Edward Bowser, Community Manager at Luckie & Company

Back in October, Luckie & Company was privileged to participate in the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s Light the Night event, which raised funds to battle blood cancers. For more than 60 years, LLS has committed more than $250 million for blood cancer research across the U.S. and in 10 countries.

In keeping with their giving nature, LLS held an awards ceremony last night honoring people and organizations committed to their cause. Luckie was joined by dozens of local businesses and families who helped raise more than $281,000 during last year’s event.

Luckie received several awards for our contributions, but the true winners of the evening were those in attendance who are battling or who have overcome blood cancers. Witnessing the strength of children who have yet to celebrate their sixth birthday and the elation of their parents was an indescribable feeling.

Luckie is very proud to be part of such a worthy effort and is inspired by those who continue to fight the disease. Congratulations to last night’s award winners and many thanks to LLS for their drive and dedication.

Edward Bowser is Community Manager at Luckie & Company. You can contact him by e-mail or follow @etbowser on Twitter.

You don’t have to look very far to find someone who has been affected by Leukemia and Lymphoma. Every four minutes, an American is diagnosed with blood cancer. But it’s also just as easy to find thousands of people willing to help those diagnosed with or coping with the aftermath of the diseases.

Luckie & Company recently was honored to partner with the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. For more than 60 years, LLS has committed more than $250 million for blood cancer research across the U.S. and in 10 countries. This year, Luckie joined LLS’s annual Light the Night event, a fundraiser that culminates with hundreds of people walking in memory of loved ones and in support of survivors.

Luckie set a goal of raising $5,000, and in typical Luckie fashion, we approached that goal as creatively as possible. Funds were raised through the selling of delicious baked goods; football and restaurant tickets and flashlight and battery packs were raffled; and wannabe martial artists competed on the Xbox Kinect game Fruit Ninja. Our executive team even took pies in their faces in the name of raising funds for the cause. Combined with individual fundraising efforts from employees, Luckie raised $9,723.27 – greatly exceeding our own expectations.

Thursday night, Luckie joined hundreds of LLS supporters at The Summit for the Light the Night walk at The Summit Lifestyle Center. Under a full moon, participants marched holding symbolic balloons – gold in remembrance of someone who had passed, white for survivors or those currently battling, and red for supporters.

Luckie was proud to be part of such an inspirational event and thanks everyone who supported our fundraising efforts.

Edward Bowser is Community Manager at Luckie & Company. You can contact him by email or follow him on Twitter.

Our current justification for hallway acrobatics is courtesy of the Alabama Tourism Department “Year of Small Towns and Downtowns” campaign from 2010.  The National Council of State Tourism Directors recently honored the campaign with a 2011 Mercury Award for Best Promotion. It’s even more fun to note that this is the third time in six years that the state’s annual “Year of” campaign has earned this distinction. (We’re currently promoting The Year of Alabama Music, which is already winning awards.)

The 2010 campaign had a wide range of components, including the Tourism Department commissioning more than 200 historic markers to present to each participating town. To help turn this effort into a true celebration, Luckie created “The Great Alabama Homecoming,” which encouraged all Alabama natives and descendants to return home for a visit.

The campaign resulted in tremendous consumer engagement for communities across the state, especially in social media. Luckie created 215 individual Facebook pages for Alabama towns that did not already have a Facebook presence, then trained local representatives on how to use the pages for destination marketing and communication with residents.

To help former residents, descendants of Alabamians and newcomers find these Facebook pages, Luckie created an interactive map that served as the central navigation for The Great Alabama Homecoming website.

By the end of the year, more than 175,000 people had “Liked” the new Facebook pages created by Luckie for these communities.

Luckie’s work for the Year of Small Towns and Downtowns also included charming and heart-warming print and television ads to build awareness for the Homecoming events and to drive travelers to the website and Facebook. You can view the television spot below.

Looking back, this campaign was a great opportunity for Alabama to showcase what makes it such a great place to visit and why we call it home.  It’s a state rich in unique experiences you can find simply by traveling from town to town, each one full of people who treat you like family.  We at Luckie are excited to keep telling this story and can’t wait to show you what’s to come in 2011 and the years beyond.  You might want to go ahead and start packing the car – it’s going to be a fun ride.

Mary Lanaux is an Account Executive at Luckie & Company, where she coordinates the agency’s daily work with the Alabama Tourism Department. She can be reached by email.

Are you ready for some football? As the nation gears up for yet another exciting season, Luckie & Company joined other sports fanatics last weekend to raise funds for a worthy cause.

Luckie was among nearly two dozen companies that participated in the Tailgate Challenge, a football-themed event that raises funds for the Bell Center in Birmingham, Ala. The center is dedicated to supporting young children who are at risk of developmental delay. Companies each represented a sports team and provided tailgate-style food for attendees to sample. Several Luckie employees and their family members came out for the event, including Luckie’s HR Director Melissa Wheeler and her son Garrett, pictured above.

Jay Waters, Luckie’s SVP/Chief Strategy Officer grilled fresh Reuben sandwiches while PR Account Executive Miranda Jarrell served up her famous compost cookies, which were made up of everything from chocolate to pretzels to potato chips. Luckie didn’t win over the judges for best dish, but we were certainly crowd-pleasers.

Of course, the real winners are the Bell Center and the families who will reap the benefits of the great event. Luckie salutes all the organizations who attended and the Bell Center for their diligence in improving our community.

Edward Bowser is Community Manager at Luckie & Company. You can contact him by email or follow @etbowser on Twitter.

As the world continues to go digital, the role of print production has been in a state of evolution. The communications and advertising industry has been enduring change, and that change has continued here at Luckie & Company. Luckie’s Print Production Department has found that that name no longer seems to suit us. Our new name, Integrated Print Production and Art Buying, is much more apt to represent our present scope of work.

In all of the years I’ve been in the advertising business, I can truly say this one of the most exciting times I can remember. As with much of the traditional media, conventional print will continue to be a player and a partner in successful communication plans for marketing to consumers. But the change simply means print won’t cover the same amount of real estate as before. I’m happy about this – print is truly my first love but the energy associated with advertising and the opportunities to work on something new has always been the main attraction for me. The opportunity to look toward new horizons and learn things outside the conventional print production world is pretty awesome.

But let’s touch back on the role of print in a digital world. There are so many different areas that print production managers are involved in, beyond the joy of seeing ink in paper (not to mention that intoxicating smell). Print production managers are amazingly resourceful and organized people who are able to figure out how to get things done and bring creative visions to life. In the new world, we have expanded our base. No longer are all executions 2-D, we now work in getting props made for shoots and we resource many different types of artists to produce imagery – whether it be digital arts studios, great photographers or one of the many illustrators we hire. The images we help create are for use all over the place, literally. Those images could be still for print and moving when its in a banner ad. Art buying practices have changed and we have changed accordingly, making sure we are incorporating the right language to convey our message. We also are really careful to make sure value is right on target to accommodate the many different uses for advertising imagery.

Besides the obvious, (yeah, we know trash and trinkets and how to get them), we’re applying our energy and resources to bring experiential marketing campaign components to life. We are also helping our social media team increase our Facebook presence and raise the number of fans for our clients. Whether it’s an enormous building wrap or blown-up icon from an ad campaign (think Regions Bank’s SAVE can), we can get it produced. How about car wraps (that look like Little Debbie cupcakes), or help in managing sweepstakes and other types of promotions (like driving fans to Facebook)? That’s us. If your social media idea is to have a chef make Little Debbie sushi (yeah, that’s right) in key market on-site promotions, and they need to be geared up and outfitted in branded attire, we can make it happen. How about custom-printed, content loaded flash drives? We’ve got you covered. Need a custom guitar (in the shape of the state of Alabama, perhaps)? If you want it, we’ve got your back. And our track record proves we have great results.

So the next time you are planning a campaign, remember we’re the Integrated Print Production team. We have entered the new world of production but we’ve retained the same skills as before, doing what we’ve always done – helping to bring visions to life, making sure it’s the very best it can possibly be. Because no matter what the end product is, it’s got to be the best. Its just that now, we have a lot more to care about.

Giannina Stephens is VP/Director of Integrated Print Production & Art Buying at Luckie & Company. You can contact her by email.

Photo credit: DyanaVphotos via Flickr