At Mortar, we’re all about accountability.

We keep meticulous records of our time, so when clients ask
"What are you people doing all day?" we don’t answer "Um, er, ahhh, yes. Right. Have you lost weight?"

In fact, our records are so meticulous, we even write down what we do on our lunch hour.
Try to match the comment with your favorite Mortar employee:

"I had a falafel sandwich. With bacon!"

"got ignored at bistro, then got gypped at Lee’s on my BLT;  barely got any bacon."

Winner gets lunch, courtesy of the Mark Williams Foundation For A Better Life.

Not valid in the continental United States or Northern Queensland.

Mortar has been working with a number of companies in the LOHAS and
Conscious Consumer market recently, and we’re noticing a trend: green
companies not only put green in your pockets, they’re fun to work with.
And we’re all about the fun! (Okay, we’re all about the green, too.)

An example: Playa Viva, one of the sustainable organizations on the
Mortar roster, is an environmentally responsible luxury resort opening
in 2008 in Zihuatanejo, Mexico.

Sunset over Zihuatanejo Bay from Wikipedia

Yes, you read that correctly – environmentally sustainable luxury. It’s not an oxymoron. In fact, Playa Viva is one of the first resorts to combine preservation of the local environment and improving the surrounding community with a spanking good time. Mortar is in the midst of a major marketing project designed to introduce Playa Viva to LOHAS and Conscious Consumer vacationers. As you can see from the photo above, it’s going to be a really hard sell since Zihuatanejo is such a scenically-challenged place.

As Playa Viva is a family resort, Mortar is focusing design efforts on impressing the heck out of Conscious Consumer moms. You know, the kind of mom that replaced all the old light bulbs in the house with fluorescents and takes the kids to soccer practice in a hybrid vehicle.

And also the kind that takes the kids on vacation to beachfront Mexico. Some moms, who remain nameless, didn’t take their kids any further than the local pool but we’ve gotten over it. Lucky LOHAS tykes.

To learn more about Playa Viva, visit http://www.playaviva.com.

Oh, those crazy Europeans! They have ample vacation time and socialized medicine and what do they use them for?

They put a Jaccuzzi on top of Mount Blanc.

We’ll gladly put a Jaccuzzi on top of the Mortar, but only in the interest of getting attention for our clients, of course.

Henry Ford said, "If I had asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said, ‘a faster horse’".  Apparently, (if this years Hatch awards are to be believed) consumers had much the same reaction to Apple’s 1984 spot. Check it out. And yes, this is really what happens during badly managed message testing. From Adrants.