April 17th, 2014

“C.” It’s Not Just for Cookie Anymore.

It’s conference season, and Mortar is all. Up. In it. Coupa, our new favorite client, is currently hosting their Inspire conference at the Marriott Marquis in downtown San Francisco. Why are they our new favorite client? Because they let us play with syringes, frozen rats, and whisky all day long. We were even discussing nipple pipes with them at one point.

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Technically, Coupa is a B2B procurement software platform. We prefer to think of them as software for corporate shopping. It’s like Amazon for businesses. When employees need to buy massive amounts of any item, Coupa’s software makes it simpler, faster, and easier to track. (Guess you can’t get away with expensing iPhone 5’s for your friends anymore. Damn.) Coupa’s philosophy is simple: If you design software that the end user wants to use, they’ll use it. And a high adoption rate translates to massive – we’re talking billions with a capital B – company savings.

And when we say any item, we mean it. Name something, and you can probably buy it on Coupa. Rocket engine parts. Boneless Boston butt. Adult film editing services. (No joke.) Which is why, in developing a theme for their conference, we couldn’t restrict ourselves to just a handful of words. We had to go A to Z. May we present: the New Language of Success.

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April 17th, 2014

Mortar and the Exploratorium Hook Up.

Exploratorium + Mortar, advertising and branding San Francisco

Yes, the rumors are true. We ARE working together. Can’t say much other than you can catch us every Thursday night at the museum. (Or is it a museum?) We’ll be launching two new campaigns soon. Watch this space.

March 11th, 2014

In Search Of Calculating Assistant Media Planner/Media Strategist.

You know us. Mortar, growing integrated branding and marketing communications agency. We’re looking for an assistant media planner or media planner with at least 1-3 years experience to support our Director of Media Strategy.

To apply, please send a resume and cover note of no more than 300 words, describing your:

 

– Approach to working under pressure and deadlines (and no, studying for finals does not count)

– Success chasing down details

– Ability to whip up spreadsheets and ROI numbers in a flash

– Keynote or Powerpoint skills

– Understanding of basic digital media (you know what a banner, CPM, and CPL are)

– RFP initiation and review skills

– Skills coordinating with media partners and being the best go-between ever

– Skills negotiating with vendors to pay the least and get the most

– And finally: How do you maintain a positive attitude in high-pressure situations?

 

Candidates with agency experience will be reviewed first.

Send your note, subject matter: “Calculating” to iwanttowork@mortaragency.com. No calls, please (we’re on the phone enough as it is). Cheers.

www.mortaragency.com

January 30th, 2014

You Can Do What With What? Holy Crap, That’s Inspiring.

Remember Angelina Jolie making headlines when she publicized her BRCA gene test results? Well, our scary-smart new buddies at Biosearch make the kits used to perform those kinds of tests. Some companies make car parts. Biosearch makes custom oligonucleotides. Say whaaaat?

Call ‘em oligos for short. Basically, they’re single strands of DNA that Biosearch custom-creates based on whatever pattern the customer requests (e.g. AGTCTGGAC). Bonus points if you remember what those little letters mean.

These custom oligos can then be used to discover some pretty amazing stuff. If you wanted to map your personal genome, Biosearch might be the one making your test kit. Or when winemakers need to make sure their vino isn’t spoiled (spoilt?), they turn to Biosearch’s tools. The list of applications goes on and on. DNA testing in murder cases. Screening the air for biological warfare threats. It’s the stuff of the future, we tell you!

Biosearch pioneered this dope technology back in ‘83, and they wanted to celebrate their big 3-0 with swagger. So some real scientists (them) called some brand scientists (us) to do their thing. And boy, did we do it.

Existing biotech advertising made it easy to know what not to do.

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But we wanted Biosearch to really stand out. To be taken seriously. To flip biotech advertising on its head, the same way they flipped genomic discovery on its head decades ago. Biosearch’s oligos enable scientists to see DNA through a completely different lens – in their words, they illuminate the unseen. And then, this happened.

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DNA + pinot noir = microbe-free deliciousness.

The kaleidoscope works for a lot of reasons, aside from offering new perspective. It implies perfect symmetry and precision (Biosearch’s #1 attribute). It’s beautifully eye-catching and looks nothing like the competition. And the idea of multiplication was a natural fit, given that Biosearch can create thousands of identical oligos in a single day. (We swear it makes sense if you understand nerdy things like oligos and qPCR.

The first ad recently launched in The Scientist magazine, and we’ve got more kaleidoscopes in the works. Nerd on, playas. 

 

Body copy for the print ad (omg, they’re reading the copy!):

It takes a powerful lens of precision to discern the true essence of a molecule. So when a purveyor of fine wine needs to know a batch is unequivocally bacteria-free, they turn to Biosearch. Our proprietary BHQ probes enable revealing and reliable qPCR testing, powering new discoveries in genomics every day. And at our large-scale, cGMP-compliant facilities, we impeccably craft oligos as if lives depend on it – because they do. When we’re not verifying vineyard goods, we’re building primers to test cancer-fighting drugs or halt a bioweapon attack. And that’s just today. Who knows what we’ll help you discover tomorrow?

January 13th, 2014

Mortar Feverishly Hunts Down Account Supervisor/Cheetah.

We’re looking for an account supervisor with 4-5 years agency experience to manage the crap out of a wide variety of clients and projects. The right person for the job will be flexible, move quickly, and be super-sharp. (Apparently, we’re hiring a knife-wielding cheetah.)

Working on your own with mid-sized accounts and as part of a larger account team on larger ones, we’ll be counting on you to develop scopes of work (including timelines and pricing) and then wrangle agency resources across our media, planning, and creative teams to deliver what you promised – on time and on budget, natch. We’re looking for someone who wants to partner directly with clients and learn their industry as if it were their own. And if you like cocktails, we have a cart that gets wheeled around on Friday afternoons (and sometimes on other days that end in “y.”)

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