In his lat­est arti­cle for Ad Age, our chief cre­ative offi­cer encour­ages brands and agen­cies to look beyond the num­bers when mak­ing mar­ket­ing deci­sions. Click the image below to read the full arti­cle on AdAge.com.

Seven-feet tall and gen­er­ously bespan­gled, a danc­ing white glove will for­ever hold cen­ter stage in our col­lec­tive mem­ory of HIGH WIDE & HANDSOME’s 2011 Hol­i­day Party in Las Vegas. Our eyes filled with won­der (nay, hor­ror) as a Ham­burger Helper-esque fig­ure con­torted to the strains of the King of Pop dur­ing the enter­tain­ment por­tion of our evening: Cirque du Soleil’s stage spec­tac­u­lar, “Michael Jack­son THE IMMORTAL World Tour.” When a pair of 12-foot-long black loafers with scrunched-down white socks rolled in and dis­patched two writhing dancers, we knew it was our cue to flee for less risky odds in the casino.

Ear­lier in the evening, our team gath­ered around a table at José Andrés’ crit­i­cally acclaimed tapas restau­rant, Jaleo. Our fes­tive din­ner cul­mi­nated in the pre­sen­ta­tion of a pan of paella so enor­mous, it could’ve fed a fam­ily of anthro­po­mor­phized giant gloves.

Yes, it can be said Vegas showed us a very good time before tuck­ing us in at The Cosmopolitan’s posh resort to dream of sugar plums, moon­walk­ing and the like. Now when asked how we’re going to top our­selves for Hol­i­day Party 2012, there seems to be only one viable answer: Cirque du Bieber, Dubai.

After almost two years in Venice, HIGH WIDE & HANDSOME is relo­cat­ing to a 1920s build­ing in Cul­ver City between the Cul­ver Hotel and Pacific The­atres. Con­struc­tion in the new office is sched­uled to fin­ish by Thanks­giv­ing, and our offi­cial move-in day is Decem­ber 2. While we’ll miss the sirens, heli­copters and read­ily acces­si­ble med­ical mar­i­juana for which Venice has become famous, we think being 20 yards away from a Chipo­tle and a Trader Joe’s is a decent trade-off. Our phone num­ber will stay the same, but our sub­scrip­tion to SMOOTH mag­a­zine will now be deliv­ered to 9430 Wash­ing­ton Blvd., Cul­ver City, CA 90232. Hope to see you there.

We didn’t sub­mit our name for con­sid­er­a­tion, and we’re not sure whether we should be flat­tered or insulted (actu­ally, we’re hon­ored to be in the com­pany of so many well known and respected agen­cies), but for now we’re cel­e­brat­ing our #7 spot on ADWEEK’s inter­na­tional list of the “40 Strangest Agency Names.” Click here to read the article.

Build­ing on the star power of Curb Your Enthu­si­asm’s J.B. Smoove and the momen­tum of the “Smoove on Smooth” video series HIGH WIDE & HANDSOME devel­oped for Paul Mas­son Brandy in 2010, we tai­lored the new cam­paign ele­ments to the par­tic­u­lar media vehi­cles and mar­kets in which they would appear. From bill­boards and bus shel­ters in Bal­ti­more, Detroit, Chicago and Atlanta to full-page ads in ESPN and VIBE, smooth­ness always hit home.

HIGH WIDE & HANDSOME recently launched a new Clos du Bois cam­paign by show­cas­ing the brand’s French sophis­ti­ca­tion and approach­able Cal­i­for­nia style. The mar­riage of these influ­ences is encap­su­lated by the tagline, “Made in Cal­i­for­nia. Flu­ent in French.” Fea­tur­ing real women from the West Coast, the cam­paign expresses the effort­less sophis­ti­ca­tion that Clos du Bois embod­ies as a brand.

The plan is dig­i­tally dri­ven with pro­gres­sive video units, pro­mo­tional part­ner­ships and a heavy empha­sis on social media. The Face­book page, man­aged by HIGH WIDE & HANDSOME, invites fans to find their wine with an app that rec­om­mends the best vari­etal match for each individual’s taste. Along with a branded Tum­blr page, the first for a major wine brand, an active Twit­ter pres­ence keeps Clos du Bois flu­idly in touch with its con­sumers. From inte­grated point-of-sale col­lat­eral to a com­pletely redesigned brand site, HIGH WIDE & HANDSOME has posi­tioned Clos du Bois to rein­tro­duce itself with unde­ni­able chic.

WEBSITE

TUMBLR

OUTDOOR

“FIND YOUR WINE” FACEBOOK APP



ONLINE VIDEO AD

To help intro­duce Black Vel­vet to a new gen­er­a­tion of whisky drinkers, HIGH WIDE & HANDSOME devel­oped an inte­grated cam­paign that posi­tions the brand as “The start of every great story.” Three 30-second radio spots, an online ad cam­paign and a strong out-of-home pres­ence encour­age the 25– to 35-year-old male demo­graphic to cre­ate and share bet­ter sto­ries with the ulti­mate blended-at-birth, bar­rel aged bev­er­age: Black Vel­vet Whisky. In addi­tion to the ad cam­paign, HIGH WIDE & HANDSOME also man­ages all social media activ­i­ties on behalf of the brand. Lis­ten to all three radio spots and view the online cam­paign below.


RADIO



OUTDOOR






ONLINE ADS

The col­lec­tive break­danc­ing abil­i­ties of the HIGH WIDE & HANDSOME staff increased 14% last week when Matt Dim­mer joined the agency as asso­ciate cre­ative direc­tor. Dim­mer spent the last three years as an asso­ciate cre­ative direc­tor at Euro RSCG Chicago where he con­tributed to a vari­ety of notable new busi­ness wins includ­ing Cana­dian Club Whisky, Cracker Bar­rel and Reynolds/Hefty. The move to Venice marks a return to South­ern Cal­i­for­nia for Matt who served as an art direc­tor at Vitro Robert­son in San Diego prior to mov­ing to the Mid­west. You can get to know the newest mem­ber of our team by fol­low­ing him on Twit­ter at @dimshady.

When we asked Arbor Mist’s 400,000+ face­book fans what Erin and Cory should attempt for their lat­est adven­ture, the answer was clear: kayak­ing. Stay­ing true to form, the girls once again proved they’re up for any­thing. Watch the episode below to see Erin and Cory take on class 3 rapids—then cel­e­brate with a cold glass of Exotic Fruits White Zin­fan­del.

In his lat­est fea­ture for Ad Age, HIGH WIDE & HANDSOME’s chief cre­ative offi­cer, Mike Wolf­sohn, pro­vides a unique point-of-view on how to mea­sure social media engage­ment: “…the abil­ity to main­tain long-term rela­tion­ships trans­forms a brand that extracts ‘Likes’ into a brand that earns love.” Click here to read the full arti­cle.

As part of our ongo­ing social media man­age­ment for Black Box Wines, the #1 box wine in Amer­ica, HIGH WIDE & HANDSOME has cre­ated a col­lec­tion of Face­book appli­ca­tions that allow fans to explore the brand’s prod­ucts, find pair­ing ideas, print food recipes, leave com­ments about their favorite vari­etals and invite friends to join them in the Black Box Lounge. Click on the image below to view the WINES app, then explore the other tabs by click­ing on the links along the left side of the Face­book page.

We’ve never under­stood why the same effort, resources and atten­tion to detail that go into mak­ing TV com­mer­cials is rarely applied to mak­ing online ads. For our lat­est Arbor Mist cam­paign, we part­nered with pro­duc­tion com­pany XYZ to cre­ate full-motion video ban­ners using a com­bi­na­tion of live-action and CGI ani­ma­tion. Both ban­ners below fea­ture real fruit filmed on a green screen in super-slow-motion. In addi­tion, the water splash in the White Pear Pinot Gri­gio exe­cu­tion was also filmed using the same tech­nique. The smoke and bar­be­cue tongs in the Pome­gran­ate Berry Pinot Noir ad are ani­mated in 3D. The cam­paign, which is cur­rently run­ning on sites like FoodNetwork.com, AllRecipes.com and Oprah.com, also includes 728x90 and 160x600 units with cus­tom video and ani­ma­tion tai­lored to each aspect ratio. Hit the “Click to Play” but­ton under each image below to see why these ads are deliv­er­ing record-breaking click-through rates.