Meridian Group’s travel and leisure team seeks a motivated team player for an account coordinator internship. Responsibilities may include: assisting the client team with day-to-day account projects, monitoring trends, editing, writing/content development, presentation building, quantitative and qualitative client research, conducting and contributing to brainstorming sessions, in-depth ROI analysis and reporting, along with day-to-day administrative duties. Opportunity to learn about marketing, advertising and interactive disciplines and attend professional development seminars. Internship is unpaid but can be used for school credit.

Applicant qualifications should include:

• Excellent communications skills, writing ability and computer skills a MUST.
• Knowledge of social media preferred, but not required.
• Prior internship experience preferred, but not required.
• Must be available 15-20 hours per week during the semester.

Please contact us for more information on internships.
No phone calls please.

“Q” Competition Images!

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Each new employee that joins the Meridian team is subjected to singing a song in front of all to truly become a Meridian Groupie. Check out Matt’s awesome performance of his classic Boy Scout tune:

Great job, Matt!!

Perfect BBQ ribs . . . and a wad of cash, too!

I’ve long had this fantasy that The Bossman strolls over to my desk, smiles and says, “Lorraine, we’d like for you to take the rest of the day off. Just go and relax and enjoy yourself.

“And when you get back tomorrow, we’ll give you a raise.”

Over at The Meridian Group, a Virginia Beach advertising agency, The Bossman kinda does that. Each year, Joe Takach invites his staff to take a certain summer day off – with pay – and join him over at his place, poolside, for a barbecue cook-off with actual cash prizes, and a margarita machine, too!

I was honored to be a judge for Friday’s “Eighth Annual Q,” and I can vouch that pool and margarita machine aside, these people are not slackers.

Five teams competed and they rolled out fondue, crab cakes, Brussels sprouts with bacon and cranberries, slaw, sliders, bison and succulent pork bbq ribs. Team Sugar Coated even concocted a bacon martini, mixed with home-made bacon-infused vodka.

Like at any great party, it wasn’t enough to serve memorable food. Participants also imagineered presentations – the judges favorite were these “Mad (Wo)Men,” a play on the “Mad Men” series, dressed in their best hostess aprons. And the prizes? Up to 500 bucks, plus a copper pig trophy for the grand prize winners.

Now that’s a party!

Anyway, if you’d like some of the recipes, click here for The Meridian Group’s website and blog. And you might want to forward the link to this blog post to your own bossman or bosslady to give them some ideas.

For the past eight years I have hosted a barbecue cooking competition at my home for all of our employees. There are a lot of components of the competition including the development of a logo and T-Shirt design each year, how the teams are structured and even the categories which are unique each year. All in all the annual investment is approximately $3,000 including category and grand prize awards, production of T-shirts, food, a keg of beer and everyone’s favorite; the margarita machine.

So, why do we host this annual event and what is the true value to the agency and our employees? We are in a creative business that is very competitive and requires a great deal of teamwork. Everything about this event supports our core values as a company while allowing everyone to let their hair down a little.

CREATIVITY: This is not your run of the mill BBQ competition that you might see on Food Network. People use every creative cell in their body to win, place or show. Not everyone is a culinary genius so they use online resources to come up with something unique. Others really do have the talent and expertise to create unique and crowd pleasing dishes that people would pay good money to experience. At yesterday’s event the judges commented that if local restaurants served this level of cuisine they would never have to write a negative review. Who would think that these amateur chefs would create items like baby back ribs that were dry rubbed then finished off by tossing them in a buffalo sauce or scallop and bacon lollipops, tofu sliders and brussel sprouts with bacon and  cranberries. And how many people do you know that would stay up half the night infusing vodka with fresh bacon. These are all perfect examples of creativity and passion, the same talents we need to succeed in the marketing world.

COMPETITION: I often get negative feedback from some members of the agency that nine out of ten of our recreational events involve some sort of competition. Guess what? This is our life. If we want to succeed and keep moving the needle we must be prepared to compete at the highest level. That doesn’t mean we can’t have fun. Competition is fun if you put your heart and soul into it. For this year’s Q, I was told that some people didn’t like to present their dishes to the judges so we had the judges visit each station, which was fine but I feel like we compromised to a certain degree. It was kind of like doing a new business presentation and asking the prospect to come to us or e-mailing concepts instead of presenting them in person. We also take the competition to a new level by inviting some of the most respected food industry professionals in the area to judge. Lorraine Eaton and Judy Crowling from Virginian Pilot, Patrick Evans-Hylton from HR Monthly, Debi Gray from Johnson & Wales, Sam and Cindy McGann, Jennie Capps from CBWC, Yiannis and John Milleson. Every year the judges are blown away by the quality of the event and promise to steal or “borrow” a few nuggets to share with the world.

TEAMWORK: If you are going to take home any money from the Q, you better work as a team. We do not reveal the teams or the categories until late afternoon the day before the event. Each team is comprised of people from teams that they don’t necessarily work with every day. They have less than 24 hours to develop a menu, determine responsibilities and action plans and to execute the dishes in a four hour period the day of the event. Some people prefer to work in a vacuum but over my 30 years in this business they never reach the top unless they know how to play in the sandbox. This is typically the result at the Q as well.

So, call it what you will – an excuse not to work, a blatant waste of company money, a good excuse to imbibe in the middle of the afternoon. I call it an exercise in life that will help us be a better agency.

We will post many of the recipes and photos from this year’s event on Monday.

JT

Derrick Borte, who we have had the pleasure of working with, has just released his first feature film The Joneses. He produced and directed the movie with major stars – David Duchovny, Demi Moore, Lauren Hutton – and a script he wrote himself. Derrick has worked with us at Meridian Group for clients including Hall Automotive, Cox Communications and Chartway Federal Credit Union. We are proud of Derrick’s accomplishment – this is BIG TIME!

For decades, the flip-calendar giveaway ruled the arena of corporate sponsored swag, decorating our walls with glossy murals of power-tools, sportscars and bikini-wearing supermodels.

Yet somewhere along the way, the allure of 30 blank boxes and an NFL cheerleader turned into nature shots and terrible stock photography. What’s the deal? Where’s the effort? Heck, where’s the usefulness?
Every free calendar I get now is full of meaningless trivia and obscure holidays. The whole point is that I have a place to jot down my wife’s birthday.

I’ve received two calendars so far this year and neither of them are worth hanging. I honestly can’t stand to look at them.

One is from a local real estate agent and it is full of “seasonal landscapes”, none of which are local. Why not take photos of the 12 oldest houses in the area or the 12 best places to get a beer? Or at the very least seasonal landscapes of the town we live in.

The second is an obnoxious calendar from a local printer full of generic corporate photography and 15 shades of blue. There’s even a photo of a guy in a suit with a briefcase pointing out into the horizon. Wow. And this is coming from a printer. Nothing about inks, papers or the craft of printing. No personality, just a generic giveaway with the company logo “playing it safe”.

Aside from the Chic-Fil-A calendar (which you have to buy), the 12 month flipper is a dying breed, and that’s a shame. Because what other marketing tool offers you someone’s full attention, in the comfort of their home or office, every day of the year?

Posted by: Matt Schneider, Production Manager, Meridian Group

Sar⋅casm [sahr-kaz-un m]

1.      Harsh or bitter derision or irony

2.      A sharply ironical taunt; sneering or cutting remark

Ahhh sarcasm – used so frequently, yet so dangerous in the electronic world of today. Ever said something via email or text message that was clearly sarcastic (to you) only to have it burn and fizzle after the recipient misconstrues your sarcasm for reality? Don’t you wish there was some way you could indicate exactly how sarcastic you mean to be? Well now you can! Introducing the SarcMark – for $1.99 you can download the new sarcasm punctuation to your computer and use it as frequently as you feel the need. Finally, a solution to our interactive communication problems. This should help salvage a relationship or two.

Posted by: Jasmine Stark, Account Coordinator, Launch Interactive

Following the success of the iphone and it’s 100,000 mobile applications, Apple Computer is rumored to announce the release of the Apple touch screen “tablet” device later this month. Dubbed the “everything killer”, the tablet will fill the gap between an iPhone and laptop computer. With an 8 or 10-inch screen, the tablet has an estimated price range between $700 and $1000. According to several technology blogs, the “iSlate” will be much better suited for surfing the web, watching videos, playing games and reading periodicals than it’s smaller relative, the iPhone.

Don’t expect the iPhone to be left behind, as tech research firm, IDC forecasts the number of iPhone apps to reach 300,000 by year’s end.With the ever increasing portable devices and mobile applications, 2010 is gearing up to be a very exciting, and convenient, year.

Posted by: Matt Schneider, Production Manager, Meridian Group

In honor of the holiday season, we’ve dug out our old photo albums and are reminiscing about our favorite memories. One slight problem, we can’ figure out who is who! Check out our holiday greeting and give us a hand. Let’s see how many photos and memories you can match.

Happy Holidays from Meridian Group! We wish all a happy and healthy holiday, and good luck in the New Year!

Click here to view our e-card.

Want to be famous? No really, now is your chance.  The Roosevelt Hotel New York City is opening a new bar and they need your help.  Put your thinking caps on and get your creative juices flowing. We’ve been racking our brains and haven’t been able to come up with the perfect name just yet. This is where you come in, help us name our bar, and you’ll be famous.

The Roosevelt Hotel New York’s business has always been about their friends and guests, so this is the perfect way for you to get involved. Just post your Name Our Bar idea by way of  The Roosevelt Hotel New York City’s blog, The NY Know, and  by filling out the form fields listed. Submissions will close on December 14th and we will then select the best name that represents The Roosevelt! The name should be creative, catchy, original, bold and fun – most importantly, it needs to fit who they are.  As of now, we have received close to 1,000 entries so there is no time to waste!

That’s not all. The winner will receive a FREE weekend stay at The Roosevelt Hotel New York City, along with VIP access to the Grand Opening party, broadway show tickets, and oh yea, YOUR name will be etched into the bar, for life. Pretty sweet deal!  So enter your Name Our Bar suggestions now, and this could be all yours.

This is your chance to get in on the action!

*For Official Rules, prize descriptions and odds disclosure, click here.

Posted by: Kim Boykan, Social Media Coordinator, Launch Interactive