At MMI we talk a lot about the impact of “surprise and delight”. We ask ourselves how can we work with our clients to do something that really makes an emotional impact on their brand advocates and potential new customers?

Sometimes, that involves pork chops.

In an effort to thank its loyal Pork Chop Friday following, we recently helped Perry’s Steakhouse & Grille with its “Flashback Friday” Pork Chop Friday lunch event.

Perry’s has made a cult classic of its Pork Chop Friday lunch. Diners go crazy over the (regularly priced) $11.95 chop – so imagine the excitement when they announced that the same meal would be available on a Friday coming soon for just 79-cents, in honor of the year Perry’s first opened as a butcher shop in 1979.

For the big announcement, we decided to honor Perry’s social media fans by announcing the official date only on Facebook and Twitter. Through the power of social media and word-of-mouth marketing, we’re excited to announce that all nine locations sold out of their $.79 chops within the first 30 minutes of opening!

To get a feel for all the pork chop madness, check out Perry’s YouTube channel, where they recently premiered a video capturing the big day:

We’re lucky to have clients who go the second mile to show appreciation to their fans, and we look forward to more exciting social media promotions with Perry’s!

MMIers are big fans of Apple products. They are essential to how we do business. So the digital team at MMI was quite excited to hear about the slew of new product upgrades that were revealed Monday at Apple’s World Wide Developers’ Conference in Washington, D.C.

The following is list of our top 5 revelations from Monday’s conference and how they could impact you:

1. MacBook Pro: Quite possibly the biggest announcement of the day, the upgrades to the MacBook Pro push it into its own league. Now nearly as thin as the MacBook Air, the new MacBook Pro will feature the same glossy Retina display as the newest iPhones and iPads. It’ll have a much higher resolution than any other notebook on the market. Most website images look pixelated at this high of a resolution, so it will be important to boost the size of images on websites, while optimizing for load time.
2. iOS 6: There are several major changes to Apple’s mobile operating system that will hugely expand the capabilities of our iPhones and iPads. The Do Not Disturb mode means that you will not be bothered by non-emergency phone calls or notifications in the middle of the night, leaving you better rested in the morning. Facebook will now be integrated through a system-wide login, meaning you no longer have to log in to the social networking website each time you use a different app. Shared Photo Streams lets you share photos automatically with friends and family members, skipping the hassle of texting photos each time you want those closest to you to see your children winning the game or opening Christmas presents. Also, FaceTime will now be available over 3G and not just WiFi.
3. A Smarter Siri: As a sports fan, I was thrilled to learn about Siri’s newfound sports knowledge. Apple’s friendly question-answering app will now provide sports scores, schedules and stats for inquiring minds. Want to make a restaurant reservation? Siri can also now take care of that for you via OpenTable. This is key for our restaurant clients like Perry’s Steakhouse which already utilizes the Open Table integration on its website. It’s also available in multiple languages including Spanish, Italian and French. Je t’aime, Siri!
4. Maps: Apple may have beaten Google Maps at its own game, unveiling a new Maps app that’s built with Apple’s own in-house data. Turn-by-turn navigation is included, and switching the app to Flyover mode shows a beautiful 3-D look at major cities around the world. Don’t want to be late to work? Just switch to traffic view and see real-time updates on how long the commute will take. One important aspect of no longer relying on Google is that all business information in Maps will now be provided by various business data aggregators whom Apple has partnered with, as well as integration with Yelp for reviews.  To help ensure prominence and accuracy of their information in the new Maps ecosystem, we recommend business owners claim and verify their businesses on Yelp and Localeze.
5. Passbook: This new app stores passes, tickets, coupons and gift cards on your iPhone. You will never have to worry about keeping track of separate gift cards or losing a plane ticket again, which is a huge development for busy consumers.

The only major question left unanswered was the release of the much-rumored iPhone 5. There is still no word on that, but these upgrades will keep us testing in the meantime. What are you most excited about?

Daniel Cadis contributed to this post. 

Each year at MMI, we are lucky enough to employ a couple of interns from Lamar High School’s Magnet Program. At Lamar, there is a special business program that allows students to intern at local companies throughout their senior year. This year, seniors Genesis Lara and Alexus Davis have been working with us each afternoon after attending their morning classes at Lamar. They have been such a great help to everyone here and have really become part of the MMI family.

Last week, Betty and I got to attend the year-end banquet for the Lamar Magnet Program as the girl’s representatives. The evening consisted of a delicious meal, a great speaker and a few kind words from each student about their experience working at their host company. Both Genesis and Alexus presented MMI with a certificate of appreciation for allowing them the opportunity to have a real-world experience in the marketing industry.

We are so thankful for the talented interns we get each year from this program, and will miss these girls tremendously next year! MMI wishes them both the best of luck in college this fall!

The annual Houston Addy Awards are right around the corner, and we at MMI are particularly excited about two radio spots we created for Direct Energy that are contending for Addy honors this year.

Both ads address a difficult messaging challenge:

“Goodbye Bill” was written to encourage consumers to switch to Direct Energy when their concern over their electric bill is likely to be on the wane. When “Goodbye Bill” hit the airwaves in Houston and Dallas, the historically hot summer of 2011 was in the rear view mirror. Knowing that many people were still smarting from several months of staggering electric bills, we sought to simultaneously remind them how burdensome a summer electric bill can be, and remind them that locking in a low price with Direct Energy now can protect them from similar distress next summer. We created a character (Bill) to represent the high summer electric bill. In the spot, he’s presented as a charmless and unwanted house guest. While he is not surprised when he is sent packing for the winter, he is most surprised to find out that he won’t be returning next year. With this ad, we took a straightforward sales message that might have been too easy for a listener to ignore, and turned it into an entertaining and memorable story.

“Noise” had an altogether different purpose. The spot was developed to represent Direct Energy’s incumbent brands (CPL and WTU) in markets where those brands were, prior to deregulation, the consistent and only electricity provider. Faced with an influx of new competitors touting a wide range of offers, Direct Energy asked us to develop a spot that positions their incumbent brands as the reliable and straightforward provider with offers that can be counted on.

Regardless of the awards these spots win, we are very proud of them. They both represent an engaging and story-driven approach to making our client’s desired message resonant and memorable.

Congratulations to our friends at Direct Energy and kudos to our creative and production team. Onward to the Addys!

Creative Vision + Communications Strategy + Artistic Expression x MMI = One Creative Partnership.

Have you been to Discovery Green lately?

It’s Day 2 at SXSW Interactive and there is a great deal of buzz here about “The Game Layer”. The Game Layer refers to the concept of applying gaming mechanics to the real world in an effort to motivate action. Something marketing strategists have been doing for years. But with the rise of smartphones and other mobile devices, this applies beyond the traditional marketing realm.

Seth Priebatsch, creator and Chief Ninja (real title) of SCVNGR, addressed this idea in his keynote address today. He cited that there are more than 500 million people on Facebook now – that the 2000′s were the decade of The Social Layer and making connections online. The 2010′s promise to be the decade of The Game Layer and creating influence online. Continue reading →

I never design a building before I’ve seen the site and met the people who will be using it.         - Frank Lloyd Wright

At MMI, we assimilate ourselves into the business and the culture of our clients so that the work we create for them is intuitive and, more importantly, effective. 2011 looks to be an inspiring year. In the Creative department our brains (and computers) are humming. The pace has picked up and our Creative team is producing work that our clients can be proud of. And so are we. Here are a few of our recent projects.