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A team from Solve was recently in Oxnard, California capturing content for another collaboration with Optum Pro Cycling. The project will extend the team’s “Human-Powered Health” campaign into the 2014 UCI racing season. “Most pro cycling teams are known by the collection of sponsor logos on their uniforms. With ‘Human-Powered Health,’ Team Optum is standing for something bigger. They’re championing an active lifestyle and that’s allowing them to reach out to a broader fan base,” said Eric Sorensen, Solve Creative Director. The work will launch in May at the Tour Of California and include video content, a TV spot and an Instagram-fed fan engagement site, humanpoweredhealth.com.

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Successful “Become Yourself” Campaign Represents First Effie In Agency’s Short History

Fast-rising Solve adds yet another first to its young but impressive resume. Last week, Effie Worldwide bestowed the honor of a 2014 Effie Award to Solve for its “Become Yourself” campaign for client Medifast. Recognizing work that ran during 2013, the award notification states an Effie celebrates “the most effective marketing efforts of last year, incorporating an insightful communications strategy, outstanding creative, and the market results to prove it worked.”

“We broke the Medifast campaign in January 2013, just over a year after opening our doors and at a time we had only nine employees. If Solve isn’t the youngest and smallest agency to ever win an Effie, we’re certainly close,” said CEO John Colasanti. “This serves as further proof that the team at Solve is a potent delta force that does the work of an army.”

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Solve client Organic Valley was one of 2,600 exhibitors at the 34th annual Natural Products Expo West 2014, the world’s largest natural, organic and healthy products event last week. More than 67,000 attendees, a record-breaking number, visited the Anaheim Convention Center in California March 7 through 9 to attend meetings, see presentations and experience product samples. The record level of exhibitors and attendees is testament to the continued vigorous growth in the natural, organic and healthy living category poised to grow to $226 billion by 2018, an annual growth rate of 8.6%. Solve joined the marketing team from client Organic Valley, a longtime exhibitor at Expo, to help work the booth.

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Solve recently attended client True Value’s spring 2014 retailer meeting at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta, GA. The event built upon the momentum established at last fall’s Reunion, which unveiled a new look for the bi-annual gathering that was developed by Solve. In addition to showcasing upcoming product lines and unveiling business plans, the convention allowed the over 3,330 retailers to meet and directly interact with three new executives recently added to the co-op’s leadership team. Abhinav Shukla, chief operating officer, Tim Mills, senior vice president of growth, and Ken Goodgame, chief merchandising officer. These individuals join a management team alongside Blake Fohl, chief customer officer, and John Hartmann, CEO, who will work together to lead True Value into the future.

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Pokes Fun At Absurd Application Process Of Other Agencies

Solve is using a unique approach to promote its summer internship and evaluate applicants. As reported earlier this week in industry trade publications, the agency posted over-sized, handwritten letters at key, on-campus locations at targeted universities across the country to announce its program. Inspired by one of the agency’s founding principles of genuine human connection, the program runs counter to what agency internships have embraced in recent years. Valuing substance over silliness, Solve refuses to ask candidates to condense resumes into 140 characters, present themselves via fake campaign or funny videos, or answer irrelevant nonsensical questions. Rather, Solve is simply asking for a resume and cover letter…to be sent (via mail) to the agency.

“Regardless of constantly evolving platforms and technology, brand communication has always been about genuine connections,” says Ryan Murray, Solve Account Director and intern program leader. “This fundamental truth inspired our approach…we want to reach out to potential applicants in a personal, straightforward way and ask them to respond in kind, so we can actually get to know them,” Murray adds.

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