Qualprint Calendar Nabs Silver

Qualprint's 2010 calendar nabbed a silver award from the 2010 Calendar Marketing Association.

We especially like the calendar full of Berkshire scenes was dedicated to the late Joel Librizzi, a professional photographer who served for 26 years as one of the calendar contest judges for the company. Joel, who died in June 2009, spent his career as a photojournalist at The Berkshire Eagle. He was well known as a talented artist and generous friend.

The National Calendar Award was given in the division of Most Creative Marketing Application for a custom/corporate calendar. The annual full-color calendar is produced, printed and distributed each year by the company. It's printed on FSC certified stock using soy-based inks.

The calendar was designed by Lisa Kirchner, a graphic and digital production artist at Qualprint, and more than 10,000 have been circulated throughout New England.
Winning criteria included the quality of photographs and graphics and complete execution of the calendar subject and theme. The images appearing in the calendar are chosen in an annual photography and art contest sponsored by Qualprint for the past 27 years.

South Adams Exposes Retail Clients

ADAMS, Mass. — If everyone at the South Adams Savings Bank is wearing a promotional T-shirt, it must be the first Monday of the month, when the bank quite visibly takes care of business.

The bank's found a way to help its commercial clients by offering free advertising. The concept's simple: Provide a space for business clients to showcase business cards, brochures and fliers. Then pick one to be featured for a whole month on the South Adams Web site.

The dividend: You can't buy that kind of advertising.

"Oasis Liquors was the first one we featured," said bank President Charles O'Brien. "They were being complimented just about on a daily basis."

Businesses were a bit shy about jumping on board, said O'Brien and Amy Giroux, senior vice president of retail banking, but soon saw the benefits. The promotion's only been going a couple months but the number of businesses participating has doubled with 35 featured during April. "Good buzz goes around," said Giroux.

The idea was hatched by a member of the Taking Care of Business committee, a group of bank employees who discuss ways to aid customers. In addition to space in the bank for advertising, the workers don promotional garb as well.

The promotion not only helps get out the word about businesses doing business with the bank, it also helps other bank patrons connect with its retail customers. The bank also has branches in Williamstown, Cheshire and Lee.

"We're really happy to provide this benefit to our customers," said Giroux. "It's such a spot-on idea and it doesn't cost anything."

This month's featured business on the Web site — and on the bank's Facebook page — is Bedini & St. Pierre Building and Maintenance Contractors. Look for a new business May 3.

If you're interested in becoming a featured business, contact tcb@sasavings.com.

New Owner, New Direction for Berkshire Direct

Allen Jezouit has big plans for Berkshire Direct Inc. Jezouit and a partner (who won't be revealed until next week, he says) purchased the 9-year-old direct-mail company from the Storey family last week.

"We plan on expanding our marketing services to better serve our existing clients and to help local and regional businesses, organizations and nonprofits with their marketing initiatives," said Jezouit.

Jezouit was brought on as vice president of business development last September after four years as marketing director for Redstone Properties and more than 18 years in sales and marketing with Praxair Inc. Since his arrival, he's been moving the company's direct-mail foundation to incorporate multiple platforms for local and national clients.

New services include Web site design and development, Web marketing, mail-fulfillment, e-mail marketing, search engine optimization, social media services, video production, television commercials, and a full-service sales and marketing consultancy. The team will provide new types of leads for businesses that once relied on newspapers and direct mail.

"We haven't done much advertising yet, it's all word of mouth, and we're swamped," said Jezouit on Tuesday.
 

Berkshire Direct is an outgrowth of Storey Communication's Gardener's Marketplace, which operated for more than 36 years. Storey Communications, founded by Martha and John Storey of Williamstown, sold the publishing company to Workman Publishing; Berkshire Direct was operated by them and then their son, Matt. The Storeys will continue to collaborate on some projects but Matt Storey will no longer be involved.

Jezouit said he and his yet-to-be-named partner have "both worked for big companies and we're bringing that expertise to small companies."

Local clients include Northern Berkshire Healthcare, MountainOne Financial, Williams College, Williamstown Chamber of Commerce, Williamstown Youth Center, Ioka Valley Farm, Williamstown Physical Therapy, Boston Investor Communications Agency, and New England Landscape and Aquatics. Also on the client list are Camp Dudley YMCA of Westport, N.Y., the longest-running summer camp in the country, National Patient Safety Foundation of Boston and Bucknell (Pa.) University athletics.

"It's definitey mine now and we're just going to grow the heck out it," Jezouit said.

For more information, contact Jezouit at 413-458-1721 or BerkshireDirect.net.

Winstanley Picks Up 23 Regional ADDY Awards

LENOX, Mass. — A tin of bandages, a Petri dish, and Ben Franklin with a black eye were among the winning entries submitted by Winstanley Partners at the regional ADDYs on March 18, presented by the American Advertising Federation and the Western Mass. AdClub at CityStage in Springfield.
 

A Petri dish full of HoHo virus won Winstanley one of 10 gold ADDYs.