Dear Friends, with 2009 nearing it's end, we want to take this opportunity to wish you and your families a wonderful Holiday Season, as well as a joyous and prosperous 2010! Here at Bluberries Advertising, this year has been quite different from the previous. With the economy on a roller-coaster ride (mostly downward), and the advertising budgets severely cut by our clients, we all had to budget ourselves like never before. For the first time since we've opened our doors, we decided to cancel our annual anniversary party. This was a tough decision, however we promise to make it twice as nice next year! Overall we here at Bluberries Advertising managed to stay occupied. We added some great new work to our portfolio, began work on some exciting projects, and are always looking ahead.

From Our Experience. In 2009 we have seen many small business hang up the "For Rent" sign, and while driving down the Main street we can see many vacant spaces. We have also noticed that this is not only happening in our area. Over the past year we did several local and national "Business to Business" direct mail campaigns for our clients and we noticed an unusual percentage of mail returns (Return to Sender). We're not talking about a previous high of 4% in returns; in some instances we saw 20% returns! This was astronomical, regularly updated mailing lists should never yield 20% returns. We took a little time and researched why so many of the addresses bounced back. What we learned was that the majority of those businesses were no longer doing business. In a matter of months, confirmed mailing lists became useless due to the rapid drop in small business ownership. This just goes to show us that things are tough all over!

A Bit of Advice. In these tough times we do have to go out on a limb, take bigger risks, and find new ways to reach our customers. We have seen a very clear shift to Social Networking. The Internet is a fast and fairly inexpensive way to be seen by potential customers. Nowadays, it seems that everyone has a Facebook page, is Linked-In, and Tweets about what they ate for lunch. All great things however, please remember if you have your Company or Business listed and are contributing content to social networking sites, that the word "social" is a relative of "socialize" and it is not enough to endlessly "ramble-on" (Post content about your Company). One has to get involved with the people who are looking at your posts and watching your videos. Remember, it takes two or more to have a conversation, and no one wants to hear someone just talk about themselves all the time! If you still don't partake in social networking, then we strongly suggest you get on the bandwagon, build your social network, share your news, upload your videos, and mingle with your subscribers (customers). If you decide to socialize online or if you're already doing it, please become our fan on Facebook and Vimeo.

New Food Brand, SYRENA. Bluberries Advertising was chosen to develop a new brand for a Polish food importer and provide design services for their product line. The client wanted this new brand to connect to the customer without extensive brand building and education. In Fall of 2009 we introduced the Syrena brand and their line of products which include juices, pickles, sauerkraut, beets, horseradish and more. Bluberries handled all aspects in the development of this impressive lineup. We started out with just a brand name and delivered some remarkable results including the Syrena Logo, package design for over 20 products, and two fun TV spots (which can be seen on our Vimeo channel). As the early results show, the customers are easily remembering the brand and have shown an instant connection with Syrena's product line. As we go into the New Year we will continue working with Syrena and bring new products into the market.

AdAge Recognition. This year, Bluberries Advertising has made it to AdAge's top U.S. Agencies from All Disciplines. While we're not yet in the top 10, it is still a great honor to be listed among the top 900+ advertising agencies in the USA. As always, we will strive to provide our clients with absolute best work and do our best to make our way upward on AdAge's "top" list from year-to-year!

Getty Images. Our Stock Photography has been spotted all over the world, thanks to our involvement with iStockphoto and StockFood we've provided wonderful photography to various agencies, publications, and media over the years. We're excited to announce that Bluberries Advertising will now be contributing to the world's biggest photo agency: Getty Images. The inclusion of our images in Getty's libraries will provide us with much exposure to the world's top media companies that rely to Getty for content.

Holiday Closing. In observance of the upcoming holidays, Bluberries Advertising will be closed from December 22nd through January 2nd, 2010. If you have any last-minute projects, designs, or printing that needs our attention, please contact us prior to our closing. (printberries.com will remain open throughout the holidays)

Specials

Online Printing Services with Printberries.com If you have not yet done so, visit our printing website: www.printberries.com. We started offering online printing last year with the feeling that people like to pay less for their everyday printing. Since then, we've added some new printing options, which include stationery (letterheads, envelopes, forms, etc) as well as Stickers and Vinyl Banners. On our site you can create your own account and manage your print project from start to finish. Be it 500 business cards, 1000 Postcards, or 10,000 labels, at Printberries you can choose the print quantities, paper stock, and finish options (Aqueous, UV coating, or Satin* coating). And since it's the Holiday season we'll give you an additional 10% off via this code at checkout: BERRYJANUARY (Exp. 01.31.10)

* Available on certain items only.

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