At Coates Kokes, we’re passionate about sustainability. We also love to embrace the spirit and culture that is Portland, so the decision to participate in Go Box was a no brainer! What is Go Box you ask? It’s a sustainable way to take advantage of Portland’s downtown food scene. Participants are given tokens which are…

Look how happy we all look. This is a picture of hope and joy; anticipation and want. Sadly, it is also a picture of bragging rights never earned or realized. Nearly half our CK team identifies themselves as a UO Duck. Many went there. Some have kids or spouses who went there. Others simply have friends…

But if no one knows the secret, then no one gets hurt…right? Wrong. Believe it or not, every night hundreds of babies in our community go to bed wearing a pre-used diaper. Really, pre-used. This isn’t because their parents are stupid or love their children any less. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. These parents…

Last Friday, CKers competed in the fourth annual 100-mile potluck. Lots of great food as usual but only three can be winners (or four if there’s a tie, and there was). So this year’s winners are (and BTW, you’ll notice the winners are all women, but this blog contributor will have you know the guys did a great job too):

Lindsay Frank "Most Local Ingredients" with her Rice and Summer Squash

Christina Bertalot "Most Local Ingredients" with her Pork Carnitas 

Anne Hoffman "Best Tasting" with her Peach Salad

Be vewy vewy quite, I’m hunting cawifwowa.

Alright CKers. Time to source your ingredients from within 100 miles of CK central and turn that local bounty into the best dang casserole ever!

As usual, prizes will be awarded for the dish with the most local ingredients, the best tasting and the best presentation.

Good luck!

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.

Today Olivia Sheen accompanied her father to Coates Kokes. After meeting everyone and hearing about what they do, dad put her to work concepting ads for The Register-Guard online classifieds. Highlights included discovering the M&M bowl, fetching her dad a cup of coffee and learning how to post this blog.

The third annual CK 100-Mile Potluck is almost here. A reminder about how it works and what’s at stake:

Everyone who wants to participate should plan on bringing something ready to be consumed by 4 p.m. on Thursday, October 8th. Prizes will be awarded in the following three categories: 1) most local ingredients (within 100 miles), 2) best tasting and 3) best presentation. 

According to today’s labor statistics, the average person will work between five and fifteen jobs in a lifetime. If that’s the case, then Lindsay Frank better get a move on since she’s already worked at Coates Kokes for 25 years as of the 17th of this month. Then, on the other hand, the last thing Lindsay aspires to be is “average.”

Coates Kokes just celebrated the holiday’s, making it the agency’s tenth since becoming Coates Kokes. We won’t even say how many (32) that makes it in total for a certain founder. This year’s party was at the Oswego Lake House. As you may have guessed, it was right on the lake (which was frozen over and despite many attempts by this author, no one would bust out their ice skates). Food, drinks, more food and a gift exchange occupied the lot of us for a goodly number of hours.

It was a wet ride in this morning. What you can’t see is the pool of water forming at Karl’s feet or the socks he had to wring out. That’s dedication. 

We talk about localness and sustainability and now for the third year, we got to eat our words. Tasty words they were this year too. We’re talking about the third annual CK 100-Mile Potluck. For those who missed it,  the idea is to cook something up that uses as many ingredients grown and processed within 100 miles of CK headquarters.

The CK gang loaded up two suites at PGE park. Friends and family were invited for food, drinks and baseball. Normally cedar plank salmon might seem a little highbrow for baseball, but this wasn’t just baseball.

 This week’s bowling in Ad League was quite an exciting one! Our final game of the night ended in a combined team score of 1100, and Heather bowled a new lifetime high of 200.  

Please excuse the photo quality—the photographer was (understandably) excited!

The agency’s back from holiday and this contributor thought "late" was better than "never" in the case of posting THE OFFICIAL COATES KOKES UGLY SWEATER CONTEST RESULTS. With a festive turnout and grueling competition, voting was difficult. But one man and his battery-powered snowman sweater brightly stood out in glowing multi-colored LED glory—Kyle. Congratulations, sir. Well played.