Harry Chittenden X Close
"Public Relations is a lot like building a stalagmite. Most of it is drip, drip, drip; the steady appearance of the message, from a source considered more reliable than advertising, is what works," says Harry Chittenden, our resident PR expert. Harry's rather "checkered" career has spanned Broadway, Wall Street and ownership in a Memphis bar. A native of Greenville, S.C., Harry earned a degree in art history at Yale University. After stints as a Stage Manager on Broadway, a securities salesman on Wall Street and a bond trader at the Chicago Board of Trade, he started his writing career in earnest at a Memphis commodities firm, transforming economic analysis into readable reports for clients the likes of Cargill and the former Soviet Union. Harry has continued to write since that time, promoting brands from real estate developments to pharmaceutical distributors. He thinks that the brand-focused approach is the best thing that has ever happened to public relations.
Sandy Gregory X CloseAdministrative Assistant
After working for Verizon Yellow Pages for 33 years and seeing many thousands of customer ads, Sandy did not take long to grasp the concept of branding.
“It’s to establish your company from the others so that you stand out from your competitors.”
Sandy’s likely to be the first person you see when you visit Robinson BrandBuilders or the first that you talk to when you call. Her natural friendliness makes customer service second nature to her.
She’s an avid traveler and adventure seeker. A favorite trip was participating in an archaeological dig on an Anasazi site in the Southwestern desert. Her next goal is to walk on the great wall of China. Until then, she will continue to pursue her favorite hobby: designing and making quilts.
Nicole Kelly X CloseWeb Developer/Interactive
It was a quirk of historical timing that Nicole headed to Music City and started at Vanderbilt University in 1992 when there was hardly an Internet to speak of. There she took her left brain tendencies and molded them into a degree in Mechanical Engineering - "for the sake of a challenge". After four years on the dean's list, she graduated in 1996. The world had completely changed. The dot com boom was roaring and Nicole didn't think twice about abandoning thermodynamics and vibrations for the new and exciting online interactive world of databases and design.
Website development satisfies Nicole in two ways: she loves to create something that's both functional and eye catching and she loves working with people. Since her introduction to the Web, she has participated in site development in virtually every industry and scope, working with the likes of FOX, WebMD and Columbia/HCA as well as several successful startups.
In her latest endeavors, she is happy to see that design is merging with technology and her technical background can finally find its creative purpose. In her downtime, Nicole enjoys playing "assistant recording engineer" for her musician husband in their recording studio - The Hideaway - and watching their little boys pick up that creative talent.
Nora Minor X CloseCopywriter/Creative Director
Several years before the birth of her 11-year-old daughter Catherine, Nora started working with the Robinsons as a writer and creative director. She likes the way the company focuses on brand.
“With a brand blueprint, your rules are defined,” she says. “It frees you to focus on messages that you know are right. You know you are on message. You know who you are and what you’re trying to say. That knowledge gives me an opportunity to do what I love in writing. I like to surprise people. Hit them with the unexpected within the brand. Get them to sit up and take notice. When the brand is true and someone is looking for what you are selling, the message will resonate.”
When Nora is not working hard putting effective words to brands, she likes to garden and watch deer browse by in the evening. She lives in Cincinnati with Catherine and her architect husband, Bob Work.
She also loves to read, a habit she acquired as an English major at Kent State.
Oscar X CloseRBB Mascot
Oscar Robinson recently took an advanced puppy certificate from the St. Pete Dog Club Obedience Training. It was a grind and he spends much of his time recuperating by catching lots of zzzs. When he’s awake, he has a special way of keeping the office energized. He might be the world’s friendliest Doberman Pinscher.
Jerry Robinson X CloseBrand Consultant/Principal
Jerry has from high school known what he wanted to do.
"Then I was involved with two things: art and tennis"
He played number one for four years on his high school team and still plays nearly everyday.
But his career path resulted from his interest in art. Armed with a degree in graphic design and fine arts from Florida State, he was recruited by Nisson Advertising where he worked for five years. He saw big changes coming in the industry and wanted to experience them on his own. In 1986 he and a partner founded Black Bear design in Tampa. He now knows that in those days he was moving toward the branding concept, but wasn't aware of it at the time.
"In branding," he said, "the advertising is in the service of strengthening the brand. Advertising without branding gets gimmicky and overly creative and becomes detached from the product that it's promoting. I've always sensed that."
Next came Robinson Ad Group in the mid-90s. That company's name changed to Robinson BrandBuilders after it fully converted to the brand-focused approach to marketing clients' products.
"Our clients are smart," he says. "They expect to be shown a brand that's functional as opposed to fragmented. They know that a product won't be worth much without its branding."
Jerry works very closely with clients to build the best brands possible. "We execute through partnership involvement with clients. We are completely interfaced with our companies."
MJ Robinson X CloseAccount Services/Principal
After more than 15 years experience in major account sales and operations management, MJ has drawn some useful conclusions about branding.
"Unless you know who you are and can express it, your visual materials and your messages are going to look and sound like everyone else's. Good branding specifically represents who you are. We can't walk in and give clients these specifics, but we can seek them out and build powerful marketing assets from them. Our clients are very smart people. They know their business. We help them present the key brand elements of their business to the world."
MJ is a brand consultant and principal at Robinson BrandBuilders. She marshals the company's analytic, design, creative and public relations assets in the service of one goal: building brands.
"Without a solid brand position, creating marketing materials is pretty much a guess," she says. "You find yourself starting over year after year because you inevitably come to realize that you didn't quite guess right. With your marketing grounded in brand, you are building your marketing position each year."
MJ credits Robinson BrandBuilders' focus on brand as the reason clients stay with the company year after year.
MJ is a Florida native and a graduate of Florida Southern College.
Greg Stuck X Close
Designer, digital photo retoucher/illustrator, photographer and production/prepress pro.
When Greg studied advertising and graphic design at The National Education Center in Tampa, he learned to do design, layout, and production by hand. There were no computers in 1982.
“I liked doing it by hand,” he says. “I got into the business so that I could make money doing art.”
Along came computers and Greg made some changes. Joking that he is a “right-brained person in a left-brained world,” he took up the challenge of mastering computer programs like Adobe Photoshop. Now he delights in conveying brand messages with morphed images. He once put a foursome on the green in the middle of an iron skillet to illustrate the danger of skin cancer.
“Whatever the brand requires,” he says. “Brand is very important and guides the concept of any campaign. Focusing on brand assures that campaigns mirror how people want their companies to be perceived.
Kelly Young X CloseCreative Director
Kelly has a BA in Art, in Design from the University of Florida and has spent nearly 30 years working in the field. She thinks of every design challenge as solving a problem and likes knowing that she's solving the right problem.
"Before we evolved our branding approach," she says, "pinning down clients' wants and needs could be difficult. How could you be confident in the solution if you weren't sure that you were solving the right problem? With branding you feel confidant that you are.”
She thinks that we all brand everything unconsciously. Our job as brand builders is to consciously create and present images and messages that express our clients’ brand.
Kelly delights in working with design problems even when she is relaxing. She's a potter and turns out beautiful ornamental and functional pieces on the wheel as well as sculptural animals.
