Brew Blog

Richard D’Amico, who heads the renowned D’Amico & Partners restaurant empire recently approached us to help him market their new flagship restaurant – D’Amico Kitchen & Osteria – in the Chambers Hotel in downtown Minneapolis. Our first thought was that he needed more than an ad. We talked about America’s fascination with culinary television and the local media’s focus on the restaurant scene. Why not let foodies go right into the kitchen and experience the drama and artistry up close and personal? Our idea? Place cameras in the kitchen and steam the images live and uncut every night at damico-kitchen.com. We’re also beaming the images to a massive screen in the courtyard of the hotel, which will be visible to traffic, and pedestrians along Hennepin Avenue, Minneapolis busiest thoroughfare. It’s attracted a ton of media attention. In addition, we’ve helped create a video blog for Executive Chef John Occhiato where he talks in-depth about the pressures and pleasures of running a top restaurant. These are the first of many innovative things we hope to do for D’Amico.

Check out the live streaming nightly from 7:30 PM – 10:00 PM at damico-kitchen.com and watch a video about the D’Amico Kitchen story here.

We are looking forward to working with ski and fashion sweater brand Néve Designs. Néve, based in that outdoor sports mecca of Boulder, Colorado, makes fine merino wool sweaters with great design. It will be a perfect opportunity for Michelle and others on our staff to flex some of her fashion muscles, honed on our work with Nordstrom, Target, Lee Jeans and others. And since Néve is a US Ski and Snowboard Team sponsor and outfitter, it gets us close to a sport we’re passionate about. (Bruce is a ski racing fanatic.)

We’ll be helping Néve with strategy, design, interactive and more. And, hey, when we get to some of those minus thirty degrees below zero days here in Minneapolis, and all the warm air in our open concrete space migrates twenty feet up to the ceilings, it will feel very good to wrap ourselves in some merino wool.

For the third consecutive year we’re proud to have donated our time to create the campaign for the Ivey Awards. What are the Ivey Awards, you ask? It’s the local award show to celebrate the 63 professional theater companies in the Twin Cities. And it’s quite the red carpet event, with a presentation that rivals the big award shows on TV. In fact, that was the inspiration for our campaign below. The images were used in magazine, outdoor and transit advertising, posters, electronic billboards, and as the visual theme for the event.

Of course we couldn’t have done it without some great collaborators who also donated their time. Our good friend and fashion shooter par excellence, William Clark, again did the portraits. Lucas Saugen, who ventured to the Canadian border to find the dock, shot the stunning backgrounds. Digital artist Kevin Johnston masterfully pieced their work together. The unflappable producer was Vanessa Lee. But we need to stop now because there are too many people to thank and we hate to miss anyone.

Dessert. We really like dessert. In fact, we’ve learned that Bruce (especially) has a tendency to inhale everything remotely sweet that comes into the office. So it’s fitting that we’re beginning our second full year of working with our friends at Schwan’s Consumer Brands on their Edwards and Mrs. Smith’s dessert brands. (We are, in official terms, the Agency of Record for Schwans Consumer Brands Bakery Division). Last spring we launched Edwards new brownies with ice cream. And we’re beginning to work on a new effort for 2010. Should be fun.

We’re proud to team up with Element Electronics to position the brand in a competitive market. Element is a new brand of flat screen televisions based in Minneapolis that boasts a team with vast experience in consumer electronics. Standing out in a commodity category…that’s a challenge we enjoy. We look forward to working with Element on the executional phase in the New Year.