David Cecil, Johnny Lightning Strikes Again co-owner and director of strategy, was interviewed by Fox 4 News in Kansas City last week and asked to share his thoughts on retail stores using new technology to ‘spy’ on their customers by tracking their movements in their stores.

The point David makes is that while the technology is new, the technique certainly is not. Walk in to any store with a sales staff and you can bet someone has their eye on you to see what you’re looking at and what you might be interested in purchasing. The fact that cameras could be used to do what people have been doing for years is interesting, but probably doesn’t rise to the point of being a violation of privacy.

That said, everything feels like a violation of privacy when companies aren’t open about what information they’re gathering and how they’re using it, which is something we advise our clients all the time.

Check out the story at Fox4KC.com and let us know what you think!

When you work with Johnny Lightning Strikes Again you get more than just a team of talented designers; they bring years of successful experience and logical creative solutions to any design problem. Yes, they are passionate about their work, but they also make every project fun. More importantly, I can count on them to always meet productivity goals within due dates and provide real results.

Thanks, Deborah! Next time we’re in Salt Lake City, the first round at Squatters is on us.

Tivol, Kansas City’s iconic jewelry brand, has named Johnny Lightning Strikes Again its new agency of record. We will be assisting with all their creative initiatives, from the new Tivol.com that will be launching soon to a new advertising campaign slated for early next year.

“Tivol is pleased to embark on a new relationship with Johnny Lightning’s talented and creative team,” said Adam Gebhardt, Tivol’s Director of Marketing. “We have found this dynamic group to be incredibly efficient, accessible and forward-thinking in regard to trends and brand representation. We greatly anticipate the new and exciting directions in which they will shepherd our iconic company’s marketing and web strategies.”

We are truly honored for the opportunity to work alongside Tivol, as we believe them to be one of the most significant and recognizable brands in Kansas City. The bar is set incredibly high when you are working with a company like Tivol, but we are excited for the challenge and look forward to unveiling the next chapter in their long history of great advertising and marketing.

We’re very proud to announce the signing of our newest client, Overstock.com. Overstock.com, a technology-based retail company, has retained us to provide a variety of creative and consultative services, mostly to aid in the advancement of their mobile website and their iPhone, iPad and Android apps.

“When you work with Johnny Lightning you get more than just a team of talented designers; they bring years of successful experience and logical creative solutions to any design problem,” said Deborah Lewis, the Director of Overstock.com’s mCommerce team. “Yes, they are passionate about their work, but they also make every project fun. More importantly, I can count on them to always meet productivity goals within due dates and provide real results.”

“We have a lot of experience providing our clients with great digital solutions, and it has been incredibly rewarding to put that experience to the test with a brand like Overstock.com,” said James Penman, our Director of Technology. “Our involvement so far has been focused on user experience and interface design for Overstock.com’s mobile applications, and we’re really excited about the work we’re doing.”

Overstock.com is one of many exciting additions to our client roster, and we look forward to sharing more with you soon.

You should also know up front that we’re going to prioritize type skills.

Web design is at our core, so this job will reflect that. Enormous creative energy and passion to do right – that’s the stuff, you guys!

Job Title:
Designer

Job Functions:
Web Design, Print Design, Mobile Design, UX Design

Needs to:
• Support directors toward fulfillment of client needs
• Take art direction like a champ
• Work efficiently and effectively
• Have interest and ability to work on both print and digital media
• Have interest in expanding your skill set and working in new ways
• Want to grow with a small agency
• Know Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign
• Have strong writing and communication skills

A likely candidate will have:
• A Bachelors Degree in Fine Arts, Design, or a similar discipline
• 1-3 years of post-graduate experience and/or internship experience
• Type skills
• A solid understanding of the web

About Johnny Lightning Strikes Again:
We’re a full service creative agency in Kansas City that specializes in solving business problems through strategic branding, design, and marketing. Our core strength is web design, and our core commitment is to provide creative that works – the kind that demands attention, increases sales, and builds brands. We focus on strategy that leads to results, because we know that great work doesn’t matter if it isn’t the right work.

Benefits:
We offer medical, dental, vision, paid time off, and a good time.

Apply Via Email:
jobs@jlsa.com

Submission Details:
Please include a resume and your portfolio. Links to online portfolios are best.

Here is a quote from the article:

As a business owner, it’s all too easy to be tempted by the newest trend in marketing. Sometimes, these new ideas are very helpful. Too often, though, small businesses latch onto marketing concepts without asking tough, practical questions first. They hear a buzzword and assume that if it is working for others, it will work for them, too.

Entrepreneurs need to make sure a new marketing strategy is right for their particular venture, or they risk misallocating their marketing budget. There are three important questions to ask when tempted by a shiny new buzzword.

To read the full article, please pick up the April 2012 issue of Thinking Bigger or click here to read it online.

One of the most important questions we answer for our clients is how creative services can be leveraged to achieve their objectives. They know what an agency does, but they want to know what an agency can do for them. Since a lot of creative is subjective, we often find ourselves talking about intangible benefits — customer loyalty, emotional connection, and trust. Intangible benefits aren’t the whole story, however. Creative services, especially web and application development, can also provide a business with functional tools that make life easier.

To dumb it down, sometimes we make stuff that communicates stuff and sometimes we make stuff that does stuff. Sometimes, we do both.

Fetch is one of those times where we did both — a functional web application that we branded, designed, and built from the ground up. Its purpose is to facilitate the ordering and reordering of print materials, but it does much more than that. It makes things easier. It keeps things organized. It saves time. For those of you who’ve ever been frustrated by a piece of software, you know that this isn’t guaranteed. A web application will only be successful if it is the culmination of careful planning, intelligent user experience design, and flawless web development. We’re proud to say that Fetch was just that.

We’ve just posted a case study in our portfolio that discusses the Fetch project — the client’s objectives, our approach, and the results. We invite you to take a look: Fetch Branded Web App.

Do right

Our motto at Johnny Lightning Strikes Again is “do right,” and it is founded on three things that we believe to be true:

1) The purpose of creative has to be to help a business achieve their ultimate goal.

2) To do this, the work can’t just be good — it has to be right (and there is a huge difference).

3) The biggest enemy of doing the right work is making strategic decisions prematurely.

This is the foundation of our philosophy and it affects almost everything we do. The most noticeable impact, however, is found in the process we go through from the moment a project with a new or existing client is being considered to its completion. It works in three steps.

1) Project Evaluation

Our only qualifier for accepting a project is knowing that if done right, we can help that business take a step toward their ultimate goal. We know this once we’ve confirmed that there is a problem that needs to be solved, there are achievable results that make the problem worth solving, and there is an appropriate budget. What is an appropriate budget? One that is sensible for the client, provides us with adequate options for addressing the problem, and is low enough for there to be a meaningful return on investment if the results are achieved. Our project evaluation is designed to determine if we can help by working through these criteria.

2) Strategy

Now that we know we can help, it’s time to figure out how. This is when the project begins, which is different from the many agencies that begin with a list of requirements and a quote — strategic decisions that have been made before being properly considered (which, as we said, is the biggest enemy of doing the right work). For us, the project begins with a problem to solve and a budget for solving it. During the strategy step, we explore every question whose answer is going to impact the effectiveness of the solution — the scope of work, the art direction, the key marketing message, and more. In the same way that you don’t start building a house until there is a blueprint, we don’t start executing on a project until there is a plan that details how that work can address the problem we’re solving.

3) Execution

The most creative ideas and the most brilliant strategies are worth very little if they are not executed properly. Execution is when we take the blueprint and we build the house. If the strategy calls for a website that features videos, we develop the site and produce the videos. If it calls for a humorous radio campaign, we write the script and record the spot — as a full-service creative agency, our options are unlimited. Since we’ve made all the high-level decisions during strategy, we are able to execute the work as efficiently and cost-effectively as possible.

The process repeats

This process is a cycle. Once each project is finished we monitor the results and then repeat the steps — each cycle representing another step forward in helping our clients achieve their ultimate goal as a business.

In 2010, we were at a poolside event and met an MBA student from a Kansas City college. Since Johnny Lightning Strikes Again is in the business of growing businesses, the conversation naturally turned to a concept for a bar & restaurant that he and a few of his fellow students were considering pursuing. Philosophies were shared, business cards were exchanged, and plans to discuss it over coffee were made. These conversations are always exciting, but they also highlight that there are a lot of hurdles to jump over to go from a concept to opening day.

In this case, there was one thing that made us believe that they had the right stuff to do it, however. They wanted to start with the brand.

Their concept was to start a bar & restaurant that was centered around a rotating selection of premium frozen cocktails, with the working name Snow Co. They didn’t have a location. They hadn’t even made their first frozen drink. But they saw an opportunity and understood that branding was going to be a critical part of the equation — so much so that they wanted to start working on the brand before anything else. We often wonder why this is so uncommon, because it should be one of the first considerations of every new business. Eventually, a business will be defined by a lot of things — their history, customer reviews, and the quality of their product or service. On day one, however, a business is defined solely by their brand. If it is ill-considered, it only makes the already tough task of starting a business even more difficult.

Snow & Company has arrived with a lot of hype; if you follow us on Facebook and Twitter, you’ve no doubt heard us talking about them. While our work has already been unveiled on the front of their building, on the shirts of their employees, and on the glasses that their delicious frozen cocktails are poured into, it’s time that we unveil the thoughts behind our decisions. Please take a moment to read the Snow & Company case study and get to know a brand that we expect will be a part of Kansas City’s bar & restaurant scene for a long time to come.

One year ago we met and you told us about your restaurant/bar concept. You didn’t have a location or a brand (that’s where we were to come in), but you were passionate about starting something great…something that would last. A few weeks ago, you opened your doors and served your first frozen cocktail. Congratulations, and welcome to Kansas City.

Your friends,
Johnny Lightning Strikes Again

P.S. For those of you who are interested, we’ll post something about the work we’ve been doing with Snow & Company before too long. In the meantime, you can read an article about them here and another one here (which includes a quote from our very own, David Cecil). Of course, if you’d like to check out Snow & Company in person, you can get the lowdown at snowandcompany.com.