John W. “Jack” Felton

John W. “Jack” Felton, longtime head of communications at McCormick Spices and noted PR advocate and educator, passed away on May 7, 2013.

Anyone who has the read The History Factory’s Oral History will recognize Jack as one of our company’s earliest supporters and cheerleaders. Although “risk-taker” is not a characteristic that commonly emerges from the food industry, tributes and appreciations that appeared in the wake of Jack’s passing demonstrated that he clearly had the guts—or perhaps the complete lack of common sense—to engage our three-person firm, then called Informative Design Group, to tackle the preservation and computerization of McCormick’s nearly century-old archives.

In the early 1980s, our fledgling company, armed with a brand new personal computer, caught the eye of this seasoned (pun intended) corporate executive from one of America’s venerated brands. Jack had already caused a minor publicity sensation in the investor relations community by cleverly adding the aromas of spices to the inks used for McCormick’s annual reports. With the company’s closure of its historic factory in Baltimore’s inner harbor and approaching company centennial, Jack sensed that the timing was right to make a major commitment to preparing the company’s history for the next century.

Jack responded to one of our earliest direct mail solicitations. The next thing we knew, we were scurrying madly to beg, borrow and steal some presentable office furniture for our tiny three-room office in upper Georgetown in anticipation of the visit from the corporate VIP.  As I recall, Jack arrived at our office 11:57 a.m., spent a grand total of two minutes in the office before announcing, “OK, fellows. Let’s go grab lunch.”

That became the pattern for years to come. Over long lunches or dinners in D.C. or Hunt Valley, MD, Jack would regale us with his global exploits as a communicator while always challenging us to think differently—and bigger—about our company. “Books, videos and exhibits are all well and good,” Jack would say. “But never underestimate the value of historical archives to corporations.”

Jack put his money where his mouth was by investing considerable amounts in McCormick’s archives, and he was always recommending The History Factory to colleagues in trade and professional associations. “Recommending” is probably the wrong word to describe what Jack did for us. Jack took credit for our success, which was perfectly fine to us. Everyone recognized that Jack was a big personality, and his pride in being our “godfather” was just part of the package.

I often ran into Jack at professional events in our post-McCormick years, and he would always strike a theatrical stance and declare to anyone within earshot: “There’s my old friend Bruce Weindruch from The History Factory. I was his first client.”

While technically not our “first client,” Jack Felton was clearly our most important foundational client. He saw something in our young company that we didn’t see in ourselves. He had a fundamental belief in the power of archives and history. He believed in us and challenged us to do more. And perhaps just as importantly, he introduced me to Dennis Jenks, who has been my partner since 1986. We’ll miss you, Jack. The history of The History factory wouldn’t be the same without you.

Related links:

The Plank Center: In Memoriam: John “Jack” Felton

PRSA In Memoriam

John W. Felton Obituary

Brooks Brothers has positioned itself to capitalize on these opportunities. The iconic American men’s clothier consistently weaves its heritage into its strategic partnerships and product lines. Brooks Brothers’ ability to draw from the past to support its current endeavors rests in its robust archive of clothing and fabric samples, images, documents, and other materials. For a company rooted in tradition and classic style, heritage helps fortify its brand positioning and maximize heritage-based opportunities when they arise.

Brooks Brothers promoted its menswear line inspired by its work on “The Great Gatsby” movie in its U.S. store displays.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the new Baz Luhrmann film “The Great Gatsby.” Brooks has direct ties to author F. Scott Fitzgerald, who wore a  Brooks Brothers polo collar shirt nearly every day. As a Time feature recently recalled, “Fitzgerald made an outfit of their shirts, and was seldom seen without one; it’s strange to think that despite the writer’s fussy and ironically pre-jazz-age look, you can walk into the same [Brooks Brothers] store almost a century later and buy more or less the exact shirt he wore in most of his photographs.”

Because of this connection, Brooks Brothers was a natural fit as a partner in the new film. Brooks played a central role in costume design, using photographs from its archives to inspire most of the 500-piece men’s wardrobe. It also manufactured all of the garments. (Watch the behind-the-scenes video describing the collaboration.)

Beyond its hands-on role with costume design and manufacturing, Brooks Brothers extensively promoted its relationship with the film and touted its use of the archive in developing the film’s wardrobe. Ultimately, it adapted the costumes for a special collection sold online and at Brooks Brothers stores.

This project is not the first time Brooks Brothers has used heritage management to tie the brand to significant events. In the days surrounding the 2013 presidential inauguration, store windows at its Dupont Circle location in Washington, D.C., touted the connection between the retailer and its relationship with President Franklin D. Roosevelt (he wore a Brooks Brothers cape to the Yalta conference, which was recreated and placed in the window display). A replica of a Brooks Brothers suit that Abraham Lincoln wore was also on display.

Brooks Brothers has used its history to support numerous other initiatives since its archive was established in 1982. What sets the retailer apart is that it keeps working to identify influential moments in its history, and uses them to continue to authenticate and differentiate the brand today.

Brooks Brothers uses window display space to describe how it used its archive to create an authentic collection that pays homage to the looks of 1920s.

Sci-fi-worthy or not, the world entered a new phase of communication and marketing when Twitter arrived. People started to write everything in Twitter-length blurbs (e.g. every sentence of this blog post). #Hashtags appeared as a way to capture attention, and smart businesses raced to understand how to engage the public with this new medium. Companies realized Twitter could be used for PR, to grow customer loyalty, to build brand recognition and to create a historical record. Historical record—#seriously?

Take a look back. Written in tweets is a story of your company’s heritage and culture. What does the Twitter feed reveal? If your company started an account in 2006, it survived an economic downturn and the whims of a capricious public. Those are accomplishments to celebrate and study. Search your @username or related #companyname, and you’ll see how the rest of the world perceived you, as well. Did a product, service, person or division of your business gain popularity or notoriety in the #twittersphere? Most likely, there are lessons in this historical record that you can apply to today—or simply retweet.

I looked back @HistoryFactory. Since we began our Twitter feed, we have posted 437 tweets. In 2009, @HistoryFactory shared the deaths of iconic companies and thoughts on topics such as “Capturing the Past Before It’s History.” Times were tough. On April 19, 2010, we were more upbeat, covering @LibraryCongress’s announcement that it was beginning a Twitter project. “Why the Library of Congress cares about archiving your tweets: http://bit.ly/9a12Ny #archives #LOC.” As of January 2013, the Library had archived 170 billion tweets: an incredible snapshot of modern events, culture and people.

Now, we’re looking to the future in our tweets. We are sharing tips on celebrating coming anniversaries, storytelling, creating exhibits, and telling you what we’re up to @HistoryFactory. We’re also recognizing companies marking major anniversaries and off-year anniversaries, too. #happy7thanniversary @twitter.

What does your #twitterhistory tell you?

If an eyewitness is credible, their thoughts and opinions hold great weight with a jury, the public, and posterity—which is exactly why recording the eyewitness perspectives of people in oral histories can result in a similarly powerful resource for companies. Documenting stories of success, failure, and transition through oral histories is an effective way to preserve history, experiences, and perceptions.  And from these, the core stories and themes of a company’s heritage emerge for the retelling to key audiences now and in the future.

Local news stations find another effective use of the eyewitness. Though admittedly, the local news may not be quite as strict on accuracy, the people they interview have a lot to say about the atmosphere of an event. Viewers want to hear stories from those who were there and feel the excitement or terror of the witnesses.

Oral histories too convey more than just facts and figures, they convey the more intangible aspects of company through look, feel, and tone. What it was like to be in the boardroom when the company’s stock went public, when the CEO announced the big merger, when the company reached its 1 billionth dollar in business? Oral histories provide eyewitness content that has a great sense of authenticity and is able to be repurposed for use in print, in exhibits, and digital media. Told by those who were there, these are the stories that help preserve and continue culture.

But the eyewitnesses to significant moments in your heritage are starting to retire. While it once seemed that everyone was there when the company successfully rebounded after the dot com bust—or at least knew the story—now, a look of confusion greets the old timers who refer to it in a meeting. As the baby boomer generation ages, the knowledge base and culture of many companies is naturally shifting. So what can you do to help ensure their insights are not lost to the golf courses of Florida?

Act now. Work to identify the key players in your organization. The eyewitnesses in a company’s oral histories are not the local news report’s surfer dude during a hurricane, they are often company executives and other tenured and well respected individuals. Yet just like the surfer guy, they are telling the story and sharing the atmosphere of an event.

Think outside of the expected subject matter experts and executives when choosing interviewees. Who has the best sense of a company’s culture—not just its history? Often it is the longtime assistant who has witnessed more of the organization’s history and has a better grasp on its culture than anyone else. Think outside the box for the greatest variety of perspectives.

Many tales are inspiring, but it will be a company’s own story, told by its own eyewitnesses that will hold the most weight with current and future employees. Preserving that history and culture while people are still working, engaged, and have fresh memories will help capture a story that can be put to use for generations of employees.

The Museum of Bags: A quirky online collection of 7,000 paper, plastic, ceramic, silver, glass, straw, vinyl and burlap sacks offering an odd look at our shared cultural history.

2012 in 4 Minutes: The frenetic editing of this video may cause seizures, but it’s a crazy techno-poem to 2012 that successfully tweaks a few thousand memories from the past 365 days.

Bedrock Images: Two Ph.D. students are inspired by archives to research, restore and distribute forgotten maps of the world’s vital cities, capturing critical historical moments. Some are pure reproductions, while others have been “given modern afterlives.”

Oral History of “The Wire”: A behind-the-scenes look at one of the best TV shows of all time, as told by the HBO executives, creators, writers and actors who brought them to life.

Follow our board, repin our finds, or, if you haven’t joined the Pinterest movement, check back often, as we’ll be updating regularly. And please let us know if you find anything that screams “the future of history,” and we might just pin it on your behalf!

The History Factory was pleased to create and implement traveling exhibits as part of Zurich in North America’s centennial celebration. Displayed at financial services industry events throughout 2012, these exhibits shared Zurich’s 100-year history of insuring and helping to build the America we know today.

Based on these exhibits’ popularity, Zurich decided to interpret them into the digital space so they could have an “afterlife” in the virtual world. This expanded engagement potential with attendees of Zurich’s events and extended the reach of the centennial initiative to broader financial industry markets.

Our best practices (outlined in Virtual Exhibits 101) offer a framework for development of this digital experience. Here’s a look at some specific ways in which we transformed the physical exhibit into a unique, informative and engaging online experience.

Interpreting the physical exhibit in a virtual space

This exhibit reflects the design and content of the physical exhibit but takes advantage of the Internet’s flexibility in providing supplemental information and additional features.

From a creative perspective, the design challenge was to engage the audience in the content in new ways online (focusing on interactivity, relevance, intuitive navigation and interesting visuals, among other things) because they lost dimensionality and the sense of “touch and feel” from the physical exhibit displays.

Each of the original six towers in the physical exhibit became a “pod” in the online exhibit.  This organizational scheme gives visitors digital exploration options that are similar to those in the physical exhibit. Viewers can “wander” through the digital space and view the pods in any order.

Zurich in North America’s 100th anniversary traveling exhibit panels

The virtual iteration of the traveling exhibit

Expanding on content

A “Did You Know?” set of facts accommodates additional information not available in the physical exhibit.  Viewers can “like” the site on Facebook or tweet about it. They can also test their knowledge with an interactive history quiz on the exhibit’s content.

An industry-focused content overlay increases the impact of the virtual exhibit. The traveling exhibit explored Zurich’s role in the American Experience; the financial services industry overlay developed for the virtual exhibit provides content for one of Zurich’s key industry segments.

Virtual exhibit intro panel with the financial services overlay

A virtual panel explaining Zurich’s and the financial industry’s role in bringing the subway to Manhattan

Optimizing for future updates

Any part of the virtual exhibit can be updated  to include new and fresher content, or provide an overlay for a different industry segment. Making these updates using a content management system ensures they are cost-effective and efficient.

These elements provide Zurich with a flexible, high-value historical exhibit that sustains the message indefinitely after the physical displays are taken down. For a relatively small additional investment, Zurich was able to maximize the reach, target the virtual experience to specific segments and measure traffic through it in a way which was far more tangible than the physical exhibit.

Want to learn more about virtual exhibits? Read more here or contact us.

E-mails aren’t the only online artifacts that can boomerang on the unsuspecting. It’s true for companies small and large as well as four-star generals. If you know where to look, you can probably find more treasure than trash in your online heritage.

Traditionally, Internet content’s apparent impermanence has been a source of comfort for some who hope to become yesterday’s news, and a source of discontent for those who want nothing more than to preserve yesterday’s news.

Companies may identify with the former sentiment more than the latter. Made a mistake on the About page? Make a revision – easy with today’s content management systems – and the public is none the wiser. Featuring a new product, or discontinuing the old one? Take down the page and put up a new one. Because so many of us came of age when history meant bound volumes and boxes of microfilm, it is all too easy to embrace an out-of-sight, out-of-mind philosophy.

As much as scholars have lamented the ephemeral quality of Web content, what you put online has staying power, and more people than ever have the tools to find what they’re looking for. Some resources, such as the Internet Archive and advanced Google searches, catalog artifacts that originated in non-Web forms. Others, like the Internet Wayback Machine, preserve cached versions of Web sites back to the mid-1990s. So the changes you made to that About page are accurate and fresh, but it’s entirely possible that someone out there has found the earlier version.

These tools demonstrate how powerful an instrument of recall the Internet really is.

Regardless of history, most companies want people to find them online, and they invest a lot of time and money in the process of making this happen. Search engine optimization capitalizes on intelligent content and site credibility to ensure as many people as possible visit your pages. For consumer-facing sites that build business online, SEO is a key step toward racking up conversions.

Whether your company has been around for 10 years or 100 years, it’s vital to embrace the growing visibility of Web content – past, present, and future.

So many business factors can pave over history: downsizing, mergers and acquisitions, employee turnover, and even new office and/or network space. Heritage preservation cuts through the noise by keeping at the forefront who you are, what you value, and how your story will continue to unfold.

That cached Web page with the neon logo and the old-school radio buttons is a part of your heritage, along with every letter, photo, news clipping, and training video that’s gathering dust in a back room. They all demonstrate how much you’ve evolved over the life span of your business. Let go of the idea that your digital artifacts aren’t worthy of inclusion in your story. Your brand, on the Web and off, relies on your willingness to embrace your identity every step of the way.

By Michelle Moriarity Witt

Walter Cronkite (right) listens as Dr. J. Presper Eckert (center) describes the functions of the UNIVAC I computer he helped develop in the 1950s. (AP)

In fact, today’s presidential election marks the 60th anniversary of the use of computers to predict results. While polling–or even actual vote counts–may be questioned by some, those challenges are largely based on human interference, both intentional and unintentional. As long as data input is pure, the reliable precision and accuracy of computer analysis output is generally unquestioned–and rightly so. As the following story suggests, computer scientists have earned the vote of confidence. During the first presidential election broadcast nationwide on television in 1952, Remington Rand’s UNIVAC computer was debuted to help predict the election results. NPR’s Morning Edition shared the amazing story in “The Night a Computer Predicted the Next President,” about this watershed moment for the infant computer sciences industry, news and television, and presidential politics.

Although largely treated as a gimmick by CBS’ coverage—and no doubt seen as a way to add further bells and whistles to its coverage—UNIVAC predicted an Eisenhower landslide within one percentage point. Traditional pollsters had predicted Stevenson. Even UNIVAC’s programmers’ confidence in their technology was momentarily shaken by the startling analysis.

A printout of the UNIVAC prediction of the 1952 presidential election

But the relationship between emerging technology and presidential elections dates much further back than the dramatic debut of computers in 1952. More than a century before, Samuel Morse famously demonstrated the impact of the telegraph at the 1844 Democratic Convention–back when conventions actually resulted in the selection of a candidate and created real news.

The original telegraph receiver, used in Baltimore for the receipt of the first telegraph message, May 24, 1844. (Cornell University College of Engineering)

In 1843, Morse had secured funding from Congress for an electromagnetic telephone line that connected Washington, D.C., to Baltimore. When the Democrats held their convention in Baltimore a year later, Morse successfully utilized the line to inform members of Congress that the Democrats had in fact nominated James Polk a “compromise candidate.” Sharing the unexpected news and other updates of the convention was a powerful demonstration of the impact of technology. It set the stage for subsequent budgetary support and the emergence of the telegraph as a world-changing communications technology.

King uses CNN’s touch screen “magic board” at the 2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn. (AP)

Recent history has not witnessed such dramatic debuts of world-changing technology, but the elections continue to be a showcase for new gadgetry that later becomes mainstream. Take, for instance, in 2008 when CNN and John King got attention for their use of a giant touchscreen, driven by a powerful database, to show election results. This application was both novel and a leap forward for using this technology as a media tool. Today touchscreens, large and small, are much more prolific.

And while use of social media and the Internet aren’t considered new breakthrough computing technologies now as they were in recent years, their increased use has certainly given candidates another solid platform through which they can reach voters, especially those in younger demographics. MDG Advertising created an infographic showing just how critical these communications platforms are in the 2012 election, when just eight years earlier they were virtually (or wholly) unused. Only after the 2008 election, with President Obama’s well-documented and oft-lauded use of social media to reach voters, was social media recognized as a valuable communications tool and critical method to distribute messaging, raise money, organize groups, engage audiences and encourage voter turnout.

What all these stories remind us is that presidential elections not only change the political, social, and economic landscape of this country, but also greatly impact how we apply and adopt new and emerging technologies.

By Jason Dressel

Storytellers rely on conflict. It’s the central motivator in any good plot. Without conflict people simply don’t care—readers stop reading, moviegoers stop watching (and ask for their money back), and audiences stop “Following.”

Narrative conflict is developed and identified according to certain predefined tropes, namely: Man vs. Man (Rocky), Man vs. Society (1984), Man vs. Nature (The Old Man and the Sea), and Man vs. Self (Requiem for a Dream). There are variations on these—such as Man vs. Machine (Terminator) and Man vs. Supernatural (Ghostbusters)—but for now we’ll let’s stick to those first four.

Some storytellers recommend that a hero deal with one distinct conflict, providing the audience with a single point of tension (Aristotle’s “unity of action”). However, my preference is to explore situations in which the hero grapples with multiple challenges at once, encountering conflicts in most or all of the four major categories. It’s a better mirror of reality and, usually, a lot more exciting.

For instance, in Back to the Future, our “fish out of water” hero, Marty McFly, struggles against all of the following:

1)    Navigating the unfamiliar cultural customs of the 1950s (Man vs. Society)
2)    Boosting his father’s self-esteem and dodging his mother’s sexual advances while butting heads (get it?) with the bully Biff Tannen (Man vs. Man)
3)    Facing his own foolish pride when taunted by lines like, “Whatsamatter, McFly . . . Chicken?” (Man vs. Self)
4)    Chasing down the only power source capable of generating the elusive 1.21 gigawatts of electricity needed for time travel: a bolt of lightning! (Man vs. Nature)

Aaaand…that’s why Back to the Future is such an awesome movie. The conflicts overlap and intertwine. They are micro- and macrocosms of each other. They compound. To be topical, one might refer to this as a “Superstorm” of Conflict.

Now back to real life. We are currently dealing with a similar confluence of challenges:

• Class warfare occurring across the globe (Man vs. Society),
• Tomorrow’s national election in a politically polarized society (Man vs. Man)
• Natural disasters like Hurricane-Franken-Superstorm Sandy that threaten lives and strain resources (Man vs. Nature)

Organizations, too, face a near constant Superstorm of Conflict, though they rarely admit this to their stakeholders or, for that matter, to themselves. Ironically, these conflicts make their stories more compelling—and more worth telling.

Pharmaceutical companies, for instance, struggle on a daily basis with the Supervillains of disease (Man vs. Nature), the bureaucracy of regulation (Man vs. Society), the speed and cunning of their competitors (Man vs. Man) and, last, but not least, the core conflict of capitalism: profit motive vs. doing the right thing (Man vs. Self). Add in an unforeseen tragedy like 9/11 or the Global Financial Crisis and you’ve got a true Superstorm.

Sure, in a perfect world, all catastrophic diseases easily give up their secrets, all regulators and businesses work in harmony, all competition is collegial, and the best way to turn a profit is to serve the greater good. But c’mon. Such conceits are less plausible than a 1980s high school student traveling through time in a magic Delorean. To suspend disbelief in the case of one’s institutional identity is to deny thyself, and, potentially, to do irreparable harm to an organization, its employees, customers, leaders and shareholders. This struggle to be aware of the warring sides of one’s own identity is core to most great storytelling.

To illustrate the Man vs. Self conflict, John A. Stanford’s Evil: The Shadow Side of Reality uses the classic tale, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde:

Henry Jekyll’s fundamental mistake was his desire to escape the tension of opposites within him… by means of the transforming drug, so that he could be both Jekyll and Hyde and have the pleasures and benefits of living out both sides of his personality without guilt or tension.

In other words, what we reject tends to become more powerful and turn against us. But to overindulge is equally destructive. The trick may be to acknowledge the Shadow without blindly repressing it or fully giving into it, and to instead live in that tension. This carries the potential for wholeness, for greatness. Between two opposites there usually exists a tenuous yet graceful balance.

There is light and dark inside all of us—individuals and institutions alike. Ultimately, self-awareness asks us to admit this fact, and choose a side. Our corporate system—and maybe our biology—is designed to encourage survival of the fittest. But I believe that at our best and most evolved we are defined by how we treat those around us—our family, our friends, our employees, even our competitors and enemies. And most storytellers and paying audiences seem to agree. There’s a reason why “heroes” are defined and portrayed as selfless protectors of those in need. There’s a reason why “villains” typically trample the weak for personal gain.

Heroes are made when individuals and organizations choose to live within conflict: accepting the inherent tension of our capitalist system and transparently acknowledging challenges while keeping sight of “doing the right thing.” When institutions are tempted by the “dark” side or taunted by the Biff Tannens of the corporate world, they may not always respond with wisdom the first time, but there is always potential for heroic redemption. And that’s a story worth following.

At The History Factory, we typically are not directly involved in creating consumer advertisements for our clients, but we often develop the content that gets used in ads – especially as they relate to anniversaries. We always keep an eye on what brands are doing to communicate their heritage or a major milestone to consumers. Brands can be built, strengthened and supported in many different ways, and sometimes it makes sense to integrate an anniversary message into a broader advertising strategy.

I’ve identified four types of standard “anniversary advertisements” that we routinely see in the marketplace, and have broken down their strategic value below.

1. The anniversary “seal”

This is the most basic and least strategic example of the four examples. It goes back to what we often see out of companies celebrating a major milestone – the lack of a true strategic vision for the anniversary with messaging that will be relevant to its audiences. If you’re going through the time, trouble and budget to produce an anniversary logo, it should stand for something. The ad is saying, in essence, “Buy this product or service because we’re 100 years old.” But there’s no substantiation to the implied claim. The age of your company does not alone give you credibility. Without authentic messaging or programming around the anniversary, it’s just a logo for logo’s sake.

2. The celebratory message

This approach can be effective or ineffective depending on how it’s executed. OREO exemplifies how to bring a celebratory tone to an anniversary and make it meaningful. While most companies can’t get away with a simple, “Hoorah! We’re 100!” message, OREO is a brand built on fun and playfulness, and thus has the perfect profile for this type of messaging. With a playful, engaging and interactive website along with supporting mainstream advertising containing witticisms such as the example below, OREO has taken its standard ad budget and achieved what it would have been trying to do on any other day – get suckers like me to run to the CVS next door and impulsively indulge in an entire sleeve of the cream-filled cookies – by using anniversary messaging consistent with their brand and tone of voice.

Oreo’s 100th anniversary print ad

Life Savers also takes a playful approach with its centennial advertising

3. The timeline of major milestones

Citi bicentennial print ad

The timeline approach, like using a celebratory message, can succeed or fail based on how it’s executed. As an advertiser, you have to put yourself in the consumer’s shoes and ask yourself, why should I care? A timeline of events and milestones means nothing if it’s not substantiated or supporting a specific message. Citi, for example, is pulling forward the theme of innovation in the print ad to the right (which is part of a larger bicentennial campaign). By showing how it has innovated in the past, it gives consumers confidence that they will continue to be at the leading edge of banking in the future. It also portrays stability at a time where banks are anything but stable, or trusted for that matter. In terms of messaging, this works to their favor.

Citi also features the timeline into their TV ads:

4. The substantive stories

Using stories from an organization’s history can create a genuine connection with an audience and help strengthen a brand’s reputation. Many ads will use humor, wit, guilt or simply an informational tone to make a connection with an audience. Instead, this type of advertising uses authenticity, substance and in some cases, nostalgia. This approach is more universal, as it can apply both to commemorating an anniversary milestone or simply using heritage as a content strategy in itself. The result is that the viewer gets to know the brand on a deeper level, understand more about how it has impacted history, and ultimately feel more connected to the brand after seeing the ads.

A good example of this approach is Lockheed Martin, which is commemorating its 100^th anniversary this year by sharing 100 stories of innovations and achievements from its history and teasing the stories through digital and mainstream advertising.

In the example below, Zurich North America shows how they’ve helped insure some of America’s largest infrastructure projects over their 100-years in the country.  It then teases the reader to go to their centennial website to learn more.

Zurich N.A. centennial transit ad

Regardless of which approach a brand takes in its advertising, at the end of the day it’s crucial to keep in mind that the messaging must be true to the brand. For instance, OREO will have trouble telling stories of inspiration and encouragement like Lockheed Martin because, let’s face it, it’s an unhealthy product and it hasn’t directly influenced major innovations or historical events. But the joyful feelings people associate with it are worthy of celebrating. So in OREO’s case, it makes more sense to go with a celebratory story-gathering platform that engages its loyal fan base and uses its consumers to authenticate the brand instead of trying to create those meaningful stories itself. Whichever approach is used in milestone advertising, if it stays true to the character of the brand, it will resonate, be authentic and advance the anniversary message in a productive way.

By Marissa Piette