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We set out to brand this from the ground up; define the identity, voice and tone for StyleSip. From there we drove logo and tag line exploration, copy, and design development. Engagement was driven via StyleSip’s Facebook page, native sharing, blog commenting, polling, co-creation, and traditional email/mobile opt-in.

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Creating awareness of Kmart’s teen apparel offerings was supported by Kmart’s exclusive Dream Out Loud clothing line created by Selena Gomez, as well as a partnership with Bongo Jeans and their latest Bongo Girl, Audrina Patridge.
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In addition to StyleSip, Colossal Squid designed and developed two online brand shops for the Dream Out Loud and Bongo brands to live on Kmart.com.

http://www.facebook.com/Stylesip

http://www.kmart.com/stylesip

http://www.kmart.com/dreamoutloud

http://www.kmart.com/bongo

Colossal Squid Industries is proud to partner with Alberto Culver’s TRESemmé and Nexxus brands on digital planning, strategy and creative. Recently for TRESemmé the Squid had the opportunity to throw down on the complete brand site re-architecture and redesign of TRESemmé.com.

The Colossal Squid Insights and Planning group got under the hood with behavioral models, usability studies and competitive analysis to develop personalized experience paths in accessing the TRESemmé catalog of nearly 60 awesome hair care and styling products. We also developed a contextual content linkage system that collocates relevant TRESemmé marketing integrations, professional styling advice and product information. Relevant companion products magically find their way together at the proper time and place on virtually every site page.

A global brand like TRESemmé deserves a global site template and CMS architecture that will accommodate 14 market localizations. Colossal Squid creatives designed a heck of a good one. Looks sweet, and allows each global market to customize and refresh key messaging for their market.

All that aside, it looks super deluxe and awesome. Props and thanks to the great folks at TRESemmé and to TechMuscle for the site build.

UPDATE: August 30, 2010
Check out the great TRESemmé article today in Ad Age.

All Squids had a great time at Pitchfork. We saw this as an incredibly unique recruiting opportunity by bringing Colossal Squid directly to the talent in Chicago. It also allowed us to support a great cultural event in our West Loop neighborhood.  Check out pics here on Facebook.

We ran a notice in Craigslist asking interested individuals to stop by our booth with resumes or just hang out an meet some of our 45 Squids. Here are some interesting results we gathered from the event:

• We collected 70 resumes, had hundreds of meetings, and one request for fried calamari;
• Many at the event saw our logo on the Jumbotron between acts and came back with resumes the 2nd and 3rd days
• Over one hundred tweets on the #Squidfork hashtag
• Got lots of cool extras with the resumes, like a hand drawn picture of a squid
• Received a couple of new business inquiries
• Our clients and employees loved having a central hangout place
• 22 employees (half the agency) got involved volunteering at the booth and setting up and tearing down

Some sample tweets:

@JMKCreative: chatted with Chris H at #Squidfork booth @Colossal_Squid. Great shop, great booth, and great rug! Really tied the festival together!

@nathanDarnold: Just did some social networking but OFFline with @Colossal_Squid; no oceanic animals involved

@gabbyhon: @Colossal_Squid recruiting at #pitchfork GENIUS! Listen up, Chicago agencies: go where the talent rocks the hell out!

Thanks again to everyone who made it one helluva party and to Joie and Emily for putting in a long weekend. If you still want to connect with us employment-wise please connect with us here. You can Twitterize us too at @colossal_squid.

7/16/10 UPDATE: Follow the gang this weekend on Twitter @ #Squidfork

Chicago, IL (June 25, 2010) – Colossal Squid Industries, an independent digital creative agency, is proud to be the first digital sponsor of the Pitchfork Music Festival on July 16 – 18, 2010 in Chicago’s Union Park.

“It’s not everyday that you encounter a nimble and creative company that can tailor itself to work with the different demands of a concert event,” said Mike Reed, Director, Pitchfork Music Festival. “We’re lucky enough to have Colossal Squid, a like-minded group, right in our own backyard! As the provider for all of our wireless and hard wired internet needs we’re set to provide the attendees at the event and the webcast viewers around the world with our best.”

For the last two years, Colossal Squid has been assembling a new kind of agency by uniting a world-class team of interactive pioneers. This move to sponsor one of Chicago’s most popular summer music festivals will be their largest recruiting effort to date.

“Honestly, it is a natural fit for us,” said Steve Slivka, Colossal Squid co-founder. The independent music scene has bred a digitally intelligent audience—and we’re always looking for people who understand and want to challenge the digital space.”

“We are proud to be a Chicago ad agency and Pitchfork is distinctly Chicago,” added co-founder Patrick Berry. “This is a great opportunity for Colossal Squid to support an important cultural event in our West Loop neighborhood.”

As part of the recruiting effort, Colossal Squid will offer festival-goers free water, t-shirts and of course, more info about the agency from employees across all disciplines. To find out more about our agency or to see our latest job opportunities, please visit www.colossal-squid.com.

About Colossal Squid

Colossal Squid Industries is a Chicago-based independent digital creative agency. They help extend brands across fragmented digital channels via interactive, social, branded games, and augmented reality. Colossal Squid clients include Kimberly-Clark, Johnson Controls, Alberto Culver, Sears, EyeWonder and Kmart. Colossal Squid is a proud member of the Society of Digital Agencies (SoDA). More information can be found at www.colossal-squid.com.

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Contacts:

Colossal Squid is a proud card-carrying member of the Society of Digital Agencies (SoDA). Located in the West Loop, we’re neither a traditional ad agency nor a production company. We’re more of a technological secret society, a confederation of interactive craftspeople hell-bent on creating staggering online work for our clients. To find out more about our agency or to see our latest job opportunities, please visit www.colossal-squid.com

A Squid landing party traversed a bunch of Great Lakes and ended up in Toronto for NXNE. You can follow some of their exploits on our Facebook page.

For the uninitiated:  North By Northeast Music, Film & Interactive Festival and Conference: 650 Bands, 50 Stages, 40 Films - June 14-20, 2010.

Now in its 16th year, North by Northeast Music Festival and Conference (NXNE) has become the Canadian festival destination for new and emerging talent—unsigned bands, indie favourites, and major-label headlining artists alike. Seen as the most anticipated summer music event in Canada, NXNE has cemented itself as an essential showcase opportunity for the best in new music.

We sure do.

Colossal Squid Industries is proud to be the Digital Agency of Record for Kimberly-Clark’s SCOTT® Brand.

While many brands are now beginning to enter the social networking space, SCOTT® had spent the last four years cultivating an active (actually obsessive) site-dependent community that was built around user generated tips. SCOTT® saw the opportunity in the social space to augment their existing community, but did not want to lose the branded, site-adjacent place where they could interact with already plugged-in consumers.

Colossal Squid Industries redesigned and built the SCOTT® Brand site to include community built on the Jive platform for the very first time. This nimble product is architected in a way that allowed us to feature community posts and data in several places at once, turning organic peer-to peer communication into marketable headlines that “don’t come from the brand” but promote the product in a more grass roots fashion.

And it’s pretty cool too. Check it out here.

This is no April Fool’s Day joke.

Two years ago we began a foolish notion that we could start a new kind of agency that felt right for us. Inspired by the great history of Chicago advertising and despite the worst recession in our lifetime, we’ve engaged in two Digital AOR agreements, made some fun and noteworthy games, and helped some major brands sell more of their things.

We’ve grown from two to 40-ish digital pioneers in the West Loop who were up for trying something new. And we’ve met some seriously great clients.

So to everyone who has taken a chance on us and believed in this place, we thank you.  Now back to work.

You can click here to download the entire 2010 SoDA DMO.

Can you handle the truth? We’re breaking the news on why your company isn’t ready for social media (courtesy of the Squid co-founders). There’s a whole bunch of other great stuff from our brethren SoDA partner agencies too.

It’s the SoDA 2010 Digital Marketing Outlook. Get your copy here. But don’t read page 53.

Colossal Squid Industries is the fastest growing digital creative agency in  Chicago. We are a seasoned bunch of large agency ex-patriots helping big brands find their voice in the digital space.

We’re looking for fast thinkers across disciplines to add to our growing team in Chicago’s West Loop. All submissions kept in strict confidence. Even if in the unlikely event we do know you we’ll pretend we don’t. We are looking for a handful of great ones. Fellow ad agency refugees welcome. We offer hard work and great creative opportunities at a very unique digital creative agency.

To apply for any open positions please click here.

Tell your boss you’re moving on—to the West Loop Squid-packing district.  And bring your friends.