By John Underwood

We are excited to announce that Tinsley Advertising came home from the 2022 Annual Governor’s
Conference on Tourism with several awards. Held at the Boca Raton Resort & Club on Wednesday,
September 7th. Once again, this year’s Flagler Awards attracted diverse entries from Florida’s
tourism partners of all sizes including the large Destination Marketing Organizations within the state.
We are proud to have taken home a total of four (4) Flagler Awards for our creative work for
The Florida Keys & Key West.
Tinsley’s awards included two (2) Henrys (the top honor) for Print Advertising and Digital/Internet
Marketing (a content module with Conde Nast Traveler) and two (2) additional Flagler Awards for
Out-of-Home and Print Advertising.
Every year, Visit Florida honors many of the countless individuals and organizations that help
maintain and improve Florida’s position as one of the world’s most popular travel destinations.
While it’s an honor to be recognized for the success of our efforts, we are very grateful for our
partnership with The Florida Keys & Key West.
Congratulations to our team and especially to our partners in The Florida Keys & Key West!

April 24, 2013 In Tinsley Blog

Hot Fishing Action in the Keys

By Dorn Martell

Did you ever notice how turned-on people get while fishing in The Florida Keys? It’s amazing how stimulating it can be to get down and dirty with a tarpon, a permit or even a marlin. Our new spot for The Florida Keys & Key West takes that notion and runs with it like a bonefish on a bender. “Fishing Action” captures a variety of fish species engaged in uncensored acts of leaping, biting, spinning and stripping reels. Our soundtrack is pure 70s funk and is reminiscent of certain films you may have seen or perhaps heard about. If you’re looking for some action, there’s no better place than The Florida Keys & Key West and if you like to watch, check out our new spot.

April 10, 2013 In Tinsley Blog

A Mattress Campaign That Won’t Put You To Sleep – New Spots For City Furniture.

By Dorn Martell

Starting today, City Furniture is launching a new campaign for their mattress gallery that consists of three thirty-second spots. The first spot, “Good Morning” uses the basic premise that every good morning begins with a good night’s sleep. The second spot, “Intimate Relationship” talks about all the moments in our lives that happen in our beds. And the third spot, “Why Buy at City” introduces City Furniture’s 120 day comfort guarantee and their specially trained Sleep Professionals. The overall tone of these spots is quiet and comforting and in the same style of our latest series of branding spots. With this campaign, we position City Furniture as the “nice guys” in the bedding business and create a point of difference between them and the high pressure/low honesty competitors that dominate the retail bedding industry.

April 2, 2013 In Tinsley Blog

Tinsley wins 11 Addys!

By Dorn Martell

The folks at Tinsley are happy to report another good year at the The American Advertising Federation’s Addy Awards. Tinsley took home a total of 10 Awards at the Miami Addys and 1 at the Regional competition. We won awards for:

The Florida Keys & Key West
Magazine: “Breakfast with Tiffany”
Newspaper: “Mayan Bad”
Advertising for the Arts and Sciences, Print Gold: “Art imitates Life”
Advertising for the Arts and Sciences, TV: “Another Masterpiece”
Elements of Advertising, Copywriting: “Top Gun Without the Boring Parts”
Music: “A little Color”
Integrated Campaign: Total Florida Keys & Key West campaign

City Furniture
Television Local Campaign: City Furniture Branding Campaign
Television Local Single Gold: Habitat

Rainforest Flow
Public Service: Stationery Design

City Furniture’s “Habitat” spot went on to regionals where it won a Silver.

Tinsley has won 53 Addys since 2011 including 19 Gold and a Best of Show. Thank you to our clients at the Florida Keys & Key West, City Furniture and Rainforest Flow. Thanks to our production partners at One World, Audacity and iThink. We look forward to working with all of you to create some of the best ads in the country.

March 13, 2013 In Tinsley Blog

New spot for art and culture in The Florida Keys

By Dorn Martell

Some places inspire creativity more than others and, in The Florida Keys & Key West, inspiration is all around. The Keys have hosted artists, writers, actors and every kind of creative character since the beginning. Our new TV spot for art and culture in The Keys paints the picture from Key Largo to Key West and everywhere in between with theatre, music, sculpture, painting and more. See for yourself how life imitates art in The Florida Keys.

January 9, 2013 In Tinsley Blog

Tinsley’s On Top

By John Underwood

Tinsley Advertising was recently voted among the top three ad agencies in South Florida by 6,400 readers of the Daily Business Review. But what do they know? Everything, apparently. DBR readers have themselves been recognized as some of the most well-read and influential business people in South Florida. Staying informed is part of their daily routine. We like that. So kudos to our colleagues at Zimmerman Advertising and Republica. And thanks to everyone who gave us the nod.

November 30, 2012 In Tinsley Blog

Digital vs. Traditional

By Dorn Martell

I think it’s time to put the Digital vs. Traditional debate to bed once and for all. Today there is much hype surrounding anything with a digital label, but I think its time has passed and it is as silly as putting “.com” in your company name or hanging a sign that says COLOR TV outside your hotel. Truth is everything we do now is digital – even traditional media. Printing is done on digital presses, radio is sent as WAV or Mp3 files and almost all moving images are captured and finished in a digital format. Digital is nothing more than a delivery system for ideas. And good ideas are still rare in any format.

The picture is still worth a thousand words and maybe more than a couple million pixels. More photos are being taken and distributed through digital channels than ever before. But the ones that resonate have a special quality: beauty, timeliness, humor, emotion. These are the same qualities that artists have tried to deliver since the beginning of time and the rules haven’t changed. There is a huge argument in the digital world that consumers don’t care about quality images due to social media and consumer generated content. Well, I thought the Dominos experiment of using “Non-professional” photography for their pizza was a disaster. The pizza wasn’t enhanced – it looked like dog barf.

Branded content and native ads in the digital space are also really nothing new, they’re just in a digital format. “The King Biscuit Flour Hour” was an awesome venue to hear bands like Deep Purple or Uriah Heep back in the 70’s. It was following a branded content format that had been around since the beginning of broadcast. Target has done some cool branded content on-line that allows you to buy merchandise featured in it’s episodes. That’s branded content meets product placement; nice, but only as good as the content is watchable. “Native ad” is the new digital buzzword for advertorials…sorry, that’s all it is. Pay for an ad and we’ll write an article. Quid Pro Quo pure and simple. Whether it’s Art in America offering to review your gallery show if you buy a full page ad or Buzz Feed or Mashable inserting paid content into a seemingly organic newsfeed. It really is the exact same thing. Some advertorials are good and engaging and some are so obviously one-sided and self-serving that they lack legitimacy.

Our philosophy is that ideas should be generated in a technology neutral setting. The concept may end up as a TV spot, a viral video, pre-roll or a banner. The idea may be a great poster in Penn Station in NY. Or we may deliver a web banner to a northern market that is triggered as the temperature dips below a certain threshold. We’ll use social media to support our brands but we also advise our clients that there are risks and rewards for engaging in public dialogue with their customers and to manage their expectations about building brands using one leg of the stool.

So are we a digital agency? Of course. But we won’t hang it on our shingle any more than we will put “Air conditioning” as part of our list of attributes. It should be assumed…no?

November 13, 2012 In Tinsley Blog

City Furniture Goes Green

By Dorn Martell

Where does our home end and the rest of the world begin? That’s the question that is answered by our new spot for City Furniture. Our goal was to tell the world how City Furniture is committed to sustainability in the way they gather raw materials. For example, doing business with companies that plant two trees for every tree that is harvested. Or how their couches with biodegradable soy instead of petroleum based products that will remain in landfills for hundreds of years.

Our new spot highlights an emotional connection between homes, families and the world we live in. Giving City Furniture a point-of-difference in a world of mass-produced furniture and irritating advertising.

 

October 18, 2012 In Tinsley Blog

More New Spots for City Furniture

By Dorn Martell

Can furniture be a part of your family and a memorable part of your life?

That’s the theme of our new spot for City Furniture called “Build a Life”.

This spot is built around the premise that it’s not too much to ask for your kids’ bedroom furniture to survive childhood or for a couch to last long enough to go out of style. In this spot we talk about quality and value and remind viewers that some of the most memorable moments in life took place in Dad’s favorite chair, jumping on your bed or with your family gathered around the dining room table.

Our strategy of “humanizing” City Furniture is really beginning to get noticed throughout their Florida markets and we’ve received many compliments on the transformation of this local icon. More new spots to come. Stay tuned.

 

August 23, 2012 In Tinsley Blog

A New Campaign and a Whole New Image for City Furniture.

By Dorn Martell

City Furniture is unveiling a new series of commercials for the South Florida market today, but the thinking behind them was a long journey that looked at the market from a global perspective.

“We analyzed world trends and studied how people interact with their surroundings and found that home was more than just product and price, it was the universal center of family life”, said Mike Lennon, Senior Vice President of Marketing at City Furniture.

This new 5 spot campaign is the culmination of several years of some deep soul searching by the marketing team at City Furniture and a new collaboration with Tinsley Advertising.

City Furniture has a deep commitment to the environment, philanthropy and doing the right thing for their workers and the community. We felt that by focusing on these values, the consumer will see that they are a different kind of company, and that most people would rather do business with a company that really cares.

The campaign has a decidedly mellow vibe with soft focus and original, acoustic music. This is in stark contrast to the hard sell environment that furniture is often sold in.

The first spot is called “Habitat” and highlights the diversity of architectural styles and unique interiors that make up the South Florida lifestyle. Look for more new spots by Tinsley for City Furniture in the coming weeks.

June 8, 2012 In Tinsley Blog

Tinsley is honored by the Key West Business Guild

By Dorn Martell

Tinsley Advertising was honored Wednesday at the Key West Business Guild luncheon with a beautiful statuette. I was lucky to attend and it was great to see so many friends and to feel the excitement as Key West Pride 2012 kicks off. We’ve been so fortunate to have The Monroe County Tourist Development Council (“The Florida Keys & Key West”) and the LGBT community as clients for so many years and have won more awards for this target than any other in the agency’s history.

A heartfelt thanks goes out to Harold Wheeler, Monroe County TDC Director; George Fernandez, Monroe County TDC; Jon Allen, Key West District Advisory Chairman; Rebecca Tomlinson, Executive Director of the Key West Business Guild; Steve Smith, Outreach Director of the Key West Business Guild; Darren Paugh, President of the Key West Business Guild and all the members of both the Key West Business Guild & the Key West District Advisory Committee.

We love working for you all and look forward to creating great marketing for Key West for years to come.

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