Meet us at the lanes, it’s going down…

After MCM threw out a Tarantino like taunt video for the upcoming match, we had no choice but to hold a press smack conference and let the team speak their minds.

Our rebuttal: The Smack Conference…

Feel like witnessing the carnage? All our welcome to come cheer on, make fun of, laugh at, and laugh with the Splinter Creative and MCM crews.

What: Agency Throwdown

Who: Splinter Creative vs. Maggiore Consulting & Marketing

Where: Tempe Village Lanes

When: Wednesday, June 23, 2010 @ 7pm

Why: More like why not? A little healthy competition between Arizona agencies never hurt anyone. See you there!

It was another epic Tuesday this week as 550+ people from around the valley congregated at the Mesa Arts Center for the sixth installment of Ignite Phoenix. The crew did another excellent job organizing and promoting the event (tickets sold out in 27 minutes), and the presenters brought their “A” game to the table, enlightening the crowd and sharing their passions.

Incase you aren’t privvy, we’ve been working our magic on the programs and signage dating back to Ignite Phoenix 3. (Woah. Seriously? Ignite 7 is really on the way?) It’s been a blast to help the brand grow, and even more fun to have creative leeway with the printed pieces. Having free reign isn’t something to take for granted, and for this we’ll be eternally grateful. Check out our most recent program pictured here ==>

Being that we were so (in)kind with our donations, we had the privilege of putting together a 30 second video to be shown at the beginning of the night. After toiling with several ideas for a number of days, we decided it was time to put together a sample of our work that highlighted a handful of favorite projects. If you missed Ignite Phoenix 6, you can check it out here (make sure to turn up your volume).

Now it’s time to get back to work and start dreaming about the next big idea for Ignite Phoenix 7. More good things to come from Splinter Creative… Stay tuned

It’s that time of year again, and the crew at Splinter Creative is fired up to attend Twestival Phoenix on Thursday, March 25^th at Martini Ranch in Old Town Scottsale.

This year, Twestival is aiming to highlight eight areas which are preventing some of our poorest youth around the world from going to school and getting the education they need and deserve. Events hosted on the same night around the world will be selecting a specific area to donate to, and Phoenix has put its best foot forward to aid in the building of schools to help those less fortunate.

As part of our sponsorship, we whipped up a couple new snazzy t-shirt designs that Brand X will be printing and delivering to the event. Big thanks to Charles for setting up the online shopping cart so attendees can “pimp” out their shirts with a custom Twitter handle.

Along with the shirt designs, we’ll also be hooking up some signage for the event to show the sponsors some love, and a large and in charge step and repeat banner to capture the moment for attendees.

Twestival is a 100% volunteer organized event, and wouldn’t be possible without great folks like Chris Lee, Wesley Novak, Heather Lee, Jenny Carnie and many more. Everyone has really chipped in once again to help with the logistics of the event as well as raising donations. We’re slowly inching our way towards the goal of $7,500, and hope to beat out Twestival San Francisco after the night of the event. It’s going to be a close one, so all the help we can get is greatly appreciated!

I mean, could you think of a better way to use social media for social good? I sure can’t

While many look at this time of year as an opportunity to receive gifts, the folks here at Splinter Creative felt the need to dish out some goodies to our lovely clients and colleagues… And we couldn’t think of a better way to spread some of that holiday cheer, than with a gift set from Cruz Tequila. (See more pics of the Cruz Tequila gift sets here.)

In their first year of holiday promotions, the Cruz Crew put together quite the little gift set complete with a bottle of their new line, Cruz Silver, and some fancy margarita glasses as a nice accent. Needless to say, our colleagues were thrilled, and propositioned us to crack these bad boys open a few times during deliveries (we refrained of course as advocates of safe driving ).

In addition to dishing out some gifts this holiday season, the Splinter Creative team participated in the Holiday #buzzcation Bowling Tournament with a cause, benefiting the Crisis Nursery of Phoenix. The turnout was awesome as teams of news channel, public relations and advertising peeps filled nearly the entire bowling alley. Big props go out to @vettieroe for organizing this great event, and to team “Split Happens” (that’s us) for taking down the trophy. We’ll make sure to take good care of it until next year… To view more pictures from the event, check out HMA’s fan page here.

From our office to yours, Happy Holidays and we look forward to working/socializing with you in 2010!

Between client work and events it’s been a crazy couple months for Splinter Creative. So… I thought I’d check-in and give everyone an update on several things that are beginning or ending in the old project pipeline.

Twestival Local Phoenix turned out to be a huge success and a great time. With help from twitter nation and area businesses, the localized effort was able to raise $9,332 for St. Mary’s Food Bank. This is double what Twestival Phoenix achieved back in February and exceeded the preliminary goal of $7,000. Our hats off to @chrislee, @aussieheather, @jennycarnie, @amandablum and countless others for organizing the event and getting members of the Phoenix community involved. I don’t know what it is, but the fact that a couple hundred people came together and raised enough money to provide over 65,000 meals to the Phoenix community, kinda makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside As always, looking forward to helping out with the next one.

In addition to Twestival, we’ve had some pretty cool client work the past few months. While I don’t have quite enough room to show everything, here’s a few logos I hand picked from the “need to update portfolio” folder. From left to right: Up and coming skateboard company out of northern California (Ladera), a Scottsdale, AZ based law firm (Bar Urness) and a newly launched non-profit organization (Phoenix Innovation Foundation). It was a pleasure working with all three clients on their respective logos, and we look forward to furthering our relationships with them over the coming year.

And last but not least, Splinter has been working with a couple ladies over at Type A Events to help out with the production of event signage for Crave 2009. For those of you unfamiliar with Crave Arizona, it takes place in the heart of Old Town Scottsdale and treats the world’s culinary community to a celebration of food, wine and spirits. According to their site, the event highlights local chefs, artisans, and one-of-a-kind dining experiences found only in Arizona. Splinter Creative is excited to be a part of this great event, and even more excited to attend (wine and food is NEVER a bad thing). For all the juicy details, be sure to visit the website… And if you end up attending, make sure to track me down so we can share a few spirits and a laugh. Cheers!

While there is an infinite amount of greatness happening across the valley, here’s a few events taking place that Splinter will be attending and/or helping out with…

Phoenix Design Week – It’s the inaugural event and it’s happening October 21^st – 25^th. The week will be filled with exhibits and galleries featuring the work of local graphic artists, interactive and motion designers. Phoenix Design Week kicks off on Friday with the Typophile Film Fest at MadCap Theatres and then moves to the weekend conference at the downtown convention center. The lineup of guest speakers looks amazing and it is sure to be the start of something great. Visit the PhxDW website to purchase tickets and get all the details. The folks here at Splinter are looking forward to checking out the exhibits and taking in some knowledge from the speakers. Should be a great one!

Ignite Phoenix #5 – This pile of awesome was brought to life by a group of folks passionate about lighting a fire under the Phoenix creative community. Gearing up for the 5^th installment of Ignite, Splinter is eager to jump in and help out again by providing killer design services along with a few other juicy items. In fact, we’ll be donating enough goods and services that we’ve been offered the opportunity to put together a 30 second spot showcasing who we are and what we do. Hopefully it turns out as awesome as this video by @bwilley and @krysvs from Ignite Phoenix #4.

PodCamp AZ 2009 – Originating in Boston, Massachusetts and heading into its 3^rd year, this event takes the original concept of PodCamp and changes it up a bit to meet the needs of Phoenix. Contrary to its name, this event isn’t just about podcasting, it’s about the creation and delivery of new media and how people use the information. Taking place November 14^th and 15^th at the University of Advancing Technology, this unconference has been coming together over the past several months and is sure to be the different event you’re looking for. And hey, it’s FREE. If you’re interested in sponsoring or attending this new-media focused event, make sure to check out the website for more info. While the event is new media based, we’ll be assisting the crew with some printing and graphic needs as the date nears.

The only question I have… Who’s coming with me?

With pre-season action coming to an end, and a hint of the NFL regular season in the air, Splinter decided it was time to take Agency Throwdown to a new level with a fantasy football challenge of epic proportions. The snag — We only have a few days to pull it off, but with the amount of awesome people scattered throughout agencies all over Phoenix, we’re not too worried about it.

As I write this post, I’m still working out all the details in my noggin, but here’s how I see the first ever Agency Fantasy Football league goin’ down…

1. We get 8-24 agencies to get involved, where each agency would represent their team collectively as a whole. Whether you have one person who’s interested or a group of people, make sure someone represents like this guy!  Any and all agencies are welcome, you just have to be within the wide scope that is Phoenix.
2. Fees would be $50 per team (get 5 people on board at your agency and it’s only a whopping $10 each. WOOT!).
3. What’s the $50 going towards? Great question… $40 will be donated to Twestival Local – Phoenix and their pursuit to support the St. Mary’s Food Bank. The remaining $10 will go towards food and drinks at the end of the season party (Location TBD. It will be an establishment with food, booze and wifi… Heck, maybe even Gangplank would work if they’re interested and could broadcast the games through the projector).
4. Amended: Tentative Draft Date: 6pm on Tuesday, September 8th or Wednesday, September 9th – and can be done remotely as we’ll be setting up the league on Yahoo’s free fantasy football site. Once more teams sign up, we’ll figure out a time that works best for most.
5. The draft will consist of 15 rounds to allow room for both starters and bench players.
6. Teams will consist of: QB, RB, RB, WR, WR, TE, R/W/T, K, DST and 6 bench players.
7. We’ll do a random draft order once everyone has signed up (I may or may not be accepting bribes for draft position )
8. Our regular season will consist of 13 games with the playoffs taking place during weeks 14, 15 and 16 of the NFL’s regular season.
9. Top 8 teams (assuming we get at least 12 to sign up) will make the playoffs.
10. Anyone who is interested, please get in touch with me by end of day on Thursday, September 3rd (I know, it’s short notice, but I just had an epiphany this morning) and we’ll work out the details from there.
11. Recommended you create a unique yahoo login so everyone who is part of the team in your agency has an opportunity to login and check updates as needed.
12. League scores, rankings, etc will be posted on the Agency Throwdown site every Tuesday as they change (Tentative. I still need to work this out).
13. The winner won’t receive any money (gambling is illegal in Arizona in case you didn’t know) but being the King of Fantasy Football amongst Phoenix agencies doesn’t seem like too bad of a consolation prize (or bragging right for that matter) if you ask me.

Sound like a plan? The way I see it, we’ll have about 4 months to “talk smack” and build relationships with our fellow creative/marketing/advertising/web peeps while enjoying the most popular sport in America. Competitors can feel free to meet up on a weekly basis to give each other the business in person, use the hashtag #phxffb to chat it up on Twitter, or wait for the end of the season when everyone convenes to watch the final game and enjoy food/libations at a local watering hole.

If you’re interested, feel free to drop a comment below, send an email to bhatfield at splintercreative dot com or hit me up on Twitter. Just don’t be that guy who drops a comment and leaves no way for me to track you down

I’m also directly calling out Phoenix Metro Area Agencies: McMurry, The Lavidge Company, Forty Agency, Sarkissian Mason, Keane Creative, Off Madison Ave, Moses Anshell, Cramer-Krasselt, E.B. Lane, Mullen Advertising, Reister, Martz Agency, Crosby Wright, Santy Integrated and Zion & Zion in hopes they have Google Alerts set that will get their attention. For the agencies I missed, my bad. Everyone is welcome to compete. You can take it out on me and the Splinter crew via the fantasy football field…  Bring it!

So let the games begin… And spread the word!  Here’s a short link to this post – http://bit.ly/eS8St

Confirmed Teams as of 4:03pm on Wenesday, September 9th

• Splinter Creative
• Sarkissian Mason
• Liquis Design
• Keane Creative
• Canyon Communications
• Amanda Vega Consulting
• Terralever
• @ousooner44