Moreover, marathons that include kids marathons bring a key additional benefit to the community. Kid’s marathons contribute to helping children develop healthy lifestyles, which ultimately translates in reduced rates of obesity in the adult population.

One of our member organizations, Iris International, recently completed work for the promotion of the new Adidas Boost running shoe at this year’s Santiago Marathon , through a renewable energy walkway. The installation harvested the energy from the footsteps of every person entering and exiting the expo. This energy was stored in a battery and used to power motivational messages that were displayed in the final kilometer of race.

Iris Miami, lead by Creative Director Marcos Lawson, is part of Iris International, an independent, integrated marketing agency with offices in New York, Atlanta, Miami and Mexico City. Over the past 13 years, Iris has distinguished itself from other agencies by building deep capability across digital and social media, retail and property activation and CRM and loyalty marketing. Learn more about Iris International by visiting: http://www.iris-worldwide.com. You can find current news of Iris Miami via Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/irismiami.

https://www.facebook.com/AAFMiami

You can also order, save, or download pictures at Shutterfly:

http://addyawards2013.shutterfly.com/

And as a preview, here is the Best of the Show Awards:

Enjoy!

Michael is the owner and director of Goldforest, an award winning agency specializing in product and corporate identity, package design and brand communications.

His latest blog entry presents an interesting reflection on “Backward Branding.” Michael showcases the impact of backward branding in this comment: “To visualize the challenge of backward branding, it helps to remember the difference between a product and a brand… The brand includes the product, but imbues it with meaning in human terms. These higher order associations come from a shared process whose participants are you (with your brand manager hat on) and your customers.

A prefabricated design system … can never encapsulate a brand identity. As a symbol, it’s just one element of the overall brand identity, the fullness of which emerges when you’ve generated sales and opened yourself up to consumer relationships. That’s when you’ll learn the true meaning of your product in peoples’ lives. When THIS occurs, you adjust course by it, rather than waiting for customers to adjust their attitudes to your vision.”

And then we thought, what better than to share cool stories of our members, their projects and innovative marketing techniques. We envisioned a blog that would expose all the hidden treasures of the Miami advertising world.

We went on a search for stories. We found great work, but the strategy all of the sudden seemed rather serious for a community of bright-minded, thirsty-for-stories-with-a-sense-of-humor, advertising professionals.

So now we are on the hunt for fun, engaging, advertising stories.

Send your stories to Marcela Iannini, at marcelaiannini@gmail.com. We would love you for contributing, but will love you even more if you send images with your stories.

Let’s use this opportunity to share with the world what our community of practice is made of.

Cheers!