of our profits for cleanwater. We want one hundred percent clean water for one hundred percent of the world. This is our name, but also our mission.”

Their brand is the representation of their mission — and their product influenced by that mission is inseparable from the marketing outreach. It’s a pretty compelling proposition, to create a brandthat emanates the soul of your purpose — and a challenging one to deliver on.

We’ll keep an eye on this brand’s development and growth and report back, hopefully with good news of their ongoing success.

22nd Jan2012

Can I have some cake with that Bacon?

by Robert

Yummy ness. It’s been a while since we’ve found something Bacon-tastic enough to post. So we were very excited when we uncovered this Bacon Treasure.

The next time you have something to celebrate— a birthday, retirement or maybe a graduation— we recommend you lather that cake in sweet sweet baconey goodness. Yep, that’s right: Bacon Frosting. It’ll give your baked treats the right amount of fat laden Yum.

Oh and if this sounds good, you better act fast. As of publishing time, Amazon only has 6 left — cause Bacon is popular. We bought 12…

 

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14th Jan2012

Tumblr Love.

by Robert

While we’re pretty diehard WordPress Junkies when it comes to our own blog, we’ve found Tumblr, literally the easiest way to ‘blog’, to be absolutely awesome. The great thing about Tumblr is that it allows you to share posts, quotes, images and much more from your desktop, your phone or email — with the greatest ease.

We tend to use it for our own internal brand exploration projects and our recently launched experiment Milk366 – where we’re sharing a little a advertising wisdom everyday (link in the right side bar).

One of the fantastic things about Tumblr is that its built on a socially active platform. This platform makes the possibility of sharing relevant and interesting content super easy and allows you to follow those who are saying and showing things that you love even easier. It’s about content creation and curation.

And Tumblr is very popular, check out their About page which lists the number of posts from today and the number of blogs currently living within their ‘blogosphere’, it’s astounding. (At this moment the stats are: 16,548,592,526 total posts, 42,312,713 total blogs and 54,677,880 posts were published today).

Check out this infographic about the majesty of Tumblr, courtesy of Jeff Bullas:

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10th Jan2012

Joe Fresh: Intimidating. In A Good Way.

by Alec

Are they dancing? Or just swaying? Neither. They’re taunting. What does that have to do with selling clothing? Lots.

We know plenty of people who are hypnotized by this commercial. It’s the way these young women stare at you, as if to say: “We dare you to ask us out. Totally dare you. Because the answer is definitely no. Or just possibly yes. But you can’t help yourself, can you? We look like we smell terrific.”

In other words, these poised young women possess a rare attribute : emotional self-confidence. It’s something most of us strive for all our lives. And there it is in front of you, wind-blown and outfitted in attractive pastel winter gear.

Will you go steady with me, Joe Fresh?

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02nd Dec2011

Ann Nyberg Networks milk

by Robert

Recently we had a visit from Ann Nyberg, Connecticut’s person to know about people and places in the know. Her blog, http://www.networkconnecticut.com/, focuses on ‘uncovering remarkable people and places in Connecticutt’. We’re proud and flattered to be one of her latest finds.

Check out the article Ann wrote about milk and explore her other finds.

01st Dec2011

North American Power makes the Forbes Most Promising Companies

by Robert

We’re very excited to announce that our good friends over at North American Power have just been named on Forbes Magazine’s list of America’s Most Promising Companies.

North American Power has grown over the last two years from a nascent energy supplier to a Socially Entrepreneurial Powerhouse. They’ve elevated the energy supplier industry by bringing normal everyday energy users together with charities creating a model that helps save money and put it in the hands of charities that need it most.

Needless to say we’re pretty proud. After all we’ve been their AOR since the beginning and have thoroughly enjoyed helping them evolve their brand and message.

Checkout the Forbes article here: Forbes.com

Or, if you’re inspired… Save a little on your electric and help a charity out.

 

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22nd Nov2011

Facebook Love.

by Robert

Check out this great infographic based on the giants continuing growth and ever present impact on our lives:

Brought to us by Online Schools.

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12th Nov2011

Loving what you Do.

by Robert

We’re big believers in doing what you love. That’s why we’re quite inspired by the guys over at Fisker Coachbuild. They’ve long been committed to design and functional excellence and launched their own brand of automotive amazingness in 2005. They’ve continued to innovate and well… we believe the sexiness speaks for itself. Check them out:

And if you’re in the market… http://www.fiskercb.com/

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29th Oct2011

Type, Roll Out!

by Brendan

Here at milk we love fonts.

We REALLY love fonts.

In fact, you could call us type nerds,

we don’t mind.

Combine ‘em with our love of giant robots…

It sets our collective pocket protectors a quivering.

Riccardo Sabatini was clearly reading our diary when he created Mekkanika.

A font inspired by old mechanics technical drawings, the steampunk visual world, and modern machinery. Mixed and merged all together to form letters completely made by these elements, creating a mechanical look like typeface.

Check it out in its entirety.

 

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22nd Oct2011

How Instagram is changing the world of photography

by Rhi

Social media is a great way to share, and has grown to be a (mostly) credible news source in the past few short years. Instagram, a photo-snapping app for  the iPhone, allows you to take photos and add vintage filters to them. The app allows for people to follow other’s photostreams, and publish to platforms like facebook, twitter, and tumblr, among others.

Instagram has spurred a handful of new ways to be creative, and has reminded us of where photography has come from and evolved into. The people from 1000 memories were intrigued by the vintage filters that instagram offered, and dissected them to teach us a little more about where they came from and how in this infographic.

 

The Vaccines shot their entire music video using instagram. They managed to create a great amount of movement and emotion without needing a video camera.

Instagram also has an official blog on tumblr, which lends itself to the social media front of the program. As you take and publish your pictures, you can use a #hashtag to catagorize it, and they may publish it with a series of photos like they did with the tag #windowseat.

Unfortunately, the only device capable of using instagram at the time is the iPhone, and there is no word about creating the app for other devices. If you are interested in similar apps for your phone, take a look into the Flickr, RetroCamera, FxCamera or our favorite Instagram competitor PicPlz all available on Android devices.

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