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!

If you need to get a hold of us over the next few days, please email info@splintercreative.com — We should have our phone system back up and running by Wednesday, December 2nd at the latest.

With the launch of a new website several months ago, you probably have a decent idea of our style and what we’re all about as a company…  Pair the website with our facebook, twitter and other social networking accounts, and you could pretty much stalk us if that’s the sort of thing you’re in to

If you’ve visited our key players page, you know that I rocked one mean tuxedo during my childhood days.  What can I say, I was a born lady killer.  While many of you have gotten a kick out of our childhood portraits (as you should), humor was only a small factor in why we chose to display ourselves in such a manner.  In our minds, it was important to show current and potential clients our youthful imaginations, and demonstrate that while we’ve grown up, we still like to think big and achieve things others only dream about.  I mean, that’s what being a kid is all about, right?

Albeit the childhood pictures are great (thanks everyone for your feedback) we felt it was time for a mini photo shoot.  Sure, we’ll need a serious corporate head shot for this, that or the other thing, but most importantly, we needed to have some sharp looking avatars for our social networking accounts (I’ve almost got everyone at the office on the facebook, twitter and linkedin bandwagons woot!)  So we got with our creative director, Steve Clark, and asked him to dig up some lighting and other goodies from his old photog days.

It turned out to be a super rad time Tuesday morning at the office.  Not only did we have a blast putting everyone on the spot to come up with an “O” face (or in my case, the People’s eyebrow) we were able to capture more of the personality that is Splinter Creative.  So while the childhood portraits aren’t coming down anytime soon, we figured it was time to supplement them with some current day goodness.  After all, a picture can tell you an awful lot about someone…

To see all the pics, check out our facebook fan page here.

Looking to get whisked away on a Friday night? Lucky for you, the Active 20-30 Club of Phoenix has just the ticket to start your weekend in style. They’ve hooked up with the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Arizona, and are set to host quite the little shindig this evening.

Friday, May 8^th will mark the 1^st Annual Phoenix Suitcase Party, and it’s going down at the Deer Valley Airport in north Phoenix. Beginning at 6:30pm, party-goers will eagerly await their chance to board a private jet and enjoy a fun-filled, luxurious weekend in Sonoma Valley.

How does it work you ask? Attendees will bring a packed suitcase, strut their way down the red carpet, and enjoy an evening of drinks, dancing and live entertainment while awaiting their chance to hit the big raffle. At around 9pm, a private jet will arrive at the Atlantic Aviation luxury hangar, and one lucky winner and a guest will be immediately swept away for an amazing weekend.

Sounds pretty killer, no? I’d never heard of this type of party before, and as a sponsor for the event, I’m pretty fired up to see how everything goes down. Plus, all proceeds from the raffle and silent auction go to the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Arizona as well as the Children in Need Foundation. I don’t know about you, but anytime I can support a good cause and have a good time doing it, I chalk it up as a victory in my book.

For complete details on the event, check out the Active 20-30 Club website by clicking here… And make sure to drop us a comment if you’ll be heading that way!

About a month ago, a lovely lady by the name of Queenie contacted me to see if Splinter could help out with a charity event she had coming up this summer. After discussing their list of wants and needs and learning more about the benefiting charity, we gladly jumped on board. (We just might need to dust off the pitching wedge and hit the range before the tourney)

For starters, the Arizona chapter of “Water for People” needed assistance with the design of a flyer and entry form. I mean, you gotta have the basics in order to get groups interested and signed up for a fun filled day of golfing, drinking and eating, right? Needless to say, they weren’t too picky about the free help, and gave our designers the freedom to do something awesome when putting together the flyer. To the right is what @patty_cake came up with… Pretty killer, no?

The ladies and gents over at Water for People were stoked. Now they had the initial marketing piece that would allow them to start hustling and make the 13^th Annual Tourney one to remember. The only things left were to finalize the sponsors and get some golfers signed up. If you are interested in becoming a part of the event as either a sponsor or golfer, please contact Queenie Tsui by clicking here.

According to their website, Water for People helps those in developing countries improve their quality of life by supporting and developing locally sustainable drinking water resources, sanitation facilities and health and hygiene education programs. You know, the stuff we all take for granted on a daily basis.

What came as a shock to me, is the over 800 million people across the world who don’t have access to the clean nectar of Mother Nature, and more than 2.5 billion that don’t have a sanitized place to take care of business. Add those together, and you’ve got about 6,000 people per day that are losing their lives to water-related illnesses… most of them being children. Pretty sad, terrible and unacceptable if you ask me

So without giving you the hard sell, if you’re looking to take some co-workers out for a day of fun in the sun, or you want to schmooze/impress some clients, look at this as the perfect opportunity to help others, escape the office and support a great cause in the 13^th Annual Water for People Golf Tourney.

If nothing else, you get one of these super cool t-shirts to sport around town letting others know you’re down with helping those in need. Seems like a good enough reason, no?

Every time I hear the word guarantee, or someone is giving me the hard sell on a product reaffirming their guarantee, I can’t help but think of Chris Farley’s spiel in the movie Tommy Boy…

Tommy: Let’s think about this for a sec, Ted, why would somebody put a guarantee on a box? Hmmm, very interesting.
Ted Nelson, Customer: Go on, I’m listening.
Tommy: Here’s the way I see it, Ted. Guy puts a fancy guarantee on a box ’cause he wants you to feel all warm and toasty inside.
Ted Nelson, Customer: Yeah, makes a man feel good.
Tommy: ‘Course it does. Why shouldn’t it? Ya figure you put that little box under your pillow at night, the Guarantee Fairy might come by and leave a quarter, am I right, Ted?
[chuckles until he sees that Ted is not laughing too]
Ted Nelson, Customer: [impatiently] What’s your point?
Tommy: The point is, how do you know the fairy isn’t a crazy glue sniffer? “Building model airplanes” says the little fairy; well, we’re not buying it. He sneaks into your house once, that’s all it takes. The next thing you know, there’s money missing off the dresser, and your daughter’s knocked up. I seen it a hundred times.
Ted Nelson, Customer: But why do they put a guarantee on the box? 
Tommy: Because they know all they sold ya was a guaranteed piece of shit. That’s all it is, isn’t it? Hey, if you want me to take a dump in a box and mark it guaranteed, I will. I got spare time. But for now, for your customer’s sake, for your daughter’s sake, ya might wanna think about buying a quality product from me. 
Ted Nelson, Customer: [pause] Okay, I’ll buy from you.

As this may be the case with some companies (guaranteeing a poor product simply to make the consumer feel all warm and fuzzy) it is most certainly not the case with 3M. In case you didn’t know, 3M is THE fabricator of the finest over laminates and adhesive vinyls in all the land. I refer to them as THE fabricator of such materials because they aren’t just slapping a guarantee on a box. They warranty their products to the fullest extent to make sure each and every client is completely satisfied with their materials.

For example, about 9 months back we wrapped 2 SUV’s for a local client. The wrap designs turned out absolutely killer, the quality of printing was phenomenal and the installation was flawless. Needless to say, a few months went by and the client began to see a few issues with the vehicle graphics peeling up in various crevices on both vehicles. As both sets of vehicle graphics were printed from the same roll of material, it wasn’t hard to believe that they were experiencing the same issue.

The crazy part… In the over 400 vehicles Splinter has wrapped, we’ve never seen material from 3M act this way. Luckily, our local 3M rep took the time to come down and examine the vehicles to see what was happening. The determination was made the material was faulty (when you’re producing millions of square feet of vinyl, this is going to happen once or twice) and our 3M rep gladly supplied us with a new roll of material to print on and re-wrap the vehicles. His level of service was second to none, and it saved us a few thousand dollars by not having to reproduce the graphics on our dime.

The moral of the story? You get what you pay for when it comes to a guarantee. The extra few bucks spent on 3M materials were well worth it just knowing the 3M crew has got your back. Adam, if you’re reading this, thanks for making our lives that much easier and standing by your quality products.

Splinter Creative is down with planet earth. We live on it and it’s pretty good to us (except of course when it is 110+ degrees in the summer). While many companies out there are neglecting the big spinning rock, we decided to take a different approach to help out Mother Nature.

While “green printing” is a popular term these days, a great majority are missing out on the even bigger picture of disposal. We’re still going to offer you the option of a natural canvas banner or heavy recycled paper, but when it comes down to it, delivering a message outdoors usually requires a heavy-duty vinyl banner.

And that ladies and gentleman is where we come in to play. Although you can’t always print green for your outdoor project, you can help reduce the carbon footprint by disposing of your media properly.

For example, say you have a large format media project that has run its course and you don’t know what to do with it. Rather than just stuffing it in the trash can, give your friendly sales rep over at Splinter Creative a call and we’ll be happy to take it off your hands.

That’s it. Seriously. All you have to do is give us a call or drop your banner by the office, and we’ll take care of the rest by bringing the materials to a processor that can dispose of them in an eco friendly manner.

So next time you’re getting ready for a large format media project, give us a buzz and we’ll put our greenest foot forward to help-you-help-us-help-the-environment.

Attendance is exemplary around here. It’s not that we’re more dedicated than your average creative team. It’s because when you’re out, you never know what you’ll find when you return.

We recently had an over-run of about 40 POP signs. As an environmentally conscious member of the human race, I gave these poor, unwanted signs a new life. I personally gave many of these orphan signs a new purpose, hiding them in my colleague’s desk drawers, filing cabinets and closets. Oh the delight on my coworkers faces when they opened the refrigerator and discovered a sign. My stealthy sign placement was legendary. I thought that I was untouchable – the greatness of my sign placement achievements would surely protect me from my adversaries.

I was so pleased with myself, I decided to take off early and enjoy a half day. Arrogance was my downfall.

It’s been a week and I am still finding signs hidden in my office. They also hid my rubber chicken somewhere…

Clarkbar

In case you haven’t already heard, Splinter Creative is pleased to announce we are among the Top 10 Advertising Agencies of 2009 in the state of Arizona.

Splinter would like to to thank everyone who took time to cast a ballot during the 2009 voting period, and ask that you help us make it to #1 spot in the 2010 issue of Ranking Arizona Magazine.

Voting is as easy as 1-2-3…

1. Go to http://rankingaz.azbigmedia.com/
2. Click the toggle button that says “Search by Name”
3. Type in Splinter Creative
4. Enter your email address and click the button that says “Cast my Vote”

Okay, so maybe that was 4 steps but you get the point.  You can vote every 60 days for each different email address that you have. Voting will conclude at the end of July, so get your click on and help Splinter show the valley what “mad skills” look like on paper

What can I say, it’s nothing but the best here at Splinter Creative when we get down to celebrate… But when you’re at the office popping some bottles to make mimosas, it doesn’t really matter now does it

After grinding it out for 8 months between client projects, we officially launched our new website this morning.  I mean… you gotta do the work that pays the bills first, right?  Needless to say, we sprouted a few grey hairs and had a few disagreements, but we’re proud to announce a fully functioning site complete with eye candy, anecdotes and useful information about all the services we have to offer you in the upcoming year.

The new site features a distinctive home page (you may want to click the home button a few times and check out all the awesome images), a capabilities section packed full of info and photorealistic examples, and a ton of new portfolio pics showcasing some of our favorite work.

We also added the “request a quote” feature allowing current and future clients to submit a query with ease, a downloads section to get the goods from Splinter and various links to connect with us on our social networking sites.

If you haven’t checked it out already, what are you waiting for?!?  Click the home button up top and let us know what you think by sending an email to marketingpr at splintercreative.com

Sadly, it’s time to get back to work after a morning full of high fives, mimosas and other things we can’t mention on here We hope you enjoy all the cool aspects of our new site, and we look forward to hearing your comments.

To view the press release, click here