By Luke Suggs, Account Support For most people, music is an essential part of everyday life. Although people may have stylistic differences, music has the ability to connect people and has power to make us feel. Similar to smell, music can trigger memory. Just the other day my friend said whenever he heard the song…
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Branding Process Kicks Off For Elizabeth City, NC
By Ryan Laffler, Account Manager Two weeks ago, The Goss Agency had the pleasure of visiting one of its clients, Elizabeth City, to present the results from our branding process. Located on the Pasquotank River in Eastern North Carolina, Elizabeth City truly is a gem of Southern charm and culture. The branding process uncovered Elizabeth…
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Why You Need to be Focusing on Native Advertising
By: Ryan Laffler, Account Manager & Digital Director Display ads, the advertisements that you see on the top and sidebars of almost every webpage nowadays, are in decline. One part of the problem is that they are rarely relevant to the user. While this has changed somewhat with Google Adsense’s targeting algorithm, it started to…
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YOUR EMOJI SAYS IT ALL
By Rachel Hornay, Art/Copy Intern They say that a picture is worth a thousands words, especially with today’s language evolving with the usage of emoji characters. Emojis are intended to illustrate, or in some cases replace altogether, the words we send each other digitally, whether in a text message, email, or tweet. Instagram calls emoji…
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Logo Design Series Continued: The Thoms Estate
By Chloë Ayres, Head Designer Corporate Identity development, or logo design as it is also called, is truly an exciting part of the job for an advertising firm. It is a chance to create one mark that expresses an entire brand. What would Nike be without the swoosh? Would Citibank be as distinctive without the red…
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Uber Goes Local with their New Brand Identity
By Chloe Ayres, Head Designer AirBnb, Tinder, Yelp! – all of these apps provide location-specific information content on a global scale. All of these companies have also adopted the “McDonald's model” of “a burger should taste the exact same in every McDonald's.” While consistency is certainly key in establishing a strong brand identity, it also leaves…
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CAPS Rebranding Campaign
Child Abuse Prevention Services, or CAPS, began in 1990 as WNC Regional Child Abuse Center, a multi-agency effort dedicated to protecting children and providing them a place where they can feel safe. Today, CAPS continues to counsel and protect children around the Asheville-Buncombe community, and helps over 8,500 individuals each year. CAPS recently started working…
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New Creative Released!
One of our core responsibilities as an advertising agency is to mine for the most compelling gems from a company's story and share those messages across various platforms including print, web, digital ads, and email marketing with new creative. For our long-time client Alliance Autogas, we started with the idea of "Making a Big Impact on…
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Mary Kay Brand – Making Up For Lost Time?
Or watch full video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=964-8YFfXNk Mary Kay Cosmetics has run into trouble with their brand reputation. What started as an empowering business opportunity for women in an age where “being your own boss” was unheard of, has become “your mother’s makeup company,” the opposite of the fresh-faced cosmetics company that it once was. If you…
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Arby’s Beefs Up Its Branding, Drills Down to Core Messaging
Adweek recently broke down the resurgence of Arby's as a successful brand thanks to a renewed focus on branding and their core messaging. Writer Katie Richards writes, "The brand's turning point arrived about two years ago. It was either going to crash and burn or rise to the challenge of its teetering brand. The difficulty was…
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Ideation Workshop Brainstorms Brand
Big thanks to the Natchez Democrat for their latest story about our recent ideation workshop for the city of Natchez. Full story below and on their website at http://www.natchezdemocrat.com/2015/10/16/ideation-workshop-brainstorms-brand/. Before the branding comes the brainstorming. That's the mindset The Goss Agency--an Asheville, NC based cultural tourism branding firm--is taking in its quest to identify a…
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Positioning is Everything for your Messaging
A penny–one cent: These days it takes 25 of them to buy a piece of bubble gum. A penny–one cent: Made with copper (Cu). Its name comes from the Latin word cuprum (island of Cyprus). Vital to human health, an excellent conductor of electricity and heat: it is strong, ductile, easy to alloy and resists…
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Asheville Marketing Firm brings National/International Tourism Destination home to Asheville
We're proud to represent Asheville on a global stage for our new destination client, Natchez, Mississippi! Read the full press release below and read this piece by Natchez Democrat about the news: Asheville Marketing Firm brings National/International Tourism Destination home to Asheville NATCHEZ, MS, September 17, 2015 – The Natchez Convention & Visitors Bureau has contracted The…
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Branding, Donald Trump, and the Power of Repetition
You see it everywhere - on the news, attached to the sides of giant skyscrapers, on the cover of books, magazines in giant, bold letters: T-R-U-M-P. Made prominent by none other than Donald himself, the Trump name has the power to fill luxury mega-hotels, close multi-million dollar deals, and grab headlines like it…
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Creating a Brand Identity You Can Easily Expand
In this piece for design blog identitydesigned.com, Greg Jewett of Ho Chi Minh-based Rice Creative chronicles the process of visually branding a new business through his work for...
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Visit Natchez Convention & Visitors Bureau Retains The Goss Agency for Branding Services
PRESS RELEASE Branding Agency to Work in Conjunction with New Public Relations Agency NATCHEZ, MS, September 1, 2015 – The Visit Natchez Convention & Visitor’s Bureau has contracted The Goss Agency, one of America’s leading cultural tourism branding services firms, to direct a comprehensive brand audit of the 300-year-old historic destination. The Goss Agency will work in…
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Leveraging Your Distinction with Smart Branding
Did you know bulls can run faster uphill than down? I was having a conversation yesterday with a client prospect. She mentioned the need within their tourism attraction to radiate their brand and engage visitors with its message. Kudos and camel rides to her! (“Camel rides” is a good thing here - meaning exotic and adventurous…
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Promoting Your Social Media Channels
All too often, we see clients and potential clients fail to promote their social media presence. It’s important to use your website, newsletters, blogs, and other visible places to promote the fact your company is on social media...
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Advertising Paradise: St. Lucia
--Backstory behind St. Lucia creative and advertising by CEO Jeff Goss One of the most amazing, unspoiled destinations, and islands in the Atlantic, yet the branding “Simply Beautiful” with a hibiscus flower, a flower that existed on my own street in Atlanta, could be for any place, many places. After the airline lost our luggage, and…
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Story Behind Biltmore Lake Work
After months of attempting to arrive at a logo for the new residential community Biltmore Lake by Biltmore Farms the marketing director, formerly with Disney, contacted his Disney advertising agency to do the job. After several more months and an impending launch breathing down their neck, The Goss Agency was contacted and contracted to execute…
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New Brand Image and Website for Paradise Beach Resort
The Goss Agency Launches New Cozumel, Mexico Paradise Beach Resort Brand Image and Website Asheville, North Carolina - The Goss Agency recently launched a new website and brand image for Cozumel’s stunning Paradise Beach Resort, one of the most pristine, idyllic destinations in all of Mexico. The branding work began with an evaluation of the property…
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New Tourism Client, Mitchell County
The Goss Agency is executing a portfolio of TGA proprietary quantitative and qualitative research and branding tools to ascertain Mitchell County’s most compelling features, benefits...
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What You Need to Know About Branding in 2015
Branding is sometimes misunderstood, which isn’t surprising considering that the word “brand” has wildly different definitions, many with negative connotations. Here are a few...
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Branding Process Starts with Ideas, Not Design
We focus on the idea first, the idea that communicates your key benefit in a manner that identifies with your target emotionally. Only then do we do the design...
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Our 5 Step Branding Process
To conduct the most effective messaging, we believe it is crucial to have the intelligence and consumer insights to identify with your prospect personally and understand what it is about your product or experience that hits your prospect’s “hot buttons.” We have the research, brand measurement and positioning tools to prepare exceptional creative messaging…
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Marketing Insights: Two Schools of Thought
The “Two-Schools” by Bob Davies, Brand Strategist What I’m noticing is that there are two distinct “schools of thought” with respect to marketing these days. One is being advanced by the content people. It is about spontaneity, real-time marketing and responsiveness. The marketing of presence. These days we develop--no crank-out--the content and push it through…
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Is That For Here, or To-Go? Tourism Marketing in a Mobile World
We stand in the middle of an ever-evolving digital revolution, my friends, and that revolution is being delivered via emerging mobile technologies, apps, smart phones, and tablets...
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Merry Christmas from The Goss Agency
Well, I’m not sure which I would rather have, a good snow ball fight, or bad idea fight. A good snowball fight is great fun, I had one with my daughter a couple years ago downtown and total strangers joined in. However, a bad idea fight means you are striving for the best work and…
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Effective Social Media Tools: TweetDeck
There are many tools you can use to monitor Twitter, but my personal favorite is TweetDeck. With it's super-organizable column structure, you can follow lists, search terms, activity, notifications, and more...
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Eye-catching Creative: The Art of Shaving & Lincoln
Eye-catching print from a recent campaign from The Art of Shaving "Evolution needs a gentle reminder every morning." Strong design with a great use of space and product, with a tagline that lightly tugs at the laugh lines. The TV spot of the season, from Lincoln [embed]http://youtu.be/NcGhLcVqxf0[/embed] There was no doubt in the mind of the…
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New Branding Campaigns Launched for Haywood County, NC, and Paradise Beach Cozumel
Emphasizing Haywood County as a destination for authentic Appalachian culture, The Goss Agency completed a multi-day branding session with the Haywood County Tourism Development...
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Visual Press Releases
It’s all about the images. We live in a visual world – cameras on our phones and in our pockets; Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest at our fingertips. Press releases should reflect this. Images make everything better...
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Digital Press Kits: Lessons from Non-Profits
When it comes to digital press kits, non-profit organizations are way ahead of the curve. They have a great story to tell, need to get as much earned (as opposed to paid) media as possible...
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Digital Press Kits: Just the Facts
Do you feel like you answer the same seven questions about your company or organization all the time? Do more than half of your press/marketing calls involve questions like...
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Digital Press Kits: With Images, Size Matters
One of the key benefits to online press kit is the ability to include multimedia files, like videos and images. Images can be broken down into two categories: graphics and photographs. Both of these can play a key role in your digital press kit.
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Oh no, it’s SEO! The story of the brand behind the curtain.
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, and it’s basically the discipline used to improve your natural (or organic) ranking or position on the search engine results pages...
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Rebranding Historic Biltmore Village
by Jeff Goss Situation: A 109-year-old village historically designed for the artisans, craftsmen and women, employees, and support staff for the Biltmore Estate, Biltmore Village grew from a desolate place in the 1970s to achieving a wealth of independent restaurants and shops, along with national brands. Even with the rich shopping-experience stores were not…
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Digital Press Kits: Where to Start
Alright, so you are convinced that you need a digital press kit. But where do you start? Fear not, you’re already farther ahead than you think. You probably already have a printed press kit that you provide to...
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Emotional Connections and Advertising
by Jeff Goss People don’t look at advertising, they look at what interests them, sometimes it’s advertising. - Howard Gossage Ideas that touch an emotion - ideas that make you laugh, smile, think and feel - achieve greater recall and results with far less media exposure and cost. The product: Propane Gas hot water heater.…
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Typography 101: Classification
by Mary McGahren As a fifth-grader, I fell in love with calligraphy. I had always loved lines on paper, whether cursive, writing or drawing - so when I was asked, along with another precocious girl, to use my skills to write the awards certificates for other students with my beautiful real ink calligraphy pen, I…
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PR and Your Brand
We believe successful public relations is the result of a carefully crafted message combined with a strong brand identity that creates buzz in the media and, most importantly among target audiences.
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Assessing Your Brand
Equally important to creating and adhering to a brand is assessing your brand in the marketplace. Assessing your brand enables you to understand how your customers currently see your company and what elements or perceptions compel them to choose you over a competitor. Conversely, it also allows you to identify misperceptions and obstacles to purchases,…
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Establishing Your Brand
Why is it important to brand your business? Why not just hire a logo designer online and a web programmer to throw a website together based on that cool template you saw, then call it a...
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Your Brand on Social Media: To Troll, or Not to Troll
David Griner's post over on Adweek Year of the Troll: Brands Learn to Love Messing With Consumers brings up some interesting points about the latest social media stunts being used by brands...
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