Easter Promotional, Part III

Made With Real Easter Bunny Phur

Here it is! The Easter promotional poster is finished. This poster will sit in the window of all 25 LoveSac stores located in malls across the United States. Look for it starting February 15th. Thank you to everyone that helped me pull this together. Hopefully this will get people into our stores. The rest is up to our sales team.

Easter Promotional, Part II

The Easter promotional shoot was a great success! The entire cast was an outstanding group. I took a few shots of everyone on my cell phone. Here they are:

No just "the creepy guy"

Kevin Gebhard

The other side of Kevin— a wonderful person to work with. I was able to book Kevin Gebhard, the creepy bunny, and he was an amazing contributor to the shoot. He played his part to perfection. With a cigar in his mouth and his trademark expression, he will absolutely be the focus of all eyes in the malls this Easter.

Phil Swetz

Phil Swetz was the ideal barber. He had the handlebar mustache, the glasses, the part down the middle and the personality to match. He had a ton of energy and, while in character, carried himself like he belonged on Mr. Roger's Neighborhood or maybe even a friend of Floyd's on the Andy Griffith Show.

Roger Hagadone

Roger Hagadone is the best photographer I have ever worked with! He specializes in these types of portraiture and never disappoints. His work is edgy and unique and fits LoveSac's style perfectly. I've used him exclusively for LoveSac photo-shoots and wouldn't want to work with anyone else. His assistant Nick came as well. Nick is a great guy and always keeps the environment light with his clever one-liners. Check out Roger's work by clicking here.

Janet Tallent-Dickson

In addition to the Easter promo-shoot, we photographed our newer t-shirts on two great models: Brian Casey and Amy Meador. In doing so, I decided it may be best to hire hair and make-up. Janet applied for the gig and had a resume that I could not turn down. She recently worked on the set of Prison Break, one of my favorite shows. She was in charge of makeup for Fernando Sucre (Amaury Nolasco) and Theodore "T-Bag" Bagwell (Robert Knepper) in the show. Janet was nothing but professional and very enjoyable to work with. She did an amazing job and I will be sure to book her for future photo shoots.

Michael Warde

Michael Warde is the owner of Montana for Men, the barbershop we used as our studio. Michael was extremely helpful and open to us using anything that we needed. His barbershop offers high-end haircuts with some extras that you don't see in barbershops very often. I was very surprised to see beer on tap in his shop. How relaxing would it be to have a beer while getting a haircut?

Made with Real Bunny Phur

A sneak peek of Monday's photo shoot. Above is a quick snapshot that I took with my phone during the shoot. I can't wait for you to see the final image. You will not be disappointed.

Watch for Part III in a couple of days.

Easter Promotional, Part I

I have begun the process of pulling together the Easter promotion. I thought it may be interesting to post the process as it develops.

The process began with a brainstorm session. Our goal is to create an image, for our store windows, that is "remarkable". In the brainstorming session the idea was generated to have an Easter Bunny getting a haircut. That "bunny phur" would then be used as the Easter Sac cover package. The tagline was then coined "Made from real Easter Bunny Phur".

Delux Easter Bunny Costume
This costume seemed to contain the right amount of creepiness.

The first thing I did was order the Easter Bunny costume and some extra phur that I can cut up and use as hair shavings. BuyCostumes.com delivered the costume very quickly.

Love the feel of the decor in this image. Downloadable comp from istockphoto.com.

Cool old retro looking room. Downloadable comp from istockphoto.com.

Love it! Downloadable comp from istockphoto.com.

My research helped further develop the idea. I wanted a 50's feel to the image. I thought a barber with a handlebar mustache would be a cool visual. Our web director remembered a local barber shop that had the look I was thinking of, so we all went to scope it out. They had a 100-year-old barber chair along with several antique barber tools which made this an ideal location for us. I was able to secure the location for a January 26th photo shoot.

Montana for Men 100 year old barber chair.

Montana for Men
The back drop (brick wall) of where I will put the chair to shoot the scene. I will PhotoShop in any retro elements that I feel are needed.

The next step was to book our photographer, Roger Hagadone. Roger is an awesome photographer who specializes in these types of campy shots. He is also a wonderful photographer to work with and always finds ways to improve the overall image and concept. Check out his website: Roger Hagadone.

Phil Swetz
Hired Phil to be our Barber for the shoot.

The next step was to find a barber with a handlebar mustache. I posted an ad on Craig's List and received a response within an hour. Phil Swetz will be perfect! He is booked and ready to shoot.

I then did some research for props. The barber shop that we will be shooting at is willing to let us use anything we would like, but I wanted to make sure we have access to anything that we might think of. I ordered several props from Atlanta Barber and Beauty Supply.

We had another meeting about the promotion and Shawn had the idea to use a creepy man with ears on his head rather than an Easter Bunny outfit. I wasn't 100% on board with this idea but decided we could do both the costume and the man and see which we liked better. The costume came with the ears too so this is at no additional expense.

Kevin Gebhard
Would be perfect for the creepy Easter Bunny.

Now I needed to post an ad for a creepy-looking man with facial hair to use as a model. This didn't come as easily as the barber. After 4 days of submissions I think I have my man. What do you think? I will most likely book him on Tuesday when I get back to the office. The last few things I need to do before the shoot are: make compositional sketches; book hair and makeup; organize the fine details; and make it all happen. I will post a follow-up under Easter Promotional, Part II.