what's with the shovel?State Public Health Officer Dr. Mel Kohn Voted Best Keeper of the Calm for His Work on H1N1
Mel Kohn was named by Willamette Week (this week's issue) as the Best Keeper of the Calm for his work on H1N1. You can read the blurb below.
Best Keeper of the Calm
Remember when you first heard about that thing called the swine flu? Luckily for you, and everybody else in Oregon, state public health officer Dr. Mel Kohn was around to calmly handle the situation. Kohn and his office-who had been preparing for such an event for 10 years-were there to help you not freak out by giving you the right information and instructions on how to protect yourself: Wash your hands, cover your cough and get vaccinated. "I wanted people to understand the risk realistically that this posed, and to use that to motivate them to do whatever they needed to do to protect themselves," says Kohn. "I love how I see people cough into their elbow. That's not something people were doing much before H1N1."
We like to think we had a little bit to do with it too.
Cool beer for some hot days
The Pelican Pub & Brewery's Brewmaster, Darron Welch has been working on some experimental beers and we think they're worth sharing. The first is "The Guillotine" and is an international pale ale made from some experimental French hops Darron was sent from Alsace. It was released yesterday in honor of Bastille Day.
The other is called Cuvee de Phillipe, which has been aging in Oregon Syrah barrels for six months. It's infused with a Belgian beer style that finishes with red wine character. It's a golden amber color with plum-like flavor. This beer was released last Friday and both are only available on draft until they're gone.
If for some reason our office closes randomly on Friday, we may be at the Pelican.
We're Hiring a PR Account Manager
Coates Kokes is looking for a PR account manager to work on media relations and social media for an engaging collection of green, hospitality and health-promoting clients. Experience with generating regional and national media coverage a must. Essential components of the job: attention to detail, strategic thinker and team player.
Avista Wins First Place for Every Little Bit
Avista Utilities entered some work into an industry award competition (Utilities Communication International). Avista won first place for the Every Little Bit campaign as a whole. First place for the :30 TV spot titled "John" aka "Profile." And first place for the "customer" print series. Congratulations all around! The customer outreach communication pieces beat out some tough competition and much larger utilities. For a full look at the campaign click over here or here.
First Bocce Match
Is it called a match? Game? In our case, it would be called a "trouncing." We played against SwellPath. And while we did win a few rounds, they demolished us something like 12 to our 6. Well played, SwellPath. Well played. On another note, one of our bocce players mistook the game for dodgeball.
Bocce 101
Us and seven other agency teams got the "What's Bocce?" rundown yesterday. Like the game itself, this league sounds like it'll be pretty chill. But we'll do our best to dramatize every win, loss, hope and dream as the season rolls out. Thanks to StepChange for organizing this!
Propaganda Promoting Bike Commuting
Twelve minutes later, Mike clocks in at CK headquarters.
CK PR, Sunset and Pacific City
The PR team has been working hard to get some media attention around all the great activities Pacific City has to offer. The work definitely paid off with an amazing two-page spread in the June 2010 issue of Sunset Magazine.
We Updated Our Entryway Banner. Now, What to do With the Old One?
Scrap to the rescue. If you haven't heard of this place, it's amazing. They're located at 2915 NE Martin Luther King Blvd. It's all about reusing items like fabric, string, knickknacks and more by making them available for art projects and the like. My 9 year old daughter went there recently for a birthday party and had a blast making a cool picture frame. They also do summer art camps for kids and adult workshops. It'll be interesting to know what our old banner turns into...a seat covering? a picnic table cloth? a lamp shade? who knows?
Portland's Latest Recycling Efforts Start at Your Own Kitchen Table
Portlanders may have heard by now of Portland Composts!, the City of Portland’s new food scrap pilot program. Two thousand homes in four neighborhoods in Portland were selected to move to every-other-week garbage collection and weekly collection of food scraps. Coates Kokes was enlisted to handle both collateral design and PR for this launch.
The advertising work included working on an overall look and feel, coming up with a tagline/rallying cry for the program and designing a set of collateral. For the collateral pieces, we chose to go with a hip yet instructional look so that the materials were fresh, but still appeared important. These were given to the pilot program participants to inform them of how to compost, how the collection schedule was changing and the benefits of this change.
On the PR side of things, Coates Kokes worked with the City of Portland on a media event that took place in a Portland resident’s home. Mayor Sam Adams and celebrity Master Recycler, Heather Hawkins showed the media how to compost, what could and couldn’t be put into the new pail and told them why this program is important and beneficial to Portlanders. The turnout was fantastic—all four major Portland TV stations covered the pilot launch as well as print and radio outlets. Plus, we got these super cool Portland Composts! aprons.
