For more information, go to: Local.com Acquires Screamin’ Daily Deals

Samantha Levy has worked in brand marketing for more than 15 years with major motion pictures studios, digital publishers and advertising agencies. She’s managed campaigns within consumer packaged goods, film, television, recreation/parks, retail and healthcare.

Since joining Big in 2010, Samantha has overseen production and project management for all of BIG’s clients including Shakeys’s Pizza, Cottage Health System, Doctors Medical Center and the Foundation for Jewish Camp to name a few.

Each work in Title’s painting and photographic series portrays a doll fully submerged in water, seemingly drowning while maintaining her trademark composure.

Using the iconic image of Barbie™ as her muse, Title appropriates the ideals of female perfection thrust upon society via the plastic playmate. “…[Barbie is a] 50 year old icon that women hate to love and love to hate…everyone seems to have their own Barbie story,” explains Title.

The series speaks to how women see themselves reflected in Barbie’s image. Barbie’s plastic smile, flowing blonde locks and unrealistic proportions represent the quixotic view of women that society has come to objectify.

The drowning dolls serve as a metaphor for the female subconscious: a part of every woman is drowning in society’s impossible expectations, gasping for air while relentlessly trying to recover her diminished self-esteem.

Title’s showcase will open at the Koplin Del Rio art gallery in Culver City on January 8, 2011. Learn more about Drown the Dolls, check out celeb interviews and share your own Barbie stories at www.facebook.com/drownthedolls

Watch an exclusive Barbie story interview with Camryn Manheim.

BIG takes great pride in our hometown, Culver City, CA. Check out Paul Goldberger’s The Sky Line column in the December 20-December 27 issue of the New Yorker magazine. The piece, “Neighborhood Watch,” spotlights the new Eric Owen Moss building nearing completion at the end of our street, Hayden Avenue. Here’s to Paul, Eric and the New Yorker – and while we’re at it, Happy New Year to you!

OPCC is a non-profit human services organization in which staff, volunteers and clients work together to address the effects of poverty, abuse, neglect and discrimination. BIG provides OPCC with full-spectrum communications services that support engagement with community and civic leaders around issues of homelessness, bolster development and successfully manage relationships with the public and the press. BIG created a brand identity for OPCC, including a Web site and collateral materials specifically directed at raising awareness and donations. Innovative fund-raising strategies also include creating a commemorative book; a social media campaign challenging participants to eat a home-made lunch and donate money normally spent on eating out; and a short-form video testimonial of OPCC success stories. Through BIG’s public relations efforts, events and donor outreach strategies, OPCC met its most recent $20MM capital campaign goal.

Culver City is one of the most vibrant, growing communities in Southern California. BIG has developed communications programs for the city on two planes: one that engages community, builders and landowners in support of affordable housing for low-income residents; another that attracts retail, restaurant and other businesses to choose Culver City as one great place to conduct their business. For the Culver City Housing Agency, BIG created a brand identity system that effectively conveys the community orientation of the CCHA, by focusing on the individuals affected by affordable housing: students, nurses, restaurant workers, homeowners – all of us. Culver City’s Economic Development program uses a brand promise developed by BIG: “CC: Creative. Connected.” The messaging strategy influences all materials, from Web to collateral to community presentations. 

Founded in 1954, Shakey’s was once an American cultural icon that had become nearly forgotten by 2001. Since then, BIG ideas have driven BIG results. We created a fully integrated brand overhaul designed to revitalize Shakey’s image on a corporate level, while also winning the interest and business of franchisees. From environmental graphics to in-store materials, broadcast ads and social media and public relations management, BIG has taken charge of Shakey’s brand expression, honoring the past and leading to the future. Four-plus years of double-digit sales increases are the centerpiece of this marketing menu – and it’s going to be a feast.

Banyan Botanicals, a U.S.-based provider of Ayurvedic health products, had developed a small but loyal following of consumers and Ayurvedic practicioners. BIG saw opportunities to not only unify the brand expression for trade and consumers, but also to exponentially raise the profile – and sales – of Banyan products by leveraging the popularity of Yoga, Ayurveda’s sister science. An integrated brand identity has created a uniform messaging platform across all consumer touchpoints; coupled with BIG’s PR, customer retention and digital marketing strategies, Banyan is winning and holding the interest of new consumers.

The Cottage Health System is the parent organization of 5 distinct hospitals in California’s central coast. Together, the Cottage hospitals provided inpatient care for 21,000 people, treated 63,000 patients in their 24-hour emergency department and delivered more than 2,800 newborns. As integrated marketing and PR agency of record for the CHS, BIG’s assignment is to increase CHS’s market share; attract patients from outlying areas; and to support engagement with the community. CHS has entrusted BIG with some of the most high-visibility and high-impact programs, including the launch of a new facility (Center for Advanced Imaging), fundraising collateral for the Children’s Hospital and design and development of the new System Web site. And BIG has delivered quantifiable results: a 17% improvement in awareness of the Children’s Hospital of 17% in South Coast areas and increased fundraising revenue year-on-year, to name a few.